Identity Documents Bill

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to make my maiden speech, Mr Deputy Speaker, especially on the day when you take the Chair for the first time. May I say how personally pleased I am to see you in the role?

I should like to start, as is customary, by referring to my predecessor in what was then the constituency of Elmet. Mr Colin Burgon was a Labour MP from 1997 until he retired at the election just gone. It would probably be fair to say to anybody who knew Mr Burgon that our politics probably could not have been further apart if we had tried. This was a man who was well and truly on the left of the Labour party and indeed had a passionate interest, and I believe still does to this day, in Venezuela and Hugo Chávez. However, although we were so diametrically opposed in our politics, I always found him to be courteous and an honourable Member of Parliament who looked after his constituents. During my time as the candidate for the new Elmet and Rothwell constituency, he was more than willing to pick up the phone, discuss constituency matters that may have come my way and return calls—an honourable man indeed.

I was looking through Mr Burgon’s maiden speech and noticed it to be full of historical references to the Elmet constituency, which does not surprise me because he was a scholar of history. Being an engineer, I am little able to emulate such a speech, but I can tell Members that the Elmet and Rothwell seat, as it now is, has had many boundary changes, starting with the Great Reform Act in 1832. I am the first ever Conservative MP to represent the town of Rothwell, which was its own constituency between 1917 and 1950, and I am very proud indeed to do so.

As I said, the constituency started to get some of its boundaries in the Great Reform Act of 1832, and there have been no fewer than 10 boundary changes bringing us up to the recent election. However, many people have stopped me in this place and asked, “Where is Elmet and Rothwell?” The Rothwell bit gives it away, but the Elmet bit does not. It is actually a Leeds constituency, and I like to describe it as the piece of countryside between Leeds and North Yorkshire. Members may be interested to know that Elmet was actually the last Celtic kingdom in England, and I shall draw on that fact later.

It is interesting that I am classed as a Leeds MP, and that is why I felt it appropriate to stand up in this debate to make my maiden speech. We are talking about the abolition of the Identity Cards Act 2006. If identity cards had been in place, they would not have stopped the 7/7 bombings in 2005 in any shape or form. Of course, the people involved came from Leeds, which took a very hard hit, not least in the international press, which described the north of England as some derelict wasteland and asked whether it was any surprise that terrorists came from it. It was described as some sort of third-world country. However, I can assure Members that Leeds is one of the most vibrant cities in this country, and one for which I was very proud to be a councillor for six years while we were governing the city. I am now exceptionally proud to be a Member of Parliament within it.

My predecessor, and his predecessor, my former Conservative colleague Spencer Batiste, who was the MP from 1983 to 1997, were both honourable gentlemen. After what went on in the previous Parliament, we all need to be honourable Members and bring faith back to politics.

As I have said, my constituency is the slice of countryside between Leeds and North Yorkshire. I will probably send my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) into apoplexy by saying that after the boundary changes, the old kingdom of Elmet actually stretches across into North Yorkshire. That causes some concern, because people say to me, “Oh, you must represent me in Sherburn-in-Elmet”, but I do not, because that is a North Yorkshire village and is part of my hon. Friend’s seat. I therefore lay down a marker at this early stage that that may be something to consider.

Many colleagues have offered advice on making a maiden speech and said, “This will be one of the most important speeches that you ever make in this House. It will be the one that is read for time immemorial by every successor you have in the seat, and people might look it up if you go on to greater things.” Nobody reads the third speech made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, but they do read his maiden speech, so I am putting down a marker for anybody who might come along to research my maiden speech: if you go and have a look at my third or fourth speech, you might have a slightly better idea of who I am as a politician, because the maiden speech is a somewhat daunting process, and hopefully, MPs relax as they grow into their role.

I should like to outline to the House two priorities for me in this Parliament, the first of which—increasing job security and job numbers—I hope will be a successful policy of this Government. I am lucky in that although my constituency suffers unemployment, it is not massively affected by it. However, my constituents are very worried about the jobs they are in, which I heard time and again, and about securing the economic recovery and job security.

There are great areas of regeneration in my constituency, and there are some innovative, technological companies, some of which, including the LNT Group in the town of Garforth in my constituency, have excellent apprenticeship schemes. The LNT Group is an excellent company, and gives people real opportunities. Recently, it hired people who had unsuccessfully tried their hand at private business, in small enterprises. Those people were able to find employment with that well-regarded local employer. That is just one story about the companies in my constituency. I very much hope that I can work closely with the Government to ensure that the policies we introduce will benefit all my constituents, as well as the country.

I mentioned regeneration in the constituency. It is a strange constituency, in the sense that the northern part of it is very affluent and has a lot of farming history, and as we move south through the constituency, we move into former mining areas. I will not shy away from the fact that those mining areas were affected, not least in 1994 by the closure of the last colliery, at Allerton Bywater. However, Allerton Bywater as a village is now starting to move forward, and already I am involved in casework with Business Link in Yorkshire that could help to secure 10 jobs in that small village and regenerate it. Such regeneration is important, and those are my key priorities in this first term.

However, I have a long-term aim, and I made it quite clear to my constituents in the election that although it is a promise and something I want to move forward, they will not see any results for a very long time. Indeed, by the time they see results, I may well not even be the Member of Parliament for the area. I am talking about rail links. More than 30,000 people in my constituency, in a major metropolitan city, have absolutely no rail links whatever, after the branch lines were removed in the Beeching review. The town of Wetherby serves a huge number of people in the commuter belt to Leeds who must all travel down the A58 and, latterly, the A1 link road.

However, rail links are not just about allowing those people to travel to Leeds more efficiently and effectively; they will also ease-up the congestion that blights everyone in constituencies on the east side of the city. Therefore, I am laying down that marker. I will be working with Network Rail and taking a keen interest in the high speed rail policy as it moves through the House. Let us be honest, in the economic circumstances, the chances of us getting a branch line rail link built to Wetherby and surrounding villages, just to serve them, are pretty slim. However, high speed rail is a major national project, and there would appear to be opportunities to branch off that line to serve people in my constituency much more effectively and efficiently.

I shall close by drawing on what I said earlier. We need to restore faith in politics, and I think we are making a good start with such a great intake of new MPs, and with returning hon. Members realising that much work needs to be done to improve this place. I just hope that as we move forward in this Parliament, my constituents will be very proud to call me their Member of Parliament.