‘I’ve been trying flipping hard to avoid doing it,’ said Heidi Allen today as she started her maiden speech. She hadn’t seen the point of speeches in the Chamber, she explained, because most people in the Commons were already wedded to their side, and there wasn’t much point in her adding to those speeches as they changed no minds.
But the reason she had decided to give it during the Opposition Day debate on tax credits ‘because today I can sit on my hands no longer’. She wanted to criticise the tax credit cuts. She wanted to intervene before it was ‘too late’ to stop the changes to tax credits, even though she didn’t want to support today’s motion from Labour because she disagreed with the party’s overall stance.
https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/heidi-allen-delivers-her-maiden-speech-on-the-topic-of-tax-credits
She offered a detailed critique of the controversial cuts, asking how many of her colleagues really understood the challenge that would face those affected by them.
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