Black Country Day

Antonia Bance Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Black Country Day.

What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz! As the Black Country MP for Walsall and Bloxwich, you know how important the subject of the debate is and will, I am sure, give it the respect that it deserves. I know that I speak for the whole Black Country, including your constituents and the constituents of MPs who cannot be present today, because we are one place—the Black Country is our region.

Sometimes people may say that we are part of the west midlands, but we have a pride and identity that are all our own. We are proud to wear the Black Country flag. There is some debate over the boundaries of the Black Country, but for the purposes of today I will treat it as our four boroughs of Sandwell, Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley, which means that 1.2 million people call our region their home.

Our region was the birthplace of the industrial revolution. If we look at the history books, that is clear: Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine hauled coal at the Bloomfield colliery, and James Watt improved it at the Coneygree colliery in Tipton. Both places are in my constituency. Whatever the Birmingham and Manchester MPs say, the birthplace of the industrial revolution was in the Black Country.

Our name comes from the comments made by the American ambassador who came to the Black Country and described us as

“black by day and red by night”.

The black from the steel mills and heavy industry is long gone, but our heavy industry is not. We commemorate those days in our Black Country flag: the red for the red at night, the black for industry, the white for the glass furnaces and the chains for the heavy industry of our ends.

The 14th of July was chosen as the day to commemorate our region because it coincides with the first day that Thomas Newcomen used that steam engine, in 1712. It is fitting that, unlike other regions, which may choose a saint’s day, the birthday of an eminent nobleman or the date of a battle as their regional day, we in the Black Country choose an industrial moment.

In the Black Country, we have had coal mining, steel fabrication, metal finishing, and nail, brick and chain making. Over the years, those industries have declined, but still the Black Country’s future is bright. It is still one of the UK’s most industrialised areas, thanks to iron foundries, and our haulage, automotive and metals industries. As we celebrate our heritage, we must remember the pivotal role that working people played in the creation of the modern Black Country.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady not only on securing the debate, but on the magnificent job she is doing in selling the Black Country to Westminster Hall and the wider community. Does she agree that her celebrating Black Country Day and others celebrating other days demonstrates the diversity across the United Kingdom? In my patch last weekend, we had a sporting and cultural celebration, with the Open at Royal Portrush golf club and other events. Diversity across the United Kingdom ought to be celebrated in the very way that she is alluding to in this debate.

[Antonia Bance]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. It is so important that each of our areas is celebrated for what they are—what they are now, what they have been and what they could be—and that we take note of the diversity of each of our areas.

This United Kingdom is made up of places, regions, identities, cities, towns and communities. Each deserves its opportunity—its day in the sun and its things that it is special and unique at. Each place deserves its own local pride. It is so important that we come together today to talk about the Black Country. The key things I want to talk about are about the way that our industrial heritage shapes our future. Some people might talk about their regional identity day and offer the best place to get a pint, the best regional delicacies or the most beautiful vistas.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend may know that I bought my very first house on the edge of the Black Country, within hearing distance of the Baggies’ home ground. I want to celebrate the Black Country’s very own orange chips. The orange chips are said to date back to world war two, but who knows? The best orange chips are always fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside, but they have a very secret ingredient. Would my hon. Friend like to share what that secret ingredient might be? Would she agree that chips on their own are fattening enough, bab, without making them the orange-battered kind we can only get in the Black Country?

[Antonia Bance]

Having recently run a competition for the best orange chips in Tipton and Wednesbury, I have great experience of sampling the double-battered delicacy—oh yes, we are talking about chips that then return to the batter and are deep-fried a second time. It was very hard to choose a winner for the contest; perhaps the Black Country Chippy or The Island House chippy, but I have not sampled them all yet. I will keep going until I have sampled every orange chip in the constituency.

The Black Country was built by working people. We remember the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath and their struggle for decent working conditions and pay. We are proud to commemorate their struggle every year at the chainmakers’ festival, which I was proud to speak at this year. We remember the workers of Tube Town—members of a union that was one of the forerunners of my union, Unite—who, in 1913, went on strike from their work metal forming and creating metal tubes, for decent wages. They were out for weeks on end. Somehow, they kept body and soul together. Somehow, those families prevailed and they won.

We remember those who, through no fault of their own, were caught up in the unsafe conditions of the industrial world in the Black Country of the early 20th century. I think particularly of the Tipton catastrophe, when 19 teenage girls working in an unlicensed munitions factory at Dudley Port, dismantling redundant world war one cartridges, were killed in an explosion. They were teenage girls in unsafe, unlicensed conditions. What happened to them changed the law and brought about some of our modern health and safety culture.

