Helen Jones

Queen's Speech

Wide praise for MP's 'Thoughtful and incisive contribution to Queen's speech debate'

In a wide ranging contribution to the Queen's Speech Debate Helen Jones received high praise from all sides of the House of Commons. Education Secretary Alan Johnson described it as 'one of the most thoughtful and incisive speeches I have heard in the House.' In her speech Helen touched on the economy, education, housing and citizenship issues.

She acknowledged the fact that it was difficult for young people to get a foot on the housing ladder. She commended the government for encouraging more forms of home ownership and for the investment provided to bring housing up to a decent standard. Most importantly she called on government to look at the provision of affordable housing saying, "Quite simply, developers often wriggle out of their obligation to provide affordable housing on developments, but they should not be allowed to. We need many more mixed developments of houses for sale and for rent whether through social landlords, housing associations, private developers or, dare I tell ministers, local authorities."

Helen made particular reference to the need for Warrington borough council to improve its service and provision when it came to the local neighbourhood environment many of her constituents live in. She said, "In authorities like mine there is not enough effort put into improving the general environment in which people live. Litter, graffiti and vandalism need to be tackled quickly before an area goes downhill. I am sick of decent, hard-working people having their lives made a misery by a minority around them. I am sick of having people in my surgery who cannot get action on it. I am sick of passing legislation in the House which is not being used. I have seen examples of people who have waited two years to get anything done about their anti-social neighbours. I have seen people who have filled in nuisance neighbour diaries, which have been lost. I have seen people who had monitoring equipment installed, which failed. I urge the government to get tough on those who refuse to act on anti-social behaviour. My constituents are fed up with people having tea and biccies discussing the Respect Agenda. What they want is the people who make their lives a misery to be removed from the estates. They would like their lives back. So let us send in the Respect Squad if we must, but let us penalise local authorities or registered landlords which do not act because my constituents cannot wait any longer for them to act. "

Turning to education Helen urged government to ensure skills and retraining for older people where priorities as well as provision for our children and college students. She focused on the need to extend policies aimed at increasing participation in all forms of learning and said that education "must reach out to those who would never go through the doors of a college." Education must equip people to earn a living but also, "equip our young people to behave, to learn, to live in a society that encapsulates respect for its values. There care things money cannot buy, such as respect for other people, a commitment to the service of others, the ability to discuss the great issues of the day, the ability to use leisure. These are the values which we as adults pass on to young people. If young people do not understand the value of learning, we are to blame. We are the adults and we must ask why, for instance, some of our young people see as the only use of leisure going shopping or getting so drunk they fall down in the street. Why, in an information age, have we neglected to teach our young people sufficiently how to sort good information from bad and how to deal with the huge amount of information that comes over the internet. The passing on of those values is a job that our schools must undertake, and they must ensure that we engage our young people actively in their communities through the government's youth strategy and through their plans for extended schools. Citizenship should be active, but cannot be fact-free or value-free.

To build strong, good communities we must start with young people. We must get them engaged and active and we should recognise that most young people are decent, hard-working youngsters. Very often we speak about the bad in young people. The majority of our young people are not like that. We need to say so and nurture the good, positive qualities in our youngsters. That is our job as adults, and if we fail in it, we will be failing for the future. "