Andrew Lewin MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Nov 2024 · Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment · Hansard source

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  The shadow Secretary of State referenced his so-called plan for defence spending back in April this year, a plan that the Institute for Government said did “not add up” and was “fictitious”. Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State agree that under this Labour Government we will never make funding commitments to our armed forces unless they are fully funded?

• 4 Nov 2024 · Higher Education Reform · Hansard source

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  We have thousands of international students at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield—they are most welcome and they make a great contribution. However, when the Conservative party was in power, the independent Office for Students concluded that the entire higher education model was reliant on international fee income. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that was a completely unsustainable model—another example of the Conservative party ignoring a problem and leaving it to us to rescue and reform our higher education sector?

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to have the opportunity to speak on a historic day for this House, with the first Budget speech ever delivered by a woman, the first of this Labour Government and the first in 14 years that is serious about investing in our country, our people and our public services. There is no escaping the inheritance that this Government were left by the Conservative party: austerity, the botched Brexit deal and Trussonomics. In five years our country was presented with six different Conservative Chancellors, with no clear or consistent strategy for our economy. The question for a Budget should be how we deliver the right fiscal strategy for the country. I am afraid that, under the Conservative party, it became a question of how to deliver a Budget in order to get through the next month without another leadership contest. That was no way to run an economy or a country. Business confidence was sapped, the cost of living spiralled and, as we heard from our Chancellor, the Conservatives made a conscious decision to cut investment in our future. Today, we heard from a Labour Chancellor who does not pretend that the choices that confront us are easy, but who has set out a clear plan for how our economy can grow and living standards can rise. We will prosper as a country only if our society is in good health, and if we choose to invest in places and people. This is a Budget that invests in the country and in my community in Welwyn Hatfield. In my local NHS trust, 1,700 people have been waiting longer than a year to start treatment in our health service. We cannot fix the economy without getting people back to health, and to do that we need both investment and reform. That is why the £22.6 billion in extra investment announced for the NHS is so significant. Excluding the covid emergency, it is the single biggest investment since 2010. But we have to embrace new technology as well, and I know that is a priority for our Government. We cannot fix the NHS without supporting our staff, and the 5.5% pay rises announced in the first few weeks of this Labour Government are landing in people’s payslips this week. Key workers who endured so much during covid are finally being rewarded with a fair pay deal. Since the summer, I have visited a different school in Welwyn Hatfield every week. On each and every visit, I have been blown away by the dedication of the staff and the abilities of the children, but too many have not been getting the support from the state that they deserve. That is why I was so glad to hear today the £1 billion of extra investment in SEND. I will be thinking of children studying at Lakeside school in Welwyn Garden City and Southfield school in Hatfield, who so desperately need that extra support. When the Conservatives took office in 2010, they slashed funding for social housing. The results have been as devastating as they were predictable: a deepening housing crisis playing out in communities across the country. On their watch, Welwyn Hatfield has been losing council homes every year. We have to turn the corner and this Budget does that. The immediate £500 million injection into the affordable homes programme sends a clear message: Labour will invest in building social and council homes again. The rebuilding of our country and my community starts with this Government and this Budget. It is a Budget for schools, a Budget for housing, a Budget for our NHS, and a Budget that I am so proud to support.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  We have heard some incredibly eloquent, moving and substantial speeches today, and I pay tribute to all of them. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Katie White) on a fantastic maiden speech, which was a celebration of women in Parliament, all her work on the climate and, of course, Yorkshire. In my first few months as the Member for Welwyn Hatfield, nothing has left a greater mark on me than meeting Mike and Diana Blake. The Blake family are victims of the contaminated blood scandal who have been fighting for justice with grace and determination for nearly four decades. As I told the House in July, Stuart Blake, their son, was infected with contaminated blood in 1985, when he was just six years old. Stuart was infected with HIV and hepatitis C. He suffered throughout his childhood and passed away in 2006, aged just 27. Stuart was infected two years before I was born, but 39 years later his parents are still waiting for compensation. The agonising story of the Blake family will be all too familiar to hon. Members across the House who, as we have heard today, represent constituents who have suffered tragic loss and then seen the state close ranks about the depth of the crisis. As Sir Brian Langstaff concludes in his infected blood inquiry: “A lack of openness, transparency and candour, shown by the NHS and government, such that the truth has been hidden for decades.” Those of us who sit on these Benches today can never undo the suffering, but we can speak the truth about the experience of our constituents and demand that long-overdue compensation flows to their families. In that spirit, I commend my right hon. Friend the Minister for the decisive action he has taken since assuming office and echo his recent comments on compensation, when he said “it means nothing if people don’t get their compensation quickly and efficiently.” I welcome the news that he expects payments to begin to be made by the end of the year, but echo the calls made on all sides of the House that those who are affected, not just infected, receive their payments as soon as possible. I would also be grateful for some further clarification on how the Infected Blood Compensation Authority will work with individuals and families to help them navigate the system. Specifically, I want to put on record my request that Mike and Diana Blake are assigned a dedicated case worker, a single point of contact to guide them through the application for compensation and ensure that, after all the years of turmoil, they finally receive what they are owed. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister said that as a society we had collectively failed to protect some of our most vulnerable people. He was absolutely right. The state failed thousands of families for decades, and whether they were infected or affected, the duration of their suffering is unimaginable. We cannot ever put it right, but this Government will have my support in doing everything in their power to offer compensation and, where possible, some closure to those who have endured so much.

