Tag: Maiden Speech

Harriet Harman – 1982 Maiden Speech to the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Harriet Harman to the House of Commons on 5 November 1982.

I know that hon. Members sadly miss Harry Lamborn, who died this summer. It is a great privilege to represent the people of Peckham, but I regret that I have come here as result of a by-election following Harry Lamborn’s death. I should have preferred to come here after a general election, knowing that he and his wife Lil were enjoying a well-earned retirement. Harry will be long remembered in Peckham not only for the 10 years that he served in the House as Member of Parliament but for the many years before that when he was a Southwark councillor. His contribution to the area is warmly remembered and he will be sadly missed.

Peckham is not faring well under the Government’s policies. Since 1979 unemployment has more than doubled and more than 80 young people chase each job at the Peckham careers office. More than 9,000 families are on the housing waiting list, at a time when more than 1,000 skilled building workers are on the dole and the council owns land on which it would build but for the fact that Government cuts have almost put an end to new council building.

For those in council homes—nearly 80 per cent. of homes in Southwark are rented from the council—the Government have forced up rents and plan to do so again. Under the Government’s housing policy, the home owner in Chelsea receives nearly twice as much public subsidy as the council tenant in Peckham. Despite the fact that rents are increasing, repairs take much longer because of cuts in the budget for major maintenance. I am not talking simply about a lick of paint; I am talking about major maintenance and vital repairs. Living standards for those in work are falling.

I wish to mention the case of one constituent. I should not call her a “case” but, unfortunately, she is a welfare case. She works a six-day week for 47½ hours in the catering department of St. Thomas’s hospital. She receives only £58 take-home pay and her rent is £45 a week. That is why she is a welfare case. It is a scandal that someone who works so hard in the public service must fight her way through a web of rent and rate rebates just to be able to live. For the increasing number of those who are out of work, living standards are falling even faster and their lot is to stand around on street corners with nothing to do.

Vital public services have been hit badly. Southwark council can provide only about 500 nursery places for the borough’s 13,500 under-fives. Even when the Inner London Education Authority has the money to build schools and provide nursery places it is not allowed to do so. The Government prevent ILEA from providing more nursery places.

The Government are directly responsible for something which people in Peckham are extremely concerned about, and that is the increase in crime. We do not know very much about the causes of crime, but we know that as youth unemployment increases so juvenile crime increases. Therefore, the Government’s responsibility for directly increasing unemployment, especially among young people, gives them a direct responsibility for the increase in juvenile crime. This is not to excuse crime, but if we are to solve the problem we must understand its causes and tackle them.

We know also—Government reports have borne this out—that dark corners of rundown ill-lit estates attract muggers and vandalism. The Government’s cuts in housing have a direct effect on crime in our inner cities.

Increasing the powers of the police, especially their powers randomly to stop and search—it seems that what the Government will be providing in their police Bill will amount to random stop and search—will do nothing to attack the causes of crime. However, what it will do—and we know this to be so—is to strain further the relations between the police and the public. It will alienate further the police from the public they are supposed to serve and make it harder for the police to do their job. If the Government are serious about wanting to improve the relationship between the police and the public, they should bring London’s police under the control of locally and democratically elected people. Statutory consultation will not do. The police will consult, but having done so they can and will be able to go their own way.

The effect of Government policies on Peckham is no accident. It is not the effect of the mismanagement of a Government who have got their sums wrong but the politics of inequality. There is no need for the tragic waste of talent of the young person in Peckham who would make an excellent electrician or carpenter but who cannot find an apprenticeship, let alone a job. There is no need for people to remain homeless while building workers are on the dole and while land becomes a blight because it is empty and becomes an eyesore. There is no need for pensioners to go to bed halfway through the afternoon as the winter approaches because they cannot afford to pay their heating bills, let alone the standing charges. There is no need for young mothers to become depressed as they struggle to bring up children in small flats with no nursery facilities and no play facilities in the area.

There is no need for any of that because we are a wealthy nation. We are rich in oil and natural gas and rich in the skills of the work force. But we must plan to use this wealth to put people back to work, to build homes and hospitals and to provide the schools and services that millions need. We must increase the wages of the low paid to stop the gulf of inequality that is opening up and to put spending power back in people’s pockets to regenerate the economy. During the recent by-election some reports painted Peckham as little better than a dump. It is not a dump, and such reports and such descriptions have been deeply offensive to the people of Peckham, who are struggling to make their area a decent place in which to live, to work and to bring up their children. This Government are making that struggle much harder.

The Government have taken to talking about “the inner city problem”. They point to places such as Peckham and talk about “this problem”. That is completely the wrong way round. The Government do not have an inner city problem; but the inner cities have a Government problem. It is not the people of Peckham who are the problem. The problem lies with those on the Government Benches who are deciding Government policies. It is about time that we stopped criticising the inner city areas and started criticising the Government.

January 6, 2016
Peter Hain – 1991 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Peter Hain in the House of Commons on 17 April 1991.

Entering the House after the high profile of a by-election is rather like having been head prefect in primary school, only to be plunged into the obscure anonymity of a secondary school new boy. I am confident that that fate awaits me when I sit down today.

It is an honour and a privilege to represent Neath, or Castell Nedd, whose importance dates from Roman and Norman times, and which has the cosiest town centre in Britain, surrounded by scenic valleys and majestic waterfalls, with, to the west, the a spectacular night-time view of Pontardawe’s unusually tall and striking church spire.

There is a strong sense of community, an immense network of voluntary activity, and a rich culture of amateur opera, music, and male voice and ladies’ choirs. On the eastern tip of the constituency is Richard Burton’s home village of Pontrhydyfen. Amateur sport is widespread—football, athletics and, of course, the best rugby team in country. Recently I was introduced to a class of nine-year-old children at Godrergraig primary school. The teacher said, “Here is a very important person.” One of the nine-year-olds got up and asked, “Do you play rugby for Neath?” That, I thought, was a man who had his priorities right.

I have enjoyed renewing my interests in the game at Neath’s home ground, the Gnoll. In my youth, that interest involved running on rugby pitches, both as a player and, later, in another capacity, which I shall refrain from describing, as this speech is made with your indulgence, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I am privileged in another way: I follow two Members, both survived by wives still living in Neath. Margaret Coleman is a highly respected figure in her own right in the community. Jenny Williams, now in her nineties, was a much-loved Labour party activist, and wife of D. J. Williams, who hailed from the close-knit village of Tairgwaith in the north-west of the constituency. In 1925, D. J. Williams wrote of the destructive impact of capitalism in the coal industry in terms that remain true today.

Donald Coleman’s tragically premature death was not just a bitter blow to his family; it deprived Neath of a favourite son, and this House of its finest tenor. Although I will do my best to follow in his footsteps as a diligent constituency MP, I am afraid I cannot hope to match his talent for music and song. The exuberance with which he sang and preached his love for Neath reflects the intense civic pride in the town and in the villages of the Dulais, Swansea, Amman, Neath and Pelenna valleys.

But local residents cannot survive on civic pride, mutual aid and mutual co-operation alone. They take great pride in educational achievement. I have met nobody in Neath who cannot remember how many O-levels he or she has. There is a great tradition of skill and hard work in Neath and its valleys. Much has been done in the face of Government indifference and neglect, but so much more could be done if the publicly sponsored investment in industry, infrastructure and initiative for which the people of Neath and its valleys are crying out were provided.

Surely Neath is entitled to the seedcorn investment, decent training provision and long-term loan finance that only national Government or the Welsh Office is able to provide. The old Blaenant colliery site —headgear still erect as a monument to the last pit in Neath; one of over 30 to close in the constituency in the last 30 years —nestles beneath the village of Crynant in the picturesque Dulais valley. The old Aberpergwm washery and pit site is just below the little village of Cwmgwrach in the Vale of Neath. Both are prime industrial sites, yet both stand idle, black and gaunt, their potential wasting away as 11 people chase every job vacancy, training places are cut to the bone, and businesses go bust. Nobody in Neath wants a free ride. People want simply the opportunity to build a new future.

