In full: Sir Keir Starmer takes Q&A in Hertfordshire on campaign trail

The Labour leader undertakes a Q&A at an international manufacturing business in Hertfordshire.

Read more here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/28/general-election-latest-farage-starmer-rishi-sunak-live/

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Chancellor we really appreciate it we’re really looking forward to your questions your comments your ideas anything you want to put um before us I’m not going to make a great speech about the election you know it’s coming it’s five weeks on Thursday it’s a big moment for our country a really big moment because all of the power goes from us politicians to you um you’re the ones that will decide the future for your community you’re the ones that are going to decide the future for your country so your choice really really matters that day and the choice is pretty straightforward we’ve had 14 years now of this government and there’s been a lot of chaos a lot of division and lots of things don’t work as well now as they did 14 years ago um in my book of politics if you leave your country worse than where you found it then you shouldn’t be given another five years and the country should have the chance to say sorry let’s stop that chaos let’s turn the page um and let’s rebuild our country with a labor government so that’s the basic choice that is out there one of the central things that we’re saying and Rachel made a big speech about it this morning is that the economy has to be the first priority growing the economy and making sure that living standards everywhere go up that secure skilled jobs the sort of jobs that you’ve got here and obviously all of the feeder jobs that come in to the brilliant work that you are doing here and we want to hear about a bit of that work as well because we’re very committed to what you’re doing and we see the way forward as a real partnership between government and business so we need your views um on that as we go forward but it is your uh chance to exercise your choice the other difference there will be if there’s an incoming labor government is that we will return politics to service because I think politicians should serve the country I think we’ve had far too much self-entitlement in the last few years so it’ll be um a government of service um and that means that what you think what you think should happen matters which is why we’re going to now throw it open for a Q&A I think we’ve got some questions anybody who’s got a question or a comment we’re not going to filter this we’re not going to um pick out only given individuals so anyone who wants to say something we want to hear from you we’ll stay for as long as possible to do that any question on any topic or if you just want to say I haven’t got question B of what matters to me is this or why don’t you consider that is perfectly all right with us because um if we’re here to serve you then it’s not a kind invitation to hear your views it’s your right to give us your views I want you to exercise that right so should we kick off have we got um a question yes please Andrew please airb Public Safety sorry Airbus Public Safety and Security um being with air for two years now um and uh I’ve I have to say I’ve never actually voted labor not yet that’s all right that’s um but I have for a long time uh been a a big fan of Meg hilia the the chair of the Public Accounts committee um and I I saw recently she was dubbed the uh the waste finder General by the uh the new statement Statesman um prior to joining uh the Aus family I spent five years inside the home office uh which was an interesting experience on the Emergency Services Network program which I think has been failing to deliver for almost as long as this government but um so my question you know given hopefully there’s little scope for tax Rises fingers crossed um would you make it a priority in government to take a good hard look at many of the government procurement programs which are not you know have been failing to give value for public money given the amount of waste there is you know yeah I’ll start on that and then Rachel I do a bit of a double A will come in the first thing is on your point about um tax Rises there have been far too many tax Rises over recent years um the current prime minister Rishi sunak has raised taxes more than any other politician either as Chancellor or as as prime minister and that and we’ve always said consistently um that putting more burden on working people is not the way forward particularly in a cost of living crisis because in addition to those tax Rises which you’ve all had to Bear the energy bills have gone up the food bills have gone up you name it everything else has gone up so that isn’t the way um forward what we do need to do what we do need to do is grow the economy and we’ve been flatlining on the economy now for the best part of 14 years and that’s not good enough because it impacts on people’s lives now on your specific question on procurement I think we can do a lot better on procurement and I’d just give you two or three um uh examples of that there is too much waste it’s too slow and we don’t always get value for money that is something which Rachel will bear down on try getting money out of Rachel uh in a hurry and you’ll just see how no but because Rachel understands that taxpayers money is taxpayers money and therefore you should look after it as carefully as you’d look after your own money with your own finances you don’t waste money on things that aren’t value for money nobody does that and it shouldn’t be any different which is the approach that Rachel takes I do think there’s a sort of on procurement in particular I do think there’s a positive side as well because if you take defense which is obviously you know the first priority of any government then I there’s defense procurement which at the