Bob Stewart
Main Page: Bob Stewart (Conservative - Beckenham)Department Debates - View all Bob Stewart's debates with the Cabinet Office
(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and I absolutely agree with him about the Union. The Union is important in relation not only to Northern Ireland, but to Scotland. I would like to reiterate the words of the late, great David Bowie, who said, “Scotland, don’t leave us. We love you. Stay with us.”
I would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) on his maiden speech, getting it out of the way so early and with such aplomb—very good work there. I would also like to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who said he did not like to campaign in the winter. I loved it. I knocked on many doors—I canvassed for all six weeks—and I got offered cups of tea everywhere I went. I would like now to apologise to some residents of the Clacton constituency that I could not have a cup of tea with them all. A man can only take so much tea while walking the streets.
Only yesterday, I had a chat with a friend who recently lost his seat on the Opposition Benches. He was very candid, and said that although the result of the election was not what he would have preferred, he is happy that the Government now have a serious majority and can finally get on with delivering an agenda without more fuss and delay—that was an ex-Labour MP, but I frequently found that attitude on the doorsteps in Clacton. People want us to get on with it and deliver on the promises made.
When walking in Clacton, I gained support from many previous Labour voters; there were people who had voted Labour all their lives, as had their parents and grandparents, yet this time they gave me their vote. I am deeply humbled and honoured by the confidence placed in me and, like the Prime Minister, I am acutely aware of the responsibilities placed on me by that support. We now have to earn it. I am delighted, once again, to have been elected to represent the glorious sunshine coast of Clacton, and I have strong support from my constituents for my work, and the work of this Conservative Government, who today laid out a comprehensive and progressive policy programme.
During the election, I stood on doorsteps in Clacton with a simple message: “We must get Brexit done and then focus on other vital priorities, including even more police, better healthcare and infrastructure improvements, not to mention education.” Predominantly, the response I got back was the same. People said, “Yes, those are our priorities too. I am so glad that somebody is finally listening.” We are not just listening, we are acting—indeed, we have already acted. In Clacton, more than 30 new police officers now operate locally, and I am proud that they were recruited after a campaign I led to increase the police precept in the area.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I have known my hon. Friend for 54 years and I have visited his house, which is not in Clacton—I rather like Frinton, but it has not been mentioned. I think he should mention Frinton.
Giles Watling
As my constituents know I am a resident of Frinton, which is part of the glorious Clacton constituency. I am delighted that my hon. Friend has reminded me where I live.
As we know, hundreds more officers—20,000 in total—have been promised for every policing area, and I understand that Essex Police has already started recruiting the first wave of new officers. I am delighted that a Bill will be introduced to increase policing powers and ensure that violent convicts are kept off the streets. We have had issues in Clacton and I know my constituents expect no less.
On healthcare, we have secured a change in management at four local surgeries where services were woefully substandard. I thank Ed Garrett, leader of the local clinical commissioning group, for his perseverance on that matter. It has been my priority to hold the management to account. We have done that, and residents will see an improvement in another key doorstep issue. The Government have provided nearly £15 million for an upgrade at Clacton Hospital, which is in addition to the £33.9 billion funding boost for the NHS by 2023-24. It is right to enshrine that key pledge into law, along with the other healthcare announcements in this programme.
Some £318 million has been set aside by the Government to fund two local infrastructure schemes, including a new railway station at Beaulieu, which has been a pinch-point on our rail lines and held up transport for the Clacton community. Clacton is just under 70 miles from the great conurbation of London, yet that journey takes the best part of one hour and 40 minutes. These days that is an outrage and it should be improved. Money will also be spent on the new link road between the A120 and the A133—my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) will agree with me on this, because we worked hard to get funding to build that new road. The Conservative party manifesto pledges to spend £100 billion on additional infrastructure spending, which will go on roads and rail. That productive investment will repair and refurbish the fabric of our country, and generate greater growth in the long run.
On the doorstep, I saw how popular our policies are and—at least in my local experience—that was one of the great differences in this election. We listened to, and will deliver for, the electorate we have, rather than the imaginary electorate championed by those on the Opposition Front Benches. We will deliver pragmatic and practical policies for those voters, whereas the Opposition take them for granted and promise the undeliverable. We will get Brexit done. We cannot continue to deny the Brexit result. We know that the Prime Minister has achieved a good deal that delivers on the result of the referendum and allows us to move on, and I for one will be happy to reach a place where we never have to hear the word “Brexit” again.
People know that this is a credible Government who will act on their demands, and in five years our record will speak for itself—post Brexit. That record of delivery starts with this Government programme, although of course there is more I want to do, including further improvements in animal welfare, a ban on dog and cat meat consumption in this country, making elder abuse a hate crime that carries a tougher sentence, and ensuring that school funding is spread evenly across the county of Essex.
