Home Affairs and Justice

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). I agreed with his point about support for fostering, but not with much else.

This is only my second Queen’s Speech debate, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak. My disappointment is that this is a thin Gracious Speech, made up of bits and bobs and failing to address a double-dip recession in this Olympic and diamond jubilee year.

As we know, the Queen is visiting all parts of the UK this year. Despite the showers, she was warmly welcomed in Blaenau Gwent two weeks ago.

I am a supporter of constitutional reform and I hope that it will progress “quietly and quickly”—to quote the Business Secretary—but it is not a key issue for my constituents in Abertillery, Brynmawr, Ebbw Vale or Tredegar. Their concerns are, rightly, far more prosaic. They are concerned about unemployment, high energy prices and cuts in public expenditure that go too far, too fast. That is why they gave Labour councillors a resounding victory in Blaenau Gwent at the local elections last week.

In addition to home affairs issues, I will look at wider matters affecting Blaenau Gwent. Last month in the Financial Times, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) explained that the private sector is unconvinced by the Government’s austerity strategy. It wants a plan for growth, if it is to create new private sector jobs on the scale required. Investment in assets such as roads and transport infrastructure is needed in Blaenau Gwent. Our unemployment there is 12.2%, and youth unemployment is 19.4%. We need jobs and we need them now.

Electrification of our Ebbw Vale to Cardiff line, with other valley lines, is hugely important to us. Evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee showed that Lille, a poor, former mining area in northern France, had benefited from high speed rail lines—not just construction jobs but sustainable, long-term jobs. There is a lesson there.

The Government say they will continue to work with the devolved Administrations. We have an enterprise zone in Ebbw vale and the opportunity to invest in infrastructure for a new motor sport complex, which would be a real game changer for us. The Welsh Government and Welsh Ministers are on side, but we need the Treasury to be imaginative and to support enhanced capital allowances there.

As we know, the Government have started shedding public sector jobs, but the private sector is nowhere near filling the employment gap. That is why Labour says, “You don’t bring the deficit down by putting people on the dole.”

Police officers are lobbying us today, including officers from Gwent. I am very concerned about the closing of police stations in my constituency and the loss of up to 167 police officers. No one wants to see fewer police officers working to solve serious crimes.

I turn now to public health. Welsh Government research shows that men in my constituency of Blaenau Gwent have the lowest disability-free life expectancy at birth in Wales, at just 54.3 years. Sadly, the Government have failed to take the decisive action needed to help tackle significant contributors to poor health, such as alcohol misuse. While the Prime Minister has belatedly backed a minimum price for alcohol at 40p a unit, which I welcome, it is still below the 50p recommended by the doctors, Alcohol Concern and many others. Action on advertising and sponsorship is needed. Alcohol Concern Cymru recently surveyed primary schools and found that children as young as 10 are more familiar with some leading alcohol brands and adverts than those for popular foods. That cannot be right. Sixty-two per cent. recognised Magners, a brand which until recently sponsored rugby’s Celtic league. Recognition was significantly higher among boys than girls, and among those who lived in south and west Wales. So we need more effective controls on advertising and sports sponsorship. It is essential to protect our children’s health.

As a former NSPCC campaign manager, I of course welcome proposals to improve protection of children in care and to speed up adoption. That is a key proposal for children, who will always need our laser-like focus to make their early years as safe as possible.

We await a draft Bill on adult care. Measures to regulate providers and ensure that residents get a fair funding deal are vital. Last week we heard that private equity company Terra Firma had taken over Four Seasons, which took over Southern Cross, which runs two care homes in my constituency. Residents and their families are dismayed by that pass-the-parcel approach. They want safeguards to ensure sound business plans, which the Government have so far failed to deliver.

In conclusion, we have heard much from the Cameron/Clegg double act about not landing our children with debt. Yet youth unemployment is nearly 20% in Blaenau Gwent. It is unfair that teenagers leaving school should find the heavy burden of this Government’s economic failure falling on their young shoulders. We want a fair deal on jobs, with money from a bankers bonus tax to help 100,000 out-of-work young people aged between 18 and 24. That is what people in the south Wales valleys think makes good sense and good government. They believe, as this rainy, wet April has shown, that this Queen’s Speech has been a damp squib. It deserves, then, to be given a very large thumbs down.