Christmas Adjournment

It is always useful to be able to raise one’s own constituency items in such debates, and there are a few of those to which I particularly want the attention of the House to be drawn before the House rises for its Christmas Adjournment. In October I secured an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall on Backdale quarry and Longstone Edge. In my opening remarks I pointed out that this was the second debate that I had had on the subject. The first was some nine years earlier, when we wanted the Government to explain why one of the sites on Longstone Edge was being quarried without the new planning procedure having been followed. It was causing great concern in the Peak District national park. When I first raised the matter with the Minister, I was told that it was a local matter—but the quarry is in a national park. This is not a local issue; it is a matter of national importance. In the light of various planning decisions that have been changed in the courts, I emphasise yet again to the Government the importance of this area. Longstone Edge is a spectacularly beautiful area at the moment, but with the amount of quarrying going on in unregulated circumstances, it is in grave danger. I received a letter just the other day from the British Mountaineering Council, which says:"““The anomaly that at Backdale and Wagers Flat the activity proceeds unabated prior to any decision—" by the planning inspectorate—"““is in itself bizarre: that such action could take place in a National Park which relies for its economic well being on recreation, tourism and the opportunity for quiet enjoyment is frankly mind boggling. There must surely be scope for a moratorium on all irreversible destruction until the forthcoming Planning Enquiry has determined the meaning of the disputed 1952 planning permission 1898/9/69. The material value of the asset in question would in no way deteriorate since it would remain to be extracted if that were deemed to be legal. And if the current activity is found to be outwith the remit of the permission further infringement would have been avoided.""I have been grappling with Ruth Kelly’s letter to you of 31 October 2006 which you were kind enough to copy to me, and have completely failed to comprehend how she could have put her name to it. Here we have a permanent and destructive assault on the landscape, biodiversity, recreation, public rights of way and community of a National Park excused by disputed interpretation of a vaguely worded 1952 minerals permission which was imposed on the National Park Authority (it is not a local park authority)””." This is continuing to cause great upset in a national park, which has some 20 million visitors each year to explore the natural beauty of the area. The controversy surrounding the planning permission has been going on for more than nine years, which is simply not acceptable. I think that the Government should take urgent action on what I believe is a national issue. I want to raise another concern. Over the past 10 years, the Government have told us about their commitment to education—to ““education, education, education”” as we heard the Prime Minister say before he was elected to office. That rings fairly poorly at the moment in the area of Stony Middleton. Its school, which serves an important local community, is threatened with closure. It used to be the case that if a school were threatened with closure, an MP would be able to take a delegation to see a Minister to make the case for the school not to close. That has changed, as the Government have removed that right. I very much regret the lack of access to the Secretary of State, as I would like to explain why we believe that the local education authority decision is wrong. It is a retrograde step made by the Government, who have removed the final right of appeal of MPs to Ministers. As I said, I very much regret that. I hope that the local community, which is trying so hard to save the local school, will be successful and manage to save it. As Members of Parliament, we should have the right to appeal directly to the Secretary of State when schools in our constituencies are threatened with closure. I was able to do that about 15 years ago when Muddington school in another part of my constituency was being threatened with closure, but since the Government have changed the law, we are no longer able to do so. I have also raised on a number of occasions the issue of the resurfacing of the A50, which is a brand new link road—linking the M1 and M6 and passing through a village called Doveridge. When it was constructed, it was built on a concrete base and I had assurances from the then Secretary of State for Transport—now the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—that the road would be resurfaced. That assurance has now been reversed: we are told that it will no longer be the case and it will not be resurfaced. Quality of life and the environment are important to people, and the amount of noise coming from the concrete surface is unacceptable. I still try to hold the Government to account for their original promise to resurface that particular section of roadway—a promise given from the Dispatch Box by the Secretary of State, which the Government have, I am afraid, gone back on. Perhaps it does not surprise me that much, as we have had so many Government promises on these issues and so many of them have not come to fruition and not been fulfilled. We have heard a lot about the national health service