We must care for those who protect us by increasing defence spending, and protect and promote our incredible “Theatre” offer, which does so much to inform, educate and promote the UK internationally. We should also introduce a differential rate of beer duty between pubs and supermarkets, after the B-word has been delivered. I will bother Ministers greatly about those matters in due course, but for now I recognise that this is a strong programme that gets Brexit done and delivers on our priorities, and I happily support it.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling). The Queen’s Speech introduced by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) stated:
“My government’s priority is to secure the best possible deal”,
and mentioned working with the devolved Administrations and business. That was then dropped to become, “My priority is to secure a deal by 31 October, do or die”, and now we have 31 January.
Hon. Members know that we have a different system for referendums—they are one person, one vote, which decided the referendum in 2016—compared with elections for constituency MPs. Under the one person, one vote system, other than generating a significant Conservative majority, this election also generated 16.5 million votes for remain parties, and 14.5 million for leave parties, which is 2 million fewer. If we consider the number of parties that do not agree with the deal that is being railroaded through, which includes the Brexit party, that is 18.1 million people who do not agree with the deal as it stands. Nevertheless, this deal will be hammered through on the basis of an election that was thrust on us on a cold, dark night, and that disadvantaged poorer people who do not have cars and so on.
The election was engineered in such a way because the Conservatives realised that they could unite the smaller pro-Brexit vote, divide the remain vote, secure a majority, and hammer Brexit through on the back of a few slogans such as “get Brexit done”, and “oven-ready” convenience food. We all know that living on oven-ready convenience food is not particularly good for our health, but we are where we are. I am sad that we have lost so many good Labour MPs, and our next task is to ensure that people’s jobs, livelihoods and environments, and workers’ rights, are secured in this deal through democratic scrutiny. I fear that that will not happen, that those things will not prevail, and that we will end up with a Brexit that will make us all poorer, weaker and more divided.
Given that, it is incumbent on the Government to deliver a Queen’s Speech that counteracts the negative economic impacts of Brexit by making as its centrepiece a re-engineering of our economy to deliver the white heat of technology focused on sustainability, given that we have a climate crisis—a new green economic renaissance. Sadly, we did not see that in the Queen’s Speech. We saw “get Brexit done”—whatever that means—and, yes, we will have some trade deals, but there will be no scrutiny. Instead, we will stand alone, weak against China and weak against the United States, as we turn our back on the European market.
We should have accelerated our ambition to be carbon-neutral by 2050, and put in place a fiscal strategy to deliver excellent green technologies and products that would form an export base for a new economy. I welcome the fact that we will host the COP26 summit, which will give us an opportunity to showcase ideas. I very much hope that the Budget will focus on fiscal strategies and incentives for investment to push that agenda forward.
As the chair of the all-party group on air pollution, I welcome the legally binding targets in the Queen’s Speech. The devil, however, will be in the detail. It is important that we meet the World Health Organisation target on particulate matter—the target to reach PM2.5 down from the 15 micrograms per cubic metre we have in London now to 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2030. Microparticulates will penetrate unborn babies and we are seeing dreadful public health problems in Britain. The latest estimate on premature deaths from air pollution is approximately 62,000 people a year, at a cost of £20 billion a year. It is therefore very important that we focus on this issue. People doubted much of the economics in the Labour manifesto, but according to the Royal College of Physicians the cost of air pollution is £20 billion a year. If we saved £3 billion—a fairly modest saving—that income stream could service, at a 5% interest rate, a borrowing of £60 billion to invest in green manufacturing.
We need a transition towards the electrification of all our trains and buses sooner rather than later. We need to incentivise, through scrappage schemes, the switchover to electric cars for normal consumers. It is unfortunate that the roll-out of much of the electric grid is in the hands of BP, which has a vested interested in slowing it down in order to sell more petrol and diesel. We need to re-engineer our duties to incentivise people towards a sustainable future and for the Government to invest in public transport alternatives. There are a lot of technological opportunities. Our subsidy focus should move from fossil fuel to renewable energy—whether wave, wind or solar—and towards the manufacture of associated products.
Bob Stewart
Everyone talks about electric cars, but we should also be talking about hydrogen, which is a very clean fuel. Hydrogen could power cars and trains, too.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I rise to support the humble address. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, but let me also say that it is a particular pleasure to see the new Speaker in the Chair—a proper Speaker who, while he may suffer from the disadvantages of not being a Yorkshireman, is a man who has strong and many opinions but does not feel compelled to inflict them on the Chamber and the country, in contrast to his predecessor. We look forward to many years of fair adjudication of debates in the House.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) began his speech by talking about déjà vu. I fear that every time a member of the Scottish National party rises to speak, it is déjà vu all over again. Earlier today the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), in true BBC Christmas repeat fashion, came out with the same old speech—to which many of us have had to listen for the last few years—about Scotland being dragged out of the EU. Well, for goodness’ sake let us have something new. The fact is that, as we all know, the United Kingdom voted to come out of the European Union and that decision was upheld in the recent general election in the whole United Kingdom, of which Scotland is a component.
