Cost of Living Increases
Debate between Kim Leadbeater and Tulip Siddiq(1 year ago)
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Tulip Siddiq
My hon. Friend is always fighting for her constituents, and she is absolutely right. As someone who was on the shadow Education team before I came to this role, I know that if our young children are not fed or looked after properly, they will not fulfil their potential in this country. We should be looking at the future generations, and the Government are ignoring them.
The Government’s mishandling of the cost of living crisis is just another chapter in the long story of 13 years of economic failure. More than a decade of Conservative rule has seen our country fall behind as the British economy has experienced low growth, rock-bottom productivity rates and chronic under-investment.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an important speech. I find it deeply offensive that Conservative Members are laughing at some of these statistics. That just shows how out of touch they are with the reality of life for so many people across this country. Does she agree that it is an absolute travesty in 2023 that we have families where children are having to share beds, sleep on the floor or sleep in the bathtub because people cannot afford to move house, to pay their rent and to pay for food for their families? That is not a laughing matter.
Tulip Siddiq
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Having campaigned in her constituency, I know there are huge levels of poverty in certain places. Someone from the back said that we are lucky here because we are MPs and get paid a decent salary. We certainly should not be laughing at people who are struggling to make ends meet.
I remind the House that, when Labour was in government, real GDP growth averaged 2%. If growth had continued at the same rate under this Tory Government, we would have £40 billion more to spend on our public services, without having to raise a single tax. Instead, a lack of strategic policy making, economic uncertainty and the absence of an industrial strategy mean that the UK is going through the slowest economic recovery in the G7.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Debate between Kim Leadbeater and Tulip Siddiq(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. A lot of Members will be well versed with the details of my constituent’s case. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been unlawfully detained in Iran for nearly six years now, separated from her young daughter and her family. She served the first five years of her first sentence and was then put under house arrest at her parents’ house, wearing an ankle tag. She then faced another charge and was sentenced to another year, and then a year’s travel ban—effectively, two more years of being separated from her family in London.
Nazanin appealed the sentence of her second case, which was rejected. At that time, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, decided to go on hunger strike. I say to Members across the House that no one goes on hunger strike on a whim. Richard Ratcliffe went on hunger strike because he felt that he had no other option, and that this was his last resort. He went on hunger strike for three weeks outside the Foreign Office in order to capture the attention of those in the upper echelons of Government, because he does not think that they are helping with his wife’s plight. I am disappointed that in the three weeks during which Richard was starving himself outside the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister of our country did not come to visit him.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
Has the Prime Minister met my hon. Friend and Richard in recent years? What has his personal intervention been in this case? Does he keep in touch with my hon. Friend? Has he shown the leadership and compassion needed in this case?
Tulip Siddiq
The Prime Minister did meet us shortly after becoming Prime Minister, but he has not done so in recent years. After dealing with this case for nearly six years, having tabled eight urgent questions in the House, and having dealt with five Foreign Secretaries and countless Ministers, I think it is high time that the Prime Minister, knowing the details, got involved properly.