Parking: Town Centres

Kirith Entwistle Excerpts
Tuesday 14th January 2025

(2 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Kirith Entwistle Portrait Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) for tabling such an important debate on a topic that affects us all in so many different ways in daily life. I declare an interest as a member of the Women and Equalities Committee and I want to touch on a slightly different aspect of this issue of accessibility and public spaces.

As a long-time advocate for working families, this debate is personal for me. Across Britain—from Dudley and Sheffield to my own hometown of Bolton—we face a troubling problem. We are building more flats and homes, and encouraging people to move, without building the parking that is so needed alongside that. We are building family homes in town centres such as mine in Bolton, but we are failing to provide family friendly infrastructure that parents desperately need.

Parking in town centres is a prime example. Shopping centres, workplaces, and even hospitals all fall short of providing sufficient parent and child parking spaces with wider bays and convenient short walks to entrances. The problem is threefold. Parent and child spaces are too few, enforcement is lax and unclear regulations harm those who need them most. At my local supermarket, the scene is all too familiar: the few parent and child spaces are taken by large vans or two-door convertibles, vehicles with no sign of families in tow. The result is parents like me facing an almost impossible task—trying to load a toddler into a car seat in a standard space without bumping the car next door. The solution is not complex. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley mentioned, we need to design town centres with “public” in mind. Starting with public parking, let us expand family friendly spaces and curb rule breaking by enforcing the strict regulations used to safeguard blue badge holders. Once public places set the standard, private car parks will follow.

Even worse, town centre parking completely overlooks pregnant women. Imagine being eight or nine months pregnant—swollen feet, aching back, every step a marathon—yet being expected to walk in and queue at customer support to request case-by-case permission for parent and child parking at supermarkets. The irony is glaring. Spaces intended to make life easier are instead placing an even greater strain on pregnant women.

So why is progress on family-friendly parking moving so slowly? Why are pregnant women still being overlooked? When former Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg was working at Google and became pregnant, the company’s car park lacked any spaces for pregnant women. Drawing on her lived experience, she raised the issue with Google’s male co-founders, and the policy was changed soon after. The problem: Google’s male leadership had never even considered the needs of pregnant women in the first place. That happens all too often. Similarly, in Westminster, it is often left to women Members of Parliament to draw attention to the problems that cause daily frustrations to women. I am confident that the Minister agrees that we must move to prioritise town centre parking for families and pregnant women, and accessibility for all.

Beyond that, I sincerely hope that the Minister agrees that we must also move towards a Parliament that proactively addresses these problems, rather than relying on us women to highlight them. Parking should be accessible to all—it provides a lifeline to our town centres, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley again for bringing this issue to the House.

Employment Rights Bill

Kirith Entwistle Excerpts
2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024

(4 months, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Kirith Entwistle Portrait Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)
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I declare that I am a proud member of GMB, Community and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. I point Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, where I declared donations from those unions. I stress that without that money, as a young mum with a small baby, fresh off maternity leave, I would not be standing in this place today. That is a privilege that I believe many Members on the Opposition Benches, which I note are largely empty, take for granted.

I welcome what is the biggest uplift in workers’ rights in a generation, building on the legacy of previous Labour Governments. Bolton North East has over 50% more youth unemployment than the national average. Those workers deserve dignity, stability and to know that their Government are on their side, and for the young people in my constituency, it is about knowing that they have a future. That is why I am incredibly proud to stand in this Chamber today, and I commend the Deputy Prime Minister and my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Benches on bringing this legislation before the House.

Improving the lives of working people is one of the things I came to this place to do, as I am sure many of my colleagues did too. With the Government’s “Next Steps” document already published, I sincerely hope Ministers will continue that close collaboration to finalise the practicalities of the Bill with our trade union movement—the fine details that will make all the difference to families in my constituency. Extending workers’ rights and protections is a crucial step towards making work pay, and I look forward to seeing further measures to make work pay, such as extending rights and protections for self-employed people so that all working people can benefit from these widespread changes.

This Bill marks a turning point for working families, not just in Bolton but across the UK. As a member of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, I am particularly pleased that among the Bill’s 30-plus reforms are increased protection from sexual harassment, the introduction of equality action plans, and strengthened rights for pregnant workers. I commend the Deputy Prime Minister and her ministerial team on bringing this Bill before the House, and I look forward to seeing its progression.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Kirith Entwistle Excerpts
Wednesday 9th October 2024

(5 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Kirith Entwistle Portrait Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)
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You will be pleased to know that I will keep it short, Madam Deputy Speaker. I join colleagues in saying that this is long-overdue and important piece of legislation. I commend my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench for bringing it to the House. For too long my constituents have endured insecure and inadequate private rentals and the constant threat of no-fault eviction. Last year alone, Bolton saw the highest rent increase of any area in the UK, at 14.8%, according to Zoopla’s UK rental market report.

However, with the current proposals pegging rent increases to out-of-control market rates, this Bill risks failing to protect lower-income tenants in my constituency, where such rent increases can be an eviction by the back door. The introduction of in-tenancy rent caps, preferably tied to wage growth, would increase security of tenure and keep more tenants in their homes for longer. I urge the Secretary of State and Ministers to take that into consideration.

I conclude by joining colleagues in welcoming the Bill to the House and commending this Government for the steps we are taking to ensure that everyone has a safe and secure roof over their head.