Antonia Bance MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for her words, particularly about the dedicated frontline police officers of West Midlands police who serve my community and hers. It is clearly time for the chief constable to go. It is right that we expect a high standard of community engagement across all our communities from all our senior public servants, which has clearly not been met in this case, as we have explored thoroughly in this statement. More broadly, will the Home Secretary urgently bring forward a community cohesion strategy that tackles extremism and antisemitism and sets out clear expectations for how we live together in this great country of ours?

• 12 Jan 2026 · New Medium Helicopter Contract · Hansard source

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  I support calls by my union, Unite, for a speedy decision on crewed helicopters. I hope soon for good news on that front in the defence investment plan, which we all look forward to so very much. Might the Minister have any news on the manufacture of autonomous helicopters here in the UK, and on the good jobs that will come with them?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  Black Country people are proud and resilient, but 50 years of deindustrialisation and 14 years of Tory austerity have left my borough of Sandwell the fifth most deprived in the country. Does the Minister agree with me that this Government can finally see deprived urban areas—post-industrial areas like mine—and is finally giving us back what we are due?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q6. The west midlands car industry is world famous, and this Government back our automotive sector. We have a United States trade deal, and when criminals shut down production at Jaguar Land Rover we backed the supply chain—brilliant companies such as J.H. Lavender in my constituency. What a contrast with the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who, as usual, is not here. [Interruption.] He said:“I predict Jaguar will now go bust and…They deserve to.” Does the Prime Minister agree that the workers of the west midlands and the entire country need a Labour Government, and cannot afford the economic vandalism of Reform UK?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. The west midlands is a key engine of the UK’s manufacturing base. What work is the Minister doing with our West Midlands Mayor to ensure that west midlands companies, especially our small and medium-sized enterprises, benefit from our increased defence spending and our defence industrial strategy?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sure the Minister is coming on to this in her speech, but it might be worth reiterating, for the benefit of those on the Opposition Benches, that the best way to avoid having to pay compensation for unfair dismissal is to avoid unfairly dismissing someone in the first place.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I wonder if the hon. Gentleman would like to tell the House which of these business groups he disagrees with and that he thinks we should not listen to today, because these are the groups telling us and peers in the other place that we should be voting for the Bill. Does he disagree with the British Chambers of Commerce or the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development? Does he disagree with the Confederation of British Industry, with the Federation of Small Businesses, with the Recruitment and Employment Confederation or with Small Business Britain?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member agree that the way to solve the crisis in apprenticeships in hair and beauty, as well as the crisis of bogus self-employment in hair and beauty, is to strengthen the single worker status?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I am sure the hon. Member knows me well enough by now to know that I am not going to indulge in silly games. What I will say is that this Government’s priority is to get the economy growing. It is why we are investing in infrastructure. It is why we are rebuilding our public services. It is why we have put the greatest level of investment in our public infrastructure. It is why we are investing £39 billion in house building, as I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who is no longer in his place. It is why we are rebuilding our public finances. At times, this does involve some difficult choices, and some that not everyone may always agree with, but we are making the fair and right choices: asking those with the broadest shoulders to bear the heavier load, rebuilding public services, helping with the cost of living—and, yes, clearing up the Tory mess. We are cutting borrowing more than any other country in the G7, leading to a doubling of the headroom to £21.7 billion. We have the highest levels of public investment in four decades. We are backing entrepreneurs and fast-growing companies with tax breaks to list and to hire here in the UK. Our planning changes will back the builders. Devolution for local growth will mean that local growth spreads outside London and the south-east—something so very close to my heart and to the hearts of many in this place. We are proud to be putting up the national minimum wage so that people have more money in their pockets, because the core problem affecting the retail and hospitality industries is that people do not have money in their pockets to spend on our high streets. Getting wages going up—and they are going up faster than prices—is the way to have people with more money in their pockets.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady makes her point well, and she has made it; there is no need for me to respond. After 14 years of flatlining wages, wages are now growing faster than prices. That is incredibly important. I was so proud to see wages go up by more in the first 10 months of this Government than they went up in the first 10 years of the last one. The Budget did more on the cost of living, whether it be through frozen fares, frozen prescriptions, frozen fuel duty, £150 off energy bills or—my favourite policy—thousands of pounds in the pockets of the poorest families in the UK. They will spend that money on high streets, like those in my constituency: Crankhall Lane and Union Street in Wednesbury, and our shopping centre in central Tipton. That is where low-income families spend any extra pounds on food and on stuff for their kids.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I beg the indulgence of the House for a moment to welcome the opening this week on Market Place in central Wednesbury of the new Walden restaurant. The menu looks absolutely delicious, and I very much look forward to sampling it soon. I also want to mention Chris Birch from the Swift Group in Wednesbury, who I met yesterday—he was in town to go to the Goldman Sachs “10k Small Businesses” reception yesterday evening. Chris is the managing director of a family-owned business; he and his 36 employees make industrial and commercial kitchens, and he spoke to me about the help he has received with solar panels, which are going to be installed on his buildings—he has got a grant for that. He has also got a grant to help with the CRM through the Goldman Sachs scheme. [ Official Report , 15 December 2025; Vol. 777, c. 11WC.] (Correction) Chris spoke to me about his recent success in winning a major Government public procurement contract to supply every prison in the country with kitchen equipment. I was so pleased to hear that, and I know that the Minister for Small Business will be particularly glad to hear it as well. That is a huge, multimillion-pound contract won by a SME thanks to the targets that have been put in place to ensure SMEs are able to access public procurement. I know the whole House will be so very pleased to hear that that bit of the small business strategy is beginning to take effect, and I thank Chris for coming down to Parliament and telling me about it yesterday. I look forward to visiting him and his staff team soon. In response to some of the points made in the debate, let me say that no Labour Member will apologise for being a Government in a hurry. Perhaps at times we do try to do many, many things at the same time, but there is a reason for that. Opposition will teach you about the powerlessness of being unable to effect the things you want to, and I can hear the frustration of Opposition Members—the regret they feel about their powerlessness in the face of a Government who are doing things that they do not like—but it would be good to hear some Conservative Members apologise for the damage caused over 14 years that led us to the situation we are in now.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, as I have done since the first time we worked together, more than 20 years ago. It is interesting to hear the advocacy for welfare reform. Today we have heard a lot about the difficulties with business rates, and I will not rehearse the arguments—they have been well made by my friends on the Front Bench—about the action that this Government are taking on business rates to help the hospitality and retail sectors, but I will make this point. We have heard repeatedly from Opposition Members that they would like to abolish business rates for retail and hospitality, yet they do not have a plan to do that. To pay for it, they will somehow find £47 billion worth of “savings”. The majority of that will come through indiscriminate cutting of the welfare budget. It is not clear to me how that is a credible plan, when the annual welfare bill went up by £114 billion on their watch. Of course, Members would not expect me to speak in a debate like this without talking about my pride in our Employment Rights Bill and our plan to make work pay. I am proud beyond words to speak for hospitality workers and for seasonal workers who will benefit from that Bill. Earlier this week, I asked colleagues in the trade union movement to run the numbers, based on Government statistics, on how many workers will benefit from the reduction of the waiting period for protection from unfair dismissal from two years to six months: 6.3 million workers will benefit from that—from protection against being unfairly dismissed, without due process, for reasons that are not good enough—and 36% of hospitality workers will benefit as well. I am so very glad that we are making rules that will benefit disproportionately the workers most likely to be exploited at work.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  Lovely pub!

