Daniel Kawczynski
Main Page: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) on his eloquent and passionate maiden speech; I wish him every success representing his constituents.
Localism, we are told, is very important and I agree with that concept. We need to have more powers for local councils in Shropshire—for Shropshire unitary authority and Shrewsbury town council—moving away from Westminster and from regional quangos, so that those who take the decisions can be accountable to local people in Shropshire.
Shrewsbury town council is the largest town council in the United Kingdom. Following the reorganisation of local councils in Shropshire, I very much hope that we can evaluate how more power can be devolved to Shrewsbury town council, but one area in which I think a greater lead, and certainly more advice, is needed from government is waste management. There are proposals for an incinerator to be built in Harlescott, which is a highly residential part of Shrewsbury. The Minister will know that Shrewsbury is an extremely beautiful mediaeval town. The No. 1 income generator for our community is tourism, so local residents are extremely concerned at the prospect of the incinerator being built. As the local MP, I have received many petitions on the matter and have attended many public meetings about it.
Hon. Members will be interested to hear that the issue involves the French operator Veolia, which its chief executive told me when I met him in the House of Commons was originally set up by Napoleon Bonaparte. That company is like an octopus with its tentacles all over the UK. How will the Minister regulate and control that ever-growing, powerful company in its quest to build more and more incinerators throughout the UK? What checks, balances and supervision are the national Government going to put in place? What co-ordination from Government will there be regarding where such incinerators are placed?
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that we, too, have an application for an incinerator in my constituency and that many such incinerators are to be funded through the private finance initiative project? Does he agree that it is tremendously dangerous to fund technology projects with PFI on a potential 25-year payback given that the technology could be out of date within five or 10 years?
Daniel Kawczynski
Yes; I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I was just about to talk about concerns that the technology will be antiquated by the end of the contract. I want to press the Minister for greater national co-ordination. Councils up and down the country are looking separately, in silos, at incinerators with little regard to national co-ordination in their placement. My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. In our case, the contract would last for 29 years, but the polluting technology involved is already antiquated and should be avoided. Why cannot we have more efficient carbon dioxide-neutral methods of waste disposal? There are many examples in Sweden and other European Union countries that use the most modern and pioneering technology for their waste. Please will the Minister look at them and try to give a greater lead and incentive to councils such as Shropshire not to go with antiquated technology that pollutes our atmosphere? Will he explain the policy and advise that there should be greater co-ordination between councils and more assistance to help them evaluate the best solutions?
I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that Shropshire has exceeded the national recycling targets and is massively ahead of other suggested targets. I am greatly worried that we will be importing waste from other parts of the UK to be incinerated in Shropshire. In the last Parliament, we had many debates in this Chamber and Westminster Hall about incinerators. Labour and Conservative Ministers always come back with the same response on this issue. They say, “This is a local matter and you should take it up with your local council,” but I do not believe that the Minister can wash his hands of this issue, because there needs to be direct Government intervention. For the record, I am extremely upset that the council—a Conservative council, I hasten to add—is proceeding with the incinerator.
My next point to the Minister is that I would like the council to receive greater clarification about house building targets. The previous Labour Administration wanted to foist huge house building targets on Shropshire—almost concreting over it—leading to great concern among villagers, including those in Cressage and Pontesbury, who love their rural way of life. I should like the Minister to clarify the matter and to assure us that local councils will have greater responsibility to decide house building programmes rather than their being imposed by central Government.
Lastly, I shall address my pet subject, about which, as chairman of the all-party group for the continuation of first past the post, I feel passionately. The only three countries around the world that use the alternative vote system are Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. I do not believe that the United Kingdom should be using a voting system that is predominantly used in Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that first past the post is so called for a reason, because it rightly suggests that the horse that wins the race deserves to get the prize? To carry on the analogy, does he agree that the alternative vote means that the backers of the horses that came third, fourth or even worse decide whether the horse that came first or the horse that came second ought to get the prize?
Daniel Kawczynski
I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend on that point. The referendum will cost the United Kingdom millions of pounds. In five years of being a Member of Parliament, I have received only one letter—and only then because I went on the “Today” programme and said that I had not received any on this issue, after which I received one—from one constituent saying, “Dear Mr Kawczynski, could you please support a change in the voting system?” My constituents come to see me about pensions, child tax credits and Child Support Agency payments—all the things that affect their day-to-day lives. All Members in the Chamber will know some of the terrible difficulties that our constituents are going through and will go through in coming years as a result of the fiscal mess that we have inherited. For us to be distracting ourselves on 6 September with deliberations about a referendum on a change to the voting system when we have one of the best voting systems in the world is a great travesty. I, for one, as chairman of the all-party group, encourage all Members to join the group and to keep up the pressure on our Government to ditch these ludicrous proposals.
Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
I pay tribute to the excellent maiden speeches made by the hon. Members for Livingston (Graeme Morrice) and for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel); they sold their constituencies very well.
As a reasonably new Member of Parliament—I have been a Member for only a few weeks—I have quickly discovered that one of the joys of the role is the enormous range of issues that one reads about in each day’s postbag. Some of them are very easy to deal with and can lead to good resolutions, but others are more complex. I therefore welcome the opportunity to bring some of those issues to the Floor of the House.
Traveller sites represent a great problem facing much of South Staffordshire. Of all the west midlands constituencies, we have one of the largest numbers of Traveller sites. Under the previous Labour Government there were proposals to double the number of such sites in my constituency, but that would put great pressure on our communities. It is somewhat unfair that a constituency with a large number of Traveller sites should also have to deal with many new sites. It is particularly unfair that the proposed location of many of the sites is green belt land. The previous Government’s rules allowed sites to be placed on such land because of the exemptions that they enjoyed, so I hope that the coalition Government will change that.
Later today I will present to the House a petition with more than 2,100 signatories. It has been signed by South Staffordshire constituents as well as a few others who have visited South Staffordshire and enjoyed the pleasures of its beautiful countryside. I hope that the Government will change the law. Most importantly, however, there is something that they can do during the recess: get rid of circular ODPM 01/06. That would make a major difference to the planning system straight away, and change the way in which faceless bureaucrats in Bristol can force on my constituents, as well as those of many hon. Members, Traveller sites that are not wanted, and should not be built on green belt land. I hope that my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House will pass that message on to Ministers.
Daniel Kawczynski
Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem relates not just to Gypsy sites? The Bristol office can exert a lot of influence over all sorts of planning applications in our communities, but its right to do so should be abolished, with the power devolved back to local councils.
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. If Members of Parliament had as much power as the inspectors in Bristol, we would truly appreciate it. We need the power to be devolved because the process has a great impact on local communities, and local voices are not being heard. Local councillors can say no to something, yet inspectors in Bristol will say yes. That cannot be allowed to continue.
A further problem affecting South Staffordshire is car boot sales. When hon. Members think of car boot sales, they probably imagine pleasant events involving 20 or 30 cars that might be raising money for a local hospital, church or school, but South Staffordshire is blighted by industrial car boot sales involving many hundreds of traders descending on our rural villages. There is no regulation or control by the district council, and the events bring misery to many areas. I invite Members to visit the villages of Featherstone or Himley on a Sunday to see the blight that the car boot sales bring—[Interruption.] Members are probably booking their train tickets right away. The villagers are not able to leave their homes because of the traffic chaos inflicted on them. I am asking not for a vast amount of legislation, but simply for South Staffordshire district council to be able to impose the same regulations as many London boroughs, so that we can control those industrial car boot sales and my constituents can go about their daily lives without this terrible affliction.
My final point touches many hon. Members’ constituents; it is about cancer drugs. I welcome the Government’s moves to take decision making on need away from primary care trusts and give it to clinicians. I hope that that will benefit one of my constituents, a brave young woman with a young family, who, with immense courage and incredible bravery that would humble anyone, is battling lung cancer, for which her clinician has advised that she needs a course of Taxol and Pemetrexed. This has been declined by South Staffordshire primary care trust, which is an utter disgrace. I hope that the changes to PCTs, and to the making of decisions on whether patients are allowed to have certain medicines, will benefit my constituent, but I fear that they will not come in time for her. I urge the Deputy Leader of the House to do everything within his powers to put pressure on anyone, whether at Cabinet level or in the Department of Health, as I have tried to do, who could do anything to help my constituent to have a chance at life and to be able to enjoy her family. If my hon. Friend can do that, I am sure that my constituent would be incredibly grateful, as would many of our constituents.
This coalition Government have made some positive changes and a positive start, but so much more is needed, and requires to be done. I urge my hon. Friends to keep pushing those on the Treasury Bench to ensure that that change is delivered.
royal assent