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12.2 pm
Mr. Barry Gardiner (Brent, North): I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech today. I stand before you as the Labour Member for Brent, North. I shall say that again: I stand before you as the Labour Member for Brent, North. The a priori intrinsic probability that I should be here in that capacity is akin to two Brits making it to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon--but then, of course, that has happened. It is perhaps akin to the British rugby team winning a test series in South Africa--but then, that has been done. Perhaps it is as probable as an English cricket team bowling out the Australians before lunch--that, too, has happened. Is nothing impossible under a Blair Government?
Sport is not just about winners and losers; it is about honourable opponents taking part in competition with one another. I certainly could not describe my predecessor in
Brent, North as a loser. He was an extremely honourable Member of Parliament and he achieved national renown, not only as a celebrity figure on television and in the media, but because he attained high office in the House as a Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office and, most notoriously, in the Department of Education and Science.
Above all, my predecessor was a hugely popular and respected constituency Member of Parliament. Over the past two years, as I knocked on doors in Brent, North, not a single person failed to tell me what a difficult task I had ahead of me. There was not one person who did not say that Sir Rhodes was regarded not just as a fine Member of Parliament, but as a family friend. Thankfully, all those people also confided that they would be voting for me, but that is another matter. I welcome this opportunity to place on record the gratitude and affection that the people of Brent, North feel towards Sir Rhodes after his 23 years' service to them. I hope that I shall be able to emulate his conscientious dedication, not to mention his length of tenure in office.
I must apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I am constrained from honouring another tradition of maiden speeches. At Prayers this morning, we were admonished by Madam Speaker's Chaplain to seek no party advantage in our debates, but to pursue truth and justice. I cannot, therefore, stand before you and proclaim that my constituency has the highest sunshine hours of any in the country, or that it has the highest peaks or the lowest valleys, or that it is the most beautiful constituency within the British Isles. By my reckoning, that last honour has already been claimed by at least 19 of my hon. Friends when making their own maiden speeches. Nevertheless, I thank all of them for providing me, in Hansard, with what I imagine must be one of the most comprehensive holiday guides to the British Isles. I shall make full use of it over the next few years.
When individuals look at a Budget, they think, "How will that affect me?" For Members of Parliament, that phrase becomes, "How will that affect my constituents?" and that was, of course, my thought on Wednesday. Brent, North is a part of suburban London that grew out of the successful Empire exhibition at Wembley in the 1930s. It developed world-beating technology, as shown by the fact that, for a time, it hosted the global headquarters of the GEC corporation. The loss of that in the 1980s entailed the loss of hundreds of local jobs and especially of many apprenticeships for young people. The profile of unemployment in Brent, North maps that recent loss of training opportunity: there is only 7 per cent. unemployment among older people, but 21 per cent. among under-25s.
I therefore welcome the welfare-to-work proposals announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which will enable young people to get a foothold in the world of work and provide them with the training that they need. I am sure that a solid entry and exit strategy for those placements is in place. I am, however, concerned that there is no clearly articulated mechanism of quality control for the training that young people will receive under those proposals. Let us be clear that the Employment Service will be stretched to administer the placement work load; it therefore cannot act as a guarantor for the quality of the placements. It is little comfort to know that employers will be brought to book if and when they abuse the scheme--they will be spotted
and weeded out. It would be better if the quality control were there in the first place and we knew that clear programmes of training were in hand with employers.
Earlier in the debate, mention was made of the element of conscription on to schemes, because young people will not be able to continue receiving benefit without going down one of the four proposed routes. That misses the point: it is not how one arrives on such a scheme that is important--it is what happens when one is there and whether it is worth while. Schooling is carried out by conscription--we all have to attend school--but what matters is the quality of the education that we receive there. What matters will be the quality of training delivered to young people, and that is why I ask for further clarification on exactly how training will be delivered.
My constituency also has an extremely high proportion of pensioners, so I paid special attention to the Budget measures relating to advance corporation tax. I waited for the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green(Mr. Duncan Smith) to leap to the defence of pensioners and was ready to note the points that he would make in their defence. When it came to it, the hon. Gentleman spoke of the concerns, not of pensioners, but of pension fund holders. The Chancellor's measures in that area will not hit existing pensioners--their effect will be on those such as myself, with 25 years or so to go before retirement--but in any case they do not attack a long-established concession that pension funds have traditionally come to enjoy and to depend on.
