Jim Shannon
Main Page: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)Department Debates - View all Jim Shannon's debates with the Cabinet Office
(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Dodds
My hon. Friend raises an important issue, which is one of those that arise out of the Belfast agreement. As he knows, equality provisions under section 75 work against giving our armed forces veterans the same status as those in the rest of the United Kingdom. That issue needs to be addressed, and it was covered in our manifesto and our Northern Ireland plan. No doubt we will have negotiations and discussions with the Government about the issue. I am sure that the Defence Secretary will take it on board and that the Government will want to see progress on it.
Before I get into any more detail on the Gracious Speech, may I also thank all right hon. and hon. Members and members of the staff of the House who have very kindly passed on their best wishes to our party leader, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson, who has suffered problems with his health this week and has been hospitalised as a result? I know that Peter, Iris and his family are deeply encouraged and comforted by the expressions of good wishes from both sides of the House. I am glad to report that Peter is doing well. He has worked extremely hard, probably to the detriment of his health, to try to make progress in Northern Ireland. His record of deal making, negotiation and fighting and standing up for Northern Ireland is one of which we should all be proud and that should continue. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope that he will soon be back to his position as First Minister in Northern Ireland, where he is much needed.
I congratulate the Government on the victory they have achieved—it would be churlish not to—as well as all those who have been elected to this House. At the election of the Speaker, I made the point that everybody elected to this House—as regards the constituents they represent and the parties that are here—is equal. We must consider very carefully any suggestion that Members should not be treated equally in this House.
Coming as I do from a small party from Northern Ireland, I think that it is important that all parties should be respected, that their voices should be heard and that there should be equality. This is the Parliament of the United Kingdom and a House of Commons to which everybody has been elected on an equal franchise. Having said that, I recognise that there is an issue for many people with English voters and that must be addressed in the context of the devolution of greater powers to countries. I do not say that there is an easy answer; everybody recognises that the issue has been debated for many decades. The questions have been posed, but the answers have not so readily come forth. On this issue, on greater devolution and on the devolution of powers to the cities and regions of the United Kingdom more generally, we need to take time, to take things carefully and to move forward in a consensual way. That is why I have advocated in the past the idea of a constitutional convention. We should not tamper with our constitutional arrangements ad hoc or quickly or for party political advantage, with possible unintended consequences; we must look at these things very carefully indeed, and I think we will want to consider a constitutional convention in due course as these matters come before the House.
We give a warm welcome to those new Members from Northern Ireland who have been elected to this House. I want to give a welcome to the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott). He is not a member of my party; he is a member of the Ulster Unionist party, but he was elected because there was a pact between the DUP and the Ulster Unionists, so that for the first time since 2001, Fermanagh and South Tyrone, the most westerly constituency of the United Kingdom, a constituency where I was brought up and went to school, is once again represented in the House of Commons; and so that the people of that great constituency have again a voice in this Parliament, and will have someone to represent them, instead of a Sinn Féin Member who refused to take their seat in this House of Commons. It is a good day for all the people of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, because they will have a representative who will represent them all—and I know he will. I wish him well, and I hope that he will be long spared to continue to represent that constituency.
I also welcome, of course, the new hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan). Again, he is not a member of our party, and I am very sorry at the loss of our previous Member, William McCrea, but I do wish the hon. Gentleman well and I hope we can work together in the best interests of Northern Ireland.
Most of all, of course, I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), a member of our party who has retaken that seat once again for Unionism. We warmly look forward to his continuing to represent that seat for many years to come.
This has been a good election in Northern Ireland for the Unionist cause. We may look at other parts of the United Kingdom and other countries. We did not put up any candidates in Scotland. [Hon. Members: “This time.”] We might do a better job! But I am glad to say that in Northern Ireland, Unionist representation in this House has gone up from 10 to 12 seats out of 18. That is a good advance in terms of Northern Ireland, and we look forward to ensuring that the voice of Unionists in Northern Ireland is heard loudly and clearly in the coming years in Parliament.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
One issue that was mentioned in the most Gracious Speech was that of psychoactive drugs—legal highs—on which the people of my constituency, my party and, I believe, many parties in this Chamber wish to see legislation introduced. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister, in his address to the House, did not give us a time scale for that. On behalf of my constituents in Newtonards, especially the family of young Adam Owens, who died six weeks ago as a result of taking legal highs, I say that we need to see this legislation coming through quickly. Do my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) think that should happen right away?
