Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I rise to pay tribute to Sir David, who was a good friend and a guiding hand to many of us elected in 2019.

As this debate is dedicated to Sir David Amess, who shared with me a deep love of animals, I want to put on the record my thanks to those thousands of people who voted for my Jack Russell, Clemmie, who secured second place in last year’s Westminster Dog of the Year competition. Now, Clemmie is going all out this year to secure the top dog title in the Sir David Amess public vote award, just as his beloved Vivienne did in 2021.

Let me turn now to serious matters. Darlington is at the forefront of our ambitious levelling up agenda and the past years have been hugely exciting for Darlington as we continue to go from strength to strength. Through covid and the current cost of living crisis, together with other funding, Darlington has received around £670 million in investment and support from the Government since I was elected in 2019. We are already seeing what that investment is delivering, such as the £23.3 million from the towns fund, which is improving our historic yards, Victoria Road and Northgate. Work has begun on the £139 million redevelopment of Bank Top Station. In that vein, I urge London North Eastern Railway not to close our ticket office in Darlington, which would hugely undermine this investment and make life more difficult for my disabled and elderly constituents.

As we approach the bicentenary of the passenger railway in 2025, Darlington’s rail heritage quarter is starting to take shape, with £35 million of investment from Ben Houchen and Darlington Borough Council. I am determined that our celebration of this significant milestone should be commensurate with its importance. The eyes of the world will be on Darlington and it is a perfect opportunity to showcase our nation’s rich rail heritage. I have already met Ministers and Network Rail to discuss the celebrations and I am looking forward to meeting Sir Peter Hendy to discuss how we can make them a real success.

I am delighted that a permanent location at Brunswick Street has been chosen for the Darlington economic campus, where more than 80% of the new jobs that have come to Darlington are going to local people from the region, allowing people to stay local but go far.

Connectivity in Darlington is not just about the railways, and I continue to press on several important transport issues for my constituents. Pushing for a northern link road between junction 59 on the A1 and Great Burdon on the A66 to alleviate the congestion faced by constituents in the north of Darlington is high on my agenda. I am delighted to see the Chamber so full for this debate, because immediately after it I will be presenting a petition on car parking charges in Darlington. I encourage Members to stay for that. We have also faced serious issues with buses, and I continue to press Arriva to maintain its current services in Darlington, on which some of the most vulnerable people in my community depend.

Everyone deserves to feel safe in their communities, and I have done much work in this place to ensure that is the case in Darlington. We have secured more than £1 million from the safer streets fund, which is having a huge impact on making our town centre safer. As a town with a thriving night time economy, that is of great importance. Part of that funding was used to open Number Forty, on Skinnergate, which provides a safe space for people on a night out.

Off-road bikes have long been a cause for concern in Darlington, and I have raised the issue many times in the House. I praise Durham constabulary’s Operation Endurance, which is focused on tackling the scourge of off-road bikes. I am pleased to say that it is starting to have an appreciable impact, but I will continue to campaign for further steps to tackle the problem in Darlington. As part of that we must improve 101 response times—something I am pleased that Rob Potts, the Conservative candidate for Durham police and crime commissioner, has committed to. I look forward to campaigning with him to help deliver vital improvements.

Education is our silver bullet to ensure that every child has the best start in life and is able to achieve their full potential. I welcome the Government’s decision to offer teachers a 6.5% pay rise. The announcement of a new special school for Darlington will be hugely beneficial. The additional provision of 48 places for children with special educational needs in Darlington is much needed.

My reading lobster, Seb, has had a busy year meeting many parliamentarians, including the Prime Minister and Mr Speaker himself. The Skerne Park Academy reading lobster scheme is hugely admirable, helping to inspire a lifelong love of reading in children.

Darlington College is now delivering T-levels, and I was delighted to be at the opening of the brand-new engineering block, the Ingenium centre, along with the Secretary of State for Education. The centre has been delivered with £2.96 million of funding that we secured from the towns fund. Such new opportunities for local people in Darlington will enable them to fully reach their potential and find good, well-paid and secure employment into the future.

I have almost completed at least one visit to every school in Darlington—I have visited some of them many times—and I look forward to visiting the last two remaining on the list in September. In a similar vein, I continue to make progress on my visits to all faith establishments across the town.

I have a long connection to the hospice sector— I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—having served as a trustee for a hospice in Northallerton for more than a decade. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hospice and end of life care, I have had the platform to raise the concerns of this vital sector over the past few months. I have been pleased to bring together all the Tees valley MPs on a cross-party basis to stand up for our Tees valley hospices and call on our local integrated care board to properly fund them. I will always continue to push for further support and recognition of these important organisations, such as St Teresa’s in Darlington, which do so much good work.

Monday marked 10 years since we legalised same-sex marriages. We should be incredibly proud of the progress we have made and how far we have come on LGBT equality. I welcome the progress that we have been making towards our ambition to end new HIV transmissions by 2030. Rolling out opt-out testing to areas of high prevalence would be a huge boon in our fight against the virus, and I again call on the Government to make that happen. It would be a win-win—for public health and the public purse.

I very much welcome this week’s publication of the Etherton review and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s apology from the Dispatch Box yesterday. I also call on the Government to bring forward swiftly a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban, for which we have been waiting far too long. We must stamp out this form of abuse.

