Debate on the Address

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

As always, my hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. It is quite interesting that that is the case. Very often, we see an array of talent behind the Labour Front Bench—not on this occasion, of course—who could serve their party better. The key thing to point out, however, is that that is their choice. That is the choice they made. We are making choices in government that will take the nation forward. If they want to take their party backwards, that is up to them.

On the Conservative Benches, we want to focus on priorities that will take the Government and the country forward. We want to focus on rebalancing the economy, improving life chances, achieving aspirations and ambitions for all, and to grasp the nettle of Britain’s long-standing productivity challenge. Politicians across the House rightly want to support and encourage hard-working people and hard-working families. However, productivity in the UK has lagged for decades and has struggled to rebound after the financial crisis. The Government are right to put a greater focus on how the energy of British workers can be better aligned with more productive outcomes.

To their credit, the Government have been clear about the challenge we face. As this ambitious Government know, the continued successful delivery of the long-term economic plan requires an increase in the longer-term trend rate of productivity growth. By working towards a more balanced, open and trading economy, the Government have signalled their intent to leave no stone unturned in ensuring our activity improves our productivity. I therefore welcome the Bills on education for all, and on higher education and research, which will have a positive impact on productivity, and the Bills to improve connectivity in transport and in the digital economy. All those Bills, and the wide range of initiatives being put forward by the Government and set out in the Red Book, will help us to move forward to promote a more dynamic economy and improve productivity. It is this context that highlights the key action being taken on infrastructure projects, not least on railways and not least in the north of England, but also on the roads, with the largest investment since the 1970s.

There will be action on skills, investing to deliver 3 million apprenticeships during this Parliament, building on the 2 million in the previous Parliament. There will be action on science, protecting spending in real terms until the end of the decade. The network of catapult centres will be expanded. There will be support for the life sciences, particularly in the Cheshire corridor that I am proud to represent, placing high value-added science, including space science at Jodrell Bank, at the heart of the northern powerhouse.

I particularly welcome the announcement of several Bills that will embrace technological change and seek to keep the United Kingdom at the leading edge of science and technology, not least the modern transport Bill. The Queen’s Speech points to the possibilities and opportunities for commercial space travel, drone technology, driverless cars, and small and micro-satellites. I want the north-west to play its full part in realising for the 21st century many of what were just 20th century science fiction dreams.

We are well placed to build on our superb science base. Look at Jodrell Bank, now home to the world’s largest radio telescope project and permanent host of the international headquarters of the ambitious Square Kilometre Array initiative. To achieve that at Jodrell Bank, the University of Manchester and its supporters, including the Government, had to face down fierce competition from international bids. It is truly a world-class centre of excellence now, just as it has been a centre of excellence for radio astronomy since 1957, as host of the world-famous Lovell telescope.

That excellence extends to life sciences. Nearby Alderley Park, now owned by Manchester Science Partnerships, is home to a medicines technology catapult and leads research into anti-microbial resistance. There is advanced manufacturing at AstraZeneca’s Macclesfield site, with its 3,000 highly skilled staff who are truly local heroes. Their work is vital to our local economy and helps to underpin AstraZeneca’s presence at what is now the UK’s largest pharmaceutical site, one that, incredibly, accounts for 1% of our country’s exported goods.

When the Bills on education for all and on higher education and research are published and debated, I hope we will see clear policy opportunities for supporting science and technology. They will be a key driver of economic opportunity in the north-west and a source of the productivity gains that are not necessarily as evident elsewhere. In Cheshire East, we have among the highest rates of productivity in the country. They are higher than those in Bristol and in Edinburgh, as I am always keen to point out—not that I am competitive or anything. I want to see other parts of the northern powerhouse achieve high productivity levels too. Indeed, the productivity challenge goes hand-in-hand with the Government’s vision for the northern powerhouse. As the Institution of Civil Engineers puts it, effective infrastructure drives growth and supports job creation.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about catapults and productivity. Does he support the Teesside bid for a materials catapult, which would help to drive new steel products, one of our basic industries that could create more jobs in the longer term?

