Got a question for Keir Starmer or Bridget Phillipson?

[RhiannonEMumsnet]

Hi all,

We’re pleased to tell you that later this week Justine will be sitting down with Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer and Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to ask them Mumsnet users’ questions.

If you have a question you'd like answering, you can post it below. Please stick to the usual guidelines - one question per user, keep it civil, and if one topic is dominating, please don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point (we'll be deleting questions that are repeated multiple times). We'll be quite limited for time so do keep questions as short as possible so that we’re able to ask more of them - as always, we'll try to make sure we cover the topics that we know are important to Mumsnet users.

We'll be closing this thread at 5pm on Thursday, so please do get your questions in before that - and watch this space to hear the responses. If you'd like a reminder of the format you can see our interview with Boris Johnson here.

Thanks,
MNHQ

If Labour win the next election, what would you do about a benefits increase inline with inflation each year and the fact that the cap on the amount that UC pays towards childcare hasn’t changed in years?

If Labour won what would you do to protect single sex spaces, from toilets to hospital wards?

Do you know what a woman is?

Do you understand why women (adult human females) need safe single sex spaces?

Regarding the Cass Review, have you read the interim report and if in power will Labour take on it’s recommendations?

What @ThatThatsasmashingblouseyouvegoton said.

What will you do to improve safeguarding, in schools especially? Now that Mermaids have been found to be employing people who it is totally inappropriate to be around/making policy regarding safeguarding, what will you do to make sure that organisations teaching children have been vetted sufficiently and that teachers, governors, parents and children feel able to question and challenge without fear of repercussions?

Why in 2022 is it that men's feelings of inadequacy override women's and girl's need for safe spaces? We are NOT a feeling!

All the good questions have been asked. But as a transport worker, what is your policy towards the (and I live in hope here) poor state of public transport? I mean everything, from rural bus routes, to city travel, to trains, to air and sea travel?

Can we get rid of all the private operators and run transport for public good?

Much of public transport is unionised. Do you support the unions and their aims? Do you see them as a force for good or not? Why haven't you visited ONE picket line of ANY industry?

Following on from above, what do you think about the free bus pass for pensioners? Should it be means tested?
My DS went on a bus with his nan this week. Two mile journey each way. She was free, he was £5.70. For a 10 year old.
She admits she doesn't need it to be free. When she gets the bus, she always puts a fiver into a charity jar in a local cafe or shop as she feels almost guilty about it.
I would love to use more public transport but there is no way I could pay £12 for me and DS to go into town when the petrol for my car would be about £2.

To Bridget Phillipson, the Blunkett report on Education contains a lot of old fashioned thinking on curriculum and assessment which ignores a grassroots movement amongst teachers in recent years which has focused on evidence based practices of explicit direct instruction and powerful knowledge, and which has been transformative to the life chances of young people. Children in your disadvantaged constituency would benefit hugely from such an approach. Are you prepared to listen to these teachers and review the recommendations in the Blunkett report. From a teacher and former Sunderland resident.

Also to both MPs..... do you know what a woman is?

Not a question....simply a statement...

Sir Kier,

I have voted Labour all my life. I was a member. No more.

I am tired.

Tired of being called a "terf", a "transphobe", "hateful" etc etc etc for simply stating a biological fact;
You cannot change your biological sex. Not possible. There is no 3rd gamete.
I think everyone should be free to love who they please. Dress how they want to.

But when will you and your party SEE the damage being done to women and girls by people who use the "trans" umbrella to get their kicks from making us feel unsafe. But we don't matter, do we? The ONLY feelings that are to be respected are those of Trans people. Why is it only women who are admonished to #bekind?

What about the TRAs who threaten those who disagree with them with rape and murder? (a particularly male form of violence...) and make bomb threats to places that host feminist talks/meetings?

Why aren't these people being charged by the Police? Oh! That's right...misogyny is not a hate crime.

I think the tide is finally turning - mermaids are at last being investigated - but labour remain totally at the mercy of a few very vocal TRAs.

It's clear to me that you and your party have no use for me - a 50 year old woman - but pandering to a vocal minority will not win you GE.

I will never vote Labour again.

Student loans - what help do you propose for students, my daughter is reading for a degree in Primary Education, she will be approx £55k in debt when she graduates, to teach children, it’s utterly wrong.

I’m a floating voter (huge Tony Blair fan) who’s utterly sick of the current Conservative regime, but every time I think about switching to Labour, I trip over another ridiculous policy I can’t vote for. Allowing transwomen to self-ID into women’s safe spaces, adding tax to private school fees even though the research shows this would cost the country more... Are you actively trying to lose the next election? It feels like you don’t care about either the female vote or the middle class vote, and that you only listen to a tiny (extremist) minority. Please read more Mumsnet, and start listening. We LOVE Rosie Duffield here.

Yep. Please rethink the policies and forget gender lies and adding tax to private schools.

Voted for Blair, liked his vision and optimism for all, but turned away from Labour at Corbyn.

Will you support Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom? If you were in power now, what would you do with the Northern Ireland Protocol?

Hi Bridget, you made a statement in early 2022 (I think!) about how the Tories were trashing universities, and not appreciating HEIs' contribution to local economies.

I am senior mgt in a post-92 and agree with much of what you said, but I'm unclear on your positive vision for universities. What do you see as our value? You have talked a lot about funding formulae for schools, but what about how universities are funded? What do you think about the decline of fees in real terms, differential T grants for arts subjects, and proposed Fdn fee caps?

My question is for Bridget:

Teachers are desperate for education policy that provides careful investment, restoring mental health and SEN support services, doing what you can to alleviate teacher workload, improving retention and recruitment.

Labour have just released the Blunkett report suggesting massive reform of the school curriculum and assessment system.

What teachers and schools desperately need after the last few years is some stability in which to begin to recover, not major upheaval. Can you promise this in your education policy?

Why do you support crimes such as rape being recorded as women's crimes?

Why have you bought into an extremist ideology which alienates women. Why are you allowing trans activists and misogynists to set the agenda.
why are you making it unsafe for gender critical women in your party to speak out.
You won’t hear many women in real life speak up because women are frightened of speaking up publicly for fear of arrest, job loss and harassment.

Will you continue to support the state sanctioned rapes & other sexual assaults of biological female prisoners whilst they are in the care of the state as prison inmates, perpetrated by biological men who are placed there with existing convictions for violence against women & girls?

Do you believe women who wish for female only intimate care when vulnerable should be left to die in case a transperson feels they are invalidated by this wish?

Do you feel muslim women & others whose religion will not permit them to share intimate spaces with biological males should be excluded from society by forcing male entry into previously safe female spaces?

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s proposals for post-Brexit legislation that could result in 2,400 laws disappearing overnight – including workers’ rights and environmental protections.
Laws including equal pay for men and women, pension rights for same-sex married couples, food standards and aviation safety rules could accidentally disappear or be redrafted poorly.
The retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill will get its second reading on Tuesday 1 November 2022. It was designed in such a way that 47 years of laws devised during EU membership will be switched off on 31 December 2023 under a so-called sunset clause.
What urgent action are the opposition going to take to communicate this to the public and what action do you intend to take about it?

Given that we had the Conservative Party's third female PM until just yesterday is Labour in any position to criticise the Tories on female representation in the cabinet? And based on Labour Party policy, how did Anneliese Dodds even know how many women are in it? twitter.com/AnnelieseDodds/status/1585023661928370176

What do you propose to do about the approaching climate catastrophe?

Following COP26, what will you do to prioritise climate-friendly policies and make a move to low carbon technology faster, easier and cheaper for business and for the average person?