Building a High-Skilled Economy

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) on his maiden speech—a Scotsman supporting England, hey?

“Forgive me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I stumble over the proprieties peculiar to the House”.—[Official Report, 24 July 1991; Vol. 195, c. 1202.]

Those are not my words, but the opening salvo in the maiden speech by my predecessor, whom I shall cite more later, on 24 July 1991. Such observations are as true today as they were 19 years ago. Although I have only been in this place for a few short weeks, I have already started to take notice of the vagaries of the House. For example, I have noted that when a Member begins a speech with the words “I will be brief”, an extensive and loquacious contribution is guaranteed. Similarly, when the words “This doesn’t really need saying” are uttered, it is odds-on that an explanation of what it was that did not need saying will be given, in some detail, to those to whom it did not need explaining in the first place.

Mr Speaker, you may well have been able to discern from my accent—if not my haircut—that I am from the home of John, Paul, George and Ringo. However, it is also the home of Gerry Marsden, The Farm and China Crisis—to unashamedly mention just a few of my personal friends. Liverpool boasts too many politicians, musicians, comedians, poets, broadcasters, artists and so on to mention individually. Otherwise, my maiden speech might well have been one of the longest ever recorded.

It is also possible to find a Scouser at every level of our armed forces. One of my constituents, Craig Lundberg, who was blinded in an attack by insurgents in Iraq, is an inspiration to others. Like many Members from all parts of the House, I would like to pay tribute to all those in our armed forces who carry out such dangerous and commendable work on behalf of us all.

I represent a constituency that, uniquely, boasts two premiership football clubs within its boundaries. In our football-mad city, the achievements of Everton and Liverpool have a direct effect on the fortunes of our city. Historically, we have been no strangers to on-field success. However, for one of our clubs it is now fortunes of the financial kind that threaten its very existence. I urge hon. Members to sign early-day motion 197 on the issue, as the Minister concerned previously refused my request for a meeting with the Royal Bank of Scotland.

I should perhaps declare at this point that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Liverpool fan and a season ticket holder at Anfield. However, I would honestly say the same things if Everton FC had been the victim of a leveraged buy-out that had endangered its future survival and caused so many problems for my constituents living in close proximity to its football stadium. England’s most successful football club is slowly being drained by the greed of two American asset strippers, and this is having a negative impact on regeneration projects for the whole area. Unfortunately, the beautiful game does not always attract those with beautiful intentions.

One of the great socialist philosophers of the last century—the great Bill Shankly—may have been mistaken when he said that football was more important than life and death. However, supporters of both of our sporting institutions at least understood his passion, and they will not stand idly by without being engaged in the future of their respective football clubs.

The reason Mr Shankly was, uncharacteristically, wrong is that our city unfortunately recognises more than most the life-and-death results of poor stadium safety and ineffective policing—primary causes of the tragedies at Heysel and Hillsborough. I can assure my constituents that I will campaign on their behalf against any plans to water down ground safety standards, and that I will fight tooth and nail to protect the inquiry set up to examine the Hillsborough disaster. I would like to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), on behalf of all the Hillsborough families, for pushing so hard to get the process started.

My predecessor may have been from the blue half of Merseyside, but he was certainly from the politically red half of this Chamber. It is traditional for Members making their maiden speeches to highlight the contributions of their predecessors. Some are faced with the unenviable task of waxing lyrical about a political opponent whom they may recently have put to the electoral sword. Others may have replaced a colleague in controversial circumstances, while some may have been complicit in their predecessor’s downfall. I am pleased to say that none of those scenarios applies in my case. Put quite simply, I would not be in this place without the support, encouragement and friendship of Peter Kilfoyle.

Peter will go down as one of the great parliamentarians. He was widely respected in all parts of the Chamber, despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that he was independent of mind and voted with his conscience, sometimes controversially, as on the issue of Iraq, but also in his spirited opposition to the scrapping of the 10p tax rate. Peter’s opposition to the Iraq war was not met with universal support on the Labour Benches at the time, but it appears that some of my right hon. Friends who are in the race for the Labour leadership are also now expressing reservations about that policy. As coalition Members will find out, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

In a world of political self-aggrandisement, Peter Kilfoyle sacrificed career advancement for ideological principle. It is refreshing that there are still men and women whose moral judgment and values override the dangled carrot of elevated office. I can only aspire to follow in Peter’s footsteps. He dedicated 19 years to the service of this House and to his constituents in Liverpool, Walton. He also achieved his aim of doing justice to his predecessor, the late Eric Heffer, who gave 27 years to the same cause. I certainly have my work cut out if I am to follow two such political giants. I wish Peter’s lovely wife Berni all the very best in coming to terms with having him under her feet 24/7.

It is an unbelievable privilege to have been elected by the people of the area in which I have lived all my married life, and I am delighted to represent them in this place. I do not intend to let them down. I am proud to be a Scouser and to represent Walton, where my mum was born. One of the best things about making my maiden speech is that my mum’s name, Dorothy Rotheram, will now be recorded in Hansard in perpetuity.

I actually thought I had something in common with the Prime Minister when someone mentioned that he, too, had been brought up on an estate. On further examination, however, I discovered that his estate was not that similar to ours after all. I make no apology for stating on the record that I intend to be a strong voice for the people who elected me to the safest seat in the country, and for the city I love. I plan to be a constant thorn in the side of the present Government, and to ensure that Liverpool is not disproportionately affected by funding cuts, as it was the last time Tories sat on the Government Benches.

Both of my predecessors had connections with the construction sector, and I am delighted to keep up that tradition. I am guessing that I am among only a tiny minority of people in the Chamber who have completed an apprenticeship. I started my working life as an apprentice bricklayer, and my son Steven is an apprentice electrician. I am passionate about the building industry and about apprenticeships. The Labour Government breathed new life into apprenticeships, which had been all but killed off by the previous Conservative Government. A high-skilled economy is not just about graduates, and I therefore welcome the Government’s road-to-Damascus conversion on that matter. I will campaign for parity of esteem between vocational and academic training routes.

As a serving Liverpool councillor, I would like to put on record my congratulations to Councillor Joe Anderson and my colleagues, and I wish them all the very best in the months ahead. My predecessor concluded his maiden speech by highlighting to the then Conservative Government that unless they took steps to tackle the social issues of the day, they would not be forgiven. Coalition Members should heed such lessons from history.