Wales’s first MP from ethnic minority background shares ambition for ‘bond of dignity’

Wales’s first MP from an ethnic minority background has told the Commons his “twin ambitions” are greater prosperity and dignity for his constituents.

In his maiden speech on Thursday, Kanishka Narayan also said he takes inspiration from Uncle Bryn – a character in TV sitcom Gavin And Stacey – as well as singing James Blunt songs on the motorway between London and his Vale of Glamorgan patch.

The Labour MP thanked deputy speaker Judith Cummins for calling him to speak in Welsh: “Diolch yn fawr.”

He said: “Money doesn’t buy most things in life – it doesn’t solve most of our problems – but its absence, the deprivation entrenched over the last decade, is the root of many evils, and in particular it is the cause that has chipped away at the dignity of my community, and that is why I come here with the twin ambitions of greater prosperity and of a deeper bond of dignity in the Vale of Glamorgan and across the UK.

“I do so not just out of political slogan or political theory, but out of a history of personal gratitude, because it was 22 years ago that the Vale of Glamorgan and South Wales, as well as Cardiff, offered a newly arrived set of parents the opportunity of a minimum wage and a night shift to subsidise the sleep of their young boys.

“In the absence of any holidays, it was Barry Island that first gave those two young boys the opportunity of relief, perhaps even some delight, over the weekend.

“And it was in South Wales, where I grew up with my brother in the situation of particular economic stress, where you felt still through the deepest privileges of education you could go on to advise the prime minister and the civil service, to advise FTSE boards across the City, to invest in tomorrow’s inventors and, ultimately, to stand before you as Wales’s first member of Parliament from an ethnic minority background.”

Mr Narayan described “the heart and humour of Uncle Bryn (Rob Brydon), my favourite character, whose driving down the M4 blasting James Blunt songs has been a personal inspiration to me each time I leave this esteemed chamber for the more esteemed comfort of Barrybados”.

He earlier credited his Conservative predecessor Alun Cairns has having “initiated” a development project in Barry, which Mr Narayan vowed to support as a “top priority”, and added that the decommissioned coal-fired power station at Aberthaw is “now the host of my and my constituents’ future dreams for a centre of excellence in green energy”.