Debate on the Address

Debate between David Evennett and Nigel Evans

Tuesday 11th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to participate in the Queen’s Speech debate and it is good to be back here in the Chamber participating in person. Since the last Queen’s Speech our country has suffered so much with the pandemic, but with the success of the vaccine programme and the Government policies the future begins to look brighter now, and we are all grateful for that.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) on her election to this place and wishing her every success in her career. I am sure she will be very successful and dynamic for us, and we look forward to hearing her speeches. I also congratulate and praise the proposer of the Loyal Address, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Shailesh Vara). He has been a long-standing friend of mine since 2005, and today’s statesmanlike speech is a real credit to him. I also congratulate the seconder of the Loyal Address, my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher), on the powerful and effective way in which she delivered an interesting and invigorating speech. By comparison, I fear that the speeches from Opposition leaders have not been so good.

The Leader of the Opposition’s speech was disappointing in content, unconvincing and uninspiring. The Scottish National party leader seems to have only one speech, which he repeats regularly. He hardly mentioned the contents of the Loyal Address or Queen’s Speech. The Liberal Democrats always promise everything and talk a good talk, but do not seem to have any policies or actions to take us forward. By comparison, the Queen’s Speech is constructive and comprehensive, and I know it will gain favour across the whole UK.

As we start to come out of the pandemic and the lockdowns, the Government will have a lot of issues to tackle—we all know that. I strongly support the Government’s approach and the dynamic leadership we have seen from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. He has risen to the challenges of the past year and deserves credit for his leadership. That was acknowledged by the voters—[Interruption.] It is no good our having sedentary comments from the Opposition Members, as they have nothing constructive to put forward. He deserves the credit and that was what was acknowledged by the voters last Thursday, who believe that the Government will successfully deliver on the people’s priorities, which include housing, the economy, employment, education, training and crime, among other things. Those are the issues that affect people in their day-to-day lives and the Queen’s Speech outlines a coherent strategy to deal with them.

Today, I want to focus on the measures for education, and particularly on skills and post-16 training and education. I eagerly look forward to the skills and post-16 education Bill. The skills revolution that the Government promised is absolutely fundamental to the success of global Britain post Brexit.

Outside politics, I have worked as a teacher and a lecturer, so I have seen at first hand the importance of good education and training for young people and for not-so-young people. My time lecturing at Bexley College showed me the real value of further education colleges and how they have been regrettably undervalued by all Governments in the last couple of decades. They are absolutely fundamental to increasing skills and opportunities across our country. I passionately believe that every child and young person deserves a good start in life, regardless of their background, or where they live. Access to excellent schools is essential to build the foundations for opportunities and success in later life.

Conservative Governments of the last 10 or 11 years have done much to improve our schools and we are grateful for the real achievements we have seen. However, we have a skills shortage in this country and I believe we can rectify that through post-16 education. I would highlight finance as an issue in further education. Colleges need more resources and support to be able to act as an engine for social mobility. I also believe that FE lecturers should be paid more to ensure that we get the best people and we show we really value our FE lecturers.

I know the Government will look at this issue, but we must ensure that young people are encouraged to engage with education and understand the long-term benefits. That is why I strongly welcome the actions to provide more lifelong learning opportunities through colleges and universities across our country, such as by making studying part time more easily accessible to people. That is so important.

I also strongly support the lifetime skills guarantee, which provides adults in England without an A-level or equivalent qualification the opportunity to take up a free, fully funded college course. Alongside that, it is very important to make education loans more flexible and allow people to space out their study across their lifetime and take more high-quality vocational courses. The lifetime skills guarantee will transform the provision of skills across this country and help people to get the skills they need at every stage of their lives. This long-term plan will ensure that, as the nature of work changes—we live in a world that is frequently and rapidly changing—people have the skills to retrain and find new, better jobs. There are going to be many more new, different jobs in the future. We have to have the workforce and the opportunities for people to be able to study and train so that they can take up those opportunities.

I have long advocated that local employers should work more closely with further education providers to align training more closely with employer needs. That is so important and I am afraid that it has not happened. I regularly speak to and visit businesses across my borough of Bexley and elsewhere in the country when I go on speaking and meeting engagements. One issue that is often raised is that children are not getting the required skills in school. They are not then taking them to college and they do not leave college with the standard of skills that employers require. That is disappointing. It is not just the Government who are at fault here; it is also the employers not participating and making their views known more readily. As a result, often, small and medium-sized businesses—the backbone of our economy, employing the majority of people in our country—have struggled to access and retain employees with the skills they need. That significantly impacts on productivity and growth.

That is why it is essential that businesses are placed at the heart of skills plans and work with further education colleges to address skill shortages in local areas. I therefore welcome the plans for employers to have a statutory role in planning publicly funded training programmes with education providers through a skills accelerator programme. All that will contribute to better lifelong upskilling opportunities, so that people can take on better paid jobs in their local areas, and it will encourage innovation and entrepreneurs. That is so important. Businesses and colleges are in the community and they know what the local needs, and the local workforce needs, are.

The skills revolution announced today will support the nation’s recovery from the ongoing pandemic, while building on the progress made so far to level up the country and ensure equal opportunities for all people, wherever they live. In London, as in other parts of the country, we have skill shortages. There are inequalities of opportunity. As well as education, housing is important —the opportunity for people to have a decent home. I remember well in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher the determination to have more homes and for people to own their own homes. My grandparents lived in social housing. They would have loved the opportunity in the 1960s in Harlow to buy their own property and feel that they had a stake in the community. Margaret Thatcher made that a reality. We are now looking at a new generation. We need more people to be homeowners, to have a stake in the community and to value that opportunity.

