Exiting the European Union and Global Trade

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Julia Dockerill (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) for his contribution. I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech in this important debate about trade. I am also thankful to my hon. Friends for gathering around me like a protective huddle of penguins; I very much appreciate it.

We must be realistic, pragmatic and determined about how we best shape this country as we leave the European Union. Too often, debate on how we do that is infected by a corrosive pessimism that betrays a lack of confidence in our nation and in what we can offer the world. Now is a time for resilience, resourcefulness and self-belief. We need not a crowing self-regard but an appreciation that our people and what we have created together have value. I want to talk today about why I believe that to be so.

First, let me pay tribute to my predecessor, Dame Angela Watkinson, a lady of grace and a lady whose service leaves a proud legacy. Dame Angela’s story embodies the essence of Conservatism. From humble working class roots in Leytonstone, she built not only a flourishing career through hard work and talent, but a record of public service in this place and beyond, particularly through her church and on behalf of children with disabilities. I offer her my profound gratitude on behalf of the people of Hornchurch and Upminster, whom I so proudly represent here today.

Rather like me, Hornchurch and Upminster may now be in London, but it will always and forever have an Essex heart. Both Hornchurch and Upminster were agricultural parishes of the county, and the vestiges of a simpler past are scattered across the seat like antique jewels—whether Upminster’s beautiful tithe barn, our Grade II listed windmill or the charming churches of St Laurence and St Andrew. From the mid-17th century onwards, the area attracted successful merchants from the City of London looking to build their country pads. By 1885, Upminster was first formally connected to the metropolis by rail. None the less, its population remained modest right up until 1906, when developer Peter Griggs spotted a chance to turn the area into a new garden suburb for aspirant workers. Hornchurch was similarly swept up in the wave of suburban growth. By 1965, both were formally incorporated into the London borough of Havering.

The area’s role in defending London during the war was played out from RAF Hornchurch, just outside my constituency. My constituency later helped to revive London and its war-weary people by providing land for a large new housing estate on Harold Hill to alleviate inner-city housing shortages, particularly among eastenders who sought better lives for their families—what more fitting location for the first sale of a council home to a tenant by the Greater London Council? For aspiration, hard work and a deep sense of family, community and nationhood flow through the veins of my constituents. Ours is a seat where an agrarian Englishness and sense of stability mixes with the upward mobility of the metropolis, and where the brash thrust of the centre breaks into something gentler, almost nostalgic. It is a place where taxis, vans and the tools of tradespeople rest on driveways after a hard day’s work; where doorways are swept and homes taken pride in; and where people hold straightforward, honest hopes for good schools, jobs, public services and homes. My constituents contribute to and believe in what this nation has to offer but they expect our nation’s politicians to hold that belief as well.

I began my career in this place working for the Minister for Asia and the Pacific, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field). A person with a hugely generous spirit, he gave me the space and confidence to flourish in my own right, and it fills me with enormous joy to see him promoted to serve this country with his immense talent. Those were deceptively sunny days for our country, yet in quick succession I was to witness at close quarters the expenses crisis, the financial crisis and then a seemingly unending series of scandals that systematically undermined public trust in nearly every institution within our nation. I shared in the national mood of disillusionment. Not long afterwards, I attended a town hall meeting in Tower Hamlets where I saw councillors physically attack and issue death threats to one another. I felt a profound sense of horror over what had happened in the borough. The divisive identity politics of race, religion and class had turned out to breed only a culture of grotesque corruption, incivility and isolation, while local politicians’ self-congratulatory mantra of “fairness”, “community” and “justice” were used only as a cloak to retain power. That night inspired me to became one of five feisty Conservative councillors who fought alongside others to expose what was going on. Tower Hamlets is now a byword for what can go wrong when we fail to uphold the systems, institutions and values that make Britain work.

Later I spent time working with European and developing nations on governance issues. Witnessing developing nations battle with endemic corruption, it became ever clearer to me that without decent governance, all other efforts to raise living standards and increase prosperity will struggle. Meanwhile, seeing the EU at close quarters, I reluctantly came to the view that it was divorced from the reality of those whom it purports to represent. It is now time to return accountability to our own politicians. Indeed, I should like to see post-Brexit Britain as one of a group of modern, open nations pursuing close co-operation in matters of security and defence, and an ambitious agenda on free trade, covering goods and services, on economic prosperity and on the creation of international standards for the new technologies shaping our lives. That must sit alongside a restatement of the importance of the nation state, with a new focus on intergovernmental co-operation rather than collective decision making via costly and cumbersome bureaucracies.

Our parliamentary democracy is a precious and delicate gift, the sum of the toil, sacrifice, disagreements and compromises that generations before us have made. Its principles have proved a template for governance across the globe and provided the space for millions of individuals, institutions and enterprises to flourish. It is a dynamic system that works because it is lubricated by trust and because each generation of parliamentarians tries its best to fine-tune it to reflect the needs and wants of the citizens they represent. The past decade may have undermined trust in our economy, in our politicians and in our media, but crises and scandals can also drive improvements, and should not be taken as a reason to give up or dismiss our nation with a relentless, virulent negativity. Quite the opposite. It is the duty of our generation of politicians to learn, to reform and to lasso the hopes, ambitions and talents of British people of every background as we enter this challenging but enormously exciting new era.