John Bercow
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Valedictory Debate
John Bercow Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Speaker
Before I call the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), may I just explain to the House that a very large number of colleagues wish to speak and I have decided that the first two speakers should have eight minutes each? I hope that that is considered acceptable by the House, and of course there is scope for interventions, which would add to that eight minutes. Thereafter the limit will have to be tighter. I would happily sit here until midnight listening to the speeches, but, unfortunately again, I am subject to the timetabling, which is not determined by me. The first speaker in the debate will be the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire. I call Sir George Young.
Sir George Young (North West Hampshire) (Con)
I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate. It is appropriate that this Parliament should end with a procedural innovation—a valedictory debate—having begun with so many other such innovations.
The sponsors thought that this would be a quiet day before Prorogation, with those retiring least inclined to return to our constituencies, giving us the opportunity to bid farewell to the House before we turn into pumpkins at the stroke of midnight on Sunday. I am delighted that the Leader of the House is replying to the debate, that the Father of the House is in his place and that so many colleagues are eager to take part.
I made my maiden speech on 18 March 1974. 1 thought it would also be my valedictory speech, as a second election was imminent and I had a wafer-thin majority in Ealing, Acton. Indeed, Harold Wilson delighted in telling me that he was in my constituency twice a week, which he was—on the A40 to and from Chequers. I was lucky enough to get in first time and I have been here ever since. Thanks to the Boundary Commission, I have represented two very different seats—Ealing, Acton and North West Hampshire. It has been a privilege to serve my constituents, my party and my country in this House. Whether my career has justified that privilege is another matter. Few MPs can have been sacked by two Prime Ministers, and then brought back by both, thus showing some ambivalence about my talents. I doubt whether any will achieve the double of The Spectator Back Bencher of the Year award for leading the rebellion against the poll tax, and another one for being appointed Chief Whip—and for the same party.
Let me share a few quick reflections—first, on the coalition. The Liberal Democrats did the right thing in joining my party in coalition, and I believe that history will be kinder to them than the electorate is going to be. The coalition was at its strongest with the business managers, and I enjoyed working with my right hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) as Deputy Leader of the House, and with the current Secretary of State for Scotland and the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), who were Liberal Democrat Chief Whips. Both parties had Back Benchers with independent views—they were the so-called awkward squads, but the two squads tended not to be awkward at the same time. Their reluctance to engage with the Whips was mercifully matched by a reluctance to work with each other, and so defeat was rare.
I recall one exchange in a meeting in my office—without coffee—with a difficult colleague who wanted to talk about social mobility. He looked me in the eye and said: “Sir George, I believe in social mobility, downwards as well as upwards.”
I was greatly assisted in my task by two high-quality deputies, and a strong team of Whips who kept me out of serious trouble. There were occasions in the last Parliament when the Conservative Whips thought we had a better idea of how the Liberal Democrats were going to vote than their own Whips did, but together we helped deliver a stable five-year Government—something that many people doubted would ever happen. We were greatly assisted by the staff in the offices of the Leader of the House and the Whips under Mike Winter and Roy Stone.
At times, my patience with the Liberal Democrats was tested. I would get back to my constituency on Friday to find them taking the credit for all the good things the coalition had done, while blaming my party for the cuts that had made them possible.
Although a coalition was right for this Parliament, I hope it will not become the norm. I am worried that this country may drift towards an unstable Italian style of Government, with moving coalitions remote from the electorate. I worry too that the sharp change of direction that this country needed in, for example, 1945 and 1979 may no longer be possible.
Looking ahead, I hope that the next Parliament will work hard to ensure that the United Kingdom stays intact. The Union is more fragile than it has been since the partition of Ireland and will require very sensitive handling.
We need to restore confidence in the profession to which we all belong—that of politician. It is a paradox that most people believe that their own MP is a paragon of virtue, but refuse to generalise on the basis of that experience. We must decontaminate our brand and encourage more young able people to stand. Although we may never be popular, the next Parliament must rebuild public confidence both in MPs as a professional body and in Parliament as an effective and relevant institution.
To that end, I hope that we shall have a clean campaign, fought on the issues, with alternative positive visions of the future being promoted, with a minimum of personal invective and abuse. As a former Housing Minister, I hope that housing will be an important issue in the campaign, as we need to build more houses than were built under either of the last two Administrations if every family is to have a decent home.
Finally, if we have to leave this building at some future date for repairs, we must come back here. We should never abandon the history of this magnificent Palace of Westminster for a horseshoe-shaped Chamber in a new glass building outside London.
We have all in our time had our narrow squeaks. My career as Chief Whip nearly ended in disaster. One of my last visitors was the Australian Chief Whip who presented me with a whip—not a small whip that a jockey might use but a stock whip with a long leather handle, and yards and yards of leather of diminishing width. He made it clear that this was a personal gift to me and not a donation to the Whips Office. The rules on ministerial gifts are clear: if it is worth less than £125, one can keep it; if it is worth more, one must either buy it or give it to the Government. When my guest had gone, I asked my private office to establish the value of his gift. Minutes later, a white-faced official came into my room. All the websites he had accessed on my behalf had been barred by the parliamentary authorities, and he feared that retribution for the instigator was imminent.
I am conscious that many Members wish to speak, so I shall finish on that cautionary tale. I thank colleagues on both sides of the House and the staff of the House for their friendship over 40 years. I wish my successor and the new Parliament well in the challenges that lie ahead.
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman has done the House a wonderful service, not only in terms of his service in the House but in once again being briefer than he had to be, and it is appreciated.