That future must include high-quality health and community care provision. With its history of mining and heavy industry, the people of Neath suffer disproportionately from ill health. With a higher than average proportion of citizens of pensionable age—22 per cent. compared to 17.7 per cent. for Great Britain —there is a particular need for a properly funded health and community care network. Yet the Welsh Office and the Treasury have still not given the go-ahead for the new hospital that Neath so desperately needs, and West Glamorgan county council has been forced, under pain of poll tax capping, to close one of its old people’s homes.

Neath borough council, meanwhile, has had to spend an extra £523,000 on collecting the poll tax, compared with the cost of collecting the rates. On top of this, the borough had to install a new computer system for processsing the poll tax, at a cost of £300,000. Neath’s 16,000 pensioners are entitled to question the priorities of a society and a Government that waste such colossal sums of money while hospital waiting lists grow, and responsibility for community care is unceremoniously dumped on local authorities without the necessary resources to finance it.

How can we claim to be caring for citizens in need when the iniquity of the poll tax continues to penalise them so savagely? Even after the recent £140 reduction in the poll tax, residents in the Blaenhonddan area of Neath will be paying £113.66 a head. This is £85 more, incidentally, than I pay as a resident in Resolven, a few miles up the Neath valley, even though we are paying for the same local authority services, because of the discriminatory way the Welsh Office operates the transitional relief scheme.

One resident in the Blaenhonddan area—a woman from Bryncoch—is caring for her 83-year-old mother who has Parkinson’s disease. The mother has a tiny widow’s pension and has to pay the full £113. Their combined household poll tax bill is £339, yet both she and her husband are on tiny incomes which are so widespread in the Neath area. The hypocrisy of preaching community care while practising such a pernicious policy is not lost on that woman or her neighbours in Neath. Conservative Members who turn a blind eye to her predicament call to mind Thomas Paine’s summer soldier and sunshine patriot who in a crisis shrink from the service of their country.

How can the House claim to be safeguarding the interests of individuals such as a 72-year-old man from the village of Gwaun-cae-Gurwen, where the Welsh language is spoken with pride, whose eyesight deteriorates daily? He has waited 18 months for a cataract operation—a simple, cheap operation. Yet waiting lists for ophthalmic surgery at Singleton hospital have doubled since 1987, and there are now 1,400 local people like him awaiting in-patient treatment. Perhaps most outrageous of all, he was told that he could have the operation next week if he could go private at a cost of £3,000. He might as well have been invited to go to the moon, for that is a sum quite out of the question for someone living on the pittance that pensioners get today. He can be forgiven for noting with anger the grotesque fact that 200 people, just 0.0004 per cent. of the population, now monopolise 9.3 per cent. of the country’s economic wealth—some classless society indeed.

Meanwhile, the quality of the environment and the standard of living continue to deteriorate, especially for our elderly. Local bus services in the Neath valleys have been cut ruthlessly. Fares are exorbitant. Yet who can afford a car on a basic retirement income, perhaps topped up by a miner’s tiny pension? It is difficult enough for senior citizens to pay their colour television licence and the standing charges on their phone, electricity or gas. It is difficult enough for them to find the money to eat properly as food bills rise remorselessly while the real value of pensions declines compared with wage earners.

If Neath’s senior citizens had free bus passes, if standing charges on basic utility services were reduced or abolished for pensioners, if those on low incomes were entitled, like their colleagues in sheltered housing, to television licences for £5 rather than £77, if Neath and Lliw borough councils were not banned by the Government from using their combined housing capital receipts of £7.6 million to build new homes and hit by cuts in housing funding from installing universal central heating and upgrading their existing housing stock, if communities like Cwmllynfell at the heads of the four main valleys in the constituency were not choked by coal dust, disruption and heavy lorry traffic from existing and threatened opencast mines—if all those vital factors were addressed, the standard and quality of life of my constituents would be dramatically improved and, with it, there would be less need to depend upon health and community care provision.

Furthermore, if the curse of “London knows best” were removed, local people would of their own volition radically recast their priorities. That is why decentralisation of power through newly invigorated local councils and an elected assembly for Wales are so vital. That is why a freedom of information Act and an elected second Chamber are so essential. The voice of the people must be heard, not smothered by anachronistic and elitist institutions of Government.

During the last 12 years especially, Britain has become an “I’m all right, Jack” society, putting instant consumption before long-term investment, selfish “mefirstism” before community care, and private greed before the public good. The result is ugly to behold: the tawdry tinsel of decadence camouflaging a society rotten at the roots.

I thank the House for its indulgence or, as we say in Neath, “Diolch Yn Fawr.”

January 6, 2016
Peter Robinson – 1979 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Peter Robinson in the House of Commons on 21 May 1979.

As this is the first occasion on which I have addressed the House of Commons, I should like to thank the House for the great kindness shown to me in my first two weeks in this building. I should like to go further and thank hon. Members in all parts of the House for imparting to me their knowledge and experience.

Although I and my colleagues will sit on the Government side of the House, we shall be doing so as a separate and independent group.

I am told that in making a maiden speech one is expected to be non-controversial. Since I come from Belfast, East, the most important part of Northern Ireland, a country that is steeped in controversy, the House will understand my difficulty this evening. Indeed, I come from a party in which controversy has not been entirely unknown. My campaign was indeed controversial. Indeed, the policies I pursued were controversial, and therefore I face certain problems in making my maiden speech.

Before I go any further, I should place on record the appreciation of the people of East Belfast for the outgoing Member, the right hon. William Craig. Mr. Craig has been a colleague of mine for many years, and although we differed on policy matters I can say with confidence that we always maintained our friendship. William Craig has always been a gentleman, and I greatly respect him.

I shall be brief, and I shall do no more in this speech than nail my colours to the mast. Since I come from Northern Ireland, I shall do no other than speak of the most important matter in the eyes of the people of Northern Ireland, and that is the subject of security. I was pleased to see in the Gracious Speech a statement of the Government’s intention to restore peace and normality in my country. While that remains their policy, they will always have my full support and that of my party.

Hon. Members will all be aware of the terrible tragedy of terrorism. I know that it has come close to many in this House who knew Airey Neave. Those of us in Northern Ireland who knew him, loved and respected him, will appreciate the great loss occasioned by his death. In Northern Ireland about 2,000 people have died, over 20,000 people have been maimed and mutilated, and millions of pounds worth of damage have been caused in senseless and savage terrorism.

I ask the Government to adopt as their first priority the defence of the citizens of this part of the United Kingdom. I ask that they adopt the toughest security measures to put down terrorism in Northern Ireland. I may be stretching the idea of non-controversy too far if I suggest that the Government might even go as far as to bring in capital punishment for terrorist crimes.

In Northern Ireland many of us are aware of the great difficulty faced by the security forces. I wish to place on record my appreciation of the great job which they undertake against the propaganda that is put out by the Provisional IRA and other terrorist groups. I know that many hon. Members will take the view that I am too young to advise this House, and that may be so. But, despite my tender years, I have walked behind many a hearse and have looked in many an open grave. I have held the hand of many who have lost loved ones as a result of the terrorist campaign. I have carried in my arms fatherless children of many of the victims of Ulster sorrows.

Tonight, with all the force at my command, I call on the Government—because it is to this Government that my people look—to act with all speed and determination to solve the security problem in my country. On behalf of Ulster’s dead, I call on the Government to act. On behalf of Ulster’s living, I call on them to do it now. I ask them to stand up to terrorism in Northern Ireland and let my people live.

January 2, 2016
Andrew Mitchell – 1987 Maiden Speech to the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Andrew Mitchell in the House of Commons on 20 July 1987.

