Roberta Blackman-Woods

It goes without saying that one of the best days of the year, not only for the residents of Durham, but people up and down the country is the annual Durham Miners Gala. This year was the 131^st meeting, and it was an absolute pleasure to attend.

As well as being a great day for all the family, the Miners Gala is a symbolic event with a key message, reminding us of the importance of trade unionism and our mining heritage.

All in all, the gala was well attended, and I was delighted to see so many key figures from the Labour movement there, including the four candidates standing to be the next leader of the Labour Party. It was a great chance for members of the public to speak to the candidates and get to know them, which I believe is so important when choosing a new leader.

However, it is ironic to me that as we celebrate the work of trade unions in securing better rights for workers, the government are pushing ahead with a bill that will dismantle the rights of workers and damage the support network that they currently have in the form of the trade unions.

The Trade Union Bill, which was presented to the Commons on Wednesday, will impose a minimum of 50% turnout and public sector strikes would need the backing of at least 40% of those eligible to vote. This is conveniently coupled with the government’s refusal to allow electronic ballots.

The legislation would also require workers to give 14 days notice of strike action, and allow employers to bring in agency staff in the event of a strike. The Government claim that this bill is aimed at protecting working families from strike action, despite the fact that strikes are at historically low levels. More working days were lost to labour disputes in 1926 than in the 37 years combined between 1974 – 2011, and the number of days lost to strikes has also decreased dramatically since the seventies.

Of course, strikes should always be a last resort, and I certainly don’t enjoy mass scale disruption, however trade unions are a vital part of society in protecting the rights of workers. Let’s not forget, without their existence we would all be working a sixty hour week on very little pay.

This bill is an ideological attack, an attempt from this government to silence their critics. The legislation could also cut the amount of money unions have to mount campaigns – or donate to parties such as Labour – with members actively having to “opt in” to pay the so-called political levy, which is currently automatic unless members opt-out.

This attempt to bankrupt the Labour Party is extremely one sided, as there are no parallel proposals to insert more democratic requirements on company donations to parties. I can assure all those who attended the Miners Gala, and all my constituents, that I will continue to stand up for the rights of workers and to oppose this bill.

It has been a busy couple of weeks for me, as you can imagine. Of course, more than anything I was disappointed with the General Election result, but it is now time that we move forward and focus on positive change for the future.

I am, as always, grateful to have been re-elected as the MP for Durham City, and I relish the opportunity to continue representing and standing up for all my constituents. Alongside my role as an MP, I also continue in the Shadow Communities and Local Government team, where I will be focusing on planning and housing.

With these two factors in mind, last week I wound up the Opposition Debate on Housing. The debate was scheduled by the Labour Party in order to force the government to recognise that there is a growing housing crisis in this country, and that we must bring forward a comprehensive plan to tackle the housing crisis, setting out concrete steps to build more homes, including badly-needed affordable homes, boost home ownership, improve the private rented sector and reduce homelessness and rough sleeping. This government have presided over the lowest levels of home building since the Second World War, and the homes that do exist are too often unsuitable to live in. One of our basic needs is to live somewhere safe and warm, and in 2015 it is appalling that for too many people this is an unattainable goal.

Unfortunately, this government have so far failed to recognise that if no new homes are built, there simply won’t be enough places for people to live. We need 245,000 homes to be built every year in England alone, just to keep up with demand, but only 125,000 new homes were built in England between April 2014 and March 2015. And the areas in which new homes have been built are not necessarily the areas where houses need to be built.

The government’s “Help to Buy” policy is seriously flagging, and the government seem to have failed to understand the importance of infrastructure in shaping our economy and society.

I also took the opportunity this week to take part in the debate on the skills crisis in the UK. The UK is facing the worst skills crisis for a generation, with skills levels failing to support the diversity of the modern economy and secure job opportunities and investment for the future. It is vital that we invest in skills, as it is one of the biggest barriers posed towards the growth of the economy, and nowhere is this more evident than in the North East. In my speech on Wednesday I talked about the report from the local enterprise partnership last year, which set out the challenge very clearly, stating that, for the north-east, it “is not just the number of jobs but the quality of these jobs”

Improving the quality is fundamental to its plan. It says: “the area needs to increase the volume of skills at a higher level to address a changing demographic, in particular higher skills required by employers of younger people and those moving into and between work”. Young people need to know that it is not simply a choice between University and nothing; instead we have to improve training and skills for our school leavers and young people, in order to keep up with our ever changing and diverse economy.