Mr Speaker
Order. The time limit from now on is five minutes, but again the principle of interventions applies, of course. We want to try to accommodate everybody, so consideration of one other would be appreciated.
Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)
I entered the House on the same day as the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), and I was recalling just how much has changed in this place. When we arrived, there were no mobile phones, no e-mail and virtually no staff. My local party provided me with a rent-free office and a part-time secretary, so all those who accuse us of exploiting the expenses system should remember that we were exploited by it at the beginning.
When I was re-elected at the following election, I remember the Marchioness of Aberdeen, a great stalwart of Haddo house who lived to a great age, saying to me, “I’m so glad you got back. You had a small majority. I was so worried that I nearly voted for you.” That is the kind of thing we experience in life—the people who nearly voted for us. Fortunately, enough did vote for me to have the privilege of being here for 32 years, which I never expected when I set out.
Like other Members, there are particular things that I wanted to record and remember from my time here. I have served for long periods under a Conservative Government, a Labour Government and, latterly, a coalition Government—interesting and different experiences. Fundamentally, as others have said, it is the connection with one’s constituents and the ability to work on their behalf, whoever forms the Government, that I think most of us who are speaking today would regard as the privilege of being a constituency Member of Parliament.
One of the most important events of my time here was the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. I was very pleased, having been the leader of my party in Scotland at the time, to work with the late Donald Dewar in setting up the framework for what became the Scotland Act 1998, which he and I helped to deliver. I had one disagreement with him, however, and I think that the outcome shows that I was right. It was about the voting system. I supported it, as did he in the end, but we had an argument about whether the additional Members should be elected on the basis of a second vote or an adjustment of the first vote. My view was that we should adjust the first vote, and I think that I was right, because we would not have a Scottish National party majority if we had stuck with that system. Unfortunately, that tells us that we are going to have to address the issue in future.
I have had the privilege of serving on many Select Committees, ranging from the Scottish Affairs Committee to the Trade and Industry Committee, the Treasury Committee and the International Development Committee, which I have chaired for the past 10 years. I believe that Select Committees are one of the things we do best and that the Members who serve on them achieve a great deal, because their work is based on evidence, seeking consensus and really shaping policy, and that is invaluable. They are one of the great strengths of the House. It has been a privilege to be part of it.
It has been a privilege to see in this Parliament the delivery of the commitment, enshrined in law, to contribute 0.7% of national income to development assistance, although I absolutely agree that it is not the money that counts, but what is done with it and how effectively it is used, whether that is to champion the rights of women and girls and the poor around the world or to tackle climate change or disease. We, as a country, are now the second biggest donor in the world, which gives us the capacity to change and transform things, and it has been a privilege to be even a small part of that. Mr Speaker, you served on the International Development Committee —I very much enjoyed your company, both in the Committee and on our visits abroad—as did the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) and the Secretary of State for Health, so it has been a wonderful training ground, as Ministers, Speakers and all kinds of people have come through that route.
Mr Speaker, we had a rather tetchy debate just before this one. All I want to say about that is that if we are to have a secret ballot for the role of Speaker, the right time to introduce that is when you stand down, at a time of your choosing, so that we can decide how to elect the next Speaker. I have valued and appreciated your support and friendship, which, in terms of speaking in this House, I will not require again, but I hope that the friendship will last beyond that.
My final point is that the most important industry in my part of the world is the oil and gas industry, which is going through a difficult time at the moment. I want to pay tribute to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), for the work he did in commissioning the Wood review and setting up the oil and gas regulator, which I believe, along with the industry’s determination to get costs down, will in the long run make the industry more competitive, despite the difficulties today, including Shell’s announcement of new redundancies.
I never expected to be here for 32 years. As the former Member for Manchester Central, Tony Lloyd, once told me, you have to keep reinventing yourself. I guess that I have. It is time to reinvent myself, as of Sunday night, as a private citizen, and I am really looking forward to it.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his extremely kind personal remarks. He was a superb Chair of the International Development Committee, as, to be fair, was the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) before him. It was a pleasure to serve under his chairmanship, and I wish him well.
Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, having served for 24 years, may I commend your role as in my view the greatest reforming Speaker in memory, by making the Commons immensely more user and citizen-friendly, and especially for the way in which you have enhanced Back-Bench influence? I thank all the Commons staff, including our excellent Serjeant at Arms and especially the Doorkeepers, with whom I have had a specially close relationship since I invited them in to share a few bottles of wine—South African wine—in the Leader of the Commons’ office.
I thank my constituents in Neath and Neath constituency Labour party for their tremendous loyalty and support. I was a Pretoria boy, but I am proud to have become a Neath man. When I first arrived I was shown into a local primary school, Godre’r Graig school in the Swansea valley: “This is a very important person to meet you, class.” A little boy in the front row put up his hand and asked, “Do you play rugby for Neath?” Clearly, he had his priorities right.
I have been privileged and fortunate to have the very best friend anybody could have in Howard Davies of Seven Sisters, what he calls God’s own country, in the Dulais valley in Neath. I first met him in February 1990, a former miner who was lodge secretary at Blaenant colliery during the heart-rending year-long strike in 1984-85. My first agent and office manager, Howard has always been completely loyal and supportive, but privately frank and direct—priceless virtues which I commend to anyone in national politics.
