Spirit of Salford

One thing has shone through over the last few weeks: the ‘Spirit of Salford’. I am truly proud of the people of Salford who are united in love, support and kindness for each other. We will always stand together as one community. In Salford, people look out for one another, we support each other, and we lift each other up — that is who we are.

Over the past week I have heard countless heart-warming accounts of the good people of Salford checking in on each other to make sure everyone is okay and I have been in constant contact with Greater Manchester Police who are working hard along with public services and community groups in Salford to ensure they are visible and to reassure the safety and well-being of residents.

For information, GMP have issued the following update to communities across Greater Manchester:

A message to communities from Greater Manchester Police

We understand the uncertainty and worry that people are feeling about current tension, much of which is being fuelled by the widespread sharing of misinformation online which is sometimes being created with the purpose of creating fear and inciting intolerable hate.

Our advice to communities is to remain calm and to try to go about your every-day life. GMP continues to monitor the intelligence to ensure we can respond effectively to any incidents of disorder. And, if we believe there needs to be specific information about anything emerging we will tell people and offer advice. 

We are heavily resourced, and we have specialist officers and staff who are working around the clock to tackle these issues and ensure our communities are supported. We are speaking to community leaders and elected representatives regularly to make sure they are appraised of all planned protests known to GMP.  People living safely and peacefully, do not deserve to be frightened: we are here to protect you, and we will use all resources and capabilities to do so.

Our message is clear: there is no place for hate in Greater Manchester. If you come here to willingly participate in disorder and crime, we will be at your door, ensuring you answer for your crimes. We will police without fear or favour and use all resources and powers available to ensure those involved in this disgraceful behaviour are dealt with robustly.

This has been demonstrated with our relentless pursuit of offenders, many of whom have been arrested not only in Greater Manchester, but with the support of police colleagues across the UK and we have made crucial arrests in West Yorkshire and Lancashire.

To date, we have made 26 arrests for a variety of offences including assault, violent disorder, possession of weapons, and 20 have been charged. There is work to be done, and we will not relent until we have systematically located and dealt with all those responsible.

We ask that you remain vigilant. If you see something, or hear something, that does not feel right, report it to us so we can act.

All information and reports will be handled with the utmost severity and sensitivity. If you would prefer to remain anonymous, information can be shared anonymously with the independent charity Crimestoppers by calling 08000 555 111. We don’t need to know who you are; we just need your information and concerns.

These are challenging times, but we are immensely proud to see the majority of our residents standing together and condemning this unacceptable disorder. Your unwavering support has not gone unnoticed.”

Thank-you

It’s been just over a month since I was re-elected to continue to represent the people of Salford as your voice in Westminster. I am truly honoured and humbled to have your support, and I want to thank the people of Salford and all those who campaigned tirelessly from the bottom of my heart.

It is the greatest privilege on earth to serve the people of this great city. You are the kindest, most inspirational people I have ever known. I promise to continue to give everything I have to be a voice for the voiceless, to fight for the brilliant people of this city, for the funding, services and quality of life you deserve, and I will do everything I can to deliver the change you have voted for.

The State Opening of Parliament with the King’s Speech took place Wednesday 17th July and I will cover that in a bit more detail below, but you can watch my interview with That’s TV News just after the election result about my priorities for Salford here.

The King’s Speech

We are all too aware that fourteen years of successive Tory governments have ravaged Salford’s public services, stifled investment, created gross levels of inequality, and entrenched widespread job and housing insecurity, so the King’s Speech offered welcome national renewal. Legislation promising to hand power back to local leaders, support for local growth plans, and greater protections for renters were welcome and long overdue. The new deal for working people was also a pivotal step in ensuring that the fruits of our economic growth are shared by everyone, not just a select few.

End Child Poverty Now: Scrap the two-child limit

As an MP in Salford, where 44.7% of children live in poverty with some wards closer to 60%, I urged the Government during the King’s Speech debate to also scrap the two-child limit on Universal Credit. This is something many struggling families have raised with me but it’s also something that every child poverty expert has called for. Scrapping the two-child limit would lift hundreds of thousands of children across the country out of poverty.

The founding purpose of the Labour party is to build for all of us, a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few. To fulfil this purpose, we should seek nothing less than ending child poverty now. I wrote about this in the Morning Star, which you can read in full here.

In Parliament, I backed a Parliamentary amendment along with other Labour colleagues in support of scrapping the two child cap, which you can see here. I also spoke about this in the House of Commons chamber, which you can watch here.

I support the King’s Speech and support Government pledges to roll out breakfast clubs and to instigate a child poverty task force. I am gravely concerned however that this will take considerable time to pass through the relevant stages of consultation and indeed into final legislation. That is why I voted in favour of an amendment to the Kings Speech which called to add to the policy program, the immediate scrapping of the two-child limit.

You may have seen in the news that my vote in favour of this amendment went against the Party whip which was to vote against it. As a result I was informed that I have had the Labour Party whip suspended for six months and I am deeply saddened by this. As a strict matter of conscience, on this occasion I felt I must speak for my constituents who have no voice in the hope that the Government urgently helps them on this issue.

I continue to work as Salford’s MP, along with the Government and colleagues to help the constituents I represent.

