Debate on the Address

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 11th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman and I could have a completely separate conversation about ID cards, but I absolutely agree with what he says; I used to use that as an example of how it can be done affordably and well. But we have a disconnect in government on this issue. We have discussions about vaccine passports and talk about ID, but not ID cards. We have talk about vaccine passports by an app, but without ID. If vaccine passports are ever going to work, we need some form of verifying ID card. So it seems to me that the Government are arguing, counter to their 2010 position, for abolishing not just ID cards but fingerprints in passports, which took us way below the international standards on identity verification. We need to see a proper, coherent approach to this, not an approach that just stops the poorest from voting and cuts people out of exercising their basic democratic right, when the percentage of in-person fraud is minuscule. Yes, we could do more to tackle postal fraud and the harvesting of votes, but not this.

I want to touch on some of the environmental issues that are touched on in the Bill, although we do not yet know the detail. I am pleased that the Environment Bill is being carried over, but let us hope that we see more detail and more meaningful steps towards action on this issue. The Public Accounts Committee has spent some time over the last year looking at environmental and climate change issues, and we have found the Government wanting. They have been promising the Earth with big broad-brush headlines, but potentially really damaging the Earth through their inaction. There is no planet B, so we have to get it right now. Ambitious projects such as stopping production of petrol and diesel cars within nine years make great headlines, but there is a lot to be done in the nine years between now and then, and very little detail. So it is vital that that is got right, and I think that there is, or should be, cross-party consensus across the aisle that we need to tackle this generational issue for our planet.

On green jobs, again the Government make promises, but I have been looking at this for at least a decade. With COP26 on the way, we can expect a flurry of stage-managed headlines, but the detailed plans to achieve all these things are not there. Over the last decade or so, we have seen the privatisation of the UK Green Investment Bank, and even the removal of its absolute requirement to deliver green investment; we have seen the failed green deal, which cost over £100,000 per loan; and we have seen a fourth contest launch for carbon capture and storage, which would help to tackle some of our energy intensive industries. The first three fell at the first hurdle.

I want to touch on immigration. I proudly represent a constituency that is the world in one borough. We hear tough talk from the Home Secretary on this, and then we hear talk about how she is going to support the Windrush victims. We should be proud of our record of accepting people from the old empire, from the Commonwealth and from across the world when they are fleeing persecution to come to this country. We need to continue to support those people to find sanctuary where they are fleeing challenge, but we also need to better support those who are legally here but are unable to fully participate as citizens because of the barriers that are put up.

The cost and complications of our immigration system have gone through the roof. When I was elected 16 years ago, people had to apply for indefinite leave to remain. They then got five years and they could then apply for citizenship. It then went down to three years, so they had to apply twice to reach their five years for citizenship. They now have to apply three times, each time paying a fee. The Prime Minister talks about making Britain great again and about Britain having a big place in the world, so why is it that when someone comes from outside Britain to contribute to our country, we put these barriers in their way and make life difficult for them and, worse still, for their children?

I am proud to be working with We Belong and with my constituent, Chrisann Jarrett. This organisation represents young people who arrived in this country as toddlers or young children and who have now found that, because they are unable to pay these fees and their citizenship fee, they are excluded from university and often from the workplace. They are legitimately here in most cases, but they are being priced out. That is a crying shame and a stain on our country.

This Queen’s Speech has bits in it that I want to support, but I want to see the detail and I want to see delivery. I want to see movement on social care, on housing and on green jobs, of course, but on the basis of the last 11 years, we have seen failure after failure, promises made and not delivered and—crucially, from a public accounts point of view—lessons not learned and mistakes repeatedly made. Cheap headlines over substance just let people down. I will back what is good for my constituents, but on the basis of this Government’s record, and despite the Prime Minister talking about hope, change and opportunity, I am not very hopeful.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before I call the next speaker, can I just ask for some self-discipline on the length of contributions, because I would like to get through the debate without putting a time limit on contributions later on?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

Well, very few have been prosecuted to date for this reason: the forces of law and order, whether they be our armed forces or police, were acting to protect the community. I am very clear that if a member of the armed forces steps outside the law, of course they are amenable to the law—I am clear about that—but what I am not prepared to accept are our veterans being targeted in the way that they have been in being singled out and pursued through the courts when there is no new evidence and when they have previously been subjected to article 2-compliant investigations. That is unfair, it is wrong, and it must stop. The Government must bring forward legislation to protect veterans and retired police officers from those kinds of vexatious prosecutions. We need a proper process to deal with legacy that enables the innocent victims of terrorism, in particular, to have access to justice so as to have their cases examined. That is why we would not be in favour of measures that would close off the prospect of innocent victims having access to justice.

