Regional Accents and Social Mobility
House of Commons · Westminster Hall · 15 Jul 2026 · 23 speeches · Official Report
I beg to move, That this House has considered regional accents and social mobility. Thank you for chairing this debate, Sir Roger. The way we speak reveals so much about us. Long before we explain our politics, our profession or our background-the moment we open our mouths-our accents instantly signal a core part of who we are. Accents carry traces of our communities, our upbringing and our lived experience. They are part of our story. I grew up as a working-class woman from Salford, so my accent has always been woven into my identity, just as much as my values or my politics. After more than 20 years of living in Leigh, it has naturally taken on a Lancashire lilt. I say “beltin’” when something is brilliant, “int’ it” when I agree, and “love-leh” instead of “lovely”. However, what is harder to confront is the pressure that many people feel to change the way they speak in order to progress. Accents can be a barrier, and it is a barrier that not many people speak about. There is a hierarchy of accent prestige deeply rooted in British society, yet we should remind ourselves of a simple truth: everybody has an accent-there is no such thing as speaking without one. What we often describe as a neutral accent is simply an accent that has historically been associated with power and prestige. There is no linguistic basis for ranking accents. No accent is inherently more intelligent, professional, articulate or correct than another. These are social judgments, not linguistic facts....
I am sure I’ll be using a slightly different accent this evening when watching the football-a few expletives might come out as I shout at the TV. Does my hon. Friend agree that a part of public life is being authentic? One way to build trust and authenticity is to just be ourselves. That is important for diversity and, as she says, for our national culture.
I cannot agree more with that statement; I think we are grasping that more and more. We do not have to come from the places we represent-I do not-but representing our communities does matter and it is about being ourselves. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Colleagues across both Houses are proud of where they come from and of the voices that reflect that, and we should celebrate that diversity. But let us not pretend that the battle has been won. The way my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) has been mocked and criticised for how she speaks demonstrates that accent prejudice remains alive and well in our politics. If somebody can reach one of the highest offices in the land and still face those attitudes, there is clearly lots more work to do. My experience has shaped my interest in how regional accents influence people’s opportunities and representation. That is why I was delighted to host a parliamentary drop-in session for the Westminster Voices project and to support the important research being led by Professor Rob Drummond of Manchester Metropolitan University and Dr Amanda Cole of the University of Cambridge. I pay tribute to them both for leading the conversation on this. The turnout was exceptional. Every MP, peer and member of staff who attended had their own story about their accent, background and journey into Westminster. All that is why I felt it important to hold a debate on this issue today, because we all have a...
My hon. Friend is making an important and interesting speech. Confidence is incredibly important, especially for young people. We have a huge youth unemployment crisis in this country, and part of that is down to young people not having confidence. Does she agree, first, that we must ensure that there is not accent bias so that people do not lose confidence and, secondly, that we must build young people’s confidence, partly through work experience and other schemes?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about confidence. Politicians have a lot of work to do in supporting our constituents, including children and young people in schools and the workplace. I hope we can continue having this conversation with the Department to ensure that that happens. The Co-op has done a lot of research on this issue and is calling for socioeconomic background to become a legally protected characteristic. That would ensure that accent bias and related forms of discrimination are confronted head on. Our accents carry who we are-our identities, our communities and our lived experiences-and that diversity enriches our country. Criticism of the way someone speaks is rarely just about language; more often, it reflects assumptions about class, region and identity. We cannot solve every form of social inequality by addressing accent bias alone, but we can ensure that the way people speak is one less barrier to opportunity. We should stop asking people to change the way they speak, and instead change the way we as a society listen. From Parliament to every workplace, university and institution across the country, every voice deserves to be heard, respected and represented. When every voice can rise, our nation rises with it-louder, prouder and stronger than ever.
