Before I call the mover and seconder, I want to announce the proposed subjects of debate during the remaining days on the Loyal Address, which are: tomorrow—Britain’s place in the world; Wednesday—public services; Thursday—the climate emergency; Monday—the NHS; Tuesday—the economy.
I shall first call Lee Rowley to move and then Sarah Newton to second the Address.
That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
It is a great honour to move the Loyal Address, both for me and the constituency of North East Derbyshire, my home, which I am so proud and privileged to represent. First, however, I stand here this afternoon to right an historic and terrible injustice: no Member from my great county of Derbyshire has moved the Loyal Address for over 100 years. The delay has been long. It last happened in 1903, when it was moved by Colonel Gretton, representing the constituency so ably now served by my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler).
I took to reading that speech to get some inspiration for the rather terrifying job I now have. I am afraid to report that it only increased my nervousness at the task ahead. I discovered that before the good colonel even uttered a single syllable, Hansard noted, with that courteous understatement that Hansard is famous for, that he was heard “with much difficulty”. What that is an Edwardian euphemism for is lost to time. I will seek to avoid the challenge that faced my county forebear by speaking both loudly and, at least at the start, by avoiding Brexit.
Secondly, another worry arose, if not for me, for the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. The subject to which Colonel Gretton turned first was not education, health, welfare or taxes, or even his constituency, but a subject that is returned to time and again in this place: Venezuela. [Laughter.] The colonel was keen to explain that the recent policy successes in South America had been achieved without the destruction of personal property. I wonder if our Venezuelan friends will have the same pre-eminence in 2019 that they did in 1903.
Finally, I was struck by the response of the Prime Minister, Mr Balfour. His initial remarks were not focused on great matters of state. Instead he was keen not to impede the impending dinner hour of the Members present. I hope not to do so today by applying some Derbyshire common sense and knowing when to sit down.
I am relatively new to this place, having only been here since the 2017 general election. Having just turned 39, I hope that I tend—just—towards the more youthful end of the parliamentary age range. That is true not least—if he will forgive me—when I compare myself with my parliamentary neighbour, the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner), who was in customary fine form this morning and who has been providing quips to this House since a decade before I was born. [Laughter.]
It is an absolute pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), who made an outstanding speech and demonstrated yet again what a champion he is for his constituents.
When I was asked to second the Humble Address, I felt honoured, but I also felt some consternation. Of course, it is always an honour to represent my constituents in this place. Although the House may very much tire of my talking about Cornwall, I will never tire of speaking up for the Duchy and its great people. I imagine there are many people watching this debate at home, and I think they might prefer to be casting their eyes over that dark-haired and handsome Member of Parliament for the 18th century—of course, I am referring to Ross Poldark, my fictional predecessor who represented Truro. I have to confess that even when I was in the Whips Office, I was not any use with a scythe. As my ancestors were Cornish tin miners, I think of myself more as a Demelza than a Ross, but we can all occasionally indulge in a bit of wishful thinking. I felt a degree of consternation —probably along with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire—because I was asked to give a speech that I felt was reserved for those people the Whips had found to have reached the high water mark of their career in this place. I do not know about you, Mr Speaker, but I still very much feel like I am 35 and that the best years are ahead of me.
It is nearly 10 years since I first spoke in the Chamber, when I described beautiful Cornwall and highlighted my creative, inventive, enterprising and determined constituents. Those qualities are as evident today as they were then. Thanks to the steps taken by Governments since 2010 and the work done with the many can-do people in my constituency, we are making real progress in improving the quality of people’s lives. Along with the recently announced increased investment in our public services, the Bills announced today will mean that we will be able to move further and faster in ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to reach their potential—from improving education opportunities and access to high-quality health and care services, to better paid and high-quality jobs. The increase in the number of detectives who painstakingly research and gather evidence to solve crime in our streets is most welcome. The funding attached is enough for 20,000 officers—or one Coleen Rooney.
It could also focus our minds on the need to respond to the threats of climate change. To encourage greater co-operation between all Members in this House, we could be singing, “We’re All In This Together” from “High School Musical”, or “Meet Me Halfway” by The Black Eyed Peas. I hope that, as we work our way through this songbook, we would eventually unite in a rousing rendition of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now”, leading us ultimately, I hope, to Gloria Gaynor’s “Let’s Make A Deal”. Returning to our own shores, the Beatles can point us in the right direction with their song, “We Can Work It Out”. After all, that is what the nation expects us to do.