Having come from a world of radical protest and activism, I never expected to be a Minister for 12 years. It began when Alastair Campbell unexpectedly called and said, “Tony wants to make an honest man of you.” Some former comrades on the left were disparaging, but my response was, “I’ve never been an all-or-nothing person. I’m an all-or-something person.” I am proud of many of the achievements of our last Labour Government, some of which I helped a little with, including bringing peace to Northern Ireland and devolution to Wales.
However, there was a tabloid columnist who described me as the “second most boring member of the Cabinet”. My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), the former Chancellor, came top. At least that was more civil than the editor of Sunday Express at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, when I led campaigns to disrupt whites-only South African rugby and cricket tours. He said: “It would be a mercy for humanity if this unpleasant little creep were to fall into a sewage tank. Up to his ankles. Head first.” That was nothing compared with the letter bomb I received, fortunately with a technical fault in it, or being put on trial for conspiracy at the Old Bailey for disrupting South African sports tours, or being charged with a bank theft that I knew nothing about, which was later discovered to have been set up by South African agents.
Despite serving as an MP and Cabinet Minister, and remaining a Privy Councillor, I have not changed my belief that progressive change comes only through a combination of extra-parliamentary and parliamentary action. We know that from the struggles of the Chartists, the suffragettes, the early trade unionists, anti-apartheid protesters, the Anti-Nazi League and Unite Against Fascism activists confronting groups such as the National Front and the British National party, and Greenpeace activists inspiring fights against climate change.
If I am asked for advice by young people, who often ask me, “Can you tell me how to have a career in politics?” I say, “It’s not about a career; it’s about a mission.” We should never be in it for ourselves, but for our values. For me, these are equality, social justice, equal opportunities, liberty and democracy in a society based on mutual care and mutual support, not the selfishness and greed now so sadly disfiguring Britain. These values underpinned the anti-apartheid struggle and brought me into the Labour party nearly 40 years ago, but nothing I was able to achieve as an MP or a Minister was possible without the support of my family—my wife Elizabeth Haywood, a rock to me, my wonderful sister Sally, her daughter Connie, my sons Sam and Jake, and their mum, my former wife Pat.
Above all, I am grateful to my mother Adelaine and my father Walter, for their values, courage, integrity, morality and principle. My mum when in jail on her own listened to black prisoners screaming in pain. My dad was banned and then deprived of his job. They did extraordinary things, but as Nelson Mandela said, “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others.”
After 50 years in politics some might say it is time to put my feet up, but I have been lucky to have the best father in the world, and he told me in the mid-1960s when I was a teenager living in apartheid South Africa, “If political change was easy, it would have happened a long time ago. Stick there for the long haul.” That is exactly what I will continue to do after leaving this House.
Mr Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury) (Con)
It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) as he and I share something a little unusual, in that we have travelled from remote parts of Africa to find ourselves both sent to this place and now departing on the same day.
The abruptness of my departure is matched by the abruptness of my arrival in a by-election 16 years ago, when the present Leader of the House was then the Leader of the Opposition, so my right hon. Friend had the title “Leader” both when I arrived in this place and now as I leave it.
When constituents give us the privilege of serving in this place, we have the great chance to deliver on the passions that we share, which are the essence of the job—to represent those constituents and all constituents once we are elected. That is what I have found most rewarding, whether through championing the dairy industry and the wider agricultural economy, or dealing with the challenging issues that have arisen in the largest town in my constituency, Winsford. I will always be grateful to all my constituents for sharing their experience and their hopes and giving me the chance to turn things around for the better.
Once here, the chance to deliver on areas of policy has driven many of us to swap our previous lives in order to be part of our parliamentary democracy and that has been an enormous privilege. In my case, having been a manufacturing industrialist for so long, I have added and moved on through financial, health and international development issues. Among my experiences here, I pay great tribute to the armed forces parliamentary scheme. For those of us who have not seen service, that has been a wise and helpful introduction to the great and noble service that our armed forces give our country in support of the very freedom that we here seek to defend.
My experience throughout the past 16 years as a politician has been the shared cause. Aspiring to be a politician, staying so and then looking back on one’s time is a genuinely noble cause—some may say it is dangerous to make such a claim—to participate in our own parliamentary democracy, to have the privilege of a seat in this House and to have a platform. I had expected to be here longer—indeed, my re-election literature is just being pulped and my successor was chosen last night. I wish her well. I hope she will be elected and then serve brilliantly. With very few days to adjust, I find it is not so much the place that I anticipate missing, but above all the platform and the people.
I have enjoyed having the platform to deliver on some genuine enthusiasms, such as my passion to seek to deliver progress on the control of neglected tropical diseases and malaria, the world’s biggest killer, which is totally avoidable and treatable. We have made progress, with support across the House and across Government divides. I pay tribute to the joint enterprise in which we have all engaged to make a significant difference in our generation to that great cause. The platform that Parliament gives us enables us to engage the political will with the resources and the technical expertise to deliver results for some of the most needy people in the world.
As I reflect on my imminent departure, it is ultimately people who have defined my time here and will define my memory of it—colleagues and the many friends I have made, particularly on the Government Benches but, let it be said, in all parties and in both Houses. For that I shall be eternally grateful and very much hope to keep up with them. I have been blessed with the most phenomenal and loyal staff here in the House, with fantastic support in the constituency. The staff of the House and you, Mr Speaker, your predecessors and the Speaker’s Office have all been extremely helpful in assisting us to deliver what we all care about, which is an effective mother of Parliaments with a modern, functioning democracy.