Thank you very much, Sir Roger, for giving me the chance to participate. I thank the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt), my cousin from across the sea-or across the shuck, as we would say back in Northern Ireland-for highlighting this issue. It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate. When I first came here, there was a time in our friendship, Sir Roger-I have learned to value your advice on many things-when you would have said, “What’s that boy saying?” You never said it to offend, of course, but you might have asked yourself that question. When we talk about diversity, inclusion and breaking down barriers to social mobility in the country, we rightly talk about race, gender, background and socioeconomic status. But, as the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton said, there is a silent, pervasive form of prejudice that remains entirely socially acceptable in corporate boardrooms, academic institutions and possibly the very corridors of power in this place. I am talking about accentism. I have a very clear accent. I think it is normal, but when I came over here I realised that I might be the only one with it. People’s intelligence, competence and worth can be judged entirely on how they sound. I will give an example. I was saying to the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) that when I asked a question in the Adjournment debate one night, the Minister said, “That’s a great question. I’ll come back to you with the answer.” I just thought that was what she...
This is a serious issue-we must ensure that people are not disadvantaged for any type of accent-but does my hon. Friend agree there is sometimes a humorous side, as we saw this week in the European Parliament? A Sinn Féin MEP complained that they were not allowed to speak in Irish. When the chair reminded him that they could, the MEP replied that he was not prepared, so he would speak in English instead. It can be humorous-even if slightly embarrassing at times.
It certainly is. I appreciate that intervention from my hon. Friend and colleague. The Hansard staff do a heroic job. They are always happy to write down the names of my local farmers, community groups and townlands such as Ballywalter-which we know as Whitkirk-or Kircubbin. Last week, I got a wee message, “Could you spell your sons’ names, please?” That perfectly illustrates the point of this debate, and the centre and core of what the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton had to say. If a Member of Parliament, with more than two decades of public service, still faces hurdles to be understood because of his or her regional tongue, what hope does a 21-year-old graduate from a working-class Ulster-Scots background have when trying to navigate an interview panel of elites? How challenging and hard could that be? One of my favourite stories dates back to when my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and I served on the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is again about the accent being hard to understand. I had an American guest for a meal in the dining room there. The lady, an English professor at a prestigious American university, was really interested in Ulster Scots words and accent. We were served by a young boy I knew and had probably grown up with in Ballywalter-or Whitkirk. I chatted with him and asked after his mum and dad, as you do in small talk. That lovely, intelligent lady from Philadelphia leaned over to Naomi, my private secretary, and said, “That’s...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) on securing today’s debate. I have spent a fair bit of time near her patch over the past couple of months, and though we bang on about the Yorkshire-Lancashire rivalry, we are united by a few things: some of the best food in the country-including the finest pies-and of course, the warmth and friendliness that we are all proud of, and of which she is one of the finest examples in this House. I want to be crystal clear: judging someone by their accent is an attitude that belongs firmly in the history books. I must admit that, when I first arrived in Parliament, I often felt out of place and like I did not belong-all because of my accent. Like many colleagues here today, I was not elected because I sounded polished; I was elected through hard graft and to represent the people who sent me here. I have done my best, though, to get a few Yorkshire phrases into Hansard , because that is how my constituents speak. I will kick off by giving a few more, having turned to Facebook for some inspiration. There is some disagreement, and I am risking controversy here, but I stand firmly with saying “ginnel” over “gennel”-some things you have to get right. What came through clearly is that the Yorkshire dialect is not just colourful, it is precise. When someone is “mithering”, you know exactly what they are doing. If they have a “mardy”, you know what that...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) for securing this important debate. I am proud to speak not just as the Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton North East but as someone who has felt the pressure to turn down the dial on my accent. From day one of my entering the House, many here made comments-well intentioned, I am sure-about how they could hear my accent, which were usually followed by a “Peaky Blinders” comment. I am absolutely fine with that, because I am a huge “Peaky Blinders” fan”. In isolation, it is fine, but when I hear it again and again, I cannot help but feel self-conscious, and it can become quite tiresome. Shortly after I was elected, after I made my maiden speech, this was all put into context by a message I received from a former student. She said, “Miss”- I am always “Miss” to my former students-“I am so proud that I can see and hear somebody on the telly, somebody in Parliament, who looks and sounds like me.” That was it. That gave me the confidence to just plough forward and to continue to speak loud and proud in my not so dulcet Wolverhampton tones. That is why representation matters for young people growing up in Wolverhampton and Willenhall. Hearing voices that sound like theirs in Parliament and in positions of leadership sends a powerful message: you belong here too. It tells them that they do not have to change who they are to succeed. That matters...
