Tackling Poverty in the UK

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I welcome you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to your new role, and I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to make my maiden speech in the House today. I congratulate the Members who have preceded me, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), who has just made a magnificent speech. I congratulate other Members on both sides of the House on making eloquent speeches, which I hope I can live up to today.

I must say how delighted and proud I am to be elected to represent the good people of my home town constituency. They have shown a great deal of faith in me, which I intend to repay over the course of my time in the House. I aim to be an excellent constituency representative and to work diligently for my constituents with the same enthusiasm, passion and old-fashioned hard work that I showed during the election campaign.

The Nuneaton constituency in the fine county of Warwickshire in the heart of our country was formed in 1885, following the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. From that time until the second world war, the seat regularly changed hands between parties of all persuasions. After the second world war, however, the seat became somewhat of a Labour stronghold. That lasted until the general election of 1983, by which time the seat included several wards from the borough of Rugby.

Mr Lewis Stevens became the first Conservative post-war Member for Nuneaton. He was regarded as a hard-working and conscientious Member who was one of the best attendees in the House during his time here and had an excellent voting record. He was also extremely well respected within the constituency. Mr Stevens, who still lives in Nuneaton today, has been a good personal friend, to whom I have always been able to look for advice and support. I thank him for that. It is a great privilege for me to join Lewis in such an exclusive club as only the second Conservative Member for Nuneaton since 1935.

In 1992, I cast my first vote for Mr Stevens, although it was not perhaps the luckiest of omens because unfortunately he was sadly defeated by Mr Bill Olner. From 1992 until the Dissolution of Parliament earlier this year, Mr Bill Olner served the constituents of Nuneaton. In my experience, Bill was a reasonable and gentlemanly character, who was a loyal supporter of the Labour Government. I am aware that he seemed to be well liked on all sides of the House. He was a prominent local figure, and like my good self, before his election he served for many years on the Nuneaton and Bedworth borough council before eventually becoming its leader—a privilege that I also enjoyed. Bill was also involved in the establishment of the Mary Ann Evans hospice and is still the president of that fine organisation today. I would like to thank Mr Olner for his work and service to the people of Nuneaton, and I wish him well on his retirement.

The latest incarnation of the constituency sees the wards from the borough of Rugby that came into it in 1983 returned to the constituency of Rugby. I now formally welcome the North Warwickshire borough wards of Hartshill, Arley and Whitacre to the constituency. It was apparent during the election campaign that many constituents from these wards were mostly unaware of the boundary changes. There appears to have been a most unfortunate lack of consultation, from which the House should perhaps learn when we conduct the reorganisation that is outlined in the coalition document.

Both the urban and rural areas of the constituency at one time relied heavily on the industries of mining and mineral extraction, much of which has now ceased, with the notable exception of Daw Mill colliery— the single largest coal-producing colliery in the UK. The colliery is situated right on the border where the constituencies of Nuneaton and North Warwickshire meet.

Nuneaton itself was traditionally an industrial town known for textiles and manufacturing, but like many constituencies it has changed dramatically in the post-war period. The traditional industries have given way, and in recent years, due to its convenient geographical location and unparalleled transport links at the heart of the motorway network, Nuneaton has become an excellent distribution hub. Companies such as RS Components and Dairy Crest have their national distribution centres within the constituency. Other major companies such as Holland & Barrett have their headquarters in the constituency.

Manufacturing is still very much alive, with a number of small and medium-sized enterprises that work in the supply chain to the car, aviation and defence industries. I am aware from speaking to local business leaders that those industries depend considerably on available credit for both cashflow and development. Many have struggled through the current recession, and continue to do so. I hope very much that the new Government will be instrumental in ensuring that credit is made available to SMEs, particularly those engaged in manufacturing. They are vital to our economy, particularly in the west midlands.

Nuneaton also has a fantastic town centre which has done exceptionally well to fend off the challenges from the big cities—the likes of Coventry, Birmingham and Leicester. A key to the success of the town centre is the vibrant and historic street market, which has operated in the town since the charter of 1226 and is going strong to this day, winning the accolade of the UK’s best market in 2009 and best market attraction in 2010. Those are proud achievements. However, in 2010 our traditional markets face serious challenges, and we must recognise them if the markets are to survive the test of time as they have so far.

The constituency has been home to a number of famous sons and daughters. Among the most notable is the Victorian novelist George Eliot, born at South Farm, Arbury, as Mary Ann Evans. She adopted the name George Eliot to overcome the prejudice against female writers that existed at the time. Her works include “Adam Bede”, “The Mill on the Floss” and “Silas Marner”. She was inspired by Nuneaton’s Arbury estate, the jewel in whose crown is Arbury hall, built during the reign of Elizabeth I. Arbury hall is still recognised as one of the most authentic stately homes of the era. A previous owner of the estate, Francis Newdegate, represented Nuneaton in this very House, and the Newdegates are still the owners and custodians of the estate. Although Nuneaton is not necessarily renowned as a tourist destination, it does attract many tourists from as far afield as Japan, who come to see where George Eliot was inspired to write such great works.

Probably the most famous son of Nuneaton was the late entertainer Larry Grayson, who Members of a certain age may remember entertaining us on Saturday nights during the 1970s and 1980s as the effervescent host of television’s “The Generation Game”. They may recall such sayings as “Shut that door”. Nuneaton is also linked to two former giants of this House, Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, fierce rivals who both owned land in Nuneaton. The original deeds with which the pieces of land were transferred are still on display in Nuneaton and the neighbouring town of Bedworth.

Nuneaton is a friendly and homely place in which to live, and on the whole still enjoys an excellent community spirit. Demographically, the constituency is very diverse. We have areas of relative affluence, but pockets of real deprivation. In fact, three wards in the constituency are in the bottom 20% in the country. Over the past 13 years the last Government made much of the need to narrow the gap between rich and poor in such wards and ensure that child poverty ended, and substantial amounts were spent during that time, but outcomes were often not proportionate to expenditure.

Although well intentioned, the last Government received very little for their money in terms of social mobility and a reduction in the gap between the rich and the poor, and they have further fuelled a culture of benefit dependency in which children grow up seeing parents and grandparents who have never worked as their role models, in which people are better off living apart than living together, and in which there is no incentive to work because of the fear of becoming worse off.

I must say that I am enthused by the coalition document, and particularly the work conducted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), with his practical and pragmatic ideas to simplify the benefits system, help people into work, and prioritise early intervention which will help our most deprived communities. I am sure that the new Government’s commitment to such measures as the pupil premium and support for further education colleges and universities will give the young people of my constituency the educational opportunity that will make them more socially mobile, raise their aspirations, unlock untapped potential and let individuals take control of their own lives once more.

I particularly welcome the new Government’s commitment to providing an additional 50,0000 apprenticeships, which I am sure will engage and enthuse many young people who do not have the necessary aptitude for—or, more often, are not attracted to—further academic studies. I hope that many of those apprentices will be employed in Nuneaton. I am also convinced that there is no better way of regenerating our areas of deprivation than to create an environment in which the private sector can thrive. We must reduce regulation and business taxes and get credit moving, so that businesses can create the jobs that the skills provided by our Government will deserve.

Let me sum up by again thanking the people of Nuneaton, whom I now represent. I will work hard and to the best of my ability properly to represent them both in the constituency and in the House. I will do whatever I can to make a contribution that will have a more positive effect on their lives.