Tim Farron (Westmorland & Lonsdale, Liberal Democrat)

Mr. Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me to make my maiden speech. I commend and congratulate the hon. Members for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries), for Worsley (Ms Keeley), for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) and for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley), all of whom made their maiden speeches today.

It is 99 years since the last Liberal Member for Westmorland made his maiden speech to this House. Ninety-nine years ago, my predecessor, Mr. Dudley Stewart-Smith, campaigned for fairer taxation and for greater support for pensioners and against an iniquitous and counterproductive foreign war. As we can see, despite being a century apart, we Liberals are nothing if not consistent.

That my constituency had to wait such a long time for its second Liberal MP may in part be due to the character and abilities of my Conservative predecessors. I pay tribute to my predecessor but one, Michael, now Lord, Jopling, who represented first Westmorland and then Westmorland and Lonsdale with great distinction for 33 years. However, I wish to pay particular tribute to my immediate predecessor, Tim Collins, who represented Westmorland and Lonsdale for eight years and proved himself in that time to be an energetic parliamentarian with sharp instincts. He rose quickly in his party, spending most of his time on the Conservative Front Bench, speaking first for the Conservative party on transport and then on education, and then for the whole nation on matters to do with "Dr. Who". While on a political level I am delighted to replace Tim in this House, on a human level I feel for him, and I wish him and his family all the very best for the future.

Westmorland and Lonsdale does not need to lay claim to being one of the most attractive constituencies in the country, because that claim is self-evident. My constituency takes in large parts of three historic counties—Westmorland, Lancashire and Yorkshire. It contains significant swathes of two of our most breathtaking national parks—the Yorkshire dales and the Lake district, of which it has the largest chunk. Parts of the Furness peninsulas and the Arnside and Silverdale area of outstanding natural beauty also fall within the seat. Ours is a land of mountains and lakes, from the Furness mountains in the west to the Howgills near Sedbergh in the east, with the lakes Windermere, Coniston, Rydal Water and Grasmere in between.

The outstanding natural beauty of my constituency underpins its vital tourism industry, but it can also provide many challenges. Most challenging of all is the extreme and intolerable situation relating to the substantial lack of affordable housing. One in six houses in Westmorland and Lonsdale is a second home, and while I recognise the liberty of people elsewhere to purchase a second home, I value far more highly and recognise more firmly the more important competing liberty to have a decent first home.

Average income in my constituency is about £16,000 a year, and the average house price is about £200,000. I seek to persuade the Government—indeed, I have already written to the Minister for Housing and Planning—to take action to deal with this unsustainable situation. With regard to the Queen's Speech and this debate on the economy, I refer to the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which has already been mentioned today, that additional help is to be given to allow first-time buyers to purchase homes through millions of shared ownership schemes. It is heartening to see the Government acknowledge the problem, but that move will barely make a dent in the problem that I have outlined.

Some 27 per cent. of young people born and bred in Westmorland and Lonsdale leave the area and make their homes elsewhere, largely because of the excessive cost of housing, the lack of rented accommodation in the social sector and the absence of well-paid work. With regard to the latter, last week, one of our largest employers in Kendal, Goodacres, announced the loss of 50 highly skilled jobs. To lose so many young people is not only deeply upsetting in terms of dividing local families, but extremely damaging to our economy.

Losing young people from our communities also has an obvious subsequent impact on the birth rate, reducing demand for our local maternity unit and reducing school rolls, and therefore threatening the viability of some of our most important local services. My hon. Friend Mr. Breed campaigned a few years on the slogan "Breed for Cornwall". I am afraid that the proportion of my fellow residents who are in a position to breed for Westmorland is sadly diminishing. My wife and I are doing our best, but we cannot make up the shortfall on our own.

Successive Governments have left Westmorland and Lonsdale with only a quarter of its original council housing stock; average house prices that are more than 12 times average incomes; and farming and manufacturing industries that are undervalued and undermined to the extent that our communities are now under extreme threat. In the past 12 months alone, there has been a 60 per cent. increase in the number of people in my constituency presenting as homeless.

The lack of any limits on second home ownership gives freedom to a few to purchase such properties in volumes that have become unsustainable, thus putting up house prices and removing from the market otherwise good homes for local families. Changes to the planning laws, local taxation and the financial rules governing local authority housing are among the measures that we must pursue if we are to ensure that there is a future for rural communities such as ours.

My constituency remains one where agriculture and farming are vital to the local economy and to our culture and environment. Farmers who are recovering from the body blow that was the foot and mouth epidemic four years ago are now placed yet again in an economically marginal position by the unnecessary tardiness of the single farm payments scheme. Farmers will not only be paid in arrears for their work, but these payments are now to be paid at least two months late. Farmers may wonder whether Ministers would put up with their salaries being paid to them at some ill-determined and delayed point in the future.

My constituents are generous, outward-looking people who value fairness at home and abroad. Indeed, the best attended debate during the recent election campaign in my constituency was the World Development Movement's "Make poverty history" meeting. I therefore know that many of my constituents will have been horrified to read in the press that the European Trade Commissioner, who I understand once sat in this House, is seeking to undermine this Government's moderately progressive stance on economic partnership agreements between the European Union and the developing world. The Commissioner in question is allegedly expressing a view that this Government should support economic partnership agreements that allow multinational companies unfettered access to the markets of developing countries.

I would wish to call on the Prime Minister to put his old friend in his place and to make a stand consistent with his stated support of the "Make poverty history" campaign. Countries that have been exploited to such a damaging extent by the developed world would be exploited and impoverished yet further if they were forced to open up their markets to powerful multinational companies. It is not free trade that we need, but fair trade. Freedom rarely comes about either in the housing market of Westmorland and Lonsdale or among the peoples of the developing world through an absence of intervention. Competing liberties must be refereed, and in the absence of any invisible hand, visible intervention by the community is essential if real freedom is to prevail.

I know that my job here is lent to me; it is not mine in perpetuity. I have it only so long as I deserve it in the eyes of the people of Westmorland and Lonsdale. The people of my constituency voted for the first time in 99 years for a progressive Liberal Democrat who will fight to protect and strengthen our communities, who will be a powerful advocate for them and who will be Westmorland's man at Westminster, and not Westminster's man in Westmorland. For the duration of my time here, that is precisely what they will get.

See this speech in context