The comments made by Julie Marson, the Conservative MP for Hertford and Stortford, on Twitter on 21 October 2022.
I am backing Rishi Sunak for party leader. He has a proven track record of steering our economy through turbulent times and supporting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. I believe he will unite our party and country, to lead us through the enormous challenges ahead.
The tribute made by Julie Marson, the Conservative MP for Hertford and Stortford, in the House of Commons on 9 September 2022.
It is a solemn honour to rise in this debate to pay tribute to Her late Majesty the Queen, both personally and on behalf of my constituents in Hertford and Stortford. It is humbling to follow so many wonderful and fine tributes.
The King himself, in his moving address, made reference to a speech that many in the Chamber have mentioned, in which his mother the late Queen, on her 21st birthday, made a declaration that her whole life, whether long or short, would be devoted to our service. We know now that her life was long and that for every day of her 70-year reign she magnificently honoured that solemn vow.
In that same speech, the Queen said:
“I am thinking especially today of all the young men and women who were born about the same time as myself and have grown up like me in terrible and glorious years of the second world war.”
It is that, alongside her vow of devotion to duty, that resonates with me today. Perhaps it is because she was speaking about those like my own parents, now themselves in their 90s and children of the east end and the blitz.
I am struck more than ever that Her late Majesty, both as a person and as a monarch, represents a link between our generations. She is a tangible human link to our nation’s past—to its struggles, but most of all to its finest hour. She is also a link to our own individual pasts—our personal histories and those of our families. We have heard many of those stories here today.
The Queen, with her ability to evoke the spirit of what we rightly call the greatest generation, gave what in my view was the finest speech of the covid crisis. She said that she hoped
“those who come after us will say that the Britons of this generation were as strong as any,”
and of course she said that “we will meet again”. Her late Majesty personified that link with our past and with the greatest generation. We shall not see her like again.
Arthur Balfour was Prime Minister in 1901 and addressed this Chamber on the death of Queen Victoria. He said then that
“the end of a great epoch has come upon us”.—[Official Report, 25 January 1901; Vol. 89, c. 20.]
With the passing of our Queen, the end of a great historical epoch has indeed passed, but we are all privileged to have lived at least some of our lives in the great second Elizabethan age. We mourn her but we cherish her memory and her lifetime of service. God bless Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. God save the King.
The statement made by Julie Marson, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in the House of Commons on 20 July 2022.
This Government are committed to helping people back into work, and to support this cross-Government effort, the Department for Work and Pensions has invested in the temporary expansion of its jobcentre network. This has enabled us to deliver for claimants, including through our comprehensive, multibillion-pound Plan for Jobs.
Plan for Jobs has delivered for claimants over the last two years through kickstart, sector-based work academies, job entry targeted support (JETS), Restart and the expansion of our youth hubs. Together, these programmes have helped people get into work and upskill, no matter where they live or the stage of their career.
Recently, our Way To Work scheme achieved the target of getting 500,000 people into work. Since January 31, over 520,000 intensive work search universal credit and jobseekers allowance claimants moved into work during the campaign as we mobilised our workforce and brought employers into jobcentres to see the talent on offer. Latest figures, up to June, show a record high of 29.6 million people are now on payroll in the UK.
Thanks to our Plan for Jobs and the Government’s responsive labour market policy throughout the pandemic, the unemployment level is at a near record low. The Department’s approach “Any Job, Better Job, Career” means work coaches are building on the strength of the labour market with a new focus on progression, helping claimants into better jobs and ensuring they are on a career path that is right for them.
We outlined on 17 March the Department’s strategy which will, over the next 10 years, reshape how, where and when it delivers its back of house services. Over the 10-year period the Department will transition to an estate that is smaller, greener, and better, making DWP more efficient for customers and our employees. By having a smaller footprint, this helps us to be greener. This type of bold modernisation can support efficiencies, create value for money, reduce fraud and error, build resilience and sustainability, and achieve improved customer outcomes and experience. As announced on 17 March, we took advantage of lease breaks in 2023 to improve the future delivery of DWP back of house services.
As part of this 10-year programme, we are now providing an update on another strand of this work, focusing on changes to some of our front of house sites, taking advantage of the lease breaks once again and leaving older lower-quality buildings whilst optimising opportunities presented from some of the temporary jobcentres opened during the pandemic.