I rise to address the House for the first time in a spirit of great humility—deeply honoured to represent my constituency in this place.

I am particularly pleased to have caught your eye relatively early in the Session, Madam Deputy Speaker, so that I may pay tribute to my predecessor, Sir Philip Holland. Philip’s love and knowledge of this place and his service to his constituency was well known and well respected—as much in Gedling as in this House.

I mean no disrespect to Acton when I say that Philip graduated from that seat, from 1959 to 1964, to Carlton, which he went on to represent for 21 years—latterly as the constituency of Gedling, following the Boundary Commission’s most recent review.

Any hon. Member who chairs the Committee of Selection and yet remains so well liked and respected by hon. Members on both sides of the House must be endowed with the greatest of skills. Only time will tell whether any of my hon. Friends will take up Sir Philip’s mantle as a great hunter of quangos. I have been left in no doubt over the past few weeks that Philip’s many friends on both sides of the House will join me in wishing him and Lady Jo Holland a long and happy retirement.

The House may be aware that I am not the first member of my family to have taken his seat in this House; indeed, I am at least the fourth to have done so. Nevertheless, over the past three weeks I have come to the confident conclusion that not since Lloyd George have so many people known my father.

I beg to suggest that the constituency of Gedling is insufficiently well known outside Nottinghamshire. The rural deanery of Gedling, which gave its name to the refashioned seat of Carlton in 1983, is far more compact than its predecessor, having lost all the land south of the River Trent. My constituency stands at the crossroads of England, with a foot in the north, a foot in the south, but its heart in the Midlands.

Many hon. Members wax lyrical about the rural or urban nature of their constituencies and their agricultural or commercial interests. The great delight and at traction of the Gedling constituency lies in the exciting cross-section of the great variety of our national life that it provides. From the rural beauty and farming lands at the northern end to the more industrial areas of Netherfield and Colwick, my constituency includes the prime residential areas of Carlton, Woodthorpe and Arnold, perched either side of a hilly ridge. It also contains the attractive villages of Gedling, Burton Joyce and Stoke Bardolph, which include two of the most beautiful churches in the country which date from Saxon times. The Gedling colliery is achieving record productivity. It has been recruiting new members to the industry over the past six months and is an important feature of my constituency.

The quality of life enjoyed by my constituents is, by and large, excellent. We are particularly well served by the fine health facilities in Nottinghamshire which have seen a 30 per cent. decrease in waiting lists over the past four years. My constituents profit from living under the benign sway of the Gedling borough council, which is continuously singled out for praise by the Audit Commission for its standards of efficiency and service provision. Indeed, the council had its own version of the right to buy before the Government introduced their Housing Bill in 1980. We receive national and international delegations to inspect our housing schemes for the elderly and the frail elderly.

Of great significance is the fact that Gedling lies alongside the city of Nottingham. We know only too well that what happens in Nottingham today affects us in Gedling tomorrow. Gedling’s wealth and success are inextricably linked to the future of Nottingham city. As I try to follow that rocky pathway which is the lot of a Government Back Bencher, travelling as it does between toadyism and revolt, I shall be hoping, Madam Deputy Speaker, to catch your eye in the future when the Government’s bold plans to tackle the problems of our inner city come under discussion. We have much to be proud of in Gedling, and I am pleased to have been able to tell the House briefly some of those things.

Many of my constituents have followed the passage of this Bill with keen interest. The measures which passed into law before the election were widely welcomed. The help for business in dealing with VAT and in reducing small companies’ corporation tax was warmly supported, as was the further help for the blind and the elderly. Above all, we have had the welcome reduction in income tax. Today we are asked to give a Third Reading to this Bill. the greater part of which reintroduces proposals for tax relief for profit-related pay, as well as extending the accessibility and flexibility of personal pension schemes. I warmly welcome both measures. As my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary said on Second Reading: The working of the labour market remains one of the greatest weaknesses in this country.” —[Official Report, 8 July 1987; Vol. 119, c. 356.] There is common cause on both sides of the House that the level of unemployment remains appallingly high.

I hope that I am being equally uncontroversial when I say that it is the supply side of our economy that must particularly command our attention and the Bill, with these two principal measures, makes a direct contribution on that front. In spite of significant progress on the supply side, there remain real restrictions on job mobility, occasioned by the lack of private rented accommodation and immobility within the council housing system.

The problems within education and training are well rehearsed, but the results are that we do not always turn out children equipped to compete in today’s industries or win tomorrow’s jobs. There are still problems within the labour market which hinder productivity along with our industrial performance. Above all, there is the absurdity of a system whose rigidities can attribute greater value to being unemployed than to working.

Tax relief for profit-related pay will ecourage the widespread adoption of such schemes and will help to dispel any vestige of that bizarre myth which was prevalent during the days of our economic decline in some parts of the private sector —that pay is somehow not in reality always directly linked to profitability.

These measures will help further to eradicate the them-and-us sentiments which for so long have dogged British industry. They will extend and enhance a community of interest between employee, employer and shareholder and secure a more motivated and committed work force. Above all, who can doubt that such measures, when implemented, will act to cut unemployment by ensuring less risk for an employer contemplating taking on labour as well as acting as an alternative to redundancy when times are bad?

I believe that the clauses which relate to private pensions will secure an equally warm welcome. They improve the lot of the early leaver, and perhaps I should declare an interest at this point. It is a sad fact that many who have changed careers during their working life are particularly disadvantaged in respect of their pension entitlements. The relevant clauses in the Bill will not only increase the freedom to choose in pension planning but free another rigidity in the labour market over the long term.

The Bill’s provisions join the many other economic measures taken by the Government to improve choice and freedom for millions of our fellow citizens. Such measures also extend personal responsibility greatly within society. It is the extent to which these opportunities and responsibilities have been grasped throughout society which is truly remarkable. Many of these measures have been practical methods to improve the commercial operation of our economy, but they are part of a shift in opinions and ideas, and expression of a new consensus which has sprung up. They mark a sea change in public opinion. It may be that the Falklands factor disguised the extent of support for this new reality, but the 1987 third election victory is a message which cannot be ignored on the Opposition Benches. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) acknowledges these truths in his books and in his more recent speech in the debate on the Loyal Address. I dare to suggest that even the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) has shown an awareness of these new realities and aspirations over the past few weeks.

It was a Conservative Prime Minister returning to office in 1951 who reflected in the House that the nation required time to allow certain Socialist legislation to reach its full fruition. Although the positions are not comparable, I hope that the Opposition will accept how great has been the revolution in the spread of choice and ownership within society as well as in personal responsibilities keenly grasped. It is time for the Opposition to embrace these verities.

January 2, 2016
Jack Cunningham – 1970 Maiden Speech to the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Jack Cunningham to the House of Commons on 7 July 1970.

Mr. Speaker, may I begin by expressing my thanks and appreciation to my predecessor, Mr. J. B. Symonds, for the tremendous job that he did at Westminster during the last eleven years? He worked diligently for the constituency as a whole and on behalf of many individual constituents. Latterly, as many hon. Members know, he has been troubled by ill-health. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides will join me in wishing him well in his retirement. After 50 years in public service at all levels he thoroughly deserves it.

Whitehaven is in the south and west of Cumberland and is quite diverse in nature. It covers an area of 350 sq. miles comprising agricultural land with small industrial communities based mainly on coal and iron-ore mining. It has, for the last six years, been almost wholly a special development area. As its representative I shall be concerned principally with scrutinising the future regional policies of Her Majesty’s Government. Indeed, as a special development area it has had preferential Government aid for six years. No one will suggest that in this time the many problems of areas like Millam, Cleator Moor, Whitehaven and Frizington have been solved, but whilst we had a Labour Government the foundations for progress were effectively laid.

