Labour Party Conference 2023: A Glittering Success (Stockport Express - October 2023)

I am writing to you following the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. The people I met and the speeches I listened to at Conference have reaffirmed my sense of optimism in the future; that despite the challenges our country faces after 13 years of Conservative governance, things can and will get better. With a Labour government, Britain will get its future back.

Labour understands and prioritises the needs of working people. Both the overarching messages and finer policy details presented at Labour’s conference reflected concerns that constituents regularly raise with me, from the cost of living to NHS waiting lists.

The housing crisis is a key example. This is one of the most urgent problems facing our country and one of the issues that I am most frequently contacted about by Stockport residents. Owing to the Conservatives’ failure to build anywhere near enough housing, Britain has a chronic housing shortage, leading to declining home ownership and skyrocketing rents. I regularly hear from families living in damp, overcrowded accommodation or facing homelessness as a result.

You would think that this crisis would be worthy of a mention in the Prime Minister’s address to the Conservative Party conference. But no.

Only Labour understands the scale of Britain’s housing problem and is dedicated to tackling it head on, with an ambitious building programme and raft of much-needed reforms. This was the key focus of Angela Rayner’s speech at conference, where she shared the party’s pledge to deliver the biggest boost in affordable and social housing for a generation.

A Labour government will build at least a million new homes over the next Parliament, and replenish our dwindling social housing stock with the biggest council house-building programme in more than 30 years. There will be new measures to support first-time buyers, such as discount First Buy Homes, linked to local average incomes. Labour will establish new rights for renters, including a ban on Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and an inflation cap on rent rises.

Housing is not the only issue that is making people feel as though our country is no longer working for them. I regularly hear from constituents who, like millions of others throughout the country, are unable to see an NHS dentist. As I have raised in the House of Commons, this is leading to a worrying decline in the nation’s oral health. Successive Conservative governments have precipitated this public health emergency with years of under-resourcing of NHS dental care.

Navendu at a roundtable hosted by the British Dental Association.

I was glad to attend a roundtable at Conference hosted by the British Dental Association to discuss this public health emergency and how we can address it. Labour has pledged to provide an extra 700,000 urgent dentist appointments and reform the NHS dental contract, as part of a package of measures to rescue NHS dentistry.

As ever, if you live or work in Stockport constituency, please do not hesitate to contact me at navendu.mishra.mp@parliament.uk or 0161 480 0833.