Rachael Maskell
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Rachael Maskell MP |
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|---|---|
| Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | |
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In office 27 June 2016 – 1 February 2017 |
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| Leader | Jeremy Corbyn |
| Preceded by | Kerry McCarthy |
| Succeeded by | Sue Hayman |
| Shadow Minister for Armed Forces Personnel and Veterans | |
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In office 18 September 2015 – 27 June 2016 |
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| Leader | Jeremy Corbyn |
| Preceded by | Gemma Doyle (Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans) |
| Succeeded by | TBD |
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Member of Parliament for York Central |
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Assumed office 7 May 2015 |
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| Preceded by | Hugh Bayley |
| Majority | 6,716 (14.1%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 5 July 1972 |
| Political party | Labour Co-operative |
| Alma mater | University of East Anglia |
| Website | Official website |
Rachael Helen Maskell (born 5 July 1972) is a Labour Co-operative politician in the United Kingdom. She is the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of York Central after retaining the seat for her party at the 2015 general election.
She graduated from the University of East Anglia with a degree in physiotherapy in 1994.
Maskell has been politically active since an early age. As a child, her uncle campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty, in addition to serving as an advisor to the Wilson government and as an academic. The Yorker, a York based publication styled after The New Yorker magazine, states: "[he] preferred to live and work amongst his community rather than be without. [H]is approach to politics was her inspiration as a child".
Maskell worked as a care-worker and physiotherapist in the National Health Service for 20 years. Maskell has also been a trade-union official.
Maskell used her maiden speech to advocate for a new mental health hospital in York to replace the ageing Bootham Park. Speaking of the vision of "late member for Ebbw Vale" Aneurin Bevan, she said that "the growing social and financial inequalities manifest themselves in health inequality, and access to vital services is delayed and even denied as a direct result of the £3 billion structural reorganisation that the previous Government introduced."
On Wednesday 8 July 2015, Rachael Maskell was one of four Labour MPs elected to the Health Select Committee.
Maskell voted against the Welfare Bill in the House of Commons on 20 July 2015. Maskell made a statement saying "I have a duty to protect our vulnerable people. I could not stand by and let the most vicious Tory attacks on some of the poorest in our city go unchallenged."
In September 2015, during the European refugee crisis, Maskell called on the UK to open its doors to refugees; she said "we can all have a bit more compassion. If it was the other way round and we were in that desperate situation, we would expect somebody to show compassion to us." Speaking as 20,000 refugees arrived in Munich in one weekend, and as the German Government gets ready to receive 800,000 refugees in 2015; Maskell said that the UK Government must do more. She questioned David Cameron in the House of Commons asking "what criteria has the Prime Minister used to arrive at a figure of just six refugees per constituency per year?" She is quoted as saying "20,000 is not enough and 30,000 is not enough' and that "We will keep going until we hit our saturation point because what does it matter if we have to wait another week for a hospital visit? Or if our class sizes, are slightly bigger? Or if, our city is slightly fuller? What does it matter, if things are slightly more challening? If we have to pay a little bit more in to the system?"; in a statement on the crisis, she urged local authorities to help in every way they can and use every space they had to offer to aid people fleeing war in Syria and Northern Iraq, she said "we are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis that is getting worse, I am incensed that Turkey is hosting over one and a half million refugees and our government says we will open our borders to no more than six men, women and children a year in each constituency."
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