moment isn’t considered to be part of our economic growth and it should be and I think that we could take a quicker better more strategic approach when it comes to procurement in defense but Rachel over to you because the um value for money is obviously one of your bug Bears quite rightly uh thank you very much for your question uh Andrew and you’re right what you say about taxes taxes are now at 70-year high and uh at the same time public services are on their needes people are paying more and more and yet getting less and less in return so we do need to crack down on the waste we’ve made the commitment not to increase income tax or national insurance at all in the next Parliament we would like it to be lower but I’m not going to make any commitment around tax or spending without being able to say exactly where the money comes from that’s really important that we uh have those tough fiscal rules that we won’t make any commitments that aren’t fully costed and fully funded but that means as you say Andrew we’ve got to get a grip of public spending and crack down on waste one of the things that has angered me most in this Parliament is the billions and billions of pounds handed out during the pandemic to companies that didn’t deliver on the contracts and I don’t know about what happens at Airbus but I bet that when you sign a contract if you don’t get what you put in that contract you do everything in your power to get your money back and that is what government should be doing on contracts that didn’t deliver during the pandemic and I’ve said that we would set up a covid corruption commissioner to get every penny back that we can from those contracts that didn’t deliver because that money belongs in our Public Services not in the pockets of people that didn’t deliver on contracts that they promised and more widely on procurement we’ve got to get value for money as I say people are paying more and more in tax getting less and less in return so we need to look from the bottom up of everything that government spends its money on and make sure as Kia says we treat public money with respect once again and get value for money for it let’s have another question and I’ll look around the place yes young lady there with the yep please uh and if we’re not going to a part of the room and you feel you’re being ignored please shout out or uh get our attention hi my name’s Emma um I’ve been working here about 5 years now um what are your thoughts on rishy Sak’s proposed plan to strip GPS of their power to sign people of work a plan that’s been labeled um unbelievably damaging and unhelpful by Leading disability Charities well look I think um Richi sunak is putting out a lot of ideas now which are pretty desperate stuff um almost every day he rummages around in the sort of toy box of um possible ideas and flings one um on the table and yesterday we had national service for teenagers or teenage Dad’s Army which is apparently um his suggestion of the way forward um today we’ve had something on pensions but no funding for it which goes back to Rachel’s Point um about um making sure that everything you say is fully costed and fully funded on the question of um sort of bypassing GPS um I think he’s going down the wrong track now there is there are many people I would knowledge who are not in work at the moment who want to be back um in work In fairness to them but they don’t feel supported back into work and I think they should be supported back into work sometimes because of physical health or mental health um they’ve got um you know they’re not absolutely confident that they can go back into the workplace very many good employers and I’ve seen this in practice are running schemes to help people come back to work so they can actually um contribute which is what they want to do and help build our economy so I think that there are positive sensible grownup things that we can do uh to help but what we’ve got to get away from and you’re going to see a lot of it in this election I think is desperate ideas from the tourist I mean after 14 years they’re rumaging around for anything to fling on the table to try and get a bit of attention um and the I mean national service for teenagers is is just so badly thought through that the first question is bound to be well how are you going to enforce it what happens if someone says no to which they couldn’t give an answer I mean if you haven’t even thought to question one you haven’t thought it through and we’re going to see a lot of that thank you very much where else should we go yeah I can just about see you that’s right my name is Will Will hey yeah will uh I’m a graduate engineer here at Airbus uh I work on uh spacecraft so I’m currently working on Luna Mission planning fantastic yeah it’s very ex mean it is fantastic by the way to thank you for letting us come to your work place because this for me and for Rachel is really uplifting to be able to come and see what you’re doing some of the most incredible engineering um and design and build in the world um and to be able to come and see it is brilliant and you can’t do it through a briefing so over to you it’s truly exciting um that’s great based on my experience as an engineer uh I’ve noticed that my peers in countries like the US and Germany ofer enjoy higher salaries and better career prospects given the global economic differences and and existing efforts what specific steps would a labor government take to increase investment in UK Aerospace improve professional recognition for engineers and ensure our pay and opportunities are competitive on a global scale thank you well I I’ll be I will say a few words and I’ll pass to Rachel because she made a speech this morning all about um investment my strong view is that there is investment to be made here in in space projects in defense projects in the work that you’re doing I strongly believe that and we’ve had