Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment

Elliot Colburn Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

I join colleagues in paying tribute to our late friend Sir David Amess. I was lucky enough to be put by the accommodation Whip on the same corridor as Sir David when I first arrived here as an MP. I will never forget the conversations that we used to have while waiting for the lifts in 1 Parliament Street, which never work. He was always interested in colleagues and what they were doing. He took a genuine interest in parliamentarians and this House. We really miss him and remember him in these times. On a happier note, I extend my good wishes to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all the staff in the Houses of Parliament in advance of the summer recess, and wish them a very restful recess.

I am told by Hansard that today will be my 170th mention of Carshalton and Wallington, so no prizes for guessing the topic of my speech today. I will highlight a few things that my constituents are facing, which I hope that the Minister, who I am delighted is in her place, will take away to the relevant Government Departments to pursue over the summer. I do not think that it will come as any surprise that the No. 1 issue that I get from residents on the doorstep and in my postbag— I am sure it is the same for every Member of Parliament at the moment—is concern about cost of living pressures, such as meeting the mortgage, rent payments, energy bills and other bills. I warmly welcome not only all the initiatives that the Government have taken, including the energy bill relief scheme, the household support fund, and the uprating of benefits and pensions in line with inflation, but the way the Government have tried to promote those schemes.

I know so many people who have benefited from going on the Help for Households website. They have found support that they did not know was out there. I have been trying to work alongside local stakeholders to ensure that people are adequately signposted to the support available. Together with the Department for Work and Pensions and the local jobcentre, we have set up monthly drop-in cost of living advice sessions in Roundshaw and St Helier, and we are looking to expand that to other areas of Carshalton and Wallington, particularly areas of deprivation where the need for such support is acute. Those sessions have been so well received. Every month, more and more people come to those drop-in events. I hope that the Government can encourage the DWP to continue to do that in other constituencies, because it has worked particularly well in mine.

I move on to some news that I was sad to receive yesterday: the Environment Agency is about to issue an intention to approve the increase in the amount of waste that the incinerator in Beddington can burn. The incinerator was approved—championed, in fact—by the Liberal Democrats. I am not surprised that once again none of them could be bothered to turn up today. The Lib Dem-run council has again let down residents of Carshalton and Wallington regarding this monstrosity of an incinerator, which was forced on residents against their will. We were told at the time, “This will be it. No need to worry—of course it’s not going to burn more and more waste.” This extra capacity is not needed. It can burn the household waste from the four boroughs that it receives waste from at the moment absolutely fine without needing to increase capacity. I would like the Government to again look at the permit variation processes for incinerators. If the permitted amount of incineration in this country were built, we would have more than double the Government’s own estimated need for incineration. It is not conducive to our net zero ambitions. We need to look at why we have massive overcapacity in the planning system for incineration. I hope that the Government will continue to look at that in detail.

Next, I come to what is no doubt the issue of the hour in London, and in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election: ULEZ. We inner and outer London MPs bang on about ULEZ, but it is important to continue raising the issue. I cannot overstate the damage that ULEZ will do to businesses, to the poorest and to charities in my constituency, and across the whole of Greater London and outside it. I am thinking particularly of those constituencies in which people do not have the right to vote to get rid of the man who is imposing ULEZ on us: the Mayor of London. He has the audacity to say that people should get out of their cars and on to public transport, yet in my constituency he has scrapped the Go Sutton bus and the Tramlink extension. He has announced the new superloop—in my constituency, that is just a reannouncement of a bus route that has been there for over a decade. He has announced no new services whatsoever. There is nothing coming to help people make that transition to public transport; there is absolutely no support in place. In central London, he is cutting the historic No. 11 bus route, and the scrappage scheme has proved an absolute flop.

I welcome the fact that the Government have a very strong line on ULEZ, but we should continue to make it absolutely clear that it should not go ahead. I look forward to hearing the judgment of the judicial review, hopefully by the end of the month.