This year marks two anniversaries. The first is the 70th anniversary of the Parliament Act 1949, which asserted the primacy of this House over the then hereditary House of Lords. It is worth remembering in our deliberations this week the primacy of the House of Commons over that and over the Executive. The second is the 50th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1969, which I remember very well because it extended the vote to everyone over the age of 18. As we meet today, we should commit to strengthening our democracy and the vital role of this democratic House in holding the Executive to account.
By tradition, at the beginning of each parliamentary Session we commemorate the Members of the House we have lost in the past year. Earlier this year we lost our great friend Paul Flynn—a fiercely independent, passionate, very kind and very principled Member of this House. I remember him reading out in this House the names of those who had died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—two wars to which he was opposed. He briefly served in our shadow Cabinet, and I think the whole House was enlivened by his performance. He joked at the first meeting of the shadow Cabinet and when he spoke from the Floor of the House that he was part of a job creation scheme for octogenarians. He was there not only because he was an excellent orator, campaigner and Member of the House, but because he was also an excellent representative of the people of Newport West, the constituency that he served so well and so passionately for 32 years.
Today’s proposer and seconder of the Loyal Address share a route to this place; both were local councillors prior to entering the House. I pay tribute to all those who put themselves forward to represent local communities as councillors, because without them our democracy would be worse off. They work hard and for long hours, and are often not particularly well rewarded or appreciated for the work they do. We should recognise that they are part of our democracy.
The Prime Minister gave the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity of having a general election tomorrow. Had that general election taken place tomorrow and he had been successful, he would have been going to the Council of Ministers this weekend to negotiate. Why did he reject that opportunity when he has been calling for it all the time?
Quite simply because we do not trust the Prime Minister.
This Government have had three and a half years to get Brexit done and they have failed. The only legitimate way to sort Brexit now is to let the people decide with the final say. To pass this House, any deal needs to meet the needs of workers and businesses. That means including a new customs union—a close single market relationship—and guarantees of workers’ rights, consumer standards and environmental protection; and, if I may say so, guarantees that the Good Friday agreement will not be damaged or undermined in any way. A withdrawal agreement was announced, but we do not know yet if the Government have done a deal. What we are sure of is that this House has legislated against crashing out with no deal and that the Prime Minister must comply with the law if a deal does not pass this House.
The Queen’s Speech talked about the opportunities that arise from Brexit, but the Government’s own figures suggest that a free trade agreement approach would cause a near 7% hit to our economy, while a no-deal crash-out would cause a 10% hit. Those seem like opportunities that we could all live without. For many people, the economy of this country is fundamentally weak. Since 2010, there are more workers in poverty, more children in poverty, more pensioners in poverty, more families without a home to call their own and more people—fellow citizens—sleeping rough on our streets. Fewer people can afford their own home, and wages are still lower than they were a decade ago. Productivity is falling, and the economy contracted last month.
At the weekend I was in Hastings on the south coast, where last year food banks staffed by volunteers distributed 87,453 meals, and one in seven people in that town live in fuel poverty. Are those not shocking figures in this country in the 21st century? There was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to address our stagnant economy, nothing to address low pay and insecure work, and nothing to reverse the rising levels of child poverty or pensioner poverty.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the challenges of rising child poverty, compounded by the mental health issues that young people face and rising special educational needs not being met due to our education system lacking the resources it needs, are contributing to the next generation growing up in despair, for which the country will pay the price for generations to come?
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. We have almost a lost generation. Children are going to understaffed schools with very few teaching assistants, where headteachers are going to parents with a begging bowl to try to match school budgets, and too many young people are growing up in bad housing, with incredible levels of stress and worry about the future. That contributes to the mental health crisis that this country as a whole must address.
Will the Prime Minister match Labour’s commitments to scrap the benefit freeze, end the benefit cap, ditch the bedroom tax, scrap the two-child limit and the disgusting rape clause, and end punitive sanctions in the benefit system? While we welcome the legislation to ensure that employers pass on tips to their workers—something that the Labour and trade union movement has long campaigned for—the Government must go further, and I urge them to listen to the package of measures set out by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) in her brilliant speech at the TUC last month. This Queen’s Speech was supposed to herald an end to austerity and a new vision. Instead, it barely begins to unpick the devastating cuts to public services.
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the climate and nature emergencies demand so much more than the six words they were accorded in the Queen’s Speech and an Environment Bill that will widely weaken the protections we currently enjoy as members of the EU? Will he join me in calling for a comprehensive green new deal to decarbonise the economy by 2030, so that we can show we are genuinely serious about the climate crisis?
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am coming on to that in a moment, but I absolutely agree: what we need is a green new deal. We need a green industrial revolution, and we have to face up to the reality of the climate emergency. If we do not, the damage to the next generation and the one after it will be even worse.
Our national health service has suffered the longest funding squeeze in its history, while life expectancy is falling and infant mortality rising. Schools have had their budgets cut, class sizes have risen, and headteachers are sending begging letters to parents. Any Government Member who is concerned about that should simply take a walk down the road and speak to any primary school headteacher about the stress that they and their pupils are going through. The police have lost more than 20,000 officers, while violent crime soars.
If only they were, it would be a good thing. All the off-the-cuff announcements made by the Prime Minister since July do not add up to addressing the austerity created by the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats during their period in coalition.
NHS England has made clear that core treatment targets cannot be met within the funding settlement offered by the Government. They cannot be trusted with the national health service. Waiting lists are going up, waiting times are going up, and the shortage of GPs continues to create problems at every doctors’ surgery. The Government’s refusal to guarantee key standards lets down the 4.4 million patients on the waiting lists, all those waiting longer and longer in accident and emergency departments, and the nearly 34,000 patients who waited more than 62 days for cancer treatment last year.
With 40,000 nurse vacancies, there is an urgent need to restore the nursing bursary for the nurses of tomorrow. If the Prime Minister really wants to defend the NHS, he needs to end privatisation so that our NHS is focused on making people better, not on people on the make—a universal service free at the point of use. We do not want just tinkering around the edges. We want to bin the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and truly end all privatisation in our national health service.
20 of 282 shown
Having witnessed only one Queen’s speech, I searched for advice about how to do this, and I discovered that the definition was laid out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) in a speech in the 1990s. My joy quickly turned to horror when, having read his remarks, I found I had been given a privilege by the Treasury Bench usually accorded to
“some genial old codger on the way out”—[Official Report, 6 May 1992; Vol. 207, c. 56.]
I know that Brexit has aged us all in the last three years, but I did not realise that my right hon. Friends in the Government thought it had affected my youth so badly, nor how keen they were to get rid of me.
We meet today in troubled times, at the end of the longest parliamentary Session since the civil war. It is a time that more experienced Members tell us newer recruits is just not normal. Our precious body politic lies bloodied, poisoned by rancour and enmity, and, until the hope of the last few days, paralysed by competing legitimacies. Our politics is fought over, sometimes viciously, by us here in a way that I have never known in my lifetime. I say that as a working-class kid who grew up in the north during the miners’ strike, who is the nephew of someone who worked for the National Union of Mineworkers, and whose grandparents toiled under some of the villages I now have the privilege to represent. So I have some knowledge of challenge and tumult.
We are in a hard place, and all of us, whatever Bench or Chair we sit on, are responsible for where we end up. In the last few days, there has at least been hope that this toxic and crippling fog we have created might just be lifting, as the Prime Minister sketches an outline of a way forward. I speak as someone who has been robust in my review of previous proposals, but the House must surely see, as I do, that we have debated long enough, this is a moment for decision and we were elected to make decisions. If there is light at the end of the tunnel later this week—heaven knows, I hope there will be—we have a fundamental responsibility in this place to try to resolve this most vexed of problems, and allow our despairing and embittered country to move on. For the health of our democracy and to restore faith in this most venerable of institutions, we simply must get Brexit done.
I hope that, deep down, this place realises it is time to get back to the other priorities of our country—if it does not, this shattered Parliament will be given even shorter shrift than the residents of North East Derbyshire have already given it. They speak plainly and honestly in my 41 towns, villages and hamlets. They are good, honest, industrious men and women who are the quiet backbone of our great country. In Dronfield and Killamarsh, they seek only to get up every morning, get a fair crack of the whip and be able to get on. In Eckington and Clay Cross, they seek betterment in life for their families and their children, recognising that communities are built from the ground up, not imposed from the top down, and understanding that Governments should do some things well, not lots of things badly. They want Governments who prioritise technological advancement and innovation in healthcare, to allow people to get better quickly and to live longer; they want people who stand shoulder to shoulder with our brave officers on the frontline, through a police covenant; and they want Governments who make it their mission to deliver fast broadband to all of our nations. That is why there is so much to be welcomed in this Queen’s Speech and why we must move beyond Brexit.