Although the Black Country is a proud and vibrant place, we do not always get our fair shakes. We do not always get what we are due. We are a proud place, we work hard and we want to do our best, but the legacy of deindustrialisation and 14 long years of austerity has meant that the people of the Black Country are less likely to be in work and more likely to be sick. Our children are more likely to live without enough money to live on. Forces bigger than any individual family or person hold us back.

I stand here today talking about Black Country Day and about our area to make the case for the two big changes that we need for the future of the Black Country. The first is a modern industrial strategy. I was proud to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business and Trade set out our modern industrial strategy a few weeks ago in the House. That industrial strategy named our West Midlands combined authority as one of the key locations for all eight of the industrial strategy priority sectors.

We were the only place in the country where all eight of those sectors were named as a priority, and our own Black Country was named as the priority for the clean energy industries. We are beginning to see that come true. In the last couple of months we have seen a £45 million investment from Eku Energy in a battery storage facility in my constituency at Ocker Hill on the site of a former power station. It is a lovely thought that modern, clean energy facilities can take over the space previously occupied by carbon-intensive polluting industries.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about the history, landscape and geography of the Black Country and the fact that our roots are in industry. She makes a very good point about how we can reuse our brownfield sites—for example, for the battery and energy storage system. Does she agree with me that we should focus 100% on reusing brownfield industrial sites before we start damaging our precious greenbelt with things such as battery energy storage systems?

[Antonia Bance]

As a proud Black Country MP, it is good to see the right hon. Member in her place today. I thank her for the intervention, but I am afraid I cannot agree. Much of my constituency is brownfield land. It is right that we look to use brownfield land first of all, both for industrial uses and for housing, but the key problem is that brownfield land is expensive to remediate and that our need for industrial sites and housing is urgent.

I support the Government’s policy of a limited review of the greenbelt and using some of the greybelt to ensure that we can use low value land for housing. Some colleagues around the room might not agree, but when there are 21,000 people on the housing waiting list, as there are in Sandwell, and when we regularly encounter families living in temporary accommodation infested with rats and insects, who show us with shame—they should have no shame; the shame is not theirs—the arms of their children covered in bites, then perhaps we can have a conversation about which pieces of land should be used for what and about the best use of scarce public investment in land suitable for building.

The other investment that I want to talk about relates to a wonderful, timely announcement being made today by colleagues at the Department for Transport. They have announced the third round of the advanced fuels fund; I am delighted to say that Sumo Engineering in my constituency will get £4.5 million for its CLEARSKIES initiative, a demonstration project that will help to produce sustainable aviation fuel. I was so pleased to hear about that. Given that we will also have the battery storage facility in Ocker Hill, the Black Country could really become the hotbed and home of clean energy industries, which offer so much potential for the types of jobs that we need.

I should also say that I was glad that my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary announced action on energy prices in the industrial strategy. We so urgently need to bring down the costs of industrial energy to ensure we carry on with advanced manufacturing and the types of clean energy infrastructure development that we know is the future for our ends.

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that the three trade deals that our Prime Minister secured earlier this year with India, the EU and America will benefit our region greatly and can really help to turbocharge manufacturing in the Black Country?

[Antonia Bance]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend, one of my constituency neighbours, for his intervention. It was a difficult day when we all stood here in Westminster Hall debating the future of the automotive industry under the tariffs from the United States. I thank my colleagues at the Department for Business and Trade and the Treasury, as well as the Prime Minister, for getting that deal, which secured 34,000 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover in the west midlands.

As I said, the Black Country needs the industrial strategy to bring good jobs back to our region, but the other thing it needs is our due. When I accepted the role of Member of Parliament for Tipton and Wednesbury, I spoke about the fact that we had for so long been an object of charity and about community self-defence. Our food banks and voluntary organisations had done everything they could, and now it was time to give us our due. I can see that beginning to happen in the local government finance review, which recognises the deprivation in Sandwell, the 12th most deprived local authority in the country, and will finally put back the money that is our due—the tax that we have paid—to reopen our Sure Starts and ensure that we have the local services we need.

I hope very much that when the trailblazer neighbourhoods are announced in the coming days, they will include the neighbourhoods in Princes End identified by the independent commission on neighbourhoods, and that when we see the child poverty strategy this autumn, it will put the resources into the children of Tipton and Wednesbury, where 50%—one in two; every second door; every second family; every second child—live in poverty. The number of siblings that you have should not determine whether you can have your tea tonight.

My speech has perhaps been more political than some other speeches about regional days. I have made a speech about the changes we want to see for the proud place that is the Black Country on this, Black Country Day. I thank everyone for turning up today and look forward to hearing about their experiences of and priorities for the Black Country.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) for organising this debate. It is a pleasure to see so many Black Country MPs together to discuss our great region with such passion. It is also nice to hear Members from outside our region talking about the Black Country.