Mr Dodds
I agree with what my hon. Friend has said and he knows that that was in our manifesto and that we are pursuing it very strongly in the Northern Ireland Assembly as well.
A few weeks ago, the idea of a majority Government of any hue was regarded as ludicrous and out of the question. Pollsters and the political class have been rightly criticised. Speculation about the role of some of the smaller parties was rife at that time; people were predicting that they would have enormous influence. Now the same pundits who got it so wrong are predicting that some of the smaller parties will have absolutely no power at all. I read newspaper headlines just after the election saying, “That’s it—no role, no influence.”
Just as the pundits were wrong previously, they are wrong now, because in a Parliament where the Government have a majority of only 12, it will be increasingly important that the views of other parties are taken into account. Certainly we will adopt a constructive approach to legislation and measures that come before the House. We set out before the election some of the principles that would guide us in the House. We are Northern Ireland MPs, so we will always stand up for the best interests of Northern Ireland. We have proved that in running the Executive alongside others. We have proved it in the House in terms of delivering for Northern Ireland, and we will continue to do that strongly, and be a robust voice for all the people of Northern Ireland in this Parliament.
We are also Unionists, so we will always stand up for the Union, strengthening the relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, ensuring that the symbols of British identity are strengthened, not weakened, in Northern Ireland. But we are also committed to making the United Kingdom stronger and better, not just in narrow Northern Ireland terms, but across the piece—throughout the United Kingdom. That is why we have emphasised the need to ensure that we have strong defences—the point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) about the armed forces covenant was very important—in terms of our commitment to NATO, our commitment to ensuring that 2% of GDP is spent on defence. That is an important way of ensuring that the United Kingdom is able to play its full and proper role on the world stage. We look forward to the outworking of the full strategic defence and security review.
We of course welcome very strongly the commitment to the EU referendum. I remember that one of the first things I did in a previous Parliament was to bring in a private Member’s Bill to seek a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. At that time, the Prime Minister had previously given a cast-iron guarantee that there would be such a referendum, which he did not pursue. I remember the vote on the night when 81 Conservatives rebelled in relation to an EU referendum, and we were castigated—we joined with those Conservative rebels—and were told that it would not happen.
I am glad that now everybody in this House—apart from the SNP, of course—agrees that there needs to be a referendum on our relationship with the European Union. We will certainly support that legislation. We need to deal with the main issues that concern voters: the amount of money that goes to Europe, and the fact that the EU has an adverse effect in terms of immigration and border controls and in terms of the sovereignty of this House—our ability, as peoples of the United Kingdom, to make laws governing ourselves.
In terms of building a stronger United Kingdom, a stronger Union, we note the plans to devolve more powers to the towns and counties, the elected mayors, the English votes for English laws, and the plans to introduce the Scotland Bill, the Wales Bill and the Northern Ireland Bill. We will look at all of those in great detail.
I want to finish by pointing to the crisis that now envelops the Northern Ireland Assembly because of the failure to agree the welfare reform legislation. We have engineered a situation in which we have the best possible welfare reform compared with any other part of the United Kingdom—we have got rid of the bedroom tax—and yet it has been vetoed by Sinn Féin because they will not contemplate any change at all to welfare. As a result, there is a £600 million deficit in the Northern Ireland budget. That will lead to the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly by 31 July unless the Government step in and enact welfare reform. It is clear that Sinn Féin are not up to doing the job. If they will not act, then this sovereign Parliament must act.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye in this important Gracious Speech debate. May I welcome you back to your Chair, may I thank the people of The Cotswolds for electing me in ever greater numbers, and may I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on succeeding for the first time in almost 20 years in getting an overall majority? I suspect he will have to play his cards carefully, because although he will have a honeymoon period for a month, even a year, after that time impediments will no doubt get in his way. I suggest that he get on and do the controversial legislation first.
It is almost déjà vu for me, because in 1992 I was immediately pitched into the all-night Maastricht debates, and today we are likely to be pitched into debates on the European Union. I suspect it will be a very different experience from 1992, because one thing I have learned on the many thousands of doorsteps I stood on in the last five weeks is that there is a huge division of opinion on Europe. Some people are radically in favour of remaining in the EU, while others are violently opposed to remaining in the EU. For that reason I believe a referendum on Europe is absolutely essential, so that we can have the arguments and the debates and then a vote, and live with that verdict, whatever it happens to be—and I think at the moment it is very close.