lots of discussions with those that want to invest in the United Kingdom when we ask them well why aren’t you investing at the moment the answer they most often give is because it’s too chaotic there’s too much chopping and changing and the idea of having sort of five Prime Ministers uh in the last government six chancellors seven seven chancellors I mean it it’s it’s politically funny and you might think well Kia you’re leader of the opposition surely it’s great for you if the government’s all over the place with you know four budgets in one year um four chancs I think in the course of one year you might think well as leader of the opposition that’s great because the government is chaotic um but it’s really bad for the country it’s really bad for investment because guess what people who are serious about investment are not going to put it into an environment where they don’t think things are calm and stable and that’s why the number one thing on investment is providing the environment the stable economy that we need um with a Clear Vision for the future and a plan that we stick to so if you say you’re going to support this sector then you’ve got to be doing that not just for six months or 12 months and then change your mind or CH change the timelines you’ve got to stick with it for the long term and so I think government plays a really important role um in this final thing I said then we’ll go to Rachel is it’s also about partnership people know if there’s a partnership between Airbus and the government they know whether that’s working is the government pulling its weight does it understand what you’re trying to do here and are we fully behind it out there in the world people watch that they see it and in other countries they observe that partnership and we want to build that partnership here but Rachel gave a speech this morning about investment so I’ll just pass over to her on some more of the detail uh well thanks very much for that question um will the number one commitment that I gave in the speech earlier today was to bring stability back to the economy because stability is what families need to plan for the future but also crucially it is what businesses need to make long-term investment and we now have the lowest investment as a share of GDP than any country in the G7 and one of the reasons why wages have not kept up with comparable countries is that we’re not investing enough in Britain and the state of the public finances mean that it’s not going to be a load of public investment you know frankly if I become Chancellor in a few weeks time I’m not going to have that luxury so it’s going to be about what government can do to leverage in private sector investment stability has got to come first but we’ve also committed to a modern industrial strategy that we WR in partnership with business and sectors like um um defense and space as well as Pharmaceuticals and zeroc carbon uh Technologies they are some of the areas where there is huge potential in the UK because of our industrial Heritage because of our geography because of our great universities and the skills that we already have and so we would want to focus with a laser focus on the sectors where we already have a comparative advantage but where there is a lot of competition and where uh we think there is growth potential and this is definitely one of uh those sectors uh so stability a plan for investment a modern industrial strategy then also reform of the apprenticeship Levy so it works better for business and also works better for young people and people who want to retrain and get the skills they need to succeed in the world of work but in the end it’s got to be more of a partnership approach in the last few years uh it felt like government and business have been pulling in different directions and I said in my speech today that if I’m Chancellor in a few weeks time it would be the most progrowth treasury this country has ever seen Because unless we can grow the economy we’re not going to be able to boost wages we’re not going to be able to improve living standards and we would have failed so being PR growth being pro business is about ensuring that we can lift wages end the cost of living crisis and give our country its future back and we finally on this we need a CH the government needs to be a champion of what we do in this country what you do here is fantastic we need to be out there as ambassadors for that across the world winning the trade into this country and rolling up our sleeves um and doing it we have a lot to be really proud of we’re really good at stuff um in this uh country but you need a government that’s out there absolutely advocating for it where should we go next is there a part of the room yet that we haven’t been to um my name’s sorry hi I’m ha a wood I’m a project manager and I’ve been here for 27 years 27 years hael that’s great so one thing um following on from the question had one thing I’m very passionate outside of Engineering in space is education yeah and inspiring our next Generation so one of the things I do in my spare time I’m a school Governor so I’m interested on what your thoughts primary school or secondary school um both I’m in a on an academy trust so I’m interested what your next steps of labor for acmy free schools and and for multi Academy trusts okay well look thank you for um raising that as the father of a boy who’s just doing his GCS I’ve got a lot of focus um on education at the moment um we need to do some Basics when it comes to education and then we need to do some changes the basics are making sure we’ve got the right teachers particularly in our secondary schools one of the things I’m most frustrated to put it politely about is that we’ve got a prime minister who keeps going on about math till 18 but we haven’t got enough Math teachers for our children up to age 16 in our secondary schools that is just not good