Particularly we need to improve the number of women in skills training, as these levels are particularly poor.

I finished my speech by asking the Minister what he will be doing to sustain investment in the infrastructure supporting education and skills development to ensure that those opportunities are spread into the most deprived areas of our country.

You can watch both my speeches here:

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/1f7ba9fa-fe73-458c-a44f-56ccab7a7ab6?in=15:02:57&out=15:1

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/7960ae8e-606f-4582-97b7-d6a94164d0fd?in=16:11:20

The last two weeks in politics have been some of the most challenging, exhausting, interesting and important that I have experienced as an MP.

Scotland:

The challenging bit started with the Scottish referendum. I have been going to Scotland on and off for a while and like others was becoming increasingly distressed as the referendum approached that the Yes campaign was becoming more visible and voluble in its activities. I dislike the SNP politics of division and profoundly believe that the UK is better staying together, especially in these uncertain times globally. I feel that the North East in particular has much in common with its Scottish neighbours. Scottish culture adds to the great diversity of the UK and is something to be cherished by all of us. I found the whole separatist, we will go it alone, put up the borders ideology of the nationalists deeply disturbing. Whilst I am really pleased (and immensely relieved) that the No campaign I worked so hard for won, I do feel that the politics of separatism and division have not been challenged enough.

One good thing to emerge from the result, however, is that greater devolution for England is now higher on the political agenda. I deeply hope that Labour’s commitment to greater devolution for our regions, through structures that already exist and a constitutional convention, are the ideas that win out in the end, rather than that of an English Parliament which again I think is a retreat into the politics of separateness.

My overriding view on Scotland is that we (and particularly the Labour Party) must do more to work on what we have in common. This means learning from each other, seeking greater prosperity throughout the United Kingdom and talking about how we all jointly influence Britain’s role in the world. We genuinely need to promote solidarity between our nations and challenge those who emphasise what divides rather than unites us. Lastly we need to ensure that in debates in the future those opposing the nationalist cause are not subject to intimidation and where everyone can speak without being shouted down, threatened or silenced. I guess it means giving that silent majority a voice.

Labour Party Conference:

The exhausting and interesting bit came from the Labour Party conference. I spoke at a large number of fringes on the planning system, garden cities, housing for disabled people, planning for the needs of older people, improving the quality of the built environment and much more. Highlights of the conference for me can be summed up in four speeches.

Hilary Benn was simply superb highlighting the need for greater devolution of powers to local authorities and highlighting the dreadful impact of cuts to local authority services in poor communities. He also loudly re-stated to thunderous applause our policy to repeal the bedroom tax.

Second was the speech given by Ed Miliband. He may have left out a sentence or two but it was a great speech to listen to. Full of detailed policy objectives on jobs, housing, the environment, training and apprenticeships, the NHS and public services and Britain’s role in the world too. You can read his speech here: http://press.labour.org.uk/post/98234398144/speech-by-ed-miliband-to-labours-annual-conference.

Third was the 91 year old Harry Leslie Smith, who gave an immensely personal view of the importance of the NHS to people’s lives and how we must do everything we can to save health care free at the point of use for future generations. He was wonderful and made me think that the conference would benefit from having more people like him speak.

Finally was the immensely powerful speech by Andy Burnham on the NHS and social care. He said a great deal about protecting the NHS and integrating health and social care to get the NHS back to a system that cares for people – reiterating Ed Miliband’s pledge to increase staffing numbers in the NHS substantially.

Unlike the view of the conference portrayed on television I did not find delegates subdued. Rather I thought people were thoughtful and engaged – aware of the huge difficulties that would face a future Labour government but keen to discuss what we could do with the opportunities too.

Vote on military action:

And then to the extremely important vote in Parliament today on whether the UK should provide limited military aid to support the Iraqi government.

I took a strong stand against the Iraq war in 2003 and I knew I would find this vote difficult. In the end I agreed to support the action as I think the situation is very different now to that which existed in 2003.

