Education and Local Services

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock), who will be a powerful advocate for her constituents and the whole country. I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) on excellent maiden speeches, along with all the others who have made their maiden speeches today.

I also wish to thank the electors of Stafford for returning me and, even more so, for turning out in such numbers; at 76%, our turnout was one of the highest in the country. One thing I was disappointed about during the election was that the economy was hardly mentioned, and nor were those hard-working people up and down the country who are not on great salaries—perhaps they are working from home, trying to juggle a small business and looking after their family. Yet they, along with all others, are the wealth creators in this country; they are the people on whom we rely in order to have the taxes out of which public services are funded. I hope that in this Parliament they will hear many voices, from all sides, speak on their behalf.

As we have a two-year Parliament, I hope that some of the concerns my constituents put before me on the doorstep can begin to be sorted out. In particular, I am talking about long-term funding settlements for health, social care and education. As I have said many times before, we need to work across parties to sort this out. We have two years now to start to do that—hopefully we will have longer.

Health and social care in my constituency is under great pressure. We are being asked to tackle deficits that are insupportable. Of course efficiencies can be made, but the funding is insufficient. We are asked to remove, potentially, one A&E out of three in Stoke and Staffordshire, but that cannot happen, because the other two could not cope.

In education, we have had a bit of an arms race to say which is the poorest funded county in England. I can say that Staffordshire is one of the poorest. I will not say whether it comes first, second or third, but we are down at the bottom. That has to change. It is a matter not just of a new formula to juggle the numbers around, robbing Peter to pay Paul, but of putting more money in real terms into education. I am not advocating that we increase borrowing to a substantial extent to cover both those areas; we must have additional revenues—potentially slightly higher taxes—to pay for these things. The Liberal Democrats were at least honest in their manifesto, saying that we would have to raise taxes to pay for increased investment in health.

On a constituency point, I will have to oppose one measure in the Queen’s Speech, which is phase 2a of HS2, which goes directly through the villages of Great Haywood, Ingestre, Hopton, Marston and Yarlet. It is unnecessary that it does so. I know that there is a need for capacity. I am not averse to a new line, even one that goes through my constituency, but the way in which this line has been designed is dreadful, and it is because it has to go at 400 kph. There is no reason for a design to go at 400 kph; it could be cheaper and better and have less impact on my constituency and elsewhere in the country if it went at 300 kph to 320 kph.

On the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) has said most of what I would like to say, but let me make just a few points. First, we want a smooth and sensible transition, with the economy and jobs put first, as the Chancellor has said. Secondly, let us look at working together with others to form a new common market, perhaps based on the European Free Trade Association. Thirdly, let us welcome the generous offer from the European Parliament regarding associate European citizenship—why not? Finally, we want more student exchanges and more modern languages.