I congratulate the Scottish nationalists but I hope that they, as good democrats, will respect the result of their referendum in Scotland. They are going to get major devolutionary powers over tax raising and a host of other matters in this Parliament. I hope they will equally respect my constituents who want some form of English votes for English laws. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg): whatever solution we put in place—and I quite like the Standing Order solution because it is simple to enact and simple to get rid of—I hope it will only be operated in sparse and few circumstances.
There are two parts to this Queen’s Speech in my view: constitutional and financial. I am absolutely delighted that we are building in this Queen’s Speech on the financial improvements we made to this country in the last Parliament. Members have not mentioned jobs much so far in this debate. For me, jobs and public services are the two things we were really elected here for. If we do not have a sound economy, we cannot keep creating new jobs. I am particularly pleased that we are creating ever more jobs for youngsters, and ever more apprenticeships—2.2 million in the last Parliament and 3 million in this Parliament—as that is an admirable route for those who do not want, or are not able for one reason or another, to go to university.
I do not want to dwell on domestic matters this evening, however, and I have cover in the Queen’s Speech as Her Gracious Majesty did refer to Ukraine and other matters foreign. It is to those matters that I wish to devote my remaining time in this speech. I want to talk about Ukraine, ISIS in Iraq, Syria and, above all, stabilisation of the African countries so that we begin to solve the real problems we have got with migration into this country.
About two months ago I went to Ukraine and met its Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. I discovered a very sad state of affairs: the country is bankrupt, almost devoid of all necessities, and certainly does not need a fighting war with Russia. I discussed this matter at a conference this weekend, and I met some very bitter Ukrainians who said to me in very stark terms, “The Americans, yourselves and the Russians signed the Budapest agreement in 1994.” That was not a military agreement, but it was an agreement that prevented aggression towards Ukraine in return for her giving up nuclear weapons. They felt very bitterly that we had not given them sufficient help to deter the Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. There is no doubt that the Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine is going on at a pace. Every Minsk agreement has been broken almost to the day: the agreement in February was broken the day after by Russia reinforcing its troops within eastern Ukraine, and there have been instances of Russian artillery shelling Ukrainian positions from within Russia itself. We desperately need a strategy on Ukraine. We need, along with the EU and the Americans, to come up with a cohesive strategy that works and that deters the Russians. We have degraded their economy a bit through the sanctions, but we have not deterred their ambitions to take over the whole of eastern Ukraine. I put it to this House that if we do not deter the Russians in their ambitions in this respect, we will continue to have problems with Russian ambitions elsewhere.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I have very little time left and an awful lot to get through.
I want to move on to Iraq, and talk about ISIS. ISIS is one of the most vile terrorist organisations humanity has ever seen, yet, again, we do not have a concerted strategy to deal with it. We started with the Cyprus talks involving the Americans, the Germans, the French, ourselves, and the Russians. Wrongly, in my view, we did not include the Iranians, but that is another point. Unless we have a concerted strategy to deal with ISIS, it will undoubtedly take over more parts of the world than just Iraq. What worries me most about Iraq is that Iran, with its Shi’a militias, is doing our bidding against ISIS. If we are not careful we will come to a point where Iran—with its emerging nuclear ambitions, despite the agreement with the Americans—will simply take over Iraq. When I close my speech with the figures on oil production, the House will see how dangerous that is.
On Syria, I did a social action project in Gaziantep in south-east Turkey and was able to meet many Syrians in one of the refugee towns. They all—to a man, woman and child—told me they wanted to go back to a country that was at peace with itself. They wanted the international community to intervene and sort out the problems and restore their country to what it had been. It appears to me that the world does not have a concerted policy on Syria. It looks increasingly unlikely that the Free Syrian Army will be able to defeat the President’s regime, and it looks ever more likely that ISIS will play an ever bigger part—again, ISIS is only likely to be defeated by Iran in some form or another, probably backed by the Russians. The Syrian situation is extremely dangerous, and it is extremely bad for the poor people of Syria; 300,000 people have been killed in Syria, and over 2 million people have been displaced. What a human tragedy.