Those tax credits were given by Norman Lamont as recently as 1993, after heavy lobbying from the City. They distort the process of company management because they encourage short-term consumption in the form of dividend payments, instead of long-term investment. That is why it is absolutely right and consistent that the Government should abolish them, and why it is consistent--although, in my view, absolutely wrong--that the Conservatives, who were the Government of short-term consumption, should oppose the measure.
I return to the pensioners in my constituency: what do they want, and how has the Budget helped them? The reduction of VAT on fuel to the minimum level, 5 per cent., is not just a pledge that the Government have redeemed. It is a signal to pensioners throughout the country that the Government understand and care about some of the most fundamental problems that confront pensioners, such as fuel poverty.
I cannot speak of my constituency and the aspirations of the people I serve without talking of the two hospitals that serve them--Edgware and the Northwick Park and St. Mark's NHS trust. A month before the election, the accident and emergency department at Edgware was closed by the previous Government. I opposed that and fought against it strongly. I had hoped that our new Government could reverse it. Later in April, again before the general election, a much less well-publicised event took place--the preliminary works began for the conversion of the surgical block at Edgware. Without a surgical block, it is medically unsafe to have a full accident and emergency department--that medical back-up is needed.
My anger that that occurred under the previous Government is exceeded only by my determination that the health needs of my constituents, especially of
pensioners, should be met by the new Government. I have, as Ministers know, possibly to their exasperation, been somewhat focused on that issue since my election. I was delighted when the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington(Mr. Milburn), agreed to initiate a review of the hospital provision at Edgware. I was especially delighted that the review will include an examination of the alternative provision of emergency care at the other neighbouring hospitals. I shall ensure that, as must be the case, alternative emergency provision is brought up to the highest possible standards, which my constituents rightly expect and deserve. Recently, the Secretary of State for Health was good enough to agree that the Edgware review should be submitted and taken into account as part of the Londonwide review of hospital care. The outcome of that review will be of vital interest to my constituents.
I am delighted that the Chancellor has announced an extra £1.2 billion for the NHS in 1998-99, but I wish to sound one slight note of caution, which I hope will not seem churlish. The other major hospital serving my constituency--Northwick Park and St. Mark's NHS trust--is at present £6 million in debt. The extra£1.2 billion in the next financial year may encourage hospital trusts that are in deficit to run that deficit forward during this financial year. Indeed, it would be surprising if there were no perceptible slackening of the belt in the light of the bounty to come.
However, a warning was contained in the Chancellor's Budget speech, when he referred to the amalgamation of hospital trusts to cut the cost of bureaucracy. Deficits in hospital trusts have resulted not simply from the flawed system of the internal market, but from the poor quality of management. Trusts that do not continue to address the deficits that they face clearly will be subject to the Chancellor's plans for amalgamation to achieve savings on bureaucracy.
One of the other aspects of my constituency is that it experienced the great wave of immigration from east Africa, which enriched this country in the early 1970s. I am proud to say that Brent is the most multicultural borough not just in this country, but anywhere in Europe. The economic stimulus that people from east Africa brought with them to Brent was phenomenal, and they have gone on to set up businesses and corner shops throughout north-west London and the rest of the country. The measures in the Chancellor's Budget to help small and medium-sized enterprises have been a fundamental boost to the people whom I serve, and I welcome those measures whole-heartedly.
Some hon. Members present will be habitual readers of The Times Educational Supplement. Usually, it is a great honour for any educational institution if it is portrayed on the cover of the TES. Recently, as many hon. Members will know, the TES ran a specific article about school lavatories. On the front cover was a quite horrifying picture of outdoor lavatories, to which pupils at a primary school had to walk across playgrounds to use. The lavatories were disgusting, and the paint was peeling. Most of the children at that school--which, sadly, is in my constituency--do not go to the lavatory during an entire day. I can think of nothing more debilitating to a teacher's efforts to teach or to a pupil's efforts to understand and learn than to sit cross-legged and
desperate to go to the toilet, but to be unable to do so, for fear of what lies outside. Indeed, on occasion, men have waited in the lavatories. The pupils do not go to the lavatory during the entire school day.
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