• 22 Oct 2024 · Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity · Hansard source

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  Under the Conservative Government, more than one in two people who served short-term custodial sentences went on to reoffend. In total, reoffending is costing our country £20 billion a year. That is not working at all, and not working for the taxpayer. In my constituency, and across Hertfordshire, fantastic charities such as the Hertfordshire Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders are running innovative and pioneering programmes, and working with ex-offenders to ensure that they do not offend again. Will my right hon. Friend say a little more about how the Government will adopt a new approach and work with charities and broader civil society to cut reoffending for good?

• 16 Oct 2024 · Access to Primary Healthcare · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to follow that powerful maiden speech. I am certain that the hon. Gentleman will do his constituents proud, as he did in his time serving in our armed forces. I welcome this debate. After 14 years of Conservative government, our health service is in a critical condition. In my constituency, the drive from the centre of Hatfield to Welwyn East takes about 10 minutes, but the difference in life expectancy between the two areas is now 10 years. The responsibility for the crisis sits not with our wonderful healthcare professionals, but squarely with the previous Conservative Government. I have spent as much time as I can with our NHS heroes, and I recently saw the professionalism of our paramedics at first hand after joining a shift with Daisy and Jake in the East of England ambulance service. They were a credit to their badge, and I am pleased to say that I got through blue lights okay. But GPs are battling a backlog—in my constituency more than 2,000 people have been waiting more than a month for a local appointment—dentists are withdrawing from the NHS, including in Peartree ward in Welwyn Garden City, and, invariably, the most vulnerable are the most seriously impacted. As the Darzi report made clear, people experiencing homelessness attend A&E four times as often as the general population and are eight times more likely to need in-patient care, all at immense cost to them and the overall NHS budget. We will only rescue our health service if we reform primary care, and that is why this debate is so important. Despite rising demand, 5% fewer nurses were working in the community in September 2023 than in September 2009. The NHS Confederation is clear that spending in primary and community settings has a superior return on investment compared with spending on acute hospital services, and Darzi was clear that it “therefore makes sense that” there should be a “fundamental strategic shift” to the community. Innovative work is out there. In my constituency, the Hospital at Home service run by East and North Herts NHS trust is particularly powerful for those over 80 who need rehabilitation and care, but for whom the best place for that is their home and not the hospital. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), said that she was not expecting to hear new ideas, but they are out there, and it is the job of our Government to embrace them and take them forward. I have every confidence that this Labour Government will do that. The party that founded the national health service has a clear vision for the future —from analogue to digital, from hospital to communities, and from sickness to prevention.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Reporting Ministerial Gifts and Hospitality · Hansard source

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  I listened with interest to the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), talk about integrity in politics. My mind went back to a defining image from the last Parliament: Her late Majesty saying goodbye to the Duke of Edinburgh in April 2021, abiding by every single rule, as she always did. We found out later that the previous night there had been parties in Downing Street. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is absolutely no comparison between this Government, who are clearing up the mess, and the one that went before us?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Sport: Team GB and ParalympicsGB · Hansard source

