Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment

Alicia Kearns Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I arise with Sir David Amess’s smile, cheek and kindness very much in my heart, and hoping to drive the reason why all of us come here, which is love of constituency, love of country and love of that sense of duty and what we can achieve in this place.

I love Rutland, Melton, the Vale and Harborough villages. I represent 180 villages and three towns. We are the place where rugby was truly invented. They used to tackle a solid wooden beer barrel over different fields. The priest from Rugby School came over, saw the game being played and took it back to the school, where it was then supposedly invented. We are also where Sir David Attenborough discovered his love of fossils. Members are all very welcome to come fossil searching in my constituency. It is where those involved in the gunpowder plot had some of their meetings, in Stoke Dry. I have taken no inspiration from them myself, of course. It is also the home of Stilton and pork pie and Rutland bitter and so many other great foods and drinks of this country. It is home to Belvoir castle, where “The Crown” was filmed. It is also home to an ichthyosaur—the greatest discovery of what is not a dinosaur but many people believed was a dinosaur over the centuries. It is the home of the Rutland mosaic, which has changed our view and understanding of Roman Britain, and of the Hallaton hoard, which has changed our understanding of iron age Britain. It is also the place where the phrase “paint the town red” comes from.

There is nowhere quite like the Rutland, Melton, The Vale and Harborough villages, and I am truly blessed to be able to live and raise my children there, but we do have some pressing problems. Rurality is at the core of the issues that I am going to raise today and of the pressures that we face. The first is transport. The A1 goes up the east of my constituency and it is one of the worst accident hotspots in the country. We urgently need it to be made into a full motorway, and we need safety improvements up and down the stretch from Peterborough to Blyth to reduce the number of casualties and deaths. Some parents in my constituency are lobbying me on graduated driving licences, because of the deaths of young children. The understanding is that introducing graduated driving licences would give new learners a little bit longer to gain the confidence they need to reduce accidents.

The A52 has an accident hotspot outside the village of Bottesford at the Belvoir junction. This is a real problem, but Highways England says that it cannot put in place the improvements we need at the junction because there are not enough accidents. I would argue—I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to put a letter in to the Transport Secretary about this—that we should take into account the rurality of villages when we calculate these things. If this same dangerous junction were outside Loughborough or a more dangerous area, there would be significantly more accidents. Rurality should be factored into these calculations, because how rural somewhere is can hide just how dangerous a junction is. I have also been meeting constituents recently about the Rutland TT in Thorpe Satchville and Twyford. They are concerned about noise pollution. I am really keen for the Government to do more to tackle this as it is a blight on our rural areas.

Turning to crime, a few years ago I secured the creation of the first ever Rutland rural crime team across Leicestershire and Rutland and they are doing a fantastic job of reassuring residents. I am pleased to be able to meet them so often. I have also managed to secure more than £500,000-worth of CCTV across Melton, Oakham and Uppingham, and we are now looking at where we can put them to support people. When I talk to my police, however, their main concern is vehicles. I have urged our police and crime commissioner to provide more vehicles for Rutland and Melton. It is not acceptable to give us cast-offs from Leicester city that have done many miles and cannot race down the long stretches of road that we have. I have more than 460 square miles in my constituency, and we cannot be getting second-hand vehicles if we are to protect our communities.

When it comes to rural health, my GP surgery in Melton serves over 40,000 people. One surgery for 40,000 people is unacceptable. It is driving down health rates and people are not getting the care and support they need. We urgently need a new GP practice in Melton. Also, there is not one dental practice in the whole of those 460 square miles that is taking on pregnant women or children, which they are legally required to do. The Government must step forward and do something about dentistry. Concerningly, our practice in Oakham was recently found to be inadequate, and we must also look at what we can do about that.

When it comes to the economy, we need more fair funding for Rutland and Leicestershire. Leicestershire is the worst funded county council and Rutland the worst funded unitary authority in the country. We need a social mobility grant to look at those areas that have the worst social mobility in the country. Turning briefly to Mallard Pass, I have spoken a great deal about the attempt to build a 2,100-acre solar plant in my constituency using a company that has been found guilty of being complicit in Uyghur slave labour. We must do something to tackle that.

I do not have time to raise the many other things that I would like to raise, so I will wrap up by saying an enormous thank you to my team: Lisa, Helena, Harry and Alex—I think that is everyone; I am having a moment of stupidity. Lisa, Helena, Harry, Emma and Alex, I love you all very much but I am clearly having a moment and losing my mind. I thank you for all you do and the difference you make for constituents every single day.

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[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

While the media’s focus may be on the comings and goings in Westminster, local community groups make a huge difference to the lives of people in Dudley South week in, week out. The last recess covered the platinum jubilee celebrations, and it was a real pleasure to join the events at Oakfield community centre in Brierley Hill, St Mary’s church in Kingswinford and the Dudley Hindu Cultural Association to mark the incredible service that Her Majesty has given during seven decades as our Queen.



We are fortunate in having many amazing community organisations in Dudley. I shall not try to match Sir David, but I would like to mention just a few I have encountered in recent weeks. Harry’s Café is run by the Top Church Training charity and helps disadvantaged jobseekers into work in catering and hospitality, as well as providing free food packages and online cooking classes. There is also Kingswinford British Legion, who I supported over Armed Forces Weekend as they raised funds to help ex-service personnel and their families.