Northern Ireland has come a long way in the past 100 years, through very difficult and challenging times, but in good times as well. I end by paying tribute to the many hundreds of thousands of people in Northern Ireland who continue to carry the scars of our troubled past. I want to see a Northern Ireland and a future for our people that enables us all to move forward. We cannot forget the past. We cannot pretend it did not happen. But we can take the steps that are required to ensure that it never happens again and that in the next century the mark of Northern Ireland—our place in the world—will be to be known for what we can achieve in realising the full potential of all our people in building a shared future for everyone in Northern Ireland. That is what we want. That is what we desire for our people. We learn from the past and we understand our history, but we look to the future. I have outlined measures that the Government can take to help us build that shared future to create a Northern Ireland where there is peace and prosperity for all. Let us remove the barriers to achieving those objectives.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We now go to the first of our video links—Sir John Redwood.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to participate in the Queen’s Speech debate and it is good to be back here in the Chamber participating in person. Since the last Queen’s Speech our country has suffered so much with the pandemic, but with the success of the vaccine programme and the Government policies the future begins to look brighter now, and we are all grateful for that.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) on her election to this place and wishing her every success in her career. I am sure she will be very successful and dynamic for us, and we look forward to hearing her speeches. I also congratulate and praise the proposer of the Loyal Address, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Shailesh Vara). He has been a long-standing friend of mine since 2005, and today’s statesmanlike speech is a real credit to him. I also congratulate the seconder of the Loyal Address, my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher), on the powerful and effective way in which she delivered an interesting and invigorating speech. By comparison, I fear that the speeches from Opposition leaders have not been so good.

The Leader of the Opposition’s speech was disappointing in content, unconvincing and uninspiring. The Scottish National party leader seems to have only one speech, which he repeats regularly. He hardly mentioned the contents of the Loyal Address or Queen’s Speech. The Liberal Democrats always promise everything and talk a good talk, but do not seem to have any policies or actions to take us forward. By comparison, the Queen’s Speech is constructive and comprehensive, and I know it will gain favour across the whole UK.

As we start to come out of the pandemic and the lockdowns, the Government will have a lot of issues to tackle—we all know that. I strongly support the Government’s approach and the dynamic leadership we have seen from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. He has risen to the challenges of the past year and deserves credit for his leadership. That was acknowledged by the voters—[Interruption.] It is no good our having sedentary comments from the Opposition Members, as they have nothing constructive to put forward. He deserves the credit and that was what was acknowledged by the voters last Thursday, who believe that the Government will successfully deliver on the people’s priorities, which include housing, the economy, employment, education, training and crime, among other things. Those are the issues that affect people in their day-to-day lives and the Queen’s Speech outlines a coherent strategy to deal with them.

Today, I want to focus on the measures for education, and particularly on skills and post-16 training and education. I eagerly look forward to the skills and post-16 education Bill. The skills revolution that the Government promised is absolutely fundamental to the success of global Britain post Brexit.

Outside politics, I have worked as a teacher and a lecturer, so I have seen at first hand the importance of good education and training for young people and for not-so-young people. My time lecturing at Bexley College showed me the real value of further education colleges and how they have been regrettably undervalued by all Governments in the last couple of decades. They are absolutely fundamental to increasing skills and opportunities across our country. I passionately believe that every child and young person deserves a good start in life, regardless of their background, or where they live. Access to excellent schools is essential to build the foundations for opportunities and success in later life.

Conservative Governments of the last 10 or 11 years have done much to improve our schools and we are grateful for the real achievements we have seen. However, we have a skills shortage in this country and I believe we can rectify that through post-16 education. I would highlight finance as an issue in further education. Colleges need more resources and support to be able to act as an engine for social mobility. I also believe that FE lecturers should be paid more to ensure that we get the best people and we show we really value our FE lecturers.

I know the Government will look at this issue, but we must ensure that young people are encouraged to engage with education and understand the long-term benefits. That is why I strongly welcome the actions to provide more lifelong learning opportunities through colleges and universities across our country, such as by making studying part time more easily accessible to people. That is so important.

I also strongly support the lifetime skills guarantee, which provides adults in England without an A-level or equivalent qualification the opportunity to take up a free, fully funded college course. Alongside that, it is very important to make education loans more flexible and allow people to space out their study across their lifetime and take more high-quality vocational courses. The lifetime skills guarantee will transform the provision of skills across this country and help people to get the skills they need at every stage of their lives. This long-term plan will ensure that, as the nature of work changes—we live in a world that is frequently and rapidly changing—people have the skills to retrain and find new, better jobs. There are going to be many more new, different jobs in the future. We have to have the workforce and the opportunities for people to be able to study and train so that they can take up those opportunities.

