It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris.
I have the privilege of speaking in this Chamber today because, six months ago, the country voted for change—the biggest change, in fact, that this Parliament has seen in generations. We know why people voted for change. It was because, for 14 years, the Conservatives have been taking the country down a road that has left everybody worse off: NHS waiting lists spiralling out of control; no grip on the prison crisis; no plan for the economy; and no control over the cost of living crisis.
We stood on a manifesto of setting that right. That is why the general election that we have just had reduced the Tories to the smallest number in their history. Ours was a message of hard work and of sorting out the mess they made that everyone could see. But for all their failures, I think one of the cruellest things that the last Government did was to take away hope and to take away the belief that things can be changed not by gimmicks or by slogans but by doing the work and doing the right thing, even when it is difficult.