The newly-elected MP for Salford and Eccles, Rebecca Long-Bailey raised Salford’s profile on the national stage with her maiden speech to the House of Commons.
Long-Bailey took Hazel Blears’ seat in a hotly-contested election in May with 21,364 votes, nearly half the total count, giving her a 12,541 majority.
In the speech on Wednesday 24 June the Trafford-born solicitor criticised the southern media bias which denigrated Salford as “a social and cultural backwater” and highlighted how the transformation of the derelict Salford Docks into Salford Quays had turned us from “a city on its knees, facing the legacy of post-industrial decline” into a “cultural heartland”.
Long-Bailey highlighted her own socialist leanings with a short history lesson on the city’s tradition as a political hotbed.
She linked the 1931 Battle of Bexley Square riots, in which thousands of working men were charged by police when they protested welfare cuts, to the “similar struggles in Salford and Eccles today”.
Watch: Salford history revealed at Battle of Bexley Square
“Salford, Eccles, Swinton and Pendlebury collectively make an amazing place to live both in terms of the spirit of its people and its ambition to achieve the unthinkable,” she said.
She paid tribute to her predecessor, telling the assembled MPs that Hazel Blears had “broken the glass ceiling” for women.
Poverty and inequality were next on the hit-list: “It might startle Honourable Members to hear that life expectancy in the more deprived parts of my constituency are lower than the life expectancy of people living in the Gaza strip.
“30% of children in parts of my constituency live in poverty, our unemployment rates are above the national average and our wages for those in work are far below it.
“Many families are trapped in a cycle of poverty, low paid and insecure work.”
She ended with an examination of the NHS, a critical point for Labour as they move to reposition the party in the wake of a devastating election defeat to the Conservatives.
“Earlier this year our A&E Department at Salford Royal Hospital, a flagship of NHS excellence, endured a period of crisis that was not just a symptom of the national shortfall in funding but of the far wider challenges we face in my constituency of Salford and Eccles.
“Evidence from the world over indicates that health outcomes are linked not just to material poverty but also economic inequality.
“It reduces social cohesion, leading to more stress, fear, and insecurity which places even greater strain on our NHS and public services.
“Our NHS will only truly succeed when we invest in people and their quality of life. That means adequate funding for our public services, decent and affordable housing, well paid secure jobs, and a clear and apparent reduction in income inequality between those at the top and those at the bottom.”
Now Long-Bailey has the unenviable task of living up to these lofty ambitions.
