Amendment of the Law

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this Budget debate. The first time I remember feeling like this was when I was being summoned by an RAF instructor to make my first parachute jump—a leap of faith into the unknown. Today, however, as I rise to make my maiden speech in this Chamber, I am reassured by knowing that the hon. Members who have gone before me—most of them—have landed without incurring permanent injury.

The people of Barnsley Central have a long history of electing good people to serve as their Member of Parliament. Only time will tell whether I extend that record, but it is a great privilege to pay tribute to my predecessors. It is truly humbling to think that I follow in the footsteps of the former Barnsley MP, Roy Mason, a coal miner at the age of 14. Lord Mason went on to serve the town as its MP for 34 years. During that time, he served in a number of Governments and held a number of high offices.

I also have the great privilege of representing wards that were previously in the Barnsley, West and Penistone constituency. Before being abolished, the constituency was represented by the formidable Michael Clapham. As an MP, Mick did tremendous work to support other former miners, securing compensation for those who had been injured through their work and for the families of those miners who had been killed.

As it was for Roy and Mick, so it was for Barnsley: coal mining was at the heart of the community. Barnsley is a town with a proud history of linen, wire and glass making, but coal mining once accounted for more than 30,000 jobs. It was a community built on coal. In good times and bad, in war and in peace, places such as Barnsley kept this economy and this country going. As is said in Barnsley: “We dug the coal.”

I would also like to pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, Eric Illsley. It is acknowledged that Eric made mistakes—mistakes that cast a shadow across his good work for the people of Barnsley—but we should not forget that Eric chose to dedicate his life to the betterment of the lives of working people. Like Mick and Roy, Eric served the community and spent 10 years as a National Union of Mineworkers official, including during the miners’ strike. Many people have told me that Eric was a very hard-working and conscientious constituency MP with a strong record of supporting and representing working men and women in Barnsley.

Having served two tours in Afghanistan, I was relieved to fight a—relatively, at least—peaceful by-election campaign in Barnsley, but I was ably supported by some brilliant local campaigners: people such as Anita Cherryhome and Tracey Cheetham, to name just two among the many to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude. My transition from the Army to civilian life has been made a pleasure because of the people of Barnsley and their support. I remember the warmth of the welcome I received at the New Lodge working men’s club while having a pint with Roy Butterwood, and from the fantastic people working in Barnsley hospital. Both institutions are, in different ways, at the heart of the community.

I met hundreds of amazing people during the by-election, including teachers, NHS workers, police officers, business owners and volunteers: remarkable people working hard and achieving remarkable things in Barnsley, in Yorkshire and beyond.

My constituents are proud people. People such as Len Picken and Jenny Platts are proud of their industrial heritage, proud of who they are today and proud of what Barnsley can continue to be in the future. There is no question but that the people of my constituency have the energy, skill and dedication to make our community a better place. The question today is whether Barnsley’s future is safe under this Government or whether it will be savaged by spending cuts and by a failure to protect jobs and opportunities for the young, as it was in the 1980s.

The people of Barnsley were looking for today’s Budget to pass two clear tests. Did it deliver for families who are finding times hard as pay freezes hit, world prices rise and the VAT increase takes up to £450 a year out of a family’s household spending; and did it demonstrate that the Government have a plan to generate jobs and the growth that would create jobs? The Barnsley of today, after more than a decade of investment and reform to our public services and our infrastructure, is not the Barnsley of the 1980s. Barnsley and our country can and should thrive. Indeed, a year ago, growth in this country was rising, and unemployment and inflation were falling. We had hoped that the mistakes of the past were forgotten and that communities such as Barnsley would not be abandoned as they were then, leaving a generation scarred.

