Debate on the Address

Robert Syms Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I am grateful for being called to speak. It is 22 years since I first addressed the House on the first day of debate on the Gracious Speech. It struck me that it would be a good idea to look back at that speech to see what has changed on this planet since. Interestingly, some phrases recurred today, which should be of serious concern to us all.

In 1992, the John Major Government said that they required

“full Iraqi compliance with Security Council resolutions”,

and that they would

“work for a peaceful settlement in Yugoslavia”

and

“support moves to bring lasting peace to the middle east.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 May 1992; Vol. 537, c. 7.]

Those were matters of profound importance and there has been some good news since then, but it is possible to compare it to today’s Queen Speech, which noted:

“My ministers will strive to improve the humanitarian situation in Syria, to reduce violence and promote a political settlement. It will work for a successful transition in Afghanistan, and will work towards a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.”

Major issues still affect the middle east in particular. As this is the last time that I will address the House in a debate on the Queen’s Speech, it is worth putting down a marker that, even after that long period, we still have to look at this intensely difficult area of the world. None of us from any party should either shirk our responsibilities in addressing some of the challenges or pretend that we can ignore them.

The second and obvious point relates to budgetary discipline. In 1992, the Government said that they would

“promote sound finance and budgetary discipline.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 May 1992; Vol. 537, c. 7-8.]

They obviously did not succeed, because there is still apparently a need to

“strengthen the economy and provide stability and security”.

That phrase constantly occurs in every Queen’s Speech, irrespective of the Government for whom it is delivered. That is clearly a matter of great importance, especially as we move towards the next general election, because it will be the determining factor in whether the Government can persuade the electorate that they have succeeded.

Contrary to some of the figures that one hears bandied around in the Chamber, the experience of my constituents is markedly different, and many of them simply do not believe the Government figures. A gentleman came to my surgery last weekend to complain that he could not get on to a training course that is available to the vast majority of unemployed people in my constituency. He is not entitled to receive any benefits because of his wife’s earnings, which means that he is not counted as unemployed. He profoundly feels that he is unemployed, and that he has been badly let down by this Government. Many people in that situation—either in such cases, or because their income is based on zero-hours contracts and low-wage jobs—are really struggling, and they simply do not believe the figures presented by the Government.

The third area that I want, perhaps slightly teasingly, to draw to the attention of the Conservative party—there now appear to be only Members from one party on the Government Benches—is the question of Europe. Today’s Queen’s Speech says:

“My government will work to promote reform in the European Union, including a stronger role for member states and national parliaments.”

I remind Conservative Members that the Queen’s Speech in 1992 stated that the Government would

“lay before Parliament the treaty of Maastricht and introduce a Bill to implement it.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 May 1992; Vol. 537, c. 8.]

Of course, that Bill was very controversial. You will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we spent many a late night in the Chamber—sitting until the early hours of the morning for weeks at a time—while the Government drove it through. To pretend that the Bill and the treaty that it incorporated did not have an impact on the relationship we now have with Europe is simply to ignore history. At least one historian, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), is on the Opposition Front Bench today, and I am sure that he could draw to our attention other examples of how what was said in previous debates has been conveniently forgotten. In several areas, there are similarities—as well as some profound contradictions—in what the Government have said.

It is a pity that the mover of the Loyal Address, the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), is not in the Chamber. I know her constituency extremely well, having lived and worked in the Portsmouth area until the 1970s. I remember one of her slightly eccentric predecessors Brigadier Terence H. Clarke, who was the first person in the Conservative party with whom I came into conflict. He was succeeded by Frank Judd, now Lord Judd in the House of Lords, and then by Syd Rapson and Sarah McCarthy-Fry, so the seat has had some strong representatives over the years. The hon. Lady gave us some of the background to the issues that are having an impact on her own city, of which everyone who has an association with Portsmouth is proud. Obviously, the naval ones are hugely important in the context of my opening remarks about international security issues. I also happen to agree with her about the success in rescuing Pompey football club from a bunch of cowboys and getting it into the hands of decent people, but that is perhaps another story.