I thank all the people of Eddisbury and the members of the Conservative party here and in Eddisbury. I leave Parliament with a passionate belief in parliamentary democracy, our values of accountability and challenge that politics brings, and the chance that my constituents gave me to seek in my own small way to make a difference for the greater good. It is that which unites all of us in this House and which, I hope, will continue to drive the work that I now find I am turning to at the United Nations. So I thank all the people here. And I thank particularly my parents, my family, my children and my wife.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure that the whole House wishes him very well with the important new responsibilities that he will shortly take up.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to see the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) in his place. I first stood for Parliament in February 1974; I was able to discover that there were 14,000 socialists in Tonbridge and Malling, but unfortunately they were 10,000 fewer than the number of Conservatives who voted for the right hon. Gentleman. I took his and his constituents’ advice and moved elsewhere, and it has been my privilege to have served as the Member for Blackburn for the past 36 years.
Blackburn is a singular town in many ways, one of which is that it has had only two Members of Parliament—Barbara Castle, my predecessor, and me—in the 70 years since the war. I learned a great deal from Barbara, not least that the first and most fundamental responsibility of any Member of Parliament is to his or her constituents, however high and mighty that Member thinks they are and whatever office of state they may hold. It is our constituents who are, as it were, our employers and grant us the extraordinary privilege of serving in this place.
When I finally came to the House in May 1979, the conditions of the country were harsh and difficult, yet there was a greater instinctive faith in our political system and respect for its representatives collectively than there is today. There is a paradox here: in the 36 years I have been in the House, this place has become more effective, not less, in holding Government to account. In turn, governance itself has become more responsive and transparent.
In the past, the processes of government were protected by secrecy; judicial review was a rarity; there were no Select Committees; many Back Benchers on both sides held down full-time jobs outside; and the regulation of Members’ interests was elementary. The demands of constituents were far fewer: in the Select Committee that I chaired, we had evidence that, in the 1960s, each Member of Parliament had an average post box of between 15 and 20 letters a week.
Parliament has become stronger, MPs have never been more hard-working and this place has never been more visited, yet cynicism about politics is more pervasive than I can recall. The age of deference has come to an end, which in many respects is no bad thing. We are no longer on a pedestal. But I am reminded of those lines by T.S. Eliot in “Burnt Norton”:
“Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.”
We are now having to bear much reality. It would be good to see the prism through which this place and our politics are reported distorting the reality rather less often, but we have to examine the beam in our own eye as well.
The most urgent change needed by this place is in respect of Prime Minister’s questions. This is not a trivial matter about half an hour a week; it is part of the way in which people see our politics. Whatever purpose it served in the past, it now gives a terrible impression and rarely illuminates. It is time to change it. In the short term, we should go back to the 15 minutes on a Tuesday and Thursday; in the medium term, we should ask the Procedure Committee to look more closely at how it should be changed. I suggest that we also need to do something more about attendance in the Chamber. Perhaps we could consider Committee days and Chamber days, as happen elsewhere.
The average length of service for a Member of Parliament is 11 years, and I have been incredibly lucky to have served my constituents for three times that. For a big village, as we often describe ourselves, my town has had to change more than most others as it has absorbed a large Asian-heritage population, but it has done so with a generosity of spirit.
Deciding to leave was incredibly difficult. I love my constituency and I love this place. There has not been a day when, coming into this building, I have not marvelled at its inspiration. I thank my constituents for the privilege it has been to serve them; my wife and family for their unstinting support; my staff; and friends and colleagues on both sides.
This is a wondrous place. I felt that in May 1979 when I first arrived. I feel it still now, as I leave.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman, who has been a model of courtesy and companionship to me and colleagues right across the House. He leaves this place as a hugely respected figure.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I made my maiden speech on 19 May 1992. By all accounts, it was a brilliant speech, because nobody interrupted me and within hours it was in a bound volume. I am very proud of that.
In ’92, of course, devolution was very much a minority sport. Nowadays it is central to virtually everything we do, as every Bill has on it its territorial reach. I mentioned many times in those early days that I was elected to Parliament in order to leave it, by which I meant in order to secure a Parliament for Wales.
In the 1992 Parliament, I well remember having to stay up all night during the Maastricht debates because I was the youngest of our Members and I was charged with waking up my friends and getting them in for the critical vote, which very often was between 4.30 am and 5.30 am. This went on for months, and often on two or three nights per week. It was at this time that I began to reflect on the enormity of what I had done in leaving a good legal practice and comfortable, rewarding job for this utter chaos, with its points of order, opera hats, “I spy strangers”, and general mayhem. Thankfully, of course, Maastricht came to an end, and something approaching normality descended in its place.
Looking back, I see that my Plaid Cymru colleagues, past and present, have a good record. For the past 35 years, we have pointed out, for example, the iniquity of the Barnett formula, with Wales losing out on billions of pounds over the years, and successive Governments denying it and making excuses. Post the Holtham report and the report from the other place, it is now received wisdom, and the fight goes on.
It so happens that I was the first person in the UK Parliament to argue for a Children’s Commissioner for Wales, and that came in 1993, swiftly followed by our friends in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Some eight years ago, I began a campaign on behalf of ex-servicemen who find themselves on the wrong side of the law after I discovered that upwards of 8,000 were in prison. This became a manifesto issue for every party at the last election.
During the 2010-11 period, I was privileged to chair a working group that brought in laws against stalking. Those laws have now saved lives, and there are currently over 800 cases before the courts. Last month, the Government accepted a ten-minute rule Bill of mine that brought coercive behaviour within the legal framework of domestic violence law.