Finally, I want to talk about the Maghreb and the Sahel—north Africa. We are dealing with an unprecedented situation of migrants trying to leave Africa, mostly via Libya—the migrants are mostly not Libyans, but come from other countries—and to cross the Mediterranean to come to Europe. Ultimately this is unsustainable. However Europe decides to deal with the problem, we have to try to keep these people in their own countries, and in doing so we have to redirect our foreign aid. I was delighted to be able to argue during the election that we had kept to our 0.7% of GNI pledge, as that is absolutely right, and I am delighted to be saying this with the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), on the Front Bench. We need to redirect that aid now to north Africa, to try and stabilise some of those countries: give them the help they need; stabilise their Governments and civil service; stabilise, and make sure we have, the infrastructure so that companies want to go into those countries and invest and provide jobs, so that the people are content to remain in those countries and do not have a desperate desire to leave them and come to better climes. These are very important matters that my right hon. Friend needs to deal with.
The trouble with the world today is that where we have very weak Governments, the forces of evil tend to move in. We are seeing it in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are certainly seeing it in some of the north African countries, in Libya, in Chad and in the Central African Republic. We are seeing it in those very weakly governed countries. We are seeing it in Nigeria, too, for goodness’ sake, with the activities of Boko Haram. I believe our aid must go towards trying to strengthen those countries, so that we can defeat and deter some of the dreadful human rights abuses.
I promised the House that I would give the world oil production figures: Iraq has 12% of the world’s oil reserves and Iran has 13%. If we allow Iran to take over Iraq, who would be happy with an emerging superpower, and a nuclear superpower at that, controlling a quarter—that is more than Saudi Arabia and more than Venezuela—of all the world’s oil reserves? I think that could lead to a very big danger for the world.
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
Mr Speaker, I am fairly confident that, whatever the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) might think, under you we will never be an elective dictatorship or any other kind. Instead, we shall enjoy the freedoms of this great place. Leaving dark humour aside, thank you for giving me my first chance to speak in this new Parliament. As many other hon. Members have done, I wish to put on the record my thanks to my constituents, in the beautiful areas of Norwich North, for again putting their trust in me to represent them here. I intend to speak up for them here and to gain results for them again, on the economy, on jobs coming to our city, on transport, on housing and in all the other areas where I have worked hard for solutions and will do so again.
I am delighted with the election result and I am pleased to be able to take my place on a majority Government Bench. That may be a novel feeling for the first few days, but I have no doubt that our majority will allow us to deliver the economic stability requested of us in the course of the election. It will allow us to increase living standards up and down the country, from Norwich to Newcastle, Newquay and everywhere in between. It will allow us to support real aspirations and create new opportunities.
I wish to make my few remarks tonight on the topic of younger people—the new generation for whom we hope to secure a better future. First, I wish to discuss turnout, which, as hon. Members will know, in the 2010 general election was 65% overall. However, three quarters of pensioners voted, whereas fewer than half of those aged 18 to 24 did, with the figures for the other age groups ranged neatly between those extremes. We do not yet have, and may not have, accurate data on this election from our new favourites, the pollsters, but recent figures published by Ipsos MORI suggested that turnout at the election among that youngest age group may have got worse, at 43%. Once again, the gentle range appears true, with those data showing older voters neatly and gradually turning out more than younger people.
Some people may find it reassuring to think that youngsters are just going to bounce into behaving in the same way as their parents or grandparents did when they hit a certain point in their life cycle, but I do not believe they will. A number of things have changed with this generation—I will call it my generation, although I am no longer the baby of the House. I pay tribute to our new colleague, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Ms Black), who has taken on that mantle. My generation reports less belief in voting as a civic duty; less interest in traditional politics, when asked about that per se; and less affiliation with parties. Today’s 18 to 24-year-olds will not settle down to voting once they get married and get a mortgage. If democracy were banking on that happening, we would be waiting a long time for it, as marriage occurs later, if at all, and house prices crush many twenty-somethings’ hopes of owning a home. So I welcome the announcement of a housing Bill in this Gracious Speech, and I shall discuss that a little later.
Voting is a habit that must be formed and, like many habits, it sticks if it is formed early. If individuals are not doing that any longer and are choosing no longer to exercise their vote, as a low turnout rate suggests, we have a barometer of broader patterns of change. Some have also argued that we also have
“a window into the future behaviour of Western citizens.”
