Debate on the Address

Debate between Lord Beith and David Anderson

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Beith]

One of the key features of what we have agreed in the Government’s programme is that some of the savings produced by the measures announced yesterday have to be ploughed back into helping to create jobs, for example through the affordable house building described earlier. Market perceptions have changed over the period, and it is important that we make it clear that we are prepared to make the kind of cuts that will be necessary. We cannot go on with £160 billion of public sector debt. Anyone who imagines that we can is living in a dream world.

The situation makes things difficult for areas such as mine, where crucial elements of infrastructure have never been properly put in place; the A1 link between the north of England and Scotland is one example. For us, raising capacity on the east coast main line is more urgent than high-speed rail; we urgently need that capacity ahead of high-speed rail to make sure that we are not disadvantaged when it gets only part way up the country.

I very much welcome the pupil premium, which should particularly help disadvantaged children in a number of areas, such as Northumberland, that up to now have had more than £1,000 less per pupil than some other areas of the country. Much has been said about Building Schools for the Future, but that programme failed to provide for schools such as the Duchess’s Community High school in Alnwick. The buildings there are a disgrace, and the previous Schools Minister, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), admitted as much, but its excellent results precluded it from being considered for rebuilding under that programme. We need measures that will enable decisions to be taken that do not go against schools that do a good job.

I welcome the abandonment of Labour’s forced local government reorganisations. Unfortunately, it has come too late for Northumberland, where the verdict of the people in a referendum not to have a single authority was simply ignored by the previous Government.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman has a strong record of standing up for the north of England. Does he support the halting of BSF funding for schools in Gateshead?

[Sir Alan Beith]

The hon. Gentleman has to realise that very difficult public spending decisions have to be taken. Unless he and his hon. Friends start to recognise that they would have had to do something similar, they are in an unreal world.

One of the things that I most approve of in the Gracious Speech is its very first line:

“My Government’s legislative programme will be based upon the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility.”

That is a statement of belief, with freedom as its first principle. Hallelujah! We have not heard one of those for a very long time. The lack of any clear framework of belief or ideology was the blight of the Blair years. There was plenty of self-belief, but self-belief is not enough. Without a clear set of underlying principles, there is nothing to guide Governments when making decisions on issues that have not been anticipated or predicted.

A Government who believed in international law would not have launched in Iraq an illegal war that has cost so many lives. A Government who had a fundamental commitment to civil liberties would not have introduced identity cards or tried to introduce 90-day detention without charge or trial. A Queen’s Speech sets out a programme of what is mainly law making and the repeal of laws, but it is usually events and the Government’s response to events that write the history of Governments and Prime Ministers—and in this Government, no doubt, the Deputy Prime Minister as well.

The Government are made up of two parties with very different histories, different policy commitments and different basic philosophies. We are in contest with each other for the support of the voters, and we will continue to be—in by-elections, local elections, elections to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and European elections. But, we are working together in government because the voters gave no party a majority, and the country needs a strong, broadly supported and stable Government. We have been able to reach a wide-ranging agreement that combines policies from both our manifestos, and it is a considerable achievement to have done so. It is even more of an achievement to have done so in a way that sets out and puts into practice clear principles, some of them shared by both parties, some brought to the table by one party and some by the other.

Tories—if the Prime Minister will forgive me for referring to his party for a moment—have, except during the Thatcher years, traditionally tended to be suspicious of ideology and belief. However, in the Tory manifesto this time I detected an unusual assertion of some welcome principles, such as the decentralisation of power—not a principle that ever attracted Mrs Thatcher, but one that is an integral part of the coalition Government’s programme. Times are changing.

Every Liberal Democrat Member carries a membership card, and I think that I have one with me. Here it is! It says:

“Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we to seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.”

That says it all; and it says why I am proud to support a Queen’s Speech that not only asserts but seeks to put into practice principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility.

This country faces an horrific debt crisis—left to it by the previous Government. The coalition will have to take difficult, unwelcome and unpopular decisions, and it will need to test its decisions against those principles. Liberal Democrat Ministers in the coalition have a particular responsibility to see that it does so, and we Liberal Democrats below the Gangway will hold them to it, along with the whole Government.

We said that politics would be different after the election. It is.