Andrew Rosindell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Nov 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The Leader of the House will know that Queen’s Hospital is based in Romford. It serves the boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge. I was proud to visit the hospital recently to see its amazing work around the clock with people who have suffered a stroke, who come from a huge radius, from the midlands to the south-east. The one problem with our local hospital is that the A&E department is completely overstretched. People are waiting on trollies, sometimes for 24 hours, which is unacceptable. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Minister responsible for hospitals to visit Queen’s Hospital with me, and will she arrange for a debate in the House in Government time on that vital topic, which really affects my constituents?

• 14 Nov 2024 · Respiratory Health · Hansard source

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  That will be on the record.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  It is a bonanza of expenditure; a lot of money is being spent. The hon. Gentleman said earlier that he would explain how it will be paid for. Just for clarification, will he please explain where all this money is coming from and how we are going to pay off the debt in the long term?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member forgets about the pandemic and its associated costs. The reality is that we have to create the wealth before we spend it. For many years I have heard Labour Members talk about how to spend money. I very rarely hear how we actually create the wealth we need to spend on our public services, and that is where it all goes wrong.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell). It was enlightening for me to listen to her because she listed a huge array of things on which the Government are now going to be spending a lot more money. They are all very good causes of absolute benefit to the people of our country. The one problem I have listening to her, and to all the Labour Members, is that we do not have any money left: we have spent it all. We had to spend half a trillion pounds on the pandemic, but I notice that no one has mentioned that. We are, in effect, running on tick. We are living beyond our means, we are spending money we do not have, and all we are doing, laudable though it may be to spend the money we are discussing today, is handing huge debts to future generations. I have to remind Labour Members that every Labour Government we have ever had in my lifetime has left this country with higher debt, more unemployment and an economy in a worse state. I would also remind them that it was in 1979, after years of failed socialist government, that we finished up having to rebuild the economy under a Prime Minister who had the determination to do what was right for our country, and those economic reforms led to years of prosperity.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  Look, we have to live within our means. Of course I do not object to money being spent wisely and sensibly—it is the role of any Government to ensure that the money we spend goes where it is really needed in our country. The problem I have is that all this is unaffordable. We are about 100% of our GDP in debt. That is the highest that debt has been in our entire history. We cannot go on doing this. Eventually it will all come crashing down, and every hon. Member who let it happen without speaking out, as I am doing today, will have to take responsibility when future generations have to pick up the pieces. We cannot afford the debt we are getting into. If hard-working people are being taxed, they rightly expect the money to be put to good use, to boost infrastructure. We should focus on local services and economic growth, not ideological consumption. Again, the people of Romford and throughout the borough of Havering and the county of Essex will be rightly outraged that there is so much unfairness, especially in local government funding. The funding formula has not been addressed in the Budget, from what I can see. That is a serious issue in the London borough of Havering, where my constituency is based. Despite this being the greatest example of tax and spend that I can remember since I have been a Member of Parliament, nothing has been done to address that very serious problem. The funding formula is unfair, outdated and discriminatory. It fails to address local demographic shifts. Local people, businesses and public services are the bedrock of our economy. They face acute financial pressures in my constituency. They deserve an ambitious programme of reform, so that the money we pay in can be spent on our local services, instead of us closing down libraries and facilities, which my council is sadly now doing—necessarily, because of a lack of funding. It is a question of priorities. My local council should not close libraries, but at the end of the day, we are not being funded fairly, and the Government need to address that. If local services are not provided, people will be angry and disillusioned, and local communities will be harmed. I speak not only for Essex and the surrounding London boroughs, but for all hard-working people the length and breadth of this country when I say that the United Kingdom has no place being a high tax, low growth and low aspiration nation. If the Chancellor wants growth, I encourage her to look to nations whose economies are expanding much faster than ours is due to under the sluggish and rather depressing growth forecasts she outlined yesterday. The formula for some of those countries is the same, whether they are in north America, Asia or Europe: low taxes that give people back the money that is rightly theirs, policies that incentivise enterprise and growth in the economy, and a lean state with minimal regulation. Investment in infrastructure is critical, and truly local public services are vital to people. They also create a basis for private investment. In Britain, cutting red tape and reaping the benefits of Brexit—we really should do that—will attract booming business and stimulate success. The mantra that the state should manage decline needs to be rejected. The British people deserve better than this. I encourage the Government to follow not the example of failed Labour Governments littered throughout history, but the nation-saving policies embarked on in 1979 by a Prime Minister who had a vision of a greater Britain and more prosperous United Kingdom. We must pursue an agenda of low taxes, economic growth and an efficient state that improves the public services that look after the elderly and those truly in need. The people of this country do not want, and simply cannot afford, a return to red-blooded socialism that discriminates against hard-working people, decimates our economy, destroys jobs, curtails growth and restricts freedom. The British people need a small state that works, not a bloated state that holds our country back.