I well remember opening a debate on the need for Parliament to see the full version of the Attorney-General’s opinion on the legality of the war in Iraq. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) spoke for the other side and did everything he could to trip me up—which was his job, of course, at the time. I opened the debate and my friend Alex Salmond closed for us. From a joint group of nine, we secured a vote of over 280, which I think was quite a substantial thing to do.
I suppose that what I am saying is that someone from a small parliamentary party can actually make a real difference—free of the dead hand of the Whips and free of any ministerial ambitions.
I thank my family for their forbearance and sacrifices. We all know what I mean by saying that: it can be a sacrifice for our families. I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and your deputies for your fair-minded approach to all of us, whichever party we belong to. I thank all Speakers under whom I have had the privilege to serve. I also thank the Library and research staff, my parliamentary staff and constituency staff, and, last but not least, the security staff, police and Doorkeepers who enable us to do our work in the fashion that we do.
In an awards ceremony speech in Cardiff city hall four months ago, I said that I believe that 99% of Members of Parliament are good, honest people who want to make a real difference, and I hold very firmly to that view. I thank the electorate of Meirionnydd, Nant Conwy and Dwyfor for their steadfast support and loyalty over these last 23 years, and I wish my successor well in her endeavours.
If I could wind back the clock, I would do it all again—more than that I cannot say. For one who came to Parliament in order to leave it, I shall miss it and the many friends I have made across the political spectrum.
Mr Newmark
I thank my hon. Friend for his very kind comments, but I think that sometimes it is important that we put our families before ourselves, and that is a decision I have made.
My constituents have been amazing. Over the past 10 years, I have probably dealt with about 10,000 bits of correspondence. I particularly want to thank my constituents for their support over the past year, both to me and my family. My association has been fantastic. We fought some great campaigns. I particularly want to thank Jenny Jarvis, who was my first chairman, Roger Walters, Chris Siddall, who was my final chairman, and of course my agent Rikki Williams. We had some great times together, and I certainly enjoyed all my campaigns with them.
Unusually for an MP, I have not only got along with my association but actually got along with my councillors. I particularly want to thank Graham Butland, the leader of Braintree council, and David Finch, the leader of Essex county council. We have all worked very well as a team—my association and my district and county councillors. Finally, I would like to thank Paula Malone, my PA, for her support over the past 10 years.
It has been a long journey for me, from Bedford school in October 1973, when I joined the Young Conservatives, and Keith Joseph was my inspiration, to the Oxford Union, where my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) was my inspiration—I have known him for 35 years—to when I became chairman in Bermondsey, stood in Newcastle in ’97, and was finally selected, won and became the Member of Parliament for Braintree.
When we are selected, one of the things we all do is to get stuck into local campaigns. There are many campaigns that I have really got stuck into in Braintree, but I want to highlight just a few of them. For me, getting a community hospital there was one of the great success stories. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Alan Hurst, for the work that he did; I took on that mantle from him. Saving the postal depot at Halstead was a success. When we worked to build up the flood defences in Steeple Bumpstead, the village was torn as to where they should be, and working with both sides and pulling them together was something of an achievement. When there was the threat of 300 acres of solar panels in the north part of my patch, in Constable country, stopping those being built was a success story. I have had some not-success stories. I wanted to get the extension of the A120, which never happened, and a loop between Braintree and Witham, which also did not happen. But those are challenges for my successor, whoever he may be; I certainly hope it is a Conservative.
Supporting local community groups has also been important. I supported PARC—the play and resource centre—by running a marathon and raising £40,000 for it. I have worked with Braintree Rethink, the homeless charities Braintree Foyer and New Direction, and St Mary’s church in Bocking.
I served on the Science and Technology Committee for two years, on the Treasury Committee for four years, and in the Whips Office for five years, and I finally ended up as Minister for Civil Society.
Being an MP provides a great platform for things that you want to campaign on. One of the campaigns that I am most proud of is Women2Win. When I arrived here, we had only 17 female Members of Parliament. Exactly 10 years ago, with Baroness Jenkin, I founded Women2Win. At the last election we had 49 women MPs, and I certainly hope that at the next election we have more. I hope that next we can have a “50:50 by 2020” campaign whereby we get 50% women by 2020. I started the Million Jobs campaign to try to get more young people into work, and I thank the Chancellor for abolishing national insurance contributions for young people. I welcomed the seed enterprise investment scheme, which encourages venture capital, and I worked to protect the International Commission on Missing Persons, for which I got the support of the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks). I have also worked in Rwanda and Syria.
As I bring this chapter of public service to a close, I begin a new chapter of voluntary service. I shall work with Crisis, the homeless charity, and my own charity, A Partner in Education, doing primary education in Rwanda, and I shall spend time at Oxford.
I leave today a little sad. This has been an amazing experience. I have made many friends from all parties. I thank the staff and you, Mr Speaker, for the support you have given me, particularly over the past year. My constituents feel like a part of my family and it has been a privilege to serve them.
Finally, I thank my wife Lucy and my children Benjamin, Sam, Max, Lily and Zachary for the support they have given me over the years.
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) that there is no problem on the issue of latitude. The time limit for Back Benchers is shorter, but the opportunity for interventions still exists.
Mr Newmark
I was not sure whether I was allowed a second intervention, Mr Speaker, but I wanted to make sure that my right hon. Friend could make as much progress as possible with his excellent speech.
Sir John Stanley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I am anxious not to be responsible for cutting anybody out of this debate.