The UK is the sick man of Europe for turnout among 18 to 24-year-olds, with participation rates in the UK and Ireland disturbingly low—Britain’s are worst of all. Work by the Pew Research Centre suggests that although turnout among younger voters has always been lower in the United States than in the UK, with US younger voters always turning out in lower numbers than US older voters, the turnout rates there have been comparatively solid. In other words, the gap between American youth turnout and overall turnout has changed little in 40 years, whereas in Britain that gap has worsened dramatically. Young people vote less than their elders everywhere, but Britain’s problem is worse and has worsened. That is something broken in our system. There is no one silver bullet answer to this problem, although we might talk about a number of campaigning, policy and franchise aspects. The point is that this is not about young people being young like they have always been; something has changed and has broken.
This Gracious Speech shows that it is the Conservative party that can be the home of young voters, with action on the issues that matter to them—housing, jobs, education and so on. We have a chance to serve the whole country in those terms. The youngest generation is least in favour of redistribution and high welfare spending, and we know that this group look to themselves to take action and look to business, charities and other action groups to achieve things with them for their chosen community; actions that the state can take come a long way down the list, according to some research. Even The Guardian has been forced to admit that generation Y may back the Conservatives.
I want politics in Britain to work for generation Y. I want to show clearly that the principles of the small state, responsible economics, freedom, enterprise and social liberalism matter for this generation as they have always mattered, and that people can have them through a Conservative vote. In government, we Conservatives have had a good record of action and delivery. We have spoken honestly about the public finances and have tackled the deficit; we have brought about more jobs, with the most recent figures showing record levels of youth employment—that is important; we have set out our stall on house building; we have reformed welfare; we have set out ambitious standards for quality in education and put universities on a freer and more stable financial footing; and we also delivered a successful large-scale programme for young people, through the National Citizen Service.
The No. 1 thing the Government can do—we can do it more through this Queen’s Speech—is mend the economy. If the economy improves, there will, of course, be more good jobs. This generation wishes for the Government to be able to cut red tape further and foster a business-friendly environment, because 80% of 16 to 30-year-olds believe they will start their own business in the next five years. So I welcome the Bill to increase the tax-free allowance to ensure that people working 30 hours a week on the minimum wage will pay no income tax. I welcome measures to deliver more childcare and 3 million more apprenticeships. That is why we shall be the party of young working people.
Let us also consider what is happening on housing. Obviously, building more homes, and thereby bringing down prices, will benefit the young people who are locked out of those prices at the moment. Like all hon. Members, in my constituency I have had to balance the needs and desires of older residents, perhaps for tranquillity and green spaces, with younger residents’ needs for homes they can afford. By its very nature, the planning process divides people in that way.
Jim Shannon
I have noted in the hon. Lady’s contribution a negative view of how young people are responding to the political process. I want to ask her about something I have seen in my constituency: the number of people who took the time to come to vote, feeling that they wanted to be part of the process for the first time. Does she think we can learn from those people and use their example to encourage others to come along, too? Is that not the way forward?
Chloe Smith
Yes, I see no reason to disagree with what the hon. Gentleman sets out.
What we see among this generation is that they have a different way of doing their politics. It is less about the traditional forms, as the turnout figures might suggest, and increasingly more about different techniques and methods. One such technique, which I was going to discuss, as I know it is of detailed interest to you, Mr Speaker, is the use of the internet and the facets of digital democracy. Your Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy was absolutely right to look into that, and into the ways in which our lives are enabled—they are sometimes just sped up—by the internet and the ways in which politics must keep up as those things change generationally. It is extremely unusual for this generation not to be able to do something online and for that reason I have argued, as others have done, that we ought to consider moving voting online. Such a project will take 10 years to get right, given where our starting point would be, but it would signal our intention to move democracy to where people rightly are. It would say, “There is every type of welcome here for you, however you choose to do your community activity.” We ought to be able to say that proudly about this place.
Let me draw to a conclusion. I began with the economy, I have mentioned housing and I will throw in one more policy area, which is transport. By its very nature, transport deeply interests those who want to get about and who want to begin their lives. As a 16-year-old in rural Norfolk, transport was what got me interested in politics, because I could not get from my village to anywhere where I could see friends or do anything else that would help me live my life as I chose. Transport is crucial from a social point of view, from a growth point of view and from an economic perspective. I am delighted that in the Conservative party manifesto we have committed to completing the Norwich in 90 project, a piece of work that I and others have led locally. Transport, jobs and housing will secure the economy for a future generation. I am proud and pleased to support this Gracious Speech.
