European Affairs

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

May I first offer my thanks to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to make my first contribution to a debate in this House, and for the kindness that you and other experienced Members of all parties have shown me in recent weeks? I should also like to congratulate the hon. Members for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) and for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) on their excellent maiden speeches.

I intend to be brief, but I hope that the House will permit me the time to say a few words about my constituency and the issues that are important there. I considered it a very great honour to have been selected as a candidate to represent the place where I was born, and that I call home. To represent here those with whom I grew up in Wirral South, my family and my oldest friends, is a responsibility that is sincerely humbling, and one that I can barely find the words to describe.

As a Wirral South person, I have had the pleasure of my predecessor’s acquaintance for many years. Mr Ben Chapman is a very amiable man, and I have been struck by how many Members of this House have taken the time to speak to me about him in recent weeks. They have stopped me and asked me to take with me to Wirral their best wishes for him. I am sure that that does not happen to every new Member of Parliament, and it is a sign of how highly he is regarded here. He worked hard to foster better relationships between our country and others, most especially China, and his legacy to this House will be in those relationships. Today’s debate is about Europe, and I believe that politics is more internationally minded because of Ben’s work. In a globalised world, nothing could be more important.

I note that my predecessor made his first contribution to this House during a debate on the National Health Service (Primary Care) Bill. He explained that some of our constituency’s most pressing problems related to health services. He spoke of 6,000—more than one in 10—of our residents being on waiting lists, and those in hospital having long waits on trolleys, and not swift effective treatment.

In the coming months, I wonder whether some might attempt to rewrite the history of the recent Labour Government, but I can report that in Wirral South we have achieved a great reduction in clinically unnecessary waiting times, and that in the Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology we have a world-beating treatment centre for those with cancer. Along with our marvellous NHS staff and Ben Chapman’s hard endeavour in standing up for local health services, we also have Labour Health Secretaries to thank for that.

I am deeply proud to originate from the constituency that I now represent, but I cannot claim to be the first local resident of Wirral South to become involved in Labour politics. In 1932 a Mr Wilson, an industrial chemist, on being made redundant from his job in Huddersfield, moved to Spital in my constituency. His son joined the local grammar school and became its head boy. Young Harold was clearly made for leadership roles, and, although he went on to represent constituencies over the water in Huyton and in Ormskirk, Wirral has never forgotten him.

Wirral is a geographically wonderful place—especially the southern part, which I represent. From the banks of the Mersey overlooking the Liverpool skyline to the banks of the Dee where one can see the heights of Snowdonia, we Wirralians are thankful for our good fortune to reside in one of the most visually stunning parts of Britain.

However, it is our people, our culture and our heritage that truly makes us. We are an internationally minded and cultured people in Wirral South. We are the traditional home of Unilever, and many of my constituents work for nearby Vauxhall Motors and Airbus, as well as for other international companies in manufacturing and other sectors—companies that trade on the European and world stages and worked with the Labour Government and the trade unions to carry British industry through difficult times over the past year. Britain’s role in leading Europe over the past decade has benefited Wirral and north-west England, and I trust that all members of the new Government will be able to maintain our influence.

For us Merseysiders, our culture and heritage is at the heart of who we are. According to Impacts 08, the report on Liverpool’s year as European capital of culture, we are more likely than others in the UK to go to a museum or gallery, and I like to think that that is not much of a surprise, given that my constituency boasts the treasures of the Lady Lever art gallery in the Victorian model village of Port Sunlight and a wealth of community organisations dedicated to involving people in music, dance and drama. I, myself, am the granddaughter of local songwriter and folk singer Pete McGovern, and I grew up spending many hours in the Philharmonic hall in Liverpool, wrapped in its peerless acoustics.

As such, I should like to say a few more words, if time permits me, about culture. The passion for culture is especially strong in young people in my constituency, and I cannot imagine that there are any more talented young people in any other constituency. Local schools use children’s creative talents on stage in order to build their confidence and, during the recent election, I was lucky enough to visit several schools to see their pupils’ performances. That work has a really positive effect on the rest of a child’s education, and my constituency, like many others, has seen schools make great strides in educational achievement. We should not forget how far very able head teachers have taken us in the past 13 years.

We also recognise culture as a driver of economic growth. For example, the recent increased promotion of culture in Merseyside resulted in the north-west being seen as a better place to do business. The same is true of other places in the UK, from Folkestone to Newcastle, and at a time when we run the risk of sliding back into recession that lesson can surely be applied more widely.

