Cost of Living Increases

Debate between Tulip Siddiq and Christine Jardine

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case and making a salient point. Does she agree that the constituents she has already mentioned, who are dealing with all these price hikes—the worst in 45 years—and who come to our constituency offices every week, do not care that we grew faster than Italy in 2010, but they care that they cannot heat their homes now and cannot feed their children and they are worried about their elderly parents? The blame can be laid at nobody’s door but this Conservative Government’s.

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She is absolutely right. This Conservative fantasy just does not match up to the reality on the ground.

Instead of putting forward a comprehensive plan for growth, successive Conservative Chancellors have made hard-working families pay for their economic failure. The Conservatives have become the party of tax rises for the hard-working majority. Since 2019, the British people have been hit with 24 tax rises. It is the highest tax burden in 70 years. Earlier this month, we saw council tax bills rise above £2,000—some Members might think that is funny; it is not funny for my constituents—for the first time, as the Chancellor effectively forced councils to put up rates by reducing their funding. That saw families who were already struggling hit with an additional average tax hike of 5.1%—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members have something to say, instead of chuntering from a sedentary position, they should intervene. They should not shout from the front.

Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill

Debate between Tulip Siddiq and Christine Jardine

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bath for bringing forward this Bill, which is particularly important in stressing the employer’s liability. Most of us—most women, certainly—have faced some sort of sexual harassment in the workplace at some point in our careers, and one of the main issues was that it was much easier to solve it quietly or sweep it under the carpet because the employer had no liability to act. This Bill is a great step forward in tackling workplace sexual harassment and changing that culture, which is so insidious. We must recognise it and ensure that action is taken.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I rise to support the Bill, but I also want to say a few words about the hon. Member for Bath. She was elected in 2017, a few years after me, and has been a doughty champion for women’s rights. This is not the first time she has brought such a Bill to the House. In 2018, she introduced a very good private Member’s Bill about upskirting and the things that we turn a blind eye to. That private Member’s Bill was supported by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and the extent of cross-party support demonstrates how strong the Bill was.

The hon. Member for Bath has worked really hard on abortion rights as well as on eating disorders, which are becoming more of an issue in society. They have always been an issue but are highlighted now more than ever because of the effect of social media. Another strand of her work is on violence against women. Even though we are not in the same party, I am very proud that she is in Parliament, because these issues are important for women and for society, and we have to fight for them and legislate on them, as all Members have said.

Sadly, a lot of young women have come to believe that sexual harassment is an unavoidable fixture of the workplace, and that is not how it should be; I will come on to talk about LGBTQ workers and women in the workplace who come from ethnic minority backgrounds. I am also supporting the Bill on behalf of our children who have not yet come into the workplace, so that when they do they will, hopefully, not have to see, experience or be a victim of sexual harassment.

It has been 16 years since the #MeToo movement started and five years since it was relaunched on social media. Here we are, 16 years later, still trying to legislate against harassment. I am not sure whether we should be celebrating, but it feels like it has taken a very long time to get here. The fact that we are here probably should be celebrated; at least we are doing something about the issue.

Black History Month

Debate between Tulip Siddiq and Christine Jardine

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tulip Siddiq]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Leaving the European Union

Debate between Tulip Siddiq and Christine Jardine

Monday 19th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I will read a few of the words that the Prime Minister has said about the EU nationals living here. I repeat that 22,000 EU nationals live in Hampstead and Kilburn. The Prime Minister has repeatedly told the House and Members that even in the case of no deal, EU citizens will have their rights protected. However, to choose just one example, on page 28 of the agreement, article 15(3) states that the right of permanent residence can be lost if family or work obligations mean that someone has to leave the country for five years. As the3million says, EU citizens living in the UK will soon have to pay to apply to stay in their home, and will have to undergo systematic criminality checks.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

On that point, does the hon. Lady agree that it is ridiculous that some children born in this country to EU nationals from other parts of the EU who have been here for decades now have to apply to be British?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree that that is absolutely ridiculous. It also goes against all our British values of welcoming people.

In the Prime Minister’s CBI speech, EU migrants were told that they would lose their place in the queue for employment opportunities. We are at a pivotal point in our history. Do we want to become a Trumpian society in which we demonise migrants and do not make them feel welcome? Or do we want to go back to the British values of welcoming people to this country, as refugees or migrants, because of the contribution that they make to our country? Does what the Prime Minister has outlined sound like the protection of existing rights? My residents in Hampstead and Kilburn do not think so. I will illustrate my point with the example of two of the 22,000 EU nationals living there.

Sarit from Hampstead town is an EU doctor. In a year, he does 2,000 NHS surgeries. He said that Brexit is a threat to his work in the UK. I went through a very difficult childbirth two years ago on the NHS, and every single doctor, nurse and midwife who treated me was from the EU. There has been a 96% drop in the number of EU nurses applying to work in our NHS. Georgia, a Cypriot constituent, has lived in my constituency since 2003. She wrote to me of her fears about the new reticence of firms in Canary Wharf to hire EEA citizens.

The official Vote Leave statement said on 1 June 2016:

“There will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident”.

They

“will be treated no less favourably than they are at present”.

With that clearly no longer the case, we can add the betrayal of EU citizens’ rights to the long list of betrayals that have led to an undeniable shift in public opinion.

Hon. Friends have mentioned the people’s vote. A Sky News poll on 15 November asked whether voters would support or oppose a referendum to choose between the draft Brexit deal, no deal, or remain, and 55% were in support of a people’s vote. In a YouGov poll, 59% of respondents said that they now support a people’s vote. The change in opinion is clear, and as parliamentarians we have a duty to act on that change, and on the failure to achieve a deal.