My Lords, it is a great honour to speak here for the first time. I want to thank the officers of the House, Black Rod, Fiona Channon, the doorkeepers and everyone who has made me so welcome. I would like to thank in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for her kind words earlier today. I am especially grateful
to my supporters the noble Lords, Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Mendelsohn. I have learned so much from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, about education, a subject on which I hope to be able to contribute. The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, has been a great friend for many years and an enormous support to me. I cannot thank either of them enough.
I am very proud to have the title Lord Austin of Dudley. Dudley is where I grew up, where I live, where I served on the council and where I was a Member of Parliament. I am so grateful to the people of Dudley for electing me four times. I will never forget them and places like the black country, which have been denied opportunities others take for granted. The Government’s promises to level up the country after Brexit will be judged on how they bring new jobs to communities which lost industries on which their prosperity was based.
I voted to remain in the referendum, but 71% of my constituents voted to leave. I thought that their MP should respect their decision and that the referendum result should be upheld. I was worried about the economic impact of leaving and very worried about leaving with no deal. I was particularly worried about the impact on manufacturing and the car industry, which are so important in the Midlands. That is why I supported Theresa May’s deal in the last Parliament and why I am voting for this one today. I was also very worried about the impact on trust in our democracy that trying to overturn the result would have. One of the most important lessons of the last few years must be the responsibility we all have to protect our democracy and the institutions that underpin it, because these are the foundations of a fair and open society.
My dad came to this country as a 10 year-old Jewish refugee in 1939. The rest of his family were murdered in Treblinka. He was so dismayed to see an organisation so robust and important to our democracy, and which had such a proud record of fighting racism, as the Labour Party embroiled in anti-Semitism over the last few years. This terrible situation led to me leaving the party which I had been so proud to serve all my life. It is a shame that my parents were not alive to see me join your Lordships’ House, but it is a great thing about our country that the son of a refugee can end up here. I intend to use this great privilege to speak up for the values that he taught me and which I have believed in all my life: democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance; listening to other people and trying to find compromise; and the power of education to open up opportunity, and bring good jobs and prosperity to people left behind for too long.
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