In the time left to me, I would quickly like to touch on education, an area of particular concern for my constituents. We have some of the best schools in the country; they feature in the top 10 schools for grade results every single year, and the teachers in my constituency do an absolutely fabulous job, day in, day out. I am absolutely thrilled that the Government have recognised that, and awarded a record funding increase of nearly £110 million to schools in Carshalton and Wallington. That is incredibly welcome.

In order to give all our young people the best start in life, could I encourage the Government to continue looking into the issue of childcare? The reforms that have been made are absolutely welcome, but there is certainly more to do. We on the Women and Equalities Committee can tell the Government that childcare issues adversely affect women in particular, as it is almost always women who bear the brunt of them. We hope that the Government will look to go further in their childcare reforms, but I welcome the efforts made so far.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) mentioned special educational needs in her speech. I join her in urging the Government to go further and faster with their ambitions to bring down waiting times for an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, because the waiting times are completely out of control. In my constituency, many families who cannot afford to are being forced to go private to get a diagnosis. Of course, under the Children and Families Act 2014, a diagnosis is supposedly not needed to get an education, health and care plan, but almost entirely, children are being refused EHCPs unless they have one. We are up against a brick wall, to be honest, when it comes to dealing with child and adolescent mental health services in my constituency. I am sure that it is the same across the country.

I know that the Government, and in particular the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), are grasping the issue with both hands, and are very keen to get it sorted. I welcome that, and I wish the Under-Secretary every success, but I hope that the Government can come back to us in the autumn with a more fleshed-out action plan for getting waiting times down, and allowing children to fulfil their potential.

I want to touch on policing, as I am sure many colleagues will. Historically, my quiet corner of south London has been known as one of the safer boroughs of London. The London Boroughs of Sutton and of Richmond upon Thames are often in competition with each other to be the safest London borough to live in. However, post pandemic, there seems to have been a concerning increase in what some might view as low-level crime, but it is truly worrying to the people who experience it. I cannot begin to say how many times, as I am scrolling on Facebook or Nextdoor in particular, I see Ring doorbell footage of people going up and down residential streets at night, trying car doors and front doors—not always with success, but their doings are often linked to crimes elsewhere in the area.

I welcome that the Met has now changed its approach and agreed to attend every single call-out for burglary, for example. That has resulted in several thousand additional arrests in London for this crime and that is to be welcomed. I hope that the Home Secretary will be able to reiterate our ambition to bring down crime. I am very supportive of the Met’s action plan for London, but we do need a police and crime commissioner for London who gets that and wants to tackle that. We do not have that with our current Mayor, so I sincerely hope that Londoners will see fit to get rid of this failing Mayor in a year’s time.

Let me finish up on the NHS. As someone who has worked in the NHS, who was born at St Helier Hospital in south London, and whose life was saved not once but twice by the staff at St Helier, I thank the Government—truly—and say how grateful I am that they have listened to NHS staff and agreed that St Helier Hospital not only has to stay, but needs that additional investment to improve the hospital, because it is in a dire state of disrepair at the moment. That has now been delivered. On top of that, there is an agreement to deliver a second hospital in Sutton, to protect A&E and maternity in the London Borough of Sutton and also to increase the amount of services that our local NHS provides, including, importantly, introducing cancer surgery. This is as a result of a brand-new partnership with the Royal Marsden Hospital, which we are so lucky to have in Sutton. This means that cancer patients living in Sutton will no longer have to go to Chelsea to get their cancer surgery. This is fantastic news for local patients and I commend the Government for doing that. We look forward to seeing some enabling works taking place this year, and to getting spades in the ground very shortly.

Finally, I echo the calls to thank our staff who put up with so much. They are often on the frontline, dealing with all of the abuse and all of the casework that comes in. They truly are to be commended for what they do. I thank Andy, Harry, Dan, Erik, Jo, Lynne, Max and Archie, who are my amazing team and who do so much to support me. They are just as dedicated to Carshalton and Wallington, and I really want to wish them all the best for the summer recess as well. Thank you very much for your time, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank the staff of the House for everything they do for us. I wish everyone a happy summer.