(3 days, 20 hours ago)
Commons ChamberI spent a week in Leeds at the UK’s Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum, banging the drum for Bournemouth and the south-west to say that we are open for business with this Labour Government. Investors and builders are responding. They are encouraged by the pension, regulatory and planning reforms and by this infrastructure approach, but we need more investment. We have £1.6 million going into Bournemouth and Poole college, £500 million into two new NHS buildings and £230 million into water upgrades, but we need more. Will the Chief Secretary meet me and Dorset MPs to consider how we will take forward this place-based approach towards investment, so that Dorset can benefit?
(5 days, 20 hours ago)
Commons ChamberI want to start by aligning myself with, and commending the speeches of, my hon. Friends the Members for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis), for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes), for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy). I am proud to stand alongside my colleagues and was proud to listen to what they had to say today. And because of what they had to say today, I have less to say, which will allow more people to speak.
I have been sent here by my constituents to defend and further their right to safe and illegal abortion. My inbox has been inundated with messages from constituents who are concerned, and who want to be able to have safe and legal abortions. They want to be removed from the criminal justice system, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gower said, because we have situations where clinically vulnerable women, who have gone through some of the worst experiences that anybody can go through, will in some cases be arrested straight from the hospital ward, hurried to cells and made to feel unmitigated levels of shame and guilt, on top of the physical and mental traumas they have already experienced.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree with those bodies and I agree with him.
Finally, the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) made an argument about a bogeyman of American politics somehow being conjured up by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow. I represent Bournemouth East. In my constituency, we have BPAS Bournemouth, which was targeted by US Vice-President J.D. Vance when he made his point about buffer zones and abortion access. I have spoken with the people who work at that clinic since that speech was given, and they are scared. They want to support women’s reproductive rights and women’s health and safety, but staff members’ vehicles are being tampered with, and women seeking the clinic’s support are finding their access impeded. They want us to be sensitive in what we say and how we say it, because there are people across our constituencies who are deeply concerned for the welfare of women, and who look to us to send the right signal through how we conduct our politics.
I was a signatory to new clause 1 and new clause 20. I recognise that there will be a vote on new clause 1 first. I will vote in favour of it, and I call on all Members across this House to do the same.
We have run out of time, so I will call the Front-Bench speakers. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
(7 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberOrder. I want to get the remaining 20 colleagues in, so please keep your questions short—and, Leader of the House, keep your answers short too.
Bournemouth East has had a fantastic few weeks. We have just seen ground broken on a new building at the Royal Bournemouth hospital, Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal has been installed as the chancellor of Health Sciences University, and perhaps best of all, we have seen Bournemouth football club beat the Prime Minister’s favourite club, Arsenal, and the Leader of the House’s favourite club, Manchester City. Will the Leader of the House join me and the people of Bournemouth in congratulating everyone involved in making our town an even better place?
I think I should put it on the record that I am from a family of Gooners.