State Pension Inequality for Women

One of the urgent requests I made in Parliament in response to the King’s Speech is something I have been working on for a number of years. That is to settle the debt of honour we owe to women born in the 1950s who suffered pension injustice. The issue now is not whether the women faced injustice; the ombudsman’s report earlier this year made it clear that they did, that the Department for Work and Pensions was guilty of maladministration, that the women are entitled to urgent compensation from the Government, and that Parliament must urgently identify a mechanism for providing that appropriate remedy. They need fair, fast, simple redress and an apology from the DWP.

You can watch my speech here, where I told the House that these women deserve nothing less than justice.

Nuclear Testing Veterans

Another urgent request I made was one of moral duty to recognise, support and compensate our nuclear testing veterans and their families. Again, this is something I have been working on these recent years but veterans and their families have been fighting for decades for proper recognition for these heroes. They have highlighted scientific studies that show increased rates of miscarriage, increased birth defects, and the same rate of genetic damage as clean-up workers at Chernobyl.

I am pleased that the new Defence Secretary, John Healey, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with nuclear testing veterans and their families when Labour was in opposition, and supported their campaign to receive the long overdue recognition they deserve. But despite winning the campaign for medallic recognition, the UK sadly still remains the only nuclear power that refuses them adequate compensation, research and support, unlike the US, France, Canada and Australia. Medal criteria are very limited, there has not been a formal recognition event and even access to war pensions has been impeded.

I wrote to the Defence Secretary recently requesting a meeting with veterans and campaigners, and to work together to deal with their concerns. I also spoke about this in Parliament, which you can watch here.

Highlights from the King’s Speech

• New deal for working people

The Employment Rights Bill will introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights.

• National Wealth Fund

This Fund will invest to make Britain a clean energy superpower, create thousands of good jobs, and grow wealth in every community. Labour will provide an additional £7.3 billion to catalyse private investment.

• English Devolution Bill

This will give new powers to metro mayors, such as Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, to help support local growth plans that bring economic benefit to communities.

• Great British Railways

I voted recently to bring our railways back into public ownership that places passengers at the heart of the goal, objectives and incentives for the railway, and to bring train operators under public ownership and control. Great British Railways will be led by rail professionals and industry experts and be responsible for the day-to-day operational delivery of the railways, for ensuring infrastructure and services work together, and for innovations and improvements in the experience of passengers and freight users.

• Great British Energy

Labour will establish a new, publicly owned energy production company which will own, manage and operate clean power projects up and down the country. Great British Energy will make money for the taxpayer, deliver the next generation of good jobs, save money for families, deliver energy security so we are not reliant on foreign dictators like Putin, and do our duty to the planet.

• Water (Special Measures) Bill

This Bill will put water companies under tough special measures. Water bosses will face personal criminal liability for persistent lawbreaking, and we will withhold bonuses if the company has broken the law. Water companies won’t be able to mark their own homework – we will require independent monitoring of all sewage outlets. Regulators will be able to bring robust charges against water companies and executives, including automatic and severe fines.

Building Homes – a council house revolution

We are facing the most acute housing crisis in living memory. Across the UK there are 150,000 children in temporary accommodation, nearly 1.3 million households on social housing waiting lists and under-30s are less than half as likely to own their own home compared with the 1990s. Rents have also gone up 8.6% in the last year and total homelessness is at record levels. Putting it simply, there are simply not enough social and affordable homes.

The Government will make local housing targets mandatory which will require local authorities to use the same method to work out how many homes to build. However, that alone is insufficient to meet the ambition that is needed, which is why the Government are also changing the standard method used to calculate housing need so that it better reflects the urgency of supply for local areas.

In her recent speech in Parliament the Housing Minister, Angela Rayner, called on local authorities, housing associations and industry to work with the Labour Government to deliver a council house revolution. In her speech, she said it is vital that more homes are built and that schemes with a large amount of affordable housing are likely to be completed faster. Injecting confidence and certainty into social housing is how we will get Britain back to building. Labour will introduce more flexibilities in the current affordable homes programme, working with Homes England, and will bring forward details of future Government investment at the spending review.

Ofwat: Call for Action

I joined Labour MPs in writing to the Ofwat chief executive to express concern over the impact rising water bills will have on people struggling with the cost of living. Ofwat recently announced that, under its proposals, the average water bill would rise by 21 per cent over the next five years – a lower increase than the amounts requested by water companies, which have submitted their business plans to the regulator.

The companies say they need to raise extra money to pay for work to stop sewage spills – yet their shareholder dividends continue. Whilst the new government has said it has no plans to nationalise water companies (which I have been historically campaigning for), it is only right that water companies pay for their failings and not their customers, who are already under the cosh due to the Tory cost of living crisis. Read more here.

The Association of Convenience Stores

In Parliament, I recently met with Priyesh and Sapna, who run a One-Stop shop in Salford. We talked about how shops such as theirs are often vital lifelines for the areas they serve and they must continue to be at the heart of our communities as Britain changes to meet the challenges of the future.

University Academy 92 (UA92)

I was great to visit UA92 to see their business school site here in Salford. We discussed the work they have done so far and their and plans for the future. The students and staff I met with were inspirational, and I can’t wait to support and see the Uni go from strength to strength in the coming years.

Get in touch

I was elected to represent everyone in the Salford constituency, whether they voted for me or not. I can help with a wide range of issues which are the responsibility of central government, such as problems with:

• DWP (Department for Work and Pensions, including benefits and pensions)
• HMRC (His Majesties Revenue and Customs)
• Home Office (including immigration)
• Foreign Office
• Department of Health
• Department for Education

Click here to find out how to get in touch.