Business of the House

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

First, I add my voice to the many who have paid tribute to the Lionesses for their incredible achievements. We are all so proud of them, not just for the brilliant football they played, but for their conduct and the solidarity they have shown with the Spanish team.

I do wish to commemorate an important anniversary, but a different one from the one that the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) mentioned. Many right hon. and hon. Members will be thinking of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the anniversary of her death, which is this week, and I anticipate many tributes to her service, strength and devotion to duty in the coming days.

I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) for her service to this House. I very much enjoyed working with her. I welcome the hon. Member for Manchester Central and her team to this place. I hope I can say congratulations to her, but I understand if commiserations are in order. The clock has struck midnight and she has had to leave the glittering ball that is the culture, media and sport brief. Gone are the growling engines of Silverstone, the champagne flutes of the Royal Opera House and the peeled grapes of BBC hospitality. Ascot’s horses have turned into House of Commons mice, and she is in the scullery with me for company. I thank her for the meeting we have already had. For my part, I will do my best to make sure that it is productive and enjoyable, and I look forward to working with her and her team.

I must reject the hon. Lady’s characterisation of both this Parliament and this Government. In this Session, 34 Government Bills have achieved Royal Assent, amounting to 1,578 pages of legislation. We have been very busy indeed, and I thank all Members of this House for their attention to that. I also reject her characterisation of this Government. She focuses on correcting the record, and I take what she says seriously and genuinely. All credit to her, she admits when she has got things wrong. She admitted that she was wrong to support the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). [Interruption.] No.

I think the hon. Lady is wrong about the Prime Minister’s comments, but I understand that she will not take my word for it, so I suggest she looks at The Times’ analysis of yesterday’s exchange, which backs the Prime Minister both on the building programme and that he did not cut the budget. I would be interested in how many times she raised RAAC as an issue in this House when she was shadow Education Secretary. Given her commitment to the facts, will she admit that Labour has got it wrong on the economy? Labour has been, wrongly, talking this nation down, but it has now been demonstrated that we have had the fastest recovery from the pandemic in the G7. That is vindication of the Prime Minister’s furlough and bounce back loan schemes.

The hon. Lady understandably focuses on the situation of school infrastructure. I remind her that Labour’s building schools programme excluded 80% of schools, and was poor value for money and highly ineffective. On a personal note, when I got my seat in 2010, my schools were so bad that a secondary school was shut because it was too dangerous to teach in and had Legionnaires’ bacteria in it. It and another in my patch have now been rebuilt, and we have a new university technical college.

The hon. Lady criticises Secretaries of State for Education, but what they have delivered means that, across England, we have 10% more good or outstanding schools, nearly 30,000 additional teachers and the best literacy outcomes in the western world. The current Education Secretary put the safety of children first, in contrast to Labour in Wales, which has not acted so swiftly, despite similar warnings. The health and safety priorities of the Labour Government in Wales appear to be focused on people buying meal deals, as opposed to a lump of concrete falling on a child’s head. That goes to show that Labour’s priorities are wrong. In bankrupt Birmingham, politically correct street names trumped paying women a fair wage. Good stewardship of public funds was trumped by utter incompetence on an epic scale. As a leaked memo from Labour headquarters said:

“Budget cuts and the size of the City are used as reasons to explain the situation however, this does not hold up under scrutiny”.

Our Prime Minister recognises that for us to be worthy of public support, we must focus on the public’s priorities: the safety and education of their kids; in particular, a strong, growing economy, lower debt and inflation; great, accessible healthcare; and border control. Where Labour is in power, and in its support of strikes and votes against our legislation, it shows that it cannot and will not deliver on those priorities of the British people.

I will close by giving the hon. Lady, on her first outing, some advice. From this Pompey supporter to that Man City supporter opposite: in politics, as in football, the blue team is always best.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

This House, as the Leader of the House is aware, takes a dim view of bullying—unless it is by me. She will be shocked to learn that Britain’s worst water company has now resorted to thuggery and strong-arm tactics to silence parliamentarians and the press. I refer, of course, to the Pennon Group, which includes the nation’s filthiest and leakiest supplier, South West Water. Its chairman, Gill Rider—who worked for the Cabinet Office and so is used to leaks, I suppose—has hired City lawyers to threaten the press and parliamentarians if we speak out against the company. She is running a mob that has convictions for polluting rivers, pays its top gun criminal bonuses and, despite the wettest July on record, still has a hosepipe ban. It is operating like a mafia. This is absolutely appalling. May we have an urgent debate in Government time on these ruddy water companies, who are blackmailing their customers and parliamentarians to stop the truth coming out?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend has raised issues related to that particular company many times in business questions, and the whole House can sense his frustration and anger with what is happening. I suggest that he may wish to raise the matter with the relevant Secretary of State on 19 October. He is an experienced parliamentarian and will know how he can achieve a debate.