Tackling Poverty in the UK

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:50 pm on 10 June 2010.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Pauline Latham Pauline Latham Conservative, Mid Derbyshire 3:50, 10 June 2010

Guess what? I, too, would like to congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your new role. I also congratulate those who have made their maiden speeches. They show that there are some very good new Members in this Parliament. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me today, although it is, inevitably, rather a daunting moment, not only because so many Members from the 2010 intake have spoken so well, but because we follow in the footsteps of many wonderful orators who have made history in the House.

In a maiden speech it is customary to pay tribute to one's predecessors. In my case, it is a little difficult because Mid Derbyshire has been made up of four different constituencies, and I am the first Member to be elected for the new constituency. However, a constituency called Mid Derbyshire was created in the general election of 1885, when Sir James Alfred Jacoby was elected as the Liberal Member of Parliament. He held the seat until his death in 1909, when he was succeeded, after a by-election, by John George Hancock, also a British Liberal party politician, until 1918, when the seat was abolished. He was one of a group of trade union-sponsored Liberals who were instructed by their union to join the Labour party. He held his seat as a Labour Member, without Liberal opposition, in both 1910 elections.

Relations between the Labour and Liberal parties deteriorated after that, and they were expected to field candidates against each other at the next general election, which was anticipated to be in 1915. Hancock decided that he would rather be defined as a Liberal, so he crossed the Floor in 1915 to rejoin the Liberals. He held the seat until the constituency was abolished for the 1918 general election. He was then returned unopposed for the new Belper constituency, also once held by the well known politician Lord George Brown. Belper is in the new Mid Derbyshire constituency.

My constituency comprises part of West Derbyshire, now Derbyshire Dales, part of Amber Valley, part of Erewash and part of Derby North. Hon. Members now representing two of those seats have already paid great tribute to their predecessors in their maiden speeches, and my hon. Friend Jessica Lee is sitting right behind me-I hope she will be called today. The three Members who preceded me and left at the election worked hard for their constituents and were well known by them. I will try to be as diligent and hard-working in my duties in the years to come. The fourth Member is, of course, my right hon. Friend Mr McLoughlin, who is a long way from retirement. He remains a very successful Member and is part of the new coalition Government.

Before saying more about my right hon. Friend, I want to say how delighted I am to represent the people of the new constituency of Mid Derbyshire. It is a wonderful mixture of urban and rural, and at its heart is part of a world heritage site-the Derwent Valley Mills, birthplace of the factory system. The Derwent Valley Mills and the industrial revolution influenced north America, Europe and, indeed, the world. There are some beautiful areas, including Dale abbey where a hermit lived in a cave. Some of Derby's suburbs are very pleasant, as is the village of Little Eaton where I have lived for many years.

Mid Derbyshire is on the edge of the beautiful Peak district, part of the soft landscape of the southern Derbyshire dales. Derbyshire building society was one of the major employers, although as I said yesterday it is about to close; but we do have the relatively new Derby university.

I am fortunate to have known my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales since just after his narrow by-election win in 1986, when the then Labour Derbyshire county council decided to abolish, not for educational reasons but from political spite, the sixth form at the school that my children attended. As chairman of the school parent teacher association, it was left to me to lead the campaign to save the sixth form of what was, and is, the most successful comprehensive in the county. We even had an Adjournment debate in this place. It did not start until after 3 o'clock in the morning but it was attended by more than 150 parents, staff and children. The campaign was successful and the sixth form was saved.

Since those times my interest in international development has grown through starting a project in Uganda with students from two of the four secondary schools in Mid Derbyshire. We have been to Uganda to see what it is like for children to be brought up in a developing poor country. The project links very well with my interest in education, because we help schools over there. The students pay most of the cost of the trip, but we all fundraise to pay for the rest and for the aid that we take to the two schools that we support. Last year, £12,000 was shared between the schools. It is a good way for students from relatively comfortable backgrounds to see that others can be as successful as them. Just because the Ugandan students are poor does not mean that they cannot succeed.

Students from Ecclesbourne school in Duffield and Woodlands school in Allestree spend many of their weekends fundraising, which has included bag-packing in supermarkets, washing cars, running stalls at fairs and baking cakes for sale. The students have learned to speak in public, either at school to inspire other students to help or in local churches to explain why we have a cake stall after the service. They have also learned that fundraising is hard work.

Those young people see students in Uganda who have nothing but who are getting on with a good education without books or equipment. They study the same syllabus but without a textbook in sight, relying only on the teacher's knowledge to learn, often by rote, from the blackboard. Their schools are in poor rural communities and it has been useful for our students to realise that from an early age Ugandan students have to fetch water from the well before walking up to seven miles to school. They do not have iPods, computers, mobile phones or the internet-luxuries that our students take for granted. The fundraising has transformed the life chances of the children we have helped in Uganda, as well as giving our students an insight into what real poverty is. I have also been to Rwanda with a Conservative party project, so I am delighted that we are committed to work towards our 0.7% international development goal.

Of course we have poverty in this country. Derbyshire does not have inner-city poverty, but there is poverty. Much of the money going to schools follows free school meal take-up, and I have been told regularly by head teachers that in a relatively affluent area, the problem is that people who suffer poverty are frightened and nervous about asking for free school meals. I would like our Government to look at how we can encourage take-up in schools where relatively fewer people are in poverty.

We need to remember that there are pockets of poverty in rural areas and in certain suburbs. I am delighted that our Government will give local authorities the freedom to spend money as best they think fit. We must ensure that hidden deprivation is not one of those things that is missed, so that the students in our schools get the best educational chance that they can.

I want to represent all the constituents of Mid Derbyshire, from whatever part of the social spectrum, and I am particularly concerned, as I said yesterday, about the problems that we will face with unemployment, given the impending closure of the head office of the Derbyshire building society. I have written to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to ask him to consider how he can help those people to get back into work.