#18: Emma Hardy MP: Stigma, Addiction, Education, Parliament, Endometriosis & Poverty Premium

Matt is joined by Emma Hardy,  Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle.

Emma candidly discusses her background in teaching to becoming politically active in 2011 and using her profile and influence to tackle stigma.

Emma and Matt discuss:

• Stigma, addiction, recovery and education in Hull.
• The RE:Uniform campaign, reverse advent calendar and poverty premium.
• Emma's involvement with Endometriosis and Menopaus'ull.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is a new original recording. Hello and welcome to the Believe in People podcast. I'm Matthew Butler and I'm your host or as I like to say your facilitator. Today I have with me Emma Hardy, the Labour MP for Hull West and Hesel and we discuss her transition from teaching into politics, the importance of equality of opportunity in education and using her profile and influence to campaign against stigma and poverty. First of all would you like to introduce yourself for us please?

SPEAKER_01: 0:26

Yeah I'm Emma, I'm the MP for Hull West and Hesel.

SPEAKER_00: 0:29

Thank you for coming on today. I much appreciate your time. For many people listening to this, they might only know you simply as Emma Hardy MP. At this podcast, you know, the Believe in People podcast, we aim to know the person behind the title. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and perhaps the detail of the story up to now? Wow. It's a big one, isn't it? Yeah, I was shocked to hear that he was a primary school teacher.

SPEAKER_01: 0:55

Yes, they were five to seven-year-olds, the ones that I used to teach. In fact, funnily enough today, I still bump into children I used to teach or parents of children who I used to teach as well. So that's one of the– I love that when you sort of bump into them and you can see. Because I think actually when you teach them when they're six and seven, they're just at the age when they start being a really small child and they start to be coming into being that little bit more– capable that little bit you know a little bit older a little bit more independent so I think personally I think the age between six and seven is a really special period in a child's life and they suddenly go from being very very dependent on you to then suddenly you know it's

SPEAKER_00: 1:33

when you start forming your memories as well i suppose like i can remember my teachers from from that age but nothing really before then you know so

SPEAKER_01: 1:42

we can see their little personalities starting to come through and and um so i really i really did enjoy i did it for 11 years really did enjoy it and young children are really i Really funny. And obviously sometimes unintentionally really, really funny. And I do suffer with inappropriate giggles. It's a curse where I will get the giggles and then have to leave the room to actually control them. And I do remember watching one nativity play when they were even littlest. Nativity used to be done by the four-year-olds, you know, the first, when they first come in. And just having to bite my tongue really hard to stop myself from laughing because Mary and Joseph sat at the front and Mary was holding baby Jesus this doll that was baby Jesus and as she was holding baby Jesus she was slowly rotating his head

SPEAKER_00: 2:33

just decapitated the head of baby Jesus

SPEAKER_01: 2:36

and I just probably was the funniest funniest thing and I used to yes used to suffer with inappropriate giggles but I really enjoyed it because young children are joyous and they're funny and they find everything exciting and you'd go in and you could get them really excited about something that maybe, I don't know, Maybe there's less excitement and joy with adults sometimes. As young kids, some things are really fun. Getting the felt tips at wet play is great. These things are awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 3:05

I still get excited about Play-Doh, though. The smell of Play-Doh takes me back. When my nephews or nieces got the Play-Doh, I found those. I'm in my 20s, but I'm getting a bit excited for the Play-Doh.

SPEAKER_01: 3:15

Play-Doh is exciting. Exactly. These things always make you feel excited. Wet play video, two words or three words that make you feel really excited. Yeah. So it was, I really, I did enjoy that a lot. And I think I've spoken many times about how that led to me becoming involved in politics, through being involved in education policy and education campaigning, and then the Education Union, which was the NUT at the time, and then through to, obviously, the Labour Party in politics. But I really, really did enjoy that period of working with, as I say, for 11 years. And it was... They were great.

SPEAKER_00: 3:51

If you enjoyed it so much, then what, because to be honest, my producer's done all the research about you. I've come here just like, I don't want to know because I want to come in as if, like I say, I am meeting you for the first time. And I like that to show through into the podcast for all listeners as well. So loving this job, 11 years of it, what made you want to make the change to politics then?

SPEAKER_01: 4:13

Because the children are always brilliant. They're always brilliant. And kids are awesome. And as I say, very funny. But I didn't like the way education was going. I didn't like the way things changed after 2010 and the changes that were introduced to the curriculum, to the way things should be taught, to how formal it became. Because remember, I mean, I was teaching infant. I was teaching very young children. And in my opinion, there is a different way to teach very young children than older children. And I think... And I found that I was at odds with the way that was expected to be taught and the way children were expected to learn and how much they were expected to learn and how formal it became and the amount of testing and issues around children's mental health. And when you have them at six and seven and they're upset about doing tests and assessments, you think, oh, come on, something's not right here. And so from that, I then got involved, as I say, with education campaigning, education policy, and then that path led me down to being involved in politics. And it just got to that point where I thought, I don't want to continue doing this because I don't actually agree with the way I've been told to do it. And I know quite a lot of teachers who've left the profession for similar reasons. And I thought, rather than doing something I don't think is right, I'd like to try and change it instead. And that's how I got involved in education policy. But before I became a teacher, I used to work in children's nursery. So I've worked with children from being six weeks old all the way through to being seven. So all those early years and then being little. I originally used to work with toddlers, which was great fun because they're all so awesome. I'm very funny.

SPEAKER_00: 5:56

My daughter's just turned one. So I'm seeing other children, obviously, a little bit older than her. And I know I shouldn't wish it away as such, but I'm looking forward to... to those toddler years, if that makes sense, and to see the... It just seems so wonderful, doesn't it? Like, just the innocence of it all.

SPEAKER_01: 6:16

They're just great. They're just great. And are you doing all the sounds? Are you doing all your tigers go?

