Debate on the Address

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 11th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I give thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) for paying tribute to the family of Julia James. My heart, thoughts and prayers go to them for their loss—the loss of such a fabulous woman.

It is my pleasure to speak on behalf of my constituency of Stroud, following the historic state opening of Parliament. The United Kingdom—indeed, the whole world—has been battered by a previously unknown virus that has ripped through our communities and devastated families. While we thankfully now have low rates of infection in Stroud, the impact of covid is still being felt by businesses that have spent years building staff, brands and custom but are only just able to open their doors properly. Some businesses and sectors, such as weddings, are still having to fight for discretionary funding or, in the case of limited company directors, any support at all.

Notwithstanding those issues, standing before you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I feel hope. It was music to my ears to hear Her Majesty the Queen talk about a lifetime skills guarantee. I have campaigned and pecked a lot of heads in Government about the benefits of further education. After years of a Labour Government trying to get 50% of young people into university and forgetting about the rest, we are now sending a message loud and clear that people do not always need to follow a certain path to succeed. Early setbacks in school or life do not mean being written off. Learning a trade, retraining or taking a punt on learning a new skill at any stage of life will become the norm. We will create opportunities. I welcome the recognition for FE. I love my local South Gloucestershire and Stroud College, and I am excited to get on with the forthcoming skills Bill.

The focus on internet safety for all could not be more crucial. Our lives are on t’internet—increasingly so during the pandemic—and connectivity must be embraced in so many ways. But the internet is also a digital Dodge City, and it is causing harm every single day. Anonymity, in particular, is being abused. My proposal is to ensure that social media users have the option of verifying their details and not following or being followed by unverified users—in short, give people more choice and give the regulators, the police and the courts an easy route.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Lady has done on anonymity in recent months. I remember a time when it was only I and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) speaking on these issues, four or five years ago, so it is great to see so many Members take such an interest. Does the hon. Lady agree that, through the online harms Bill, we must ensure that platforms stop the excuses? We have had years and years of self-governance and voluntary charters but also years of the platforms saying that they cannot do this. If I am discussing with my wife overboarding in my loft, an algorithm will be created to ensure that I get advertising for that, but the platforms cannot resolve the issue of abuse and attacks on politicians, footballers and members of the public. We really must end the excuse culture of the platforms.

[Siobhan Baillie]

The hon. Member makes a good point. Everybody across the House wants to see online harms tackled, and we have to give a huge amount of praise to the Government, who are working incredibly hard to do that. I agree—I am not the most techie person in the world, but these tech and social media companies are smart cookies, and I am sure that they could fix this. I am hoping to work with them as well as with the Government, because I hope that the tech companies will do more ahead of needing Government to intervene. The online safety legislation is good. I do not want it to fall—I want it to succeed—but we must move to pre-legislative scrutiny more quickly and tackle anonymous abuse as a priority.

On the mighty plan of levelling up, frankly, if we are not able to level up the social care sector and carers do not receive meaningful reform, it is not actually levelling up. They are integral to vulnerable members of our communities and to our ageing society, yet they feel undervalued and underpaid, and unpaid carers are exhausted without domiciliary respite care, such as that provided by Crossroads charity, which I visited last week. I am therefore very pleased that it is our Conservative Government who will finally deliver reform. Carers are skilled and highly trained, and the job is really hard graft. This must not become another political football. Our carers deserve better.

I challenge you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to find a more environmentally focused set of children and young people than those in Stroud. To be honest, they have the energy to level up with a green recovery all on their own, but I will keep working. I will keep working on projects that make improvements to our local environment, transport, infrastructure and skills alongside them. We have already thrown our hat into the ring to seek funding to reopen Bristol Road railway station in Stonehouse and a heritage railway station in Sharpness. We are seeking to deliver the first fusion power plant in the world.

Our skilled farmers and our food producers are developing environmental land management programmes. Gloucestershire’s local nature partnership has already created a tree strategy. Our canal teams bust through a roundabout—yes, you heard me right: a roundabout—to connect our historic waterways. We have continued to open shops and have transformed an old shopping centre in Stroud—all during a pandemic. Just imagine what we can do in calmer times.

As I have time, I would like to give a nod to my hard-working parish councils and local councils. Levelling up and providing more opportunities to become councillors, to stand and to look after our local communities would be greatly helped by restoring virtual meetings. I know the Government are already consulting on that matter, and I welcome that because we need more information, but virtual meetings have been a revelation during the lockdown. They would mean that in the future more people with caring responsibilities or disabilities can take part in parish council meetings. I really hope we can find time for that legislation.

As I said in my maiden speech, the best is yet to come. There will undoubtedly be more unexpected challenges, although hopefully not one as big as a global pandemic. As Her Majesty the Queen said earlier, the priority is to make the United Kingdom stronger, healthier and more prosperous than before. We can do this.