Oliver Ryan first 50 days interview

Burnley MP Oliver Ryan on his first 50 days in parliament

Transcript

00:00It's been great, it's been really crazy. I've been pretty much inundated with correspondence

00:07and letters and pieces of casework that people want dealing with and help with. I've held

00:12advice surgery, I've asked questions in the house to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary

00:16and other Secretaries of State about matters that people have written to me on the basis

00:20of. It's been cool, but in lots of ways slightly daunting.

00:27The work that you do is based on conversations with Ministers if you like, civil servants,

00:32others, about how we're going to try and get things achieved through this government and

00:37deliver for Burnley, Paddyham and Briarfield.

00:40Now I believe you're preparing for your maiden speech in Parliament which will take place

00:45in September. What are the main things you're going to be talking about in that?

00:50I am, yes. The first kind of substantive contribution you make in the House is called your maiden

00:55speech and typically it's uninterrupted and people let you speak for 8-10 minutes if you

01:00like about a particular issue. I want to raise, and I think it's something that's come to

01:06light not only through the campaign but over the last year, generational inactivity or

01:13economic inactivity. So people in Burnley too often and in Paddyham and Briarfield are

01:20not interacting with the economy because they're out of work either on sickness long term or

01:25they're just out of work and then their kids go on to experience the same thing and don't

01:30interact with the economy in the same way and I think it locks people out socially as

01:34well as economically. Burnley's got one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in

01:38the country and I want to see that come down. Some of these big social issues that are difficult

01:42to tackle may not be a headline cash sum on the front page of a newspaper but it's the

01:48stuff that changes lives over the long term and if I can convince the government to do

01:52more especially in the area of jobs, unemployment and training people back into work in places

01:59like Burnley and Paddyham then I will.