Debate on the Address

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I agree entirely; I have arguments that I will not deploy today on universal credit and so on that relate directly to that point. One of the outcomes of having a technologically augmented teaching and assessment system, however, is that the teacher knows within days if a child has a problem that they did not have before and if their educational performance suddenly falls, perhaps because the parents have separated, there is trouble at home, they are going hungry or whatever. The hon. Lady is right and I agree with her basic premise, but technology would help even with that if we did it. I want to see us do that and deal with the scandal.

The last area that I will speak briefly about is the fundamental one of healthcare. We all support the national health service and no doubt applauded the brilliant staff—doctors and nurses—who did a fantastic job. We tell ourselves over and over again that we have the best healthcare system in the world, but that is simply not true. We have those committed doctors and we now spend more than the OECD average on healthcare, but we are not delivering more than the OECD average. Whether it is on survival rates in all the different categories of cancer care, coronaries, strokes, diabetes or whatever, we are not doing as good a job as we should be for the money, work, skill and commitment that go into it.

My argument is that we should look at the other countries that are doing better than us, such as Germany, France, Estonia, Austria, Sweden, Canada or Australia. They all have different systems that are all free at the point of delivery. I was a beneficiary of the Canadian system, which is an insurance-based system that is free at the point of delivery and supported by the state if people cannot afford it—and it works better than our system. We need to look at those other systems and learn from them. We need to stay with the fundamental principles of the health service but learn and improve what we can.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Davis]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I am just about to sit down.

We Conservatives need to rebuild our party as a party of low taxes, a party of and for homeowners, and a party of aspiration, opportunity and security. It is time for a new model conservativism that is fit for a new Britain in a new world.

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[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in today’s debate on the Queen’s Speech. There is a lot to welcome in the conversation and in the announcements we have heard today. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) very nearly said something I agreed with about schools at one stage in his speech, and I was about to stand up and say how I agreed with him, but as the sentence went on he ruined it and I did not agree any more. However, I did enjoy and agree with part of it, which I will come back to.

I would like to welcome some elements in the Queen’s Speech. It is worth first identifying what the Queen’s Speech is, because we have talked a lot in the Chamber today about the need for short-term intervention, but the Queen’s Speech lays out the legislative agenda, which by its very nature is not short term. Legislation inevitably takes time: in this place, it takes a year or more to get any serious piece of legislation done. We all recognise and accept the need for short-term support and help for the most vulnerable. We all see it in our own constituencies—my own is one of the poorest and most disadvantaged in the country on many indicators.

We all see the hardship and we all recognise the need for support. The Chancellor has said so overtly, and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has been on the media round today making clear that that will happen and that more support will come. The Queen’s Speech, however, is about the long term and the legislative agenda, and as I said there is a lot to welcome, not least on the economy and levelling up, which I will focus on in more detail later in my speech.

Starting with something that is perhaps relatively small in the grand scheme of levelling up and cost of living, I am pleased to see football governance included. Our clubs are not just businesses but the heart of our communities in many places, and I welcome the opportunity to look in more detail at sustainable support for them. I also welcome the opportunity to crack down further on the mass disruption and criminal damage that has often been allowed to masquerade as legitimate protest in recent years. That is not right or acceptable.

I hugely welcome the schools Bill and the opportunity to do more on school standards. This is where I nearly agreed with the right hon. Member for Islington North, who has gone now. He obviously did not want to hear how we agreed, because that would only be damaging to his reputation, I am sure, or to mine—one way or the other. He talked about the need for more autonomy within schools, for a broader curriculum, and for the opportunity to prioritise and promote cultural capital as opposed to just exams in our schools system. On that, I totally agree with him. I would like Nottinghamshire County Council, which I lead, to take forward the schools White Paper as an early adopter. That would be an opportunity to drive the move to give our schools more autonomy, a clearer structure of accountability and more empowerment of teachers, schools and trusts to be able to do their own thing—what they think is best for their children. We would retain more teachers if we empowered them to do that. There is opportunity for that in the schools Bill, and I hope that Nottinghamshire will be an early adopter of some of the new provisions.

I want to urge caution on a couple of things, not least the Online Safety Bill. The Bill is well-intentioned, in that we all understand why we want to seek to protect people online and why things that are illegal in the real world should also be illegal online. However, I am also concerned about the risk of allowing big tech companies to police our language and our speech. We see the debate and controversies that rage about Twitter and Elon Musk. It is a really difficult topic and a really difficult thing to get right. I urge the Government not to go too far in restrictions or in allowing anybody, frankly, to choose to police the language that we are allowed to use, because that can only end badly.

