Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion
Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I could get used to that. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), who delivered a rather marvellous maiden speech. Although I hate to disappoint my colleagues, mine will not be as riveting—but neither will it be as long. I congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker, on regaining your position in the Chair.

I start by saying how proud I am and how humbling it is to be here delivering this, my maiden speech, on the highly important topic of the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill. I know what you are thinking, Mr Deputy Speaker. Many of my new colleagues have previously said that they know what you are thinking, but I actually do. You, along with right hon. and hon. Members from all parts of the House, are thinking, “Why would you choose to do your maiden speech during the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill?” Indeed, as a new Member, I am asking myself the same question. The answer is that, like the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), I have experience working in the telecommunications sector.

I spent several years working in the sector—I reassure colleagues that I was not working for Openreach—and I know that the number of appointments that network operators miss because they cannot access properties creates several disadvantages. First, there was the financial cost to operators of sending an engineer out to a property only for them to be unable to deliver the service. That cost was ultimately passed on to the end-user. Secondly, there is an opportunity cost to not being able to deliver on one job: it meant that engineers could not go and deliver a service at another location, which leads to people waiting longer for an installation than specified under the service level agreements. Finally, the end-users themselves only want one simple thing: a telephony and broadband service. If a network operator is unable to go to their location, they are going without the one basic service that they require. It is right that the Government are committed to delivering gigabit broadband to every single house and business in the country by 2025, and this Bill goes some way to delivering that.

While I am discussing telecommunications infrastructure, it would be remiss of me not actually to discuss infrastructure, and one cannot discuss infrastructure without building a few walls. I hope that my colleagues know where I am going with this. After many years of Labour neglect in the north and our northern towns, the Conservatives have now been able to build our very own blue wall in the north; after those many years of Labour neglect, our northern counterparts from “Game of Thrones” remind us that “the north remembers”.

It is customary in one’s maiden speech to take Members on a virtual tour of their constituency. Mr Deputy Speaker, you have probably heard in maiden speeches many times—indeed, you have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes—that everyone seems to have the most picturesque landscapes and the most vibrant towns. I do not want to break with convention. However, I also want to be on your good side, Mr Deputy Speaker. I therefore admit that your constituency clearly has the most picturesque landscape and most vibrant towns, with Bury South obviously coming a very close second.

The constituency of Bury South is rather ironically named; it does not actually contain any single part of the town of Bury. Instead, it is actually the south of the borough of Bury. Bury South is situated to the north of Greater Manchester, although to many it will remain a key part of the county palatine that I know Mr Speaker holds dear: the county of Lancashire. The constituency is made up of the townships of Radcliffe, Whitefield and Prestwich, and the villages of Ainsworth and Simister—places that many people believe to have been left behind. Given the choice in a referendum, as my predecessor mentioned in his maiden speech back in 1997, they would arguably vote for their own Bur-exit and more localisation of powers, along with the creation of town and parish councils.

Radcliffe was previously famous for its paper mills. Like many industrial towns, it has unfortunately seen the decline of the manufacturing industry, and is in need of a new high school and the regeneration of its town centre—two issues that I will be championing in this House and have already been speaking to Ministers about. Prestwich is famous for its municipal park, Heaton Park, which I am sure many hon. Members will have heard of. It is home to several music festivals and large congregations; and although I profess to have attended many, I can confirm to my constituents that not a single one was Parklife.

Prestwich is also home to one of the largest, most vibrant and thriving Jewish communities in the country, and I thank the community from the bottom of my heart for the generosity and kindness they have shown me, before the election and since. This is a community that had real fear in the run-up to the election. Members should not let anyone—either in this House or in any other place—try to convince them otherwise. The best example I have seen of the fear of the community was on the day after polling day, when a Jewish lady approached me in the street as I was heading back to my car, with tears running down her face and the simple message, “Thank you. Thanks to you and the Conservatives, we no longer have to leave the country.” I will hold that meeting with me until the end of my days, because it was a powerful message that resonated with me at the time and will continue to do so.

It has been highlighted to me that I am the first non-Jewish Member of Parliament for Bury South. Certainly, the Financial Times referred to it—but obviously there are other newspaper publications available. I was described as Christian, which quite clearly is neither Jewish nor Muslim—something so obvious I do not quite think it needed writing down, but they chose to do so anyway.

It is also customary to pay tribute to one’s predecessor. I find myself in a much easier position than most when replacing a former Labour Member—and a former Labour Minister, no less—because I received an endorsement from my predecessor, Ivan Lewis. Not only did he endorse me, but on polling day he actually donned a blue rosette and knocked on doors for me. That certainly makes paying tribute to one’s predecessor much, much easier. I have also been very fortunate to get to know Ivan Lewis quite well over the past few months—even more so through meeting him for coffee regularly in the constituency to discuss some of the issues that, while he was not quite able to see them through, we are working on closely to bring to fruition. I would like to pay tribute to the work he has done over 22 years in this place and truly to wish him the best with all his future endeavours.

My predecessor and I share very many similar passions, one being social mobility and one being education and improving our towns. I would like to take a moment to share those passions. One passion that we did not share was football, because unfortunately he did rather side with our noisy neighbours in Manchester—something he likes to remind me about, especially when they defeat us.

Many have asked why I decided to come to this place. As a former insurance broker, I was already hated, so, with not really having a passion for selling houses, I thought, why not go into politics and become a Member of Parliament? So that was the clear direction of travel. All jokes aside, I am a strong believer in social mobility, as a compassionate Conservative, and I believe the best way to achieve social mobility is through education. I declare an interest because, having a very young daughter, I obviously want the very best education for her, but in doing so I also want the best education for every child in this country, and even more so from early years through to further and higher education.

I stood on a platform of policies to regenerate our towns of Radcliffe and Prestwich and to protect our green belt at Simister and Elton Reservoir, on which at the moment there is a fear that thousands of houses will be built. I also fought a campaign based on ensuring that our streets are safe for our residents and not for the criminals, and that our police have the resources that they need to tackle crime. So I was certainly pleased to hear the Queen’s Speech reaffirm the commitment to putting more police on the street and deploying them where they are needed. I also fought campaigns to deliver the new high school for Radcliffe to make sure that every child in my constituency could go to a good-quality and local school; and to tackle the issues of congestion on Bury New Road in Prestwich, which has been described as one of the most congested roads in the north-west of England.

This moment, while filled with pride, is one that too many of my colleagues have also described as rather bittersweet, because unfortunately neither my father nor my older brother Mark could be here. They were lost far too soon, but they have given me a passion to support cancer care, road safety, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation. I am driven each and every day by whether my father would be proud of me. Hopefully today I can say he would be.

I conclude by summing up my approach to this place for the next five years, and hopefully longer: it is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice.