Christmas Adjournment

Part of Royal Assent – in the House of Commons at 1:56 pm on 19 December 2006.

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Photo of Andrew Selous Andrew Selous Shadow Minister (Work and Pensions) 1:56, 19 December 2006

It is always a great pleasure to listen to and follow Mrs. Cryer, whom many Opposition Members find always speaks a great deal of sense. I particularly agree with her concluding remarks about the search for what binds and unites us as a country. As someone whose own brother is a teacher of English as a foreign language, I can say that English is of course a fundamental component in that regard. What the hon. Lady said was tremendously welcome; it needs to be said more often and I commend her for saying it.

I want to raise—briefly, as a number of Members want to get in—four issues brought to me by my constituents and two of wider interest. First, I want to put on the record my support for Bedfordshire primary care trust's revised bid for a community hospital in Leighton Buzzard, in my constituency. Various Members have expressed concern today about the scaling back of health services such as community hospitals in the areas that they represent. Leighton Buzzard is one of the largest towns in the whole country without any form of hospital facility—if not the largest—so I am very pleased that Bedfordshire PCT is putting forward a bid for a community hospital there. I was with the PCT on1 December—the day on which it had a meeting with the East of England strategic health authority. The bid will have to be finalised by next summer, and if the community hospital is deemed needed and affordable, it could be built within some 18 months, particularly if NHS capital is used, so we could have it by 2009. The proposal is for a new main facility in the town, but also for more and better services on existing health sites in the town. We can expect facilities such as diabetes treatment, wound care, consultant out-patient clinics, extended primary care, social care and various diagnostic facilities.

My constituents have waited a very long time for some form of community hospital in Leighton Buzzard, and we are naturally cautious—seeing will be believing. When we see bricks going on other bricks, we will know that we have reason to celebrate. I am heartened by my last meeting with the primary care trust and wish to put on record my full support for bringing the project to fruition.

My next point is about transport and especially the journeys faced by constituents who live in Leighton Buzzard and the wider commuter hinterland around it. The capacity of the railways was much touched on in Transport questions earlier. Leighton Buzzard is growing fast and is scheduled to grow much faster still, but it has nothing like enough jobs to support its working population. Indeed, that is a feature of the whole of my constituency and at least 55 per cent. of my constituents commute out of the area to work. I was therefore very concerned recently to receive a letter from Silverlink, the train operator, dated 22 November, in which it said that it was not possible to put on any more fast trains from Leighton Buzzard into London and that the existing fast trains cannot be made any longer. The commuter services are already very full and if we see the increase in Leighton Buzzard's population that is anticipated under the Government's sustainable communities plan, I wonder how people in the town will be able to get to work and back again. I do notsee joined-up thinking between the Department for Transport and the Department for Communities and Local Government, and I wish to put my concern about that matter firmly on the record.

I also have reason to believe—it has been said to me by several senior local authority figures in Bedfordshire—that since the announcement about the Olympics those of us in other areas of the country have sensed a movement of money towards ensuring that we can put the games on successfully in 2012. I wonder whether large parts of the Government's sustainable communities plan are not fully feasible because of how much money will have to be spent on building the Olympic facilities.

The third issue that I wish to raise is the exclusion of children from lessons, which can be quite an emotional subject. I have mentioned before—not least recently in the excellent Adjournment debate instigated by my hon. Friend John Bercow in Westminster Hall on children with speech and language difficulties—my concerns about children who are physically restrained by teachers or learning support staff in schools without their parents being made aware that it is happening. Parents have a fundamental right to know what is happening to their children in schools, certainly as far as physical restraint is concerned. I see parents as part of the solution, not part of the problem.

In my surgery last week, I had a mother and father who told me about the experiences of their young child, who was being regularly excluded from a substantial part, or the whole, of periods in the school day. The parents were not being told that that was happening. I look at such issues instinctively. I do not reach for a party handbook and see what the line to take is, but instead react as a human being and father. I think about how I would feel if that happened to my own children. Frankly, if a child is excluded from a whole or substantial part of a lesson, the parents should be told that that has happened at the end of the school day. I am not saying that the parents should be told immediately, but they should be told by the end of the day, because—I repeat—parents are part of the solution. Education is not a linear relationship between the school and the children, but a triangular relationship in which the parents are fundamental.

I was surprised to find that such exclusions were happening. I know that the situation varies in different schools and local education authorities, but I am concerned about it and wish to place my views on the record.

The next issue I wish to raise is training, especially for those no longer in the first flush of youth. A constituent came to see me recently who is 44, as I am, and is on incapacity benefit. He wanted to train as a plasterer—an excellent idea, as we have a shortage of plasterers in the area. However, the plastering course that he was considering lasted three years. For young people who live with their parents and so do not have expensive accommodation costs it may be fine to go on a training course for three or four years. However, for people in their 30s or 40s, perhaps with a family, a training course of that length is impossible to complete. I suggest that such courses should be held, to the same standard and as rigorously, on a much more intensive basis. Students would work for longer during the day and perhaps over weekends so that the courses could be completed in six months or so. More people on low incomes or benefits would then be able to complete a course and gain a skill with which to earn their living. The plastering course was three years, as was the plumbing course. A qualification in health and safety took four years, and the electrician course took three years with one year of on the job training. We need to consider the duration of such courses and I have raised the issue with Ministers in the Department for Education and Skills.

Like every other hon. Member I have been shocked and appalled by the events in Ipswich in the past few days. I read the biographies of the five women who were so brutally and horrifically murdered and I cannot have been the only one to be struck by the fact that they were all heroin addicts. It is a problem that affects all our constituencies—there will not be a single Member of Parliament who does not have a heroin problem in their constituency. Given that we know that 90 per cent. of the heroin on UK streets comes from Afghanistan and that we have a major military presence there, it is extraordinary that we cannot do more to stop the poppy crop ending up here. I know that right hon. and hon. Members have raised that issue with Ministers. I recall that Mr. Field and John Mann, to name but two, have done so. Not so long ago under the common agricultural policy we were able to buy up crops in the European Union, although the regime has since changed. The Minister looks at me quizzically, but my question is: why, given that heroin can have legitimate medical uses, cannot we buy up the Afghan heroin crop and use it around the world for pain relief? That would stop it flooding into this country illegally. We need more serious thought about that issue. The UK was charged with overall responsibility for the opium issue in Afghanistan and it is a subject that has been raised with Ministers by my Front-Bench colleagues recently.

Finally, I wish everyone a happy Christmas, as is traditional for hon. Members speaking in this debate. We have had a healthy debate about the very words "Happy Christmas" this year, with a satisfactory outcome. I am pleased by the work of the Christian Muslim Forum, which involves Muslims and Christians working together. Many Muslims have said that they are not offended by the celebration of Christmas in this country or by people wishing them a happy Christmas, just as I as a Christian am not remotely offended if someone wishes me a happy Diwali or happy Eid. A few days ago, I saw an e-mail from the Hindu Council of Britain saying that this country's Hindu community was absolutely happy with the celebration of Christmas in this Christian country. I was also especially struck and impressed by the card from Mr. Malik. He is a Muslim, but his card to me and the other hon. Members on his extensive Christmas list very clearly wishes us a merry Christmas. That is an excellent example, and one worth raising in this debate.

I have been keeping a little list of the people who have sent me cards with the message "Season's Greetings". There are far too many such cards from people in Bedfordshire who should know better. I agree with the hon. Member for Dewsbury, who made it clear that, as a Muslim, he was wishing us a happy Christmas. In that spirit, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you, the staff of the House and other hon. Members a very happy Christmas.