Many of the small industrial communities are still fighting for survival, lacking many of the basic facilities of some of the more prosperous areas of Britain. I want the Government to give a vigorous commitment to even greater assistance for areas like my constituency, because it is only through the policies of the central Government that the problems will be solved.

Last year the northern region as a whole enjoyed the fastest rate of growth in public expenditure in Britain, but still the problems remain. So it is nonsense for hon. Gentlemen opposite to suggest that we will solve regional problems by reductions in public expenditure. This just is not possible.

People might ask—I can understand this—why the regions have a right to preferential Government aid. One of the principal reasons for the present plight of various regions is that historically their natural assets—coal and steel—have been taken away in a major contribution to the last economic and industrial revolution. But—this is the important point—the money made at that time was never reinvested in the regions. There has been a total neglect for decades in terms of public and private investment.

To add insult to injury, local people have been left surrounded by industrial waste and dereliction and they are now presented with the Bill for clearing up the mess. I suggest that the Government should give a commitment to providing the whole of the cost involved in the removal of industrial dereliction.

I must also express grave concern at the apparent lack of interest instanced by the failure to provide a Minister of State for Regional Development. Apparently, there was indecision yesterday at Question Time concerning Government control of industrial development certificates. We heard some equivocal replies this afternoon on investment grants. Hon. Members representing constituencies affected by regional development have pointed out that this has been one of the major reasons for new industries moving to the regions. It is obvious that the Government cannot appreciate this point, because they have virtually no representatives from the areas affected.

I should also like to see a firm commitment to the continuation of the regional employment premium. This measure has enabled industries in the regions to reduce their costs and to become more competitive. Any Government which believes in the slogan “one nation”, as we understand the present Government do, will give us these commitments to help solve the regional problems not only in terms of industrial development, but also in terms of education, housing, health and urban renewal.

We ask not only for more industries and jobs, but also for a better share of the jobs which will provide higher incomes to families living in the regions. One of the major problems facing local authorities is that, because of low family incomes, there is no local impetus for the growth of amenities.

I remind the House that Government policies between 1951 and 1964 had a remarkably similar effect—in the Northern Region, at any rate—to the policies employed there by William the Conqueror. At the end of 1964 Government spending on regional policies as a whole totalled approximately £19 million. In 1969 this had risen to £285 million, but still the problems remain and many more problems need to be tackled more vigorously.

Can we believe, in view of this, that a commitment to reducing public expenditure will give us the results that we desire? To be more specific, we have not seen enlightened capitalism, about which we heard so much, rushing to help communities like Millam. They just do not want to know. It is only through a vigorous Government policy of inducements that we shall achieve industrial development in these areas.

As a scientist, I am sure that the new technologies which are coming will exacerbate these problems in the regions. Many of the difficulties that we already know will get worse. A more balanced economic development will not only aid regions like West Cumberland, but will also aid Britain as a whole. It is no accident that the community problems in the South-East and the West Midlands exist because people are afraid of overcrowding and of uncontrolled urban development. It is these very problems which, on the one hand, give the South-East a kind of pot-bellied economic affluence, whilst, on the other hand, the Northern Region in particular goes through a kind of economic Biafra. We shall be looking to this Government to reverse these policies.

I believe, as has already been said this afternoon, that in a rapidly changing industrial democracy it will be essential for any Government to intervene in industrial development and to give a commitment to ensure that we have a more even development in future than we have enjoyed hitherto.

I appreciate the traditional reception of a maiden speech from both sides of the House. I look forward in future to speaking on regional matters, on education, in which I have some experience, and also on science and technology.

January 1, 2016
Yvette Cooper – 1997 Maiden Speech to the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Yvette Cooper to the House of Commons on 2 July 1997.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, thank you for calling me during this historic debate. I am honoured to be uttering my very first words in the House on behalf of the people of Pontefract and Castleford on Budget day. This is Labour’s first Budget for 18 years—and what a Budget. It is hard to know where to begin: resources for education and health, help for the young and for the long-term unemployed, measures to calm growth in consumption, boost for investment or help with child care.

It is also an honour to conclude the debate today, and to hear so many maiden speeches. We have had such speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, North (Ms Ryan), for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Mrs. Keen), and from the hon. Members for Witney (Mr. Woodward), for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter) and for North Norfolk (Mr. Prior). We have had a tour of the country, and we have heard how the Budget will affect people across Britain. It is truly a people’s Budget.

Almost 100 years ago, Lloyd George launched his people’s Budget for this century. Now we have a new people’s Budget to begin the next century. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on a wise and radical Budget. It faces up to the long-term problems of the British economy. It also takes immediate steps to tackle some of the deep-rooted inequalities faced by my constituents.

I represent a corner of West Yorkshire which is proud of its industrial heritage and its hard-working people; the liquorice fields and factories of Pontefract; the potteries of Castleford; the pits—the heart and belly of the constituency; the power station at Ferrybridge; the glassworks and the chemical works of Knottingley and Castleford; and, near the corner of Normanton that I represent, a Japanese electronics factory.

These past two decades have been hard times in my constituency. Many of the pits are now closed, jobs in traditional industries have gone and, most important, we lack new investment and help to reskill the work force to generate new jobs to replace the old ones that have gone.

I must report to the House that 2,600 people in my constituency are officially unemployed: a third of them have been unemployed for more than a year. The number of people not working, either because they have been forced into early retirement or on to sickness benefit, is much higher. Too many of my constituent have not had their fair share of opportunities to learn and to obtain the qualifications that they need to prosper in a modern economy. That matters for the future, as one generation follows in the footsteps of another. Evidence shows that the chance of the sons and daughters of miners in my constituency becoming high earners when they grow up is a mere tenth of that of the sons and daughters of well-educated and wealthy professionals. That figure is shocking.

The House must not misunderstand me. It is true that my constituency is plagued by unemployment, but I represent hard-working people who are proud of their strong communities and who have fought hard across generations to defend them. They are proud of their socialist traditions, and have fought for a better future for their children and their grandchildren. In the middle ages, that early egalitarian, the real Robin Hood, lived, so we maintain, in the vale of Wentbridge to the south of Pontefract. It was a great base from which to hassle the travelling fat cats on the Great North road.

Centuries later, Pontefract became home to another true fighter for social justice, Barbara Castle. In her autobiography, she describes her politicisation during the miners lock-out in 1921. Through the years, my constituency has been home to other Members who have fought hard for the working people whom they represent in nearby constituencies, including the former Member for Hemsworth, Derek Enright, and my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O’Brien), who has helped me so much in these early months.

The people of Pontefract and Castleford owe most to the man who represented them for the past 19 years, and who battled hard for their welfare, Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse, now Lord Lofthouse of Pontefract. I know that hon. Members will join me in paying tribute to someone who, as a former Deputy Speaker, worked hard for the House, was fair and honourable, and, above all, was a kind man. He governed the House, which can sometimes be rowdy and alarming, with a firm but fair hand.

For some, the traditional tribute to a predecessor is something to be swallowed swiftly, got over as fast as possible. For me, it is an honour and a privilege to be able to pay that tribute on behalf of the House and the people of Pontefract and Castleford to Sir Geoff, as he is known locally.

Sir Geoff was a well-loved constituency Member of Parliament. Like my grandfather, he began his working life in the pits as a teenager. The mischievous among his Pontefract friends describe him as a corner-stint man, but they would never use the same phrase to describe his commitment to his constituents. His proudest achievement was his work for the welfare of the miners with whom he served for so long, getting emphysema recognised as an industrial disease.

I pay a personal tribute to him, too, for Sir Geoff has been extremely supportive during these curious first months here. I hope that we can continue to work together for the people of Pontefract and Castleford, a partnership which I hope echoes the strength of this new Government, young and old, energy and experience, women and men, across the country and across the generations working together for common goals. The Budget gives us the chance to achieve those goals.