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  May I say what an uplifting day it has been in the Chamber? We have heard so many personal and impassioned maiden speeches, and it has been a pleasure to listen to them. I want to try to keep spirits high, because I believe that, without doubt, we live in the greatest elite sporting nation in the world. The Lionesses are the current Euros champions. In just the last few hours, England’s cricketers have set the fourth highest test score in 140 years of our great game and are well on their way to a historic victory in Pakistan. Our Olympians through the ages range from Steve Redgrave to Chris Hoy, and from Jessica Ennis-Hill to Keely Hodgkinson. One of our own from Welwyn Hatfield is Louise Fiddes, the 100 metre breaststroke gold medallist in the SB14 classification at the Paris Paralympics just a few months ago—a big part of an astonishing Team GB success. There is inspiration wherever we look, but I fear that success at the elite level is not translating into grassroots participation on the scale that we would all hope to see. Compared with our European neighbours, we are an inactive nation. Almost a third of children and young adults do less than 30 minutes of physical activity every week, and it will come as no surprise to hear that families from lower socioeconomic groups are being left behind in their physical education and development. It is our job in this place to work with our communities to champion active lifestyles and maximise the opportunities for all to get involved—for the joy of sport, but for the future of our public health too. Tragically, physical inactivity is associated with one in six deaths, and the Health Secretary is absolutely right to say that our NHS needs to shift from treating sickness to prevention. By becoming a more active nation, we can cut spending on preventable disease by £1 billion every year. If we get this right, the prize is a healthier and wealthier country. Sport has a unique power to bring communities together. I am a very amateur cricketer, and one of the joys of the game is being able to play against and alongside people from a host of different backgrounds and lived experiences. In the last couple of months, that has even extended to playing with Conservative MPs in the Lords and Common cricket club. There is a serious point here: the Sport and Recreation Alliance has found that 68% of people believe that community sports clubs and groups play a crucial role in fostering a sense of community in their area. A small number of people in our country seek to drive a wedge between communities, as we saw this summer with the appalling scenes of violence and disorder. Sport is part of the antidote; a means to bring together people from all walks of life. In my constituency, from Birchwood playing fields in Hatfield to Welwyn Garden City cricket club in Knightsfield, I will take every opportunity to champion sport and physical activity, and I hope to be a small part of a collective national effort. Sorry, Australia, but we are the greatest elite sporting nation on the planet. Now let us set the objective of being the most active nation in the world too.

• 9 Oct 2024 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow my colleagues’ inspiring maiden speeches today. This is the first time I have risen to speak in a substantive debate, following my own maiden speech in the summer. I am proud to support this Bill, which is the most significant reform to the sector in more than a generation. It will end the exploitative practice of bidding wars. It will offer security to renters, and it will enshrine a commitment to a decent home being the right of everyone in our country. Private renters are at the sharp end of our housing crisis. According to English housing survey data, one in five live in non-decent homes. In my constituency, it is a scandal that 1,300 people are paying to rent non-decent homes. The majority of them live in Hatfield, where the average cost of a two-bed to rent is £1,200 a month. The private rental sector accounts for more than one in four properties. For all the good and responsible landlords in the sector, too many have not taken their responsibilities to tenants seriously. Sadly, the last Government did not take their responsibilities to renters seriously either. This comprehensive Bill will act where the Conservatives failed. The journey starts with a commitment to those who rent property, but who have been locked out of the process by rental bidding and rental wars. As it stands, landlords are free to invite closed bids for how much rent people are willing to pay, playing them off against each other to maximise their return. It is plainly wrong, and like so much of our housing system, it penalises people who are less likely to have access to savings or family wealth. As set out in clause 55, we will end that practice. The Bill calls time on rental bidding, but it also calls time on no-fault evictions. Private renting can never offer the same security as home ownership or social housing, which is why this Bill is tied inextricably to a broader Government agenda of building 1.5 million homes over this Parliament and making building homes for social rent a priority again. Ending section 21 and moving to periodic assured tenancies is a significant strengthening of renters’ rights. If someone is moving into a rental home for the first time, they will have a year of security. It was two months under the last Government, but it will be 12 months under Labour. The quality of our private rented homes is just as important as security of tenure. For too many people, once the battle to find a place to live is won, a new front opens with their landlord on the quality of their living conditions at home. There is a better than one in five chance that a private renter will be living in a non-decent property. The Bill will ensure that private renters are no longer second-class citizens and are protected by the decent homes standard. I said in my maiden speech that I would always say where we agree with another party, and I congratulate the Conservatives on bringing in Awaab’s law in the course of the previous Parliament, but it is absolutely right that this Labour Government extend the law to the private sector, so that every renter in England can challenge dangerous conditions in the home and, crucially, do so safe in the knowledge that they will no longer be subject to a no-fault eviction simply for having the confidence to speak out. There are thousands of renters in my constituency and 4.5 million across the country. The Bill is a landmark moment for all of them. I am proud that it is a priority for our Labour Government and I look forward to working with colleagues as it progresses through the House.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  The Conservative party famously said that they had “had enough of experts”, and look at where that got us—the longest NHS waiting list in history. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend rejects that approach emphatically. In the spirit of listening to professionals who are trying to make a difference, I ask him and his team to consider visiting Hertfordshire, where the community trust is working on a hospital at home scheme. The scheme is making a huge difference to patients at the end of their life, who need to be supported, cared for and monitored. This is an important part of easing the burden on our NHS with which we have been left.

