Steve Witherden MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Oct 2024 · Gaza and Humanitarian Aid · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak under your chairpersonship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) on securing this crucial debate, which coincides with today’s nationwide workplace day of action for Palestine. This past year has been marked by indiscriminate loss, with lives tragically taken on 7 October last year and in the ongoing horrors that we have witnessed unfolding since then. Over 41,000 people have been reported killed in Gaza, alongside 695 in the west bank, with many more unaccounted for beneath the rubble. The impact on women and children has been particularly severe, with Oxfam reporting last week that more women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military in the past year than have been killed in any other conflict in the last two decades. In addition to the ongoing daily bombardment, the malnutrition, disease and unmet medical needs pose an even greater threat to Palestinian lives. Yesterday marked a year since Israel’s Minister of Defence declared a “complete siege” on Gaza, stating that there would be: “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas—it’s all closed.” The humanitarian crisis that has followed has been beyond comprehension. Approximately 83% of required food aid is blocked from entering Gaza, while the risk of famine becomes more imminent. Over 70% of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, has been destroyed, with more than 500 recorded attacks on medical facilities and hundreds of healthcare workers having been killed. Last month, the United Nations reported that the number of aid workers killed in Gaza in the past year is the highest ever recorded in a single crisis. With food aid and healthcare are under attack, and aid workers paying the ultimate price for their efforts to provide relief, we must urgently address this humanitarian disaster and ensure that unimpeded aid reaches all those who so desperately need it. I welcome the actions taken by the Labour Government in our first months in office to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. We have restored funding to UNRWA and engaged with the United Nations Security Council to ensure that there is a global focus on protecting civilians in Gaza. However, given the scale of the crisis, our Government should be doing everything in their power to secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Without one, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza will worsen, essential aid will be obstructed and suffering will be prolonged. The decision in September to suspend about 30 UK arms export licences to Israel from a total of approximately 350 marked a crucial step towards achieving a ceasefire for all Palestinians and Israelis. However, by excluding export licences for F-35 fighter jet parts from that announcement, the UK risks complicity in Israel’s potential violations of international law. F-35s, described as the most lethal fighter jets in the world, are partly manufactured in Britain and are currently deployed in Gaza, causing significant civilian casualties and hindering the distribution of aid while destroying vital healthcare infrastructure. Can the Minister clarify how the decision to continue allowing licences for F-35 components exported via third-party countries aligns with the UK’s international legal obligations? How does this approach ensure that critical aid can be delivered securely to alleviate the suffering in Gaza, especially given the risks to medical workers and the destruction of healthcare facilities? We must urgently end these atrocities and stand for humanity. Allowing the horrifying decline of this conflict to continue will lead to even greater consequences. Diolch yn fawr.

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

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  Thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I, too, praise all the brilliant maiden speeches that we have heard today. As I am one of—I believe—only three Welsh MPs in the Chamber at the moment, right hon. and hon. Members will be pleased to know that I do not intend to speak at length on this matter, which is devolved in Wales. I welcome this transformative Bill, which provides private renters in England with the long-term security and protections already granted to those in Wales. We heard the shadow Secretary of State speak earlier about delivering on manifestos. Well, we have managed that in Wales, which shows that if there is a sincere and genuine will to implement such measures, it can be done. Abolishing section 21 is crucial to reducing the threat of unfair evictions and the risk of homelessness. However, there are concerns that landlords will still have the power to evict tenants without cause through excessive rent increases. What measures are the Government introducing to safeguard tenants from such processes?

• 8 Oct 2024 · Farming and Food Security · Hansard source

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  The Conservatives sold farmers out, undercutting them with dodgy trade deals with New Zealand and Australia. To return to my right hon. Friend’s previous point, this Government have secured for UK beetroot growers access to the US market worth approximately £100,000 per year in increased exports. Does he agree that the contrast in trade agreements could not be starker? In trade deals, Labour protects farmers; the Conservatives sell them down the river.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Funding for Farming · Hansard source

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  British farmers have been badly let down by crippling trade deals, skyrocketing energy prices and devastating floods. Will the Secretary of State outline how he will restore confidence and support British farmers?

• 11 Sept 2024 · Steel Industry · Hansard source

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  2. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help support the steel industry in Wales.

• 11 Sept 2024 · Steel Industry · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for beginning to deliver funds to support business confidence and provide a safety net for workers. Will she explain how that will support workers who are dealing with great uncertainty?

• 11 Sept 2024 · Rural Depopulation · Hansard source

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  Under the last Conservative Government, too often we saw rampant exploitation of migrant workers in the seasonal workers scheme. Does the Minister share my concerns about such labour exploitation, and will she work with me on novel ideas to tackle it?

• 11 Sept 2024 · Port Talbot Transition Project · Hansard source

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  What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the workforce and their unions about this improved deal?

