Two influential Labour MPs: Stephen Kinnock, Minister of State for Care and Sonia Kumar, the first female and first ethnic minority MP for Dudley, spoke at a private Westminster dinner hosted by Chamber UK and sponsored by Phoenix Sustainable Investments.
Held in central London, the event brought together stakeholders across business, and policy for an evening of discussion, networking, and insight. Guests were treated to a three-course dinner and the chance to hear from two Labour voices at the forefront of efforts to reform and rebuild public services.
“I stood because I wanted to make a change”
Opening the evening, Sonia Kumar MP delivered a personal and compelling speech about her path to Parliament: “I’m the Member of Parliament for Dudley and my background… is actually in healthcare.”
She recalled growing up above her family’s shop: “I was brought up in a greengrocer’s – so I lived on top of a shop. My dad worked sort of 24 hours a day, pretty much seven days a week. I used to sit down with him, do his accounts, rub them out in pencil- because I used to get them wrong – and then restart them again.”
Kumar described her career as a physiotherapist in the NHS. “As soon as I got into being a physiotherapist, I was told I had two days of training and then I’d be looking at ITU paediatric patients. And I thought, this can’t be happening. So two weeks in, I’m now looking after three wards as a junior physiotherapist. And I thought, this can’t be right.”
Despite her seniority later in her career, the problems remained. “Every single time I went up – 25 years – I was managing two wards, managing over 30 members of staff, and I thought, this still can’t be right.”
Her decision to run for office was driven by frontline experience: “I was angry, working in the NHS, when I knew that things could be so much better.”
She highlighted her outsider status in Westminster. “I’m not a politician, I haven’t got it in my blood, I didn’t study it, I didn’t have any family or friends in politics. I stood because I wanted to make a change.”
Now serving as MP for Dudley, she remains energised: “I love my job. I’m still in my honeymoon period at 10 months in, still enjoying the waves of not knowing where I need to vote and how quick I need to get there, and in heels can I run quick to the voting lobbies.”
“Her insights and views on these matters are genuinely indispensable to us”
Following on from his Labour colleague: Stephen Kinnock opened his speech with high praise: “She’s an absolutely outstanding newcomer to Parliament. She has an amazing background in healthcare. Sonia’s done it. She’s been there, she’s been at the front line. And her insights and views on these matters are genuinely indispensable to us.”
Stephen Kinnock described Kumar’s story as emblematic of Labour’s ethos. “We are also a party that believes in breaking ceilings – that there should be no connection between the circumstances of the family that you’re born into, the place that you’re born, and what you can achieve in your life.
“Sonia embodies that ethos of our party, which is: if you want to get on, if you have big dreams, you work hard and you’ve got the talent, you can do anything.”
“Nothing in this country bloody works anymore”
Kinnock then delivered a stark assessment of the current state of health and care services: “When I was appointed as the Minister of State for Care and went into the department, started asking questions, started looking at the books, started looking at the state of our health and care system, it was much, much worse even than I thought. 7 million people on the backlog, GP numbers declining, NHS dentistry ceasing to exist almost.”
He continued: “Demand for NHS dentistry is going through the roof and yet they were handing back the NHS contract every year because dentists are not incentivised to do it. Our adult care system is on its knees as well.”
Kinnock pointed to specific areas where the government has begun delivering improvements. “In our manifesto, we pledged an additional 40,000 elective procedures per week. We smashed that target. 2 million extra appointments in the first year? We smashed that within seven months.
He went on: “We have renegotiated with general practice. We’ve got 1,500 new GPs now on the front line.”
On social care investment, he noted: “We are also pushing forward with things like the biggest uplift to carer’s allowance since the 1970s, a big uplift to the Disabled Facilities Grant and £3.7 billion into care authorities across the country.”
“The number one mission of this government is to drive growth”
Kinnock argued that rebuilding services must go hand-in-hand with reforming the UK’s economy. “There’s two big pieces to this story. One is about economic growth and the other is about rebuilding our public services.”
He reflected on decades of regional decline. “Back in the 1980s and 1990s, there were 20,000 men and women working in that steelworks. There are now fewer than 5,000.” He added, “We have failed to harness those forces and make them work for working people… The coal mines were replaced by Amazon warehouses. That is what we need to change in our country.”
He described Labour’s economic agenda as a break with past models: “It has to be a new kind of growth. Not the kind of growth that works for the top 1% of society, but the kind of growth that will rebuild our working and middle classes from the bottom up.”
Kinnock said business must be a partner in that effort. “We are the party that can partner with business… It has to be a partnership – the state and business working together to drive a new kind of growth.”
“They are snake oil salesmen”
Addressing the rise of Reform UK, Kinnock issued a clear warning. “There’s no doubt, both for Sonia and I, that the clear threat now is coming from Reform.”
Referring to Nigel Farage’s policy proposals set out in the Daily Mail, he said: “He’s going to raise the personal allowance from £12,500 to £20,000 … Do you know what that will cost the Exchequer? £50 billion.”
He criticised Reform’s populist message: “They are snake oil salesmen, they are magic bean sellers and they would be very, very dangerous for our economy.”
He gave a clear warning against the populist allure of Reform’s economic agenda”When you actually look at the policies that Reform stands for, they would trigger a worse financial crash than what we saw with the Liz Truss mini-budget.”
“Let’s actually start to deliver the change”
Kinnock concluded with a message of encouragement to his colleague and a call to action to the wider room. “Enjoy it. It’s a hell of a ride. You’re going to be a fantastic MP.”
“Let’s work together. Let’s actually start to deliver the change that the country voted for. Make sure that people feel that change. Make sure they know it’s thanks to a Labour government that that change is materialising.”
Chamber UK would like to thank Phoenix Sustainable Investments for their generous support of the event.
Curia members are able attend all dinners at no cost.