Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire

Sarah Edwards Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Adam Jogee]

I am grateful to my constituency neighbour. She makes an excellent point, which she knows that I agree with. I will come to ceramics. She is correct to raise those points.

We hear far too many stories about our young people being lazy and unwilling to put in the graft to get on in life.

[Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for making such an important speech on the incredible things that happen in Staffordshire. It is really important to our young people that the youth hubs that have been announced—one of them is in Tamworth—have a base and a home. That, though, is where Staffordshire county council has really failed in recent years when it could be leading the way. Does my hon. Friend think that Councillor Murray, the leader of Staffordshire county council, is asleep at the wheel and has possibly gone AWOL on this one? Does he agree that we really need to invest in young people?

[Adam Jogee]

As ever, my hon. Friend puts it as well as anyone else could, particularly when it comes to the sorry state of affairs at county hall. In Newcastle-under-Lyme, we are lucky to have a youth hub, too, but as she says, it is of great importance to ensure that the county council steps up and helps us to deliver those services for our people. I look forward to working with her to hold the county and whoever its leadership is to account in the period ahead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Jogee]

That is a good point well made by my hon. Friend. She is correct. Like her, I have many rural communities that would absolutely benefit from a sensible approach to transport from Staffordshire county council. In that fight, as in many others, she has my full agreement.

My town has been brought to a standstill by road closures on different neighbouring roads at the same time and by delayed works that just do not seem to get finished, and there has been little leadership or communication from those in charge at county hall. I have written directly to the leader of Staffordshire county council and have heard absolutely nothing back. When I have received responses, most of them are nonsense. In fact, I have 22 letters in response to my raising issues that local people have brought to me as their Member of Parliament, and they all essentially say the same thing:

“This has been added to the County Councillor’s Divisional Highway Programme or the DHP”.

Then we hear nothing more.

[Sarah Edwards]

My hon. Friend has a whole bundle of letters. We regularly write to the county council, and I find that responses are sometimes received four to five months later. Is he having the same issue, not just in relation to roadworks, but in relation to young people and their special educational needs and disabilities situations? That is failure from the county council.

[Adam Jogee]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and it is not a party point. I suspect that the right hon. Members for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) and for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), and the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) would agree with other Staffordshire MPs on the point she has made: the county council is missing in action and is failing to deliver the services that our people deserve—and that they pay for. We are not asking for favours. We are asking for things to be done properly and in a timely way. If the county council cannot fix our roads in a sensible and ordered way, without impacting businesses and stopping people getting to work, school and the hospital, it should get out the way and let others do so.

We know the challenges before us, but what do we do about them? There are examples of best practice within organisations such as the King’s Trust, which for half a century has given young people across the kingdom and the Commonwealth the confidence and skills they need to succeed and thrive.