It was a particular pleasure to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who proposed the motion for a Humble Address. Let me say for the benefit of those who could not see that she did so barefoot. As a founding member of the all-party parliamentary group on mindfulness, which I hope to have the privilege to chair when it is reconstituted, she said that using mindfulness techniques and anchoring herself to the floor gave her great confidence, and she demonstrated that with aplomb in her excellent speech. Let me recommend to those who are still feeling stressed by the result of the election the mindfulness classes which are available to all Members at 5.30 pm on Tuesdays. So far, some 240 Members of both Houses have taken advantage of them, and that has certainly improved the standard of debate in both Chambers. Let me also compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—who is the embodiment of the cheeky chappie—on the excellent way in which he seconded the motion.
In many respects, this is the easiest Queen’s Speech to which to respond on the first day, just hours after its delivery in the other place. We did, after all, have a dry run for it on 14 October, although today’s turned out to be a fuller-fact version. The 22 Bills that were promised back in October have now become 40. This is certainly no longer a wish list; it is now a comprehensive and substantial programme for government. I am therefore pleased to get in early, ahead of the, no doubt, Cook’s Tour of maiden speeches that will be made in subsequent days and weeks by the plethora of Members who have just been elected to seats around the United Kingdom—mostly, I am glad to say, on this side of the House. I wish them all well.
We also approach this Queen’s Speech on the basis of the strong likelihood that we might actually get it passed. What a joy it is—and I aim this particularly at new Members—that at last, for the first time in the 22 and a half years that I have spent in the House along with the new Speaker, we have a strong and stable Government with a decent majority and, ostensibly, support from all Conservative MPs on the same side. Long may that continue.
Let me say to those new Members, “You’ve got it easy.” The last couple of years and, in particular, the last 12 months in this place have been hugely stressful and exasperating, not knowing when you get up in the morning what will happen in Parliament that day—whether the Government will win votes or not, or whether they will be tied—and not being able to make plans, with the possibility of the House having to sit on Saturdays. We have all been prepared to do that, but the unpredictability has made nursing a constituency, and the other responsibilities that we all have as Members, somewhat more challenging, and throughout that time a Speaker was making up the rules and rewriting the discussion as he went along.
No more, Mr Deputy Speaker. This Administration will get on with the job of being in power and in government, and implementing a programme of the people’s priorities. That is going to happen, which is a real joy and pleasure for those of us who have seen the ups and downs of a Parliament that has not been at its best in recent years.
On Saturday, when I conducted one of my regular Saturday morning street surgeries, the sense of relief among my constituents was palpable. Whether they had voted for Brexit or remain, people wanted certainty, clarity and a way forward out of the maelstrom and gridlock that this place had become over recent months. However, there was one rather sad exception. In response to the general election result, the Momentum zealots who form the local Labour party and its councillors tweeted the contact details of the Samaritans, on the basis that people would be feeling depressed and driven to mental illness. That was crass, disgusting and inappropriate.
As for what we need in this country, a piece of advice was given to me in 2001, after the second Blair landslide, by a local Labour councillor whom I respected greatly. He said to me, “Tim, you need to be a good, strong Opposition”, and he was right. In this House we need a good, strong Opposition, so I take no delight in the current problems with the Labour party. For the functioning of democracy in this country, we need a good—and moderate—strong Opposition. That keeps a good Government on their toes, and I hope that it emerges in the months to come. I am afraid that the current Momentum-hijacked Labour party is not that strong Opposition, and I hope that it sorts itself out as soon as possible.
A measure in the Queen’s Speech that I particularly welcome is the plan to abolish the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. One view that united all the candidates throughout the election, certainly in my constituency, was that December elections suck. I am sure that we all spent the last five to six weeks constantly damp and constantly frozen, frustrated by our attempts to push soggy leaflets through those terrible letterboxes with the brushes. I recall that last year the Government agreed to amend the building regulations to get rid of floor-level letterboxes, and it should now be a priority for them to amend the regulations to get rid of furry letterboxes. They are a cancer on our society, whether you are a volunteer delivering leaflets, a political activist, or a professional postman or postwoman. If the Government will not do that, I will present a private Member’s Bill and we will see how well that does.