[David Rutley]

I am not too familiar with the particular catapult the hon. Gentleman talks about, but I believe passionately that we need catapults in place to help us to move forward with technology advancement, certainly in areas where there is transitional change in an industry, such as in Teesside. It is vital that they are located in such areas. He should push hard for that initiative. We need catapults in the north to take us further forward.

The ICE believes passionately that we need to have effective infrastructure to move things further forward. It calls for key enablers to ensure we are successful in our transfer of power from Whitehall to town halls and strategic local partnerships. The priorities are: effective local leadership, fiscal devolution and devolved infra- structure strategies. The Queen's Speech makes provision for all three, not least—but not only—in the local growth and jobs Bill.

There are measures for transport improvements in the north, for example with the publication of a bus services Bill. I look forward to bus and coach transport playing its full part in Transport for the North’s strategic improvements to physical connectivity in the northern powerhouse, with plans for smart ticketing across the north. We need to work on seamless journeys from train to bus to tram. Buses should also be remembered in the ambitious plans for a trans-Pennine tunnel. There is a great need for connectivity in other areas, in particular broadband. That is what makes the digital economy Bill in the Queen’s Speech so welcome.

For me and for the Government, enterprise is not just about increased productivity. Just as crucially, it is about social mobility and enhanced life chances in Macclesfield, in the northern powerhouse and across the country. Life chances featured prominently in Her Majesty’s speech today. I want to ensure that we enable more young people to achieve what I call the four Es of the enterprise economy: entrepreneurs, employers, exporters and employees. We need to help more people to achieve their ambitions, ambitions that may never have been achieved before in their families. I believe the Bills set out in the Queen’s Speech—the children and social work Bill, the education for all Bill, the prison and courts reform Bill and the lifetime savings Bill—will help us to make sure, as a one nation Government, that we leave no one behind.

The Queen’s Speech shows that the Government have a full agenda extending well beyond the EU referendum debate, which many of us are involved in. That said, I believe that opportunities to deliver on productivity, to strengthen our position in life sciences, and science more generally, and to build on the northern powerhouse will be best served by a vote to remain. Coming to that decision was not easy—there are legitimate arguments on both sides of the debate—but for me the economic arguments for staying part of the EU, particularly the single market, have been the main factors in helping me to make this decision.

Prior to becoming an MP, I worked for 20 years as a senior executive with companies such as PepsiCo International and Asda Walmart.

[Alex Cunningham]

The northern powerhouse Minister himself is on the leave side in the EU campaign. The hon. Gentleman has made a great case for the north—for infrastructure, transport and education—but we are seeing a shift of investment from the north to the south and a great concentration in London and the south-east. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the northern powerhouse could be much more than the slogan it is if there was a fairer distribution of the investment moneys available to local government?

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[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams). I do not support his party or the SNP, but it is striking that they have both come to this House with alternative Queen’s Speeches and set out an alternative vision, which was sadly lacking in today’s speech by the Leader of the Opposition.

I want to join the tributes paid by Members on both sides of the House to Her Majesty the Queen on the occasion of her 63rd Gracious Speech. Hers is a remarkable example of service to our nation. Given that I am following the Plaid spokesman, perhaps I should also say how good it was to see the Prince of Wales in his place in the House of Lords today.

I also want to join the tributes paid to my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee). My right hon. Friend showed, as ever, that she is passionate, caring, thoughtful and generous to her colleagues and friends on both sides of the House. She delivered a fantastic proposing speech. My hon. Friend, with whom I occasionally have been known to disagree, was hilariously funny and deeply insightful. His deeply serious point about the post-war consensus and the values that underpinned it was one of the most eloquent descriptions of that era in our politics that I have heard in this House.

We should be looking to build consensus. I support the Gracious Speech because it is deeply ingrained with the values of one nation conservatism, which are among the reasons why I went into politics. Members on both sides of the House should be able to come together and support its opening lines, which mention using

“the opportunity of a strengthening economy to deliver security for working people, to increase life chances for the most disadvantaged and to strengthen national defences.”

It was disappointing that the Leader of the Opposition delivered a political tirade that was more a rerun of his response to the Budget statement than a response to the Gracious Speech. Labour Back Benchers have made much more intelligent and engaged speeches. The Queen’s Speech focuses on prison reform and I pity some Labour Members for the prisoner’s dilemma that their party continues to face. I hope that they will be able to emerge from it in due course. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who is still in the Chamber and waiting to speak, is one of the very few Labour Back Benchers who enthusiastically supports the new leadership. I am sure we will hear a different argument from him.

Many of the measures in the Queen’s Speech, including on moving to a higher wage and lower welfare economy, should be supported by Members on both sides of the House. On rewarding work, I am glad that national statistics show that wages have risen by about 2% year on year ahead of inflation and that the rate of increase is even faster in my own constituency. I am also very pleased that unemployment in Worcester is back below 1,000. When I stood for election in May 2010, the figure was 2,545, so by my calculations, there has been a 60% fall in unemployment since Labour left office and Worcester last had a Labour MP. Youth unemployment has also fallen by 69%—more than two thirds—since then.

I want to continue that work, and one of the crucial ways in which we can do so is through creating more apprenticeships. Hon. Members have already spoken about the Government’s drive to create 3 million apprenticeships, and I welcome the fact that that featured in the Queen’s Speech. I have seen in my own constituency how apprenticeships can not only give people the chance to earn and learn, and to start their careers, but transform small businesses and help them to realise that, by harnessing the youth, vigour and ideas of young people, they can themselves grow and learn new things.

I want to compliment three businesses that have contacted me in the past few days. Rock Power Connections and Instant Scenery told me in the past couple of days that they are taking on their first apprentices, while Green Lighting Ltd is a Worcester firm that recently won a Queen’s award for innovation and received the apprentice of the year award from the Herefordshire and Worcestershire chamber of commerce. Those small businesses are taking people on, giving them a chance and enabling them to earn and learn. We want to see more of that.

The Gracious Speech mentions giving business the infrastructure it needs to grow, which is crucial. It also mentions access to high-speed broadband. Like Members on both sides of the House, I welcome that ambition and hope to see it better achieved in the years to come. Great strides have been made on access to high-speed broadband in my rather urban constituency, but I acknowledge that there is a long way to go in other parts of the country, including in areas such as those represented by my rural neighbours and the hon. Member for Arfon. I remember serving on the Welsh Affairs Committee during our inquiry into broadband. There is clearly a greater distance to travel in rural Wales, and I hope that the Government can help to deliver it there, as well as in the rest of our United Kingdom.

The Gracious Speech mentions making Britain a world leader in the digital economy, which is hugely important in the fast-changing and fast-developing world in which we now live, including in Worcester, which has a growing and ambitious cyber-security cluster. Businesses such as Open GI and PCA Predict are exporting UK technology to the world. The UK has a crucial opportunity to provide leadership in the digital economy, which is one of the reasons why, when we come to the European referendum, I will argue that we should stay in and fight our corner to get the best deal possible so that such businesses can thrive and export all over the world.

My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) made a plea for a catapult in his area. Worcestershire has a very strong claim to host the sensors catapult, which would be based not in my constituency—I am being altruistic—but in that of my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), in Malvern, where radar was invented and firms such as QinetiQ are leading the world in the science of sensors. Such a development in that excellent location would certainly contribute to jobs and growth in my constituency.

Beyond that, we need physical infrastructure for transport, and I am pleased that the Queen’s Speech mentions that. In Worcester, that comes down to roads and rail. I will keep pushing in this Parliament, as I did in the last Parliament, for investment in our crucial southern link road and the dualling of the Carrington bridge. I will badger the Transport Secretary about that until it happens.

