Budget Responsibility Bill

Bayo Alaba Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Chairman]

I call Bayo Alaba to make his maiden speech.

[Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)]

I would like to commend the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) for a great speech. I know Chelmsford well—it is a beautiful town—and I commend her passion for supporting young people in schools and their journey, which is very important and something that we need to protect.

Thank you, Ms Ghani, for allowing me today to make my first contribution to the House. I think it is right to start off by thanking my predecessor as MP, Sir James Duddridge, for 19 years of dedicated service. He became MP in 2005 when Southend East and Rochford was newly redrawn. The rural areas to the north of Southend have been brought back within the constituency for the first time in many years. Throughout many boundary iterations, from Southend East and Rochford to Rochford and Southend East and back again—you can see the creativity in renaming the constituency—the area has always been Tory-held, up until now. I am particularly proud to speak here today as the seat’s first ever Labour representative.

The constituency consists of not just the city of Southend but the villages of Great Wakering, Canewdon, Barling, Paglesham, Stambridge and Shoeburyness, the suburbs of Southchurch and Thorpe Bay, and Rochford itself. It is a beautiful constituency, rich in culture, where you should bring your walking boots as well as your swimming costume. It is the place where Dame Helen Mirren went to primary school and home to the Cliffs Pavilion, which hosted Oasis in 1995—that might be tricky next time round depending on who can get tickets.

As a Southender, I am contractually obliged to mention that Southend is the site of the longest pier in the world, at 2,158 metres, with the option to walk or take a purpose-built train. I made the mistake some years ago of walking it with my son—he is a little bit older now, and he is up in the Gallery. My calves were struggling by the end of it.

From watching the maiden speeches of Labour colleagues past and present, I have been struck by the nature of the local industry that is so often name-checked. Tin, pottery, steel, textiles and coal are among the staple products in historical Labour seats. Those are noble and important goods—they are Labour goods—but they are not the stock-in-trade of my own seat. Southend’s primary industry and expertise has always been tourism: good times, escapism and happy memories. Those are our exports.

Southend is a city that allows people to meet a sea turtle, admire a vintage car, win a large teddy bear and even have their palm read, often during the course of a single day. It is a place where past generations have gone in search of freedom and pleasure, and it is hard in today’s world to think of a calling more important than that. Indeed, the musician Billy Bragg immortalised one of the roads that takes people to Southend in his 1985 song “A13 Trunk Road to the Sea”. The chorus name-checks Shoeburyness, and Bragg later said that he hoped his song would imbue the A13—I know this is a bit of a reach—with the same romance as route 66 in America, “The Road to Your Dreams,” which runs from Chicago to Los Angeles. That was a lofty lyrical ambition indeed, and it was always going to be a hard ask, but speaking as someone who grew up in the east end of London in that era, I can confirm that the idea of Southend always carried a certain magic. That is one reason why I feel so privileged to represent the area today.

Another reason is the constituency’s military heritage. At the eastern part of my seat we find Shoebury garrison, an area steeped in military history, and in the north is Southend airport, which now serves holidaymakers but in a past life was Rochford airfield, a fighter base that helped to fend off fascism during the second world war. As a former soldier, I was stationed in the Southend area for a short while. One of my great pleasures when canvassing is running into old Army friends still living in the seat—if they are prepared to open the door to me.

For me, as someone who left school with no qualifications, got into a lot of trouble as a young boy and needed a second chance, night school and the military provided a lifeline. I quite simply would not be here today in the mother of all Parliaments without the opportunities that gave me and the ethos of service that it instilled in me.

To properly understand Southend, we need to understand its proud military history. The city is built on a unique blend. The discipline and the dignity of the armed forces is combined with the creativity and the freedom of the arts—a place for both the soldier and the singer, if you like. But there is a risk of getting too misty-eyed. Coastal areas such as mine have been on the economic sharp end for 30 or 40 years. The root cause of that, most notably, is budget air travel, and that is not going away. Recent years have brought fresh challenges. Southend’s economy was at the sharp end during the covid pandemic. The city is still in its recovery phase. Many of the jewels in Southend’s crown—the Kursaal venue on the seafront or the Freight House in Rochford—remain unused or underused. I am determined that these buildings will come back to life again, as part of our future.