Debate on the Address

My hon. Friend slightly embarrasses me, because I was the first Member in the House to propose an ID card system for the country, in a Bill that I introduced under the ten-minute rule, but mine was a voluntary system. However, I will not be distracted by the subject to which he draws my attention. The next point in the Gracious Speech is the Home Office Bills. It beggars belief that the Government should have the absolute cheek to bring forward more Home Office legislation. We have a Home Secretary who admits that the Home Office is in an absolute shambles, and all of us can remember one particular Minister, who no longer holds responsibility for the police, who was always on TV looking pleased with herself, announcing, with yet another silly soundbite, another silly strategy or silly measure that everyone knew would not work. What has gone on in the Home Office is an absolute disgrace. This country used to have the finest police force in the world and the finest judicial system in the world. They were the envy of the world. Sadly, today our police force and our judicial system are the same as those in the rest of the world. I blame the Government for that. As far as the police are concerned, morale is at rock bottom. We know that the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), and his Minister of State, now the Minister without Portfolio, who were responsible for that no longer hold those positions, but they should come to the Dispatch Box and explain to the House and the country how the arguments that they advanced for the reorganisation of our police forces can simply be thrown aside. Everyone knows why the policy was abandoned—because people and police forces up and down the country were against it. It is a disgrace that £4 million will be spent bailing out our hard-pressed police forces because of the cost of the consultation work on the amalgamation. Essex faces a bill of £169,000, and we have only £100,000. Do the former Home Secretary and the former Minister of State with responsibility for the police think that the House and the country will forget their incompetence? What went on was an absolute disgrace. Morale in the police force is at rock bottom because of the fiasco that the Home Office sadly is today. We are told in the Gracious Speech that we are to give the police and the probation service new powers to protect the public from violent offenders and antisocial behaviour. This Prime Minister wrings his hands as if he has not been in charge of the Government since 1997. This Prime Minister made his name when he was shadow Home Secretary as being tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. Yet for the past 10 years, law and order has fallen apart. I blame one person and one person alone—this Prime Minister. We are also told in the Gracious Speech that the Government will provide"““the immigration service with further powers to police the country’s borders, tackle immigration crime, and to make it easier to deport those who break the law.””" I am under the impression that the Prime Minister is suffering from the medical condition—I suspect it is untreatable—of delusion. It is a bit late to start worrying about the immigration and asylum system that we have now. It is a pity that the Government did not do something about it when Opposition Members warned them what was happening five or 10 years ago. The immigration and asylum system is a shambles. The Government say that the immigration service is going to police the country’s borders and tackle immigration crime, but it is too late. I know someone who is being detained in Chelmsford prison, and perhaps the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), will pass my comments on to a Home Office Minister. I know that person because he happens to be a friend of my son, but he is a constituent of the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), who knows all about the problem and is trying to work as quickly as he can to sort it out. This Bangladeshi boy should have been released on Friday. He was convicted for a motoring offence and has been in prison for, I think, two or three months. To quote the expression, ““He’s done his time.”” When various people went to collect him from Chelmsford prison on Friday, they waited and they waited, but he was not released. Now the immigration department has moved in and is questioning his right to be in the United Kingdom. That poor lad came as a child to the United Kingdom in 1994. No sooner had he arrived, than his mother and then his dad died. Next, his stepmother abandoned him and his brother in Chelmsford and disappeared with their passports. It does the Government no credit that he is still in Chelmsford prison through no fault of his own. The Government talk about joined-up government, and it is a travesty of that Bangladeshi boy’s human rights that the issue was not sorted out before he was due for release on Friday. The hon. Member for Ilford, South is working as hard as he possibly can on the issue, but I would be grateful if the Minister were to pass on the matter to one of his colleagues in the Home Office. The Gracious Speech states that the Government will improve"““qualifications for judicial appointment and the enforcement of judgments.””" The first point fills me with great alarm, given this Government’s track record. At the moment, there is a serious police investigation about the sale of peerages, and it is simply not good enough if friends are investigating each other. We have heard a great deal today about climate change. Those of us who have been Members of Parliament since the ’80s can remember how popular environmental issues were then—environmental issues were not invented in 2006. In the ’80s, the Green party polled extremely well in European elections, and my party began to take the issue very seriously—eventually, we had the Kyoto treaty. I have done my bit: I was fortunate enough to pilot the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000 as a result of being lucky in the ballot for private Members’ Bills, and I believe that it is making a contribution. I am delighted that there is a climate change Bill, but unless—dare I say it—the world follows our lead, it will be of little significance. The Gracious Speech mentions the long-term reform of pensions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) has said, Conservative Members welcome such reform, but the country will not forget the actions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is soon to be Prime Minister, who raided pension funds to the tune of £5 billion in his first Budget. The whole problem started in the Chancellor’s very first Budget. I am delighted that there will be free off-peak local bus travel for pensioners and disabled people, but it will be no use whatsoever in Southend, because we do not have any buses. Thanks to this Government, 20,000 people were left off the register in the census in Southend, so we receive funding for 20,000 fewer people than live in the constituency. Bus subsidies have gone, and my constituency, which contains the most senior citizens out of any in the country, has few bus services to enjoy. That particular proposal in the Gracious Speech will not cheer up my constituents. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) has said, as far as educational reform"““to raise standards in schools to help all children achieve their full potential””" is concerned, the last thing that teachers want is any more changes. There has been great controversy about standards generally, and I am not sure how well any further legislation will go down with the teaching profession. We welcome the modernisation of health care, given all the money that has been spent in the health service, but frankly what is going on at the moment with closures of hospitals, and not only new staff no longer being recruited but existing staff being made redundant, is very regrettable. I am delighted that there will be"““a better framework for treating people with mental disorders””," because mental health care in this country has always been the Cinderella service. As a member of the Health Committee, I can tell the Government that they need to get on with that framework now. We have been waiting eight years for this measure, and they need to handle it with great care. Then we are told that the Government will"““reform the regulation of human embryology.””" Those of us who were in the House when we legislated on this matter previously have no confidence whatever in what goes on with frozen embryos. We have great concerns about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority generally, and I hope that if the Government produce legislation on this issue, they will take into account the fact that just over a year ago the three party leaders said that it was unsustainable that we have special baby care units throughout the country keeping babies alive at 23 weeks and 23 and a half weeks and yet nothing is done about the time limits on abortion. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries) introduced a ten-minute Bill on this issue and found that the House was not moved in favour of her proposal, but I think she was entirely genuine and I support her proposal to reduce the number of weeks at which an abortion can be performed. We are told in the Gracious Speech that there will be legislation"““to tackle road congestion and to improve public transport””;" all of that I welcome. As for reforming the planning system, local authorities now have very few powers in planning matters. I was once a councillor in Redbridge when we had real power. Is it not a farce that most local authorities shrug their shoulders and ask, ““What is the point of opposing anything? It goes to appeal. We cannot afford the money to be represented at appeal and we always get our view overturned””? Then the Government have slipped in proposals for"““improved arrangements for consumer advocacy and for the regulation of estate agents””," but I say to my hon. Friends, did we not earlier in the year have a Minister do a complete about-turn on this issue? Yet again we are treated as though we have all forgotten it and the measure is slipped into the Gracious Speech. Then we are told that the Government will"““build a consensus on reform of the House of Lords””." Of course the Government could not build a consensus on anything, and the thing that they are least capable of is building a consensus on reform of the House of Lords. They should never have messed up the House of Lords in the first place if they did not have a clear vision of what it should look like if they got their way. It is now a complete and absolute shambles, and I for one will not support an elected second Chamber that is in competition with the House. We are then told that the Government are going to reform local government. God help us. They have taken all the powers away from local government already; everything is controlled centrally. Local government is becoming no more than a talking shop, but the Government tell us that they plan to reform it and to give"““enhanced powers for the Mayor and Assembly for London.””" I have tried to raise in the House the issue of bendy buses, because I have always felt that they were a disaster waiting to happen. But of course this House has no powers in that regard, so why are the Government to give more powers to this particular Mayor, of whom I am certainly not a supporter? What made my hon. Friends listening to the Gracious Speech in the other place laugh the most was the idea that the Government were going"““to create an independent board to enhance confidence in Government statistics””." For goodness’ sake, they must think that we are absolutely stupid. This Government fiddle statistics morning, noon and night and presumably, at the end, they will produce some system whereby everything will look a lot better than it actually is. In common with other hon. Members, I end by commenting on the situation in Iraq. Until the day I die, I will regret that I ever voted for the war with Iraq. I wish that I had had the wisdom of my 16 colleagues—two of whom have spoken before me today—who voted against the war. I am not a military expert, but on the Opposition side, many of my colleagues possess great expertise in such matters. I listened to what the Prime Minister said, and I believed it! I really thought that Iraq had the capability to deploy weapons of mass destruction that could be aimed towards Europe and at this country. What is more, I would not be prepared for any of my children to come home in body bags and coffins and I wonder whether the Prime Minister and the President of the USA would be. We pay tribute to the men and women who have been killed in active service and then we move on. I believe that this war is a total and absolute disaster and the arrogance of the Government is incredible. In America, the Government have no choice but to do something about it now, as they have lost control of Congress and the Senate. Yesterday we received an insult to the House from the Prime Minister when he participated in a video link, giving his views on the war. For goodness’ sake, it was he who gave briefings and information about the need for war to the then leaders of the Conservative and Liberal parties, and we were advised to vote accordingly. I feel that I have personally let my constituents down on this issue. I will always regret that I voted for the war with Iraq. It is beyond belief that the Government have no exit strategy whatever. They simply do not have a clue what to do. Three Iraqis came to see me at my last surgery and they told me—they are in constant contact with their relatives—that the situation in Iraq today is much, much, much worse than it was before we removed Saddam Hussein. Frankly, it is an absolute disgrace and I have no confidence whatever that the Government will sort it out. I believe that this is a dreadful and rotten Government. We have heard much about the legacy of this Prime Minister. I think that he will be viewed in the history books as a highly successful politician, but he will not be seen as a great leader or great Prime Minister. Most damning of all, he will leave office with the standing of this country that I love greatly diminished.