Debate on the Address

I beg to move,"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:""Most Gracious Sovereign,""We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom and Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament." I share this privilege with my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East (Rosemary McKenna). Her constituency makes Cardiff, South and Penarth sound curt, so I expect her to refer to the fact that my father’s family hails from Llanrhaedr-ym-Mochnant, that my mother was brought up in Ty’n y Felin near Llanfachraeth and that I was born in Bryngwran. After years as a Minister speaking to an empty Chamber, it restores my confidence to have the enthusiastic attendance of so many colleagues and the rapt attention of those on both Front Benches. When I last spoke to an overflowing Chamber, both sides said that we were spending too much time on something that was not a priority for anyone. But they still poured in hour after hour, day after day, to debate the Hunting Bill. Thank goodness hunting has lost its political potency after most hunts discovered that they could have a good day’s sport without needing to chase a wild animal. Speaking today is a particular pleasure at the start of a Session in which we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Co-operative party—the fourth largest party in the Chamber. It will be a forward-looking celebration because the co-operative ideal is a political principle whose time has come, and that is my theme today. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was very far-sighted when he embedded co-operative principles in Labour’s new clause IV, and they run like a golden thread through today’s Queen’s Speech. Global warming, international terrorism, globalisation, the pervasive presence of the internet and converged technology are political drivers that make co-operation—internationally, nationally and locally—the only alternative to chaos. Today, I am especially conscious of standing in the shoes of Cledwyn Hughes, one of my predecessors as Secretary of State for Wales, who moved the Loyal Address in 1978 for my predecessor, Jim Callaghan. As a new Member of Parliament in 1987, the first note I received was from Cledwyn. It read:"““Croeso i bachgen arall o Ynys Mon! Tyrd I gael paned.””" Welcome to another boy from Anglesey! Come and have a cup of tea. As a boy, Cledwyn travelled to school by bus with my Uncle Bob, who used to say that both of them made it to the House of Commons—Cledwyn inside as Secretary of State for Wales, and Uncle Bob outside as the policeman on St. Stephen’s entrance. Cledwyn was a lovely wise man, steeped in his local community, a passionate Welshman and above all a fighter for education, jobs and opportunity for ““his”” island. He was deeply proud when my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who shares those characteristics, won the seat in 2001. Cledwyn would have applauded the fact that this Queen’s Speech promises partnership with the Welsh Assembly, and to devolve power to local communities—a radical development of the way in which have devolved power to Scotland, Wales and London. I mention Wales, with a population of less than 3 million, and London, with a population of more than 7 million, because devolution is not about nationalism or the break-up of the United Kingdom, but about good governance, delivery and engagement. Working with my constituency’s excellent Assembly Member, Lorraine Barrett, does not diminish my work as an MP. I can tell my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that together we achieve more than we could achieve alone. At the Department of Trade and Industry, I worked closely with Rhodri Morgan to win six more years of European funding for Wales—delivered when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister achieved agreement on the EU budget last December. They said that it could not be done. Our co-operation on objective 1 has enabled Wales to outperform many parts of the UK in recent economic growth. On Saturday, at Welsh Labour’s conference, we agreed a vision for the future—radical, ambitious, confident and practical. What a contrast to the alternative: Conservatives, who opposed devolution, jumping into bed with nationalists who drag the Assembly down in pursuit of separatism. That is a marriage of inconvenience. Nothing unites them except hatred of Labour’s success in inspiring progress for the people of Wales. However, the greatest privilege today is to be the 10th successive Labour MP to move this motion—the 10th successive warm-up act for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. By the way, my diary is currently free, so I can offer to do the same for the next Prime Minister, in 2016. I hope that the Queen’s Speech will not be talked down by those on the Opposition Benches. The public are more impressed when the Opposition give credit where it is due, and a lot of credit is due. Since 1997, we have had a golden age of radical domestic legislation: the minimum wage—delivered after 100 years of campaigning—laws promoting social inclusion, education, enterprise, justice, child welfare and much, much more. In my constituency, under the Conservatives a generation of young people were denied hope and opportunity, but since 1997, unemployment and long-term youth unemployment have both more than halved. Behind those statistics are individual young people standing tall, able to use their talents, able to be enterprising, able to have ambition. I remember my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister visiting Cardiff during the Labour leadership election in 1994. On the banks of Cardiff bay, I explained how the Cardiff bay barrage would transform the city. He looked puzzled, and said, ““How can anybody oppose this?”” Now Cardiff is exciting and confident as any city in Europe. It is good to celebrate that success today, in enterprise week. I also welcome the clear focus of the Queen’s Speech on cutting crime and disorder in local communities. We should ignore the media nonsense about an antisocial behaviour order being seen as a badge of pride. For me, it is a badge of pride to have invented ASBOs. They work, so the Opposition, who oppose them nationally, fall over themselves to claim credit locally. The ASBO is a simple concept that addresses the fact that laws often fail to prevent what they forbid. Our courts may be good at deciding who stabbed the butler in the billiard room, but they fail to deal with a moving picture of disorder and petty crime, which destroys communities. So, on the civil burden of proof, we can now show that nuisance exists. We give the offender an ASBO saying, ““Just stop it. Breach it, and the punishment will be swift and sure. But behave yourself and you’ll hear no more.”” There is no conviction to reduce employment chances, and less nuisance for the neighbours. All it needs is the application of common sense by everyone. This process works, as long as everybody plays their part in following up ASBO breaches briskly, and I urge my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to put the Crown Prosecution Service in charge of the whole process, so that the benefits are delivered consistently everywhere. The Queen’s Speech promises to protect victims, and I hope that the courts are listening, because since 2003 the Attorney-General has referred 341 lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal. In 231 of those cases, the sentence was increased. That is a 68 per cent. success rate, when it had to be shown that the sentence was not just ““unduly lenient””, but ““unreasonably”” so. That is not a politician’s criticism of the judiciary; that is appeal judges saying that those sentences were not acceptable. In other cases, I want the courts to make more use of the community sentences that the Government have provided. In one project, I saw young women having drug treatment and bringing their babies with them, breaking the cycle of despair and drugs and prostitution. Common sense is—[Interruption.]