Immigration and Home Affairs

Mark Ferguson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this debate and for affording me the honour of making my first speech in this House on behalf of the people of Gateshead Central and Whickham—in fact, the first speech on behalf of the new constituency of Gateshead Central and Whickham. To represent a community you care about deeply, including friends and family, is of course a source of great pride, but to speak in this place as their voice is a great responsibility.

My friend Ian Mearns, the former Member for Gateshead, served the people of our community for 41 years—27 as a councillor, and 14 in this place. He has always been and will remain someone I seek guidance from, even when we disagree, which we will. I will aim to carry forward his passion for education in this place, as education, alongside my family and the Labour party, has given me every opportunity I have had in my life. Ian served as a member of the Education Committee, and was knowledgeable and rigorous in that role. He also served as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, and I know that many Members will have been grateful to him for making sure that they had the time to raise their issues in this Chamber and Westminster Hall.

I am fortunate, too, to have another immediate predecessor sitting behind me: my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist). We are both proud trade unionists, and she has done inspirational work on self-harm and suicide prevention, which I know is deeply personal to her. I am indebted to her for her guidance and support, and will be for as long as I am lucky enough to work alongside her.

In Gateshead, we are proud of our manufacturing history. Our own Sir Joseph Swan invented the first incandescent light bulb, and his home in Low Fell was the first in the world to be wired for domestic electric lighting. Manufacturing in Gateshead is part of my history, too—my father worked at the old Clarke Chapman factory—yet we are equally excited about our manufacturing present and future. Situated on both the east coast main line and the A1, we are ideally suited for the jobs of the future, and I say to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench and those in the relevant Departments that I will be collaring them about this if I haven’t already. Work is key to the people of Gateshead and Whickham. We are working people, never shy of hard work and proud of what we do for work, but all too often in search of skilled work and better pay and too often forced to live in poverty. That is why, among all the excellent Bills brought forward in this King’s Speech, one stands out above all others: the employment rights Bill.

I must now declare an interest, and it is one I am proud to declare. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden) stated yesterday, I too am proud of the amount of work that I and others within Labour’s affiliated trade unions, working with Labour Members on these Benches, have put into developing a package known as the new deal for working people, now the employment rights Bill. In places like my community where people work hard but all too often their pay is not what it should be, this will change lives. In every corner of our country, in every constituency represented in this place where there are those working without dignity on exploitative zero-hours contracts, being subjected to the brutality of fire and rehire, being paid wages they cannot live on, or toiling as care workers or school support staff on insufficient wages, this Bill will change lives in their communities too, and I urge Members to give it their full support when the time comes. Right now, for far too many, work does not pay and you only need to visit Gateshead food bank or a food bank in your constituency to see that.

Decent work and better pay are at the heart of why I came into politics, because dignity in work is the key that unlocks everything else, but it is not all that matters. What matters too is what makes the heart sing—what we do with our families and friends that makes memories and elevates us above the everyday. The cultural power of my local area is too often overlooked. We are the home of institutions such as the Baltic centre for contemporary art and the Glasshouse on Gateshead quays, but also of smaller, older and no less important venues such as Shipley art gallery and the Little theatre—the only theatre built in Britain during world war two. This cultural tradition has endured for centuries, with the work of the engraver Thomas Bewick, the writings of Daniel Defoe, who lived on the south bank of the Tyne, the 18th-century comic operas of William Shield of Swalwell, the satirical songs of Low Fell’s Alex Glasgow and the rock anthems of AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, born in Dunston. But don’t worry, I am not going to sing.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Oh, go on!

[Mark Ferguson]

You haven’t heard my voice.

We are a place of learning, too, with Gateshead college and Cardinal Hume school—recently judged outstanding by Ofsted—two of the fantastic educational establishments I have been proud to visit already. I look forward to working with others, including Whickham school, Gibside and Kingsmeadow. In our thriving Jewish community, who I am proud to represent, stands Gateshead’s Talmudical college, the oldest yeshiva in the country, founded in 1929. I am told that it is the foundation upon which Gateshead gained its reputation as the Oxbridge of the Jewish world.

Sport, too, is important to Gateshead. Sir Brendan Foster has a long and proud relationship with our town, and of course the great north run runs through Gateshead. The image of people running into Gateshead over the Tyne bridge is burned on the collective consciousness of our country. The famous oarsman Harry Clasper was raised in Dunston, as was Paul Gascoigne. And we love our football, including Gateshead FC—the 2024 FA Trophy winners, by the way—even though the Boundary Commission has given the honour of being the football club’s MP to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne). The fact that my grandfather played for the club in the 1940s is a source of great pride. While most of my constituents support the black and white of Newcastle, some of us support the red and white of Sunderland and many of us are united in our support for Gateshead too. To those Opposition Members who may be coming to terms with the feeling of being in the minority, let me say what my father said to me as a young man growing up a Sunderland fan in Gateshead, “It will be character building.”

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this debate. This is a time of great importance for our country, one where trust in this place has fallen on hard times and where we must, on all sides, work to rebuild it. I will do all that I can to be a voice for the people of Gateshead Central and Whickham. I will work my hardest for them, and I will try to represent them to the best of my ability.