I have long advocated that local employers should work more closely with further education providers to align training more closely with employer needs. That is so important and I am afraid that it has not happened. I regularly speak to and visit businesses across my borough of Bexley and elsewhere in the country when I go on speaking and meeting engagements. One issue that is often raised is that children are not getting the required skills in school. They are not then taking them to college and they do not leave college with the standard of skills that employers require. That is disappointing. It is not just the Government who are at fault here; it is also the employers not participating and making their views known more readily. As a result, often, small and medium-sized businesses—the backbone of our economy, employing the majority of people in our country—have struggled to access and retain employees with the skills they need. That significantly impacts on productivity and growth.

That is why it is essential that businesses are placed at the heart of skills plans and work with further education colleges to address skill shortages in local areas. I therefore welcome the plans for employers to have a statutory role in planning publicly funded training programmes with education providers through a skills accelerator programme. All that will contribute to better lifelong upskilling opportunities, so that people can take on better paid jobs in their local areas, and it will encourage innovation and entrepreneurs. That is so important. Businesses and colleges are in the community and they know what the local needs, and the local workforce needs, are.

The skills revolution announced today will support the nation’s recovery from the ongoing pandemic, while building on the progress made so far to level up the country and ensure equal opportunities for all people, wherever they live. In London, as in other parts of the country, we have skill shortages. There are inequalities of opportunity. As well as education, housing is important —the opportunity for people to have a decent home. I remember well in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher the determination to have more homes and for people to own their own homes. My grandparents lived in social housing. They would have loved the opportunity in the 1960s in Harlow to buy their own property and feel that they had a stake in the community. Margaret Thatcher made that a reality. We are now looking at a new generation. We need more people to be homeowners, to have a stake in the community and to value that opportunity.

The Queen’s Speech also deals with something of which I am very supportive: ending fixed-term Parliaments. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was needed at a particular time, but it is not needed now. As we know, the issues that have arisen from it in the last few years are many and varied. This change will restore the status quo and ensure the constitution operates properly, so we cannot have the absurd situation we had in 2019 where the Prime Minister was unable, because of the law, to call a general election. It was surprising, of course, that the Opposition did not want to vote for an election at that time. It was the first time in my long political career that an Opposition did not want to call for a general election.

The Act was needed in 2010 because the coalition Government faced huge problems left by the last Labour Government and we had to have stability. We could not be in a position where the Government were always wondering whether they were going to survive and whether there would have to be a general election. It was needed at that particular time, but that time has passed. We now need to look at the opportunities for going back to the tradition where the Prime Minister, of whatever party, has the right to determine when he asks Her Majesty the Queen to go to the country to renew the Government’s mandate. It is therefore only right that we get rid of this anachronism that is not necessary at this time.

I will conclude, Mr Deputy Speaker, as you did not want us to speak for too long. There is much in this Queen’s Speech that is to be commended. It is a programme for the next year. It is going to keep us busy, but it is going to transform our country and ensure we make global Britain a real success. For the last year and a half, the world has been dominated by the covid-19 pandemic, but I believe we are now looking to the end of restrictions on 21 June and we can return to some sort of normality.

It was disappointing that the Leader of the Opposition did not commend the Prime Minister for the fact that we are slowly unlocking and going forward to get back to normality, because it has been a success story in this country compared with other countries. It is regrettable that we cannot have some bipartisanship and say when things are good. I always understood that an Opposition praised what was right and supported it but then criticised what they disagreed with. I did not hear any of that today; it was all disagreement and criticism. That is very disappointing.

The country proved with its voting last week that it wants to go forward, it wants to be constructive and it wants to move on. That is what this Queen’s Speech does in so many fields. In so many areas, we are looking to deal with the problems facing ordinary people every day of their lives, and that is to be commended. The issues people are concerned about are being dealt with in this Queen’s Speech, and it will pave the way for us to build back better, putting jobs, skills and businesses at the heart of our recovery. It is the way forward. I commend the Queen’s Speech.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I know that everybody is enjoying the luxury of there being no time limit at the moment, but if Members could aim for sub-10-minute contributions, we will be a lot fairer to those who speak later on.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Dirprwy Lefarydd. Mi wnai fy ngorau—I will do my best.

It was very interesting to listen to what the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) had to say, because I previously worked in further education as well. We are all good at talking about parity of esteem between academic education and vocational training and skills, but it is about how we realise that and, particularly, the sort of curriculum that we provide. It is easy to provide the same old curriculum, but it is very challenging to look at the transferable skills that will be needed, predict the skills that will be needed and decide who we offer those to and where.