The 1980s and 1990s were a dark chapter for the town, as the then Government closed down the mines which were the heart and soul of our community and stood back and let unemployment and misery linger for a generation. In recent years, Councillor Steve Houghton, the outstanding leader of Barnsley council, was instrumental in working with the Department for Work and Pensions in devising the future jobs fund, which helped more than 600 people find jobs in Barnsley. But the future jobs fund ends this month and Barnsley is facing some of the deepest cuts in the country. The council has to find £26 million this year and £46 million in total, and jobs will inevitably be lost. The truth is that today South Yorkshire police are losing 400 police officers and facing deeper cuts than many other forces. The increase in VAT on fuel is costing people in Yorkshire £53 million in extra fuel tax this year. The education maintenance allowance was helping more than 3,500 of Barnsley’s young people to afford to stay in education. This September, some of the poorest young people going into education will be £30 a week worse off and, even on the Government’s own figures, one in 10 of them will drop out of education as a result.

The Government told us that we were out of the danger zone, that their plan was working and that they should be judged on the figures. Today, inflation is rising, partly as a result of the VAT rise, unemployment is rising and growth has stalled. Barnsley urgently needs an alternative: a plan to get jobs and to help families feeling the squeeze. The Government could have chosen to repeat the bank bonus tax—a tax on those on whose shoulders much of the responsibility for our predicament should fall. That money could have funded a plan—a plan to build houses, to invest in infrastructure and to get young people in work—but they chose not take that approach. The real test of this Budget was whether the voice of the country had been heard, whether the evidence had been heeded and whether the Government had listened on jobs and on the cost of living. They have failed this test.

The previous Labour Government, whatever their faults, did their bit to invest in the future, and their investment in education and training was particularly important. In Barnsley, the Building Schools for the Future project has successfully provided new schools such as Darton college, the Dearne advanced learning centre and the Carlton community college, with six more in the pipeline, to sit alongside the inspirational Barnsley college, rated as “outstanding” in Ofsted’s last inspection.

My service in the Parachute Regiment has taught me that so much can be achieved when people are given the right tools, the right skills and the right training—when they are given the support and funding to be the best. I know from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan that the men and women of our armed forces are the best. I have had the privilege of serving with some amazing people, but, above all, it has been a pleasure to serve with the soldiers and NCOs—the backbone of our armed forces. Today, I particularly remember Corporal Bryan Budd VC and Corporal Mark Wright GC, both of the Parachute Regiment, who lost their lives while serving our country with the most outstanding valour. I pay the highest tribute to them and to all those men and women who have fallen in the pursuit of maintaining the security of our country. We must never forget their families who are left behind to grieve, but it is not enough just to praise the armed forces. They must be supported with the best training and equipment, and the military covenant is not an optional extra but an essential piece of kit.

The strategic defence and security review may come to be remembered as the Fox review, but only in the future will we know whether it is as cunning as its name might suggest or if it is, as Professor Paul Cornish states in his recent Chatham House report, merely an attempt to “muddle through”. This is no time to muddle through. Clear policy and decisive action are a must, and we must move the debate on to determining the desired strategic outputs rather than merely considering defence inputs.

Although there is rightly much focus on Libya and events in the middle east, in Afghanistan the efforts of our armed forces are nothing short of heroic, and they are buying space and time for the Afghan Government, but the question remains of how we should use that time. In the end, the true measure of progress is how far Afghanistan has advanced towards a political settlement capable of providing enduring stability, because that is the safest way of securing both our interests and those of the Afghans. We and our American allies should not wait to push forward a serious dialogue for reconciliation. Ultimately, politics is always the solution. Whatever the progress with that effort, it is critical to address not only the external and regional elements of the conflict, but its internal cause: the issues of legitimacy, the rule of law and grievance that push people to support the Taliban and to which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy)referred in his recent speech to the Royal United Services Institute.

I must thank hon. Members on both sides of the House who, through their advice and kindness, have ensured my safe landing in this place. It is with my deepest thanks to them that I now feel a little more able to live up to my old regimental motto, “Utrinque paratus”, or “Ready for anything”.

Finally, if I have learnt nothing else during the by-election campaign, I have learnt this: the spirit and aspiration of the people of Barnsley cannot be trodden down and I, as their Member of Parliament, will do all I can to stand up for them. It is their hard work, their pride in themselves and their compassion for others that makes me so very proud to represent them here today.