I want to turn to my next very important point. I will not repeat what I said on 6 March in the debate on the private Member’s Bill, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. For me, there is a fundamental issue of principle, which I hope those elsewhere in the House might share. If the Government of the day lose a vote of confidence in this House—if only by one vote—the right to decide the future of the Government should lie absolutely with the people of this country, not with political leaders cobbling together a deal behind closed doors.
Mr Lansley
As ever, the right hon. Gentleman is very kind. Just as the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich mentioned that he shared an alma mater with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), the right hon. Member for Blackburn and I share an alma mater. I followed him there and I followed him here, albeit with a slightly bigger time lag.
I want to make some remarks from my heart. First, I want to thank my constituents. I hope they agree with many of the things for which I fought on their behalf in the constituency—infrastructure, the A14, the rebuilding of Papworth hospital, broadband infrastructure, the planning, maintaining our quality of life, supporting research and development and science, and making it the best place in the world for life sciences investment and one of the best in the world for any kind of scientific or high-tech investment. We talk about the Cambridge phenomenon, and a great part of it is in South Cambridgeshire; we can honestly say that we are the eastern powerhouse. I hope it is not hubris to say that I leave my constituency in extremely good shape and with a quality of life among the best in the country.
I also want to say a big thank you to Michael Howard and to the Prime Minister. They gave me the chance to be the Conservatives’ shadow Health Secretary for seven years—contrary to what the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich said, I had a long tenure in that post—and then the privilege of serving as Secretary of State for Health. Supporting the NHS and improving the health of the people of this country has been my passionate commitment in Parliament. In opposition, we fought for safer care and, in government, we got it. In opposition, we secured the highest ever level of public trust in the Conservative party’s policies for the NHS. In government, we delivered on our commitment to increase the NHS budget in real terms and to safeguard the NHS in tough times. I know that commitment will be sustained by a Conservative Government in the years to come.
I was determined to do more—to achieve the reforms in the NHS that virtually all recent Secretaries of State knew were needed but had not been secured. Many say that I implemented a reorganisation of the NHS that I promised not to do. That is not true. The Conservative manifesto had no reference to “no top-down reorganisation”. I was elected on the Conservative manifesto and I delivered it, including rising real NHS resources; getting rid of political targets; using information and choice to drive better outcomes; creating a strong, independent NHS voice, with GPs at the heart of commissioning; creating Healthwatch to represent patients; cutting administration costs by a third to increase front-line staffing; commissioning a 24/7 service, with GP access from 8 to 8; setting up the 111 service; virtually eliminating the longest waits for operations; cutting infections to record lows; abolishing mixed-sex accommodation; more than 1 million more people getting NHS dentistry; establishing the cancer drugs fund, with 60,000 benefiting from access to the latest treatments; and reforming social care so that people no longer have to sell their homes to pay for their care.
We did that and more. With our Liberal Democrat colleagues, we established health and wellbeing boards, with public health responsibilities and the capacity to integrate health and care. It was not easy and it was not popular, but public service reform is not a popularity contest. It must and will survive. It needs to survive because it will make a big difference in the future. My Back-Bench colleagues were robust, solid and consistent in their support, and I thank them and the Prime Minister for backing reform. The reality will show through in the years ahead, as we have seen in recent announcements, not least from NHS England.
I had a career before coming here and I will have a career after leaving, but I will always remain proud of what we have done here, as well as thankful for the comradeship of colleagues, those with whom I have worked, the staff of the House, the staff in my office and so many across my constituency.
When we are here, we trade blows and we take a lot of blows, but it is probably our families who feel them the most. They cannot go into the arena and fight back, but they feel the pain at least as much as ever we do. I want to say a big thank you to Sally and my family.
I would like to conclude, if I may, with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, who said:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds”.
I have always striven to leave my constituency and the country better for my efforts. I may have erred, but I have always cared deeply for my constituency and my causes, and I will continue to do so. Time will be my judge. I am content to have been a man in the arena.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said. It might be helpful to the House to know that there are 13 colleagues still seeking to catch my eye, and I am looking to call the wind-up speeches from the Front Bench at approximately 4.10 pm. Members can do the arithmetic for themselves. It is roughly five minutes each, but no more.
Mr Doran
I thank the right hon. Gentleman; I now have a minute left.
The other Committee I have taken an interest in, was a member of and became Chair of was your works of art committee, Mr Speaker. I am proud of and have enjoyed the work I have done on that committee. However, probably the most enjoyable experience of my life—sitting next to my wife, I think this is saying quite a lot—was when the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, of which I was a member, visited Hollywood to look at the film industry and I managed to spend two hours on my own with Maureen O’Hara and Jean Simmons. I challenge any Member to beat that.
Like everyone else, I want to thank the staff of the House, particularly the Clerks on the various Committees I have been involved with, and especially my loyal staff in Aberdeen, most of whom have been with me for a very long time and have kept me sane for most of it.
Mr Speaker
I note the hon. Gentleman’s joy at meeting his heroines. I empathise: having half an hour last November with Roger Federer in London was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and I will never forget it. For the greatest tennis player of all time to spare half an hour for me was extraordinarily generous of him.
Mr Speaker
Order. If memory serves me correctly, it was the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) who escorted the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) home that night; I remember it well.
Mr Speaker
Order. I thank the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who is much esteemed across the House, and wish him well for the future.
Dame Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
It is a rare privilege to be allowed to make a valedictory speech, Mr Speaker. I have to admit that this is the first one I have ever had the opportunity to make in leaving a job; normally, there was a wee present and a drink in the local pub, so this certainly is an elevation beyond my expectations.
