Energy and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I am very grateful indeed to you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to speak on the Gracious Speech. May I say how well the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) spoke in his maiden speech? I must also pay tribute to my predecessor, Laura Moffatt, who represented the Crawley constituency for 13 years. Laura did that job extremely diligently. I pay tribute to the work that she, a former nurse, did in speaking up in this place on behalf of, and seeking to change the regulations for, health care workers who suffer from needlestick injuries. She certainly helped to provide a safer environment for the front-line health care workers whom we rely on in our national health service. That is highly commendable. Even before she was elected in 1997, she had a long and distinguished career as a member of Crawley borough council and she was also a former mayor of the borough, holding such important positions as chair of the housing committee. We should all pay tribute to Laura for her long public service as a nurse—she was the first nurse ever elected to this place—as a borough councillor, as a mayor and, most recently, as Member of Parliament for Crawley.

Crawley is a great borough and a great constituency, and it is my great honour to have been elected by the people of Crawley to represent them in this Chamber. Crawley is a new town, but has a long history. The three principal villages that made up the original area were Crawley, Ifield and Worth, all of which were mentioned in the Domesday Book, but it was perhaps in the middle ages that, through its iron working, Crawley really started to flourish as a centre of industry. Many of the remnants of that industry, in the form of hammer ponds, still exist in the area: there is still a hammer pond in the centre of Tilgate park—the premier park of the constituency—now providing a great leisure facility for families to enjoy when the weekends are sunny.

Several centuries ago, Crawley expanded further as the main stopping-off place for people travelling from London to the south coast. Notable buildings include the medieval George hotel in the high street, which is still a hostelry today. Perhaps Crawley really came into its own when it was designated as a new town after the second world war. It was originally designed to have a population of approximately 50,000 people, although it has grown to in excess of 100,000 people today. It is a very successful community.

Whether they be first or second generation, people in Crawley have typically come from somewhere else either in this country or from around the world. I am a migrant to Crawley constituency myself. However, there is an extremely strong sense of community for a new town, which holds the local community in very good stead indeed.

One of the most significant industries—in fact, the most significant—in the constituency is the nation’s second-largest airport, Gatwick. It is a major local employer and driver of the local economy. I am delighted that the new coalition Government, West Sussex county council, Crawley borough council, the new owners of Gatwick airport, as well as myself, all agree with the future way forward for the airport in that we all want to see passenger numbers grow from the current 35 million throughput passengers a year up to a potential 45 million, and we want to see many more scheduled flights rather than just charter and low-cost flights departing and entering the airport. Equally, we agree with the new coalition Government and the new owners of Gatwick airport in rejecting runway expansion at this time. I think that that will provide the economic growth that we need for the airport and therefore for the local economy, while safeguarding and helping to protect the local environment. The balance between achieving economic development while ensuring that we protect and enhance our environment rather than destroy it as we go forward was debated earlier today and it will continue to be debated not just as an issue relevant to my constituency, but to the country as a whole.

I wish to raise another issue relevant to the Crawley constituency—health care. It was a source of great regret when, five years ago, Crawley hospital saw its A and E department downgraded so that people had to travel 10 miles up the road into another county to receive those vital services. Several years prior to that, Crawley hospital saw its maternity unit transferred out of the constituency—indeed, out of the county as well. During the obviously happy time when my two children were born in 2003 and 2005, it was a source of regret that they could not be born in their home town. Another source of regret is that Crawley is the only settlement in the UK with a population of more than 100,000 that does not have a hospital to supply A and E and maternity services. I was involved in an important campaign which I co-chaired with my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude) to get those hospital services brought back to the important population and transportation centre that the Crawley constituency represents.

I want to mention one special community that has come to live in Crawley. I mentioned that many people have chosen to settle there from around the country and around the world. Citizens of the Chagos Islands, particularly of Diego Garcia, were exiled from their home islands in the late 1960s. A decision was made by Order in Council—it did not come to this place, which I think was quite wrong—to make way for an airbase on Diego Garcia, which meant that those people were deported from their home island against their will, and they had to live in relative poverty in Mauritius and the Seychelles. Seven years ago, they started to arrive at Gatwick airport and they have been very successful in making Crawley their home. There is now a population of nearly 2,000 Chagossian and Diego Garcian people and their descendants in Crawley.

I look forward to arguing on behalf of those people, during my time as Member of Parliament for Crawley, that they have a human right to return to their islands should they so wish, either to visit or to live there permanently. I believe that, having been removed in quite a shameful way, they should be allowed to claim that human right. It is an honour to be given the opportunity to speak on their behalf in my maiden speech.

Tomorrow, I shall cease to be leader of West Sussex county council, a position that I have been privileged to hold for nearly seven years. I cannot help thinking that, after being a somewhat big fish in a small pool, I am now a somewhat smaller fish in a somewhat larger pool. I hope that, as I become used to these larger waters, I shall be able to speak up for the rights of local government and the principle of decentralisation of power away from Whitehall to our local authorities. I believe it is a very important principle that, where services are largely locally delivered, they should be largely locally decided on. I look forward to playing my part in this coalition Government in the devolving of power down to our elected local governments, and the extension of the authority that individuals and communities have over the important public services that are locally delivered.

Let me again thank you very much indeed, Mr Speaker, for calling me during the debate on the Gracious Speech. I am grateful for the attention of the House.