Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Before I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, let me say that we have a packed speakers list. I do not want to introduce a time limit, but if Members could think of each other and confine their remarks to seven or eight minutes to start with, that would be very helpful. I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. While I have hon. Members’ attention, I give a little reminder of the importance of addressing Members not directly—the word “you” means me—but through the Chair. I also give a little reminder of my advice on time limits.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I stress how important it is that we think of others when we make our speeches; otherwise I will have to put on a time limit. Obviously, I will not do so for the SNP spokesperson, but I am sure he will also be considerate of others.

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[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this historic debate following the first King’s Speech in more than 70 years.

Opportunity manifests in many ways, but one thing is clear: it is the Conservatives who are the party of opportunity. As a comprehensive school student during the Thatcher years, I was inspired to look for opportunities and seize them—not to expect to be given a handout, but to work hard as a way to achieve my ambitions. I recognise that I have been very lucky. I have had many opportunities and some successes along the way, and one reason I sought election to this place was to help to give other people better opportunities, whatever their background or whatever may befall them.

Key to opportunity is the economy. That is the case for everyone, whatever walk of life they are in. Too many people sneer at the private sector and criticise the profit motive, but it is entrepreneurs who take the risks and make the investments, and businesses that create the jobs and generate the wealth. Without them, there would be no money to pay tax and therefore no money to deliver the excellent public services we all deserve and want.

I was delighted that His Majesty began his Gracious Speech by stating that his Ministers’ focus was on increasing economic growth. We need to remove the barriers to growth if we are to remove the barriers to opportunity. That means reducing regulation, incentivising investment and lowering taxes, all in a fiscally responsible way. I am particularly pleased that the Government have committed to addressing the drivers of low growth over increasing the national debt. That is in marked contrast to the Opposition’s solution of more tax, more borrowing and more debt, but we should not be surprised; after all, that has always been Labour’s way, and we know the shadow Chancellor is a fan of “cut and paste”.

I share the Government’s firm belief in the ability of education to break down barriers to opportunity and improve life chances. We are doing that in Aylesbury, where our excellent schools strive to give every child a brilliant start in life. Buckinghamshire is renowned for its grammar schools, and deservedly so, if my recent visit to Aylesbury High School is anything to go by. The spirited questions from its sixth formers reminded me somewhat of this place. However, it is not just academic education flourishing in Aylesbury. Since my election I have been a strong supporter of Aylesbury University Technical College, and I am extremely pleased to have been able to help to secure its long-term future. I am also pleased to see the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon)—who I know is an equally ardent supporter of UTCs—on the Front Bench.

I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to high-quality technical education, affirmed in the King’s Speech, and the parity of esteem that will be achieved with the introduction of the advanced British standard. That is how we open up more opportunities for young people, by providing options and educational choice—quite the contrast, once again, with those on the Opposition Benches, from whom all we have heard is the politics of envy in the form of taxing independent school fees. That is red meat for the militant left, but not a feasible plan for the Government. What better illustration could we have of the fact that on the Conservative Benches we believe in opportunity for all, whereas the Labour party believes in division?

Moreover, where better to illustrate the Conservative commitment to opportunity than my own county, where Buckinghamshire’s Conservative council runs the Opportunity Bucks programme to address education, health and income inequalities? While Buckinghamshire as a whole may be a wealthy county, parts of Aylesbury struggle with considerable deprivation. To tackle that, ambitious plans are in place for the redevelopment of our town centre. I look forward to working with the local business community, local councillors and the Levelling Up Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young), who is on the Front Bench, to ensure that the right long-term decisions are made for Aylesbury to remain a great place to live, work, visit and invest.

Unfortunately, these days it can be something of a challenge to get to Aylesbury and experience all that it has to offer, as a result of appalling traffic congestion. Much of that could be overcome by the rapid construction of the link roads that have been planned to circle the town, so the formal announcement in the King’s Speech of Network North is a welcome way to speed up the approval of funding for the south-east Aylesbury link road and the eastern link road project.

That would go some small way to begin compensating for the huge disruption and devastation that has been caused in my constituency by the construction of phase 1 of High Speed 2. It is a blight we see every day with woodlands being felled; it is a blight we feel every day sitting in yet more traffic as HS2’s heavy goods vehicles ruin our roads. Funding that comes from the cancellation of phase 2 of HS2 would be an important contribution to greater connectivity for individuals and firms alike. As the Federation of Small Businesses told me recently, connectivity is absolutely key to the success of companies across the country.

I will briefly address another barrier to opportunity: involvement in the criminal justice system. As the House knows, prior to my election, I served as a magistrate and was a member of the Sentencing Council and a non-executive director of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. My determination, and even passion, to improve the criminal justice system is one of the principal drivers of my work in this place. Over the past few years, we have seen a welcome increase in the emphasis on getting former prisoners into jobs, because we know that paid work can dramatically reduce the risk of reoffending. A job provides not only an honest wage but a sense of worth. Sadly, however, too many ex-offenders do not yet have that opportunity. That is partly because short prison sentences do relatively little to reduce reoffending, so I am pleased that the Government are embarking on radical sentencing reforms, especially by increasing the focus on robust community orders.

