Matt Western
Main Page: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
It is an honour and pleasure to follow the terrific speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle).
I thank the people of Warwick and Leamington for their endurance, self-sacrifice and adherence to the guidelines these past few months. They managed to resist the temptation to go to Barnard Castle, and for good reason, because of course we have the wondrous Warwick castle. I recognise that we do not have a beach at Warwick castle, although it banks the fine River Avon. It is a very attractive place in its own right.
More seriously, I wish to express my thanks, and those of all the residents of Warwick and Leamington, to all our frontline workers. In the past few months, we have seen rainbows appearing in windows in every street in the constituency, thanking our frontline workers. I thank those at Warwick Hospital and at the Heathcote rehab hospital, and all in our health and emergency services, our care homes and our schools. I also thank our key workers across our food and agricultural sector.
I particularly thank our voluntary and charitable organisations, such as Warwick district food bank, which have done such a brilliant job. I have seen at first hand the work they have done. They are too numerous to mention their names individually. I also thank the Warwick and Leamington mutual aid group for what it has been doing, as well as restaurants, cafés, chefs and butchers, who have stood up, got together, got organised and supplied meals. They have been very much in the background, but they have done such a terrific job. I also wish to place on record my thanks to council officers for the speed with which they have got the business grants out and expedited the support on business rates. Without that, many businesses could have gone under so quickly.
However, having commended many of the local authority officers for what they have done for businesses and in helping with shielding, I have concerns about the failure of some and a lack of leadership in respect of recognising the threat of the pandemic in our care homes. While we had weekly meetings as representatives across Warwickshire, nowhere on the agenda was any mention of social care, until I asked for it to be raised. We had things like green waste on the agenda, but not care homes. That just underlines how there was an absolute blindness to this issue that was clearly going to be a huge problem. There have been 65,000 excess deaths, as we know, with 400 in Warwickshire. We cannot wait for a Government inquiry, whenever that may be: we need an interim urgent inquiry to take place. I certainly want to see one in Warwickshire and I will be calling for one.
Let me turn to the economy, starting with our high streets. I welcome the support that the Government are talking about, but we must—I am calling on residents—back our local businesses, because they provide the jobs, the prosperity, and of course such great services. However, we also need infrastructure. I very much hope that the Government will find the money to support us in our Leamington Spa station development to create a proper 21st-century transport hub. I do appreciate the work that the Government did with the furlough scheme, but Australia has just announced, as we have seen elsewhere, that it is going to extend its furlough scheme by another six months. That is what we need, because we will face a huge problem with unemployment going into the autumn. I want to place on record my concern for those I have been campaigning for who have been excluded by all the other support policies that the Government have put in place—the 3 million we have heard about.
I turn to the need for sectoral support. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), mentioned the tragedy of the closure of the Orb steelworks. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) talked about the importance of steel and the need for these products, which are a critical part of our manufacturing sector. In particular, I will always speak about the preciousness of our automotive sector and the supply chain. Without those plants, we will not have these products manufactured in the UK. I welcomed the Chancellor’s statement, but it was selective in supporting hospitality and construction, yet in the west midlands we have 58,000 people who work in the automotive sector. That is why we need sectoral deals. We must have, as we did in 2009, support for scrappage schemes and other support given to different sectors. This is being done in other countries. If we do not restore these businesses and these markets, then investment will be going to other countries, because that is what the international businesses will do. No other sector faces the same headwinds that our automotive sector does, with changes in emissions regulations and, of course, the significant impact that there will be from changes in our trading relationship with Europe.
On the need to address climate change, I very much hope that in the autumn we will see some mention of industrial strategy from the Chancellor, who, surprisingly, has not talked about 11 March and did not again recently. With the challenge of addressing climate change we need economic change, and that is a huge opportunity. As we have heard, we need to reduce the cost of our energy. We should have the cheapest energy in Europe because of the offer of wind, but we do not.
Finally, may I ask that we urgently bring back Westminster Hall debates? We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) about the real need for those sorts of local debates. I thank all the staff here and the security teams for what they have given us.