Debate on the Address

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would like to start by adding my congratulations to both the hon. Members for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) on their speeches earlier this afternoon. I suspect that you and I have heard quite a number of such speeches, and I think we can probably agree that those were two of the very best we have ever heard.

May I also congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss), who spoke movingly of his football team and of his town, in which he quite clearly has great pride. I have not visited Wolverhampton for over 60 years, and I do not know whether the Ambassador bowling alley is still there, but I recall that Berry Gordy brought the Motortown revue to Wolverhampton, and I actually watched Stevie Wonder playing ten pin bowls in the Wolverhampton bowling alley—think about that.

It is 41 years since I was first elected to this House as the then youngest Member of Parliament for the new seat of North Thanet, and I am delighted that, 41 years later, I find myself elected as the youngest Member of Parliament for Herne Bay and Sandwich. New colleagues on both sides of the House who have not heard these types of speeches before—you and I both know this very well indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker—will find that they will make great friendships right across the House over the coming weeks and months, and that is as it should be. Out there, in the real world, people do not understand that we work so closely together, but we do, and so we should. Jo Cox was absolutely right when she memorably said that there is much more that unites us than divides us. And so it is with this speech today.

I should also place on record my thanks and, I hope, the thanks of the whole House to the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister for the way in which they have managed with great dignity the transfer of power. This country does state openings rather well, and it does democracy even better. There are many who envy us for that, and it is a precious jewel that we should never lose.

This King’s Speech has much in it that I trust we can all applaud. It makes clear reference to defence of the realm, which is so vital to our country, and a commitment to NATO. It also commits us to support Ukraine in what is not just their war but our war—a war to defend democracy. There is also a commitment—although not everybody will agree with this—to a two-state settlement in the middle east. Those are all laudable aims, and I trust we can all support them. There are other areas that are greyer and that we shall have to take some issue with. That is the job of the Opposition, as the Prime Minister would expect. The Opposition will hold his feet to the fire and hold him to account when we think that he has got it wrong.

There are three issues that I want to raise very briefly this afternoon. I have grave concerns about the proposed reforms of planning law. Like Many Government Members, I represent a rural constituency and I fear for the loss of farmland. I am not sure—this is a genuine confusion and concern—whether it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Secretary of State for Housing who is driving the proposed planning reform policy. I have a very real concern that local democracy will be removed, and that we shall find ourselves with a slash-and-burn policy that will destroy yet more of not only the green belt, but of the land we need to grow the food to feed our country. I trust that the Government will address that issue very clearly and very seriously indeed.

The new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has moved very fast indeed to grant planning consents that give me cause for concern. I find it wholly unnecessary that East Anglia and Thanet should have to place solar farms on prime agricultural land—grade 1 land—that generates wheat of bread-making quality. We have acres of rooftops and car parks in public ownership that could and should be used to protect the land that we need.

I have a particular concern about a project that two colleagues from East Anglia referred to earlier. The Sea Link project is designed to run a power cable from East Anglia under the Thames and around the coast to make landfall close to Sandwich. The proposal is to build on marshland immediately next to a site of special scientific interest, having crossed the Pegwell bay nature reserve, a 90-foot high structure the size of about four football pitches. National Grid has got this so horribly wrong that it only now realises that marshland is wet, which means it will have to pour thousands of tonnes of concrete into the land, drill down and pile before it can even begin to build its structure. Viable alternatives have been suggested, so I hope that the new Secretary of State will take this concern on board and use his powers to instruct National Grid to go back to the drawing board and get it right. We all want clean energy and renewable energy, and we all want to hit the net zero target, but not at any price. If we rush into this, we will get it wrong. We owe it to the grandchildren of every Member present to get it right.

Finally, I am concerned about an omission from the King’s Speech. Given the comments and publicity, I am sad that the speech makes no mention of animal welfare. I would hope that, at the very least, His Majesty’s new Government will reintroduce and ram through the trophy hunting bill that two Members of Parliament—one Labour and one Tory—tried but failed to get through the last Parliament.

With that, in the interests of this United Kingdom, I wish the Government and their programme well. We will hold feet to the fire where necessary, but I trust, as the Leader of the Opposition said this afternoon, that we will not be obstructive. A Government have a right to get their business through.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Christopher Chope)]

I call Patrick Hurley to make his maiden speech.