Summer Adjournment

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and my hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) and for Livingston (Graeme Morrice). They say that all good things are worth waiting for, which is certainly true on the occasion of their maiden speeches.

I have been amazed in the past two months by the efforts of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to mislead the public by saying that there is no alternative to the vandalism that they are inflicting on public services in Bolton West and throughout the country, and by the fact that they seem not to know that there is a global recession or that if Britain and the rest of the world had taken no action, we would now be in a global depression. Had they been in government, would they have taken no action? Would they have let the banks collapse, taking with them our savings, mortgages, pensions and businesses? Would they have allowed twice as many houses to be repossessed and twice as many people to be unemployed?

I was shocked that no Education Ministers would meet the pupils of Westhoughton high school to explain why they are not getting a new school when they visited the Palace a fortnight ago. I was also shocked that they cancelled the Building Schools for the Future projects in both Bolton and Wigan, even though those authorities had reached financial close, even though the money was in the budget to pay for them, and even though BSF would provide much-needed jobs and apprenticeships.

Government is about choices. This Government are making the choice to pay back the deficit by cutting vital services to the most vulnerable in society. They are also choosing to pay back the deficit quickly, and to privatise health and education, but those are not the only choices, and they are not the choices that Labour would have made.

With that in mind, will the Government tell me and my constituents whether the electrification of the Manchester to Preston railway line will go ahead? It was announced last year and would mean more trains, fewer emissions, cheaper running costs and better journey times. As part of the electrification, we would get new-to-us trains. Currently, passengers on our services play sardines every morning and evening. People are often left on the platform because nobody else can squeeze into the carriages. In fact, the engineers for Northern Rail should get medals. I do not know how they keep some of those trains running. Whether or not electrification happens, will we get new rolling stock? Good public transport is vital to economic growth, but the bottleneck in the rail network in Manchester is a hindrance to growth. Will we get the northern hub, so that there are more trains to and through Manchester?

As part of national pubs week, I visited the Red Lion pub in Westhoughton in my constituency to talk about the problems that the licence trade faces. This is a well run pub which is rooted in the community and used by a whole variety of groups, but I left fearful about its future. Of course the licensees mentioned the smoking ban, but their biggest concern was their inability to compete with the large chain pubs because of the brewery tie and other related costs. They told me about the extortionate costs of Sky and about the cost of business rates, compounded by having to pay council tax for their accommodation in the pub—paying twice for the same services, an issue that affects all business people who live over the shop. They told me about the cost of heat and light and their fears for increases in VAT. They told me about the cost of their performing rights licence—they have even had to remove the jukebox because they could not afford a full licence.

Six pubs close every day. The last Government were committed to introducing a “guest beer right” for tied tenants, which would allow them the freedom to make a fair profit. Will the current Government go ahead with those plans? The Government have pledged to introduce a community right-to-buy scheme so that communities can take over their local pub, but will they provide the £3.3 million funding that was committed by the last Government? Will they close the loophole in the planning law that allows pubs to be demolished or changed into shops or restaurants without the need to seek planning permission? Will they also look at other costs associated with running a pub to see if any other help can be given?

I have also had a meeting with one of my constituents, Komal Adris, a British citizen, who recently went on holiday to Israel and the west bank. At passport control in Tel Aviv, Komal was asked what her father’s name was. When she answered “Mohammed”, she was taken out of the queue and into a separate room for questioning. She was told that this was routine procedure, but she was the only person from the whole flight who was taken aside. She was also the only person with a brown face. She was kept from 8 pm to 7 am with a number of different Israeli officials interrogating her. No one would tell her how long she would be held or why she was being kept. She was asked why she was visiting Israel and Palestine and she explained where she was intending to go.

As the night went on, the questioning became more aggressive. In the early hours Komal was given a Government document to sign that would have allowed her to enter Israel, but prevented her from entering Palestinian territories. She was told that if she attempted to visit any Palestinian town or city she would be arrested and put in prison, even if it was just a visit to Bethlehem. She refused to sign, as she did on the two further occasions she was asked. This document appears to have no legal basis and the Israelis should not prevent movement to and through the Palestinian territories.

At 6 am, Komal was told that she had been refused entry and would be sent back to the UK. The reason she was given was “security”. She asked if the officers were saying that she was a security threat and they said, “No, of course we aren’t implying that you are a terror threat.” But if security was the real reason, why would they have let her into Israel? She was then taken away for searching. All her bags and personal belongings were thoroughly searched and she was strip searched. At about 7 am, she was taken away from the airport and put in a prison cell. She had no access to her belongings or her phone so she could not tell her family or friends what had happened to her. She was kept in a cell until 8.30 pm, having been held for more than 24 hours, unable to communicate with anyone and given just one cold packed meal. This was a frightening, disturbing and degrading episode for a young Muslim woman.

Komal could have signed the document and been allowed into Israel, so security cannot have been the real concern. Does this therefore mean that the Gaza blockade has now been extended to the west bank? Please can the Government tell me what action they have taken to uphold the freedom of travel for British citizens and to ensure that the Israeli authorities are not discriminating against British citizens on the grounds of their ethnicity or religious beliefs? Can they tell me how many British citizens have been denied entry to the west bank, and can they investigate why my constituent was treated in this discriminatory and degrading fashion?

Finally, as hon. Members may know, I have spent most of my life as a youth and community worker, and I am worried about what is happening to youth work now that the cuts are starting to bite. Youth and community work goes to the core of the big society, but groups are already concerned that they will not be able to survive. Do the Government not realise the importance of the area-based grant and regional bodies, such as the regional development agencies and the Government office for the north-west, to the voluntary and community sector? Without the support of funding streams to support and attract funding, groups will not survive. As in the ’80s and ’90s, we run the risk of both local authority and voluntary sector youth projects closing—young people with nowhere to go and nothing to do. How can the local authorities and youth services fulfil their obligation that 25% of young people have contact with youth workers, and 25% of those achieve accredited outcomes? I am scared for the future in Bolton West, and I hope that I will get reassurance that the future is not as bleak as I fear.