enough because if you’re missing a key teacher at the age that my son is now 15 um or 16 or you know at that secondary school if you’re missing it that’s not just something that went wrong for a year or two for that child that’s their whole education affected for the rest of their life because we all know I’m drilling it into my boy if your gcc’s mattera for what you want to do next and so it’s a stepping stone so we’ve got to fill that Gap we need 6,000 500 more State Secondary School um teachers and so we’re going to invest um in that by getting rid of the tax break for private schools and putting it into um that space that’s just the sort of patching up make sure we’ve got the the basics in place more broadly um I think that we should be looking again at education and making sure that the skills we’re teaching in our schools are the skills that people are going to need for the jobs they’re actually going to go into and the lives they’re actually going to lead um and also that we teach our young people um confidence one of the things I’m very very keen on is uh what I call confident speaking which is um teaching young people um to be able to hold a uh hold their arguments to be able to be confident what they say think about all the interviews you’ve done to get various jobs or to do whatever or the way you work in teams here um you need to be confident in your ideas you need be able to communicate with other people these are skills that matter in the jobs so we need to do that as well the other thing is that um we need to make sure that our sort of technical colleges where we’ve got skills operate better because uh at the moment many companies I’d be really interested in your views on this say with the skills we need we can’t actually get um anywhere near here just at the moment and that’s a strategic failure um that we need to address I think there’s a lot to do in that space would you have I mean if you just com mean would if you what do you want me to think about on the train when I’m going home in terms of what else we should do on schools I mean you’re a governor of a primary and a and a secondary um I think I mean I definitely think that um teacher retention is very important and I agree I’ve got a daughter doing her a levels and similar lacking lacking teachers is a big big problem um and I think yeah I think it’s about having that joined up view of what you’re saying thinking about the country where do we want to go to having um Engineers having um the skills here and how we feed that into our schools and we need to celebrate technical skills um as well the sort of skills that many of you have here my dad was an engineer he worked in a factory he was a toolmaker and he always felt that technical skills were undervalued and I’ve sort of carried that all my life because I think he’s right um if you look at the technical skills um they are incredible clever incredibly demanding and challenging um and I want young people to value that and to want to do it and I hope that all of you or as many of you as possible getting into your local schools because I think if local and I’m sure they do local children came in here to see what you do many of them would say I want a job like that um and that’s a very good thing great let’s go somewhere else shall we I’ve got one I know there’s one at the front i’ just go to the back so we’re getting a bit of everything in yeah I can just about see you and I yep got you we’ve got a ring mic somewhere I think could someone uh thank you um thank you Apprentice very very well done hello um Bob Hopton system engineer at Airbus for the last 12, your name again sorry uh Bob Hopton B yeah thank you um my question is about freedom of movement for both goods and people um we are an industry which relies on transnational working whether it’s sending people to meetings whether it’s sending Engineers to work on spacecraft and Test Facilities around Europe and 5 years ago 10 years ago this was easy we could send people quite easily but now we’re running into a problem but we simply can’t get people out easily and we can’t transfer Goods easily um will the next Labor government be looking at Freedom of movement with Europe at all uh well let me be let me first address the problem then completely answer that um obviously we had freedom of movement when we were a member of the EU we haven’t got it anymore and we’re not going back um there is no case for saying we go back into the EU we had that referendum back in 2016 we got an outcome um for it but I do want to address your question because I’ve been to Airbus many times before not not here um but obviously Bron and other places like that and I know the they explain to me in the particular thing um and there’ll be other examples here of the team going to to to lose to deal with the wings um and going for well as as long as is necessary to do the work which will be the pattern I suspect um here that to me is not freedom of movement that’s not about people going to live in another country it’s about a Workforce from here or somewhere in the UK going to do a particular job and then return and we need to improve that and that’s why I do think um that we can get a better deal with the EU than the one we’ve got we’ve got a botch job because Boris Johnson simply wanted to say i’ got it over the line didn’t do the detail um and we’ve got um a deal which doesn’t work as well as it should do so we’ve got to take that on closer relationship I think actually not just in trade um but also in defense I think there’s huge scope for closer work on defense and security um and also education by the way I think um we could do a lot closer work on but I’ve always strongly advocated that if you’ve got a team of Engineers or whatever it may be going to work in another country as part of the project of work they’re doing and then coming back of course we’ve got to make that as easy