We will do this in four ways:
consolidate services in some locations where there is another nearby which offers better accommodation for customers and staff;
look to close older and poorer premises and permanently relocate to the new temporary Jobcentre, making it an established site;
co-locate with key partners;
and in some cases, secure new premises.
The location of the new sites will be as close as possible to the existing offices in order to maintain physical presence in areas and minimise the impact on customers, while providing an improved office environment for customers and staff. This is not about reducing headcount or services offered, and we expect no jobs to be lost.
Details of some of these further site moves have been announced today. Letters are being sent to each MP with an affected site in their constituency explaining what it means for their local jobcentre and their constituents.
The speech made by Julie Marson, the Conservative MP for Hertford and Stortford, in the House of Commons on 19 May 2022.
It is a great pleasure to speak in this transport debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth).
I will focus on two local projects that are of great importance to my local community in Hertford and Stortford. Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak in the final debate on the Queen’s Speech, on economic growth, where I made the point that delivering infrastructure, particularly transport infrastructure, is such a key part of the Government’s agenda, along with delivering skills and innovation. I really do welcome the Government’s commitment to infrastructure and transport projects up and down the country that will deliver economic growth and improved productivity, and spread opportunity across our nation. We need sustainable, creative, innovative, green solutions.
That leads me neatly on to HERT—the Hertfordshire to Essex rapid transit proposal, which is being consulted on and developed right now, with public engagement across the relevant counties of Hertfordshire and Essex. HERT will deliver accessible, reliable, affordable, sustainable east-to-west transit in my constituency. I have two towns in the west, two towns in the east, and the rural piece in the middle, and east-to-west transport is difficult, partly because buses are less than reliable. This is a really creative, innovative solution to that issue, and it will go much further than my constituency and benefit both counties as well. It really is a forward-looking vision that will create and support jobs, growth and accessibility for our community. I look forward to the continuing development of this long-term project and engaging with the Department to realise it.
I also want to highlight the brilliant bid in which we have been shortlisted for Bishop’s Stortford to become the headquarters of the new Great British Railways. I pay tribute to all those involved in putting this brilliant bid together as part of the Shaping Stortford group: East Hertfordshire District Council, Hertfordshire County Council, Bishop’s Stortford Town Council, Hertfordshire’s LEP, Solum, Bishop’s Stortford BID—business improvement district—and all the local residents who have engaged so constructively and proactively. The proposed Goods Yard site dates from 1842, and it is very fitting to have the possibility of returning rail to this historic site, which is itself a key town centre regeneration project. Our area has its own pockets of deprivation, and the jobs this would deliver would be a huge boost for our community, and, overall, a great addition to our expanding but beautiful market town, which is so brilliantly located as the gateway to the eastern region, at the heart of the Cambridge-London-Stansted innovation corridor, and to Stansted airport itself, and linked by road and rail to London.
Both HERT and the Great British Railways HQ bid are projects that are a credit to Hertford and Stortford and to the people who are involved in them. I heartily recommend them to the Minister, who has an invitation to come and visit at any time.
The speech made by Julie Marson, the Conservative MP for Hertford and Stortford, in the House of Commons on 18 May 2022.
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to support the legislative agenda that the Government set out in the Queen’s Speech. When Harold Macmillan was asked what the greatest challenge facing a statesman was, he famously responded, “Events, dear boy, events”. During my entire time in this place, we have been buffeted by extraordinary, frightening events, not least for our constituents up and down the country, including in my constituency. There has been fear of the health consequences of the global pandemic, as well as its economic consequences on lives and livelihoods, and the pandemic is still having an impact across the globe, notably in China. The effect on supply chains of the covid resurgence in China, including in Shanghai, is also having a devastating economic impact.
We have had to face Russia’s evil and unjustified invasion of Ukraine. Not only have we rightly imposed sanctions, which the whole House supports, but the invasion itself has had an economic impact. The Governor of the Bank of England warned this week at the Treasury Committee of the “apocalyptic” prospects for food prices. He also said clearly that 80% of the causes of inflation was due to global factors. That makes Government intervention very difficult. This is a very challenging time and the cost of living crisis is very challenging for any Government who face it. They are being buffeted by global events.
After listening to some very fine and impassioned speeches from Opposition Members, I cannot help but remember that, if things had gone differently, and if they had had their way, the leader talking to our NATO allies and shepherding this country through these economic and security crises would have been the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and we would have had a Chancellor who brandished the little red book in this Chamber. So thank goodness—I believe this very strongly—that it is a Conservative Government who have been shepherding this economy and country through unprecedented, back-to-back crises over the past few years and who will continue to do so.