We heard about the anchor for the Titanic, which was built between my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles). Then, of course, it went to Belfast to be constructed. In the past few weeks, I have been talking to businesses in my constituency that continue to export to Harland and Wolff, and it is great to hear that British shipbuilding is coming back to Northern Ireland.

I speak today with pride in the Black Country, in my constituency of Halesowen and in the generations of working people who built this country with their bare hands. The Black Country once powered the world. Its furnaces lit the skies; its tools forged the British Empire. In Halesowen, we forged the anchor for the Titanic—shaped by skill, forged in fire, and a symbol of what the region could achieve when it was backed, believed in and properly invested in.

However, our greatest legacy is not iron or steel but our people. It is people such as the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath—working-class women from my constituency who, over a century ago, toiled for long hours in blistering heat for poverty pay. In 1910, they stood together, went on strike, and won. They secured one of Britain’s first minimum wages, lifting not just themselves but a generation of working people out of poverty. They did not just make chains; they broke them. Their courage and clarity of purpose still echo through our region today.

Once again, our people are being held back not by a lack of determination but by a lack of investment and political will. Since the 1980s, successive Conservative Governments have allowed the foundations of our industrial economy to be chipped away, factory by factory and job by job. Apprenticeships have vanished, and young people have been told to aim lower. Today, youth unemployment in Dudley borough is 8.6%—nearly double the national average. That is not just a statistic; it is thousands of young lives stuck in limbo in our towns. We cannot talk about pride in our past if we are not prepared to fight for our future.

When I was in the Royal Marines, I saw how working in defence can be an excellent career. With defence spending now set to rise to 2.6% of GDP by 2030—more than £75 billion a year—young people in the Black Country have a real opportunity. The UK defence industry already supports more than 260,000 jobs and contributes £10 billion to our economy, but the benefits are not being felt equally across our country. That has to change. With targeted investment in defence manufacturing, we can bring jobs, apprenticeships and advanced engineering back to our region.

[Antonia Bance]

Was my hon. Friend, like me, pleased to see our West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker’s new growth strategy, which was published yesterday? It explicitly identifies a number of the industrial strategy sectors, particularly the defence sector, as areas of potential growth in the Black Country.

[Alex Ballinger]

It is fantastic to see the Mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker, promoting growth across our region. I am also delighted to see that the defence sector, which will be vital for jobs not just in our region but across the West Midlands combined authority, is front and centre among all the sectors that are being supported.

With targeted investment in defence manufacturing, we can bring jobs, apprenticeships and advanced engineering back to the Black Country. We can retool our factories, rebuild our pride and give our young people the skills, wages and future they deserve. This is how we honour the chainmakers of Cradley Heath—not with warm words, but with action. They fought for better pay and a better life. If they could look at us now, they would want to know that their fight still means something and that their spirit lives on, not in museums but in jobs, hope and communities that are building again.

Does the Minister agree that our industrial strategy should reflect the history and expertise in the Black Country? Will he join me in working to build up investment in defence, automotive and advanced manufacturing, so that we can get back to doing what we do best—building for Britain?

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

Several Members mentioned the late Queen; as she was fond of saying, “Recollections may vary.” When Andy Street left office, he was particularly proud of the contribution made by his work, especially as somebody who was absolutely rooted in that local area. He was also proud that he had not levied a precept on residents, and I know the Minister may have something to say about the impact of local government funding on households across the west midlands.

Of course, the Black Country & Marches institute of technology is also often mentioned. There is a sense that, to sustain the region’s industrial heritage for the future, there is a need to invest in apprenticeships, education and opportunities so that the new jobs being created can go to local people who have the skills those jobs require. We know the world is changing, and people need to be able to adapt to meet those challenges. Of course, the Department took the decision in 2021 to open its first non-London headquarters in Wolverhampton.

I have gone through a list of initiatives, investments and positive points, but we all recognise that our country faces significant challenges. As this is a local government debate, we must consider the financial position of local authorities in the Black Country, whose work is important to supporting local heritage. For example, we have heard from City of Wolverhampton Council’s budget consultation that it has faced unprecedented financial challenges since this Government took office. Indeed, it has never previously experienced such serious financial concerns under any party in office.

[Antonia Bance]

Does the hon. Member recognise that a number of our Black Country local authorities have, over the past 15 years, lost hundreds of millions of pounds of local government funding, which has led to the diminution of local government services, the closure of libraries and Sure Starts, the creation of potholes across our road network and, frankly, the degradation of our public realm? That is not an occurrence of the last year, but of the last 15. One might hope that action will be taken in the review of local government finance to set that right.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

Order. The motion is about Black Country day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Antonia Bance]

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate and put our brilliant region in the spotlight today. I thank the Minister, the shadow Minister and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), for their contributions, and I thank all hon. Members who have spoken. We have done our region proud.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Black Country Day.