SPEAKER_00: 6:22

Yeah, exactly. My favourite is when she repeats things, like not completely repeats things, like I'll make a raw sound and she does this. It's not even a raw. It's just like, yeah, it's like, what do tigers do? Okay, that's it. That's close, almost.

SPEAKER_01: 6:36

Well, it's when you're meant to correct children when they get things wrong, but I just love it when they do. And my youngest, I mean, she's 13 now, but she used to have these gloves. on with the numbers on, you know, obviously up to 10 on each finger and she'd call them, she'd say, gee, her number gloves. We called them like number gloves for ages and gamoons.

SPEAKER_00: 6:59

Gamoons, what are gamoons? Balloons. Oh, of course, yeah, yeah. And

SPEAKER_01: 7:02

I know, obviously, you are meant to correct children when they say things but we used to love the fact that you're going to have your number gloves and your balloons and your gamoons.

SPEAKER_00: 7:10

No, no, no, it's fine, to be fair, that's me, I'm terrible for digressing as well. To, to, I suppose to tell you a little bit more about us. So in terms of us as Renew as a drug and alcohol service, we're a drug and alcohol service for adults, families, carers and affected others in Hull. So we offer advice and information on drugs, alcohol, homelessness, prison. We're a big part of the criminal justice system here in Hull. And we're also a community element of helping people improve their health and well-being as well. We've got a children and families team that work holistically with all members of the family to achieve and promote recovery. So it's a very broad thing that we're doing. So you've been in person since 2017. Can you tell us a bit about your experiences of, I guess, working alongside or seeing some of the people that might use our service?

SPEAKER_01: 8:01

Yeah, I've seen a few of the people involved. When Emmaus used to have the homeless outreach contract, I went out with them a few times and we were directly speaking to some of the rough sleepers and the people who are accessing the service as well. I think one of the sad things I see is the people who should be accessing your service and are not, maybe because they're not fully recognising that they have a problem. And I think that's quite an issue of when the people when does a social habit become an addiction and when do people identify that it you know that there's an issue around there and i think there's um i think there's a real concern around people maybe not wanting to or maybe feeling a bit ashamed about admitting that they have a problem and they need to access access the service and i think that's quite sad and i'm And I realize that there's lots of some people can become concerned about where the services are. And I think there's also some work with the community around how do we how do we best support and help people? And, you know, ideally, you know, it'd be nicer. To have even more of you available.

SPEAKER_00: 9:14

What about working with, I suppose, especially being in education, have you had much experience working with families around addiction? Was that something that you ever came into contact with?

SPEAKER_01: 9:24

I've had, so often people come for help with loads and loads of different issues. And we've had a number of people come for support, often with family members who they believe are having problems with addiction. And so it tends to be more where can that person get support? How can they access support? One of the things i'm concerned with which i know you're not involved with directly is around gambling addiction yeah and there's been an awful lot of talk about that in parliament and there's a cross-party group in parliament of mps who are looking around gambling addiction and you'll probably have seen there's been quite high profile because they did you know the fixed odds betting terminals and there's a big campaign to reduce the amount of money that people could bet and lose on these fixed odds betting terminals i personally think there's a lot more that needs to be done in this space in terms of advertising and targeting and online gambling. And it feels like at the moment, that's probably where the political focus is, is around this explosion in online gambling and the devastating impact addiction is having on many families. And I think it's getting more traction, it's becoming more high profile because it's sort of across demographics. It's across all sections of society. And I think it's therefore getting a lot of traction. And that seems to be a new area of addiction that people are talking

SPEAKER_00: 10:46

about. It doesn't discriminate. And you're absolutely right. Addiction is addiction. And a lot of the tools that we may use with people for addiction drug and alcohol addiction more so alcohol addiction where there's less medical intervention on that a lot of those tools will be the same really and Gamblers Anonymous will follow similar programs to what other fellowship programs will take on as well but no you're absolutely right addiction it doesn't discriminate regardless whether it is drugs alcohol gambling you know an addiction isn't addiction

SPEAKER_01: 11:20

I think one of the things I didn't understand until more recently was the withdrawal from the addiction and how dangerous that is.

SPEAKER_00: 11:30

Absolutely,

SPEAKER_01: 11:31

yeah. And through someone I know, actually, and they were explaining the hallucinations associated with trying to withdraw from something and the physical impact on the body. And I think for all those people who say, oh, why don't you just stop then?

SPEAKER_00: 11:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:47

I think understanding that, actually, if you just stop, it could, you know, it can damage you as well. And I think making that education awareness that it's not as simple as just stop then, that there's a physical impact on the body if you try and withdraw from alcohol and how

SPEAKER_00: 12:04

awful that is. Do you know alcohol addiction, do you know withdrawals from alcohol addiction can actually lead to, well, it can lead to death. It can lead to seizures, which will obviously lead to death.

SPEAKER_01: 12:12

Well, when my friend described the hallucinations, I just, you know, she was hallucinating and how... horrific those hallucinators it's like your worst nightmare your living nightmare that you're hallucinating and and it's i don't think it's widely understood

SPEAKER_00: 12:28

no it's absolutely not the worst one i had was doing some alcohol awareness training and a lady told me she she was uh she was in her bed and she said i'm telling you a monster was coming out the wall and she said i can't you know try to describe it as best you can as best you could but it was just Even the picture she was telling me sounded horrific. So to imagine going through that myself and then knowing all that can stop if I just have another drink, if I just continue using drugs, I understand it. But you're absolutely right, definitely more education around it because not enough people know about the withdrawal symptoms of it. And again, that attitude of why don't you just stop is something that we hear a lot. So back to you. So for two consecutive years, you've been involved with the reverse advent calendar and you previously launched the Reuniform. Is that how I say that? Is that right? Why was it so important to use your profile and influence to address the stigma that is associated with poverty?