as possible it just does not make any sense on any level to make that more difficult than it already is sorry roach did you want to come in on that I’ll just add a couple of other things you know beyond the challenges that you’ve spoken about here uh Airbus there’s a number of other areas where we want to have improved trading relationships uh so for example we would be looking to secure a Veterinary agreement uh to uh speed up the flow of food and drink um goods between uh us and the rest of Europe uh and that would help other tra a able Goods as well because it would reduce some of the backlogs at the borders U we’ve got a great cultural industry in the UK but at the moment for touring artists the bureaucracy of being able to tour around Europe is prohibitive and bureaucratic and cumbersome and so we would look to secure those touring rights for artists as well as the mutual recognition of professional qualifications our service sector represents more than 80% of what we do in the UK and yet there was almost nothing for services in that brexit deal so those are just some of the areas where we would want to forge closer relationships but more widely we would want to work more closely with our nearest neighbors and trading partners and see them as just that partners and build closer relationships which I think is in all of our interests here and in Europe and it’s certainly in our national interest as a country yeah and research really really important um right I’m so sorry you’ve been waiting so long and I’ve looked towards the back of the room so we’ll come here and then I’ll be looking more widely and behind this I should do as well so so my name is Sarah I work for the propulsion test uh department so we’re the department that tests the propulsion system and fly around the world and fuel the satellites so we fly to America we fly south South America we used to do uh bike and all but obviously Russia happened so we don’t do that one anymore uh so my big one is obviously talking about particularly Net Zero and stuff like this I think the problem that myself and a lot of people have particularly as an engineer is I kind of see that we are way putting the cart before the horse it’s all well and good talking about electric cars but the fundamental infrastructure isn’t capable of it our national grid can’t take a fully electric house it can’t take fully electric cars is not going to work um the you know the the solar panels we have are insufficient wind farms are not sufficient no one seems to be looking at nuclear even though it’s probably the best pound-for-pound in terms of power what is the strategy going forward because if you’re going to try and force no more petrol cars no more diesel cars then you need to address the fact that the fundamental infrastructure is not there to allow this to happen it just isn’t going to work and Industry will fail because because of it because people will just not be able to get to work anymore if they can’t drive a petrol car it is as simple as that we need to address the foundations first before we start looking at the other stuff and we’re are not doing that we’re putting we’re addressing all that stuff we’re not addressing the foundations isn’t going to work yeah no look thank you for raising that and I hope everybody um heard the question there look we have got to make the transition um to Renewables we have to do that we have a duty in relation to Net Zero but more importantly or equally importantly to that um Renewables whether that’s hydrogen nuclear is part of our plan um by the way whether it’s um onshore or offshore wind floating offshore wind is incredible engineering that is taking place there’s hydrogen there is a race on in the world for the next generation of jobs in Renewables and that race um you know European countries are out in that race the US is out in that race and richy soon actually in the changing room and that but that that means that for you know if you think about the Next Generation that come after you and the generation after that it’s their jobs that we’re talking about the secure jobs of the future I am convinced that we can do this here I mean off if you take offshore floating wind there are amazing pieces of Kit by the way amazing bits of U manufacturing and engineering and design we’re really good at that we’re really good at that we ought to be doing it here in this country I went up to just outside Glasgow there’s a a wind farm uh just on the Hills up there there’s about two or 300 wind turbines they’re obviously static groundbased when I went there um it was incredible they they had they were going to P create enough um energy for the whole of Glasgow and the surrounding region um but two things struck me one we didn’t have a battery big enough to hold the energy they were making so they were stopped on some days from creating energy that’s a lack of planning secondly I said to the CEO of Scottish Power how many of these wind turb then were made uh in the United Kingdom the answer none and that’s what we’ve got to change now I as for the charging points the grid that’s got to be fixed that’s absolutely got to be fixed the grid is a big problem because it’s taking far too long um if you want to build a a wind farm it takes you two years to build a wind farm two years um it take you 13 years at the moment under this government to get any power out of it because five years has lost in planning and then another six or seven what with the grid crawling towards the wind farm we’ve got to take the tough decisions to cut through that planning rules have to change the grid has to change and at PACE but what we can’t do I really feel this strong is simply push the date back because with electric vehicles if all you do is say there’s a problem with charging therefore wish to push the bait date back of electric vehicles all you do is not fix the problem because you