Energy and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to speak for the first time in the House. It is a great privilege to follow three excellent speeches by the hon. Members for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who I am sure will contribute much to Conservative Members’ understanding of issues around the environment and climate change.

I have the considerable honour and privilege to represent the people of Salisbury and south Wiltshire. It is with great pleasure that I also offer heartfelt praise and positive words about my predecessor, Robert Key. Robert was an outstanding Member of Parliament for 27 years. Elected in 1983, he had the great privilege, as have I, of being brought up in Wiltshire and of representing Salisbury.

Robert’s Westminster career developed somewhat auspiciously in 1984—the heyday of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher—when the Chief Whip called him in and sat him down to offer him the position of Parliamentary Private Secretary to Edward Heath, the former Prime Minister. Robert, a dutiful public servant, was delighted with his new role, but his local association members did not immediately grasp the significance of his privileged position. None the less, as with everything Robert has done for Salisbury over the years, he tackled his task with good humour and enthusiasm. Robert went on to find a home in Salisbury for his boss—Arundells in the Close—where Edward Heath lived for 20 years until he passed away in 2005.

It was six years later when Robert’s next big opportunity arose. On one autumnal evening, Robert took a call from the Prime Minister’s office and was summoned to the great lady’s suite at the party conference. He arrived and it is said that he was led through to her bedroom and she asked him whether he would like to join Her Majesty’s Government to be a Minister in the Department of the Environment. As Robert excitedly accepted and bounded out of the room, he realised—this was October 1990—that he would be responsible for taking the poll tax through Parliament. A month later, the Prime Minister resigned and the poll tax was axed, but Robert went on to serve in two further ministerial roles. He was a Front Bencher in opposition and latterly a highly regarded member of the Select Committee on Defence and a member of the Chairmen’s Panel.

Having examined a number of maiden speeches, I have noted how the previous MP is often referred to as having passed on or moved on to another planet, but I am happy to report that Robert Key is alive and well and continues to live in Salisbury with his wife, Sue. I am sure that they will continue to be regarded with great warmth and affection for the many years of dedicated service they have given to Salisbury and south Wiltshire.

Robert’s presence in Salisbury marketplace on Saturday mornings is a tradition that I intend to follow; the people of south Wiltshire expect it of me. I also intend to stand up for the stallholders of the marketplace, many of whom—or, rather, their predecessors—have been there since 1227, and are anxious to know that the mooted changes to the marketplace are going to be modest and not waste public money.

My constituency stretches from Tilshead on the Salisbury plain to Hamptworth on the edge of the New Forest, and from Cholderton in the north-east to Ebbesbourne Wake in the south-west—the finest pocket of English countryside anyone could wish to find. With the constituency reduced in size since the last boundary changes, I hope that the Government’s intention, as set out in the Queen’s Speech, to reduce the number MPs and equalise constituency sizes will allow Salisbury to reclaim the Nadder valley—a beautiful seam of England which, sadly, got cut out of the Salisbury constituency at the last boundary change. I look forward to lively conversations with my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) and with the boundary commission in the months ahead.

One cannot mention Salisbury without mentioning the cathedral—an iconic building for Christendom, an institution in itself, certainly making a big impact on the culture, heritage and landscape of the medieval city. As my grandmother used to tell me when I was a child, its spire, 404 feet tall, was the highest in Europe when it was built, and it remains the highest in Britain today. We also have a vibrant Christian community in the city and the surrounding area. As a committed believer myself, I hope to be a parliamentarian who will stand up for Christian values and the importance of marriage and the family in our society.

The housing, shops and businesses in my constituency were laid out in a chequer system of streets in the 13th century, and that system remains today. Although I could focus on the considerable challenge that my constituency faces to deal with the need for more housing— I am pleased to note that the new Government will allow more local discretion in the number of houses that need to be built and where they should be built—I wish today to make the case for greater care for the rural communities that make up such a large portion of my constituency.

As one who grew up in a small horticultural business in Wiltshire, I am keen to see the new Government reduce unnecessary red tape and regulation in the farming and horticultural sector, a move that I am sure will be welcomed throughout south Wiltshire. I also hope that the new Government will be able to trust farmers more. Too often, Governments of all persuasions have considered it necessary to regulate a little more here and a little more there, but to little lasting effect. I hope that in the near future the Secretary of State will provide more detail about proposals in the coalition programme to reduce the regulatory burden on farmers.

I am delighted by some of the moves that have already been announced, including the commitment to investing in broadband, which is desperately needed in parts of my constituency. I am delighted by the new Government’s commitment to providing accurate information on food labelling, so that when something is labelled “Produced in Britain”, that is actually true. It should not mean that the product was cut up, washed, prepared and repackaged in Britain. I also welcome the Government’s promise that food procured by Government Departments, and eventually the whole public sector, will meet British standards of production wherever that can be achieved.

I hope that Whitehall will be able to source more of its food from British suppliers, as that would be a key way in which to help farmers in Britain and, hopefully, those in my constituency. At a time when less than 1% of bacon served to United Kingdom armed forces is British, I thoroughly recommend a good helping of locally produced Wiltshire ham as a reliable alternative. I also hope that the Government will get rid of the Agricultural Wages Board, which has become an unnecessary bureaucracy that achieves little for farmers or their workers. I hope that they will be able to act in the best interests of our farmers, who need less intervention, more trust and greater freedom at every point.

I believe that what is required more than anything else at this challenging economic time for rural Britain is a recognition that rural poverty needs to be addressed directly and urgently. We often forget that many of the lowest-paid members of our society are part of the rural economy and rely on a vibrant food-producing sector to survive.

Whatever else I am asked to tackle or may achieve in the House, I hope that, like Robert Key, I will serve my constituents faithfully, determinedly and selflessly, and fight for the interests of the vulnerable, the suffering and the insecure. I am utterly thrilled to be standing in the House today, and I give my support to a Queen’s Speech which I believe offers many good things to my constituents in Salisbury and south Wiltshire.