Ed Miliband summarised the key points to be considered very well by setting out 6 tests that should be met for military action to be legitimate;

• That is has just cause- I hope we would all agree that supporting a democratically elected government against an ISIS threat and seeking to prevent further acts of barbarism from ISIS is a just cause.
• That it is a last resort- I believe that this condition is met as it is not at all possible to negotiate with ISIS.
• It should be legal- the vote today comes as a result of the fact that assistance is being sought from the government of Iraq. As such, we would be responding to the request of a democratic state fighting for its own survival, a legitimate justification for intervention as recognised in the UN Charter. It is worth noting that there may in addition be separate humanitarian grounds for supporting the action.
• It should have a reasonable prospect of success- this is the hardest test, but a number of speakers in the Commons debate made clear the aim of the intervention. It is to reinforce the democratic government of Iraq and prevent the advance of ISIL by using international military air power while the Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmerga conduct a ground campaign against ISIL. This will be difficult, but there is already evidence that the US action is having the effect of holding back ISIL and preventing further killings.
• It must have regional support- a number of countries in the region and beyond are backing Iraq.
• It must be proportionate- the motion being debated today (see below) is for limited action only.

I have evaluated the tests that have been set for this action by the UN and others and am convinced that the need to assist the Iraqi forces against ISIS is a compelling one.

Like many people I have been horrified by the appalling activities of ISIS that have been appearing on our television screens and feel that we must do what we can to limit their ability to afflict pain and suffering on others. Their ideology is a perversion of Islam and must be challenged at every level.

So whilst I support military action against ISIS I also think that much more needs to be done nationally and internationally to address the radicalisation of young people and others, and their conversion to the jihadi cause. In the UK and elsewhere this will mean addressing the circumstances that lead to terrorism and the infliction of such violence on others.

Some people who have written to me suggest the West or even the Iraqi War is responsible for this radicalisation but I think that is too simplistic. The radicalisation was there long before that and ISIS is just the latest in a long list of terrorist organisations using Islam for its ends. Rather we must seek through education and dialogue a means for promoting peace, mutual respect and equal opportunity for our fellow human beings.

In the end we all know as parliamentarians that the solution to the threat of ISIS will be a political one that will need to emanate from inclusive democratic governments in the Middle East and beyond. Work on this as a political objective must never cease. As Ban Ki Moon said at the meeting of the UN Security Council this week, “over the long term, the biggest threat to terrorists is not the power of missiles- it is the politics of inclusion.”

But for the reasons that I have outlined above, in the meantime I think military action that could contain or reduce the capacity for ISIS to carry out barbaric activities against Muslims, Christians and others should be supported.

Last night I spoke out against the Chancellor’s latest budget. During my speech I highlighted how the Government has yet again failed to introduce measures to help people who are struggling to cope with the rising cost of living. I took this opportunity to once again highlight the fact that the Government have brought forward no strategies to invest in the north-east of England.

After nearly four years of this Lib-Dem/Tory Government, hard-working families in the North East are on average £1,600 a year worse off and not feeling any economic recovery at all. We need a recovery for the many, not just a few at the top and I have called for action to deal with the cost-of-living crisis. 

A Labour Government will:

• Freeze energy bills until 2017 and reform the broken energy market.

• Put young people back to work, with a job the young unemployed have to take – paid for by a tax on bank bonuses

• Expand free childcare for working parents to 25 hours a week for 3 and 4 year olds

• Cut taxes for 24 million working people on middle and low incomes with a lower 10p starting rate of income tax

• Cut business rates for small firms and a plan to get 200,000 homes built a year by 2020

• Balance the books in the next Parliament, in a fairer way including reversing the £3 billion tax cut for people earning over £150,000. 

The transcript of my budget speech is below, and the full debate can be found on Hansard here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140324/debtext/140324-0003.htm#140324-0003.htm_spnew13

There are some things to be welcomed in the Budget, such as the increase in the personal tax allowance, the rise in the tax-free ISA allowance and the Government’s decision to expand the tax on residential properties worth more than £2 million to those worth more than £500,000. Overall, however, the Budget delivers very little for people in my constituency.

The key question for people across Durham and the north-east is whether they are better off than they were when the coalition came to power back in 2010. For the overwhelming majority of my constituents, the answer would be a resounding no. Julia Unwin, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said:

“This is a Budget for the people who already have, not for the people who need to benefit most from the return to growth. It is a lost opportunity for the 13 million people…who need active intervention to tackle the structural barriers that keep them in poverty.

People on low incomes are unlikely to see the welcome benefits of growth unless there is targeted help with household and housing costs, with child care and with the nature of jobs and training. The expense and inefficiency of high levels of poverty continue to put a drag on growth.”

I agree with her and would emphasise that neither the Chancellor nor any Government Member today has shown any recognition of the need to rebalance growth in our economy. Significantly, there is a real need to reduce regional inequalities.

