Debate on the Address

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I rise to support the humble address. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, but let me also say that it is a particular pleasure to see the new Speaker in the Chair—a proper Speaker who, while he may suffer from the disadvantages of not being a Yorkshireman, is a man who has strong and many opinions but does not feel compelled to inflict them on the Chamber and the country, in contrast to his predecessor. We look forward to many years of fair adjudication of debates in the House.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) began his speech by talking about déjà vu. I fear that every time a member of the Scottish National party rises to speak, it is déjà vu all over again. Earlier today the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), in true BBC Christmas repeat fashion, came out with the same old speech—to which many of us have had to listen for the last few years—about Scotland being dragged out of the EU. Well, for goodness’ sake let us have something new. The fact is that, as we all know, the United Kingdom voted to come out of the European Union and that decision was upheld in the recent general election in the whole United Kingdom, of which Scotland is a component.

It was a particular pleasure to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who proposed the motion for a Humble Address. Let me say for the benefit of those who could not see that she did so barefoot. As a founding member of the all-party parliamentary group on mindfulness, which I hope to have the privilege to chair when it is reconstituted, she said that using mindfulness techniques and anchoring herself to the floor gave her great confidence, and she demonstrated that with aplomb in her excellent speech. Let me recommend to those who are still feeling stressed by the result of the election the mindfulness classes which are available to all Members at 5.30 pm on Tuesdays. So far, some 240 Members of both Houses have taken advantage of them, and that has certainly improved the standard of debate in both Chambers. Let me also compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—who is the embodiment of the cheeky chappie—on the excellent way in which he seconded the motion.

In many respects, this is the easiest Queen’s Speech to which to respond on the first day, just hours after its delivery in the other place. We did, after all, have a dry run for it on 14 October, although today’s turned out to be a fuller-fact version. The 22 Bills that were promised back in October have now become 40. This is certainly no longer a wish list; it is now a comprehensive and substantial programme for government. I am therefore pleased to get in early, ahead of the, no doubt, Cook’s Tour of maiden speeches that will be made in subsequent days and weeks by the plethora of Members who have just been elected to seats around the United Kingdom—mostly, I am glad to say, on this side of the House. I wish them all well.

We also approach this Queen’s Speech on the basis of the strong likelihood that we might actually get it passed. What a joy it is—and I aim this particularly at new Members—that at last, for the first time in the 22 and a half years that I have spent in the House along with the new Speaker, we have a strong and stable Government with a decent majority and, ostensibly, support from all Conservative MPs on the same side. Long may that continue.

Let me say to those new Members, “You’ve got it easy.” The last couple of years and, in particular, the last 12 months in this place have been hugely stressful and exasperating, not knowing when you get up in the morning what will happen in Parliament that day—whether the Government will win votes or not, or whether they will be tied—and not being able to make plans, with the possibility of the House having to sit on Saturdays. We have all been prepared to do that, but the unpredictability has made nursing a constituency, and the other responsibilities that we all have as Members, somewhat more challenging, and throughout that time a Speaker was making up the rules and rewriting the discussion as he went along.

No more, Mr Deputy Speaker. This Administration will get on with the job of being in power and in government, and implementing a programme of the people’s priorities. That is going to happen, which is a real joy and pleasure for those of us who have seen the ups and downs of a Parliament that has not been at its best in recent years.

On Saturday, when I conducted one of my regular Saturday morning street surgeries, the sense of relief among my constituents was palpable. Whether they had voted for Brexit or remain, people wanted certainty, clarity and a way forward out of the maelstrom and gridlock that this place had become over recent months. However, there was one rather sad exception. In response to the general election result, the Momentum zealots who form the local Labour party and its councillors tweeted the contact details of the Samaritans, on the basis that people would be feeling depressed and driven to mental illness. That was crass, disgusting and inappropriate.

As for what we need in this country, a piece of advice was given to me in 2001, after the second Blair landslide, by a local Labour councillor whom I respected greatly. He said to me, “Tim, you need to be a good, strong Opposition”, and he was right. In this House we need a good, strong Opposition, so I take no delight in the current problems with the Labour party. For the functioning of democracy in this country, we need a good—and moderate—strong Opposition. That keeps a good Government on their toes, and I hope that it emerges in the months to come. I am afraid that the current Momentum-hijacked Labour party is not that strong Opposition, and I hope that it sorts itself out as soon as possible.

