Debate on the Address

David Amess Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I thank local residents in Southend West for re-electing me as their Member of Parliament. I have always regarded it as a great privilege to be an MP, not a right, and I am absolutely delighted to be returned again.

I congratulate the mover and the seconder of the motion on the Gracious Speech. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) is a well known wag. On this occasion he did not disappoint the House. The one issue on which I disagreed with him—and will always disagree with him—is the Democratic party in the United States of America and Mrs Clinton. I am afraid that I put the Clintons in exactly the same bracket as the Blairs—but, never mind, my right hon. Friend made a splendid speech.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray). She was a contributor to my pamphlet on working-class Conservatives, “The Party of Opportunity”, and she made a magnificent speech today. As we all know, she suffered a terrible tragedy shortly after her election to this place and her family and friends can be very proud of her.

Before getting into the bones of the Gracious Speech, I want to make a few remarks about the general election campaign. I say this in a friendly way to all Members: we only had the general election this month and I do think it is slightly arrogant if we dismiss the verdict of the electorate. I think it is a little early to start rubbishing the decisions the electorate made.

I thought the coverage of the general election campaign was an absolute disgrace for all sorts of reasons. Day in and day out, no big issues were covered by the radio or television media. I do not want to fall out with the SNP and its Members at this stage because I hope they will become my friends—I might even need their support in various matters in months and years to come—but I would say that when canvassing on the doorstep I found that the residents of Southend West were irritated by the fact that every time they went into the lounge and turned on their TV there was the leader of the SNP constantly talking about locking the Prime Minister out of No. 10 Downing Street. I would have thought the only person entitled to lock the Prime Minister out of No. 10 was the Prime Minister’s wife if he had been misbehaving. I do think that the tone was very unfortunate. The only other thing the media covered was their endless obsession with the idea that no party would get overall control. So I think the six weeks of the campaign—I was totally against fixed-term Parliaments, by the way—were very disappointing indeed.

I was elected to this place in June 1983. I am not an old boy yet, but I see from looking at the list that I am No. 5 in length of service on the Conservative Benches and No. 15 in the House. I have not lost my marbles yet, however, and I can remember what it was like to be elected as a new Member of Parliament. I wish to congratulate all colleagues—those who were re-elected and particularly those of all parties elected here for the first time.

I was going to address some remarks to Members on my own side of the Chamber, but for one moment I thought there were no newly elected Members on the Conservative Benches—they all seem to have got bored pretty quickly—then my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) decided to join us. There are, however, many newly elected Members sitting on the Opposition Benches. This place has changed beyond all recognition from when you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I joined it in June 1983, but I think that everyone will welcome colleagues and be as helpful as possible to ensure that everyone feels at home here.

The result that gave me the greatest pleasure was that of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). She epitomises everything that is good about Essex woman. She was not just in a two-way fight, she was in a three-way marginal and, thinking about my own circumstances in 1992, I know that the pressure she was under was absolutely extraordinary. Those dreadful opinion polls—every day, every week, every month, every year—telling her she was going to come third must have dispirited her greatly, yet she triumphed.

[Mr David Davis]

I agree with my hon. Friend about our hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price)—she is a magnificent lady. Does he agree that there is an argument for doing away with opinion polls for the duration of a general election?

[Sir David Amess]

My right hon. Friend has stolen part of my speech. The Gracious Speech says:

“Other measures will be laid before you.”

I absolutely think that we should now ban opinion polls during the three weeks of an election. We must never have a six-week campaign again. We had those ridiculous opinion polls day in and day out, and there has been no humility from the media; they are just carrying on as though they got it right. And let us never forget what the BBC told us about the exit polls. At 10 o’clock, it told us that the Conservatives would be the largest party with, I think, 316 seats.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The problem is that we cannot ban private opinion polls; there would simply be rumour and speculation. It is far better to let the press and the pollsters get on with it, in the hope that they will accept the criticism and that that will help them to get it right more often.

[Sir David Amess]

I was my hon. Friend’s Parliamentary Private Secretary for a little while. I am not going to fall out with him over this matter, but I do not agree with him.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that it would be better to reform the BBC—

[Ian Paisley]

I did not say we should privatise it; that is your suggestion. The BBC’s coverage of the election was biased and unfair to a number of the parties in this House, and that is where the Government should put their efforts in the years ahead.