Earlier in the year I welcomed the Chancellor’s commitment to move towards a lower-tax, small-state kind of economy where we can promote growth and allow the private sector to flourish and create jobs to support our constituents. He talked about a small state, and I would like the Government to consider putting that into practice in other legislation too. Not least, there are things like the obesity strategy where we are starting to talk about which adverts can be placed where, in which shops. That is madness and not something that the Government should be involved in. I hope that they might reconsider some of these things.

I want to focus the majority of my comments on the economy and on levelling up. I was pleased to see the phrase “economic growth” repeated over and again. One of the most successful political campaigns of my brief career has been the long-term economic plan that we all remember and all heard about over and again. We used the same kind of language in those days and it proved to be very popular. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) talked about the importance of growth in being able to fund our public services so as to give residents in our communities better life chances. Some of the Bills that will be brought forward in this Session are absolutely vital to that, not least the levelling-up Bill, which will be a key driver of that growth.

Private sector growth, not Government spending, is at the heart of better opportunities for areas like the east midlands, where I come from, which have historically been at the bottom of all the charts for both public and private sector growth but where we have huge opportunities to get more of both. We already have projects in train that will allow us to free up the private sector to invest in our region to create the better-paid, better-quality jobs that are in short supply there. That is not about high spending; it is about promoting and creating an environment for business to flourish in our region. It is about delivery. We have talked for a long time about the funding that is going into the most disadvantaged areas. As I said, the east midlands is lowest on all the charts of what money, private and public, goes into these places. My own constituency of Mansfield is at the bottom end of that regional scale.

However, we have really positive things in the pipeline that will come forward in future. We have seen capital investment such as the towns fund and the levelling-up fund. We have seen huge funding announcements. A few weeks ago, at Prime Minister’s questions, I asked the Prime Minister about delivery and outcomes, because we can only talk for so long about how much money we have secured for an area without residents being able to point to a thing that is new. A lot of what we will achieve, and a lot of what is most important in levelling up, is not visible. It is long-term things like skills, education and schools, where we will not be able to point to a shiny achievement within the life of one Parliament. But some of it is short-term: buildings and regeneration of town centres. Some of it is things that we have announced hundreds of millions of pounds for, getting on for two years ago now, that are bogged down in process, and often bogged down in Whitehall.

If we are going to get to a position where residents believe us when we talk about the big things that we are doing around skills and education, and how that is going to benefit them in future, we need to show them the delivery of those short-term things about high-street regeneration—the towns fund and the money that we have promised. It is all in the pipeline.

[Karin Smyth]

I feel slightly disappointed for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. I can point to things in my Bristol South constituency that were delivered by the last Labour Government—every single school rebuilt, a brand new hospital, and the investment that came there that those people deserved after the years under the previous Tory Government. That is what we delivered for them on the ground. His Government have had 12 years and he still cannot point to anything in his constituency.

[Ben Bradley]

I understand the point the hon. Lady is making, but she is not quite right given that the Labour Government had 13 years and there was a great amount of time for the delivery of a number of those projects. I was eight years old when the ’97 Labour Government came to power. Labour had a fair old while to deliver on some of those things. My constituency has been represented by the Conservatives for only five years in its entire history, and that has always been me. We have been working on a number of projects. This Government, this Prime Minister and this levelling-up agenda have been around for a very brief period of time.

We have already talked about the hundreds of millions of pounds of investment that have been secured for my own constituency. We can talk about the towns fund, additional support and investment in skills, capital investment for our college that we have not seen before, and new capital investment in our hospitals. All that is in train. Some of is visible; some of it is not yet visible. We need to be able to point to those things not just in my constituency but across the country in some of the seats that we won only a matter of two years ago where new, talented Conservative MPs are making the case for that investment. We need to see outcomes across the board. It is no good standing up and saying that we have made promises of money because at some stage residents will say, “Where is that new town centre building, where is that new project, where is my shiny new town centre?”

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[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and, in particular, his really well made comments about epilepsy.

We heard in the Queen’s speech that the Government’s priority is to grow and strengthen the economy. For me, that only highlights the question: what on earth have they been doing for the last 12 years? Why are we looking at negative growth? Why are we looking at a projection of 10% inflation? Why are we not—and why were we not before—more resilient and able to cope with the pandemic that hit us? Why are my constituents’ wages stagnating? Why are they not any better off? The paucity of speakers remaining says an awful lot, too. Tonight, there no more Government Members to come to defend the Queen’s speech.