A measure in the Queen’s Speech that I particularly welcome is the plan to abolish the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. One view that united all the candidates throughout the election, certainly in my constituency, was that December elections suck. I am sure that we all spent the last five to six weeks constantly damp and constantly frozen, frustrated by our attempts to push soggy leaflets through those terrible letterboxes with the brushes. I recall that last year the Government agreed to amend the building regulations to get rid of floor-level letterboxes, and it should now be a priority for them to amend the regulations to get rid of furry letterboxes. They are a cancer on our society, whether you are a volunteer delivering leaflets, a political activist, or a professional postman or postwoman. If the Government will not do that, I will present a private Member’s Bill and we will see how well that does.

[Bob Stewart]

It is not the furry stuff but the guillotine behind it that really does your knuckles in.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir George Howarth)]

Order. Fascinating and relevant though this topic is, I hope that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is not going to embark on a whole debate on the positioning of letterboxes. I do not think that there was any mention of it in the Queen’s Speech.

[Tim Loughton]

That is why I am going to move on very quickly, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Another measure was absent from the Queen’s Speech. I am making no reference to the current Speaker, but we need to change the procedures in the House so that we have a way of sacking a dud Speaker. We did not have that in the last Parliament, and I moot it now as something that the Procedure Committee may wish to consider.

I am particularly pleased with the big emphasis in the Queen’s Speech on the climate emergency. The Environment Bill that was published just before the election was an excellent and comprehensive piece of work, and there are many ways of improving it. Whatever people might say, the Conservatives have terrific green credentials, including our being the first country to have a legally enforceable target on net zero carbon emissions. Although 2050 is too far away—I have no doubt that as technology develops, we will be able to bring the date forward—the fact that we have that target and are determined to see it through is great credit to a Conservative Government.

Renewable energy sources now account for just under 39% of our electricity generation—up from 6% in 2010. Onshore wind accounted for just 7.5 terawatts an hour in 2010, but the figure is now 30.5. The £5.8 billion that we put into the international climate fund shows us taking responsibility towards the climate emergency internationally, and not confining our actions to the boundaries of our country.

We should be proud of the action that we are taking and will continue to take on plastics, and on the protection for the 4 million sq km of ocean within the British overseas territories. We will build on all that in the new environment Bill, which will put environmental principles in legislation and create legally enforceable targets. It will establish a world-leading environmental watchdog in the office of environmental protection, which will include climate change. It will also set out plans to enhance the drive from Government, public organisations and private business to deliver environmental improvements and sustainable growth. It will enshrine the “polluter pays” principle. It is important that we have extended producer responsibility schemes, so that those who use packaging and sell products in it are responsible for its sustainable disposal, recycling or reuse.

The measures in the Bill to restore or create wildlife-rich habitats to enable wildlife to recover and thrive are also important, as are the targets and legal action on air pollution. We should be very proud of those.

Measures on the NHS have been much mentioned. Extra spending will be enshrined in law in the hope that we can at last stop using the NHS as a political football. In every election in which I have stood, as sure as eggs are eggs, we are told, “There are two weeks to save the national health service” or, “There’s a week to stop the wicked Tories selling off the national health service”. Why would we want to? We have the best national health service in the world. It is one of the things we are most proud of and famous for. Why would we want to do a deal with the United States that meant paying more rather than less for drugs? That nonsense must stop.

I am pleased that we have the best hospital in the world in my constituency. Worthing Hospital was rated outstanding in all five criteria; better than any other acute hospital in the country, yet 12 years ago, the last Labour Government tried to downgrade it. Let us not forget that the Labour Government and their fascination with keeping debt off the balance sheet saddled the NHS with £18 billion of debt, with at least one hospital trust spending a sixth of its annual income servicing the private finance initiative debt for years to come. Let us therefore stop using the NHS as a political football.

I hope we will work together on adult social care to find solutions that work for all our constituents. An ageing population means that the health challenges will be greater and more complex in future.

I welcome the announcement of recruiting and retaining the additional 50,000 nurses. We also need incentives to get more medical students coming out of medical school to go into general practice. That is a particular problem in the south-east of England, where the money is there, but we cannot find the GPs to take up the positions.

We must do more about mental health, particularly with child and adolescent mental health services. I am therefore pleased with the references to mental health in the Queen’s Speech. As someone who has chaired a perinatal mental health charity and the 1001 critical days all-party group, I know that we must do much more earlier for the mental health of parents and young children. One in six women in this country will suffer from some form of perinatal mental illness. There is a 99% likelihood that the mothers of 15 or 16-year-olds in this country who have mental health issues suffered from some form of depression or mental illness during pregnancy. We should concentrate more of our resources on preventing mental illness, which undermines the important bond of attachment between a parent and a child in those crucial early years.

We must ensure that more of our children are school ready. I hope that some of the extra investment in the NHS will be used for our health visitors. As I said in a debate before the election, we had a great record under the Cameron coalition Government. Health visitors detect the early warning signs of things going wrong between parents and children. They are there to give help and support.