I want to touch on some other areas. I first want to refer to the section in the Queen’s Speech about cutting bureaucracy and enabling small businesses to access finance. During the last Parliament, I chaired the Regulatory Reform Committee, which did a huge amount of work then, and some work has been done in this Parliament. This matter has a huge impact on the well-being of small businesses. The warning note that I want to send to the Government is that they should not, for goodness’ sake, come back to us with some mixed-up Bill that seeks to diminish employment rights in small businesses. That is not the solution to the problem.

Yes, there are ways in which the bureaucracy impacting on small businesses can be improved dramatically and, cross-departmentally, the Government need to take into account a lot of considerations to ensure that such improvements have an effect. For example, it always seems to me to be pretty daft that a small business that perhaps employs only a handful of people might find itself regulated by four or five agencies under different Departments, with no joining-up between one and another. If that is the kind of regulatory reform impacting on small businesses that the Government want to introduce, fine; if, on the other hand, they mean removing rights that involve the necessary protection of workers—both in terms of employment rights and health and safety conditions—they will certainly not have the support of Labour Members.

Some bits are obviously missing from the Queen’s Speech. There has just been an interesting exchange on hydraulic fracturing. Given where the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) lives, she understandably has real difficulties with HS2. Of course, if HS2 were two miles below her constituency, she would not be raising such issues. We need to get across to the public some important points about the development of what is called unconventional oil and gas, rather than allow emotive arguments to dominate.

I perfectly understand the people of Chesham and Amersham’s concerns about the impact of the railway on their community if they get no direct benefit from it. On the other hand, as has happened in my area, if a pilot well is drilled a couple of miles below the land on which I live, it has no impact on my house or its value. In fact, some of the oldest fracturing operations in the United Kingdom, such as BP’s operations down at Wytch Farm in Dorset underneath some of the wealthiest landowners in the country—at Sandbanks and places such as that—have not exactly knocked value off their houses, have they? We need serious engagement with the public and must take the science to the public, rather than allowing the emotive arguments to dominate this incredibly complex debate.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct. The Wytch Farm oilfield, one of the largest onshore oilfields, is hardly noticed by anybody. It is well done and has no adverse impact on the Poole and south Dorset area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) on her excellent proposing of the Loyal Address, and my neighbour, the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), on seconding it. We have had a good and interesting debate, and it is sad to reflect that, for a number of Members, this will be their last Queen’s Speech. A lot of very talented people will be retiring in 2015, and they have made excellent contributions to the quality and standard of debate in this House.

It was a remarkable Queen’s Speech, because it was the fifth of a coalition Government. If we go back to those dark and dim days of 2010, we will remember that the electorate did not elect a party with an overall majority. The arithmetic led to a coalition being formed, and many people doubted that it would last the course, or that it would be a cohesive Government who did what it said on the tin, which was to sort out this country’s economic difficulties. Four years later, we still have legislation to put through. We have an economy that is recovering and growing faster than those of most of our competitors, with many hundreds of thousands of jobs being created

The key point is not to look so much at the legislation, but to look at the fact that what the Government have to do, more than anything else, is to secure the economic recovery in what is a difficult economic environment throughout the world. We are not out of the clouds of the eurozone yet—there are still some problems there—and we still have many economic challenges. The Government, however, can be congratulated on undertaking the task and on what they have done over the past five years. There have been occasions when the statistics have not looked good or when clouds have appeared and people have suggested that the Government change their course, or that they are on the wrong course, but four years after the formation of the Government we are starting to see that they have been proved right.

No one pretends that coalition is easy; it requires people to make compromises. The coalition has done certain things that, as Conservatives, we have found difficult and, no doubt, there are also things that the Liberal Democrats have found difficult. The Prime Minister, when he formed his Government, said that we had to put politics to one side in the national interest. Our national economy, the wealth of our nation, and the jobs and prospects of our people are sometimes more important than our political spats. From that point of view, the Government have done not only a good job, but the right thing for our nation. They have put country before party, and they are beginning to deliver a brighter economic outlook.

