Immigration and Home Affairs

Paul Kohler Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech—although I must admit to a degree of trepidation following the excellent maiden speech of the hon. Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker). It was a compelling, poignant and witty speech, as were so many of those that went before.

It is a huge and humbling honour to be elected to represent and serve the people of Wimbledon, a name that is synonymous with strawberries and cream, grass courts and tennis, but a constituency that includes so much more, extending from Morden underground station in the south—where you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have your constituency office—to Old Malden in the west, where the Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece “Ophelia” was painted by Sir John Everett Millais on, or more accurately in, the Hogsmill river.

Wimbledon is a suburb of London, but has two farms, a village, a wonderful common, the occasional Womble, three professional and many amateur theatres, two cinemas, the Wimbledon College of Arts—part of the University of the Arts London—and vibrant small businesses, many of them in the arts and hospitality. It has a park designed by Capability Brown, although that is currently under threat from the All England Club—Members should see my early-day motion for further details—and the beautiful River Wandle, when it is not blighted by that running motif in so many Liberal Democrat speeches, sewage. Its housing stock ranges from grand mansions to crumbling social housing. It has one of the most affluent and well-educated electorates in the country, but also a 38% deprivation rate, despite the best efforts of excellent local charities including Dons Local Action Group, Wimbledon Guild and Faith in Action. It is also a diverse and harmonious constituency, boasting one of the largest mosques in Europe, a beautiful Buddhist temple, a Reform synagogue, Europe’s first fully consecrated Hindu temple, the Papal Nuncio, and Christian churches and places of worship of almost every denomination.

As well as hosting the world’s premier tennis tournament, we are home to England’s most progressive football club, AFC Wimbledon—a club which knows that fans, not the money men, are the beating heart of any team, and a club which embodies the values at the heart of the Government’s eagerly awaited and much anticipated football governance Bill. That is unlike, it pains me to say, my own team, Crystal Palace, which has previously argued against the reforms heralded in the Bill, much to my shame. That is not to mention the shame of my constituents, who have just learned that their MP is a Crystal Palace fan.

I am playing a dangerous game here, because, as our defeated opponents now know and we will no doubt know some day, constituents are not slow to show their displeasure. A few weeks ago, I knocked on one door and asked the gentleman who answered if he had decided for whom he was going to vote. “I like her,” he said. “Her—the Conservative?” I replied. “No, her,” he responded. “What, the Labour candidate?” “Yeah, I like her. I don’t like him much.” “Who?” “Him. I don’t like him.” “What, the Lib Dem?” “Yeah, I don’t like him.” “You mean me?” “I don’t like him.” “That’s me.” “I really don’t like him.” “That’s me!” “What, you?” “Yes.” “Oh. Nothing personal, mate.”

But politics is personal, of course. Not infrequently, it is much too personal, although my Conservative predecessor, Stephen Hammond, and I stayed the right side of the line most of the time. We saw each other as opponents, rather than enemies. At this point, I must pay tribute to Stephen, who was a hard-working and committed constituency MP—due in no small part to the prodigious efforts of his office manager, his wife Sally, who ran a tight ship and a very efficient operation. Quite bizarrely, while Stephen and Sally are now tasked with letting staff go and dismantling that very office, I am kept busy trying to replicate their exact set-up. How is that sensible, efficient or cost effective? Surely it would make more sense for every constituency to have a permanent MP’s office that is staffed by caseworkers who, as in a department of state, move seamlessly, along with the ongoing casework, from the outgoing MP to the incoming MP. But it is what it is.

As liberal Wimbledon’s first ever Liberal MP, I will, despite the distractions, work tirelessly to represent my constituents and their values. As an academic lawyer, I will do all I can to defend the rule of law, which is under threat from our badly neglected and crumbling civil and criminal justice system. In particular, our prisons and probation service are in crisis. May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Prime Minister on the inspired appointment of James Timpson as Prisons Minister? There can be no one better than the chair of the Prison Reform Trust, who has walked the talk throughout his professional life, to lead a national debate on the role of prisons and imprisonment. We need to explore more effective alternatives to prison, including house arrests and curfews, while putting the victim at the heart of the criminal justice system by fully embracing restorative justice—something that I know from personal experience can have a transformative effect on victims, as it did on my family, with the added bonus of dramatically curtailing rates of recidivism.

There is much more I would like to say—for example, about the need to restore neighbourhood policing, which, as the Home Secretary said earlier, was decimated under the previous Government. Somewhat more parochially, there is an urgent need to guarantee the long-term future of Wimbledon police station, which, six years after my judicial review quashed the Mayor of London’s decision to close it, remains under threat, despite the Casey report making it clear that local police stations are critical to the success of neighbourhood policing. But those discussions will have to wait for another day.

To conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I just say that I look forward to working constructively with Members on all sides of the House on these and the many other pressing issues that face us, both now and in the years to come?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call Ben Coleman to make his maiden speech.