David Rutley
In Macclesfield alone, unemployment dropped by 50% in the past year, which is a huge step. That has come from an unrelenting focus on what I call the four “e”s in an enterprise economy. The first is entrepreneurs; we have a massive over-index of entrepreneurs and the self-employed in Macclesfield. Then there are employers, exporters and, of course, employees—we must help each of them take the first step on their journey, encouraging them so that they see real success in their careers.
It is important to focus on the fact that more people are moving into self-employment. That tremendous change has taken place in just the past 12 or 14 years. Some 4.5 million people are now involved in self-employment: 14.5% of the total workforce, up from 12% at the start of this century. Anybody who has read the work of the Royal Society of Arts and Demos recently will realise that the trend is here to stay.
The pull of self-employment—the flexibility, freedom and dignity—helps make it an attractive option. In the past, some might have said that the push factors, such as redundancy under Labour’s great recession, were decisive. That has changed now; the issue is about the pull factors. We need to encourage more people to take the step. We should give them the information and support that they need, so that they want to become not only self-employed but first-time employers, helping out with first-time apprenticeships as well. I hope that under the enterprise Bill and other legislation more work will be done to support the self-employed in this country.
We need to ensure that enterprise is about what happens not only in this country, but Europe—particularly the European Union. Reform of the EU is not simply in the UK’s national interest, although that is our first concern, but in the interests of the EU as a whole. The world is changing and the EU must change to embrace it. There are clear opportunities and real challenges in the global economy in the 21st century. There are also compelling organic reasons for the need for reform. Many more eurozone countries want to pull together in ever closer union; I would not want to countenance that, but they are moving in that direction. States such as the UK that are rightly very much outside the eurozone need to make sure that the relationship between countries in and outside the eurozone is better defined. This is an important time for the debate about the renegotiation.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue. One thing I would like to see in this Parliament—the response has been negative so far—is a reduction in VAT on tourism. That would be an advantage for Northern Ireland, as we could be competitive with the Republic of Ireland. When it comes to creating employment opportunities in tourism, Northern Ireland especially but the whole UK would benefit from a reduction in VAT. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
David Rutley
Obviously VAT can be quite complex and there are EU rules relating to it. I am not fully aware of what is going on in Northern Ireland in that regard, but I know that the devolution of corporation tax powers to Northern Ireland will create huge opportunities. Let us see how that goes and then there might be further opportunities, but VAT is more complicated.
Let me come back to the importance of reform and renegotiation. Having worked as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Europe in the previous Parliament, I know from working with MPs in other Parliaments and with senior civil servants in other countries that there is now an appetite for reform in Europe—there is no doubt about that. We need to tap into that appetite and make sure that we move things on in the interests of our own country and the EU as a whole. I know that the Foreign Secretary, the Minister for Europe and, indeed, the Prime Minister are working hard to ensure that we bring about those changes. The unambitious 20th-century model of a fortress Europe sheltering from the world and rigid in its quest for centralisation cannot survive.
The Government believe that it is absolutely right to focus on reducing the bureaucratic burden and cutting the red tape that needs action both in this country and at European level. Last week, when further details were beginning to emerge about what would be included in the enterprise Bill, it was noticeable that those who represent businesses in the UK came forward to say that it was time for change not only in the UK but, particularly, in Brussels. John Longworth of the British Chambers of Commerce said:
“It is great to see the Government start the Parliament with a real drive to support businesses…To further free companies up from red tape and focus on growth, businesses will now expect to see a similar commitment from Brussels.”
That is absolutely the case. Katja Hall of the CBI said:
“Businesses will welcome the Government getting out of the blocks early by following through on its commitment to cut red tape”—
something that I have been talking about for many years. She went on to say:
“Moving forward, it should use its influence in Brussels to combat…regulation that impacts unfairly on British businesses”.
Our ambition for Britain and for Europe is to ensure that we get in place the fundamental foundations of social stability and economic opportunity on which we can rest a ladder of social mobility that will help to push forward ambition and aspiration so that people can thrive, making sure that the wealth we want gets generated so that those in genuine need can get the support they have so desperately needed. The Queen’s Speech shows a clear direction towards building more opportunities not just in enterprise but in helping to improve educational standards. That is critical, because we want to make sure that there are real opportunities for all children across all economic strata to enable them to get the skills that they need to take forward their talents and ambitions.
The Queen’s Speech sets out a very exciting opportunity for many in this country. It will help the self-employed, help our businesses, help to set out an agenda for young people, and help to reform Europe—all in one go.