The concept of a virtual prison is one that we should also explore—to seize the opportunities afforded by digital innovation to create opportunities for personal change, growth and success. It is also right that for the worst offenders, the entire prison sentence will be spent behind bars, and that, for the most appalling crimes, life will mean life. That, too, represents opportunity: the opportunity for victims of crime to know that justice has been done; and the opportunity for the public to be safe, secure and protected from harm—the Government carrying out their first and prime duty to their citizens.

Whether in justice, in education or in the economy, the King’s Speech sets out Bills for the months ahead that show a brighter future for our country—a brighter future that can come only from this Conservative Government.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We have speeded up a bit. My guidance still stands, but it is now for speeches of eight or nine minutes.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) in this King’s Speech debate.

After 13 years of Tory Government, and three Prime Ministers in the last year and a half, this King’s Speech offered us pretty thin gruel. There was no real vision for the future, there was nothing like a plan to get there, and it was nowhere near adequate to meet the challenges this country is facing. The Speech contained just 21 Bills, six of which have been carried over from last year’s parliamentary Session. Many of those included, such as on leasehold reform, turn out on closer inspection to be pale shadows of what was promised by the Government. There are Bills that nod towards the need for reform but do not actually deliver meaningful change, or delay it so long as to be meaningless. They sit alongside such towering legislative ambitions as a Bill to license pedicabs in London.

That legislative programme leaves the challenges that my Wallasey constituents are facing virtually unaddressed: taxes are the highest they have been for 70 years, mortgages are up, rents have skyrocketed, the cost of living squeeze goes on, inflation remains the highest in the G7, and food inflation is higher still. Growth is projected to be zero next year, and the Bank of England has put the chance of a recession at 50:50. After 13 years of this Government, our rivers and seas are filled with sewage, our schools are crumbling, 94% of crimes go unsolved, our transport system is in chaos, and over 7.5 million people are on an NHS waiting list. Where in this King’s Speech were those things addressed?

Food insecurity was once rare; now, in the past year in a rich G7 country, over 11 million of our fellow citizens have experienced it. In my constituency of Wallasey, the number of emergency food bank parcels provided by the Trussell Trust has increased by 57% since the last general election. On the Wirral as a whole, over 16,000 people received emergency food parcels last year, a third of whom were children, and in the country as a whole, nine children out of 30 in a class are growing up in poverty. This legislative plan does not even mention, let alone begin to address, the daily struggles and hardship that millions of people in this country are now facing.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) mentioned, there were some notable omissions from the speech, including a promised reform of the Mental Health Act 1983; an employment Bill to give workers a fairer deal; and the Tory manifesto promise to ban conversion therapy for LGBT+ people. There was no sign of the promised reform of audit rules—boring to some, but quite important to the good working of our economy—and as my right hon. Friend pointed out, the promised reform of pensions was also absent. Despite the Prime Minister’s much-vaunted summit, there was no regulation of artificial intelligence anywhere to be seen, either.

We have a Government who have long since ceased to govern, who seem uninterested in tackling the serious issues our country faces and who seek division, rather than solution. We have a programme for the final year of this Parliament that was briefed out by senior Tories as being designed to set “traps” for Labour in the forthcoming general election campaign. The offshore petroleum licensing Bill is one such example: the industry says that the Bill will make no difference whatsoever, and the Secretary of State has been forced to admit that it will not lower energy costs for consumers. While rough sleeping is up 74% under the Tories, we have a Home Secretary who, instead of solving the problem of the housing shortage, wants to make it illegal to give tents to the homeless. She claims they are indulging in a “lifestyle choice” by having the temerity to sleep on our streets. We have five criminal justice Bills that toughen sentences for convicted criminals, but have nothing to say about the huge and growing backlogs of criminal cases —some of which are taking two years even to get to court—or about the plummeting arrest and conviction rates for serious offences. They are tinkering, not dealing with the real issues.

Rather than do the day job, this tired and incompetent Government are grinding to a halt. They seem much more preoccupied with pursuing their own internal factional fights than addressing the growing needs of the country. Even now, it is possible to discern the looming battle to be the next Leader of the Opposition commencing between the current Home Secretary and the Trade Secretary. We can spot the dwindling band of Boris Johnson supporters publishing absurd, conspiracy-laden books such as “The Plot” to explain his defenestration, when the rest of us only need to follow the covid inquiry to appreciate what the real explanation is. As the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) tours the world proclaiming that despite her catastrophic 44-day tenure in office, she was in fact right all along, we can see that the Tory party can never be the change that this country is crying out for.

The change Britain needs is a mission-led Labour Government embarking on 10 years of national renewal—a Government who will secure the highest growth in the G7, make Britain a clean energy superpower, build an NHS fit for the future, make Britain’s streets safe, and break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage. It is long past time for this flailing, divisive Tory Government to recognise that the country needs real change, and to call a general election so that the country can have the new start it deserves—and sooner rather than later.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call Flick Drummond.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for sticking to the guidance. As I said, I am more relaxed now, because there have been a couple of drop-outs.