As a new MP seven years ago, my early speeches in this place were all about apprenticeships, devolution and the need for us to work together locally with businesses, educationists, trade unions and politicians to grow our local economy and share in the prosperity of what in Bristol is a good, strong economy. That has always been my politics. In 2015, apprenticeships were a Tory flagship policy. However, we now know that apprenticeship starts have declined since 2010 by nearly 200,000, or 41%. Apprenticeships are so important in Bristol South because of the poor attainment of people in getting to university. Apprenticeships are also crucial for the small businesses that dominate Bristol South, which are desperately short of skills, and for my constituents, who are desperately short of well-paid, secure work. As we have heard, apprenticeships are crucial to building the green jobs of the future to help us tackle the climate crisis head on. Why not insulate our homes? Why not support those jobs? Why not save energy on the demand side as we face this terrible supply-side crisis? It should not be so hard in a prosperous city such as Bristol to match the desire and needs of business with the ambition of local people.

On Thursday, I will welcome more than 50 employers to my sixth jobs and apprenticeships fair in the heart of south Bristol at the Skills Academy. I have led work locally to bring together a partnership of the college, Bristol City Council and the Department for Work and Pensions, who are all dedicated to offering better opportunities for people in south Bristol. That did not previously happen, but bringing them all together has been really successful. Employers such as Windmill Hill City Farm, Agincare and Professional Apprenticeships, who are all based in south Bristol, as well as First Bus, St Monica’s trust and the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust will all be there—as will be One Front Door and the National Careers Service —to work directly with the people of south Bristol to match their ambitions with business needs. I wish that the Government were doing more to support that, because I have supported the Government’s ambition on apprenticeships

As a representative of Bristol South, I have seen the how the apprenticeships route offers a way for our young people to get a chance at those high-skilled jobs and for those who for whatever reason lost out at school to gain entry-level qualifications. That is also particularly helpful to the health and care sectors and to ensuring that we tackle the climate crisis through the skilled green jobs that are out there. The Government’s failure to address apprenticeships in the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 demonstrates not only their lack of ambition but a sad lack of ambition for our children and young people.

The Queen’s Speech is a missed opportunity from a Government who have consistently treated our children and young people as an afterthought, which is even more shocking given what they have experienced in the pandemic. Too few apprenticeships are available because the levy is not working, with too many small businesses not participating and fewer level 2 and 3 apprenticeships available. I and the Labour party believe that we should have a stronger role for colleges, providers and local and regional authorities such as combined authorities to help with the development of local skills improvement. We must have much better face-to-face careers guidance and meaningful work experience, but none of that is in the Queen’s Speech.

On devolution, of which I am a strong supporter, the Government have failed to support our ambition for Bristol and the west country. Once again, it looks like there will not be the real devolution of finance or power that we want in the west country. We continue to have to bid for small pots of money in competition with each other. The recent deferment of the Portishead line extension by the Government—again, I have supported the Tory party locally on that—and the way in which the decision is being taken in Whitehall starkly exposes the fallacy that the Government support Bristol and the west of England.

At the other end of the education spectrum, last week I was talking to people in Bristol South about the crisis in early years. The lack of support for parents and providers is deepening the cost of living crisis, particularly for families with childcare needs. Four out of 10 parents say that they had to change their working hours or leave their jobs due to childcare pressures. Conservatives are underfunding the so-called free childcare hours, which are mostly for three and four-year-olds, by more than £2 an hour, and parents are paying for the shortfall. Again, we have heard nothing from the Government on how they intend to help families with those rising costs and help people back into the crucial jobs that we need them to do.

The Government have hinted at changes to multi-academy trusts—there may be a review. There are real, obvious problems with the MATs: they are hugely powerful and can move resources within themselves with no accountability locally to parents and no responsibility locally for the outcomes for those children. Again, I have been working with Ministers and the regional schools commissioner to try to get a focus on the geographical problems that children in south Bristol face, as has been achieved in Plymouth—I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) is in the Chamber—and to share that knowledge. However, the vertical organisation of MATs precludes that from happening. That really must be addressed.

I would have liked to have seen more about my constituents living in Lakeshore. The Government are hinting at leasehold reform, but I want to know what they will do to improve leaseholders’ rights and make it easier for leaseholders to change the managing agents of properties.

In this Parliament, we have heard a lot about the Government having fixed social care. In the next two years, that fallacy will be exposed. The tax rise has hit with no link to any service improvements and no help for people facing collapsing care packages. The silent misery of millions of women in particular who are giving and receiving care will not be helped.

The test of the Queen’s Speech for my constituents in Bristol South will be: are they better off in the cost of living crisis? Will they have more money in their pockets? After what we have been through, there should have been more hope and more ambition to fix our country after the pandemic so that we never have to go into another such situation as unprepared as we were the last time. Today, we have received no such assurance.