Our culture is an asset. Although we should never stop celebrating it for its own sake, we should not be blind to the benefits it brings to our economy. In the coalition agreement, the Government made great play of returning to the original four good causes of national lottery funding. We will have a debate in due course about whether that is the right approach, but lottery funding for capital projects is no substitute for core public funds, on which the arts in this country are built. Yes, lottery and private funds play a vital role, but they cannot be sought without the foundation of public funds on which to build. I recall that the first chair of the Arts Council was John Maynard Keynes, a great economist who understood this very well, as do the people of Merseyside.

Wirral South is a constituency whose people, throughout the recent election, showed me and the other candidates very great kindness; especially to me, they showed friendliness as one of their very own seeking to represent them. I hope that I can do so, living up to their expectations, and provide Wirral South with the strongest possible voice in the coming years.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who made a very feisty and savvy contribution. She was clear on the importance of Newcastle and the support that the north-east and its great capital city need.

I made a mistake in the last year. I thought that my colleagues were talking about amending regional development agencies, but I had had clear instructions for months that One NorthEast should continue. I heard from my right hon. Friend the Business, Innovation and Skills Secretary today that One NorthEast will continue, and I hope the hon. Lady will be reassured by that—[Interruption.] RDAs may be different in structure, but the message is clear. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) has also been very clear on that. Through the pages of the Newcastle Journal or otherwise, I hope there can be collaboration on ensuring that Newcastle continues to do well. I know that my colleagues who run the council are equally determined to ensure that every possible opportunity is given to the hon. Lady’s great city, and I will give it my support. I have been there often and love it much, even though those of us who ended up in the south have to put more clothes on all year round than people in Newcastle.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). We have two things in common. As she knows, we were both born in Cheshire—

[Alison McGovern]

indicated dissent.

[Simon Hughes]

Well, the Wirral is in Cheshire.

[Alison McGovern]

indicated dissent.

[Simon Hughes]

Well, it was in Cheshire, and some of us think it always has been and always will be. We may disagree on that, but we both come from that part of the world, and we both ended up being politicians in Southwark. I pay tribute to her for the four years she served on Southwark council for the Brunswick Park ward and for being deputy leader of her group in that period. We are glad to see her here, whatever our party differences.

I welcome the new Minister for Europe, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr. Browne), and the Foreign Secretary to their briefs. We hope that they do well in their representation of us in the European Union and more widely in Europe, but we also hope that Baroness Ashton continues to have the support and good wishes of Ministers and the Government. We wish her well in her responsibilities.

I started my intervention on the Foreign Secretary by making it clear that one of the great reasons why the European Union and wider international organisations are needed is that many issues do not stop at boundaries—and the threat to our climate is one of those. I hope that the Minister for Europe and his colleagues will be forward-looking and robust on the challenges of the international climate crisis to which Europe can positively respond. If we are really clear about the science, we should seek to limit the temperature rise to 1.7° Celsius, not 2°. We should also ensure that the European Union—as per the agenda for the European Council this month—moves to a 30% reduction in emissions as our target. I regret that that was not achieved in Copenhagen. If we are to be really robust in our leadership, we will also ensure that we have strategies not just for European economic recovery and dealing with the world economic crisis as it affects our continent, but for the environmental crisis.

We should do better at promoting the fact the European Union has as its agenda the things that matter most to this continent. The main item on the agenda later this month will be the strategy for jobs and growth, and how we come out of the recession stronger and better, in spite of the huge difficulties. Other agenda items include preparing for the G20 summit, ensuring that we focus much more on achieving our millennium development goals, and dealing with the climate threat. We have heard some excellent contributions on the interrelated economic issues. It is clear that, as a continent, we need strategies for addressing the financial and banking sectors. Although any levy raised may be spent nationally, we must have a more effective Europe-wide strategy to ensure that bankers do not play with people’s money and take the profits.

For the avoidance of doubt, although my party has said that there may be a time when it is right to join the euro, I have never campaigned for us to join. Nor has my party, and we are clear that the time is not right. I am therefore happy to sign up to the agreement, as part of the coalition, that the pound should remain for the whole of the coalition agreement for this Parliament, and that no attempt will be made to change that position. I am also clear, however, that we need to revisit some decisions, such as the working time directive, where the European Union made mistakes. My great enthusiasm for the European Union and better collaboration across Europe does not make me blind to those things that have not gone well or where we need to do better. Overly prescriptive regulation, such as the working time directive, is one such example.