SPEAKER_01: 13:29

Well, I mean... Obviously, I'd like there to be no need

SPEAKER_00: 13:32

for the

SPEAKER_01: 13:33

reverse advent calendar or anything like it. But I think it's just one of those things. It's like your role as an MP does give you a platform. And I feel like whenever you've got a platform for anything, you can use it in whichever way you choose. And I think why not use it to try and do as... as much good for as many people as possible and the re-uniform project is great because yes it was about addressing the cost of school uniform but it was also about addressing recycling and reusing and we wanted to kind of when we set it up to send both these messages to people because you know how much landfill I can't remember the data off the top of my head that is used up by school uniform because you'll know of being a dad yourself they grow out of things so quickly and you think you've only had it five minutes and they've grown out of it so it was also about saying you know to remove that stigma and say well this isn't just about the cost of school uniform although of course that is part of it but it's also about saying don't throw your things in the bin and put them in landfill give them to a uniform and And it's amazing what they've done now. It's absolutely incredible. And so what they do is you go onto the Facebook page Reuniform and you request with an online form the uniform that you want. And then one of the volunteers takes that, prints it out, bags it up, and then you get it dropped off at your house. I mean, it's amazing. It's absolutely fantastic. But they also ask people to donate. So if you're ever in a supermarket and you're wanting to drop off some uniform, there's usually a bin in all the main supermarkets that you can pop your spare uniform in. But they branched out to do doing coats which was more around you know kids being cold and not having the things they need and so they've done an awful lot and the same and the reverse advent kinder was an idea that uh someone who blogs a skint dad

SPEAKER_00: 15:14

okay yeah oh yeah has he just moved to yeah i was reading something about him not so long ago about the move to hull and everything yeah

SPEAKER_01: 15:22

yeah so he he he'd put it on his Facebook, something about a reverse advent calendar. And so I contacted him and said, that's great. Why don't we do it? And he was like, oh, where he was from, they did it all the time. And it was just something that everybody did. So I said, well, lets us do it then and you know so all we did was give it that as I say as the MP you've got a platform so you can advertise it and you can tell people but in other areas of the country apparently it's been running for a while and the great thing about this year in the second year is yes I launched it again and talked about it but lots of businesses were saying oh yeah we're just doing it again anyway so once you've got it going

SPEAKER_00: 15:58

it just starts to happen organically absolutely it

SPEAKER_01: 16:01

doesn't need to come and that's the ideal really that you can kind of use being an MP Peters set things off and then they have a life of their own. And that's certainly what's happened with Reuniform. I mean, they've gone and they do their own thing.

SPEAKER_00: 16:13

So online abuse is something that you have talked publicly before about. Is this something that has improved for you? Is it an ongoing problem? And what more can be done to tackle the problem?

SPEAKER_01: 16:26

I think it's an ongoing problem. And I think some things have improved. So you can set up more filters through on Facebook and you can, you know, so people who try to put certain words on can be filtered out and it automatically filters out profanities, but you also have to filter out

SPEAKER_00: 16:45

phrases. I only learned about that recently, actually. But yeah, I didn't even know that was a thing until... Oh, two weeks ago. So

SPEAKER_01: 16:52

when people put comments on it, the page automatically hides them if they're thought to contain abuse. And sometimes I can see them and say, oh, well, actually, Facebook's misunderstood. That isn't abusive.

SPEAKER_00: 17:04

Yeah, that's definitely abusive. Just keep that one

SPEAKER_01: 17:08

hidden. And you can obviously block people. And the same with Twitter as well. So Twitter's now got where if someone sends you an abusive comment, it says... The click to read or the following comment may contain abuse or it says something like that. And so you then have to actively choose to look at it. So it's quite better in that it hasn't gone away, but you're more shielded from it because you don't see it. I mean, because people, you know, I've got no issue with people having different political opinions. Absolutely fine. And on my Facebook, there are a variety of political opinions and that's absolutely fine. It's when it just comes into that's just abuse. And I was talking to one of my colleagues and I think women get more abuse, but I think black women get a horrendous amount of abuse. I was talking to one of my colleagues about the sort of abuse and she's getting it more emailed in. Whereas, I mean... I don't tend to get it as much emailed in because I think you've got to go to the effort of like looking at my email address, going into your email account. Whereas I suppose picking a comment out on Facebook or doing something on Twitter, it's easier to abuse. I don't think it's getting any better at all. And, you know, and I think it's quite sad. I talk to young people. about politics and being involved as a politician and would you want to do it and a lot of them seem to not be interested because they think there's too much abuse and I think that's sad don't be interested in it because

SPEAKER_00: 18:35

you don't want

SPEAKER_01: 18:36

to

SPEAKER_00: 18:36

be but not because of the possibility of trolling what's it like as a parent having a 13 year old daughter because I imagine that's going to be moving into social media I mean again my niece is 13 I feel like it's only a matter of time until she starts having social media they're genuine concerns for me. Because when I was at school, if I was to receive a bit of... I mean, I was never bullied. Hazed, I'd say. I was the ginger kid, so naturally hazed. But I was never bullied. But now, the bullying doesn't stop at 3pm, quarter past three. Is that a concern as a parent?

SPEAKER_01: 19:11

I think it's a real worry. I mean, I've got two daughters, and they're totally different, and You can't actually worry. And I've heard from parents myself who've come in and you've seen some of the abuse other children are getting. And I think there's also a big education piece needed because I had somebody come in who's... who someone had shared an indecent picture of her daughter, and the daughter, I think you've seen this revenge porn

SPEAKER_00: 19:40

idea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

Yeah, and so this is happening with teenagers. So a teenage girl might be persuaded to share an image with her then-boyfriend, and then the boyfriend then decides to share it with everybody else. And we're seeing a bit more of this, and I think there needs to be a huge education piece around if you share that image, you're actually sharing... It's

SPEAKER_00: 20:02

child

SPEAKER_01: 20:03

pornography and it's illegal to share these images. And I think there needs to be a lot more work done on that. And it needs to be taken more seriously because I worry sometimes when I talk to teenagers about this and you talk to any teenager and they'll say, oh yeah, I've seen a picture of so-and-so or I've seen this annual picture. And I'm like, well, do you realize you're sharing child pornography? And I think I feel like it's almost the saddest thing is when it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I've seen it. Oh, I've seen that. And I feel like that's something I'd like to do something about is saying to schools and saying to the police, you know, go in and say, if you share this image of anyone, you could be guilty of sharing child pornography. Is that what you want to be? And it to be taken a lot more seriously, because I think the amount of bullying that goes on with sharing pornography indecent images and the humiliation involved in that, I think that breaks

SPEAKER_00: 20:55

my heart. It'll create a trauma within these young girls, absolutely. So some people watch this and see you as just a politician and assume that you're doing just fine, perhaps you're one of the political elite. The realities of life for some people in the city are hard and I suppose, can you perhaps explain a little bit about how you can Relate to the people of Hull and tell us about some of the differences you've noticed in the city over the last few years or even changes that maybe you've made to your lifestyle as well.

