General Election

Sam Carling Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I spent some time thinking about whether I wanted to speak in this debate. I thought to myself, “On our first day back, when I’ve got a lot to be getting on with, have I got the mental stamina to listen to Conservative Members talk about how, before Labour came to power in July, everything was rosy and bright, our public services were fine and all was glorious?” That is pretty much the sense we have heard from them so far. If their picture were true, they might not be sitting on the Opposition Benches with their party’s lowest ever number of MPs and lowest ever share of the vote.

This Labour Government inherited public services on their knees, kneeling on rotten floorboards, on top of crumbling foundations, maybe with some subsidence as well. Tough decisions were always going to be needed to deal with that and to deliver the change we were elected to deliver. This Government have an immense mandate to deliver that change and to fix the foundations of our economy and public services, as more than 400 constituencies elected a Labour MP—many for the first time, including my constituency of North West Cambridgeshire.

The truth is that there are no easy fixes for the deep-seated issues that the Conservatives have left us. They ignore that, which is why we still see that short-term attitude from the Conservatives and Reform UK, which pretend that there are simple solutions that we just are not taking. The Conservatives also continually admonish us for bringing up that legacy; they literally groan every time we mention their £22 billion black hole. [Interruption.] There we go! It does not surprise me; I would not want to talk about it either if I were them, which is exactly why we will continue to do so until this mess is fixed.

Of course, they are a bit busy fighting one another right now, which the country plainly sees. A weird Christmas argument over membership numbers between Reform and the Conservatives is just the latest episode in a long-running saga, which I have no doubt will continue. Long may it continue, as it will just help more and more of the British public to see how totally unequipped to solve Britain’s problems either of those parties are. Speaking of Reform, I note that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is present, so may I take the opportunity to offer him my sympathy over the apparent loss of a very large donation for his party from overseas, following some of that recent right-wing in-fighting? It is a very sad consequence.

I turn to the petition. I know that there is frustration in this country—lots of it—about politics not delivering for people; I met so many people during the election campaign, and beforehand, who expressed that sentiment to me. People have been let down for so long, and restoring their trust requires us to show that we can make a difference. We will. The new Government have already taken significant steps forward in fixing the foundations of our public services after the Conservatives left them in decay and decline.

For a start, we have delivered a Budget that has stabilised the economy, preventing a return to austerity, after the Conservatives left the worst inheritance for a new Government since world war two. We have announced a much-needed £22 billion increase in our NHS budget after we were left with record waiting lists. Just today, we are announcing a plethora of measures to slash those record waiting lists, just as we did last time we were in government. We have set up Great British Energy to put us on the path to clean, home-grown power, tackling climate change while many in right-wing Opposition parties deny its existence of it or at the very least the urgency of the issue.

We have appointed a border security commander to strengthen our border security after the Conservatives so abjectly failed to do so; that is one of the areas that angers me most about their record. They presided over the growth of a staggering backlog of asylum cases, diverting resources away from actually dealing with the issues in order to put them towards the totally unworkable Rwanda scheme, to try to win political capital.

Our new planning and infrastructure Bill will completely reform the planning system to ensure that we can build the homes that are needed, tackling head-on the housing crisis, which is causing so much frustration. Our Renters’ Rights Bill will finally rebalance the relationship between tenants and landlords, finally reforming the private rented sector after the Leader of the Opposition admitted, in essence, that she had given up on the idea. The Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 will bring railways back into public ownership when existing contracts with private operators expire, reforming our transport network and improving services for passengers.

In ending tax breaks for private schools, the Government are putting the additional revenue right back into our state schools to fund 6,500 new teachers, which is where the resource is sorely needed. If the Conservative party disagrees with that, I suggest that it put into its next manifesto that it will cut 6,500 state school teachers and use the money to subsidise private education, and see how that does.

[Damian Hinds]

Does the hon. Gentleman know by how much the number of teachers in this country increased during the last Parliament?

[Sam Carling]

I do not have that figure to hand, but we are going to recruit 6,500 of them, and we need them.

[Damian Hinds]

I will help the hon. Gentleman: it was a lot more than 6,500.

[Sam Carling]

No, that will do, thank you.

In six months, Labour has achieved more than the Conservatives did in 14 years. Barely a single achievement comes to mind when thinking of the Governments from 2010 to 2024. If anyone has a right to feel short-changed, lied to and let down, it is those who voted for the Conservatives in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019, not those who voted for Labour in 2024.