Education and Health

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) on making such an excellent maiden speech, and I also congratulate all the other new Members who have made their maiden speeches today. I thank you, too, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to make my maiden speech as the new Member for Wolverhampton North East. It is a privilege and an honour to represent my home town in Parliament.

My predecessor, Ken Purchase, is a giant of a man. Apart from being tall and broad, his booming voice was the envy of many in this House, and many on the Government Benches will remember him well. Ken’s lifetime of public service extends over some 40 years: he served for more than 20 years as a local councillor and for 18 years as a Labour MP. His commitment to the constituency was exemplary, in particular his fight for greater equality and fairness. As a tireless campaigner for improved social housing, he touched the lives of thousands of his constituents.

I would also like to pay tribute to the powerful women who have preceded me in Wolverhampton: the journalist and activist, Renée Short, who represented the constituency for more than two decades until her retirement in 1987; and Jennie Lee, who in her second stint in the House of Commons straight after the war, represented the constituency of Cannock, which then stretched south to cover Wednesfield and which now forms a large part of my constituency. Jennie was a firebrand socialist and a passionate defender of the poorest in society. She blazed a trail that many other women would follow—and I, too, hope to follow that trail. Always outspoken on issues that mattered to her, in her maiden speech in 1929 she defied the convention of avoiding controversy and launched a stinging attack on the Government. Never one to pull her punches, she described their Budget as

“a mixture of cant, corruption and incompetence.”—[Official Report, 25 April 1929; Vol. 227, c. 1117.]

Years later, she was appointed Arts Minister by Harold Wilson and her lasting legacy was the establishment of the Open university, securing a revolution in education. That was a huge achievement, as relevant and important today as it was back then. Jennie’s belief in expanding educational opportunities is one that I share and am passionate about.

Wolverhampton has a long and rich history. While Jennie Lee was the youngest parliamentarian of her time—in fact, she was too young to vote—the Liberal Member, Charles Villiers, was the longest serving MP in parliamentary history; and while Villiers opposed the corn laws in the 19th century, Sir Geoffrey Mander was one of the first MPs to take a strong stand against appeasement a century later.

Wolverhampton has been first in many other areas, too, and I am proud of its achievements. In 1866, Queen Victoria made her first public appearance after her husband’s death when she unveiled a statue of Prince Albert in the centre of Wolverhampton to honour his memory. Still standing today, the statue is a busy meeting point and affectionately referred to locally as “the man on the horse”.

Not far from there is our fantastic football stadium, the Molineux, which is home to our great football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Wolves were the first English team to play in the Soviet Union and were hailed by the press at the time as “the unofficial world champions” after one of their most famous victories, against Budapest. This year, as a proud Wolves fan I am happy to be able to say that we are still in the premier league at the end of a tough season.

Wolverhampton also boasts the headquarters of the UK’s most successful regional newspaper, the Express & Star, which has a circulation of more than 130,000 a night, six nights a week. Never shy of embracing new technology, the Express & Star blazed a trail when it was the first daily newspaper to publish colour photographs.

Since its foundation in 985, Wolverhampton has always been a place of trade and commerce, starting as a market town famous for its mediaeval wool trade and developing into the beating heart of the industrial revolution. Household names such as Sunbeam cars, Chubb locks, Boulton Paul aircraft and Norton motorbikes were famous worldwide and symbolised British manufacturing at its very best. Manufacturing continues to play a crucial role in the city’s economy; it is more important to Wolverhampton North East than to the west midlands region as a whole, with 18% of its work force employed in manufacturing jobs compared with the regional average of 13%. Leading aerospace companies, such as Goodrich, HS Marston and Moog, as well as companies such as Goodyear, Carillion and Banks’s brewery, are all major local employers.

Of course, our service sector has also developed strongly and the largest private employer is the headquarters of Birmingham Midshires. However, the recent recession has demonstrated clearly the dangers of relying too heavily on financial services. The UK remains the sixth largest manufacturing nation in the world, and we need to build on our expertise and take full advantage of the low-carbon revolution to secure a strong and sustainable economy in the wake of the global financial crisis.

We must look to the future as well as learn from the past, and I am optimistic about Wolverhampton’s future. During my election campaign, I promised to champion local jobs and industry, and I am already working with local businesses and Advantage West Midlands to ensure that projects such as the new i54 business park are a success. On that point, I am deeply concerned about the new Government’s planned cuts to regional development agencies, including Advantage West Midlands, which brings a return of more than £7 to the regional economy for every pound spent. This Government’s plans to cut its budget dramatically will put local businesses and jobs at risk, and I urge the Government to think again.

Public services are central to a strong economy and a strong society. I am proud of the previous Labour Government’s achievements in health and education. New Cross hospital is at the heart of my constituency, and the previous Government’s investment has resulted in a massive increase in the number of front-line staff, lower waiting times and a state-of-the-art heart and lung centre. Educational standards have also risen, and the university of Wolverhampton is the sixth largest in the country and has a proud record of tackling social exclusion.

My journey to stand here today as the newly elected MP for Wolverhampton North East has been a very personal one. I grew up in Wolverhampton and memories of my formative years lie in our great city. It has long been my home and it has given me the opportunities that I have taken. I now hope to give something back to the good people of Wolverhampton, who are our city’s biggest asset. They are friendly, hard-working and fair-minded, and I promise to fight their corner to the very best of my abilities in Parliament, championing local industry and speaking up for greater equality and fairness.