SPEAKER_01: 21:27

I think life's got harder for a lot of people in the last few years. I think it's got particularly more difficult in the last few months and you can see this with the explosion of food banks and food support. Where my office is, the Octagon, every Friday they run a food pantry and people are queuing there from nearly an hour before the pantry opens to get food. You know, the food and you didn't see that. And this is the thing that I worry about is this normalization of poverty. This has become normal. It's normal to walk past the queues. It's normal, as I pulled up here today, to pass the, you know, the soup kitchen that's just outside where Staples used to be handing out food to people. You know, this has become a normal part of what you see. And I think... much as you want to help, I think we need to say, actually, it's not normal. This isn't normal. We shouldn't have people queuing for food banks. We shouldn't have people going without food. We shouldn't have people cold, unable to feed themselves. These are not normal things and we shouldn't treat them as being normal. So I think it's always difficult as a politician and you want to help. So the reverse advent calendar, I want to help. The Uniform Project, you want to help and you want to help people with the immediacy of the problem. But at the same time, re-explaining, but we shouldn't have to. This isn't normal and it's not right. And I think that's where there can be that conflict because sometimes you think, well, if you solve the problem, then you're kind of almost accepting that it's okay to have the problem. And it isn't. So you know, things have changed. And, you know, I mean, I've been, I've lived in the constituency since 2004. So I grew up just in Newbold, which some people know the village or not, but just outside anyway, the area. And, you know, and it's unlike most families, things are difficult when you have kids and especially if you go part time. And but when I first had mine, we still got tax credits, which disappeared. You know, there were still these other layers of support with the sure start centers. You know, there was so much more support that you can see taken away. And even down to, you know, I used to go with my parents. eldest when she was a baby and you'd go in like one week you'd get support on feeding and the next week you'd go and you'd get support on sleeping because they didn't sleep what was that um yeah and you'd have these different you know you could go and chat to the other moms and get to know other people and it was really nice support network and talking to people who've become parents more recently they're like oh that sounds great we've only got baby massage if we pay

SPEAKER_00: 23:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:01

I had free baby massage for my baby. You know, there was a singing group which was free again for my baby. You only get that if you pay. And I think this is where you kind of notice that difference, that universal offer that everybody could access has gone and it's become much more, you know, means tested. Well, you can only get help if you fall into this category. Yeah. You know, and, you know, when mine were younger, we were at that, you know, just... around the level of needing support and not needing support. So, you know, we wouldn't have had anything, but you were able to access all these services that now you tell people about that. Oh, wow, did that really happen? I'm like, yeah, it

SPEAKER_00: 24:39

was real. It's like a fairy tale. It's like a fairy tale. Oh, no, it's all this stuff. Yeah, absolutely. How is it, I suppose now, I guess, how is it affecting you personally at all? I mean, the cost of living crisis, we're hearing about that everywhere at the moment.

UNKNOWN: 24:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:56

Are you affected personally by what's going on?

SPEAKER_01: 24:59

I mean, I've not... I shouldn't really say where I live, obviously. I've not moved.

SPEAKER_00: 25:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 25:04

So because I've always stayed where I've always stayed, I kind of made a choice. I didn't... It's that thing. Whenever you've had times when money's been really tight, I think people are always worried about, you know... you know, about, I suppose, how are you going to, how are you going to get on? And I never want to put myself in a vulnerable situation because, you know, for a while I was a single parent myself and, you know, you, i kind of always want to be i think everyone worries about money i'm not making it but it's difficult to say because i realized i've gone you know when i became an mp my salary tripled yeah so it's yeah and i'm incredibly grateful for that and and i'm very you know very obviously very very pleased but i don't forget that what it was like to earn a third of what i

SPEAKER_00: 25:57

earn

SPEAKER_01: 25:58

now and you know and you're not gonna forget that

SPEAKER_00: 26:00

no no you don't necessarily have to go for it yourself in the way other people are to still have empathy with that situation.

SPEAKER_01: 26:06

And I think that that's the thing. It's like, you know, I'm aware that obviously the salary MPs get paid is way more than the average salary. Of course, I'm aware of that, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to what, people are going through. And I'm not aware of the situation. And like you say, you try and use your platform to help as many people as you possibly can. But I think it is important to go back to that fundamental point that it shouldn't be this much of a struggle.

SPEAKER_00: 26:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 26:33

It shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_00: 26:35

No. Do you know, we've... So for our service, we've actually seen a rise of 18 to 25-year-olds leaving or having poor experiences with education and accessing our service in recent years. Speaking of wealth and I guess also the competence of parents are actually a good predictor of how well the children will do in their education. How do we ensure that every child or young adult, regardless of the wealth or competence of the parents, get the education that they need in this city?

