Oliver Ryan

It is a great pleasure to welcome this King’s Speech after the bumper legislative year we have just had. Acts such as the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 and the Employment Rights Act 2025 are already making a difference to my constituents, and there are more than 5,000 children in my area with better supported parents because of the lifting of the two-child benefit cap. When I talk to my constituents in Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield about their priorities, they talk to me about jobs and wages; about bills and rents; about our towns; about why, for a long time, Britain has not felt like it works for them; about why young people feel written off; and about how we grow and feel the heat of growth in the chilly hills of east Lancashire. They ask whether their kids will have to move away to get a decent job, whether their NHS will get back to working properly and why the old, derelict industrial sites have been left sitting empty for years, blighting our communities. They ask me whether they should have hope for the future; they ask whether they should be able only to look back with fondness, instead of forward with confidence. Now they are being sold a story of grievance, anger and easy answers by the poisonous bubble-gum politics of parties such as Reform. That is why today’s debate matters. To get Britain working is to get Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield working, too. It is to get our economy working for places like ours again after 14 years of austerity and decline. It is to get our NHS working again and to give people the hope of decent jobs, pay and financial security again. This work is not done with slogans or easy answers, but built considerately, constantly and carefully, after being so quickly dismantled over the years.