I welcome the reference in the Queen’s Speech to the troubled families programme. It has been tremendous and should be continued and expanded. There should also be a pre-troubled families programme, which is applied preventively to families before they get into the difficulties that the troubled families programme deals with.

This year, some 32,000 children will go into care. I have a long-standing interest in that and I have declared it in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. We must do much better for children who go into the care system. I do not know whether the figure of 32,000 is too high or too low. We must ensure that the right children go into care, that their life chances are improved while they are there, and that they get a second chance at a good, stable and loving upbringing in those vulnerable early years.

I welcome the reference in the Queen’s Speech to levelling up school funding. It was announced in the autumn statement and it was the biggest issue for me in the election campaign and, indeed, in the previous one. Every school in my constituency, and in every constituency, will receive an increase in per pupil funding next year. In one primary school in my constituency, the rise will be 8.2%. Those are real increases, to the sort of levels that heads told me they needed. They will now get them. We need to ensure that a rise in standards and outcomes accompanies that additional funding so that no child, whatever their background, is left behind.

We must also stop what I call the apartheid between those who go to university and everybody else. Many people go to university for whom it is not the most appropriate route. There are vocational and other courses that would be more appropriate, but for too many schools, if the pupils do not go to university, they are the also-rans. That is the wrong attitude and culture. We need to change that mindset and reboot the apprenticeship programme that did so well in the coalition Government years. We should restore funding and improve the standards and range of opportunities available in our further education colleges. For example, Worthing College is outstanding. It is well managed and has some fantastic outcomes for our young people, but I want more of them to benefit from the opportunities there.

I particularly welcome the Bill to prevent vexatious prosecutions of veterans. We expect and receive remarkable service from our servicemen and women. We put them in danger—on the frontline in times in conflict—and they are always there for us in times of turmoil and natural disaster. The least we can do is protect them and keep them safe from the frontline of vexatious litigation. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, who has championed that cause along with others in the House.

I welcome the return of the Domestic Abuse Bill. I pay tribute to the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for championing that cause. We need to ensure that the measure goes through at speed and does what it says on the tin.

I welcome the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Bill. Lower paid staff have suffered from being ripped off for too long.

Hon. Members also mentioned our record on animal welfare. The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill will reinforce the fact that we respect animals in this country and that people who are cruel to animals deserve to be called out and punished properly for it.

I also appreciated the reference to human rights and sanctions in Her Majesty’s speech. As a former chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for Tibet, I suggest that that must include calling out China. The death of some 1 million Tibetans at the hands of the Chinese since the invasion in 1959 is still not properly recognised. Now, there are more than 1 million Uighurs in supposed re-education camps. The abuse of human rights in that country continues to be appalling. The Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom continues to refuse to come to this House to meet members of the all-party parliamentary group for Tibet to discuss our concerns over what is happening in China. The environmental catastrophe that is taking place in the Tibetan plateau, which is responsible for servicing the water supply of about a quarter of the world’s population, is deeply worrying. China needs to be called out and held to account on a human rights level and on an environmental vandalism level, and I hope that the words in the Queen’s Speech will be translated into action.

Can I just put in a plea for the south as well? Rightfully, there are many promises and plans for investment in infrastructure in the north of England, and I very much applaud that, but the A27 is the most crowded and congested road in Sussex at the moment, and we need the upgrade to the A27 between Worthing and Shoreham that was recognised in the previous roads plan but has still not materialised.

May I end on one thing that is not in the Queen’s Speech? It is an issue that featured rather disgracefully during the election campaign, and it is that of the so-called WASPI women. Many on this side and, of course, on the other side have championed the case of the 1950s pension women who were hit disproportionately by those changes in the pension age under previous Governments. Many of us have been lobbying the Government to acknowledge that disproportionate disadvantage and to do something about it. I will call on the Government again and, working with my co-chair of the all-party group on state pension inequality for women, we will continue to put pressure on the Government to acknowledge that and do something about it. The Labour Opposition’s uncosted promise of £58 billion, which did not appear in their manifesto, disgracefully raised false hopes in vulnerable women. That amount was almost half the NHS budget, and it was never going to happen. I do hope that we can come up with a realistic, deliverable, doable offer for those women who have suffered and are suffering disproportionately, because that is the right thing to do.

This is a comprehensive programme for government for the next four to five years, and I very much support it. This is the programme of an ambitious and progressive one nation Conservative Government, of which I am proud to be a supporter. It is a programme to take the United Kingdom forward after these last few dark years of gridlock and division. It is a programme for an optimistic and bright future, and I very much hope that this House rallies behind these measures, because that is the right thing to do for the whole of the United Kingdom.