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member need have no fear about the extent to which I talk to businesses in my constituency and more widely. I see at least one employer every single week—often not in retail and hospitality, as I represent a manufacturing constituency. I recognise the concerns, but I would say that in this country we need to have a functioning set of public services. We need an NHS that is not asking people to wait as long as it was when we took up office. In my constituency, waiting lists for those waiting over a year for an operation have fallen by 45%. That is absolutely incredible, and it was achieved because of the difficult decisions that our Chancellor of the Exchequer took to put money into the NHS. I know that many people regret that decision. They wish the ends—the reduced waiting lists—but they do not will the means. On this side, we will not dodge hard choices; we will the ends and we will the means.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend reads my mind, as that is the point I was just about to make. I was so sad to see the Leader of the Opposition abandon what was one of the better policies of the last Government: that there should be a fast-rising national minimum wage at all times. I agreed with the last set of Prime Ministers before this one on very little, but one thing I did agree with them on was that it was right to maintain the machinery of the Low Pay Commission—a tripartite body where unions, businesses and academics come together with Government to look at the prevailing conditions in the country. Those at the commission get out there and visit businesses of all types in all regions, including hospitality and retail, and set the national minimum wage at a level that would work for workers and for businesses. It is an approach that this Government have continued, and I am sad to see that the Leader of the Opposition intends to abandon it and to abandon low-paid workers to frozen pay.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his kind words, and for his intervention. It is absolutely clear that alongside investment in public services, there is investment in infrastructure, in house building, and in making sure that this is a good country in which to grow and scale a business. I am glad of those things. I am also glad that we took action to ensure that the poorest families are able to feed all of their children. The way to make the high street thrive is for people to have more money to spend. Let me repeat the statistic mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger). There are more people aged between 18 and 24 in work this year than there were a year ago, but NEET numbers are still too high. People familiar with the constituency I represent will not be surprised to hear that they are particularly high in my corner of the Black Country. This is in no small part due to the failures of the Conservatives in government, not least during the pandemic, when they kept the schools closed but allowed pubs to open. Opposition Members keep calling on us to engage in further welfare reform to cut the welfare bill. It is interesting to me that when we do so—when we announce a clear, costed, proven, evidence-based plan to get young people back into work, as we did this weekend—they do not like it. It feels like history repeating itself. I remember the future jobs fund from 15 or 16 years ago, and the way it gave hope to a generation of young people kicked out of work as a result of a global financial crisis, through no fault of their own. Hundreds of thousands of them got jobs through the future jobs fund. It was particularly effective for the hardest-to-help young people, and in tough labour markets, in places like the one that I represent, but it was canned, basically on day one, by a Conservative Chancellor. I am so glad that our Work and Pensions Secretary is building on the legacy of the future jobs fund to help a new generation of young people.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  Excellent sandwiches, too!