I am not a great believer in legislation to solve problems, because if legislation solved problems, we would not have any of them. The general tenor of debate on a Queen’s Speech is to ask how many Bills there are—the more the better. People do not necessarily look at each individual Bill and measure whether it makes us richer or happier, or whatever. What always strikes me—rather amusingly in this House—is that we focus on legislation, but we do not focus so much on money. My background is in both business and local government, and on a number of occasions I have been sitting on council committees when some poor officer, who had made a mistake over £2,500 or £3,000 on a tender, was pulled apart because councillors were demanding answers. Yet in this Chamber and in our parliamentary system, we as a Parliament do not really control money in the same way as we would on a local authority.

The Gracious Speech says that

“estimates for the public services will be laid before you.”

We have the rather bizarre spectacle of having estimates days for debate, but we do not really debate the estimates; we debate sports centres in Wales or sheep farming, but we do not debate what has happened with the money. One of the most interesting things about the estimates is that they show how Government have moved money between Departments and how money has been vired in different directions. As a Parliament, if we are to be more effective, we ought to be focusing a lot more on how money is spent and whether we are getting value for money—what the Government are doing with our money—rather than necessarily focusing on the minutiae of legislation.

I welcome the measures that we do have in the Queen’s Speech. Simplifying national insurance for the self-employed is a good thing; the Government are clearly right to propose a modern slavery Bill; and the pensions reforms—we all have an interest, so I will declare an interest—are interesting and exciting.

I have a slight difficulty and concern about the recall Bill, however, as many Members will. On occasion, petitions are handed to me and, usually, I write to petitioners to say, “I got your petition.” It is not unusual to have people write or e-mail back to say, “I didn’t sign a petition.” If I ask whether they were outside Tesco on a Saturday morning, they might reply, “Oh, someone put something in front of me and I signed it to get rid of them.” I am afraid that a lot of people in our country will sign anything simply to get rid of someone in a shopping centre. If we have a threshold of only 10%, someone annoying outside Tesco could reach that fairly easily—in the Tesco in Branksome Park, Poole, for example. I have a few reservations about recall therefore, although I understand that there are issues of public confidence in legislators. I have a real worry about how that legislation will operate and what checks and balances it will include.

I welcome the infrastructure Bill, particularly because it will have an impact on the North sea, which has been a tremendous British success story. The North sea oil and gas fields were developed after the exploration in the 1960s and they have lasted far longer than people expected because of technology and free enterprise. We have to provide certainty with the tax regime and, as some of the fields are heading for decommissioning, we have to set a much better framework. The Wood review is vital in doing that, so I welcome the proposed Bill. I am sure that we can still squeeze a lot more profit out of the North sea sector.

I also appreciate the opportunities that fracking will provide. We have to make things as easy as possible, so that we can get the gas out of the ground, while also ensuring public confidence and that people do not feel that fracking will have an impact on their lives. As I said in an intervention, in Poole we have the Wytch Farm oilfield. In the 1960s and ’70s, when it was developed, there were concerns that it would have a major impact, but no one notices it now. Dorset county council, which dealt with many of the applications, did an excellent job of ensuring screening of the rigs. Occasionally, we see the odd flow off in the harbour, but it is extremely rare. The reality is that people should not be worried about this; it offers a tremendous national opportunity. If, as many hon. Members have said, we are to secure the recovery, use all our national assets and reduce dependency on imported energy, we have to use fracking and to use it as a revolution in the same dynamic way as the United States has done.

It is remarkable that we have got to the fifth Queen’s Speech of the coalition. There has been success on the economy, although I understand that it will take a while for living standards to return to where they were—a lot of people are still working hard and not earning the income that they might wish for. I am perfectly sure that if we persist with our economic policies, with inflation coming down and growth coming up, we will end up with people better off and having the opportunity to skill up and change jobs as the economy improves. It is important that we should continue with the mission, as set in 2010 by the Prime Minister, of nursing our country back to health and ensuring that it takes its place as a pre-eminent, industrial and prosperous country and as one of the best places in the world to live.