• 4 Sept 2024 · SEND Provision: Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire · Hansard source

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  When discussing SEND provision with families in Hertfordshire, the phrases that most often resonate with me are people describing their experience as a fight or a battle. This is a consistent pattern. Parents spend months or even years pushing the system to get the support and care their children deserve, at huge personal and financial cost to their families. The fight can take many forms: securing an education, health and care plan in the first place, finding an appropriate school, or even fighting for recognition from the council that their child has additional needs at all. There is much that must change. It is of paramount importance that we reform the system so it is no longer characterised by defensiveness, but becomes one of empathy and support. I hope my hon. Friend agrees.

• 2 Sept 2024 · Violent Disorder · Hansard source

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  Last month, Elon Musk fanned the flames of violent disorder. He personally amplified extremist accounts and, shamefully, even said that he believed our country was heading for “civil war”. Some 10 months previously, the leader of the Conservative party invited Elon Musk to Downing Street, and in a stunt, they even superimposed his new logo on to the front of Downing Street. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that was a major error of judgment by the Conservative party, and that Elon Musk has no interest in our democracy—only in himself?

• 26 Jul 2024 · Infected Blood Inquiry · Hansard source

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  Last week in my constituency I met Mike and Diana Blake, who told me the harrowing story of their son Stuart. Stuart was infected by contaminated blood, and was then infected with HIV and hepatitis C—he was just six years old. Stuart lived and suffered, and passed away aged 27 in 2006. The torment of the Blake family has been compounded by the fact that they have not received the full compensation that I know everybody in this House believes they are due. I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement from the Dispatch Box, setting out the intention to move forward with compensation for bereaved families such as the Blake family. I would be grateful if he could say a little more about that process.

• 22 Jul 2024 · NATO and European Political Community Meetings · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for his statement, and I thank him particularly for his commitment to resetting our relationship with the European Union. It is regrettable that the deal signed by the Opposition when they were in government did real damage to our economy. It put up barriers to trade with the European Union and increased red tape. Does the Prime Minister agree that now is the time for a new relationship and to take practical measures, such as the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, to increase our alignment with the European Union, so we can help our services and get our economy moving again?

