Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Speaking in last year’s Queen’s Speech debate, I welcomed the Government’s commitment to bringing forward a ban on conversion therapy. A year on, we are no further forward—in fact, we seem to have gone backwards—but I hope to see progress this year.

I hoped to see a “better business” Bill in the Queen’s Speech, to give us a cleaner, greener and fairer future. Businesses in my constituency are pushing me on this, as they understand how important it is to give businesses different priorities in law. I hoped to see something about that and am disappointed by its absence.

Talking of better business, I am also extremely disappointed to see no progress on legislating to outlaw fire and rehire, of which P&O Ferries is the latest example. Ministers and Conservative Members said it was absolutely terrible but, when push comes to shove, there is no action to outlaw the practice. That is a huge omission from the Queen’s Speech.

Instead, we get a promise to bring forward legislation to abolish the Northern Ireland protocol. Whose Northern Ireland protocol was it? It was the Prime Minister’s—he wrote it, he sold it to the British people—and now, once again, he is trying to renege on something he himself wrote. It demonstrates, yet again, that he is a Prime Minister who will say whatever he needs to say to get out of whatever position he is in at the time and then have no sense of responsibility for the promises he has made. I say to the House that this does affect us internationally. Who will do deals with us if he is going to bring forward legislation to break deals that he wrote himself and signed himself only two years ago?

Of course, the biggest omission at the moment is of any kind of proposals on tackling the dreadful energy crisis we have. Millions of families up and down the country are facing soaring energy bills and ever increasing costs of living. The Government have demonstrated that they have no plan to fix this. Families are paying triple their energy bill, and they need a solution now.

I was disappointed that the Government have not adopted a one-off windfall tax on the oil and gas giants, and let us just understand exactly why that is. It is because a windfall tax would affect not simply the oil and gas companies—incidentally, as we all know, they have said that with the level of profits they are getting, at several billion pounds a quarter, they would be quite happy to pay it—but the City investment funds and City hedge funds that the current Conservative party, along with Russian oligarchs of course, exists to serve. They are not in their places now, but the Education Secretary, the Secretary of State for Health and the Chancellor all have big City investment fund backgrounds. That is what they know, and that is who they are really defending when they refuse to have a windfall tax.

Locally, in my area of Cheshire West and Chester, we are leading the way on alternative and clean energy provision. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who is in his place next to me, and I have been very supportive of HyNet. Actually, I pay tribute to the Government for that particular scheme; they have assisted us. I know that, in his constituency, the Vauxhall Ellesmere Port plant is looking forward to an all-electric future, leading the way on green jobs. That is thanks to him and, again giving credit where it is due, thanks to the Secretary of State. However, I have to say to the Government that any attempts to bring back fracking will be given short shrift in my constituency, and I am very concerned about that.

On levelling up and transport, I was looking forward to some detail in the new transport Bill, and I will be keeping an eye on what the Government are proposing. At the moment, however, we need proper rail services. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and I are meeting the rail companies this week to try to restore direct services between Chester and London. At the moment, they have gone from 12 a day before the pandemic down to one, and now that has been doubled to two we are asked to be grateful for that. We are hopeful that we might get more services, but of course direct services are essential to economic growth. Instead, we have seen the cancellation of Northern Powerhouse Rail and the scrapping of the High Speed 2 eastern leg, which is a betrayal of the north. It is the same for buses. The Government have turned down a bid for more bus money from Cheshire West and Chester Council, even though Ministers described the bid as “excellent”. I hope the transport Bill will tackle the difficulties we are seeing with bus provision, and give more opportunity for places such as Chester to improve connectivity.

Finally, it is absurd that the great heritage asset that is the city walls of Chester has to be paid for out of the highways budget, so that money that should be spent on roads, potholes and pavements is being diverted, understandably, to pay for that great heritage asset. We need a separate fund for the walls.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

In thinking about how to make the UK the best place to grow up and grow old, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for disability I have been thinking in particular about inclusive growth and levelling up for people with disabilities. I saw a fantastic example of that at the weekend in my constituency, where sportscotland had partnered with South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture to train local organisations who work in sports to make sure they are engaging with people with disabilities, encouraging them to engage and reach their full potential through the group activities and sports activities that are available. Only when growth and the work we do is inclusive to all can we make sure that we leave no one behind and ensure that we are doing our job here.

I want to ask MPs: can we do more? What are we doing in Parliament? When the all-party parliamentary group looked at including people with disabilities on work experience in our offices, we started off at 11% of MPs who were registered as accredited Disability Confident employers. Through a workshop, the all-party parliamentary group has increased that to 24% and I thank everybody who has been involved in that achievement. It has been so fantastic to hear the accounts of people who have engaged in work experience and employment opportunities in MPs’ offices, and how they have fundamentally changed their lives and the opportunities available to them. We want to do more and reach at least up to 50% this year. There will be further workshops, so please look out for them. This is not just about the Queen’s Speech and what the Government can do; it is what we can do individually as MPs to contribute more to make the UK a much more inclusive place and ensure that we are always giving opportunities to everybody that we can.

I also want to focus on wellbeing and equality, and a wellbeing economy. Countries are starting to look at happiness and at what makes us happy. Wellbeing, happiness and quality of life are becoming high priorities for many Governments, and I believe they should be a high priority for this Government. There is a Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen which is conducting research on that. I have been looking at the research and thinking why are we not happier? We are lagging behind the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and a number of countries where people are much happier in themselves and have greater levels of wellbeing. We should think about what makes people happy and what creates wellbeing; it would be lovely to see a happy Minister, or perhaps a Minister for happiness and wellbeing. Perhaps we could invite the researchers from the Happiness Research Institute to speak to us about wellbeing and how we can promote it across the United Kingdom. We know from its research that economic or financial hardship predicts unhappiness so part of this is about equality, but it is also about physical inactivity, because that lowers quality of life and life expectancy. Access to green spaces and to play parks and being able to engage in the outdoors is important; we all felt the impact of that during covid, but the research suggests we should pay even more attention to these issues.

Mental health and depression are the antithesis of happiness. They cause a real threat to wellbeing, impacting on the wellbeing not only of the individual but of their whole family and their family life, so we need much more focus on mental health services. Low wellbeing in later life creates costs in health and social care, so we need a holistic approach.

It was interesting to note that homes are a big factor in overall happiness—our security in our homes, being able to live in a safe home, free from threat, risk and antisocial behaviour. So local authorities have a huge role to play in this, too.

[Christian Matheson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?