[Sir David Amess]

The hon. Gentleman’s father—from heaven—would agree with him; I was also going to make that point in my speech.

Returning to the opinion polls, it is absolutely ridiculous that the exit poll from the BBC said that the Conservatives would be the largest party, with, I think, 289 seats. It even got that wrong, yet all the people who commentated on the general election are carrying on as though nothing has happened. That is absolutely ridiculous, and elected parliamentarians need to do something about that.

I agree with the point that the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) has just made. We have a new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale). When he was chairing the Select Committee, he seemed to have an awful lot to say about the British Broadcasting Corporation, and in each Parliament we talk about doing something about it. Now is the time for us to take action.

[Sir William Cash]

On the last day of the last Parliament, the European Scrutiny Committee submitted a unanimous all-party report on the manner in which the BBC has treated the European issue over the years. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be a good idea, in the present circumstances, for everyone to have a good read of it?

[Sir David Amess]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Incidentally, I do not seem to be getting any injury time for the interventions that I have been taking.

There is no secret about why the Conservatives were returned to government. The Gracious Speech stated that the Government

“will legislate in the interests of everyone in our country.”

The British people believe that. The speech went on to state that the Government would

“provide economic stability and security at every stage of life.”

The British people believe that. The speech also says that we should help to

“achieve full employment and provide more people with the security of a job.”

The British people believe that that is what the Conservative party is going to do. We have also stated:

“Legislation will be introduced to support home ownership”,

which is something that the British people very much want, as I recall from my days in Basildon.

I have to say that if any Member did not find that immigration was an issue on the doorstep, I do not know what they were doing. Of course, enormous benefits are brought to this country by immigration, but it is an issue and it needs dealing with. In particular, I look forward to the Government’s proposals on benefit allocation. The British people are also attracted by our proposal to

“secure the future of the National Health Service by implementing the National Health Service’s own five-year plan”,

which we will watch very carefully. They are also impressed by our commitment to

“secure the real value of the basic State Pension”.

Constituents in Southend West are getting increasingly angered by another issue. I am not going to get involved in the Scottish measure, but when we are dealing with England-only issues, there must be a way of ensuring that only English Members of Parliament vote on them.

I am delighted that we are going to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with the European Union—if Opposition parties had not stopped it in the previous Parliament, we would have had the referendum before 2017. I am old enough to have had the opportunity to vote in the ‘70s, and I voted no. Good luck to the Prime Minister if he thinks he can renegotiate things successfully—I will make my judgment at the time. I can tell hon. Members that the comments made to me on the doorstep give me the impression that in the referendum, regardless of how things are renegotiated, young people will vote to stay in the European Union.

I very much support the proposal for a British Bill of Rights, and I was also glad not to see anything in the Gracious Speech on foxhunting. I have always voted against foxhunting, not because of class issues—people may want to dress up in their red uniforms and it all looks marvellous—but because being torn apart by a couple of dogs cannot be a lot of fun for the fox. Human beings would not want that to happen to them, so I am glad there is nothing about foxhunting in the Gracious Speech.

On foreign affairs, I am glad that I was one of the 30 Conservative Members of Parliament who voted against this country getting involved in the conflict in Syria and that we are going to try to get a political settlement there. I am glad that we are going to put pressure on Russia to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, and that we are going to try to defeat terrorism in the middle east. I would have liked the Gracious Speech to have contained some sort of commitment that public inquiries will actually report. It is crazy that we still have not got the Chilcot report—the sooner that is published, the better, because I want to see whether or not I was misled over the Iraq war.

I say again that I am grateful to my constituents for re-electing me. I congratulate all the new Ministers, but I put them on this warning: I want them to read carefully the letters they send to me and not just sign off what the civil servant has plonked in front of them. I want Southend to have city status. Following our magnificent victory in the football contest at the weekend and our promotion to league one, we are entitled to become a city.

I want fair funding for grammar schools. I very much want something to be done about cliff slippage in Southend. I want the senior management of Southend’s hospital and the South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust—SEPT—sorted out. I very much intend to ensure that the voice of Southend is heard loudly and firmly in this Parliament. My final thought, which I wrote down as I was listening earlier, is that I hope we will all show humility in victory and in defeat.