need to have a target a date when this is going to happen by if you talk to the manufacturers of electric vehicles they want a hard EDG date because they are making the transition they’re changing their production lines and they want to know with certainty what date are we working to because if you I mean the government shifted it by five years that didn’t help them those making cars because they had tried to work out what their Market would be based on the date that they had been given government then says too difficult park it back five years um and suddenly all of their sums were thrown into disate that doesn’t help them so we’ve got to rise to the challenge we’ got to do this I genuinely believe this is the biggest opportunity that we’ve got for the next generation of jobs and we’ve got to take it because these are high skilled valuable secure jobs of the future um and of course it gives us you know in the case of energy energy security so Putin can’t put his Bo boot on our throat and lower bills Renewables are much much cheaper than fossil fuels so um there’s a massive prize to be had but I don’t underestimate the challenge you put to us which is for say you know charging points are all over the show Rachel knows this because she drives an electric car do seem yeah let me just say two practical things that we would do if we are fortunate enough to win the next election first of all we would create Great British energy which be a wholly publicly owned Energy company uh to invest in the production of new energy so floating offshore wind onshore wind as well uh so that we taxpayers will have a stake in that and can get a return on that investment and the second is a national wealth fund we’re one of the few big developed countries in the world that doesn’t have a national wealth fund we would we would endow that National wealth fund uh with money from extending the windfall tax on the big profits that energy companies are making today and that National wealth fund would invest alongside business uh we have committed to getting three pounds of private investment for every pound of taxpayers money that goes into that and that would invest in gigafactories for electric vehic Les making our ports ready for renewable energy in floating offshore wind green hydrogen carbon capture and storage because there are good jobs that we can bring to Britain we have the industrial Heritage we have the skills the geography with our shallow waters on the North Sea make us a great place to do this investment but other countries are getting ahead of us so the national wealth fund and GB energy are about making what Sarah says those barriers to that investment unlocking those and making sure that we can get the jobs we can get the lower bills and the energy Independence that we need as a nation I just one more example on that because it’s just in my mind when I went up to aine to talk to the energy sector about the transition um they are planning to use the pipe work that they have been using for bringing oil and gas in for carbon capture to put the carbon back into the places that the oil and gas was taken out of so they are already years ahead of other countries because they’ve got that infrastructure and they’ve got the workforce with the skills to operate it so I genuinely think we can get ahead let’s take another question or comment I’m just going behind me because I’m conscious we’ve had our backs to you the whole time so my apologies I’ll go here and I’ll try to take in but you want to come forward and we can spot everybody but the gentleman here hi my name is chrisan and I’ve been in the company for five years now I’m a spacecraft engineer and manager here in herbus my question is about the current situation with the junior doctors I was wondering what is your strategy with about that well on the junior doctors um we need to and the government should have resolv the dispute um long ago um the government’s been sitting it out for I don’t know how long we’ve had a situation where um the government uh and the union have been arguing about who gets in the room first to solve this we can’t have any more of that and um we would get in the room and negotiate but also do the necessary work to take the NHS forward I’m conscious that I’m turning my back now on almost everybody else so should we just let’s take one at this uh yes lady here there is a mic flying around thank you hi um my name is Abby and I’m a student working with Airbus during my year in Industry oh how brilliant it’s been amazing um but um I have a big passion for stem and I also happen to be visually impaired one of the biggest problems that I faced aside from access to my education which has been really difficult has been applying for jobs because because I’m finding that people either don’t believe I’m capable of the job or aren’t giving me access to the assessments that are needed for the job um you’ve spoken before about trying to encourage more people with disabilities into jobs but as I’m finding that the biggest problems I’ve faced have been people not believing I can or people not giving me access to the required assignments how do you propose to overcome this well thank you for raising that because I think it’s a really important point I do think that um a government that understands that and is supportive is an important part of the equation so it goes back to the earlier question about GPS um Etc a government that understands um how do we make sure that we get the best talent out of everybody and make sure the talent that is there is fully used and is supportive of that makes a massive difference to how everybody else behaves um and the attitudes that um are there so I do think there are uh things that we can do um to bring out if you like the brilliant skills and also why on Earth wouldn’t we want to I mean look at you’re you’re here doing a year that’s a fantastic use of