We also want a faster train service. The Prime Minister spoke eloquently about the benefits of investing in infrastructure. His constituency and mine are served by the same lovely, scenic and devastatingly slow train service currently run by Great Western Railway on the north Cotswolds line. He has previously responded positively to questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) about getting upgrades for that line. We must keep driving for that. My constituents live less than 120 miles from London and it is absurd that it takes them two and a half hours to get there by train. The journey really ought to take under two hours.

I was intrigued to hear the suggestion in the Queen’s Speech of devolving new powers to govern local bus services. I share the concerns raised by a couple of hon. Friends. I do not just want those powers to be given to directly elected mayors; I want the proposal to empower our county councils and to help them to deliver better support for bus services. Worcester has some very good bus services run by First, but there are not enough of them. The need to get better and more regular bus services to those areas that need them comes up time and again on the doorsteps. That is vital.

The detail of the proposed Bill includes apps and technologies, and it mentions bus companies opening themselves up to better use of technology. That has been pioneered fantastically in London and Transport for London has done some really good work on it. Indeed, I take the bus to Westminster every morning and it is incredibly convenient to be able to look up on an app when the bus will arrive and whether it is worth walking to the next bus stop. I would like such a service to be made available to my constituents. Worcester City Council has plans and I would like to see them delivered.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), I am delighted to welcome the retention of business rates by local authorities. I campaigned throughout the last Parliament for business rate reform, and I was pleased with some of the Budget’s measures on that front, but I want to go even further, because the task has not been completed. I want to see more incentives in the business rate system for growing businesses that take people on.

[Alex Cunningham]

We all know that the tremendous development and investment in the south-east of England, which are worth billions of pounds, can really drive business rates, whereas in the north of England, things are a bit slower and there is not that extent of development. There needs to be some sort of balance to ensure that we can drive the economy. Perhaps the northern powerhouse will actually mean something in the future.

[Mr Walker]

Absolutely; the hon. Gentleman is right that we need to create balance in the system. Speaking for my midlands constituency, we are somewhere in the middle and we face that issue. We want to ensure that the Government fund our local authorities properly and that the business rates base is not eroded. That is an important point that we need to consider as we devolve more business rates. I support the strong bid from Worcestershire, combined with all the district councils, for greater devolution of business rates. I think that it could deliver well for my constituents if that bid was listened to.

I am delighted to welcome the focus in the Queen’s Speech on supporting aspiration and promoting home ownership, and I support the ambitious commitment to build 1 million homes. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who said that he could not see any scope for more homes in his constituency, I welcome more affordable homes in Worcester. There have been some great developments in recent years on brownfield sites and record numbers of affordable homes have been delivered in the past year in Worcester under a Conservative council.

A lot of people have talked about the local elections. As has been widely spread about by the media, we were not as successful in the local elections in Worcester as I would have liked. The Greens won a seat and Labour regained a seat in which its councillor had defected. The Conservatives remain the biggest group on Worcester City Council but, unfortunately, we have seen similar shenanigans to what has gone on in Wales. Instead of being propped up by Plaid, in Worcester Labour is propped up by the Green party. I worry about that, to be honest, but I will work with whoever is in control of our city council, as I have in the past. When the Liberal Democrats reneged on a deal with the Conservative party and went in with Labour a few years ago, I worked very effectively with the Labour leadership on the council.

I was disappointed, however, that when Labour took the leadership of the council at that time, 100 affordable homes were being delivered every year, yet it managed to reduce the number of affordable homes built in Worcester during its one year in office by a third. That was terribly disappointing and it went against the party’s manifesto commitments that it was elected to carry out. I hope that it does better this time around, because, as I said, with the Conservatives in control of the council over the past year, there has been record delivery of affordable homes. This issue matters. As the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) said, this is something that comes up regularly at our constituency surgeries. It is essential for any Government to deliver new homes. I am very happy to compare the record of this Government on delivering new homes with that of the last Labour Government.