My constituency sits around the towering presence of a church that has been there since the 12th century and can be seen for miles around. It is famous for a spire that twists and bends unconventionally into the sky. I am the son of that crooked spire and am so very proud to represent some of its domain today. The values of those sons and daughters of north Derbyshire are the same as those of other proud working-class northern and midlands towns across the country. They are the values that propelled me here today: hard work; aspiration; a hand up, not a handout; freedom: liberty; society; real opportunity for ourselves and for our communities; and a desire to be set free to allow our talents to let us achieve what we can, and not to be told how to live our lives.
Last Friday, I returned to my old school, St Mary’s in Chesterfield, to talk about the importance of democracy. It reminded me of the first time I came here some years ago, on a sixth-form trip, when we were welcomed by our Member of Parliament at the time, the much-respected Tony Benn. I come from a very different political tradition from Mr Benn, but he is still held in high esteem in my constituency. In the same year as he kindly showed me and my fellow students around these Benches, he stood somewhere in here and asked five questions of politicians, as he did regularly. They are as pertinent today as they were then:
“What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?”—[Official Report, 22 March 2001; Vol. 365, c. 510.]
I hope we remember that in the days ahead.
As we turn the page on one of the most tumultuous parliamentary Sessions of our lives and dare to hope of new beginnings in a new one, I close by turning back to the Prime Minister, Mr Balfour, who responded to the last Derbyshire MP to propose a Loyal Address. Mr Balfour was a remarkable man, who contributed much to our civic and political life in this country. He was reputed once to have said:
“Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.”
That may or may not be true, but in this most tempestuous of times, I hope and believe that most of us in this place recognise that the coming days do matter, and that our nation is watching, anxious with hope and belief that we can move on. North East Derbyshire wants to move on and return to the priorities of the people so outlined in this programme of government—I think the country does too.
Most important of all is that we will be leaving our natural environment in a better condition than we found it in. Our excellent local enterprise partnership has rightly identified Cornwall’s abundance of natural resources, which, when harnessed, will make a massive contribution to the Government’s clean growth strategy. In my maiden speech, I singled out the potential for deep geothermal energy as a significant renewable energy technology. I am delighted to report to the House that we now have the hottest, deepest hole in the UK, and the trials to generate electricity are well under way. It has been a long journey and the determination of all involved in the project clearly illustrates the UK’s global leadership on tackling climate change. We are now working on floating wind in the Celtic sea, which has even greater potential.
The UK has decarbonised faster than any major economy, reducing our emissions by 38% since 1990. We know that we need to go further and faster, which is why I am proud that it was a Conservative Government who supported the world-leading net zero target and who have today set out measures that will enable us to do that. The landmark environment Bill is a huge step in ensuring that we leave the natural environment in a better state than we found it in. The Bill will enable a comprehensive framework for legally binding targets, including a target for air quality and the establishment of a new office for environmental protection. Together with the threat to our natural environment, climate change is the most serious challenge that we face today. Our response must be comprehensive, with action taken across the whole economy. I am confident that we can do it. Why? Because there is now widespread concern and support for action, and because we have what it takes to rise to the challenge. It is a real opportunity to grow our economy more sustainably, but also an opportunity to grow our economy more successfully.
Like Members across this House, I have meetings every week with a wide range of people who are fully invested in wanting us to succeed in meeting our net zero target. If we are to harness that enthusiasm and expertise, it cannot just be about distant international summits with acronyms that few people understand.
When the UK hosts the international UN climate summit in Glasgow next year, it must ensure that every sector of society is involved in the conversation. With an issue as big as climate change, we need everyone’s collective brainpower to find the right solutions, and we must have everyone on board if we are to implement them. Post Brexit, the country needs to unite around a shared national purpose, and I believe that this is it.