• 22 Jul 2024 · Economy, Welfare and Public Services · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech in this debate. It is a privilege to follow the first female Chancellor in history, and to follow two inspiring maiden speeches from the Labour Benches by my hon. Friends the Members for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould) and for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman). It is an honour to sit alongside them on the Government Benches, and their communities are both very lucky to have them. As hon. Members can imagine, I have given careful thought to my remarks today, but it is safe to say that this is not the most anticipated maiden speech ever associated with Welwyn Hatfield. The reason for that is that, on 20 November 1558, Elizabeth I gave her inaugural address as Queen from Hatfield House in my constituency. Irrespective of how the next few minutes go, I think her place in history is safe. I am especially grateful to be called in this debate on the economy. My constituency is anchored by two new towns that flourished under a previous Labour Government. Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City were incorporated as new towns together under a single development corporation on 20 May 1948. The growth of Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City played an important role in the rebuilding and reimagining of life in our part of the country after the horrors of the second world war. I believe that if we are to succeed in growing our economy, we have to rediscover the ambition and the vision that was embodied by those who designed and carefully planned our two great towns. My predecessor as the MP for Welwyn Hatfield was the right hon. Grant Shapps, who served our community for 19 years and will be well known to all Members of this House. In fact, he will probably be familiar to anyone who was watching a morning television news programme at any point over the last five years. Before I talk about Grant’s legacy, however, I want to start with a message of reassurance to the Labour Whips and my colleagues: I have no desire to hold quite so many Cabinet positions as he did, and certainly not in such a short period of time. I want to reflect solemnly on the personal and professional commitment that Grant Shapps made to the people of Ukraine. After the Russian invasion in 2022, he opened his family home to provide sanctuary to three generations of a Ukrainian family, innocent people whose lives were turned upside down by Putin’s unprovoked act of aggression. In the last Parliament, more than 200,000 Ukrainians were welcomed to our country under the Ukraine family scheme and the Ukraine sponsorship scheme, an initiative that I believe showed our country at its best, open and welcoming in an hour of grave need. We serve in this House of Commons at a time when our wider political discourse can often be angry and divisive. Of course we will disagree in the House, and passionately so—our constituents rightly expect us always to stand up for our community and our values, and I will certainly try to do just that—but I think we can too easily forget what unites us. Where we agree, let us have the confidence to say so. My predecessor was right to champion the people of Ukraine, and the cause of freedom and democracy. I commend him for it, and wish him well in whatever comes next. Welwyn Hatfield is a constituency rich in history. Welwyn village and Woolmer Green were both Roman settlements, and Welwyn is one of the few places in the country believed to have been occupied continuously for 2,000 years. Nearly 400 years after Hatfield was home to Queen Elizabeth I, local people made an important contribution to the defeat of Nazi tyranny. The Royal Air Force’s Mosquito fighter-bomber was developed at the de Havilland airfield and aircraft factory in Hatfield. Welwyn Garden City also has a unique place in history as the creation of Ebenezer Howard, the father of the garden city movement. His immaculately planned and tree-lined streets, such as Parkway in Welwyn Garden City, are still true to his vision from nearly 100 years ago. Despite our wonderful history, what has struck me when I have walked around our towns and villages is the impression of too many projects on hold, and potential going unfulfilled. Take the iconic Shredded Wheat silos, designed by Louis de Soissons in 1926 and a defining feature of Welwyn Garden City for decades. The site has lain virtually dormant since the factory closed in 2008. In central Hatfield, it is a similar story. Queensway House consists of 66 units that were once all social housing. In November 2019, after a ballot of residents, a majority decided that it was time to demolish and rebuild, but nearly five years later Queensway House is still standing, and it looms over the centre of Hatfield as a symbol of the inertia that has captured our politics for too long. I am determined that that must change. The centre of Hatfield is one part of our community that most urgently needs investment in good-quality housing and social infrastructure, and I will be a champion for it in this House. Welwyn Hatfield is a growing and increasingly diverse community. In just the last few months I have attended the world street food festival in Welwyn Garden City, the first ever Diwali celebration in White Lion Square in Hatfield, and the ever popular Welwyn festival on Singlers Marsh. We are home to prominent national businesses, including Tesco and Ocado in Hatfield, and to the thriving University of Hertfordshire. The university will soon be opening its state-of-the-art Spectra building for the study of physics, engineering and computer science—and yes, Mr Vice-Chancellor, as this will appear in Hansard , please consider that to be my formal bid for an invitation to its opening! I believe that a new Parliament is a time for ambition and optimism. Welwyn Hatfield blossomed when Attlee’s Labour Government put housing and carefully planned communities at the centre of their agenda for change. Nearly 80 years later, we have another majority Labour Government with a mandate for national renewal. This is a moment of opportunity, and each of us on these Benches has a responsibility to play our part in realising it. For as long as I serve in this House of Commons, I will always do my utmost to champion Welwyn Hatfield, to respect our history, and to be an agent for change.