I welcome the Queen’s Speech and some of the many measures that it contains. I also thank my right my hon. Friend the Secretary of State for mentioning from the Front Bench the curlew—a bird that is the symbol of the Staffordshire Moorlands district. We are delighted to hear that it is going to be protected. Given the time limit, I will not go through the many elements of the Queen’s Speech that I did want to cover. There is much that should be celebrated, and I am sure that we can get the cross-Chamber consensus that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) spoke about to get these measures through.
I want to mention just two points that are particularly pertinent. The first is a subject that the right hon. Lady also mentioned, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller)—that is, buses. Rural buses in constituencies such as mine have suffered dreadfully over the past few years. Bus services and routes are being reduced or eliminated, and routes are going. This is not good for our towns and villages. Regular, clean buses make for vibrant towns and villages. May I ask that a real emphasis is put on ensuring that there is support for rural bus services, especially given the impact on climate change and carbon emissions in our rural areas?
Staffordshire Moorlands experiences a particular issue with regard to school transport provision. A recent case, which I have raised with the Transport Secretary, has meant that county councils are unable to allow children to travel on school buses if they are paying passengers unless those buses are fully disability compliant, because the payment for the empty space turns the bus into public transport. From next month, children in some villages in my constituency will be unable to get to school. A bus will leave their village with empty seats on it, and they will be unable to get on it, causing more carbon emissions as their parents have to find alternative arrangements. I urge the Government to look for some form of exemption in the short term for these county councils, and then to provide support for the county councils—this is an issue not just in Staffordshire—so that they can replace the buses with disability-compliant, green buses that will help us all.
My second point concerns the immigration Bill, and it is a subject with which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be very familiar: the rights of those people in Northern Ireland who identify as Irish. The Belfast/Good Friday agreement was in no way a result of both the United Kingdom and Ireland being members of the European Union; it would have happened anyway because of the determination and strength of resolve of so many people across Northern Ireland. But the fact that we were both members of the European Union meant that some issues regarding the rights of citizens did not need to be codified because the citizens’ rights accrued to citizens of the European Union were accrued to everybody.
Those people in Northern Ireland who choose to identify as Irish—which they are absolutely entitled to do—are therefore now extremely concerned about how they will be able to maintain their Irish citizenship, living in Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom, but not wanting to be British. I urge the Government to ensure that measures are included in the immigration Bill to ensure that those rights are respected and that people in Northern Ireland who choose to identify as Irish can continue to live in their homes as they have done for years and years—peacefully and happily, prospering after the Good Friday agreement and able to exercise their rights.
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