your talent um you may come back here who knows um and and be part of one of the great teams here that is very good for air bus it’s very good for our economy it’s very good for you um and it’s very good for um this community so you know the benefits um outweigh the out ofate attitude that I think I think is somewhere there yeah well it’s a fantastic uh story there is an access to work scheme that is supposed to help people with disabilities but it goes back to the uh the question uh earlier from Emma uh and I think this point about there are loads of people who want to work but for whatever reason they’re not given the support and the the support for access to work has been cut and all that means is that people who have got talent and potential are not contributing in the workplace and there’s something like more than 20% of people 16 to 65 who are now not in the workforce that’s higher than it was before the pandemic we need to get everybody who can work back into work and give them the support and the tools to do the job and look I mean I’m sure you were do incredibly well you’re already doing really well but there’s lots and lots of people who need that support to make the most of their talents and potential too and there’s something fundamental here that is really important which is about dignity and respect um that should apply all of the time but obviously it should also apply at work and one of the um plans we have is for a new deal for working people which has dignity and respect of working people at its heart because every good employer knows that if you treat your Workforce with dignity and respect um then actually that’s better for them as individuals but it’s also better for the company and for the business um it’s not rocket science so um it is the right thing to do but it’s also actually in The Wider interest the right we should be making the most of all the talents that we’ve got in this country and wherever we’re holding that back we’re making a huge mistake for the country there’s a great deal of potential that I think is untapped where haven’t we gone for um a question or a contribution yeah I can see a hand I can’t see a face but um uh if you could just um Find Your Way forward or Apprentice will come to you with a mic with a bit of luck oh um I’m Riley I’m a technician here I’ve been here for six months um my question is if you obviously if you’re introduced into Parliament do you continue will you continue to support um Ukraine and um Israel in their conflicts with Middle East and Russia well um let’s take that they’re two separate situations so let’s take them um separately um on Ukraine uh we have um long supported ever since the beginning of the awful conflict Ukraine um against the aggression of Putin um and we have not uh allowed it to become a party political issue so I actually went to keev in Ukraine and saw president zalinski to deliver a message to him which was should there be a change of government there won’t be any change in the support of the UK for Ukraine I think it’s really important uh to have sent that message to him and through him to the Ukrainian um people and for that reason we have not picked a fight with um this government on Ukraine so whether we’ve had private differences of opinion about particular features or not because I think the only winner if there’s division here on Ukraine is Putin and I’m not prepared to let that happen which is why we took that um stand and that has meant that our Parliament has been able to speak with one voice um on this and I think that’s very important because it’s such serious issue so far as the Middle East is conf concerned obviously that’s an awful conflict um with now you know tens of thousands of people killed in Gaza um with scenes that you’ll have all seen in the last day or two in relation to Rafa which are just horrifying um families in safe places in safe zones um losing their lives being killed in Rafa so that’s just got to stop um and this is message that ceasefire needs to be in place um it needs to be in place straight away and it needs to provide the space for hostages to come out there are hostages who’ve been held for a very very long time I can’t even imagine the state that they will be in I know the state their families are in or some of them because I’ve met their families um and it is horrendous but also aid needs to get in desperately needed Aid you’ve seen the conditions on the ground in Gaza for Palestinians absolutely catastrophic so that aid needs to get in the third reason we need um a ceasefire is to provide the space for a political process to start to resolve this because in the end this is only going to be resolved through a political process um that is going to require leadership from countries including from ours if we are privileged enough to come in to serve to create that space that dialogue as we go forward it will require the recognition of Palestine as a viable State as part of the process alongside a safe and secure Israel a safe and secure Israel um secure from the sort of attacks that they have endured and still actually going into Tel Aviv um but that is the only way um forward as we see it and I’ll just end by saying we would see it as our solemn Duty uh for the UK to play its full part in that um if we’re privileged enough to come in uh to serve because I think too many um political leaders in the last 10 years have looked away from this problem um even though they’ve known it’s there um not wanting to um pull their weight I don’t think we can go on like that anymore thank you so much where else should we go yes just a microphone so we can pick you up and so Mark and Mar I’m a thermal spacecraft engineer and I just wanted like to yeah because I believe like the energy sector is very important at the moment and so I think there is like a maybe a subject on the renewable energy like uh so we talked about