Maiden Speech
I am most grateful for this opportunity to make my maiden speech. It is a great honour and a privilege. I want to give my congratulations to other hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches this afternoon. They have all spoken with great passion and eloquence, and I look forward to hearing from them again.
I want to begin by paying tribute to my predecessor, Derek Foster, who held Bishop Auckland from 1979 until the last general election. Wherever I go in the constituency, I hear his praises sung most highly: whether by old-age pensioners in difficult circumstances whom he has helped; or by farmers whom he supported during the foot and mouth epidemic; or, indeed, by the manufacturing engineers, for whom he seems to have provided a network of connections beyond the constituency and into academia. Indeed, Derek seems to have been practising endogenous growth theory before my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Ed Balls) invented it.
Most recently, with Brian Stephens, the former leader of Sedgefield borough council, Derek spearheaded the campaign to set up the Locomotion railway museum in Shildon, which has been a great success, receiving 100,000 visitors and one prize already. It is indeed right that Derek’s loyalty and service are to be recognised by ennoblement and transfer to another place.
It is an honour to be the first woman MP for Bishop Auckland, and that honour belongs to Ruth Dalton, who took the seat in a by-election in 1929. Her husband, the then MP for Peckham, had already been selected as the Bishop Auckland candidate for the forthcoming general election when the sitting Member unexpectedly died. Meanwhile, in Peckham the prospective candidate was the sitting MP for Gateshead. Had it not been for the ingenuity of the Bishop Auckland Labour party, instead of one by-election there would have been three, but the whole matter was resolved in two days.
In his excellent biography of Dalton, Ben Pimlott tells us: ““Without Ruth even attending for interview, the seventy-strong General Committee Bishop Auckland decided unanimously that she should become the by-election candidate. No other name was even mentioned”,”
because she could be relied on to resign in favour of her husband as soon as Parliament was dissolved, three months later. I fear that the second woman MP for Bishop Auckland will not prove to be reliable in quite the same way.
Bishop Auckland is a remarkable constituency. With its industrial east and rural west it is truly a slice of England, so its needs reflect many of the long-term challenges facing the country as a whole. The former mining villages have long since given way to industry and manufacturing. Spennymoor, Shildon and Bishop Auckland have a strong engineering base, and in Barnard Castle there is a large Glaxo plant. Under this Government’s economic stewardship they are thriving. Of course, there have been job losses and restructuring, but the fact is that unemployment now is half its level in 1997. Next month, Electrolux is inaugurating a new production line, securing 600 manufacturing jobs.
Within the constituency the community suffering the most serious deprivation is the Woodhouse Close estate. There, homes are boarded up and bombed out before being demolished. My work on Sure Start first took me to the constituency, and in partnership with voluntary sector groups, led by such capable women as Jane Armstrong, Doreen Kett and Jackie Heslop, Sure Start is making a real contribution to community development and hence to opportunities for children. The Government have set themselves ambitious targets to halve and eradicate child poverty, and I urge Ministers to stick with them. Sure Start is part of that. Equivocal academic evaluations are irrelevant; it was never intended as a quick fix. The full benefits will not be realised for another 20 years.
That part of the constituency is in the Wear Valley district, which has the dubious distinction of being the most deprived rural authority in England. One manifestation of that is that it has the worst obesity rates in the country. In her maiden speech in 1929, Ruth Dalton complained about the quality of school meals, and I am sorry that that was still an issue in the last general election, despite all the good work by my colleagues on Durham county council. I welcome the financial package announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education, but I do not believe that the problem of children’s diet can be solved through Government spending alone: responsible behaviour on the part of the private sector is also necessary. I therefore welcome the commitment made in the last public health White Paper to introduce legislation if a voluntary code of conduct on advertising during children’s television is unsuccessful.
Sweeping up to the west of my constituency is the Tees valley, which passes through some of the most beautiful farmland in England to the Pennines, where there are ski-lifts above Mickle Fell. I am looking forward to testing them in the winter, but now beautiful walks are to be had through the bluebell woods by the river. Hon. Members will not need to be reminded by me that the bluebell is one of our native species most threatened by global warming. I have to report that during the election campaign in Bishop Auckland, the need for strong action to meet our Kyoto targets was the one thing on which the candidates of all the major parties agreed. I am especially glad that the Government have made that a priority at the forthcoming G8 meeting.
The Bishop Auckland constituency is also rich in historical sites, including the Roman fort at Binchester, the Saxon church at Escomb, Raby castle and the Bowes fine art museum. I am torn between the feeling that this is a secret best kept for those who know it and the knowledge that there is fantastic potential for tourism in the area. None the less, the beauty can hide serious problems of rural deprivation and isolation as farming communities come to terms with changes in international markets. However, reform of the international trading system cannot be accomplished in a moral vacuum, and I do not believe that that is what my constituents want. One hundred and fifty years of political and social action in County Durham have produced a culture based on the values of solidarity with those less fortunate than ourselves, collective action and standing up for what we believe.
All those issues—jobs, child poverty, the environment and international trade—are, at their root, economic problems, but they are not technical problems requiring technocratic solutions; they are political problems. Labour was re-elected on a programme of reform. The aspiration of Labour Members is that our values should dominate the 21st century in the way that the Tories’ did the 20th. That means addressing long-term challenges. That is not an excuse for procrastination: we must tackle urgently those changes that take time to come to fruition.
My sincere desire is to serve my constituents well and represent their views in our debates, so that in 76 years’ time, when the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland is describing her constituency, she is no longer worried about school meals, but the children are still enjoying the bluebell woods. I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and hon. Members for listening to me this afternoon.
House of Commons, 25 May 2005