More important to my constituents than anything else will be the new deal for the unemployed. In Pontefract and Castleford we are raring to go. Already, the Groundwork Trust in Castleford has approached me with a proposal for an environmental task force. We hope to encourage young unemployed people in some of the highest areas of unemployment in our constituency—in Knottingley and on the Airdale estate in Castleford—to join regeneration projects that are already planned. That way, they can take their first steps into the world of work straight from their own doorstep, be part of rebuilding their own troubled estates, learning transferable skills and building their own personal pride in their environment and in their work.

We think that this is such a good idea that we are not even waiting for the windfall tax money to come through. A local partnership is already drawing up a proposal for European money, and I hope that we will provide a successful model for the rest of the country to follow. At the same time, Wakefield council is itching to expand on its successful job subsidy programme, Workline, which it has been operating for the past 11 years. Employers there have a year-long subsidy of up to £40 a week to take on unemployed workers.

I asked one employer involved whether he would have taken someone on anyway. After all, his business was expanding. He told me two interesting things. The first was that the subsidy encouraged him to take on a new employee a year earlier than he would otherwise have done. The second was that, without the subsidy, he would not have considered taking on someone who was unemployed. There, in that one anecdote, was the proof that such a job subsidy can speed up job creation and help people in most danger of being locked outside the work force, trapped on the dole, into jobs.

That is important because it means that the new deal gives us a chance to tackle the long-term roots of inequality—people who are trapped on the dole in my constituency. Moreover, by helping those who find it hardest to get work, the new deal also boosts the capacity of the economy. That means that, as the economy grows, instead of running into the old inflationary buffers, as so often happens, we can have growth that creates jobs and more jobs, because we have boosted the capacity. That is the Budget’s greatest strength. At the same time as controlling consumer demand and stopping it expanding too fast, the Budget is boosting the supply side to try to raise Britain’s long-term sustainable rate of growth.

I hope that the new deal will receive support from both sides of the House, because it is about our future. In Pontefract and Castleford, I found enthusiasm for these proposals on both sides of the political spectrum.

As recently as Monday morning, a small business man came into my surgery. He admitted to being one of the few people in the area who had voted Conservative for 30 years—until the recent election. However, he said that he was delighted with what he had seen about Labour’s plans for young people. He said that he wanted to take on three young unemployed people, asked when they could start, and where should he sign. His enthusiasm was infectious, and I hope that such enthusiasm will encourage more small businesses, both in my constituency and throughout the country, to take up the challenge to provide a new deal for the unemployed. It is something which we all need to work on together.

I am sure that that man will be even more delighted now that he has heard my right hon. Friend’s Budget. It truly is a people’s Budget—a Budget for social justice and for Britain’s future. Tough choices have to be made, but they will generate results in the long run.

Keynes said: In the long run we are all dead”— but I say, “So what?” Our children and our grandchildren will still be alive. Therefore, for the people of Pontefract and Castleford and for their children and grandchildren, I welcome the Budget.

January 1, 2016
Michael Heseltine – 1966 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Michael Heseltine in the House of Commons on 14 July 1966.

I was deeply aware of the regard in which my predecessor, Sir Henry Studholme, was held in this House. It is matched by the affection extended to him in the Tavistock Division. He represented that Division with great distinction for 23 years. I am particularly conscious, as I am honoured to rise for the first time to speak in this House, of the standards he set when he was a Member of Parliament.

I know from what I have heard in this debate:hat we shall hear objections to the working of the Bill. We have heard some of them expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling). As a director of a company in the recruitment field, I saw something of these difficulties and I wish to make reference to them, but before I raise those questions I should like to raise what to me are questions which are fundamental not only to the Bill, but to the thinking of hon. Members on both sides of the House.

I wish to ask what right the House has to assume that there is a concept of national interest to which each of us as citizens owes a prime obligation in the every-day conduct of our job or business. If such a claim can be made of us I ask whether the making of that claim will so stimulate our energies and talents that the country will derive the greatest benefit from our endeavours.

There are two conditions which would be necessary to be fulfilled if we are to accept the concept of true national interest. The first condition is that it is capable of definition and that that definition must be acceptable not only to a political party, but to hon. Members on both sides of the House.

The second is that all sections of the nation shall be expected to share in any sacrifice which might be required by serving the national interest. I believe that on these two counts the Bill is unacceptable. By keeping the economy in its present over-heated state, many hon. Members would believe that we are acting against what we would term to be the national interest. There is no consensus on this subject today.

On the second point, only statutory control would enable the trade unions and the large industrial concerns to have the confidence that they were not embarking on an experiment from which the less controllable parts of the private sector would opt out. Even if the First Secretary were able to introduce legislation of the sort which would ensure control, I do not think that this would encourage on the part of each of us the sort of endeavours that the right hon. Gentleman would require. The First Secretary is concerned to involve the public in the problems facing the country. The overwhelming majority of the public are now aware—the First Secretary of State must take some of the credit for having educated them—that the only way in which the country can enjoy increasing benefits is if we can get faster growth.

There are two other considerations which I ask the First Secretary to bear in mind. First, a policy of full employment does not mean that each one of us is entitled to expect that the same job will be available to us in the same place throughout our lives and industries cannot automatically expect Government protection from historical trends and from overseas competition. Secondly, the only way to extract the maximum effort from the majority of our citizens is to reward by financial incentive. Businessmen will respond to one thing, and one thing only—the opportunity to increase their salaries, their profits, and the capital value of their companies.

If we wish, as I am sure we do, to enlist the nation’s greatest efforts, tangible rewards must be placed within the reach of everyone. There is no doubt that the First Secretary is one of the most persuasive and eloquent members of the Government. He has gained remarkable success in persuading people to say that they agree with the targets he has set, but I urge him to realise that it is one thing to persuade people to say that they agree. It is quite another thing for those people to go away and carry out what they have said they agree with. If the First Secretary could be present at every management meeting, if he could stand behind all the retailers’ counters, and if he could travel daily with the men going to work in Britain’s factories, then I believe that in a short term such a policy would be credible. The fact is that such an idea is patently absurd and, therefore, an alternative solution is required.

There can be few hon. Members who have not engaged in some negotiation which, in theory at least, would now fall within the purview of this legislation. There must be few who have not negotiated a salary increase, who have not evolved a pricing structure, or who have not disposed of capital in order to secure the maximum return. These are commonplace activities. I do not believe that behind the closed doors of human motivation considerations of the national interest weigh in the balance. I believe that it would be unhealthy if they did.

There is involved in this discussion this afternoon an obligation as fundamental as any that we may owe to the nation. We have obligations to ourselves. There are many hon. Members on this side of the House who believe that we serve our community best by maximising the return on our own endeavours. Of course there are exceptions to every generalisation, but for the generalisation I would say that the community grows stronger where its members set out to maximise their earnings and where its companies strive to maximise their profits.

It is the Government’s duty to establish beyond any doubt what they consider the national interest to be and, once they have so defined the national interest, not to urge or to beg or to plead, but to legislate on behalf of that national interest. That must be the purpose of the Government. Responsibility for interpreting the national interest cannot be spread into every trade union conference room, into every board room, nor, indeed, into every private home. Surely it is the responsibility of us in the House to lead. If we surrender that right we shall fail in our obligations to those who have sent us here.

There are many practical difficulties facing this legislation. I want to say something about the problems which confront anybody trying to hold or recruit salaried staff today. The shortage of skilled and trained management staff is acute. The temptations facing them to move from one job to another are intense. A small but significant group of these people are particularly tempted by the carrots dangled in front of them from America. I know of one occasion only this week when a telephone call out of the blue offered a man a 300 per cent. increase on the salary he was earning.

Even the employee devoted to his own job cannot avoid the £8 million worth of recruitment advertising which will appear in the national press in 1966. Indeed, it is indicative of the problem that in 1961 recruitment advertising in the national Press amounted to £4,193,000. By 1965, the figure had more than doubled to £8,535,000. It is now widely accepted by employers that, to recruit a suitable candidate for middle management, the advertising costs alone in the national Press can exceed or amount to up to £250.

