Tackling Poverty in the UK

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech today. I welcome you to your position—I will just mention that I voted for you.

I applaud all hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today. My hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe) in particular left me feeling somewhat inadequately prepared. The hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) referred to a former Member for the seat whose constituents had a whip-round to pay his salary. It is beginning to feel a bit like that round here at the moment. I especially congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), whom I follow. She has left me quite a challenge.

First, I thank my constituents for sending me here. It is a privilege to be given the opportunity to represent them, and I give my assurance that I will do so to the very best of my ability. As a new Member with a new constituency, I am often asked where Meon Valley is. My constituency sits in the southern part of Hampshire, to the south and east of Winchester, and to the north and west of Portsmouth. It was made up of the bottom half of Michael Mates’s seat and the bottom half of Mark Oaten’s seat—that description has raised the odd eyebrow.

We take in the beautiful green lush Meon valley itself, with life revolving around small market towns, but the bulk of the population live in the south-east corner of the constituency, in Waterlooville, Cowplain, Hart Plain and Horndean. Living there are people I describe as bedrock Britain—many of them ex-services—the very engine of our country. Many of them are finding life increasingly difficult, a subject to which I shall return before I conclude.

The constituency contains many highlights, and given his well known evocation of the English countryside, the right hon. Sir John Major would be comfortable visiting us. In Hambledon, we have a village that can boast the first record of its cricket club in 1756. The club can claim to have given us much of what we recognise in the modern game, and was the focal point for the sport until the MCC took over in 1787.

As for beer, it is to be regretted that our major brewery, Gales in Horndean, closed after a recent merger with Fuller’s, which is based in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), who spoke earlier. However, in Gladys avenue, Cowplain the fight-back has begun. We have many excellent ales, but I single out Michael Charlton, backyard brewer extraordinaire, who won last year’s Hampshire beer of the year with his majestic Havant Finished, produced in his garage. I look forward to launching Havant Forgotten with him in November, in aid of the Royal British Legion. As a Conservative Member with an active and dedicated association, I think it wise that the subject of old maids is probably best avoided.

Both my predecessors are hard acts to follow. Michael Mates enjoyed a highly distinguished career in the Army and for 36 years from 1974 sat on the Conservative Benches, serving with great distinction in many senior roles. Michael is an expert in diverse fields, but it is for his record in the House on defence matters and on Northern Ireland that colleagues will know him best—oh, and the Flanders and Swann.

As a constituency MP, Michael was no less well regarded. I have met countless people across the constituency whom he has helped. Aided by his long service and consequent connections, he unlocked bureaucratic logjams for many of his constituents.

Mark Oaten from the Winchester constituency is someone I am pleased to call a friend. Starting with a controversial two-vote majority at the general election in 1997—

[Claire Perry]

Gosh.

[George Hollingbery]

Two votes it was. In a November rerun—the first election I participated in—Mark converted those two votes to 21,500, which was not the most auspicious start for my political career. That figure stood Mark in great stead in following elections, not least against me. He held various prestigious positions in the Liberal Democrat party and made a contribution to the orange book—a tome whose pages are now more important than ever before.

More than anything else, Mark taught his constituents what to expect from an MP. Nothing was too much trouble for him. He accumulated a reputation as the acme of a local champion. If I can ever establish a reputation in Meon Valley as widely and deeply felt as Mark’s in Winchester I will truly have achieved something extraordinary.

I am delighted that the coalition has made clear its plans to return control of housing targets to local people, and has acted to restrict back garden development and to remove density requirements. It is incredibly important that all of us work to ensure that those changes are seen as an opportunity. We have been given the freedom to shape better communities that work for all our citizens, and to do it to our own design. But there is an obligation on us, too.

In a country as wealthy as ours, it is uncivilised that so many people are on housing waiting lists—some 3,500 in the Winchester district alone and another 3,000 in Havant borough. Those numbers are unsustainable. Most people in Meon Valley understand that and recognise that new housing is needed. Without the skirts of Government-imposed housing targets to hide behind, none of us should shirk the task of making that case to our communities. My experience, in Meon Valley at least, is that most people agree if the proper facts are laid before them.

Furthermore, under the auspices of the dreadful planning policy statement 3, far too many developments crammed affordable housing into flats and small dwellings so that central targets on density could be met—the perverse effect of central Government targets at work. In my view, communities with vision will now use the removal of those targets to build larger dwellings for those who cannot otherwise house themselves. A proper family home, with adequate living space and some privacy both indoors and outdoors, must be a fundamental ingredient of happier lives and less troubled, more contented communities. It is down to us and all our councillors to go out and make that argument. We can and should seek to persuade our constituents that it is in all our interests to do so.

Finally, let me say a brief word on a threat that we must all recognise. Among my constituents there are a great many people who, to their enormous surprise, find themselves in challenging economic circumstances. Most of them are in their 70s. They often own an asset, in their own homes. They have saved and accumulated pensions, but rarely are any of them more than modest in scope. Over the past several years, through a combination of low returns on savings, the lack of eligibility for state help, rising energy bills and, particularly, the cost of ever-increasing council tax, many of them are finding it very difficult to get by. Yes, they could sell their homes, but most of them already live in small dwellings and cannot practically downsize without moving away from their friends and family. Yes, they could use equity release schemes and enjoy a modestly increased income from capital, but many of them now struggle to find such products or, in fact, are scared of using them.

These people may seem asset-rich, but they are certainly income-poor. The asset that they strived so long and hard to obtain is now an impediment to getting any kind of help. We now face a future where many of those whom we would all regard as model citizens and who have paid much of the tax that allows the Government to function regard doing the right thing as a poor piece of advice to give to their children and wider families. That, surely, is something that we should be very concerned about.