Code of Conduct and Modernisation Committee

Debate between Judith Cummins and Hamish Falconer

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Hamish Falconer (Lincoln) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to the many maiden speeches of new Members I have heard today, including the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) for her fine speech. Hon. Members have spoken with affection and commitment about their home constituencies. Each of them rightly places their own area above all others, and that is understandable, but I stand before you as the Member for the oldest continuous constituency to send a Member to this House. For almost 1,000 years, men and women have stood, as I stand today, proud to proclaim themselves the Member for Lincoln.

I walk in the footsteps of a series of strong Labour women. Lincoln’s first female Member of Parliament was a titan of our movement, Margaret Beckett. Grafton House, Lincoln’s Labour club, was founded and sustained by the much-missed Leo. Margaret was succeeded by two other formidable Labour women, Gillian Merron and Karen Lee, both of whom continue to serve our movement in local and national Government. I am honoured to succeed them.

I would like to pay tribute, too, to my immediate predecessor, Karl MᶜCartney, who also loved the city. He dedicated himself particularly to improving local transport provision. He pressed forward with relief roads for the city, and I now take up that cause too. Lincoln is a beautiful, historic, young and dynamic city, but we are far from other major urban centres and, indeed, from any of my hon. Friends on these Benches. We need a public transport network that reflects that relative geographical isolation, and I hope to work with colleagues across the House to make sure that Lincoln and Lincolnshire get the transport network they need. Right hon. and hon. Members may not yet be sick of hearing me talk about the urgent necessity to upgrade the Lincoln to Newark line, one of the slowest in the country, but I assure them that they will be.

All of us elected to serve our communities will of course be seeking the support that they deserve, as I also intend to in relation to the cost of living, healthcare and housing, but I also want to pause to pay tribute to the service my city has done for this country. That service snakes back even further than my predecessors. Over 1,000 years ago, in 1217, England seemed almost lost. French forces loyal to Prince Louis had taken most of England, and even the majority of Lincoln herself. It was only our castle, led by a woman in her mid-sixties, Nicola de la Haye, the constable of Lincoln castle, who survived months of bitter siege warfare, that finally repelled the invaders at the battle of Lincoln, securing the city and saving England.

Hundreds of years later, Lincoln and her workers again sprang to the defence of this country. In the chaos of the first world war, facing mechanised industrial-scale warfare of the most horrifying kind, Lincoln invented the tank. We produced one in 14 of all Royal Air Force planes at Ruston, and the working people of Lincoln delivered to this country the equipment and people needed to prevail against the odds. On these Benches, and in this movement, we never forget that.

Lincoln’s connection with the RAF has never since dimmed, and less than a decade later young men, including my grandfather, trained to fly at the RAF stations surrounding our city. To this day we are proud to continue to host RAF Waddington, one of the most important RAF bases. At this moment RAF Waddington and its brave men and women protect this country and this House, as does Sobraon barracks in uphill Lincoln. I am proud of their service, and I will be a champion for them and their families for as long as I am in this place.

As for so many of my constituents, public service took me far from home, and I was surprised and honoured to be asked to return to the Foreign Office shortly after my election to this place. I know that my constituents expect me to do my duty there, as they do at Waddington and across the world. It is an honour to join the Government, but before I speak from the Front Benches on Government business, I wish to send a message to my constituents: I am first and foremost the Member for Lincoln—for the city and Bracebridge, Waddington and Skellingthorpe; for the schools and two universities; for the barracks and the airbase; for the hospital, cathedral and castle; for our copy of Magna Carta; for the independent shops of the bail; for Sincil Bank and the parks of Boultham and Hartsholme; and for the Gillies, the Ermine, Birchwood and Steep Hill. This is the honour of my life, and our city on a hill will be my first and last priority for as long as you send me here.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I now call Patrick Spencer to make his maiden speech.