As a former scout, it was a pleasure to join Dudley District Scouts to thank leaders and volunteers for everything they do to make sure that local young people have opportunities that otherwise just would not be available. It was a privilege to meet and support Stuart Bratt, whose Tough Enough to Care charity tackles male suicides by encouraging men to be open about mental health. The £80,000 lottery funding it has received will allow it to do even more to support even more people, and we want more local good causes in Dudley to get funding. That is why I organised a national lottery funding workshop last week. I thank Sinead from the National Lottery Community Fund for explaining to dozens of local groups how they can get funding and give themselves the best chance to succeed and do more for our community.

As we look forward to the Commonwealth games coming to Birmingham, it was great that Stuart was one of the local heroes, as well as Jennie Bimson and Councillor Shaz Saleem, taking part in the Queen’s baton relay; I look forward to it coming to Brierley Hill on Sunday evening. One of the baton bearers is from Pens Meadow School. I was pleased to see its amazing new forest school, which is an exceptional facility for its special needs pupils aged three to 19. I am delighted that Dudley Council has committed the funding for a new school building that will allow them to combine their two sites into one, providing better education and care on a single site for vulnerable pupils.

I also thank Dudley Council’s cabinet for blocking plans to build on precious green spaces at Lapwood Avenue, Bryce Road, Severn Drive and Bent Street. I hope that the Association of Black Country Authorities will also safeguard green-belt sites at Holbeache and the Kingswinford triangle when it meets next week, and that the Government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will further strengthen green-belt protection.

Our green spaces are important to us in the Black Country, and it was heartbreaking to see large fires at the Fens Pool nature reserve and Ridgehill Woods during this week’s extreme temperatures. Disgracefully, some of them might even have been started deliberately. I join our community in sending a big thank you to everybody from West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service for their bravery in fighting and containing those fires.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you know, last week marked Black Country Day—the anniversary of Newcomen’s engine. We are proud of our industrial heritage and it was wonderful to join pupils from Brierley Hill Primary School at Brierley Hill library as they unveiled the displays on our local history that they had created for the public to enjoy. It is now a decade since Gracie Sheppard designed the Black Country flag, which has become one of the biggest selling and most recognisable regional flags in the country. She designed it as a 12-year-old at a local school and it is now literally seen around the world—whether at The Ashes, the Indy 500 or Glastonbury.

[Alicia Kearns]

My hon. Friend rightly raised the importance of local flags. Leicestershire was the only county in the country without a flag until last year, when I secured the first ever flag for Leicestershire. It flies proudly outside Parliament this very day. I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising the importance of flags, given their pride of place and the message that they send of unity in our communities.

[Mike Wood]

My hon. Friend is proud of her local area and flies her flag proudly.

As we look at the ongoing Conservative leadership contest, I shall be pressing whoever wins to keep levelling up right at the centre of their agenda, and to make sure that my constituents in Dudley South can have opportunities every bit as good as those enjoyed in other parts of the country. Finally, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish you and all the staff of the House a very happy and, I hope, restful and peaceful summer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I shall look at that with great interest as Members are very interested in this issue. Multiple Departments have a dire record on written parliamentary questions, particularly in relation to COP26 and the Department of Health and Social Care. The record on named day questions is not much better either.

The picture is not much brighter on general written correspondence. The most recent data shows that only 16% of MPs’ and peers’ letters on COP26 were responded to within the timescale set, with the Government Equalities Office and the Department of Health and Social Care faring only slightly better. That bleeds through to MP hotlines, which have been unreliable for some time. The Home Office said that it needs a recovery plan to support its hotline to return to acceptable service standards, and it is preparing that. However, the Home Office is not the only Department in need of a recovery plan. The recent chaos at the Passport Office shows how badly the Government need to improve. The passport issue was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, the hon. Member for Harrow East and my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. We thank the civil servants, including those in the Newport passport office, who work so hard. I also put on record our thanks to all those who have come to work in Portcullis House.

I am running out of time, but I will mention another group who are being let down by the Government: the victims of the contaminated blood scandal. Ministers have had more than enough time to respond to Sir Robert Francis’s report, which recommends interim payments for victims now and the full inclusion of family members who lost loved ones in a future compensation framework. That would be a final recognition of the suffering of families such as my constituents, the Smiths, who lost their seven-year-old son, Colin, after he received infected blood products from a prison in Arkansas. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) is absolutely right that the Government must get on with this.

I am pleased, however, that progress is being made on the Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill, which will finally scrap the hated six-month rule. Much thanks is due to charities such as the Motor Neurone Disease Association and Marie Curie, which helped me with a ten-minute rule Bill on this issue. I am glad that the social security Bill will come through the House in September and I know that it will get cross-party backing.

[Alicia Kearns]

Will any aspect of that end of life Bill address assisted dying? The House is united on the fact that there should be a debate on that issue. For too long, Parliament has not had a say on such a vital issue, which the public wants us to discuss.

[Jessica Morden]

I am sure that the Deputy Leader of the House will address that issue.

Finally, I wish everybody a happy recess. We will all be working in our constituencies through the summer, but I hope that staff get a break.