Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I also pass on my condolences to Tyrone O’Sullivan’s family. The coalfield communities’ travails throughout the 1980s and ’90s weigh with us, and some of the investment made since then has seen many of those communities turn the corner, but there is more to be done. I look forward to talking to the hon. Lady about what more we can do.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

On any index we choose—social mobility, inequality, deprivation, the funding of public services and so on—our constituencies in the so-called red wall have been sinking throughout this Administration. A Minister recently told the House that we will get £20 million from the levelling-up fund, but it never came. In any case, £20 million would not transform our constituencies. What does the Secretary of State say to the old miner I met in the Co-op on Saturday afternoon in our village, who said, “Will you say to Mr Gove, ‘Levelling up, who does he think he’s kidding?’”?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is a very effective and passionate advocate not just for his constituents but for coalfield communities more broadly, but recent work by the Onward think-tank has pointed out that, under this Government, coalfield regeneration—the establishment of new enterprises and the creation of fresh opportunities—has accelerated at a rate not seen under the last Labour Government. That is why so many coalfield communities, from Blyth to Derbyshire, voted for the Conservatives, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), in 2019.