like the wind form I believe it’s not maybe as simple as just because sometimes the wind doesn’t uh doesn’t yeah doesn’t it’s top and sometimes it’s it’s a bit too too too high for the the capacity of the system and also so it’s very good and I think the price uh has decreased since a since a long yeah since a few years but if we need to plan in the next 30 100 years maybe maybe a bit less but how can we predict that the price of those uh facility we we can’t predict it basically and it’s directly linked with like the the oil because nowadays like we use the oil to build those wind form but uh basically the peak of oil as like is we have pass it and it’s now decreasing so because it has decreased like the price of those uh those facility will will will increase okay so I just uh sorry apologize because um feel like got like a yeah another one on like uh yeah and that’s my second question I think o the the energy is a Dre driving a lot the the economy and I think in the UK we are extracting a lot of oil in the North Sea so how what your how are we going to manage between the extraction of this oil and the environmental like problem okay let me you packed a lot into there I’ll try and UNP pick it and then I’ll obviously bring um Rachel into this look on the question of um wind power yes obviously that does depend on the wind but there’s a huge amount of energy um that can be generated extremely cheaply as we’ve seen the price has gone down and down and down in relation to wind but it shouldn’t be on its own um it’s got to be alongside solar alongside hydrogen alongside nuclear um and some of the nuclear I I think there’s a opportunity to get ahead on nuclear as well with the um next generation of nuclear where again we’re the country that actually can lead on some of the technology here and we should get ahead of it so we need to go to that on your broad point because this is really important that oil and gas has done us really well as a country for many many years um since um we’ve been using the northy but the oil and gas is running out and therefore there’s going to have to be a a transition and you have to take a grown up attitude to this this happened with coal we got to the end of meaningful life for coal and the government didn’t have a plan and some communities across the country are still feeling the effects of that because the government didn’t have a plan for the future so it’s no good Rishi sunak putting his head in the sand and pretending none of this is happening because you can’t let down the Next Generation because and go go and talk to the workers in abedine who are in the energy sector they know the oil and gas is coming to an end what they want to know is what’s the future for my job what’s the future for my children’s job and their children’s job because I want to see secure work for them and that’s why the transition um to Renewables is so important and I think there are tens of thousands of jobs there uh for the future and it will bring the price down um you know permanently because oil I mean oil and gas I mean our our um oil is sold on the international market um we don’t control the price of oil this is I mean the government’s tried to play this game pretending that um the North Sea oil and gas is something where they can control the price it can’t they sell it to the international market and then we buy it back off the international market so when the price goes through the roof um your bills go through the roof um with Renewables we can take control of that which means that even in the event of an awful conflict like Ukraine which we don’t want to see um we’ve got control over what happens in this country so on so many fronts it’s the right thing to do Rachel can I bring you in and I think we may slly running out of time I would just add that there are new technologies like the battery storage so that you can store the energy uh and then use it when it’s needed and also floating offshore wind uh there is more wind further out at Sea and so these new technologies which are incredibly exciting uh means that you’re more likely to have that generation of uh energy all through the day but you do as you know had the earlier question from Sarah need that Basel load capacity which is why nuclear is also a really important part of the energy mix both now and going into the future because that nuclear at the moment is going to be coming off-stream we need to quickly make sure not just Hinkley but size well uh Angley and other projects are delivered and small modular reactors may also have a really important role to play in that as well to preserve that energy mix so we have that diversity of Supply uh but that we are more sufficient self-sufficient here in the UK for our basic energy needs can I just we’ve run out of time I’m afraid can I um alongside saying a big thank you to you for being here for putting your questions to us if you if there was something you wanted to say or a question you wanted to ask and we haven’t had time if you care to and you get that through we’ll give you um an email contact or something like that we’re very happy um to try and deal with any queries that you have or any questions you have or any ideas that you have I don’t want you to feel this is a sort of oneof and only opportunity because if we’re a government of service it is your right to ask ask this question it’s your right to put your ideas forward it’s your right to question what we do and say does that hold up to water in my own uh mind so uh we haven’t got time for anything more here but if you did have something that you wanted to raise or even as you go home you think actually you know what I’ve got another question now um if you get it to our team U we will do our level best to make sure we can get answers to you thank you so much for your time this afternoon really really appreciate it thank you Sor thank you thank you for