SPEAKER_01: 27:07

That's a great question. So I think there's a number of things. I think I should start by obviously saying, having been a teacher, I think teachers and school staff are awesome and they do an absolutely amazing job and I'm very grateful to them. But I think there's a few questions we need to have at the forefront of our mind. And that is, why are more people falling out of education? Why are more parents choosing to home educate and remove those children from education? Why are we seeing more parents or children with special education needs and disabilities not feeling they're getting the education they need? What's changed in the education system? And my... My personal feeling is I feel like the schooling system has changed. And I think before there was more, how can I put it, more flexibility around the individual child. So you could kind of make things more bespoke or cater it more for that individual child. And I think with the changes to the way schools are run, the amount of content that needs to be covered, the amount that children are having to learn, literally the amount... They have to learn. I think that flexibility and the ability to adapt around, you know, make, I suppose, make allowances for children being different feels like a lot of that has gone because of the huge pressure on schools around standards and around achievement. So, and I feel like this is a real challenge. Worry. And I think there was this scandal sort of came out a number of years ago called off-rolling. And what some academy trusts were accused of, and I'm not just talking locally, I'm talking nationally, were encouraging parents to remove their children from the school if they thought the kids were going to get low grades and bring the average down.

SPEAKER_00: 28:50

Oh, I remember hearing about that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:52

Which is outrageous. Yeah. Which is really outrageous. So where are those children going to access the education that they need if they're being off-rolled or if they're being encouraged to leave? But I hear from SEND parents all the time when they're saying they'll go and look around a school and they'll hear from the school oh I don't think it's the right school for your child I'm not sure we're going to be able to give the education you know your child needs you know I think have you thought about somewhere else and it's this which you know if true when I believe it is horrendous so I think you're because of the pressure that's around results and that's around accountability for schools and the education system I feel like the kids that can't fit that model for whatever reason, maybe because they have an undiagnosed special need or maybe because they have a more chaotic home lifestyle or whatever reason it be, can't fit into this model. I just left. And it's an absolute scandal. And then who picks them up and who looks after them? And we have some amazing pupil referral units, which are schools which will take some of the children who've been excluded. And they are good, but the demand for them is absolutely massive. The demand for special educational needs placements is absolutely massive. And so you're therefore left with these group of people who've been failed by the system, who for various reasons... haven't fit in and maybe just required a bit more flexibility a bit more ongoing support a bit more service support a bit more support for the family and again it's that early intervention work that's all partly COVID but I think it's all just gone because it's all been cut to the bone and I think to solve the problem I think we need to be looking at how inclusive we make schools, but we need to be wrapping services around schools. Because I talk to teachers and they'll say, you know, I know this child needs speech and language therapy. I know social services need to interact more and give the family support because there's maybe suspected domestic violence or financial concern. But, you know, you ring and you can't get food to the right person. There isn't the right service. They're offering support to that family. And so problems seem to get bigger. you know worse and worse and worse so i think you need to restore the services that sit around the school but it also comes down to you know like other things like housing you know if you're in a house and you haven't got the heating on and your electricity's switched off and your prepayment meters run out of money how well are you going to do at work the next day

SPEAKER_00: 31:20

you're not i absolutely not

SPEAKER_01: 31:21

yeah how well are you going to do at school so it's you yes, we need to look at what happens within the school and the accountability measures to judge the schools. So if you imagine, I mean, I'm not saying this is policy, but just imagine if you flipped it to, instead of the accountability for schools being how many children get the highest results, imagine if you flipped it to how many children stayed in the school, how many children... you know, how few children sort of achieve the lower grades. Do you know what I mean? If you switch the narrative so that the focus could be on... The problem... Okay, so they changed the whole special education system in around 2014 and they introduced something called Education, Health and Care Plans. And these plans are a statutory document that give parents entitled levels to support in various areas. So they're quite a powerful document. the kind of the written well be quite a powerful document and so parents want them and the demand for them has increased beyond any level so there's huge waiting lists on getting them done they're varied in quality when you get them they're sometimes not the ones that you need even if you get them sometimes you're not able to fulfill the things that are written in this plan what this kind of meant is all that all the focus sort of went on them And the focus around what you call SEN support. So you know, like the group of children whose needs aren't requiring of a plan, but they still have needs and they still need to be met. And that's additional to another child in the classroom. That support's gone. So you've got this situation where parents are at a case where, I know my child's autistic and Therefore, I'm going to fight for an education, health and care plan because I know if we don't get that, we don't get anything. And I think if we wanted to restore something back to the system, we've got to look at how do we provide the SCN, the support for children so that there isn't as much need for the education, health and care plans. And the education, health and care plans are, of course, Education and health and care. And they're meant to be all those services together. And what actually happens in reality is they end up being education plans because you can't get health involved and social care doesn't tend to get involved. There's multi-layered problems in all of this. And then you haven't mentioned the waiting list to be diagnosed with autism, which I think for children are just under two years in this area, in our area, for waiting for them. So I think there's lots of different things involved. that need to happen within schools to give that individual child support. And the need has been greater because of COVID and because of social isolation for many children as well and mental health problems. And I think for having been a teacher, you can't be... It's very difficult to be an expert in everything. And this is why I'm saying you need the mental health specialists. You need the therapy services involved. You need those outside agencies to support the school as well.

SPEAKER_00: 34:24

I actually want to change the topic. I actually want to talk a little bit about women's health. So we've actually had a few high profile guests on here before talking about women's health. We've recently seen you at Menopausal. I like the way that's written. And you've actively campaigned for awareness about endometriosis as well, a condition that affects one in 10 women. Can you perhaps talk about how women's health, I suppose, affects them in the white place and why is it important for you in particular to raise awareness?

SPEAKER_01: 34:53

Well, I mean, when it comes to endometriosis, I mean, this is a condition that affects women in cycles, because obviously it's linked to periods. And basically, the cells that should grow inside the womb grow outside the womb. So in a normal period, they would grow, swell, shed. You'd have your period. But you imagine if those cells are on your bowel, they're on your bladder, they're on all your internal organs, they're not able to grow and shed in the way that they should. And so they end up with, you know, extreme pain and discomfort. And it can even, in some cases, make it difficult for women to walk. So sometimes they're finding they're having to use wheelchairs. So it's a really serious condition. When I first started talking about this, people were like, and they're

SPEAKER_00: 35:35

what?

