Debate on the Address
Debate between Stephen Pound and Michael Ellis(9 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins). He spoke with great passion and eloquence, and he is no doubt already a credit to his constituents. I am sure that we all wish him well here. He spoke with passion about his constituency and its people, and about his predecessor, who was a long-standing Member of the House. Many of us did not always agree with Sir Menzies, but we respected him for his longevity here and for his wise words on many occasions. The hon. Gentleman is following in those footsteps; he spoke with considerable passion and clarity about what matters to him. That is why we are sent here, and it does not matter if we are sent from the furthest north, south, east or west. I should like to extend my welcome to the hon. Gentleman now.
The hon. Gentleman made some accomplished remarks and will be a credit to his constituents. I think he also mentioned the House stocking certain products from his constituency. If I heard him correctly, he made a request about alcoholic beverages. That could actually be arranged. I am sure that he will not yet have found the Strangers Bar. It is quite a difficult location to find, and I know that the Scottish Members might need some assistance from others to find it. When the hon. Gentleman does so, he will see that it occasionally has guest alcohols. Perhaps he could arrange for products from his constituency to be among them.
I welcome the new Members from all the parties, but I particularly welcome the 76 new Conservative Members. We have not been wearing a rose today. I thought at first that the Scottish Members were wearing a Tudor rose as a mark of royalist endeavour, but I might have been mistaken. I am particularly honoured to have been re-elected as the Member for Northampton North. It is the town where I was born and brought up, and I have lived and worked there my whole life. My family live there, and my parents still live there. Coming back to this place with a substantially increased majority is a great honour for me.
I am not, however, going to follow in the footsteps of all my predecessors. One of them had the distinction of being the only Prime Minister of this country to be assassinated while in office, albeit in May 1812—
Michael Ellis
From what I hear, the hon. Gentleman recalls the incident quite well.
Stephen Pound
I was not actually present in the House in 1812, but Spencer Perceval was happy to live in the glorious and ancient borough of Ealing.
Michael Ellis
No we do not, Mr Speaker, and I would not want to annoy you so far as other historical figures are concerned, but I shall just point out that one of my other predecessors was Charles Bradlaugh, who was the last Member to be imprisoned in the Clock Tower. That happened only in the 1880s.
Turning to the Gracious Speech, this majority Conservative Government now have an opportunity to help the ordinary working people in my constituency and up and down the country through measures that will continue to reduce the level of unemployment. Under the previous Labour Government, unemployment was allowed to spiral out of control at an unprecedented level. The facts speak for themselves. From whatever angle we look at this, unemployment is down. In my constituency, it is down by more than 50% on the level of five years ago, and youth unemployment is down by more than 63%.
The Gracious Speech referred to measures that will further reduce unemployment, and I look forward to seeing millions more jobs and more apprenticeships created. I also look forward to the welfare reforms, which are, of course, designed to incentivise work and have already gone some way towards doing that. We will see further reductions in the maximums, so that there will be a greater incentive for people who can and wish to work to do so. I want and am encouraged to see further funding for the national health service, as there is no better example of our one nation philosophy than the NHS. Northampton general hospital, where I was born—I will not say what year, but it was some time ago—
Michael Ellis
It was not quite that long ago, but it was a few years ago. I want to see more funding for that hospital and because, as we have heard, £8 billion a year more will be going into the NHS, I will be able to campaign for some of it to come to my local hospital.
On decent schooling for all, there are 29% more children in my constituency, and 1 million more children overall, now in schools classified by Ofsted as “good” or “outstanding” than was the case five years ago. Further improvements can be seen in that area, too.
We have heard about the in/out referendum. The reference to that has been controversial, but I do not see why, because it is clearly necessary and desirable to give people the opportunity to have a say on something that is crucial to their own futures—to our future. We have not had an opportunity to have a vote on Europe for decades. One would have to be over 65 to have had a vote on this subject, and this majority Conservative Government are now going to be able to push through a referendum on it. Whether one is in favour of being in Europe or outside it, the case for having a referendum on this subject is unarguable and irrepressible—this referendum has to be given.
The Gracious Speech is optimistic, looking forward to a one nation Conservatism and to prosperity in our country, and it will have my support.