The new MP for Gateshead Central and Wickham has paid tribute to his local Jewish community in his first-ever speech to Parliament.
Mark Ferguson, the MP for the newly created seat, said he was “proud to represent” a “thriving Jewish community.”
His constituency in the northeast of England contains most of Gateshead’s Charedi community of around 8,000 people – the third largest in the UK.
During his maiden speech, Ferguson praised local schools and educational establishments, including Gateshead Talmudical College, the oldest Yeshiva in the country founded in 1929 and he described it as “the foundation from which Gateshead gained its reputation as the Oxbridge of the Jewish world.”