The people of Stirling paid me the honour of electing me four times and I thank them sincerely for it. Placed at the heart of Scotland, it is a constituency made up of many different and vibrant communities, across an area the size of Luxembourg. It is the most northerly rural Labour seat in the United Kingdom. I am its first woman MP, and there is a little picture of me in the city’s Smith museum, overlooking the marble bust of a previous MP for the city, Campbell-Bannerman, who was against votes for women—I think people going into our Smith museum get the message.
I want to echo the thanks of other hon. Members who have spoken highly of the staff of the Commons. From the moment I entered this place some 18 years ago, they have shown nothing but courtesy and service to me and other Members. Of course, I give a special thanks to my parliamentary staff, Graham, Heather, Aileen, Stephen, Rachel and Gerry, for their support and forbearance during my time in Parliament. I also thank my constituency party members and my trade union, the GMB.
Like you, Mr Speaker, I came into this House in 1997. At that time, pupils in my area were being educated in schools where buckets were needed to catch the rain; we needed a new hospital; our sports facilities were not able to cope with the demands of an increasingly keep-fit society; and the long-held ambition of creating a national park had still not been realised. Yet, within a few years those schools had been replaced or refurbished; new sports halls were built; we had our own new hospital; and one of the most scenic areas in the country, the Trossachs, had become a national park. I make no apology for saying that all those things were completed or commissioned under Labour Administrations.
I am going to pick out two or three highlights in this House for me. The first is the banning of handguns in 1997, and I hope there is never an attempt in this country to weaken that legislation. The second is the passing of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, because for me it was one of the most impressive House of Commons occasions, when people were prepared to put on the public record their own journey to accepting civil partnerships. That made such a contrast with the divisive and harsh debate about section 28 in the 1980s. The third was when, as Minister for Disabled People, I travelled to New York to sign the United Nations convention on the rights of people with disabilities on behalf of the UK Government, with a young disabled man, Miro Griffiths, at my side. I am sure the Leader of the House, as a former distinguished Minister for Disabled People, will appreciate the significance of that occasion. My regret about these past five years, however, is that some of the progress on disability rights has been seriously undermined, certainly in the eyes of disabled people themselves, by some of the very “radical”—I use the word advisedly—changes in our benefits system.
I am the eldest of a family of four girls. I, along with my sisters Kathleen, Helen and Frances, and our parents, lived for the first six years of my life up a small Glasgow stair, in a tenement. We had a room and kitchen, and an outside toilet. Down here it would probably be called a “studio apartment with bijou facilities”. Moving to a Glasgow housing scheme, which had a proper bathroom, was an unbelievable step up for my hard-working parents. Their ambition for us as their daughters was that we would take advantage of an education system, and we all did. They left school at 14, whereas we took advantage of the education system, and our children thought that university was the way to improve their own education. It was the ambition of that post-war generation that things would be better for their families.
Finally, I want to say a special thanks to my husband Len and my children Paul and Sarah, all three of whom have given me tremendous support. Mr Speaker, when I came into this House I was a “Blair’s babe”. I am pleased today to take leave of it as Orla and Seumas’s granny.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Lady for what she has said and the way in which she has said it.
Mr Speaker
Order. There will be no reduction in time limits, as I do not think that would be fair, but if Members could speak for four minutes each, that would help. If that is not possible, we will just have to cope as best we can.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
I always said that I would leave this place before I lost the buzz of having the privilege of speaking in this Chamber. I am very happy to say that after 18 years I am doing that.
There are many people who did not think I would last 18 years. The late Lord Rees-Mogg wrote an article every time I stood for election, saying that on the basis of an extensive poll of his friends and family, I was going to lose the next election. It did not quite happen. I was elected for the first time with a majority of 130. I followed it up at the following two elections still with three-figure majorities. I increased my majority each time, but by nothing so vulgar as four figures, until last time. Had I done it four times in a row, I think I would have established a more recent record for any parliamentarian, having four three-figure majorities, but I blew it by getting a larger majority at the last election.
I made up for it by being the first Liberal Minister to speak from the Dispatch Box since 1945, the previous one being Sir Archibald Sinclair. That will be my little footnote in history. I hugely enjoyed my time in government, both in the job of Deputy Leader of the House and as Agriculture Minister, although I was faced with an almost endless succession of acts of God, it seemed to me when I carried out the latter role, so much so that I felt I was the Minister for the apocalypse. It was pestilence, plague, floods, death and destruction on an almost daily basis.
I want to say that I was very proud to be a part of the Government. I particularly thank those in my two private offices who made my life bearable and supported me so well during that time. The principal role, of course, is to represent one’s constituency. I sometimes feel that I have become a bit of a Somerset cliché. I have brought matters to the House such as thatching, cider making, cheese making and carnivals—things that make people think, “Oh, for heaven’s sake—he’s doing his west country thing again!” My answer to that is that if I did not say those things, who on earth else would represent my constituents?
I like to think that I have also made progress on some really important issues—the A303 finally being done after all these years, the Great Western railway, what I hope will be successful responses to the flooding in my constituency, and maybe even broadband for some of my rural areas. When I was first elected, I did not imagine that Frome would ever be listed as one of the coolest places in Britain, but it has been repeatedly in recent years, along with Bruton, another town in my constituency. Even more importantly, I did not imagine, back in the ’80s when unemployment in Frome was 17%, that it would now be less than 1%—statistically, that is full employment. That is a great virtue and I am very pleased about it.