[Alicia Kearns]

As my hon. Friend knows, I raised this issue at Prime Minister’s questions only yesterday. I have to admit that, to my great frustration, I was not particularly delighted by the Prime Minister’s answer. On 19 January on the Floor of this House, at the Dispatch Box, and again in a written ministerial statement, the Secretary of State confirmed that pre-legislative scrutiny would be completed by the end of this parliamentary Session; essentially, that means October or November this year. There is no way that that can now be met, so I am deeply disappointed that after the Government have missed their own deadline, we have not received any form of update. Does my hon. Friend agree that pre-legislative scrutiny would enable this House to come together, and that it is wrong that that scrutiny has not yet taken place?

[Peter Gibson]

Very sadly, what my hon. Friend says is correct. I pay tribute to her for her significant leadership on the issue. I have worked with her, alongside colleagues such as my hon. Friends the Members for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards), for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan). Many of us have campaigned and pressed for a trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy, and it is deeply saddening that we have not yet seen it.

Moving on, my constituents are still facing impossibly long waits for mental health treatment, particularly for children. I have spoken in this place many times on the need to bring down waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services. I know that Ministers are aware of the issue and working hard on it, but I again press them to do all they can to ensure that we leave no child behind. Ministers are also aware of the ongoing situation with the provision of mental health services in Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, and the recent rapid review. In recent weeks and months, we have seen continuing coverage of yet more alarming news about TEWV, particularly the work of the crisis team. I press Ministers to continue to work with me and others, and to do all they can to improve TEWV services so that my constituents can get the care they need and deserve.

Every week my team, led by the amazing Rachael Hughes Booth, handle hundreds of pieces of casework—in fact, some 31,537 since I was elected—and every day there are successes, from securing a passport so that a family can take a long-planned holiday, to getting people treatment for rare conditions or reimbursement of unpaid benefits. That, for me, is the most important part of this job.

Darlington has had a lot to celebrate over the last few years, although our community has, like everyone’s, faced significant challenges. Our town is truly on the cusp of something great. It is the honour of a lifetime to represent the people of Darlington in this place, and I will continue to work hard every day to repay the trust they have put in me.

Finally, I thank staff across the House and all my team for all that they do. I wish everyone a happy recess.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

I note my hon. Friend’s comments.

We then heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Moray, whom I congratulate on his refereeing skills. He gave a shout-out to Steve Clarke and wished his team well. I noted his comments about Viaplay. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, our right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), is keen to engage with him. Of course, that will be easier if the SNP Government give him the money for the A9. [Laughter.]

Anyway, we move on to Congleton, where we heard about the firm Brit European, whose site is powered by solar, wind and methane from moo poo—that is what I wrote, but I added something in brackets to remind myself what it is. The firm has used those and other innovative solutions to create a sustainable site—it sounds absolutely fantastic, and all power to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton asked for a meeting between the Department for Business and Trade and the company SpanSet, and I will make sure the Department hears that request, but I point out that questions to that Department take place on 14 September.

We whizz to Rutland and Melton, where I am excited about visiting the food market when it is established. I was interested to hear about the medi-hub and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton on securing the MRI scanner. We know how much early diagnoses helps us to change the trajectory of these diseases. I also note that she is glad that we have increased fines for fly tipping in rural areas. It is a blight, so doubling the fines to £1,000 is really welcome. She also welcomed the biggest ever funding for education, and I am sure Sir David would have been warmed by the way she trotted us around what I think was about 32 subjects. I am sure that the Ministers in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero heard her comments.

That brings us to Rayleigh and Wickford. All I can say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford is that friends are so important, and this place is no different. He misses his friend, and we heard that today. I thank him for his kind words. Moving on, I wish him enormous luck with securing his special school. Education for those with particular needs is incredibly important. Every child has the right to a good education. That is why the high needs funding increasing by more than £10 billion, an increase of some 10.6%, is really welcome. I also have a RAAC school and hospital in Bury St Edmunds, so I know some of the challenges involved; I wish him well with that and with his work with his sheltered housing community.

Off we trotted then to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury; she has got herself a knowledge highway bus and now she is cheekily asking for a bridge before she comes back in two years’ time. I am sure the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle, heard her. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury really saved her passion for her comments on CAMHS and children’s mental health and the two-year wait for a diagnosis. We all know how vital it is to have a timely diagnosis and the Government are committed to reducing the delays for those children. It is really important to get a quick diagnosis so that we can help to give children the best education.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend on her comments about chalk streams. They are an incredibly important and special habitat. I know the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), makes a particular play in the chalk stream strategy to ensure that we look after that vital part of nature.

Next, we went to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, who thanked the Government for the energy bill relief scheme, the household support fund and the uprating of benefits in line with inflation. He painted a very different story from the one we heard from the hon. Member for Newport East, but he did bring up the issue of incineration, and I will ensure that DEFRA hears those comments. He also welcomed the police and the improvements to his St Helier Hospital and the new work—with the Royal Marsden Hospital, I think he said—to see and treat more people suffering from cancer.

Then we went to my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington and his celebrations on rail, with £239 million for Bank Top station—

[Peter Gibson]

It was £139 million.

[Jo Churchill]

I gave my hon. Friend an extra £100 million, with the Rail Minister sitting here; I could not have timed that more perfectly.

My hon. Friend also mentioned the Brunswick Street campus, where 80% of the jobs are driven by Government funding, helping people to drive prosperity. We all know that work is the way to do that. I thank him for all the work he does on the APPG for hospice and end of life care. The Government recognise the importance of access to high-quality, personalised palliative and end of life care, which means so much to families and patients. I was pleased to see that, as part of the Health and Care Act 2022, palliative care services were added to integrated care boards to help to drive better regional services. [Interruption.] I am being chivvied to hurry up and shut up—