Time to Deliver - Falkirk MP Euan Stainbank

Over the last month I’ve been whisked away to Westminster to support the implementation of a programme of Government that Labour won the recent election on. Policies laid out in the election that will renew the heavily corroded foundations the country lies on.

I’m now relieved to be back up the road in Falkirk while Parliament is on recess, working to deal with the most urgent issues people are contacting me about. Alongside this I’m hiring the necessary staff I need to serve the people of Falkirk. I’ve resigned my role as a councillor for Falkirk South and I’ve taken no salary from Falkirk Council since the day I was elected as a Member of Parliament. It was a privilege to serve the people of Falkirk South as a councillor, I now look forward to serving my home as its Member of Parliament.

The foundations of Low pay, High bills, Low growth and Lower living standards compared to the start of the previous Parliament for the first time in history are sobering realities. This set of circumstances we have inherited calls for an effective, deliverable and urgently needed long-term approach to be adopted by Government to fix these fundamental failures. The Labour Government’s first King’s Speech was the first chance to set out how this work will begin.

Labour want to build an economy that works for the ordinary person, this will be started through the Employment Rights Bill which will put more money in the pocket of the working folk of Falkirk: This is achieved by banning exploitative zero hours contracts, fire and rehire practices and changing the scope of the Low Pay Commission that will see increases to the minimum wage that reflect the prices in the shops. We’ve set out plans for Investment in the NHS that will have a laser focus on reducing waiting lists and will create real parity between mental healthcare and physical healthcare. Setting up a Council of Nations and Regions that should lead to collaborative efforts with the devolved governments across the UK, so that your politicians start working consistently together rather than retreating to their own wee corner whenever it is electorally convenient.

Despite the Chancellors audit of all Government departments showing that £22billion of proposed spending commitments this year had no corresponding plan to pay for them, the Government has settled long term pay disputes that the Tories left on the table for far too long. This will see additional resource available for the Scottish Government which I hope they use to give many Scottish public sector workers an overdue pay rise. I’m especially keen to see this greater resource be directed towards our NHS workers, Council workers and College Lecturers that have been left in the lurch for far too long.

Colleagues in Government have set out the creation of GB Energy and a National Wealth Fund. GB Energy, headquartered in Scotland will finally give us a stake in the energy infrastructure of the future which has to date been dominated by foreign state-owned enterprises. I see no reason why the people of Falkirk, Scotland the UK should not have a stake in their own infrastructure. I believe the GB Energy Headquarters should be based in Falkirk or in the wider Forth Valley area, recognising our proximity to Grangemouth the Energy capital of Scotland and the fact Falkirk is right in the centre of the central belt, easily accessible to the vast majority of Scotland. My constituency contains places such as the Braes Villages which were anchored around mining and the residents there are well overdue the opportunity that comes from having Energy jobs on their doorstep. There can be no Just Transition without learning the lessons of the past. Falkirk is an area that should be full of opportunity, I offer my support to anyone across party lines who wishes to work with myself and colleagues to make this a reality.

I attended the Keep Grangemouth Working rally on August 3 and was overwhelmed by the large presence of those in the wider community who know that this crucial element of our infrastructure should not be allowed to close next year. This has been a priority for the Energy Security and Net Zero department and our new Scottish Secretary Ian Murray. Within the first week of a Labour Government a report was commissioned by both UK and Scottish Government to explore future options at the site. There is a cast iron commitment to leave no stone unturned in the fight for retaining the oil refinery in Grangemouth, and Labour are committed to investment in Grangemouth’s long-term future as a Net-Zero Industrial Cluster.

I turn now my attention to the correspondence I’ve received from people who are genuinely concerned about the direction Labour will go in reversing the rise in child poverty. Child Poverty is a moral stain on society, the choices people make are irrelevant. There is only one relevant point in this debate: a child is not responsible for the circumstances they grow up in but are sure as hell impacted by the consequences of growing up in poverty.

The child poverty taskforce announced by the Government will be looking at the underlying causes of Poverty and the broad policy solutions that are required to tackle it, this is a crucial first step as the causes are broad and so are the impact of the choices we as politicians make.

I've seen this on the harsh end in local government, I saw a Falkirk SNP/Tory council budget passed this year which cut £600,000 from the social work, despite an Equalities and Poverty Impact assessment which showed the revolting impact this would have on some of the most vulnerable children in poverty and on the child protection register.

I will re-iterate that Falkirk Labour group and I are opposed to the proposed cut to school hours which will leaves our kids with less time in the classroom than elsewhere in the country.

This is coming forward to uphold a decade and a half of intermittent council tax freezes and Local Government cuts, a policy which does nothing for those in poverty but the consequences of which are now coming at their expense. Kids who can afford to pay for out of school tutoring or a private education will not be impacted, it will be low-income kids who will be most hit if the SNP administration continue to progress this proposal.

The two-child cap policy introduced by the Conservatives in 2015 does not work in incentivizing different choices but simply financially penalises families with more than 2 kids who then suffer as a result.

The way to solve this is during the budget process, a government of any stripes cannot announce Billions in Spending without showing how they will pay for it. Well, I should say they shouldn’t rather than they cannot: The last time a government did this was in September 2022.

The then Conservative Prime Minister and her colleagues crashed the economy and ordinary people paid the price. The SNP, without a manifesto explaining how they would pay for their multiple pledges, called for an emergency budget during the election campaign. I’m not prepared to call for such reckless action that will only compound social harm and damage the prospect of renewal.

The first budget will be on October 30, and I stated in my first contribution to the house on July 30 that I will be advocating for costed proposals which permanently and sustainably rid this country of the cruellest policies of the Tory Government which preceded us.

The first votes I have participated in since my election have all been in relation to the Labour Government’s Kings Speech. A Government finally firing the starting pistol of positive, progressive change. The people of Falkirk voted by a plurality for myself as the Scottish Labour candidate for the first time in 14 years on July 5 and my position was that they would expect me to vote for the first Labour Government Kings Speech in over 15 years and so I did.

People in Falkirk, Scotland and the UK deserve better than what they’ve had before. For this Labour Government it is now time to deliver.