Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak on His Majesty’s first King’s Speech, but in communities such as the one I represent in Batley and Spen there is a growing feeling that Britain is no longer working. People are facing a struggle to get a GP appointment, hospital appointment or dentist appointment; they rarely see a police officer on the streets, despite feeling that crime and antisocial behaviour in their community are rising; they are waiting months or even years for an education, health and care plan for their child with special educational needs, seeing them struggle without the support they need and witnessing the impact on their mental health; they are sending their children to school knowing that teachers are overworked, overstretched and without the resources they need to give their child the best start in life; they are just accepting that home ownership is not a likely reality for the younger generation; or, at the end of the month, realising that their hard-earned pay or pension barely covers the increasing bills.

This is the broken Britain the Conservatives have presided over during 13 years of national decline. This King’s Speech could have started the hard work to get Britain’s future back. Instead, what we saw yesterday was a Government desperate to distract from their appalling record by engaging in dangerous and divisive culture wars and announcing yet more gimmicks. Rather than getting on with the serious job of governing, they announced a series of Bills that fail even to scratch the surface of the fundamental reform and renewal that our country needs.

In the area where I live and that I represent in Batley and Spen and across the Spen valley, this sense of broken Britain is clear to see, and I hear it from my constituents all the time. Over the last few months, we have seen the closure of Batley baths, and I and others are currently fighting hard to save Batley sports and tennis centre, Cleckheaton town hall and Claremont House dementia care home in Heckmondwike from closure. The loss of these precious public buildings and services would have a severe impact on local families and communities. For example, local leisure centres are not just places where residents go to exercise and keep physically healthy, although that is crucial if we are to reduce the long-term pressure on the NHS; they also provide opportunities to socialise and meet new people, combating loneliness and social isolation, and significantly improving mental health and wellbeing.

The loss of such facilities hits towns and villages hard and for many years, so we need to act quickly to save them, but since 2010 Kirklees Council has lost £1 billion in funding. If the Conservatives had kept Labour’s funding formula, Kirklees would currently be in surplus. Instead, Kirklees Council is forced to make impossible decisions about which public services it has to cut. The King’s Speech should have included a Bill to fix the broken funding formula for councils and to save vital local services, but it did not. Instead, it leaves us in Batley and Spen facing the loss of facilities when we need them the most. After last year’s disastrous mini-Budget, our communities are paying the price for the Conservatives’ costly mistakes and mismanagement. It breaks my heart to see the impact of this on the community I love, that I am so incredibly proud to represent and that has stood by me in the most difficult of times. Unlike the current Home Secretary, I believe that strong leadership does not need to be devoid of compassion. It should be about bringing people and communities together, not pushing them apart, and that can take many forms locally, nationally and internationally.

Events in the middle east are at the forefront of many of our minds after the despicable terrorist attack on 7 October. The pain of the Jewish community around the world and the intense human suffering we see in Gaza at the moment are unbearable. Israeli hostages are being held in what must be terrifying conditions. Palestinian civilians, families and children—people who have nothing to do with the terrorists of Hamas—are being killed in their own homes. The international community must work night and day to stop the hostilities, to get desperately needed aid—food, water, medicines and fuel—into Gaza immediately and to call loudly and clearly for the release of all hostages.

We must also ensure that international law is upheld, particularly with regard to the principle of proportionality and the serious issues of forcible transfer and the taking of precautionary measures when it comes to protecting civilians. The actions of Hamas on 7 October are to be fully condemned, but the suffering of thousands of innocent civilians, many of whom were not even born when this conflict began, cannot be seen as collateral damage. As the Leader of the Opposition said last week, we absolutely defend Israel’s right to protect itself as a sovereign state, but that is not a blank cheque.

As hard as it feels, we must also stay resolute in the hope that there can be a prospect of a lasting peace in the future. I, for one, will work with colleagues and friends across the House—Jewish, Muslim, Christian or, like me, of no particular faith—to do everything I can to make the all-too-distant vision of a two-state solution more than just words repeated periodically in this place to make us all feel better, but an actual reality for Israelis and Palestinians alike, because they have been let down for far too long.

It takes hard diplomacy, however, and a Government willing to bring people together to de-escalate tensions and provide the leadership and road map to discussions and a political settlement. The Government’s Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill, which has been carried over into this Session of Parliament, does nothing to help that situation. It is a badly drafted and unworkable piece of legislation. It restricts councils and other public bodies from taking ethical investment and procurement decisions, and it singles out individual countries for different treatment. That cannot be the basis of a foreign policy that seeks to heal divisions and unite people, especially when the stakes are so high. In the light of recent events, I hope that the Government will reconsider their approach to that divisive Bill.

As we head towards a general election next year, people across Batley and Spen and the Spen valley will be looking for a Government who bring people together, who value and protect our communities and who are willing to get on with the serious, hard work of governing. This King’s Speech does not offer the change we need. It offers more of the same to a country desperate for change.

We on the Opposition Benches have begun setting out how the next Labour Government will get on with the hard work involved in getting Britain’s future back, by giving back control to local communities and by rebuilding Britain as a country where opportunities spread across the United Kingdom, where a hard day’s work is valued again, where public services are cherished, where communities are enriched, where families have the security and prosperity they deserve, and where our children and young people can look to the future with hope. That is the change that the country and the people of Batley and Spen are crying out for, and that is the change that I know the next Labour Government will deliver.