I welcome today’s Queen’s Speech as an opportunity for us all to take stock of the United Kingdom, our legislative priorities and the interests of those people and nations whom we serve in this place. Wales has returned a pro-devolution Parliament, whose Government Plaid Cymru will now hold to their manifesto commitment to achieve what they styled as “far-reaching federalism”—we shall see what that actually means. Wales also thumpingly rejected those who explicitly sought to deny our democracy its very existence. Scotland has returned an SNP Government with overwhelming support and every right to hold a vote on Scotland’s future.

While the Prime Minister’s victory over Labour in parts of England was, indeed, impressive, it simply underscores that the Conservative party is riding high as the party of England and not the UK, yet the UK Government continue to hold powers over and withhold powers from the devolved nations and strongly regulate their budgets. That is why today’s most immediately disappointing omission is the Government’s failure to deliver on their manifesto pledge to reform social care in England.

In this year of all years, given the experiences that we have had of covid, we must recognise that it would be a fundamental failure not to acknowledge the dedication of care workers paid and unpaid, the stress and distress that families have experienced over the last year and the experiences of thousands upon thousands of people who depend for their welfare on the care system. Just as Dickens looked back at his own era and decried some of the social experiences and horrors of it, we might in the future look back at this era and decry how we have run the care system and what we have been satisfied with. That is the issue that we need to address—what families have suffered, what care workers have had to endure and the low pay that they have had, and what we have regarded as being acceptable for loved ones in their homes or in care homes.

I notice that the Government have made some positive sounds. There is a will across the House and across all the Parliaments of the United Kingdom to work together on this matter. We have to work together to do it. We will have failed the people we serve if we do not address the care crisis that we have experienced in the last year, which we know has been there for years.

In Wales, the number of people aged 65 and over is projected to increase by 44% in the next two decades, to over 1 million people—almost a third of the population. We have the oldest population of any UK nation, yet a shorter life expectancy, with poorer health outcomes. A well-funded and integrated social care system is vital for supporting the future long-term health and wellbeing of people in Wales. Increased spending is inevitable for the system in Wales, and the real choice will be whether to increase funding on a piecemeal basis or to grasp the fundamental challenge of genuine reforms.

The costs and the need are clear. Covid cost Welsh local authorities nearly £30 million in additional expenditure for providing older adult social services during the first quarter of 2020-21 alone. In the longer term, with need and cost rising, net expenditure for community care services for older people in Wales will rise by 177% in the next 15 years. Social care is devolved in Wales, but with our limited means to raise funds, both our powers and our funds are delineated and bestowed on us by Westminster. We thus face a real challenge of affordability. That is why, in this new parliamentary term, I extend a hand to the Prime Minister and his Chancellor to prove that they care for Wales. Give us both the powers and the needs-based means so that we can afford proper social care and finally address this perennial issue.

Equally pressing is the climate challenge. I hope the Government will support the cross-party climate and ecological emergency Bill to strengthen our efforts to tackle the fundamental and all-important crisis.

In that spirit, I hope the Government will recognise the need to correct the stymieing inconsistencies in the devolution settlement and devolve the Crown Estate in Wales to Wales—as has occurred, of course, in Scotland. Control over our natural resources and their rent is essential not only for their sustainable management, but to help generate the capital investment necessary to deliver our net zero future. The change would improve upon the current restrictive borrowing limits imposed by the Treasury on the Welsh Government and better connect Wales’s natural heritage and resources with their sustainable use and production.

Finally, I hope that the Prime Minister will join me in welcoming Wales’s decision to return a pro-devolution Parliament with a Government committed to overhauling the UK’s constitutional framework. Levelling up has so far proved to be a ruse to centralise power in Westminster. The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 has shown itself to undermine devolution, and the Government have already broken their manifesto promise to Wales that we would not be a penny worse off when we left Europe.

From our personal lives to our politics, actions speak louder than words, of course, and no doubt the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition will join me in echoing the comments of a Labour Senedd Member who noted that we are at a crossroads between independence and a

“polarising hard British unionism based by and large on a growing English nationalism with its epicentre in 10 Downing Street.”

We must achieve radical constitutional change, as Labour argues in Wales. Will Labour argue it here, too? A welcome first step would be further tax powers to help with our post-conflict recovery. The next must be the devolution of the policing and justice system to Wales—as suggested in evidence to the Thomas commission and as voted for by the people of Wales.

It will be a pleasure, if the opportunity arises, to work with the Leader of the Opposition to further those constitutional objectives. They were borrowed from Plaid Cymru, and the only Labour Government in the UK could strengthen their own hand considerably and further their own principles considerably if they admitted it.

In sum, our nations face pressing challenges that touch our loved ones, our homes, our climate and our nations. This parliamentary term is when we must address those challenges, and I look forward to the opportunity to work with the Government and the Opposition as best they can to find the solutions.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank Liz Saville Roberts, because not only did you promise to try and come in sub-10 minutes, but you delivered on your promise with seven minutes. Well done.