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I would not wish to try the hon. Member’s generosity, but it seems to me that I have already been generous in my tribute to the work of the previous Government in continuing to maintain the machinery of the Low Pay Commission—something that this Government have continued—and in continuing to make sure that the national minimum wage rose. I will admit that many people in my position feared greatly in 2010 that the Conservatives would come into government—admittedly, in coalition—and immediately tear up the national minimum wage. The fact that they did not was a great thing. The pinning to two thirds of male median wages was a good thing, and I am so sad that the Leader of the Opposition has departed from the consensus on this point. The national minimum wage is set by a tripartite body. It is not too high, because businesses were in the room arguing their case. The commissioners went out on visits around the country to look at the prevailing economic conditions. The wage is set by consensus using the tripartite machinery, and it is important that we all understand that that has served this country well and has made extreme low pay a thing of the past. I am sad that the Conservatives have departed from this consensus.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend. Employers may continue to dismiss, as long as they do so for fair reasons and following a fair process, and good employers already do that. My favourite measures in the Employment Rights Bill—this could be a very long speech, but I will bring it to a close— [Interruption.] I will! I will just say this: I am so proud of the ban on zero-hours contracts, and I suggest to my hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench that we should have a nice short reference period for that when the consultation begins. I am so proud of the plans on sick pay, and on fire and rehire. I am so proud of our enhanced parental leave, the fair pay agreement and the school support staff negotiating body. In conclusion, I often say that my goal is for people in my constituency to be able to take the family out for a curry on Friday night and not worry about the cost. I want that for all workers, including the hospitality workers who are serving and cooking that curry, and the seasonal workers who make it such a pleasure to be on the beach at Blackpool or down in Brighton, having that curry. That is why we need a Government focused on growth, new rights for every worker in the Employment Rights Bill, and a higher national minimum wage.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  While we are being nice to the hon. Gentleman, I think with affection of the times we have sat together on the “Politics Midlands” sofa. For the benefit of the House, will he tell us how many zero-hours workers he has spoken to in preparation for his speech today?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I am so glad that someone has mentioned the construction industry. However, the hon. Member is talking not about seasonal jobs but about contract work. The key to maintaining sustained employment in the construction sector is having a strong pipeline of repeated projects so that people can build their skills and move on to the next contract, and then the one after that, to build a career in that way. Does he agree that the Government’s announcement of construction technical excellence colleges across the country—including close to my area, at the end of the new tramline in Dudley—£39 billion over the next 10 years for sustainable housebuilding, including social and affordable housing, and the largest sustained infrastructure funding in four decades, means that there will be a sustainable pipeline—

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I will ask this question in a spirit of genuine curiosity, if I may. The trade deal done with the United States earlier in the year by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the former Business Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), guaranteed more than 200,000 jobs in the west midlands at Jaguar Land Rover and in its supply chain. What future does the hon. Member envisage for those jobs in her ideal scenario, where we go back into a customs union tomorrow? What would she say to my constituents and the people in our west midlands region about the prospects for those jobs? Has she thought about that and does she have a plan?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  One of the things I am most proud of—having stood on doorstep after doorstep in Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley at the general election, hearing people tell the dreadful stories of how long they and their relatives had been waiting for hospital treatment—is the 45% fall in people waiting more than a year for their operation in the Black Country, in our hospital trusts. I am glad the Chancellor made the decisions she did in the last Budget that have enabled that.