I say a big thank you to my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) for bringing this important debate to the House. I am keen to discuss this issue, as someone who was forged in the coalfield community of Ashington, which was the biggest coalmining community in the world. After more than 16 years in this place, some people might say that I have lost my own accent, but I am really proud of it. An accent represents who you are, where you are from and who you represent. It is your identity. There are two sides to this issue, which I think have already been mentioned: a humorous side and an important, serious side.
I love the hon. Gentleman’s accent. It portrays the person he is: the history, the culture, and the locality he comes from. Every word that the hon. Gentleman speaks is a word from his constituency and from his people. I like him as a person, by the way, but I just wanted to say that I love his accent as well.
That is very kind of the hon. Gentleman. My youngest son Liam speaks with a much harsher dialect than me, but he speaks five times faster than the hon. Gentleman. Imagine the problems that causes us when we travel abroad, or even to Yorkshire, for example. People do not have a clue what he is saying, but he is university educated and is absolutely fantastic at the work he does. My accent is pitmatic: it is from the pits, from the coalmines. Every little village and town had their own pit-some had more than one-and we all spoke different. In one town, we had our own language and dialect-our own speak. I am proud of that. I am really proud of the fact that, when I left school with very few qualifications, I went to work seven miles under the North sea with some of the finest and brightest people I will ever meet: the miners. Not many of them ever got the opportunity to go to university, but you should hear the way they speak. When I look at some of the videos and recordings of the miners in my patch from days gone by, I can hardly understand what they are saying, but it is so rich in heritage, it is absolutely wondrous, to be honest. I have an anecdote before I get on to the serious part. Two or three years ago, in my patch in Ashington, a group of asylum seekers met a shadow Minister to discuss the situations they faced in towns like mine, and one of the big barriers was the dialect. They said that it was okay and that they could understand what we were saying; the big...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this morning, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) for securing this debate, and for hosting the excellent recent event on regional accents. Yesterday, we celebrated Black Country Day-a moment to recognise the history, the heritage and everything wonderful about the Black Country, including our distinctive accent and dialect. However, in various polls over the years, the Black Country and Birmingham accents have frequently been cited as the least favoured in the UK, and they face unfair stigma, classism and stereotyping. I take this opportunity to clarify that Black Country and Brummie are not the same thing-as any Black Country person will say: “Ar bay a Brummie-arm from the Black Country!” As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge) said, we are often mocked and judged for our accent. When I tell people that I am from Stourbridge, I am often met with a blank look, but when I say that it is near Dudley, I can hear what their brain is thinking before they say, “Dud-laay”. One time, it is funny-but when it happens repeatedly, it can become demeaning. However, ours is one of the oldest and most historically preserved dialects in the UK, retaining roots from Old English and early Middle English-surely something to be proud of. The Black Country accent has been associated with laziness, lower intelligence and a lack of sophistication, but that is far from...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) for introducing this really interesting debate. I have not been in a debate that has brought such a lovely smile to my face in a long time. We are celebrating diversity, which is what regional accents are really about. We should be celebrating diversity much more, rather than trying to tell people to do things differently, and it is a real opportunity to do that, so I have genuinely enjoyed listening to this debate. I probably have a fairly neutral accent, but that does not mean that I have been immune in my life to people telling me to change it. I represent Chelmsford in Essex. Essex has a fairly well-known accent, thanks to programmes such as “The Only Way Is Essex” and “Gavin and Stacey”, which obviously celebrates other parts of the country as well. I really like the Essex accent, because it is really interesting-not just the tone of voice that people use, but the way that they say certain words, just as Members from across the country have highlighted with the phrases that they use. I am originally from Devon and grew up in the west country, which has quite a strong accent as well. The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) talked about teachers encouraging students to tone down their accent, and I was also told that as a child. I was privileged to take part in readings that we celebrated in the cathedral every year at my school when I was 12 or 13...
That point made me think about the fact that a lot of regional dialects and accents have been lost over the years simply because people have moved away or been forced to tone them down. That is another reason why it is important to embrace our regional differences, so that we do not lose any more of these precious dialects and accents.
