Transport and Local Infrastructure — House of Commons, 2016-05-19
Topic: Housing
William Peter Wragg (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Humble Address in response to Her Majesty’s most Gracious Speech. The programme of government for the upcoming Session contains many welcome measures. My constituents will particularly welcome the universal service obligation for internet providers, to be brought in through the digital economy Bill, which will give every UK household the legal right to an affordable, fast broadband connection, with minimum guaranteed connection speeds. That is something for which I have campaigned in my constituency for some years, and it formed one of my pledges to residents at the general election. The more rural areas of my constituency, including Mellor, Strines and Marple Bridge, will, I hope, particularly welcome the policy, because many of those who live there have had to endure second-rate internet connection services for far too long I am pleased that the introduction of the neighbourhood planning and infrastructure Bill will provide an opportunity to give local communities more power to control and shape their own areas. As vice chair of the all-party group for civic societies, I am proud of the diligent work undertaken by members of civic societies across the country, including the one in Marple, of which I am a member. Let me be clear. Neighbourhood planning is not about nimbyism. We are not against development; indeed, I praise Her Majesty’s Government’s ambition for house building. Neighbourhood planning is about working constructively with communities, determining sites for appropriate development and providing the infrastructure necessary to make it viable. Neighbourhood planning is a way to bring communities on board with developers and therefore get more built A case in point is Marple’s neighbourhood forum, which was recently established in order to develop a neighbourhood plan. I am sure that other hon. Members will have similar experiences in their constituencies. Neighbourhood planning is a way of bringing about collaboration, but such plans need to be assured of legal weight. Although I regret that the Government were unable to accept the amendment from the Lords to the Housing and Planning Act 2016 on the community right of appeal—an amendment with which many Conservative Members had sympathy—I hope that the neighbourhood planning and infrastructure Bill will go much of the way to achieving the same aim It will come as no surprise that I welcome the education Bill, and I welcome the Government’s goal of continuing to increase the number and quality of academy schools in the coming years. Importantly, however, I welcome the fact that that will no longer be done on a compulsory basis, as was proposed previously, following a re-think from the Government. I extend my thanks to the Secretary of State for Education for taking the time to listen to my genuine concerns, and those of other colleagues, about the academies programme, and for that important change of tack. I look forward to working with her and others to progress the Bill. It also includes the vital new national funding formula for schools, which will end the entrenched disparities in school funding and bring about fairness for all pupils On a related note, I was pleased to hear that measures will be introduced to strengthen social services for children in care, and to increase the number and speed of adoptions. I say gently that in desiring greater speed, we should be careful not to sacrifice the suitability of placements. As the intention of adoptions is to find permanent, stable and loving homes for children, a rushed process could lead to harm in the long term if the system becomes overly streamlined The children and social work Bill will improve social work provision through better training and standards for social workers. It will mean that children leaving care will be made aware of the ongoing services that they are entitled to, which include access to a personal adviser until the age of 25. That is particularly welcome, only weeks after a striking report by the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change on the stark disparities in mental healthcare provision for looked-after children Mental health problems are also particularly prevalent among the prison population, and mental health care and services for prisoners are not up to the standard they should be. I hope that the Government will put a particular focus on improving that as they work to build new reforming prisons The Queen’s Speech contained welcome plans to introduce the NHS overseas visitors charging Bill, under which overseas visitors and migrants will be charged for using NHS services to which they are not entitled. Tighter residency rules will mean that fewer visitors from the EU and the EEA will be able to access free healthcare. In the NHS, we have one of the greatest and most envied healthcare systems in the world, but that envy has led to the NHS becoming a victim of its own success. We have the charade of health tourism, where overseas visitors come to the UK to benefit from our excellent NHS services without making a contribution and the British taxpayer picks up the bill Health tourism has been particularly prevalent among migrants and visitors from the EU, who have abused the European healthcare insurance scheme for far too long. The hundreds of thousands of overseas migrants and visitors treated in Britain each year have put a strain on our health service. Although many Britons receive treatment overseas, they are far fewer in number than those who come here. Health tourism accounts for a net drain on our NHS, and I am pleased that a new Bill will allow us to recover the cost of treating overseas visitors and re-invest it in the NHS Of course, another way in which we could provide a huge boost to our NHS would be to stop sending £350 million every week to the EU—I fear I may be in some disagreement with my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench about this—and divert some of it back into the NHS. [Interruption.] I am reliably informed that I am also in disagreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), and perhaps with quite a number of my colleagues. Our EU contributions are enough to build a new, fully-staffed NHS hospital every week That is not the only way in which the EU is threatening our NHS. This is something that, unfortunately, the Gracious Speech did not address. Under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which the EU is determined to pass, the UK Government and the NHS may face legal challenge from foreign corporations if we refuse to put some of our public services, including the NHS, out to tender for privatisation. TTIP could, in effect, force the partial privatisation of the NHS, and there would be nothing the UK Government or the British people could do about it if we remained a member of the European Union. Conservative Members must not be blind to that issue or leave it to other parties to make the case. The simplest and surest way to protect the NHS from the unbearable strain of visitor cost and forced privatisation, and to save enough money to provide a new hospital every week, would be for Britain to vote to leave and take back control on 23 June.