Commons
Proceedings
21 October 2025
Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry
I know that the Minister will not want to comment on individual candidates to chair the national grooming inquiry. However, may I put on record that Jim Gamble is a highly regarded police officer with a long experience of dealing with this matter? His leadership of the child exploitation and online …
Commons
Westminster Hall
21 October 2025
2 contributions
Co-operative Sector: Government Support
My hon. Friend kindly mentioned Rochdale and its proud history in 1844 of the Rochdale pioneers founding this global movement for social justice. It is still a movement that is alive and kicking today. It is not a relic, as is evidenced by the Metro Moneywise credit union, which celebrated its 35th …
My hon. Friend may not be aware that four of the original 28 Rochdale pioneers were warpers and weavers from Spotland Bridge, which is where I grew up. That makes me incredibly proud of the sense of working-class ingenuity and self-help that lives on today. Directly to my hon. Friend’s point, does h…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
15 October 2025
2 contributions
Pride in Place
rose—
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. In Rochdale, we warmly welcome this £20 million investment in Smallbridge and Hurstead, which is very much overdue. I am the Labour and Co-operative MP for Rochdale, which is the home of the Co-op, and we know more than anyone elsewhere the power of local people comi…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 October 2025
Middle East
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and warmly welcome the ceasefire, both for the beginning of the end of the suffering of the children of Gaza and for the release of the hostages, one of whom is Nimrod Cohen, whose brother I met in Jerusalem earlier this year and whose family are eternall…
Commons
Oral Questions
14 October 2025
2 contributions
Warm Home Discount: Fuel Poverty
4. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of extending the warm home discount on levels of fuel poverty.
I am delighted that thanks to this Government and the warm home discount eligibility extension, thousands more Rochdale families will be eligible for £150 off their bills this winter. It will ensure that young and old alike get more help with their bills this winter. I would like to raise the case o…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
13 October 2025
Manchester Terrorism Attack
I pass on my sincere condolences to the families and friends of Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby, some of whom were in the Gallery earlier. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) said, it is important to mention how Jews, Muslims and Christians came together,…
Commons
Oral Questions
13 October 2025
2 contributions
Social and Affordable Housing
1. What steps he is taking to build more social and affordable homes.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a council house in Rochdale in a stable and secure home with an affordable rent, but sadly that is an opportunity and a childhood denied to far too many children in my constituency today. Why? Because under the last 10 years of the Conservative Government, the number…
Commons
Debate
16 September 2025
Sentencing Bill
Will the Lord Chancellor give way?
Commons
Proceedings
10 September 2025
Qatar: Israeli Strike
Blessed are the peacemakers, or so we are told—so it seems particularly wicked that Israel can deliberately target the country that is doing more to promote peace than any other in the region. Is the tragedy of the middle east not that the Palestinians in Gaza and the Israelis in Israel are governed…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
2 September 2025
Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
I welcome today’s update on the national inquiry into grooming gangs, particularly the way in which the Minister has made sure that victims and survivors are definitely going to be at the heart of whatever happens. During the trial of seven members of a Rochdale grooming gang earlier this year, it e…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
1 September 2025
Middle East
I welcome the Government’s intention to recognise formally the state of Palestine at the UN later this month—which many Labour Members have pushed for ever since our election, and which was in our manifesto. It is the biggest shift in British foreign policy in decades, and a major step forward to gi…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
1 September 2025
Borders and Asylum
I warmly welcome the content of the Home Secretary’s statement, particularly the UK-France migrant deal, which provides a safe and legal route for all those families who are genuinely fleeing persecution and who play by the rules and want to enter the country legally. The deal balances that with the…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 July 2025
Music Streaming: Label-led Principles
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. First, I declare an interest, in that my son Fin is a member of the band Big Huge New Circle, whose latest single “Pearl” is out on Spotify, and is recommended by Clash magazine, which calls it “beautifully complex”.
I welcome today’s announcement, particularly the …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
21 July 2025
Middle East
Earlier this month I hosted in Parliament Dr Waseem Saeed, a British surgeon who had returned from working in the Nasser hospital in Gaza, where he treated children for severe burns, amputations and shrapnel wounds that were crawling with maggots. He showed us videos that would shock everybody in th…
Commons
Proceedings
17 July 2025
Business of the House
Hanson Springs in Rochdale was founded 62 years ago by Malcolm Hanson, and it has gone from strength to strength. This year the company is investing £3 million in new plant, machinery and expanded factory space. Malcolm turns 80 next month, but still works 40 hours a week and his granddaughter Lucy …
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
16 July 2025
Engagements
Q6. Workers in Rochdale on the minimum wage received a much needed pay rise this summer, thanks to this Government, but honest businesses are being undermined by the menace of illegal working, particularly by illegal migrants from Iran and Iraq in bogus barber shops and fake vape shops. Does the P…
Commons
Debate
15 July 2025
2 contributions
Welfare Spending
The Minister is making an important speech with which many Labour Members will agree. She will be aware that 59% of families with more than two children and which are on universal credit are in work. That is far from the feckless parent caricature that we have heard from the Conservatives. More impo…
The shadow Minister makes a point about the state funding children. Does he accept that a million families that have three or more children receive child benefit presently? If he accepts that point, does he, as a father of three—as am I—not accept the principle that those children come first under t…
Commons
Debate
14 July 2025
UK-France Migration: Co-operation
On Friday, the BBC interviewed an Egyptian economic migrant named Obaida in Calais who said that he had tried and failed four times to cross the channel but, since the Prime Minister’s agreement with President Macron, he was giving up:
“I don’t want to go to Britain any more, because they are makin…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
3 July 2025
Business of the House
Rochdale is the historic birthplace of the co-op movement, so it is fitting that we will host the UK Co-op Congress 2025 this weekend. There is an impressive array of speakers, including Steve Coogan, Patrick Grant, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes), and the Leader of the Hou…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
2 July 2025
2 contributions
Engagements
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 2 July.
When this Labour Government extended free school meals to half a million more children last month, Laura—a working mum in Rochdale—told me it would save her £500 a year. She said:
“I am over the moon. Only Labour would have done this.”
Does the Prime Minister agree that people voted Labour a year …
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
1 July 2025
Supporting Economic Growth
After years of unfunded and undelivered promises from the Conservatives on levelling up, places like Rochdale are finally getting the fairer share of money that they really deserve. The Minister expanded a little on the Green Book, but could she outline how its place-based approach will help places …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
26 June 2025
G7 and NATO Summits
Rochdale has been a proud home for Ukrainians ever since they were forced to flee Soviet starvation, murder and oppression in the 1930s and 1940s, so many in my constituency will warmly welcome the decision to send 350 advanced air missiles to Ukraine, built in Britain and paid for by the interest o…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
26 June 2025
Business of the House
This weekend, the England women’s football team play their final friendly before they defend the Euro championship trophy they won so brilliantly in 2022. I am delighted to say that Rochdale’s very own Keira Walsh will again wear the No. 4 shirt at the heart of our midfield. Will the Leader of the H…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
23 June 2025
UK Modern Industrial Strategy
Rochdale Training provides local apprenticeships in engineering and other skills that we desperately need, and works with local employers to deliver that. Its chief executive, Jill Nagy, told me that today’s announcement of £1.2 billion in extra funding for training is warmly welcomed, as are the ne…