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  I have to say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The last Government wasted a huge amount of money— [ Interruption. ] No, they did. No wonder we lost the election. But this is not a political point; this is about how we run the country effectively and efficiently. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex made a range of serious points about how we are going to survive as a country. We cannot keep spending money like this. It does not work, and future generations will suffer because of it. The last Government failed, but this Government are going way further. This is all simply unaffordable, and I worry about the future of our country if we cannot see where this will eventually lead. The Labour Government are spending billions of pounds on a renewable energy company that will not produce any energy—another vanity project. They are spending billions of pounds on public sector wage hikes, and are pouring even more taxpayers’ money into public services, with virtually no concrete productivity targets.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  No, I will not give way. The Chancellor yesterday painted a dire picture of our country’s future. Under Labour, it is not the economy that is booming but the size of the state, with an ever-increasing burden of taxation on working people. Under this Government, it is not the businessmen in my constituency of Romford who are being supported with the future success of their enterprise but the climate alarmist, with a public energy company that will not even produce any energy. How sensible is that? It is not the young family in areas such as Collier Row or the pensioner in Rush Green—both in my constituency—who are being supported by, for example, a decrease in stamp duty or help with energy payments, but, of course, the union bosses who are able to deliver over-inflated pay rises to the public sector, and the private sector is once again paying for that. Despite the Government’s talk of growth, this Budget is preparing us for the return of the dark days of the 1970s, with hard-working people paying the price. Indeed, the Government are so lacking in aspiration for this country that they want the Office for Budget Responsibility not only to mark their work but, it seems to me, to do their homework completely. They are even gifting the OBR more powers, as was outlined in the King’s Speech. In my view, Britain’s potential is far greater than a high-tax, low-growth and dysfunctional big state. Far from my “giving up on Britain”, as the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) said—quite the opposite—I love this country, I believe in this country, and I hate to see what socialism has done to this country over the years. Labour Governments always end up in a worse situation than when they started, and Conservative Governments always have to come in and pick up the pieces, and restore the economy back to prosperity and vibrancy again. In five years’ time, I am sure we will have to do the same. It is now clear that, under this Labour Government, the British people face a tyranny of taxation. Not content with the record-breaking tax burden that already exists, Labour is adding to the load on the shoulders of hard-working people. Under Labour, it will be harder than ever to buy a property. The journey to work of my constituents in Romford who are lucky enough to own their own home is going to be even more expensive than it is already under the control of the Mayor of London, Mr Khan, with the rise in bus fares. Once they get to work, my constituents will have far less in their pay packet, because the increase in national insurance paid by employers will, of course, clearly be passed on to employees. It is nothing but a stealth tax by this supposedly transparent Labour Government, and it is job destroying. Businesses in my constituency have already been telling me that they will not be employing people because of this reckless increase in national insurance. My constituents, all our constituents, might even lose their jobs. [Interruption.] They will lose their jobs, as businesses struggle with the national insurance increase. The costs of that will be phenomenal, and the growth-crushing increase in capital gains tax will also have a big impact. As if that was not enough, when someone sadly passes away, the Labour Government want to make it even harder for them to pass on what they have earned throughout their life to their loved ones, by expanding inheritance tax to pensions and so on. That is incredibly cruel. People pay tax throughout their life, and will pay more tax when they die. Is that really the kind of thing a Labour Government should be doing? It will harm a lot of families who would inherit but will not be able to because of the cash grab from this Budget. I do not believe that the Government are pro-worker at all. They cannot even define what a worker is. Labour used to be the party of the state from cradle to grave. Now it seems to be the party of taxing my Essex constituents from cradle to grave and beyond. This has been a very Essex-weighted debate, with contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) and for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) and others. People in my county of Essex are very disillusioned by all this, because they are aspirational and hard-working. They are market traders and small business people. They will be devastated by all this. I warn Labour Members that they will find that out when they next knock on doors in their constituency. As Margaret Thatcher warned us— [ Laughter. ] Well, she did rescue our country’s economy; let’s be honest about it. [ Interruption. ] She really did, and we are still benefiting today from the reforms that she introduced. As Margaret Thatcher said, any Government who impose high taxation are taking power away from the people and giving themselves power over the people. Of course taxation at some level is always necessary. It has to be in place to support our nation’s armed forces, to support families and protect pensioners, and for investment in necessary infrastructure and public services for the future. But what are the Labour Government doing with all the hard-earned money that the working people of this country have created? I think they will be spending billions of pounds on things that will go to waste.

