MP Dan Jarvis: ‘Our town NEEDS a Labour government’

KEIR Starmer was in Barnsley last weekend.

So was the Shadow

Chancellor, Rachel Reeves; the Shadow Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh; Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper and the Shadow Levelling-up Minister, Alex Norris.

Why did they come to Barnsley? They came because I asked them to. I asked them to, because I know, and they know, that our town needs a Labour government more than most places. A decade of Tory austerity hit Barnsley hard. According to a Centre for Cities report, 40 per cent of Barnsley’s budget was slashed over the last ten years meaning a cut of more than £100m from its budget.

While the impact of austerity has been felt everywhere, it has not been felt fairly, and

Barnsley was the borough worst affected, above anywhere else in the country.

Truth is, we’ve been battered, and it almost beggars belief that the new Conservative Chancellor is now talking about further fiscal austerity, entirely as a consequence of catastrophic government mismanagement.

While I am the Barnsley Central MP, we will always fight for every single vote and never take the support of the good people of Barnsley for granted. The importance of that message was hammered home with Labour’s shadow cabinet in town last weekend, meeting with local people and talking about the issues that matter most to them.

Jobs, education, transport, and infrastructure are issues raised with me time and again, with local people worried about theirs and their children’s future. People are rightly concerned about the chronic underinvestment in our region and the knock-on effect it’s having in particular on our transport infrastructure. Recently this has included worries about a lack of national investment in our buses, railways and roads and now these worries have now been compounded by the looming closure of Doncaster Sheffield Airport.

When she first took office, the Prime Minister set out to allay these concerns and promised to do all that she could to protect Doncaster Sheffield Airport, claiming it was a key part of her growth plan.

In Parliament last week I asked the Transport Secretary to make good on the government’s commitment, to meet with local leaders so we can discuss how we can work together to save the airport. What I got in response was extraordinary. She ignored the request, washing her hands of the matter and insisted it was an entirely commercial decision.

The Transport Secretary has the power to prevent the closure through the Civil Contingencies Act due to vital emergency services and national security functions being located within the airport, but instead she told MPs that she was ‘not persuaded’ to use it. Another calamitous U-turn at huge cost to our region. There’s clearly an important role for government to play here to save DSA, Liz Truss has conceded that.

The airport is a strategically vital asset for our region and the wider north and a crucial piece of our economic and transport framework, and directly employs 800 people.

This is the reality of the Conservatives levelling up agenda. A total disregard both for the hundreds employed at DSA now facing an uncertain future, and for the wider impact on our region.

On Saturday, Keir was clear about not taking votes in our region for granted. Liz Truss’ last visit to Yorkshire saw her make a promise she won’t keep, to protect our airport.

A pandemic, a string of political scandals, an economic crash, it’s been a terrible few years. While we can’t be sure where the next U-turn will come from, one thing’s for certain.

Only a Labour government will deliver for Barnsley.