Summer Adjournment

Kris Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

May I first put on the record my disgust at the fact that this House, having summoned someone to appear before a Committee, has failed to protect them, and that they have been assaulted? Regardless of the politics and the accusations, we have a responsibility to look after them, and we failed.

Over the past year I have spent a long time talking about educational attainment, particularly the need to ensure that young people in my community speak English. If they are to reach their maximum potential and take advantage of all the opportunities life brings them, we must encourage them to speak English and reach the highest possible educational attainment. I would like to ask the Secretary of State for Education to go further than the response he has given so far and identify interventions that he will put in place to hold parents to their responsibility to ensure that their children reach their maximum potential. I would like him to respond in writing on how we will do that.

When we return after the recess, I hope that the Localism Bill will go through. There is a long-outstanding call in Keighley for independence, not from the rest of the world, but from Bradford council, and I hope that a referendum conducted under the Localism Bill will offer that opportunity. There is a strong call from the community I represent to break away from Bradford and ensure that they get value for money and local representation. I would like the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to outline clearly when such a referendum can be held and give an associated time line so that we can start to talk to the public about this issue.

I raised during Prime Minister’s questions the VAT that the Sue Ryder Manorlands hospice has to pay and whether we should think about an exemption. There has been a long debate with the Treasury on how this problem could be solved. This is Government, and we need to have a can-do approach and to find a solution. I ask the Chancellor to write to me on the debate that has gone on so far, outlining clearly what is holding this back and how we can find a solution to the issue. I know that there is support from both sides of the House on the matter.

While many people have been damning the big society, the members of the Worth Valley young farmers club in my constituency have been rolling up their sleeves and getting on with it, with 80 young people aged 10 to 26 out there in the parks, working for local groups and really making a difference. I want to celebrate that, as we are extremely proud of what they have done. Lots of people put their hands out and ask for something, but these young people are really making a contribution. I say well done to the leadership of the club, and the young farmers themselves have our support and are proud ambassadors for our town.

Worth Valley railway, Ilkley moor, the Brontë parsonage and the landscape of “Wuthering Heights” are great tourist attractions in my town. I would like to invite the Minister responsible for tourism to come up and talk with businesses in my constituency and listen to them about how we can make their business work better.

There is a large Kashmiri population in Keighley, and one of the big issues for them is independence and self-determination for Kashmir. My final point is to ask the Foreign Secretary to reiterate the Government’s position on self-determination and to write to me to let me know what we have done over the past year in government to address the issue.