This Government, in shepherding and controlling the economy, have enabled us to support lives and livelihoods for the past few years to the tune of £400 billion. They continue to support people in need with a package currently of £22 billion for measures that include reducing fuel duty, raising national insurance thresholds, increasing the national living wage and others.
The heroes of the pandemic were our doctors, nurses and key workers. The future heroes in this global crisis will be the business owners, the workers in businesses and those who are innovating and starting new businesses. As I see it—I have said this before in the Chamber—that is where the Government’s role is that of a groundsman. It is about setting the pitch and conditions for our bowlers and batsmen to be able to respond to the difficult balls and to knock the easy balls out of the park. I see the context of this Queen’s Speech as one where, as the groundsman, we put in place those conditions, so that our players can play the best game available.
As the Chief Secretary set out, that means dealing with skills, innovation and infrastructure. All those measures are included in the Queen’s Speech: the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill; the Brexit freedoms Bill; proposals on data reform and financial services to support our critical venture capital industry; the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill; and the higher education Bill. This is a consistent, thought-through package of legislation that will deal with the global and domestic challenges in the years ahead. I absolutely commend it to the House.
Below is the text of the speech made by Julie Marson, the Conservative MP for Hertford and Stortford, in the House of Commons on 28 April 2020.
Nearly 10 years ago, one summer’s day, I remember sitting in a stifling hot room looking at a photograph of a cute, blond four-year-old boy who was beaming up at the camera. Nothing remarkable in that, you might think, and I expect that many of us have similar photographs of our own children smiling and laughing at the camera, just as they should be at that age, making happy memories. The difference on this occasion was that I was in court, sitting as a magistrate. The photograph had been taken by a police officer, and the little boy had an enormous black eye. He had been trying to protect his mother from being attacked by his father and had strayed too close to a flailing fist. He was just four years old, and he had already been subjected to more emotional and physical trauma than most of us can imagine. Domestic abuse is a crime and an abomination against victims and their families. It is a crime against our whole society. I have been lucky; I have never personally experienced it, but other Members of this House have done so, and they have spoken incredibly movingly about their experiences.
I will be supporting the Bill today, and I am proud that the Government are taking this lead. I pay tribute to all those involved in the development and drafting of the Bill. It is remarkable that until now there has been no cross-government statutory definition of domestic abuse, and no commissioner to give a voice and prominence to this issue and to hold the Government to account. I welcome those measures, along with the trial of protection orders and protection notices and the extra cross-court safeguards in the justice system, which will give more effective protection to victims and their children—explicitly, whatever their immigration status might be. I very much welcome the legislative inclusion of Clare’s law. I would also like to take a moment to recognise the pioneering work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who worked tirelessly for this legislation and to ensure that provisions on coercive control would be included for the first time.
In Hertford and Stortford, we are fortunate to have Future Living, a charity founded and run by the amazing Sandra Conte, which provides outstanding community support and services for victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse, male and female alike. Everyone who meets Sandra and knows what she and her colleagues do at Future Living becomes an evangelist, and I am no different. Unapologetically, I shall use this opportunity to encourage the Government and our local authorities in Hertfordshire to continue to provide Future Living with the support and resources it needs to do its vital work, especially as Sandra has told me today that she is seeing a significant increase in cases, particularly where a separated, abusive parent is using the covid crisis to keep children away from their victim and flouting contact orders. We expect even more of an increase in demand for the charity’s services as we come out of lockdown.
I truly understood the dynamics of domestic abuse for the first time only after I experienced the training given to magistrates. It opened my eyes and completely changed my perspective. It is vital that those involved in policing and the justice system have rigorous training so that they can recognise the abuse cycle, from subtle control to murderous violence, and the fact that the most dangerous moment for a victim is often when they leave the relationship and try to regain control of their own lives.
Domestic abuse is a dangerous and destructive cycle. It was about 10 years ago when I saw that photograph. That little boy will be 14 or 15 by now, and what I wonder most is whether he spent his childhood in that environment or whether things might have changed for him. Perhaps his father received the justice or indeed the help he needed; perhaps his mother managed to escape. Heartbreakingly, that boy might be condemned to repeat the cycle of control and abuse he grew up with, knowing no different and believing that that was normal family life. I support this Bill, because I think it will help children like him. It has been a privilege to contribute to this debate.