SPEAKER_01: 35:36

You know, I went on Radio Humberside and they were just like, oh, can you, what is this that you're talking about? And you think this is one in 10 women have this condition and hardly anybody knows anything about it. I mean, one of the things I want to do is raise awareness. So because one of the things women were saying to me is they were getting sacked because in lots of businesses, if you have regular small amounts of time off, you trigger disciplinaries. Yes. And so they were saying, well, because I was having like two days off every month because of my endo, I was then sacked for the fact that, you know, my attendance was poor. I was having too many sick days. And I think actually if we talk to businesses and say, well, you know, this person has endometriosis. So this is good. probably going to happen each month and actually they could in that time you know perhaps they could work from home or you know what

SPEAKER_00: 36:22

what are the alternatives what are the

SPEAKER_01: 36:23

alternatives to to sacking people and talking to women who are really quite high profile who've lost their jobs because of their because of their condition because they're unable to go to work every day and and i think it's just about i suppose it's fairness isn't it yeah it's not fair you know nobody chooses to have and i think just again it's using the platform to raise awareness get people talking about it and then find lots of women will say oh yeah I have endometriosis or even I was talking to a parent whose daughter was a wonderful young woman high achieving but she had endometriosis over her exam period and missed some of her exams yeah And again, it's things where, you know, if you know about it, could you appeal to the exam board to allow someone to resit? But you know what I mean? It's just that fairness, raising awareness and making things fair because there's, you know, why should someone be sacked? Because they have a medical condition. It's not fair. So through the charity Endometriosis UK, there's a way of becoming an endometriosis practitioner. I can't remember, it's like awareness employer. And we want lots of businesses to sign up to this to say that if... And then from there, we obviously moved into looking at the menopause because it's kind of the same with the menopause. You know, when you're going through the menopause, there's physical changes. Doesn't mean that you're suddenly incapable of doing your job, but let's have some awareness and let's support some people with it. And I think that's just really... It is, it's just about creating that fairness. And it felt like the system for many women is unfair because we're biologically, you know, likely to have periods and go through menopause, you know, that we're missing out on job opportunities, potentially facing the sack. And that didn't seem right to me.

SPEAKER_00: 38:05

My friend actually has endometriosis and I had no idea what it was. And this was only a few years ago, which she was kind of explaining it to me. And I was like, that sounds... Horrific. And she was like, yeah, you men, you're absolutely fine. You don't have to deal with any of this. I was like, yeah, I don't know. But it was interesting to hear. And again, I think coming out of the back of COVID, Home working, which was never an option really in any workplace before. I think we're seeing these alternatives now and so many businesses are able to provide home working. Some jobs are actually advertised as digital remote working as well. So you can have a job in London and do it here in Hull. It's a completely different world now. So yeah, you're absolutely right. There's no reason why employers shouldn't be making these alternatives for people.

SPEAKER_01: 38:55

Yeah, and it's not asking for special treatment. It's just saying that there's a... It's

SPEAKER_00: 39:00

a

SPEAKER_01: 39:00

medical reason and let's just respect that and have some adaptations and I think employers will be rewarded with the loyalty of the staff if they treat them that way.

SPEAKER_00: 39:10

Yeah, absolutely. So mental health is the next topic. We're particularly keen to talk about the lost years and the impact that's had on families and the impact on people's mental health.

SPEAKER_01: 39:21

The isolation during COVID has impacted, obviously, lots of people. And I still sense there's a lot of people who are incredibly nervous about coming out into public spaces and about mixing with people again. And I think we shouldn't dismiss that. There's a lot of anxiety, I think, for some people around coming out and mixing. I think this is going back to the services that wrap around schools. really important that we have mental health workers in schools. I think it's so crucially important that they're there and supporting children because if you think for children and especially for really young children they haven't had that socialization when they're little and they mix with each other and they you know it's

SPEAKER_00: 40:00

natural pivotal years aren't they really

SPEAKER_01: 40:05

pivotal years in in in learning to learning to share yeah and learning to or not to but learning to share and learning to sort of communicate with each other and so many children have missed out on that and i think i'm not saying that necessarily impacts their mental health but for some i think it then makes a mixing and socialising a lot harder. So I think there's a few key year groups that need additional, you know, special support. And those year groups who missed that transition, you know, from the end of primary to secondary, I think I found it a lot harder because you miss that transition and suddenly, you know, you're in your second year at secondary school. So I think, and there's quite a lot, and I think we need to look at mental health workers in schools as one of the solutions to that. But I think for adults as well, there's still that anxiety for a lot of people around going out and around mixing. But I do also want to say that I realize one of the main causes of mental health is financial difficulties. And I don't want to individualize the problem too much because the fact that somebody doesn't have very much money and therefore their mental health is suffering, we don't want to put all the onus on that person necessarily. to be the solution to their mental health and actually think, well, actually, if you had a bit more money...

SPEAKER_00: 41:21

Yeah, you'd be fine.

SPEAKER_01: 41:22

You'd be fine. So I think we need to also think as a society about why we see more people have problems with mental health. Yes, partly COVID and the pandemic, but I think the cost of living crisis is having a huge impact on people's mental health. And I think, actually, if people had enough money to live, we wouldn't see as many people suffering with mental health problems. So I think sometimes we almost... get it the wrong way around. It's like we're treating the symptom. We're not treating the problem. Yeah, absolutely. And so I think we need both. Yes, we need to have mental health support and people need to have counselling and support. But if you're going to a counsellor and saying you're up every night worrying and you can't sleep because you haven't got enough money to pay the bills, the answer might not be another week of counselling. Yeah. The answer might be, well, let's make sure you have enough money to pay your bills then. So it needs both.

SPEAKER_00: 42:10

So tell me about Poverty Provenance.

