Energy and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech today in this debate, as the Labour and Co-operative party Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins); indeed, I travelled through his constituency just a couple of weeks ago, while many other new Members were here having their photographs taken, on my way to see Fulham perform in the Europa league final in Hamburg. Sadly, we were not successful, but it was a great opportunity to go through the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.

It is a pleasure to take part in the same debate as the hon. Members for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), for Crawley (Henry Smith), and for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), and my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans); they, too, are making their maiden speeches this afternoon. I note your entreaty for succinct contributions, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I will seek to ensure the appropriate conciseness in my remarks.

I would like to begin, as is customary, by paying tribute to my predecessor, the right hon. Tommy McAvoy. It is testament to the respect felt for him, and the affection in which he is held in Parliament, that I have, over the past couple of weeks, been approached by Members of all parties, Officers of the House, and staff in the Library, the Tea Room and elsewhere in the parliamentary estate, all of whom without exception have told me of their high regard for him. As many returning right hon. and hon. Members will know, Tommy held the record for being the longest serving Government Whip; his 13 consecutive years in post—first as the Comptroller of Her Majesty’s Household, and latterly as Deputy Chief Whip—are testament to his success in using his personal, particular mix of authority, subtlety and tactical acuity to help this place to run smoothly over many years. Over the course of this week, I have, from the Labour Benches, observed the frequent presence in the Chamber of his successor in the role of the Comptroller of Her Majesty’s Household, the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael); I have seen him prowling contentedly in the Chamber, and I hope that he is able to live up to his forerunner, my predecessor.

Of course, as a Government Whip, my predecessor was not able to take part in debates in this House, so this is the first time that a Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, as currently constituted, has had the honour and the opportunity to speak in a debate in the Chamber, but that does not mean that my predecessor was silent in the constituency—far from it. As many people have said, “You always know what Tommy McAvoy is thinking, because he tells you.” His robust defence of the interests of his constituents is renowned in Rutherglen and Hamilton West. I know that it is one of his proud achievements that although he entered this House in 1987 as the Member for Glasgow Rutherglen, by the time he left, he had been instrumental in ensuring that the historic royal borough of Rutherglen had re-established its separate and distinct identity as part of South Lanarkshire, and he had enabled the good people of Toryglen to be represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris).

Whereas Tommy was born and bred and has lived all his life in Rutherglen, it does not take the most acute observer to work out that, like the hon. Member for Crawley, who spoke earlier, I am a migrant to my constituency. I am one of the many people who have chosen to settle slightly later in life in the constituency—in my case, in Cambuslang.

Indeed, in some ways it is perhaps the responsibility or, maybe, the fault of the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) that I am here at all. His visit to my school in Tonbridge in the run-up to the 1992 general election inspired me to join the Labour party, in the people’s republic of Tunbridge Wells. Although I am not sure that that was quite his intention in speaking to a group of sixth formers in his constituency, I am grateful to him none the less.

It is particularly appropriate that I am able to contribute in this debate, as my constituency has a long and proud association with the famous Lanarkshire coalfield. The legendary Mick McGahey is of course closely associated with Cambuslang, Scotland’s largest village, where I and my family are privileged to live; and in Blantyre we are fortunate to have, thanks to the efforts of South Lanarkshire council, the people of Blantyre and many other local agencies, one of the most successful reinstated and revitalised miners welfare facilities, serving the very heart of an historic and proud community. I look forward to welcoming my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) to sample the unique hospitality of the Blantyre miners welfare society and social club next weekend.

The communities that make up Rutherglen and Hamilton West are proud and principled places, with a strong and enduring sense of community and a welcoming and hospitable outlook. From Shawfield—once the home of Clyde football club and still the venue for arguably the best night out of greyhound racing in the United Kingdom—to Meikle Earnock up the hill in Hamilton and all points in between, the people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West are decent and genuine, and it is both a pleasure and an immense privilege to be their representative in this sovereign Parliament.

In preparing for this maiden speech, I was struck by how my predecessor’s maiden speech in 1987 focused on the importance of jobs and investment, during a debate about the then Scottish Development Agency. Over the past 13 years considerable investment in the constituency and all its communities has helped to improve facilities and support jobs, but as we begin to emerge from the worst global recession since the 1930s it is vital that we take the opportunity to rebalance our economy. The potential is immense for new jobs and skills in energy and related engineering, manufacturing and technology that can benefit the environment and provide export possibilities and skilled jobs for people in constituencies such as mine.

However, as various speakers in today’s debate have said, those skills and opportunities will be realised only with the right support and incentives for business. I was fortunate to be in the Chamber yesterday to hear the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), and although he chose not to answer every single question that my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) put to him, no one could fail to recognise the zeal with which he appeared to enjoy cutting the child trust fund for my constituents, cutting jobs for young people in my constituency through the future jobs fund and, perhaps most worrying of all, cutting the strategic investment that could provide jobs for my constituents in the future.

I welcome the green investment bank, which was also in our election manifesto, but it is a matter of real concern that £34 million of the cuts to the Department of Energy and Climate Change seem to be from business support schemes, which would help to start some of the work that we need to do to improve the way in which we produce energy. The cuts to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills also seem to endanger regional development agencies and the consequential funding for the equivalent bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Without wishing to be overly controversial, I should like to express my sincere hope that in this brave new world of the new politics of the alliance of the two old parties, the other wing of the Liberal party—notable in the comments of the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) and the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) earlier—will be able to assert at least some of what it stood for in the general election, in order to ensure that opportunities in energy, industry and manufacturing are not lost amid the rush and enthusiasm of the Liberal party’s other faction to adopt what I think is a dangerous, short-termist and unenlightened policy.

I am grateful to the House for extending me the courtesy of hearing my maiden speech in silence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) said yesterday, although I do not expect to be heard in silence in future, I will not be silent in seeking to represent the interests of my constituents in Rutherglen and Hamilton West to the best of my ability.