By enabling comprehensive action on climate change across the whole of society, with everyone involved and no one left behind, we can start rebuilding a truly United Kingdom—one of which we can all be proud. But that is the thing, Mr Speaker, to have that unity of purpose, we now have to agree on the one thing on which we have not been able to agree—the one thing that is holding the nation back—and that is our future relationship with Europe. It has been tough going, and we have debated the subject thoroughly for years, but it is this week—this week above all others—when we must redouble our efforts, compromise and find a consensus on our way forward.
I have been thinking about what we could do in this place to create the right atmosphere and the right mood—one that will promote trust, generate harmony and result in consensus and that unity of purpose. I was thinking about what we do when we are under pressure, when we are anxious, when success seems so far away. What do we do in our personal lives with our families, in good times and bad, and in our communities when we get together—whether in collective acts of worship or when our beloved football or rugby teams are playing? What we all do on those occasions is sing. We sing because it makes us all feel good. Gareth Malone has inspired the nation’s workplaces and has proved that singing together increases feelings of trust and common purpose between people. So I thought about what songs we could sing to help us on our way this week. I thought that, perhaps, we should begin with Queen’s “Under Pressure”, which would be apt as the ticking of the Brexit deadline approaches at the end of October. “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” by Fleetwood Mac could focus our minds on our future relationship with Europe—
I was a little surprised to see that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) had been asked by the Prime Minister to propose the motion today, because I understand they have not always enjoyed the best of relationships. As we know, the Prime Minister has earned a reputation for enjoying life to the fullest. I understand that during his time as London Mayor he became incandescent with anger and rage on learning that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire—at that time, a Westminster councillor—intended to introduce a nightlife tax. Thankfully, the hon. Gentleman was able to reassure the now Prime Minister that the nightlife tax would apply only to car parking charges and not to other activities—although, on reflection, he may have missed a great opportunity of earning a great deal of revenue for the people of Westminster.
I suspect it is no coincidence that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire has shown great independence of thought as a politician, as he grew up in Chesterfield during the 1980s—a cradle of political dissent. Today, the hon. Gentleman is again in danger of finding himself upbraided by the Prime Minister, this time as a member of the “nose-ringed…unco-operative crusties”. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman took his arguments against fracking into the lion’s den of the 2018 Tory party conference, and predicted that his party’s support for fracking would see it lose seats—in North East Derbyshire, I assume. My late, great friend Tony Benn, who was the Member for Chesterfield, gave one of his last diaries the title, “Dare to be a Daniel”. I hope that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire continues to dare, and that he will also emulate the daredom, the experience and the wit of his constituency neighbour and my great friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). [Interruption.] He is my great friend.
Researching today’s seconder, the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), I believe I have uncovered yet another secret Conservative project originating in Merton in the 1980s that led directly to Downing Street three decades later. Chief of the Wimbledon set, as they became known, was the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). By her side stood her loyal lieutenants—the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and, of course, the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth. Today, those who were part of the Wimbledon set are described as “competent and professional”, which really begs the question, how did the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) ever sneak into the Wimbledon set? [Interruption.] The most expensive Transport Secretary we have ever had—don’t worry about it.
The House may not know this, but in 2013 the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth and I found ourselves in political agreement. I was happy to support her early-day motion to mark the anniversary of the death of Emily Wilding Davison. It is worth the House hearing some of EDM 164. It said that the House
“commemorates the centenary of the death of Emily Davison…salutes her courage on behalf of the suffragette cause…and pays tribute to her and her fellow campaigners for their brave and ultimately successful efforts to secure votes for women”.
While I may be dubious about the company she keeps, the hon. Lady is deserving of the honour of seconding today’s Loyal Address.
There has never been such a farce as a Government with a majority of minus 45 and a 100% record of defeat in the House of Commons setting out a legislative agenda they know cannot be delivered in this Parliament. [Interruption.] Hon. Members heckle about a general election. I said to the Prime Minister last month, “Get an extension, take us away from the dangers of a no deal, and then we are in a position to do that.”
We may be only just weeks away from the first Queen’s Speech of a Labour Government. In that Queen’s Speech, Labour will put forward the most radical and people-focused programme in modern times—a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild and transform our country. It will let the people decide on Brexit, build an economy that works for all, rebuild our public services that support everyone, tackle the climate emergency, and reset our global role to one based on peace and human rights.