The hon. Member reminds me that my aunt sadly lost her partner a few months ago. He was three days off his 90th birthday, and he was a true Cornishman. He had lived in Cornwall his entire life-in a very small area of Cornwall, in fact. He was incredibly well known, and I had the privilege of being able to love spending time with him. Listening to the way that he spoke and the stories that he used to tell was just beautiful, but the phrases that he used to use are unfortunately dying out. They will be lost over time, so we have to take advantage of modern technology to record some of these things, so that they are not lost and we should also continue to encourage them in our schools through spoken histories. I thank the hon. Member for raising that.
The hon. Lady referred to her aunt’s father, who was almost 90 years old, and that reminds me of my own dad, who is dead and gone. He was a very proud Donegal man, and one of the wee poems or verses that he taught me when I was small was this: “Where ye fa? Donegal. How’s your purties? Great or small. How do you eat them? Skins an a.” Those wee verses will be lost forever if they are not retained and written down. It is important to retain some of those wee stories from days past, as well as the fact that potatoes was what it was all about. Potatoes in Donegal-that is what they lived on, for their dinner and their tea. That is just a wee step back in time.
There are so many lovely stories to tell about this subject, and that is why this has been such a lovely debate. We genuinely should be continuing to encourage the retention of regional phrases, stories and poems, and I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for bringing us that poem. In conclusion, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I believe very strongly in a society with strong social mobility. Our regional accents, backgrounds and experiences should never hold us back from social mobility; people’s opportunities should definitely never ever be limited by their accent. I thank the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton for bringing us this debate.
It is a pleasure to listen to and take part in this debate on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) on securing the debate and on her personal, informative and engaging speech. I had the pleasure of welcoming the Youth Parliament to my county last year, and I was delighted to hear from all those young people from across the country; it was a pleasure to listen to them. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) mentioned her pronunciation of “tooth”; I was born on the “two-th” of June-I had to continually be corrected on that one. I must declare an interest, as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for youth employment. I have the pleasure of working with Youth Employment UK on promoting youth employment in all its forms, the role of young people in the economy and ensuring that young people’s voices are heard. I also co-chair the APPG on men and boys’ issues, and it is a pleasure to work with the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys in that role on improving the wellbeing, opportunities and life chances of our boys. I think it is clear that this is one of the things that drives me in politics. As we have rightly heard today, a regional accent must never be seen as a badge of shame, and I will come on to talk about my mother’s experience of that. Every single one of our regional accents-from the north-east to the south-west,...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) for securing this important debate, which I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to. In all the stories shared, I recognise how powerful and rich the debate is. I thank her for the work that she has done in Parliament. This is one of those topics that leads us to wonder why we have not had the conversation before. This must be its time as it has captured the imagination of Parliament so effectively and powerfully. It is already achieving the goals that my hon. Friend wants: that important culture change, a shift in attitudes and an understanding that where accentism might be holding back social mobility, it is our responsibility to do all that we can to tackle it. I pay tribute to Professor Rob Drummond and Dr Amanda Cole and the accentism project for their Westminster Voices initiative, as well as their other important work in this field, particularly the “This is English” project with the British Council, which champions the powerful idea that the English language belongs to everyone who speaks it in all its rich, diverse and regional variations. Too often, debates in this House are defined by columns of statistics, spreadsheets and policy levers, but today my hon. Friend and all who have taken part have given our debate a rare and special thing: the space to tell stories and talk about identity and belonging and what it can be like for our...
Thank you for chairing this debate, Sir Roger. It has been enlightening and humorous but serious in its cause. I thank the Minister for her response, and for acknowledging the importance of ensuring that accents are not a barrier and of tackling the unconscious bias in society today. I thank all hon. Members who contributed. As I say, it was humorous but serious. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He coined, I think, a new term: I am going to use “phonetic wrapper” again. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for York Outer (Mr Charters) and for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge), who spoke so passionately about the barriers in education, and in particular at university. We need to continue the conversation on that. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) and for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles); they both spoke about how the giants of our industrial past have shaped our accents and dialects, from the factories, the mills and the mines in communities such as ours. I close by saying to the Minister that I will enjoy continuing the conversation, with an accent, about how we close the barriers.
I am sure that the whole House will have appreciated the contribution by Strangford’s own answer to Professor Henry Higgins. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered regional accents and social mobility.