SPEAKER_01: 42:12

Okay, so the poverty premium is a phrase used to describe the extra costs of being poor because it's incredibly expensive if you don't have very much money. The whole system around financial services is all that the more money you have, the less you have to pay. And to give you a couple of examples, so say you need to get credit, you need to buy a new car. The less money you have, the more higher your interest rate is going to be. The more money you have, the lower your interest rate is going to be. So again, you're paying that more, not because you might have a poor credit history or because it might be about anything about you individually, but just because your income is lower, you're seen as more of a risk. You end up paying more for that service. And this is the same with insurance. I mean, car insurance being one, I mean, you could be the best driver ever. In the world, the safest driver, never had a point on your license, never had a scrape, never anything. But if you happen to live in one area, you'll pay so much more for your car insurance than you will if you live somewhere else. And that's nothing to do with you as an individual or how safe a driver you are. It's because of your postcode if you're seen as being in a poor area. So these things are all called the poverty premium. So when you look at how much more people pay... through no fault of their own, but just because of their address and because of their income, they pay a lot more money than somebody who's a lot richer. And the well-known example is the prepayment meter. So if you have a prepayment meter, you pay 2% more for your energy bills than somebody does on a direct debit. It's the same electric.

SPEAKER_00: 43:44

It's

SPEAKER_01: 43:44

exactly the same gas. It's the same stuff coming through, but you have to pay more for it because you're on pay-as-you-go, you know, a prepayment meter, and somebody else with a debit pays less. And so I'm doing this campaign around basically saying, are you people aware of this? It's unfair. And what can we do? What can we do about it? And one of the things I think is, why? Why should you pay more for your gas and electric just because you have a prepayment meter? There's absolutely no reason for that to happen. But also looking at other insurances and other financial services of people Why do you have to pay more because of where you live or the type of job you do? And there's lots of ways around it. And there's lots of really innovative solutions. So, for example, there are systems that at the moment you get direct debit discount. But what if you work as a window cleaner on one week, you might earn differently to the next week and therefore you haven't got that. you know, that weekly and monthly income. So you might not set up your direct debit, therefore you're paying more for everything. But there are systems where you can have electronic push payments. There are different ways that you could do it, which would not cost the company anymore, but mean that you'd still be entitled to the discount. So the big question is why aren't these being offered? Why aren't financial services thinking? And I believe it's because they think that there's a lot of people in the country who they can't make a profit out of. And so they don't want to offer them any services. And I think that's wrong because I think financial services should be made available for everybody. And I think, therefore, we do need to have some kind of influence over the market to say, well, you need to offer services for everybody. So the government have done something around basic bank accounts where if you have a lower income, you can now get a basic bank account. But again, not everybody can actually get those. But we had it with people not being able to afford contents insurance. And then when there's damage to properties or flooding and things like that, they lose everything they've got. So what I'd quite like to see, and I'm working with this charity called Fair by Design, is everybody be made to offer at least some level of services. to everyone in the population because at the moment it feels like the system is unfair.

SPEAKER_00: 46:07

Thank you. And finally, what advice would you give to people perhaps watching this perhaps with an addiction or something health related that they're worried about, perhaps an issue that we haven't even discussed. How can they contact you and how can you help?

SPEAKER_01: 46:22

Yeah, I think the first thing is obviously the most difficult thing I've found from people I know is recognising when there's a problem. And realising when something turns from being a social habit into an addiction. And I think that can be the most difficult thing. But for people who are worried and thinking, well, I'm not quite sure where I am on this, I'd say obviously talk to you guys. Reach out, talk to somebody, have a conversation. I mean, I can offer practical support, but I'm obviously not an expert. And you are the experts and they're the people who you need to go to for support and advice. And it's about... suppose that feeling of you're not on your own no one should feel like they're isolated and there's and i suppose it's that other thing as they go from thinking of the person i know of that feeling ashamed you know there's nothing shameful in having an addiction it's just you know it's an illness and illnesses require support and they require professional support and i just urge people to go out and find it. And if they have problems finding it, then obviously if they're in my area, I can signpost them to the right people. We can find out about the services that are available and, you know, and let people know where they can go for help. But it's that main feeling of, you know, no one's on their own. I mean, can I say I'm about solidarity.

SPEAKER_00: 47:43

No, no, no, no, that's absolutely fine. And then last, I like to finish all my, all my podcasts with a series of 10 questions, the same 10 questions. switch up a little bit. I have switched one up for you in particular today. My first question is, what is your favourite word?

SPEAKER_01: 48:01

Well,

SPEAKER_00: 48:02

That's a great word.

SPEAKER_01: 48:04

Well, when I was teaching, it was humongous. And there's a song, humongous. There's a song, and if you go on YouTube and you type between the lions, humongous song, there's a song I used to play to the children I used to teach all the time. I'm not going to sing it now, but the song is called humongous. And if you find it, you've got to play it because it's really, really fun.

SPEAKER_00: 48:24

Write that one down for me. Why are you singing it now? Yeah, I was going to say, why are you singing

SPEAKER_01: 48:29

it now? Well, the words, I'll give you the words. The words are, big is a word. Sing it. No, I'm not going to see the word humongous. Big is a word that's very dull, a word that we know very well, but sometimes big gets boring. Here are other words we're adoring, like huge and tremendous, and how about stupendous, which brings me to humongous, which means very, very big. That was wonderful. You've got to play it. I will do, yeah. Absolutely loved it. And because, bless them, because we were talking about using really big, really important words, how can we put... So everything they wrote was... Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:07

Brilliant. So what's your least favourite word?

SPEAKER_01: 49:11

I was going to say something political then.

SPEAKER_00: 49:14

Observative. Observative, yeah. I'll take that. Tell me something that excites you.

SPEAKER_01: 49:21

I probably get excited by too much stuff. I get a bit... getting a bit overexcited by a lot. Obviously different foods excite me. Who isn't? That's really exciting. I don't know. I mean, I just, yeah, tend to be a bit, can be a bit silly.

SPEAKER_00: 49:40

Can you pinpoint something for me? Can you what? Can you pinpoint something that excites you?

