Debate on the Address — [1st Day]

Part of Deputy Speakers – in the House of Commons at 7:20 pm on 25 May 2010.

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Photo of Andrew Selous Andrew Selous Conservative, South West Bedfordshire 7:20, 25 May 2010

It is a pleasure to follow Mr Hanson, who was a very well respected Minister in the last Government, admired in all parts of the House. It has also been a pleasure to listen to two very fine maiden speeches. I am pleased to see that Chris Williamson is still in his seat. He made a fine contribution, as did my hon. Friend Richard Harrington, who greatly impressed us all by delivering his maiden speech without a single note in front of him; I think most of us would agree that that shows no mean courage.

I wish to start my remarks by thanking my constituents very much indeed for having returned me to this House with 52.8 % of the vote, a much larger majority than I had in the last Parliament and a considerably larger majority than I had in 2001 when I was first elected here with a majority of only some 700 or so. It is a massive honour to be not only elected but re-elected, and I pledge to serve my constituents in this Parliament in the same way as I did in the previous two.

I am a little saddened that there has not been much reference so far in today's Queen's Speech debate to the fact that we are a nation at war; I hope that those who speak after me might do something to rectify that omission. I agree that we as a country face massive problems at home. We have heard many eloquent speeches about that, and that is right and proper, but we must never forget that we are a nation at war. Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition paid tribute to the six, I think, lives of British servicemen in Afghanistan lost since the last time this House met.

I carried my Royal British Legion pledge card throughout the general election campaign, and I have it here with me in the House today. I am a member of two Royal British Legion branches in my constituency, and I took the pledge I made to it before the election very seriously. It is perhaps our first duty in this House to support our servicemen and women and make sure that they have the right equipment, and to look after their families at home, especially those families who have lost members serving in Afghanistan. I greatly welcomed the Prime Minister's remarks that we will pay particular attention to our mission in Afghanistan, and to making sure there is a political solution to that crisis. I think we have to believe the previous Prime Minister when he told us that two thirds of the plots hatched against this country originate in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Therefore, this terrible war is necessary, but-in common with, I believe, all Members of this House-I want our troops to come home as soon as possible and not to be there a day longer than necessary.

Mention is made in the Gracious Speech of political reform. I support that; the ability to recall Members of Parliament who have behaved very badly is a welcome step. My constituency of South West Bedfordshire borders Luton South, and considerable disquiet was expressed in my local press that the former Member for Luton South could not be removed and was absent for a very long time. I have experienced some of the anger about this subject locally, therefore, and I think the ability to recall Members of Parliament where there has been serious wrongdoing is to be welcomed and will go some way to restoring public trust in Parliament.

I am concerned, however, that for two days following the general election there was the very real possibility that the parties that had come second and third might have formed the Government of this country. I therefore make the urgent plea that we introduce the new political convention that the leader of the party that gains the largest share of the vote in a general election becomes Prime Minister either of a minority Administration or of a coalition, as we have at present. My constituents were beginning to send me very angry e-mails asking, "What is happening up in Parliament? Most people have voted for a Conservative Government but it looks like the Labour Government, whom we thought we had voted out, are going to be kept in office." I think there would have been real anger, and that people might well have taken to the streets. If we are going to talk about political reform in this country, we would do well to establish the political convention I recommend.

I hope that in this new Parliament we can enter an era of real honesty and integrity, and of sustainability in respect of our public finances, about which quite a lot has already been said this afternoon. Sir Stuart Bell made a good speech, in which he said he welcomed the principles of fairness, freedom and responsibility that will be the hallmark of this Government, but I would just gently say to him that there was not previously so much responsibility in the management of the public finances and, indeed, that that was the case well before the worldwide economic recession descended on this country. We urgently need to address that, as my right hon. Friend Mr Redwood said. The Government are not printing money any more, so if the Government take money to spend, that is money that is not available for private businesses or to stimulate our economy and generate the private sector growth that is the only way we will get out of the terrible recession that we have been through. We must remember that the last Government have left us with both a debt and a deficit of Brobdingnagian proportions, and we must not repeat that.

I also want to see fair funding across the whole of the United Kingdom. I speak as a member of the Conservative and Unionist party that very much wants to see Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales remain part of the Union, but I have to say that, as an English Member of Parliament, I have detected considerable resentment at the additional spending that is available to parts of the United Kingdom other than England. Let me give a couple of examples. Council tax has been frozen in Scotland for the past couple of years, but there are pensioners in my constituency who tell me that they run down their savings every year just to stay in the home they love and have worked hard all their lives to acquire, and there will come a point when they have to sell that home and move elsewhere because of the increases in council tax. Frankly, I do not think that is fair.

Dunstable, one of the towns in my constituency, has 56 empty shops on its high street. A large part of the reason for that is the very high business rates, and there have been increases in those rates for many businesses in England. Businesses in Leighton Buzzard and Houghton Regis in my constituency face that problem too, yet in Scotland business rates have been abolished for the smallest businesses and cut by either a half or a quarter for other businesses as well. I do not think that is fair, and I think that we, as a United Kingdom Parliament, must move towards a funding formula that is fair to every part of the United Kingdom. We are a Government pledged to fairness, freedom and responsibility, and it is absolutely right that parts of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have additional funding because of the additional costs of delivering public services caused by sparsity, deprivation and poverty, but why not apply that same formula across the whole of the United Kingdom so we do not get these discrepancies and great unfairnesses? I worry that that might lead to people wanting to see the break-up of the Union, which I think would be a very bad thing.

I greatly welcome the emphasis in the Queen's Speech on localism, particularly in housing and planning. The previous Government wanted to impose 43,000 additional houses on my constituency. That would have approximately doubled the number of households in my constituency-when I do a leaflet run, I produce about 40,000 copies, one per household in my constituency-which highlights the scale of the additional housing we were being told to build in my constituency.

It was the thoroughly undemocratic nature of that imposition that so angered my constituents. Their local council could do nothing about it. Their elected councillors had no influence on the process. In Leighton Buzzard, several hundred people took to the streets in protest during the election campaign. Leighton Buzzard is a town where people are not prone to take to the streets about just any matter, yet several hundred came out to demonstrate, such was their strength of feeling.

I wish some Opposition Members had been present, as the rally was a difficult time for the Labour candidate. She had to disown her party's policy because she saw how unpopular and unfair it was and that it would have ruined the balance in our area between infrastructure, transport, jobs and housing. I speak as someone who always supported the previous district council's plans to build about 9,000 extra houses in my constituency to meet local housing need and make a small contribution towards the greater housing needs of London and the south-east. That need is real and we should not deny it.

I welcome enormously the Prime Minister's emphasis, as he stood on the steps of Downing street, on strengthening families and rebuilding family life. When I made my maiden speech nine years ago, I said that strengthening families was a large part of my motivation for entering politics and public life. During the Child Poverty Bill Committee, I was saddened when the then Under-Secretary for Work and Pensions said the Labour Government did not believe that family breakdown was a cause of poverty. The Conservatives recognise absolutely that poverty wrecks families and Government statistics from the households below average income series clearly demonstrate that there is a double likelihood of a child growing up in poverty if its parents separate. We cannot ignore that, so I ask Opposition Members not to let the issue become a party political divide. There are plenty of politicians on the centre left in other countries who recognise the facts and try to do something about them. They try to give families skills and support to make a success of their family life and strengthen it, and I am delighted that our new Government will do that. I hope that we have common ground in that area in the future.