The House needs to address some issues. There needs to be further reform, as I do not believe we have completed the job. I have a huge amount of time for my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young) and I think we significantly reformed the House, but things were left undone—such as the establishment of a House Committee, on which we were, if I may say so, thwarted. I hope that future Governments will set one up.
We need to get a better balance between the constituency responsibilities of Members of Parliament and their responsibilities in this House. When I was first elected, I went on to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Other members of the Committee thought I was ineffably quaint because I insisted on going back at weekends to do surgeries. Some 99.9% of Members now do advice surgeries most weekends, but that may be at the expense of the scrutiny of legislation, and that worries me.
We obviously need to carry on working on the relationship between constituents and MP, aided and abetted of course by reports in the press. I do not mind occasionally being called names by the press. I remember once being called “a Tajik with toothache”; another time I was described as a cross between David Lloyd George and Father Christmas. That we can deal with, but we should not put up with the constant, relentless, drip, drip, drip of negativity towards MPs.
Lastly, I could not have done my job without the support of my staff: Georgina and previously Jack in London, and Claire, Chris and Teresa at my office in Frome. I could not have done it without my family, particularly my wife Caz and my children Bethany and Tom. I am very proud of having served the 900 square miles, 135 villages and 82,000 happy, smiling, tolerant, independent, bloody-minded, cantankerous Somerset people—and I am proud to be one of them.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Forty-eight years ago, when I first joined the Labour party having been rather angry at the way in which a landlord had treated a neighbour of mine, little did I think that I would end up here. I thought about that when I gave my maiden speech on 6 May 1992. The 23 years between then and now have been extraordinary and I have a lot of people to thank for that, particularly from my local party, which contains some great stalwarts and wonderful people.
We have heard tributes being paid to great people in politics, some of whom work at the local level. Reg Chrimes and the late Fred Venables and Norman Angel—extraordinary people of great integrity—had something like 150 years of public service as councillors between them. If a little bit of their integrity has rubbed off on me, I will leave this place a proud man.
You were involved in one of my achievements here, Mr Speaker, namely my 10-year campaign to have Nelson Mandela’s appearance in the Great Hall recognised with a plaque there. It did take rather a long time. I remember the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), when he was the Leader of the House, pointing out that the wheels grind very slowly here. That is probably the only early-day motion I have signed that has had an effect.
I want to reflect on such things as the legislation on agency workers and the work done—on a cross-party basis, I have to say—to support Vauxhall Motors. We have transformed that company with the support of Ministers from all three political parties. More recently, there has been the acquisition of the Thornton research centre, which must be going in the right direction because it has attracted visits by four Cabinet Ministers within the past year. We hope to see more Cabinet Ministers—Labour ones, I hope—during the next Parliament.
In the past few years, I have concentrated my efforts on the science agenda and the work of the parliamentary and scientific committee, the first ever all-party group. It was formed 75 years ago, and last year it had its 75th birthday party, hosted by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh in Buckingham palace. There is also the work we have done on the Science and Technology Committee during the past five years. It is a great pleasure to see the right hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts) in his place, because he had to face me many times in enjoyable exchanges.
Some of those points are covered in the Select Committee’s legacy report. In the foreword to the report, I have commended the extraordinary staff we have in this House, and put on the record my thanks to the Committee for its collegiate approach. We have never had a political division in the Committee; yet we have published some reports that are quite blunt about failures within Government. That says a lot about the new process, and reflects well on the election of Chairs and the authority that that gives Chairs over their Committee. I refer hon. Members to the Chair’s foreword to the legacy report, because there is a wonderful picture of me in the Jubilee Room setting off a methane mamba in my hand. It could have set the Houses of Parliament on fire, but I assure everyone that it was a controlled experiment.
Just yesterday, a Bill was published. I do not know, Mr Speaker, whether from your deep reading of parliamentary literature you are aware of the publication of this fake Bill by the science community—you can guess who was behind it. It is called the Andrew Miller parliamentary farewell appreciation (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill and was presented to me in all its glory, looking just like a parliamentary Bill, by the science community. I am immensely proud of that, but what I am really proud of is the work that the Committee has done to deserve the accolades it has received.
Finally, if I may, I want to thank the staff I have had over the years, and particularly, as several hon. Members have done, to thank my family, and nobody more than my wife Fran, who has stuck with me through thick and thin during this period. It has been an extraordinary 23 years, and I have enjoyed every single minute of it.
Mr Speaker
I am looking to call Sir George, for the last two minutes of the debate, at 4.28 pm.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I echo the sentiments expressed by the retiring Member, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young).
Yesterday, while I was asking a question, you intervened, Mr Speaker, because a Conservative Member shouted, “SNP gain”. I could have said, “Well, that’s exactly what the Conservative Members want—more SNP Members down here”, but I did not respond because traditionally if a Member does not respond to a sedentary intervention, it does not get recorded. In fact, however, I find it was entered in Hansard in column 1429. I denied myself that political point, because I wanted to concentrate, as you know, on the serious question facing my constituents. Will you look at this matter again, Mr Speaker? It has been said that someone else referred to the incident three questions later and therefore it was entered into the record.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I understand that Hansard followed its usual policy to include an intervention from a sedentary position if it is commented upon in subsequent proceedings, as in this case. I note what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I am sure he will understand that we cannot take the matter further at this stage.
The sitting is suspended until 5 pm. Shortly before the sitting resumes, I shall cause the Division bells to be sounded.