Mr Keith Vaz (Leicester East)

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for granting me the opportunity to address the House for the first time. My constituency of Leicester, East was held by the Labour party from 1945 to 1983. Despite the considerable efforts of my predecessor as candidate, Miss Patricia Hewitt, a Conservative Member was returned in 1983. However, after that brief experiment. on 11 June it returned to Labour with one of the largest swings in the country. In fact, the day after the election, the Leicester Mercury — the popular and influential local paper — referred to the city as "Red Leicester", as the whole city voted Labour.

It is a tradition of the House for me to mention my predecessor. It is right for me to say that Mr. Peter Bruinvels, in his own way, made his mark on the House. I understand from the police here that he has left a crossbow and six bolts. I am sure that when he retrieves them he will shoot them in many directions. I wish him well in his chosen career.

Leicester became a city in 1919. In the seven decades since it has become a centre for tourism in the midlands. It is an historic city, with an impressive tradition, and it lies modestly in the centre of England. It boasts a university and a polytechnic, many shopping centres and great roads, such as the Belgrave road and Uppingham road. However, local residents and I will be opposing further extensions of the A46–47 link road.

Leicester has become the focal point for many world religions. In 1926 Saint Martin's church became a cathederal. More recently, Leicester has acquired the Shree Sanatan Mandir, the largest Hindu temple in Europe, the Jam E-mosque in Ashfordby street, two Sikh Gudwaras in East Park road and Meynal road, and many othr places of worship, including Saint Joseph's church on Uppingham road, where I worship. Its religious toleration should be the envy of Britain.

It is possible for the tourist and visitor to Leicester to be greeted in many of the local dialects—"Waheguru ji ka Khalsa"; "Waheguru ji ka Fateh"; "Namaste"; "A Salaam O Alikum", "Kemchho" or the more popular "Hello, me duck."

There are nine local electoral wards in Leicester, East. There are the great housing estates in the middle and outer city areas. These are Northfields, Morton and Tailby in west Humberstone, Rowletts Hill in Coleman, Netherhall in Humberstone, and Thurnby Lodge and Goodwood in Evington. There are the wards of Abbey Rise and St. Marks in the inner city. The wards of Rushey Mead, Latimer, Belgrave and Charnwood comprise the inner city area.

Leicester is a city of immense differences, yet it is a community that is united and fiercely protective of its local heritage. Leicester used to be one of the most prosperous cities in Europe and it still retains a variety of industries. These include hosiery and knitwear, footwear, plastics and light engineering. It is the home of the National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers. There is a host of firms employing hundreds of workers, and some of these firms are household.names. For example, there are Thorn EMI and Corahs-Walkers.

Leicester used to be one of the most prosperous cities in Europe, but, alas, that is no longer the position. The past eight years have taken a heavy toll. Before my entry into Parliament I worked as a community lawyer with the North Leicester advice centre. It is one of two law centres that is funded by the Labour-controlled city council. It is a local recognition of the principle of public legal services, a principle which I intend to raise on future occasions.

At the law centre I came to know a different Leicester; a Leicester that will not be found in the tourist guide. It is a Leiceser in which people are pushed to the margins of society. There are 10,079 people on the housing waiting list. There are 21,000 dwellings that need rewiring, and a similar number are suffering from rising damp. There are 15,000 dwellings that have no inside lavatories and 11,000 lack a washhand basin with hot water. Those in Smith houses know only too well what it is like to live in houses that are in need of major repair. Yet the Government have mercilessly cut housing investment moneys for Leicester city council. There has been a reduction of £27,698,000 in real terms since 1979. This condemns thousands of local people to houses that are damp and unfit for habitation. Children are enslaved from birth into conditions of social deprivation. Leicester city council needs £57 million next year for its housing investment programme.

The law centre brought me into contact with some of the 16,000 pensioners who live in Leicester, East who cannot survive on the pittance that they are given and whose consolation and comfort is the work of organisations such as Age Concern and Help the Aged. There are courageous mothers who are trying to set up mother-toddler groups in neighbourhood centres in Coleman, Netherhall and Belgrave. They are doing so without any support and are creating a jumble-sale start for pre-school nursery education, when that should be a right.

I am talking of the Leicester in which 1,146 people have been on the waiting list for operations for more than a year, the Leicester which sees so many families suffering misery and hardship as a result of the implementation of the immigration rules. Husbands and wives, and mothers and children, are divided. I have in mind a mother who came to Britain in September 1986 on a visit, fell in love and married a British citizen. She has been told today to leave the country and abandon her four-week old child. That is happening when we have a Government in office who claim to believe in family values. It is a disgrace.

In my constituency, 5,100 people are out of work. I am sorry to tell the House that the east midlands area has the lowest paid women in England. As I have said, the Leicester of which I speak is not in the tourist guide.

Sixty five years ago the then hon. Member for Battersea, North Mr. Saklatvala, with whom I feel a special bond and who is tied with me through the threads of history, urged the House in his maiden speech on 23 November 1922 to burst out of these time-worn prejudices and boldly take a new place".—[Official Report, 23 November 1922; Vol. 159, c. 117.] The passage of time has endorsed the sentiments of Mr. Saklatvala. Only by lighting a new torch of equality and justice can we create a better society, a society and an age based not on privileges but on rights. We must pass to the next generation our passion for justice for young and old, black and white and women and men. We must astonish and dazzle them with our commitment to equality.

I have been sent to the Chamber by the people of Leicester, East to defend their rights, not to take part in a conspiracy to rob them of those rights. Leicester, that great midlands city, will not permit itself to be run from London. Any attempt to strip away the powers of the city will be met by a war of attrition. It is important for hon. Members to realise that the tourist map of Britain, like the democratic map, does not end at junction 9 of the M 1. The Government may wish visitors who come to Britain to visit Leicester to see an example of a colony within the empire of the governor general, the Secretary of State for the Environment. If they do so, they will be in for a great surprise. On 11 June the empire of Leicester struck back. Local democracy and the control by local people of their own communities, based on tolerance and mutual respect, is not the property of this or any other British Government. The people of Leicester, East are determined that the verdict of history will be with them.

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