Dear Constituent,

Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish, today (Thursday) voted in the House of Commons to give more funding to the NHS, which would have seen an additional £26bn in real terms pumped into health services in England.

With the Queen’s Speech debate back in parliament today (Thursday), the Labour Party secured focus on funding for health and social care services.

In a parliamentary procedure known as a ‘regret motion’, Labour made make the case for increasing funding for the NHS and social care, and exposed the failings of the Conservative Government’s Queen’s Speech in relation to the NHS.

Labour forced a vote to get parliament’s backing to fund the NHS by an additional four per cent a year and called for the Government to bring forward a plan to end the crisis in social care. The motion was voted down by the government.

It was the first vote in the Commons on non Brexit related legislation since the general election.

The additional funding promised by the Conservatives amounts to a 3.1 per cent uplift – below the 3.3 percent the Institute for Fiscal Studies stated was needed for services just to be maintained at the current level.

Last week, we saw the worst national A&E waiting times on record, with the number of people waiting on trolleys for treatment reaching over 98000 – the highest ever seen during the winter.

Andrew Gwynne said:

“This was the first non-Brexit vote in the House of Commons since the general election and I was proud that it was a vote to save our NHS.

 

“Unfortunately, the Tories voted against providing the funding that our NHS and social care system so desperately needs.

 

“I will continue to fight for our NHS at every opportunity.”

 

As I wrote last week, the start of a new year often means taking some big decisions, and the start of this particular new year has brought me – and hundreds of thousands of other Labour Party members – face to face with a particularly important choice. Following the incredibly disappointing result in last month’s general election, we need to choose the leadership team that we feel stands the best chance of beating the Tories in five years’ time and forming a Labour Government with the policies that will transform Britain for the better.

Getting this right is absolutely vital. I know from conversations with people across Denton and Reddish that the events of the past few years have made some Labour voters wonder whether they can still trust us to be on their side. Some have felt that Labour hasn’t been listening properly. Whoever wins the leadership and deputy leadership of the party, it’s essential that they show that the Labour Party is listening to people in places like Tameside and that we aren’t taking anyone’s support for granted.

It’s not just important for the Labour Party that we get a strong leadership team, but for the country as a whole. In any democracy, it is essential to have a strong and credible alternative to the Government, but it is particularly important right now in the UK. Over the past decade the Tories have done untold damage to our communities – cutting funding for our vital public services (including police numbers and school funding) and introducing disastrous policies like Universal Credit and the Bedroom Tax. They’ve done all of that without ever having a strong majority in Parliament. Now that they have that, we need to have the best leadership possible so that we can fight back.

With this in mind, I had absolutely no hesitation whatsoever in nominating my brilliant Tameside colleague Angela Rayner as Deputy Leader. Angela has been fantastic at holding the Government to account in her role as Shadow Education Secretary and is just the kind of tough campaigner we need as Deputy Leader.

I thought long and hard about who to nominate as leader. We have five great candidates – including two brilliant Greater Manchester MPs, Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey – and all of them have something to offer. However, after attending his launch in Manchester last week and speaking to members locally, I have decided to nominate Keir Starmer. I have been really impressed by Keir whilst working alongside him in the Shadow Cabinet and believe that the Keir and Angela would be a formidable team that would help us win back the trust of the British people. Only by winning back trust can we ever hope to win back power.