Wes Streeting

On housing, education and skills, health and social care, transport and economic development, local government is better placed to make decisions in the interests of local communities.

When I was at a tough inner-city school, drama gave me a friendship group. It's been so core to who I am and given me such confidence later in life.

The failure of state education in so many white working class areas is utterly unacceptable. Not to talk about it or to have any answers for how we overcome it, equally so. Nor should we be tackling educational inequality affecting white working class kids at the expense of tackling the disadvantage facing young people from other backgrounds.

One of the privileges of my adult life has been meeting pioneers of LGBT equality, particularly Waheed Alli, Michael Cashman and Ian McKellen.

I was born in Tower Hamlets in London Hospital, Mile End. I grew up in Stepney on a council estate and lived with my mum and only saw my dad on weekends.

Growing up with my mum, often I'd be the only person at home. She would spend a lot of time talking to me. She treated me almost like an adult; she used to get mildly rebuked by my dad and my grandad for that. But she gave me a degree of responsibility beyond my years; my own sense of agency and even my self-confidence, I get from her.