Bob Stewart
It is not the furry stuff but the guillotine behind it that really does your knuckles in.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir George Howarth)
Order. Fascinating and relevant though this topic is, I hope that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is not going to embark on a whole debate on the positioning of letterboxes. I do not think that there was any mention of it in the Queen’s Speech.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
This has been a long and interesting debate, and I wish to make a short and—I hope—to-the-point contribution, and ask the new Government to spell out what they will do to support our manufacturing industry, particularly our steel industry which I believe needs urgent and proactive support in extremely difficult times. As others have said, there is no mention of Wales in the Queen’s Speech. There was no mention of steel either, yet the need for steel to be mentioned is pressing and urgent.
Tomorrow, Tata’s Orb steelworks in Newport will close its doors at 12 o’clock, having operated since 1898. This is a sad day in our city. Many generations of families in Newport have worked at Orb, and it has a special place in Newport’s history. I pay tribute to those steelworkers who are moving on tomorrow, and who are so passionate about their industry. They have made many sacrifices and adapted in recent years to help the business, and they make world-class steel. I pay tribute to them for the fight they put up, and are putting up, to find a future for their plant. I also pay tribute to the Community and Unite unions, and their trade union representatives Paul—tomorrow he will have completed 12,849 days at Orb—Brett, Lee, Rhys, John, Gareth and Dai, for doing the hardest job in those circumstances.
Earlier the Prime Minister mentioned electric vehicles and he spoke yet again about making the UK a home for them—I believe that was in the Queen’s Speech. That shows the travesty of the situation at Orb. Orb is significant because it is the only electrical steel plant in the UK, and with investment it could, and should, play a key part in the future of electrification. With investment it could produce steel for electric vehicles, for which demand is set to grow and grow. The irony is that although the Government support Jaguar Land Rover to develop electric vehicles, they have not stepped in with Tata to help that vital component of an end-to-end supply chain.
Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will start work after the Queen’s Speech. What I ask of them—I ask Ministers on the Front Bench to pass this on—is for the plant to be mothballed, and for them to please work with the Welsh Government and Tata to try to find a buyer in the new year. Will they proactively support us in Newport so that we can restart the plant, help keep electrical steel making in this country, and not have to import steel, which we will have to do if we lose that capacity? Tata’s Llanwern steelworks is also in my constituency, and news during the election campaign that Tata is to cut 1,000 roles in the UK has caused uncertainty and great worry. We need the chance urgently for Ministers to report back on their discussions with Tata, and on how they, alongside the Welsh Government, are going to help. Tata’s handling of this situation has been badly done. As Community union has said, it needs to be clear about its strategy for the future.
The situation at Orb, and Tata more generally, amplifies the challenges facing the wider steel industry. We need vision from the Government to tackle them. The steel industry should be at the forefront of the Government’s thinking in Brexit negotiations and in the construction of future trade deals. Some 40% of all UK steel produce is exported and it is vulnerable to the deterioration of our existing trading relationships with other EU countries and the rest of the world. We also need urgent action on energy prices, which are higher than in other EU countries. This year, the UK steel industry has paid 62% more than its German counterpart. Representatives from the steel sector have also been crying out for action on procurement. BEIS data shows that at least 42% of steel procured by the UK Government is sourced from outside the UK, so there is significant room for improvement. The Government must get that right. These are all things that Ministers can work on with the all-party group on steel. I hope the Government will do that urgently in the new year.
As other hon. Members have mentioned, we lost two fantastic steel MPs from the all-party group on steel. Sadly, they lost their seats in the general election. Both were great champions of their steel communities and absolutely passionate about the industry. Those colleagues were Nic Dakin and Anna Turley. I know their contributions from the Labour Benches will be greatly missed. While I am at it, may I also pay tribute to Madeleine Moon, who lost her seat? She made an immense contribution in this Chamber on defence issues, latterly as President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I know that her knowledge and expertise will be greatly missed.
Bob Stewart
May I absolutely endorse the hon. Lady’s comments about Madeleine Moon? She was an outstanding President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. She must be gutted about what has happened and I feel so much for her.
Jessica Morden
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am sure we shall both tell her that she was mentioned in this debate tonight.
Finally, I would like to thank the voters of Newport East for electing me for the fifth time. I will do my very best to stand up for them in the long years ahead, including and not forgetting the 1950s women hit by pension changes. We need fast and significant investment in Gwent police, which has been cut by 40% since 2010 by the previous Government. Operation Uplift will not even take us back to 2010 numbers.
Universal credit needs to be paused and fixed. Low pay and insecure work need to be tackled, as do cross-border transport issues. Last but definitely not least, we need urgent action on climate change and on the lasting impact of austerity on our communities. I will continue to hold Ministers to account on those and other issues on behalf of my constituents and continue to stand up for Newport East. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take part in this debate.