Education and Local Services

Damien Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, thank you for calling me to make my maiden speech in such an important debate. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friends and hon. Members who have made such eloquent and passionate speeches today.

I am a former supermarket manager: only time will tell if my audience this afternoon is as receptive as my customers were to my prices or, indeed, whether my constituents will now ascribe my performance and contributions as being as fresh as my produce was, although I hope I am not past my sell-by date by the next election.

It is a great honour and privilege to be here as the new Member for Southport. I pay tribute to my predecessor, John Pugh, who retired at the last election. John was a diligent Member for the constituency for 16 years and is understandably held in high esteem. He quickly developed a reputation as a capable constituency MP and I hope to be as well regarded by my constituents as he was. I wish him and his wife, Annette, a happy retirement.

John was a perennial rebel in the coalition Government —he rebelled against the Whip over 30 times. Whether I will have the bravado of my predecessor only time will tell, but be assured that my constituency and my constituents will be at the forefront of my mind whenever I consider parliamentary affairs.

Although Members will have to cast their minds back some time to recall him, I would be remiss not to mention Sir Ian Percival, who served as the hon. Member for Southport between 1959 and 1987. He, too, gained a reputation for being an excellent constituency MP, as well as serving as Solicitor General between 1979 and 1983. I hope that I am able to emulate his civic pride, his dedication to his constituency and his astonishing longevity as Southport’s representative in Parliament.

Southport is far from being the quintessential seaside town. It has a fascinating history, and at one point hosted the exiled Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, scion of one of England’s greatest antagonists, who would go on to be emperor of the French. Legend has it that he was so impressed with the tree-lined boulevard of Lord Street that he would later instruct his architects to make Southport a model for the grandiose Parisian boulevards that are the envy of the world today. Southport’s tree-lined central avenues, arcades and pavement cafés often lead to it being referred to as the Paris of the north, but with this explanation for modern Paris’s provenance in mind, maybe Paris is really the Southport of the south.

Historically part of the county of Lancashire and the royal Duchy of Lancaster, Southport today is on the fringes of Merseyside. In truth though, it is a unique town, which has its own special identity, and its citizens have a strong sense of civic pride. It is famous for its great sands, which stretch far out into the Irish sea, leading to the joke among its residents that, in England, you are never more than 70 miles from the sea—unless, of course, you live in Southport.

Today, Southport’s diligent and hard-working residents find themselves part of Sefton Council, and many of them feel they have too often been taken for granted, as their income is diverted into other parts of Merseyside. Southport’s public services have not been the beneficiaries of Sefton Council’s coffers, much to the chagrin of the town’s citizens. The people of Southport are egalitarian and charitable, but too often they have been taken advantage of, and the town has suffered as a result. I can assure my constituents that Southport will no longer be a soft touch, and I will solicit investment into the town every day I have the privilege of representing it.

Although I will shortly return to a sedentary position, I can assure you, Mr Speaker, that I will often be on my feet championing my constituency and engaging with esteemed colleagues in this Chamber. It is the honour of my life to represent Southport in this House, and I hope to make a notable contribution to its future success.