SPEAKER_01: 49:45

Well, it's definitely, I get quite excited about food, which is a bit silly. And I can't think of what else that really kind of excites me. That's enough. Food's a good one. Food is a good one. Chocolate. There was this someone that was taking the mick out of me because I was like, oh, you know, And they were saying that they were more excited by going home and, you know, having a really nice glass of wine. And I was like, ooh, chocolate. Really excited by seeing that. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that. Yeah, but a nice box of Thorntons Continental, that's exciting.

SPEAKER_00: 50:17

Do you know what? I'm trying to get into that New Year diet sort of thing. There's too much chocolate in the house to stay. I'm two weeks in now and I just can't.

SPEAKER_01: 50:27

You can't start the

SPEAKER_00: 50:27

diet until you've eaten the chocolate. I had about four celebrations last night while I was just waiting for my tea to cook. What sound or noise do you love?

SPEAKER_01: 50:35

Oh, cat purring. Ah, that's a good one. I like that. Love listening to my Thomas purr. He's got a really noisy... Thomas is a nice name. Thomas, yeah. You can talk to him. It's Thomas Hardy. Nice. But he was named, actually, because he has a T. He has an upside-down T, so my youngest named him Thomas. He has a really loud purr, and if you talk to him and you say, Hi, Thomas, how are you? He's like... He gets really... I love the sound of a cat purring.

SPEAKER_00: 50:59

My mother's maiden name's Hardy, so I was a big wrestling fan growing up, and there was a wrestler called Matt Hardy So I was always really disgruntled that I got my dad's surname as opposed to my mum's surname. Just a little sad note there. What sound or noise do you hate?

SPEAKER_01: 51:15

Oh, I hate it when I'm in Parliament and

SPEAKER_00: 51:19

you hear the... What is the whole standing up and sitting down thing, by the

SPEAKER_01: 51:22

way? I've never understood that. It's the equivalent of putting your hand up. It's when you want to be called to speak.

SPEAKER_00: 51:28

But why do about 20, 30 people all stand up and sit down really quickly? Because

SPEAKER_01: 51:31

if you, yeah, so if you want to speak, you have to stand up so the speaker can see who wants to

SPEAKER_00: 51:37

speak. Oh, okay. So it's

SPEAKER_01: 51:38

like putting your hand up

SPEAKER_00: 51:39

in class. I thought people were just really excited by this. It was like, that's a great

SPEAKER_01: 51:41

point. That's a great point.

SPEAKER_00: 51:43

And then sitting back down, I never got it. No, it's

SPEAKER_01: 51:45

literally just indicating.

SPEAKER_00: 51:47

To the speaker that you'd like to speak. I want to speak, yeah. Okay, no, thank you for that, actually. That's changed the way I'm going to view the House of Commons. What has been your highlight of being an MP?

SPEAKER_01: 51:59

think when you can change things so we did quite a bit of work over endometriosis and we changed some of the rules around the guidance for pip assessments and endometriosis so that was good we've changed some of the rules around flooding and flood protection so when you can actually when you can actually change things then that and we had one as well which was around the guidance around if people are on accredited addiction programs and not being uh have to fulfill work

SPEAKER_00: 52:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 52:25

Job work assessments. We managed to change some of the guidance around that as well, which was really good. But they're all small things. I mean, obviously, you can do more when you're in government. But when you can really change things and then you get some really nice feedback from people as well and you've helped them and that's really nice. When you get like a nice message or a nice card or you find out afterwards what's happened to people and it's, you know, good news. That's a real buzz when you think, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 52:53

Because you'll meet so many people, won't you? And actually the... I imagine there's a lot of wonder. I wonder what happened to that person. Did this come through to that? Well,

SPEAKER_01: 53:01

I'll randomly think, oh, you know, what did happen to so-and-so? And it's nice to hear the positive stories. But, yeah, I think the main thing is when you can actually change things. I mean, my colleague... which I was supporting, which was amazing. She's made sign language, was never recognized as an official language. You can do a GCSE in sign language. And she's changed all the law on that. And I think, wow, that's cool. But it is harder in opposition.

SPEAKER_00: 53:28

What profession of the neuron would you like to attempt? If it wasn't a teacher, wasn't a politician.

SPEAKER_01: 53:37

Not a teacher, politician. It'd probably be, I don't know. I mean, I'd still want to do something around politics. making a difference, I think. I mean, there are some really great charities out there and I think I could maybe work in policy for this charity or that charity or campaigning. I mean, for a short period of time, I worked for one of the unions, so I'd maybe like to do that. But I think something that you feel good about the job you do, I mean, you'll know this yourself, you're making a difference and you're changing lives for people. And so I'd want that fulfillment. And I think whether that's through charity you know politics and trying to change the law or teaching and supporting individuals i think i'd still want to do something that you know that you feel like yeah then i've done something doesn't have been worthwhile oh thank you whatever it might whatever it might

SPEAKER_00: 54:26

be what profession would you not like to do i always say this isn't a you know a like a dig at them but it's just something that wouldn't be suited for yourself

SPEAKER_01: 54:35

anything that involves sitting in front of a computer all day So if it was just a sitting in front of a computer all day, that's not for

SPEAKER_00: 54:42

me. I understand that. And then my last question is, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

SPEAKER_01: 54:51

Well, I mean, I think he does. But what would I like to hear him say? I don't know. You did your best.

SPEAKER_00: 55:01

Brilliant. Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate you coming on and talking to us today. It's been wonderful. Great to

SPEAKER_01: 55:07

chat to you too.

SPEAKER_00: 55:08

Thank you. Thank you. And if you enjoyed this episode of the Believe in People podcast, don't forget to check out our other episodes and hit that subscribe button. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Our name is CGL Holt. That's C-G-L-H-U-L-L. We're on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and Google Music. So please like and subscribe to receive regular updates. You can also search for Believe in People podcast on your favorite listening device. And if you could leave us a review, that will really help us with getting our message out there and rising up the daily podcast charts.