I mentioned earlier the temptations on employees to seek increases by changing their jobs. These employees are sought by specialist registers which are prepared to distribute their names to company after company until they are offered another, and usually higher paid, job. Job changing, which is usually synonymous with an increase in salary, is increasing.

It is further encouraged by the growth of employment agencies. Between 1956 and 1965 in the whole of the London County Council area licences were issued to 300 new employment agencies. This was an annual rate of 37. In the year ended 31st March, 1966, the Westminster City Council which took over most of the responsibilities in this respect from the London County Council, issued 93 licences to new employment agencies.

The latest development of this activity in this country is the establishment of the professional head hunter. There is nothing new in companies making offers to employees of outside organisations, but I believe that it is a new practice new being established that lists of highly qualified, specialised staff are approached, without any indication of dissatisfaction on their part, and offered new jobs, often at a greatly increased salary.

Against this background, the background which has built the job-changing market into a highly specialised operation, it s simply of no value to tell employers that they should try to hold their staff to a 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. norm, or even lower—the figure is now to be reduced. Employees often do not want to leave the companies that employ them; but they will not, as a general rule, remain with their employers if their salary scales fall below the national average. As we all know, every application for an increase in salary or for a new job is a special case for the person submitting it. Today, no employer can lightly refuse one of his good staff an increase in salary of £100 or £150, because he knows that the replacement will almost certainly be more expensive and probably not of so high a calibre.

I have seen it argued that, although this section of the market cannot really be controlled by a prices and incomes policy, it is not a section which ought to concern us particularly because of its size. It is undoubtedly a fairly small market, but it is not obscure. What is happening in this market is an example to the majority of people in other sections of the community. The ripples spread out and the majority cannot be expected to accept readily a policy which they know does not apply to the minority.

Further, although the highly volatile section of this market is probably restricted to the younger, more highly qualified personnel up to 40 years of age, this section of the salary market is the dynamic for a much larger market. Forty per cent. of employees are now salaried. Part of the 40 per cent. covers the public sector and is, therefore, theoretically, under Government control. But this sector is directly linked with the private sector because interchangeability of career patterns is considerable. One of the most thorough and accurate salary surveys is based on co-operative research between private sector companies and nationalised industries. No major industry can afford to develop the reputation that its pay scales have fallen behind those of other industries.

There are further independent salary surveys caried out by recruitment agencies. These concentrate on people who are basically job changers and are, therefore, more likely to be bidding up the market. The purpose of the surveys is to enable companies to discover whether they are falling out of line with national trends. Throughout a given period, these surveys consider thousands of salary standards and the pattern of all new and usually rising levels of remuneration developments. The surveys are then distributed widely to personnel managers, encouraging them to bring their existing staff into line with the salaries being commanded by those changing their jobs.

There is only one impression that one can see from the salary market. Under present conditions of demand for staff, it is in a totally uncontrollable state. There are so many employees and employers that any form of control that is not imposed and not seen to be imposed cannot work. The Bill substitutes statutory exhortation for Ministerial exhortation, but the force of that exhortation is no stronger.

Indeed, I believe that we are acting out a charade, because by the time the Bill becomes law the measures that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken, and those he is to take, will have removed the need for the Bill. The Government have committed themselves to a policy of deflation and if the steps not taken up to now are not sufficient to raise the level of unemployment the Government will take further steps. I believe that they have accepted that as the policy they must pursue.

In the short run, it is simply not necessary for hon. Members on this side of the House to answer the question,”What would you have done?” The Chancellor has answered it for us. The core of the problem is the need to pursue policies which can obtain growth on which the ability of the Government and the public to have a choice must be based. We need a major redeployment of our resources and to retrain labour. I accept that this means paying higher unemployment benefits in order to remove the fear of unemployment but we must inject a wider degree of competition and ask ourselves not what other industries we should nationalise but what nationalised industries can be denationalised. Above all, we must so adjust our taxation system that every citizen is encouraged to earn more.

January 1, 2016
Geoff Hoon – 1992 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made in the House of Commons by Geoff Hoon on 20 May 1992.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Duncan-Smith) on his maiden speech. I hope that he will take it as a compliment when I say that he looked and sounded as though he had been here for years. I am sure that he will soon be fitted with his own leather jacket.

Perhaps I have the easiest task of any new hon. Member in paying proper tribute to my predecessor. Frank Haynes was popular in all parts of the House because of his genuine friendliness and good humour, his commitment to a range of good causes—from local hospitals to the fortunes of Sutton Town football club. He was popular with political friends and opponents alike.

Had I needed any convincing of that, it was confirmed recently when, with characteristic generosity, he agreed to help me to show a constituency school party round the Palace of Westminster. He has a formidable reputation as a tour guide and the Kirkby Woodhouse school party was not disappointed. As we made our way round the Palace it was clear that we were in the presence of a star. Wherever we went we met people who would stop and congratulate Frank and wish him well for the future. Everyone from police officers to Members of the House of Lords had a good word for him.

Frank’s popularity is reflected in the constituency of Ashfield. There cannot be an organisation, group, club or society of which Frank is not a member or which he has not helped in some way over the years. I say that with some confidence as, since my election, representatives from them have all written to me asking me to carry on the traditions that Frank established. Frank’s talent and obvious popularity are based on the sheer force of his personality and the sheer volume of his voice.

Frank had one quality that I believe has not been given proper attention: his considerable political skills which have perhaps been overlooked. He won Ashfield after arguably one of the worst by-elections in Labour party history. He held Ashfield for the Labour party in some extraordinarily difficult circumstances in Nottingham. He was greatly assisted in that by the wisdom and experience of his agents, Clarrie Booler and Bryan Denham.

In 1979, Frank replaced the current hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith), who might like to know that he still has at least one supporter in Ashfield. In the dying days of the general election campaign, I knocked on the door of the house of an elderly lady, who kindly invited me in and asked why I had taken so long to get round to see her. Like any candidate anxious to win votes and influence people, I politely explained that it was a big constituency and it took a little time to get around. “Tim Smith,” she said, “called on everyone.” In my candidate’s mode, I still more politely pointed out that there were 75,000 electors in Ashfield and I could not see how he could have met them all. “Of course he did,” she said, “regularly.”

My candidate’s charm school smile was wearing a little thin by the time she asked me what I had to say for myself. I launched into the two-minute version of the Labour party manifesto, trying to steer the conversation in the direction of her voting intentions. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said. “I have already voted by post.” I now know what is the political equivalent of the blind man in a dark room looking for a dark cat. It is a Labour candidate canvassing a Tory lady who has already voted by post.

In making my preparations for this speech, I realised that the last three people to represent Ashfield now belong to three different political parties. David Marquand left Ashfield for a career in the European Commission. By contrast, I shall be leaving the European Parliament to concentrate on the constituency of Ashfield. He made his maiden speech in 1966, when he was able to state that mining was the linchpin of the economy of Ashfield. He went on to say, however: the coal mining industry of Nottinghamshire faces a grave crisis of confidence.”—[Official Report, 5 May 1966; Vol. 727, c. 1965] He argued that it was urgently necessary to work out a comprehensive fuel programme in order to be able to assure the miners of the east midlands about their future for a long time to come.

These words have echoed down the years. There has been a massive reduction in the number of local collieries. I expect to represent Ashfield when its last colliery closes. That will be a sad day for the local community and it presents a bleak prospect for young people, who will also face difficulties finding work in Ashfield’s other great industry, the textile trade.

