PENISTONE and Stocksbridge MP Marie Tidball has thanked the outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer for his efforts - but has set out a strong message that the work is not yet done.
Starmer resigned from his role on Monday after his position became untenable.
He was the first Prime Minister to act on the calls for action by Barnsley woman Claire Throssell.
Marie praised him for his work during his tenure as Labour leader and Prime Minister but said more work needs to be done.
She added: “When Keir took on the leadership, he inherited a party that had lost four general elections in a row.
” He changed it, root and branch, and made it fit to govern again.
“In 2024 he led us to a historic victory, ended fourteen years of Conservative failure, and gave our country the chance of national renewal.
“He is, like me, a product of the British Dream, proof of what becomes possible when the state offers a hand up, not a hand out.
“I am grateful for his decency, his seriousness, and his ability to bring people together around the hardest of problems.
“I have been personally grateful to the promise he made to my constituent Claire Throssell and I, for our Labour government to fulfil her promise to her boys to repeal the presumption of contact.
“I will continue to work with our government to ensure this becomes law.
“Keir Starmer has been the bridge that enabled our Labour Party to get into government but he is not the destination of our Labour government at this next stage.
“Our work is not done.
“The times we are in require change to be felt more directly in people’s lives, closer to home.
“The next Prime Minister must be bolder, move faster, and commit to a fundamental reset for the industrial communities, like ours, in the north that have been left behind for decades.”
