Jon Trickett MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, commenting on Theresa
May’s speech, said: 

“Today’s
speech told us two things. First, Theresa May knows the economy isn’t working
for most people but won’t do anything about it. Instead they give tax breaks to
the few at the top while working people are worse off. Second, the
Conservatives have no new thinking and no answers to the challenge and
opportunities facing our country. They are yesterday’s party.”

Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Mental
Health and Social Care, commenting
on the findings of a new report by the Centre for Mental Health and NHS
Benchmarking Network, said:

“It is deeply worrying that community mental health provision has fallen and
the number of psychiatric acute inpatient beds reduced, while the number of
detentions under the Mental Health Act has risen. This puts even greater
pressure on over-stretched acute mental health services.

“The findings of this report show that the Tory pledge to make mental health an
equal priority with physical health is nothing more than hollow rhetoric.

“Under the Tories, mental health services have come under increasing pressure
due to under-funding and staffing shortages. The Government should match
Labour’s pledge to invest more in mental health services and ring-fence mental
health spending to ensure funding reaches the front line.“

Ends

Barry Gardiner MP, Labour’s Shadow International Trade Secretary, speaking
after the UK threatened retaliatory action against Boeing because the USA
Department of Commerce recommended a 219.63 per cent tariff on the Bombardier C
Series aircraft, said:

“Theresa
May tried to avert this dispute when she spoke with President Trump weeks ago.
Clearly she was less persuasive than she led us to believe. But her ineffective
pleas have now been compounded by the Defence Secretary’s bumbling aggression.
The correct way to resolve this trade dispute is not to threaten Boeing that
future ‘significant defence contracts’ are in jeopardy, it is to use the rules
that are already in place in the global trading system through the WTO.

"The
UK and Canada must urgently sit down with Boeing to find a resolution to this
row which threatens so many jobs.

“Instead
of putting ourselves in the wrong by threatening to victimise Boeing – an empty
threat given that thousands of jobs in the UK rely on the aerospace sector –
the UK as one of the founders of the World Trade Organisation, should refer the
case to the WTO dispute settlement procedure.

“For
subsidies to be actionable under WTO Rules they must be shown to cause material
harm. This is why the American case has no merit. Boeing ceased to manufacture
planes for the single aisle market served by the C Series long ago and they did
not even compete for the Delta contract therefore they can show no material
harm arose to their company.

"This
is the correct, grown-up way for a country to behave under a rules based
trading system, not to issue wild threats that would themselves violate WTO
Rules. That the Trade Secretary either does not know or has not bothered to
advise his cabinet colleagues of this speaks volumes about his own
competence.”

Ends

Tracy
Brabin MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Early Years, commenting on a report by
the Sutton Trust and Sound Foundations, which found the government’s scheme to
give working parents 30 hours of free childcare could harm social mobility,
said:

“This
report confirms exactly what we have been warning for months – the Tories are
failing to provide high quality early years education for the children who need
it most. The whole system is now being under funded and undermined. 

"They
have created less than a quarter of the places they promised, excluded parents
on the lowest incomes, and mismanaged the scheme so badly that many families
simply can’t find a provider prepared to offer them the free hours they are
supposedly entitled to. 

"Only this week Labour outlined the alternative – genuinely
free, universal and high quality early years education for every 2-4 year old,
with the resources needed to actually deliver it." 

Ends

Owen
Smith MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, commenting on news
about Bombardier in Northern Ireland, said:

“This
damaging ruling was widely predicted and yet our government appears to have
done very little of substance to persuade either Boeing to withdraw its claim
or the US Administration to rule against it.

“I
wrote to the Prime Minister a fortnight ago, urging her to speak out in support
of 4,000 Bombardier workers in Belfast just as vigorously as her Canadian
counterpart has done, but she has failed to act.

“Justin
Trudeau said clearly that he would cancel contracts with Boeing if they
persisted with their unreasonable action, yet Mrs May has refused to use our
commercial and economic clout in the same way.

“Such
complacency is totally unacceptable, and Bombardier workers and British
industry more broadly, needs the Government to get a backbone and stand up for
our interests.”

ends