Budget Responsibility Bill

Will Forster Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Will Forster to make his maiden speech.

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

Thank you, Ms Nokes, for giving me this opportunity to make my maiden speech. Before I do, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba), who spoke of his and his constituency’s proud military past. I am sure that he will see his constituency through these tough challenges and on to a brighter future.

It goes without saying that it is a great privilege and an honour of a lifetime to be here, having been elected by the people of Woking. I thank them for electing me as their Member of Parliament. However, I must begin by addressing the Bill and severe crisis facing my local authority, Woking borough council. Despite being relatively small, the Conservatives left Woking with more than £2 billion of debt following risky investment decisions. This legacy is one of negative equity, service cuts and unsustainable debt repayments. It could be argued that the Conservatives in Woking invented Truss economics before the former right hon. Member for South West Norfolk had her small stint as Prime Minister. What has happened in my constituency shows why the Bill is so important. I fear that, without support from the new Government, the situation in Woking, like the rest of local government, will only worsen. My constituents will suffer the most, and that is unacceptable when it is not their fault. I urge the Government to step in and provide the assistance we so desperately need to ensure that my community can recover and thrive.

Most people might think of Woking as a modern constituency, but it has a rich history that stretches back through the centuries. Woking was mentioned in the Domesday Book. Sutton Place, famous for being the former home of Paul Getty, dates from 1525, and is one of the oldest unfortified houses in the country. Woking palace—now sadly a ruin—was a royal residence for both Henry VII and Henry VIII. As a result, Woking football club, my local team, is affectionately known as the Cards, after Cardinal Wolsey.

Several Acts of Parliament have had an especially profound impact on Woking. For example, the Basingstoke canal was authorised by Parliament in 1778. The canal runs through much of Woking constituency. It has shaped our area, and is a popular cycling and walking route and a haven for nature. But like so many places in the country, Woking as we know it today was shaped by the railways. With steam, stone and iron, Woking was cast into the proud town it is today. In the mid-1800s we laid the foundations to become the great commuter town we are.

Woking is also a wonderfully diverse and welcoming place, home to the Shah Jahan mosque, the oldest in the country. A vibrant Muslim community has developed in the town as a result. More recently, we have welcomed Ukrainian refugees, and I attended many events to support our new Ukrainian residents with my predecessor, our former MP Jonathan Lord. That was a powerful example of cross-party co-operation, and I thank Jonathan for his service as Woking’s MP, especially on this humanitarian issue where there was no disagreement whatsoever. Although we were opponents at the last election, I wish him and his family well for the future. Woking’s MP before Jonathan was Humfrey Malins, who founded the Immigration Advisory Service in 1992, which to this day provides free asylum and immigration advice to those who need it. He got a CBE for his work. Woking has a proud history of electing MPs who welcome immigration, and I am pleased to follow that tradition.

Our town is also known for its connection to McLaren; it hosts its Formula 1 team and luxury cars are built there. I was privileged to make a visit only yesterday. As a young child of around 11, I remember watching with excitement as McLaren toured the town with its Formula 1 cars, driven by Mika Häkkinen, to celebrate their success. McLaren is winning again, much like the Liberal Democrats.

The town also takes great pride in being home to the World Wide Fund for Nature. We have pressing issues, such as sewage in our rivers and the fight against climate change. I am already working alongside the five other newly elected Liberal Democrat MPs in Surrey to hold Thames Water to account for sewage dumping in our local rivers and streams. One of my first acts as an MP is to bring all the surrey MPs together to meet Thames Water to petition it for improvements and a better service.

Woking is fortunate to be surrounded by green spaces. I love walking my dachshund Toffee on Horsell Common, where HG Wells famously landed his aliens in “War of the Worlds”. So it was not a great surprise when Ed Davey’s Liberal Democrats turned up and started campaigning with their out-of-this-world stunts. Of course, I’m only “woking”—I wouldn’t dare call my Liberal Democrat colleagues aliens.

Getting back to the matter at hand, my constituency has a much-loved local hospital, Woking community hospital. Despite feeling like I was born and bred in Woking, I was not actually born in the constituency. Actually, no one has been born in a hospital in Woking for generations. I was born in Frimley Park hospital, one of the nearby hospitals we depend on, as Woking lacks maternity services. However, Frimley Park is plagued with RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—and its future is far from certain. I will work with my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) to press the Government for a solution to rebuild Frimley Park hospital.

Another major issue is the cost of rent and mortgages. As someone under 40—just—I understand these issues deeply. They have been raised consistently by local people on the doorstep. The increased cost of mortgages and rents in the past two years is a further reason why the Bill is so important.

My journey into politics began because of Surrey county council’s failure to protect vulnerable children. At the time, it was rated the worst county council in the country because of that failure. We cannot allow vulnerable children to be failed again.

The wider theme of why I was elected, and indeed why so many of my hard-working Liberal Democrat colleagues have been elected, is that we understand our communities’ local issues. I have worked for 15 years in local government and served as deputy leader of Woking Council. I have seen first-hand the crippling issues that some councils face. When I look at the faces of the Liberal Democrat MPs here, I see people who have worked hard in local government for years. What a glorious theme for this new Parliament: a cohort of 72 who understand the local issues our communities face, and a force for good in the country and in the Chamber when we need it most.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Jake Richards to make his maiden speech.