Many people in my constituency simply earn too little to benefit from the Chancellor’s tax cuts and can only dream of earning the £1,250 a month that can now be saved tax-free in ISAs, let alone being able to save that amount.

People in the north-east and my constituency hoped that the Chancellor would offer help to do something about the fact that they experience the highest unemployment levels in England. Last month, unemployment in my constituency fell by just 17. Although I welcome that fall, the Government must do more to get people back into work. I have found the Government’s rather triumphalist approach to unemployment quite disturbing. Worryingly, in my constituency youth unemployment has risen in the past two months and more than 900,000 young people are out of work across the country. That is not something to celebrate. It is clear that tens of thousands of young people are not experiencing any recovery at all.

The Government should have used last week Budget to introduce Labour’s compulsory jobs guarantee to get young people and the long-term unemployed off benefits and back to work. The compulsory jobs guarantee would be funded by a repeat of Labour’s successful tax on bank bonuses and by restricting pensions tax relief for people earning more than £150,000.

We know that working people are already £1,600 worse off under the coalition Government than they were before the general election, but the situation is exacerbated in the north-east by wages that are about £50 a week less than the UK average and almost £200 a week less than wages in London. Beth Farhat, regional secretary of the northern TUC, has criticised the Budget for failing to tackle the living standards crisis that is the fundamental concern of workers across our region and for the Chancellor’s failure to show any real support for the living wage or fair pay. According to the TUC, north-east workers are much worse off in real terms, and that is equivalent to about 23 average weekly shops, a year’s worth of energy bills for the average household or 88 tanks of fuel.

The regional secretary of the northern TUC has also questioned the quality of jobs being created in the region. Many are precarious and based on zero-hours contracts. She has also drawn attention to the fact that eight out of 10 private sector jobs that have been created have been in the south of England. The few jobs that are being created in the north-east are predominantly in low-paid sectors and leave many families on low incomes struggling to cope with the rising cost of living and increasingly reliant on payday loan companies or food banks. That is unacceptable and it is particularly worrying that the Government have brought forward no strategies to invest in the north-east of England.

The regional growth fund is not strategic. It is not directed towards areas of greatest need or the parts of the north-east’s economy that are most likely to grow. We need from the Government an approach that will direct funds to the areas of greatest need. To respond to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley), it is not the case that we are not championing our region, because many people in my area are highly skilled and would welcome the opportunity to work, but what they need is support from the Government for them and for industrial growth in the area.

Last Weekend I was delighted to attend the inaugural conference of Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) from the British Islands and Mediterranean Region (BIMR) of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Edinburgh.

The theme of the conference was Enhancing the Participation of Women in Politics. The conference provided an opportunity for women parliamentarians from across the region to discuss issues of mutual interest that fall within the remit of the newly established CWP BIMR group.

Speaking at the opening session of the conference, I gave a presentation to delegates about the lack of female representation in parliaments. Currently there are 147 women in the House of Commons, just over one-fifth of all MPs (23%), and a similar proportion of Members of the House of Lords are also women.

During the presentation I explored some of the special measures that other countries have introduced to help address this imbalance. One of the most effective measures that has been used to increase the number of women in parliaments has been the introduction of quotas, whether it be through legislative changes or party reforms.

Labour are the only major UK party to introduce reforms targeted specifically at increasing the number of women candidates and parliamentarians, and we have done this through the introduction of All-Women Shortlists.

Experience shows that All-Women Shortlists are the most effective way of delivering gender equality in our one member First-Past-The-Post electoral system. All-Women Shortlists and they have undoubtedly strengthened our Party and our Parliament.

At present Labour has 86 women MPs, constituting 33.5% of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which is more than all the other parties put together (61). Currently, only 4 out of 22 cabinet posts are held by women and the Tories and Lib Dems have now conceded that their parties have a problem with gender balance.

The conference sessions were very productive and gave delegates the opportunity to share their knowledge and experiences about the main barriers women face when trying to enter into politics. The parliamentarians identified ways in which we could look to overcome these obstacles and, in my role as a member of the CWP BIMR steering committee, I look forward to working with parliamentarians from across the region to increase the representation of women in parliaments and politics.

This is an essential step forward that we must take as we seek to tackle some of the broader issues facing women and girls throughout the Commonwealth, such as the threat from violence, access to education and equal employment opportunities.