From 1955, Ashfield was represented by Will Warbey. He had first been elected to the House to represent Luton in 1945. On 23 August 1945, in his maiden speech, he used words which are of particular relevance to today’s debate: absolute national sovereignty is now an out-dated factor in international affairs. He quoted the right hon. Member for Woodford, Winston Churchill, who had talked of the mixing of the nations, and went on: I believe there is a great opportunity in the future for nation States to get more mixed together, especially in their economic functions. We have a particularly excellent opportunity in the case of those nations in the north and west of Europe, and I include our own, which, I am glad to say, have now very largely a common political outlook, and which are intending to pursue similar policies of planning for full employment and for raising standards of living. We can get together and plan very largely in common in order to achieve those objectives.”—[Official Report, 23 August 1945; Vol. 413, c. 898] That was what the House was discussing in August 1945, and in essence it is what this debate should be about.

The Members meeting in Parliament in 1945 were determined to end the divisions of Europe based on the extreme nationalism that had caused two catastrophic world wars. Like many others in a similar situation, my father volunteered to fight in the second world war on his 18th birthday. When he came to Strasbourg shortly after my election to the European Parliament, he said how much better what I was doing was than what he and millions of others had had to do in the second world war.

We now have to build on the European foundations established by previous generations. Although the Maastricht treaty is a far from perfect addition to the European building, it contains much that will contribute to the mixing of nations. Others have already criticised Britain’s opt-out on economic and monetary union and on the social chapter. Since I am still a member of the European Parliament I want to concentrate my remarks on the institutional aspects of the treaty and to express my regret at the timid steps taken towards real democracy in the decision-making processes of the European Community.

Too often we have heard Ministers complain about decisions taken in Brussels as if they had played no part in the process or had no responsibility for the failure to hold the European Commission properly to account. The same Ministers were responsible for the intergovernmental negotiations that led to the treaty. If Brussels is to blame, so are the Ministers who have failed to reform the treaty to control the Commission and to make it answerable to those who have been directly elected to represent the people of Europe. Those representatives sit in national Parliaments and in the European Parliament.

Members of all the Parliaments of Europe should be working together more closely to improve the democracy of the European Community. We could start by considering how to improve the working relationship between Members of this House and British Members of the European Parliament. There remains an uneasy tension between those two democratically elected institutions which, in a European context, should be following a common purpose—the proposing, amending and approving of European legislation as well as holding the European Executive to account.

The uneasy relationship exists in spite of the fact that in the present House of Commons, 62 hon. Members have experience of one or more of the European institutions. Thirty of my new colleagues have been members of the European Parliament, directly elected or appointed like our Speaker, and 32 have been members of the Council of Europe.

The uneasy relationship allows the European Commission—the least democratic of the Community’s institutions—to assert a disproportionate influence over legislation. During the debate on the Single European Act, it was suggested in Britain that the treaty changes then being debated marked a final shift of power from Westminster to the European Parliament.

In practice, the European Commission has significantly increased its power over legislation because of its ability to determine which amendments to propose during the various stages of the legislative process. In effect, it has been able to play off the European Parliament against the Council of Ministers, telling the Council that the European Parliament would not accept certain amendments and, in turn, telling the Parliament that it could not propose Parliament’s amendments to the Council because they would be rejected. As a result, the Commission’s policy line has been strengthened at the expense of the democratically elected Parliament and Council.

Certain measures in the Maastricht treaty will undoubtedly tilt the institutional balance slightly in the direction of the European Parliament. It will do little, however, to make the European Commission subject to democratic control. Similarly, the decisions of the Council of Ministers, meeting in secret, are rarely subject to democratic scrutiny. The Maastricht treaty will do little to improve the ability of elected Members of national Parliaments to oversee the activities of Ministers meeting in council.

Much of the debate so far has concentrated on criticisms of the present operation of the European Community. I share some of the criticisms, but I disagree strongly about the appropriate solutions. If the European Community overrides democracy, the solution is to make it more democratic.

I am grateful for the House’s attention.

January 1, 2016
John McDonnell – 1997 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made by John McDonnell in the House of Commons on 6 June 1997.

I have been made aware of the conventions of maiden speeches, especially the tradition of paying tribute to one’s predecessors. I have no problem with praising many of the previous Members of Parliament for Hayes and Harlington: men such as Walter Ayles, a good socialist who took a special interest in aid to Africa; Arthur Skeffington, a superb housing Minister in the Wilson Government; and Neville Sandelson, a good man who unfortunately fell victim to the delusions of grandeur of David Owen.

Despite my respect for the conventions of the House, I shall not perjure myself by praising my immediate Tory predecessor. Many saw him simply as a Tory buffoon, and he was once described as a “pig’s bladder on a stick”. When he chose as his election slogan, “We love Dicks”, we were not sure whether to laugh or to call in the obscene publications squad. However, Terry Dicks was not a joke. He was a stain on the character of this House, the Conservative party which harboured him and the good name of my constituency. He brought shame on the political process of this country by his blatant espousal of racism and his various corrupt dealings. He demeaned the House by his presence, and I deeply regret that the Conservative party failed to take action to stem his flow of vile bigotry. Thankfully, my constituents can now say good riddance to this malignant creature.

My speech in this debate, and many others today, have been more than 10 years in the waiting. In the newspapers this week, we have seen pictures of 50,000 people demonstrating for democracy by holding candles in a park in Hong Kong. More than a decade ago in our capital city, more than 250,000 Londoners stood silently in Jubilee gardens on the last night of the GLC when the lights were turned out in County hall. As the GLC councillor for Hayes and Harlington council and deputy leader of the authority, I was among them, and we tearfully sang “We’ll Meet Again”. After all this time, we are about to meet again.

The abolition of the GLC was self-evidently an act of malignant spite by a Prime Minister in the first demented throes of megalomania. Harold Laski, a good socialist and once the chair of the Labour party, prophetically explained that Britain would not experience fascism in the form of a strutting Mussolini or Hitler, but instead was vulnerable to a form of Conservative authoritarianism arrived at by the slow incremental erosion of our civil liberties and democratic institutions. Under the Thatcher regime, the institution of democratic local government was bombarded by the introduction of rate capping, the surcharging of the Lambeth councillors and the abolition of the GLC, culminating in the establishment of the government of our capital city by an appointed state: the appointment of Tories, by Tories, to line the pockets of Tories.

What has that plethora of quangos and joint committees achieved for our city? In the custodial care of the Tory appointees, 40,000 families in London are homeless every year; up to 3,000 people sleep on our streets in winter; crime has doubled, with a terrifying and unrelenting increase in violence; our manufacturing and economic base has collapsed; our health service is in crisis; and our transport system is gridlocked, with the effect that traffic is slower than at the turn of the century. Many of us will never forget or forgive the Tories for the scale of their neglect of our city.

For most of the past decade, I served as the chief executive of the Association of London Authorities, and latterly the Association of London Government. After 10 long years of designing blueprints for a new strategic authority in that capacity, I am naturally pleased that, at last, we have the opportunity to start the reconstruction process. I also warmly welcome the fact that, in the spirit of open government and inclusiveness, there is to be a thorough consultation process, including a Green Paper, a White Paper and a referendum before the final legislation.

It is critical in the consultation process that views are honestly expressed and listened to if we are to avoid putting in place a structure that we shall live to regret. In that spirit, I want to set out some initial views on the basic architecture of the proposed new government for the capital.

There was a consultation process in the Labour party on the structural options for the new authority, but it is no secret that the proposal for a directly elected mayor was the result of enthusiasm from above.

I have tried to analyse why, deep within me, I have such reservations about the proposal; it is certainly not because of an emotive claim that the system is somehow alien to this country. It is partly because it grates against my notion of democratic socialist practice, which involves the development of a policy programme by the party for presentation to the electorate, and in which the electors vote primarily for a set of ideas and policies associated with an ideology and advocated by a party rather than voting for their impressions of an individual. That is a vote for the many, not the few—and certainly not for one.

