Christmas Adjournment

We are fated, Mr. Deputy Speaker, always to rendezvous at the fag-end of any debate, but I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak for the first time in a Christmas Adjournment debate. I hope that the condition of the Green Benches opposite does not signify the contents of my speech. At the outset, when I was putting my remarks together, I had resolved to be full of Christmas cheer, but there are some important issues in my constituency which leave me rather depressed. I will mention those later, but I want to begin by making my only reference to a national or international issue. Some hon. Members have today referred to the Iraq war. I have to say that it is a dark cloud over British politics. It has done much to undermine people’s faith and trust in elective politics in this country. Some Members would not agree, but I have to say that it is an obvious sign of the Government’s moral and political bankruptcy. The Government will have to be held to account one day. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) said that the people have not yet spoken, but they will. I thank and pay tribute to members of voluntary organisations and charity groups in my constituency, who do a fantastic job every week, year in, year out, to help people less fortunate than themselves. It is important to remember their contributions at Christmas. I should also like to thank people who work in public services, both in Peterborough and across the country, including ambulance crews, the police, and people in the health service, who will have to work over Christmas. There is good news: Peterborough, which has a Conservative city council, is rightly proud of its status as an environment city, and we will entrench our environmental credentials in the new year. Environment wardens are to be employed across the city to deal with problems such as fly-tipping and littering, and we are introducing a new, innovative name-and-shame initiative, in which the photographs of suspected litter louts will be printed in the local press. I am delighted to say that support for those new initiatives comes at the same time as an extremely modest 1.4 per cent. increase in council tax, which was passed yesterday at the city council cabinet. Members and officers have worked hard, using a business transformation team, to identify savings and efficiencies. It is a tribute to the council that, six years after taking over from a Labour administration that bankrupted the city of Peterborough, it is in a position to deliver first-class services. It increased its comprehensive performance assessment rating to three stars, while cutting council tax for the 160,000 people of the city. However, there are issues that cause me great concern, and one of them is the perennial problem of crime. The northern division of the Cambridgeshire constabulary continues to lack enough full-time police officers, and last week I learned from figures provided in an answer to a parliamentary question that Cambridgeshire constabulary has something like the fifth lowest number of police constables per capita of the population. There have been increases in violent crime and burglary, and instead of people going through the criminal justice system in the correct way, increasing use is being made of cautions and other such measures. In 2003, my predecessor argued that the northern division of the constabulary was underfunded and should have more police officers, yet nothing has been done about the issue. There is an obsession with providing police community support officers, but they are not substitutes for full-time police officers, especially as the tapering funding is being reduced. Eventually, the burden will fall on city council tax payers. The number of urban post offices in my constituency has been reduced from 24 to 17, and the likelihood is that the number will drop to 14 or fewer under the Government plans outlined by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry last week. That is a major issue, because it is not just rural areas that suffer from the closure of post offices; vulnerable people, older people, those with mobility problems and young families suffer as a result, too. The NHS is a major concern in my constituency, where there have been bed closures and ward closures. Posts have been lost in the city, and that worries me, too. In particular, I am concerned about the new super-hospital. There is yet to be a final sign-off from either the Department of Health or the Treasury. I have considerable sympathy with what my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) said about the constant waiting game to find out the fate of important facilities. In my constituency, the concern is about the £300 million Greater Peterborough health investment plan, which will mean a new mental health unit and a new acute hospital. Call me an old cynic, but in the era of heat maps and the Minister without Portfolio—the right hon. Member for Salford (Hazel Blears), the chairman of the Labour party—sitting in on planning meetings with the Department of Health, I am extremely worried that large-scale investment in the NHS locally will go the same way as it did in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), for example, where a £500 million programme was cancelled. I await the new year with interest, and I hope that a project which has been on the books since 1995 will go ahead and that the Government will keep faith. It will be a major blow for my constituency and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara), who sits on the Front Bench today, if the project is not to proceed. There are many good things going on in the city of Peterborough, including the master plan, a major urban regeneration programme through the regeneration company Opportunity Peterborough, a new university centre following an amalgamation with Anglia Ruskin university, and the largest secondary school academy in England and Wales, the Thomas Deacon academy, which it is hoped will make a massive impact on the historic underachievement of secondary school pupils in my constituency. Working class families in my constituency deserve the best education, and for too long they have been let down. That is why, although it is a Government policy, I support the decision to go ahead with the Thomas Deacon academy. With respect to the growth agenda, I do not believe we have joined-up government. Cambridgeshire is the fastest-growing county in England. Peterborough and North-West Cambridgeshire are the fastest-growing constituencies in Cambridgeshire. We do not have a coherent, cohesive plan for rail infrastructure, road infrastructure, community facilities, water supply, policing and many other services. It is time that all the Members of Parliament for the county had an opportunity to lobby the Minister responsible. He will look at the Thames Gateway, which will interest the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay). Members representing constituencies in the south midlands, such as Corby, Daventry, Northampton, Kettering and Milton Keynes should also be involved. If we do not get it right, the south midlands and the Stansted-Cambridge-Peterborough corridor will be a car park within 10 years. We will not be able to move. The huge impact on the quality of life will be negative, rather than positive. I shall speak briefly about the Prime Minister. I was conscious of the passion felt by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who has the benefit of 23 years’ experience of serving the people of south Essex. He clearly felt some antipathy towards the Prime Minister. We have come full circle, from the glad confident morning of 2 May 1997, with the flag-waving apparatchiks in Downing street who were all cajoled to attend, to where we are now—the Walter Mitty delusional farewell tour to the middle east in the hope of a legacy. The legacy exists: one third of children leaving school functionally illiterate; the incidence of MRSA growing in our hospitals; massive bed and ward closures; a pensions system bankrupted; our civil service traduced; our intelligence services and Parliament misled; the armed forces used for party political reasons; a transport system in shambolic gridlock. That is the legacy of the Prime Minister, the man who was going to be purer than pure, whiter than white. If I sound less than charitable, it is for good reason. My constituents, who have a lower life expectancy than those in Cambridge, for example, 30 miles away, who have poorer housing stock, poorer educational attainment, and worse rates of heart disease and stroke, are directly affected by the manifest failings of the Labour Government. Putting that to one side, I wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, hon. Members, staff of the House and, most importantly, my constituents, whom I have the great good fortune and privilege to represent, a wonderful happy Christmas and a prosperous new year.