The Queen’s Speech also deals with something of which I am very supportive: ending fixed-term Parliaments. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was needed at a particular time, but it is not needed now. As we know, the issues that have arisen from it in the last few years are many and varied. This change will restore the status quo and ensure the constitution operates properly, so we cannot have the absurd situation we had in 2019 where the Prime Minister was unable, because of the law, to call a general election. It was surprising, of course, that the Opposition did not want to vote for an election at that time. It was the first time in my long political career that an Opposition did not want to call for a general election.

The Act was needed in 2010 because the coalition Government faced huge problems left by the last Labour Government and we had to have stability. We could not be in a position where the Government were always wondering whether they were going to survive and whether there would have to be a general election. It was needed at that particular time, but that time has passed. We now need to look at the opportunities for going back to the tradition where the Prime Minister, of whatever party, has the right to determine when he asks Her Majesty the Queen to go to the country to renew the Government’s mandate. It is therefore only right that we get rid of this anachronism that is not necessary at this time.

I will conclude, Mr Deputy Speaker, as you did not want us to speak for too long. There is much in this Queen’s Speech that is to be commended. It is a programme for the next year. It is going to keep us busy, but it is going to transform our country and ensure we make global Britain a real success. For the last year and a half, the world has been dominated by the covid-19 pandemic, but I believe we are now looking to the end of restrictions on 21 June and we can return to some sort of normality.

It was disappointing that the Leader of the Opposition did not commend the Prime Minister for the fact that we are slowly unlocking and going forward to get back to normality, because it has been a success story in this country compared with other countries. It is regrettable that we cannot have some bipartisanship and say when things are good. I always understood that an Opposition praised what was right and supported it but then criticised what they disagreed with. I did not hear any of that today; it was all disagreement and criticism. That is very disappointing.

The country proved with its voting last week that it wants to go forward, it wants to be constructive and it wants to move on. That is what this Queen’s Speech does in so many fields. In so many areas, we are looking to deal with the problems facing ordinary people every day of their lives, and that is to be commended. The issues people are concerned about are being dealt with in this Queen’s Speech, and it will pave the way for us to build back better, putting jobs, skills and businesses at the heart of our recovery. It is the way forward. I commend the Queen’s Speech.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I know that everybody is enjoying the luxury of there being no time limit at the moment, but if Members could aim for sub-10-minute contributions, we will be a lot fairer to those who speak later on.

Covid-19

Debate between David Evennett and Nigel Evans

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con) [V]]

I should like to start by praising the Prime Minister for the leadership he has shown throughout this crisis, despite having suffered from the virus himself. I believe the whole country is grateful to him for all his efforts.

We should also be really thankful for our tremendous NHS staff, care workers and other medical professionals, who are on the frontline in this fight against covid-19. Their skills, commitment and dedication are an inspiration to us all. We should also thank all the other key workers in our society for their work at this difficult and challenging time. I particularly thank those workers in my area of south-east London.

We are in unprecedented times and the Government have been proactive and responsive to the many issues that our nation faces. It is a national tragedy that so many lives have been lost to this terrible virus, particularly in care homes, which were not a priority early enough. Matters of testing and PPE provision will also need to be examined. There are many and varied questions that will need to be raised, nationally and internationally, in due course. Today is not the day for such questions, however, as I believe that at this stage, we need to be constructive, not partisan, and look forward.

The response to the crisis has brought out the best of Britain. Our people have risen to the challenge. That is particularly true in my borough of Bexley. At this stage, we need to be discussing the road map for the future. Therefore, I welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement on Sunday of cautious, careful and pragmatic progress to start to get the country out of lockdown. I think that the “stay alert” slogan is good and that the promised road map being dependent, of course, on people’s actions is the right approach now.

Many people are concerned about the impact of the virus on the economy and the future. Many businesses in my constituency are worried about the future and there are real economic concerns. That is why the measures from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of Exchequer have been warmly welcomed. The huge and unprecedented programme of support for workers, businesses, jobs, the economy and the self-employed has been good news in a time of sadness and bad news. A too-early relaxation of Government measures could cause further damage and an even longer period of social distancing, but we must get the economy going again by opening up shops and businesses, getting people spending and working, and getting to some sort of new normality.

From communications that I have had with businesses across my area of Bexley, I know that the Government support is much appreciated, particularly the furloughing of staff and the coronavirus grant funding, which have been vital in keeping businesses afloat even if they are not operational at this time. In fact, a survey of local small and medium-sized enterprises and other businesses by McBrides Chartered Accountants in Sidcup revealed that without the current Government measures to support them, a quarter of businesses would not have survived the lockdown, and more than two thirds would have been forced to lay off staff. That shows how important the Government’s actions have been in protecting businesses and livelihoods.

Of course, those measures cannot continue forever, and we look forward to the Chancellor’s new proposals shortly. I hope that he will taper the furlough scheme rather than remove it completely, because it has been such a lifeline. He has been brilliant in his approach and understanding, and in the policies that he has put forward to help the economic future of the country and the current business problems.

We must look to the future and start up our economy, but it is vital that we do it in a measured manner, to give businesses, employees and consumers confidence that they are in a safe environment. In conclusion, there will be many lessons to be learned, and we can highlight areas such as care homes, testing and PPE where things could and should have been done better—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am sorry, but we have to leave it there and move on under pressure of time. I call Margaret Ferrier.