I also have practical concerns about accountability and the potential for the abuse of power and corruption in a mayoral system. Nevertheless, the proposal for a directly elected mayor was contained in the manifesto on which our party was elected, so I look to the detail of the design of the relationship between the mayor and the elected authority to ensure political accountability and to secure probity.

The checks and balances that are essential to ensure accountability would at a minimum include, for example, the election of the mayor’s cabinet by, and from among, the authority members; the approval by the authority of the overall budget and major spending decisions; a system of scrutiny of policy making; the ratification by the authority of any senior staffing appointments; and the right of the authority to express no confidence in the mayor and to trigger an election—in effect, a right of recall.

The strategic role and powers of the new authority are almost self-evident in terms of the immediate and concrete needs of Londoners: economic regeneration; an efficient integrated transport system; a decent environment; and a feeling of safety from crime and hazards.

My plea is simply that the legislation that we pass be sufficiently flexible to enable the new authority to meet new challenges as they arise. That may require a more general power of intervention, if necessary triggered by a decision by the electorate, the Secretary of State or the House.

On funding, I agree that the allocation of powers and responsibilities without resources is pointless. The inheritance of existing precepts and the transfer of grant from central Government without capping, combined with the ability to borrow, would go a long way towards resourcing the new authority and achieving some economies of scale that would release new money. I also plead for flexibility in the legislation, to enable the new authority to explore new funding streams, possibly by hypothecated levies again triggered by the Government, by the House or by referendums.

Some discussions have already taken place on the location of the new authority. Naturally, I prefer the retrieval of county hall, if necessary by compulsory purchase. I would certainly welcome an inquiry into the sale of county hall under the previous regime.

As an alternative, the Middlesex guildhall across Parliament square would be suitable. We have been informed that the Prime Minister has assured the Corporation of the City of London of its continued existence. Thus, the City’s guildhall is not available for use.

Labour remains committed to reforming the City’s archaic and undemocratic procedures. I hope that the City corporation will produce its own options for reform. By way of an incentive to expedite matters, I give notice that, unless reform proposals are forthcoming at the appropriate stage of the Bill enacting the new authority, I am minded to seek to insert a clause to abolish the City corporation—a generally uncontentious measure, I suggest.

On the representative nature of the authority, whatever its size and method of election, I would argue that it should reflect the gender balance and ethnic diversity of our community. We should ensure the full involvement of all the social partners, of both sides of industry in the capital, in its deliberations and decision making.

As a child, my first political awareness came when Wilson was in Government, John F. Kennedy was President of the United States and Martin Luther King had a dream—a dream of a new society, of equality and decency for our children. I believe that the last Greater London council administration was part of that dream; it was about building a new beginning for our city. The new authority that we are putting in place will be part of the procedure that will allow us to dream that dream again; a dream of a decent civil society in which equality reigns. I am pleased that I am going to be part of the process of making that dream a reality.

December 11, 2015
Jeremy Hunt – 2005 Maiden Speech to the House of Commons

Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Jeremy Hunt in the House of Commons on 24 May 2005.

I congratulate the many new Members who have made their maiden contributions this evening. The hon. Members for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and for Brent, South (Ms Butler) expressed great pride at being the first women to represent their constituencies, and I am particularly proud to be the first man to represent mine in more than 20 years. I am also proud to be standing next to my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton). She worked extremely hard to win her seat, and no one is prouder than I am to be with her this evening. [Hon. Members: “Love on the Benches!”] I believe that my hon. Friend is married.

Let me now undertake the enormously pleasurable task of paying tribute to my predecessor, Virginia Bottomley. This House will know that she played a distinguished role on the national stage as Secretary of State for Health and as Secretary of State for the then Department of National Heritage. The House may be less aware that she was also a hugely conscientious constituency MP, a determined champion of local causes and a passionate advocate of the many charities and voluntary organisations in my constituency. She is also immensely photogenic and cuts a wonderful dash in the hills of Haslemere, the gardens of Godalming and the fetes of Farnham. That, I fear, is an area in which I will be unable to follow in her distinguished footsteps.

[Jacqui Smith: You’re not so bad yourself.]

I am grateful for that compliment from the Labour Benches; I fear that that may be the end of them.

My constituency consists of three historic towns and a number of villages that lie between them. Farnham is the largest of the towns, Haslemere is a town of great charm and character, and Godalming has a special place in my heart as I went to school there and my family are originally from there. My late grandmother was still alive when I was selected as a prospective parliamentary candidate, and no one could be happier than she would have been to see me standing here today.

In many ways, both the problems and the opportunities in my constituency reside in the same fact: we are only an hour from London. That creates not only huge economic opportunities—more than half the working population in my constituency commute to London—but huge development pressures that threaten the special character of my constituency’s towns and villages. I do not wish to depart from the tradition of not being controversial in a maiden speech, but I want to let the House know that I will be campaigning vigorously against the housing targets set for my constituency by the Deputy Prime Minister, who used as his vehicle the unelected, unwanted and unnecessary South East England regional assembly.
I will also be campaigning strongly for a tunnel for the A3 at Hindhead. There is a huge traffic bottleneck there and enormous problems for traffic coming from London to Portsmouth. The tunnel is a project of national importance, and I urge the Government to reconsider their decision last December effectively to withdraw funding for it.

The final issue currently of great concern to my constituents is the future of Milford hospital, which is a specialist rehabilitation hospital. More than a quarter of my constituents are retired, and the demand for the services offered by Milford is only likely to increase. However, I am told by my primary care trust that a short-term cash crisis leaves its potential future funding in doubt. I will be campaigning very strongly, locally and nationally, to ensure that Milford hospital does not become a victim of that cash crisis.

My own background is in education. With a business partner—he is in the Gallery—I set up an educational publishing business that produces guides and websites to help people choose the right university, college or course. I will mention it in the Register of Members’ Interests, and I declare it today because I want to say something about education. I am most grateful to the Secretary of State for Education for sparing time from her schedule, and for making the effort to come and listen to what I have to say.

We live in a highly competitive world, and most Members in all parts of the House would accept that some inequality is the inevitable consequence of maintaining the link between effort and reward in our society. But given that that is so, there is surely not just an economic necessity but a moral duty to ensure that we give every child in this country the best possible start in life.

As a prospective parliamentary candidate, I followed in the footsteps of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) and did a week as a teacher in a local secondary school; I also did a week as a classroom assistant in a primary school. I welcome some of the changes in education that we have seen in the past eight years, particularly the literacy and numeracy hours, which have been important contributions. However, if we are to address the shortfalls in our education system, we have to recognise that it is not just a question of funding; we also need a disciplined learning environment and academic rigor. Respect for teachers is vital, but we also need to pay due attention to academic standards. If everyone gets a prize, in the end the prize itself becomes worthless, and the people who suffer most are those with the least. For them, a credible exam result is the very passport that they need to help them to break out of the cycle of low expectations with which they may well have grown up.

I come briefly to education in the third world, given that the developing world will be discussed at the forthcoming G8 summit. I was recently involved in setting up a charity to fund education for AIDS orphans in Kenya. I did so after sponsoring an HIV-positive child for a couple of years, and I make no apology to the House for coming to the problems of Africa through the prism of a small child’s experience, because in the end this is about individuals and individual suffering.

I was greatly helped in setting up that charity by Estelle Morris, who was willing to work across party lines to help me get it off the ground. She once said to me, “Jeremy, you care a lot about education and you care about the developing world. Just why are you a Conservative?”, to which I say this: no party has a monopoly on compassion—the challenge is how to apply that compassion in a modern context. For my part, compassion alone is not enough; it needs to benefit the people to whom it is directed. Compassion should lead to independence for those who lack it, to freedom for those who need it and to opportunity for those who crave it. Creating opportunities for those who really need them—whether in this country or in the developing world—will be a major preoccupation of mine for as long as the people of South-West Surrey give me the privilege of representing them in this House.

December 11, 2015