Constitution and Home Affairs

Simon Hart Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to you for calling me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but not half as grateful as my family and friends in the Public Gallery, who I rather naively suggested should be here at half-past two.

I pay tribute to all who have made their maiden speeches today. There was one common theme: each was better than the last—a pattern that I confidently expect to bring to an early closure.

While I am paying tributes, let me mention my predecessor, Nick Ainger. I do not think that, in the 20-odd years for which I knew him, there was a single issue on which we agreed, but that did not mean that we did not hold him in great regard. I know that he was respected in the House, but he was also respected in our part of west Wales, and we wish him well in whatever he plans to do now.

Let me also say what a pleasure it is to enter the House alongside my hon. Friends the Members for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans), and for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies). We are a little short of the 15 Welsh Members whom we hoped to tally up with a rugby team just before the election, but I hope we now have a broad rural and urban representation that is relevant—and what we may lack in size in the Vale of Glamorgan, we undoubtedly make up for in age in Montgomeryshire.

I love my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire like a brother, but I hope he will not mind my regretting, just slightly, the loss of Mr Lembit Öpik from the House. Lembit was a good friend of many people, and—let’s face it—he brought a certain colour to proceedings on both the inside and the outside. He was also pioneering unusual coalitions long before they became a habit in the House.

I fully understand why not many Members have ever been to, or in many cases even heard of, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire. It is, after all, quite a long way west. Let me, however, take a few seconds to whet Members’ appetites. There has been a bit of a competition among the new entry about who can paint the juiciest picture of their constituency. I can tell the House that there is more coastline in my part of the world than anywhere else except the Isle of Wight, and that we have 30 beaches, two estuaries, 12 castles, an oil refinery, a power station under construction, and fantastic farming and tourism industries. If all that is too much for Members, we have our own island monastery and two nudist camps—not co-located, I might add.

Dylan Thomas wrote “Under Milk Wood”, while in a sober state, in my constituency, and Gareth Edwards is still as happy catching sea trout and salmon on the River Towy as he ever was scoring tries at the old Arms Park. If the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) was worried about where the beach scene in Russell Crowe’s recent “Robin Hood” epic was filmed, I can reassure him by saying that it was in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire—and I regret to tell the House that Dobby dies in the sand dunes on Freshwater West beach in the final film in the Harry Potter series, which comes out next year. [Laughter.] I hope that I have not said anything that I should not have said.

It should not be thought that everything is rosy in our particular garden, however. We have the same economic and social problems as any other constituency, which is why today’s debate is so crucial. I was encouraged when the Deputy Prime Minister nodded in the direction of rurality in the context of constitutional reform. People who form just 2% of the electorate cannot help thinking from time to time that their votes may not count for anything at all, and cannot help thinking from time to time that Governments are there to do things to them rather than for them. If we have learned anything at all in rural communities during the election campaign it is that voters have told us that cheaper is not necessarily the same as better in politics, and that quality was raised much more often than cost in our doorstep conversations.

Our voters hope that this new coalition will adopt a less-is-more approach to government and will have at its heart four simple objectives: to keep us safe; to keep us solvent; to keep us healthy; and to keep us free from prejudice and discrimination. Honour and respect for politics and Parliament will be restored only if we apply those simple rules to every single decision we take in this House.