over the last few months. The Whitworth hospital in Darley Dale in my constituency has a maternity unit operated by the Chesterfield Royal hospital. It has been a vital source of community care in the area, particularly in the rural parts of my constituency. It provides a very important local community service. At the moment, because of an incident that happened a few months ago, it is closed. Coinciding with that closure is a review by the trust of the whole future of maternity services in north Derbyshire. I personally believe that the current closure will actually lead to a permanent closure, which would be a terrible loss of a very good local service. Let me tell the Minister that it is no good for the Government to keep telling us how much extra money they are putting into the health service, when so many people are seeing services in their communities withdrawn. If we lose the maternity unit service at the Whitworth hospital, my constituents will not say, ““Isn’t it wonderful that the Government are putting extra money into the health service?””; rather, they will ask, ““Where is all this money going, when we see such a reduction in the services that we value so much in our local areas?”” I very much hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will be able to reassure us today that the consultation will not lead to a reduction in service. If the Darley Dale maternity unit closes down, that is exactly what will happen. A constituent, Nicola Smith, came to see me at my surgery on Friday. She wrote to me, saying:"““I am currently training as a midwife at University of Huddersfield, and due to qualify in March 2007 … The Government is paying a fortune each year to train many midwives on both the 3 year direct entry course and the 18 month conversion course from nurse to midwifery (which I am currently undertaking). If newly qualified midwives do not get jobs on qualification, then all that money has effectively been wasted. It saddens me to think that all my hard work and effort over the last 4 and a half years may have been for nothing. I have worked for 4 and a half years to pursue my one passion, a career in midwifery, to be able to provide the standard of quality of care that every woman and her family deserves, in a safe, secure woman centred environment where women can be properly supported by midwives to birth their babies.””" She is coming to the end of her course, but she is concerned that she will not be able to get a job. It is ridiculous for the Government to spend huge amounts of money on training people if the jobs are not there for them to pursue at the end of the training. We all heard this morning about the case of physiotherapy nurses who, after a long period of training, also face the possibility of being unable to secure a job. I am very concerned about the future of the Darley Dale maternity unit, which is why I have raised these concerns today. I very much hope that my fears of closure are premature and that it will not happen. Last week, we heard a statement from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on the future of the Post Office. I have already seen a number of post offices close in my constituency, and I fear from his statement last week that we are going to see many more close, including some in my constituency. The Government say that that has nothing to do with them at all. We are told that the Government have supported the Post Office and the problem, as the Prime Minister tells us, is all to do with people deciding not to use post offices. I find that to be an insensitive and insulting comment from a Prime Minister who has taken vast amounts of work away from the Post Office so that post offices cannot survive. The Government say that they have to respond to the problem, but they forget to say that part of the reason for the problem is the Government’s deliberate desire for people not to use the Post Office. Ministers tell us that the BBC’s decision was taken independently, but we are often told that we have joined-up government in which different Departments talk to one another. I greatly fear for the future of the rural structure of the Post Office in my constituency. We have already seen approximately 17 to 18 closures over the past 10 years and I think that, as a result of the Government’s decisions, we are going to see many more. I have read much about the next issue that I want to raise, and I have met many people who are worried about it, although it may not have had the airing in the House that it should have done. I refer to the future of the rural economy. People often pay more for a bottle of water than they pay for a bottle of milk now, so milk producers now face serious problems. When people go my constituency to enjoy the beauty of the countryside, the landscape that they see does not exist because of nature, but because farmers look after and maintain it—because farmers love the countryside in which they work and operate. More than 1,000 milk producers are going out of business each year, and we will see more of that. At the end of the day, this country will be much sadder and less attractive if our agriculture is not looked after and supported. The very fact that farmers get less for milk today than they did 10 years ago, and that the wholesales are making a lot more profit on milk, is very bad news indeed. I do not believe that the Government really care about the countryside or agriculture at all, but they ignore them at great cost to the natural environment of this country.