PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

55 Debate on the Address
9 MAY 2012
Debate on the Address
56
[Mr Iain Wright]
The Queen’s Speech referred to the Government’s
commitment to
“improve the lives of children and families”,
with which the whole House would agree. However,
today’s report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation forecasts
that child poverty will increase in the next decade. It
concludes by stating that the Government should take a
more targeted approach to employment programmes
and aim them at families in my constituency and elsewhere
who often have not seen meaningful or sustained work
for three generations or so. That could break the cycle
of unemployment, poverty, deprivation and the loss of
ambition and aspiration. There was nothing in the
Queen’s Speech to allow that to take place.
The most serious issue facing Hartlepool both socially
and economically is the level of unemployment, which
is higher now than it was at the height of the global
recession in 2008. Youth unemployment is a particular
concern. One in four young men in my constituency are
out of work, which will cause immense social and
economic problems in the next 20, 30 or 40 years. The
Government really need to deal with that, and measures
such as the abolition of the future jobs fund, the cancellation
of education maintenance allowance and the hike in
tuition fees do not help young people in my constituency.
I wanted to see in the Gracious Speech something like a
future jobs fund or a skills and retraining Bill, to ensure
that my constituency and others were best placed to
come out of their economic difficulties in a better
position than when they went into them. Sadly, the
Queen’s Speech was lacking in that regard.
Mrs Grant: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree,
though, that policies on flexible working and shared
parental leave will have the effect of keeping people in
work?
Mr Wright: I believe the balance that the Labour
Government struck was probably about right. There
will always be different emphases, but I reiterate the
point that I made in answer to a previous intervention.
Businesses say to me, “We want to have the conditions
for growth. We want to be able to hire workers. The issue
is not about being able to fire workers more easily—that
is not what we are about.” The emphasis and priorities
that the Government have set out in the Gracious
Speech and elsewhere are completely wrong.
It astonishes me that after only two years, the
Government seem to have run out of steam. The rehashing
of words and phrases in the Queen’s Speech is evidence
of that. It is difficult to think of the big reforming
Governments of the past century—the right hon. Member
for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned Asquith,
and we can think about Attlee, Thatcher or Blair—being
devoid of policy areas only 24 months after being elected.
Governments used to talk about relaunches after two
terms of office, not after two years. The Government
have no sense of national mission and have not set out
the values that are really needed or what they want the
British economy to look like in 2020 or 2030. They lack,
in the eloquent words of the Business Secretary, a
“compelling vision” of where they want to take the
economy.
As The Sunday Times stated this weekend:
“People now regard this as a government that fails on the three
i’s: it is incoherent, incompetent and has run out of ideas.”
Today’s Queen’s Speech provided the opportunity for a
true and meaningful relaunch, which could have ensured
that the Government reassessed their values and priorities
and tried again. They failed to do that. This country
and my constituency, particularly its young people, will
suffer the consequences of that missed opportunity for
decades to come.
5.39 pm
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con): The hon.
Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) was on stronger
ground when he talked about the importance of policies
and opportunities to create growth to address the
unemployment that affects his constituency and many
others. Although I did not agree with many of his policy
prescriptions, I agreed with his definition of the challenge—I
think, from his speech earlier, that my right hon. Friend
the Prime Minister did, too. However, I did not follow
the hon. Gentleman into the closing stages of his speech
because he is simply wrong to say that the Government
do not have a clear view about what they are trying
to do.
I welcome the Queen’s Speech precisely because it
refocuses the minds of hon. Members and supporters of
the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, and
more importantly, of those beyond the political world,
on the objectives that we set ourselves when the coalition
Government were formed. To me, that is the key win in
the Queen’s Speech.
Some members of my party have, in the past few weeks,
and particularly in the past few days, sought opportunities
to strengthen the Conservative flavour, as they see it, in
the coalition. I want to offer one or two responses to
that, based on the Queen’s Speech, and comment on
one or two specific proposals.
As a lifelong Conservative, I have no problem in
arguing the case for Conservative ideas. However, I have
a problem with those who seek to reinterpret the
Conservative case excessively narrowly. There is nothing
in the Queen’s Speech that cannot be argued full heartedly
as a mainstream Conservative proposal. All the measures
can be traced to proper Conservative roots and, indeed,
to roots in the Liberal Democrat tradition.
There has been much debate, including in the House
this afternoon, about House of Lords reform and whether
there is a proper Conservative narrative for it. I argue
strongly that there is. I intervened on my right hon.
Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden
(Mr Davis) to remind him that it is nearly 50 years since
Lord Hailsham, who happened to be Margaret Thatcher’s
first Lord Chancellor, described our system of government
as possessing inadequate checks and balances on the
powers of the Executive. He described it as an “elective
dictatorship”, so when my right hon. Friend the Leader
of the House of Lords is quoted in today’s Financial
Times as arguing the case for reform of another place
on the ground that it will make that Chamber,
“‘stronger, more independent’ and better able ‘to challenge the
decisions of the Commons’”,
I allow myself a gentle cheer. I think that Lord Hailsham,
from his grave, would cheer the prospect of our seeking
a structure that allows Parliament to be a more effective
check on the Executive.