• 24 Jul 2024 · Education and Opportunity · Hansard source

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  I congratulate you on your election to your new role, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulate Eluned Morgan on becoming First Minister of Wales, echoing the sentiment expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes). I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) for his speech. It is lovely to listen to someone who is so knowledgeable and passionate about their constituency. As this is my first time speaking, I would like to pay tribute to my predecessors. I say “predecessors” as my constituency is a 35%-65% split between two former constituencies. First, I pay tribute to Craig Williams for all his excellent work representing the people of Montgomeryshire. Craig was always affable, gentlemanly and respectful towards me and my wife on every occasion we met. On polling day at the count, he conducted himself with decency and dignity at what must have been an extremely difficult time for him and his family. He was a credit to both himself and his family, and that needs to be acknowledged. Secondly, I pay tribute to Simon Baynes, the last ever MP for Clwyd South, which was partitioned four ways. The largest piece, Glyndŵr, and all of south and west Wrexham went into my constituency. I salute Simon’s work in bringing Llwyneinion Woods near Rhosllanerchrugog into community ownership. I grew up in Glyndŵr, but four miles outside the constituency, the pre-1996 Glyndŵr not having identical borders with the current incarnation. I have lived in the constituency for 15 years, having long put down roots there. Glyndŵr has an incredibly rich industrial heritage. Until relatively recently, Air Products and Monsanto, which straddled the villages of Acrefair and Cefn Mawr, dominated the landscape, the famous Ruabon red-brick dominating many towns and villages within and beyond the boundaries of the constituency. Going back further, I would argue that Chirk is second only to Bournville in the history of chocolate production in the UK. Bersham colliery was the final coalmine to close in north Wales, in 1986. It was also in Bersham, on the River Clywedog, that British ironmaking began in 1670 and smelting iron ore with coke began in 1721. Montgomeryshire makes up the larger part of the constituency and also has a fantastic history. It was here that Robert Owen, the pre-Marxist socialist, was born in 1771 and died in 1858, in Y Drenewydd, the largest town in my constituency. Montgomeryshire has been at the forefront of environmental and green initiatives. It is the home of the Centre for Alternative Technology, of which my father was a founder member in the 1970s. To this day, Montgomeryshire produces approximately 96% of the power it uses through renewable energy sources. That takes me on to what has to be one of my objectives, and one of the priorities for this Government: the creation of Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company which will see a vast increase in renewables. What else are my objectives? Until earlier this month, I was a national executive member of the NASUWT teachers’ union, so our new deal for working people is incredibly close to my heart. The banning of fire and rehire, and even more so the abolition of zero-hours contracts, are things that this country desperately needs. We will bring them about in the first 100 days of Government. As a teacher since 2005, and having been a community governor, a parent governor and a teacher governor at multiple schools, plus having held an array of elected teacher trade union roles since 2009, I feel that I am qualified to speak on matters pertaining to education. Our education system is in crisis. The number of teacher vacancies, especially in key subject specialisms, and the number of teachers leaving the profession, is alarming. I thoroughly welcome the Government’s proposal to recruit thousands of new teachers, but retention of them once they have qualified is of equal importance, if statistics on teachers leaving the profession within five years of qualifying are anything to go on. The underfunding of schools, especially secondary schools, is a ticking time bomb. My own experiences made me want to become a teacher. I was statemented dyslexic and dyscalculic at a time when a lot of people did not believe in such terms. I was completely illiterate until the age of 11, and was placed in bottom sets at school for many years and written off by many. I joined the profession to not write off anyone, and to fight for children to believe in themselves and realise their potential. That has gradually become more and more difficult for even the most dedicated teachers, as hungry children cannot realise their potential. This House needs to do everything in its power to ensure that there are no hungry children in the sixth-richest country in the world. Finally, I thank the House, all the staff and all the political parties for the kindness and support that I have received since the death of my mother a fortnight ago today. I think that in the final weeks of the short campaign, my mother perhaps did not tell me how ill she was. Even when she was deathly ill, she may have used her unforgettable influence—a three-line Whip of her own—to try to persuade my sisters and father not to tell me just how ill she was. I would have done the same had our roles been reversed. I thought we had weeks, but on 9 July, after Black Rod’s summons and during the Speaker’s speech, I was called out of the Chamber and told that we had hours. Thanks to the efficiency of the staff in this building, to whom I am eternally grateful, I was able to get straight on a train back to Wales in time, and thanks to the exemplary care of Dr McAndrew, Nurse Kathryn and their colleagues at Wrexham Maelor hospital, I was able to see my mother before she died, not suffering or in distress, to tell her I loved her, and to hold her hand while she passed away. When nearly everyone thought that Montgomeryshire would remain the only seat in Wales never to have a Labour MP, my mother believed that I would win it. She never gave up on me, just as she never gave up believing, when I was a boy, that I would be able to read one day and to make something of myself. I am glad that she got to see me elected, because I know that it made her very happy—and if it is permissible, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to dedicate this maiden speech to my mother. Diolch yn fawr.