On houses and homes, I hope that we will take further measures in this Parliament to prevent homelessness. I welcome the launch of the all-party group on ending homelessness, which was set up by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (David Mackintosh), and the widespread cross-party support it has received.

We have heard a lot about the prison reform aspects of the Gracious Speech and I could not describe them better than my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). I agreed with everything he said about that point, even if I disagree with him about the case for a British Bill of Rights. We need to see the sort of cross-party consensus that is driving prison reform forward on many more issues in the years to come.

The Gracious Speech talks about tackling

“poverty and the causes of deprivation, including family instability, addiction and debt”.

In the last Parliament, I joined colleagues from both sides of the House, including many Labour Members, in campaigning for more action against high-cost debt providers—the likes of a certain firm beginning with W. The Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, who is on the Front Bench, was very involved in those campaigns. I was pleased that after much campaigning, we moved the needle and more action was taken to support greater financial education, to support financial advice services such as Citizens Advice through a levy on high-cost lenders, and to regulate some of the bad practice that was going on. I hope that that work continues.

I am pleased to welcome measures to help the lowest income families to save through help to save and the creation of the lifetime ISA. I have asked before—I take the opportunity of the Queen’s Speech to ask again, on behalf of Members on both sides of the House—that we look at how we can involve credit unions in that process. Credit unions have immense support across the House and do incredibly valuable work in all our constituencies. As chairman of the all-party group on credit unions, I am keen for them to play a central role in the delivery of help to save.

As a Parliamentary Private Secretary, I cannot say much about the parts of the Queen’s Speech on education, but I look forward to working on their implementation. All I would say is that, having spoken about the need for a national funding formula in every year of the last Parliament, I would be delighted to meet Ministers from other Departments to educate them about how that could be applied, particularly in health and social care.

It is, of course, good news that the Gracious Speech refers to a seven-day NHS. It is very good news from my perspective, having spoken to concerned constituents and junior doctors, that an agreement has been reached. I hope that the agreement holds and that, as happens so often in this place, through talking we can take relations to a better place.

I was interested to note the focus in the Gracious Speech on

“mental health provision for individuals in the criminal justice system.”

We have discussed in this House over the past few years how there needs to be a greater focus on mental health across the whole NHS and beyond. I hope we can continue that progress in the years to come.

One thing that I would have liked to have seen in the Queen’s Speech—I have asked for this to be included in previous Queen’s Speeches, but I am afraid that we have not seen it yet—is delivery on the Dilnot reforms. I recently wrote to the Secretary of State for Health about a tragic case from my constituency in which somebody lost all their family assets as a result of an elderly relative needing care. That is unfinished business, frankly, and I will push for greater delivery on that front, as well as on the Government’s response to the Choice review on end-of-life care.

Like other Members, including the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), who spoke for the Democratic Unionists, I welcome the decision to invest in our armed forces to honour the military covenant and meet the NATO commitment to spend 2% on defence. I welcome the fact that we balance that with our investment in the wider world through the development budget. It is vital that that money is spent well and that we have the right goals when investing in international security, and in economic and humanitarian challenges.

I am pleased that the Gracious Speech spoke about bringing peace to Syria and a lasting political settlement. I hope that we can also make progress, although much of this it is not within our power in this House, on the other great issues of contention in the middle east. In this anniversary year of the Balfour declaration, I hope that we can meet all its obligations, including those to the Palestinian people.

I welcome the upcoming visit of the President of Colombia. Having chaired the British Argentine all-party group in the last Parliament and having been involved in Latin American affairs, I think that our country neglects its Latin American relationships at its peril. There is much that we need to do to build them up and to engage with everyone in Latin America. We must build on the amazing legacy of Canning and of our being the first country to recognise and support the Latin American republics. There is huge good will towards this country across Latin America, particularly among business people.