• 21 Oct 2024 · Police Funding: Havering · Hansard source

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  10. If she will increase funding for policing in the London borough of Havering.

• 21 Oct 2024 · Police Funding: Havering · Hansard source

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  Given the increasing pressures on the police service, does the Minister accept that officer morale, retention, recruitment and ability to solve crimes are severely compromised, with police officers overworked, underpaid and subjected to unprecedented rises in bureaucratic processes—often dealing with things that police do not traditionally deal with, such as mental health care and social work? [ Interruption. ] Will the Minister explain how the Government plan to address those critical issues, especially in terms of improving officer retention, recruitment, crime-solving capacity and the overwhelming levels of bureaucracy, so that constituents in Romford can feel safe in their own town again? [ Interruption. ]

• 21 Oct 2024 · St Helena: UK Immigration · Hansard source

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  The Minister really should understand that the British overseas territories are self-governing democracies, and they must make decisions about their own islands’ governance. Has the Legislative Council of St Helena voted in favour of this agreement? Have the people of St Helena been consulted? What impact will the influx of people potentially have on this small island territory of only 4,500 people, and will the agreement have any impact on Tristan da Cunha and Ascension Island, which, as the Minister knows, form part of the overall British overseas territories?

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have worked with Members of the House of Lords over many of my 23 years in Parliament. They are not seeking re-election, preferment or title. They are here to serve our country and to assist this place in making better laws. All the hereditary peers and life peers—from all parties—with whom I have had the privilege to work have always been there to serve. To discard that so easily without serious long-term consideration to the effects of doing this is reckless. Our constitution is the most vital part of our shared British heritage, and the hereditary peers are an integral part of that, which cannot be replicated by modern means. Yet the argument in defence of hereditary peers cannot be based solely on history, however important that may be. From the Duke of Wellington, who has been mentioned, and the Duke of Norfolk, to the Earl Attlee, the Lord Northbrook, the Viscount Craigavon, who was also mentioned, and the Lord Bethell of Romford, the hereditary peers bring a wealth of intergenerational experience and knowledge to our Parliament. They have an inherited obligation and a duty to serve. They are also invaluable to our parliamentary democracy, holding the Government to account, scrutinising legislation and raising often forgotten issues of national importance. Many hereditary peers are shining examples of exemplary parliamentarians.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will—one last time.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend rightly talks about the consequences of the changes. Has he also considered the effect of the removal of the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain of England, which were protected in the 1999 legislation introduced by the then Labour Government? Will my right hon. Friend commit to supporting their retention in the House of Lords on a constitutional basis?

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I do not object to the hereditary principle. I believe that hereditary peers play a vital part in the overall mix of the British Parliament. Indeed, the hereditary principle is enshrined in our constitution via the monarchy itself. In fact, our Parliament is made up of the Crown, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Those who argue to discard the hereditary principle should beware that the Crown itself is in peril if we continue to go down this road— [Interruption.] If I may continue, Madam Deputy Speaker, the removal of hereditary peers would be a grave loss to our Parliament and our country. It would be a purge of many substantial, independent voices that are immune to political patronage and work solely in the public interest for King and country. They do not seek to be popular or to win re-election; they exist to serve our nation. It has been said that a fence should not be removed before we know why it was put up in the first place. Labour would have done well to heed this lesson from its last period of governance. Rushing to change our tried and tested system without considering the full consequences of its actions would be to commit an act of constitutional vandalism. Why are the Government embarking on this action? What in God’s name motivates them? Is it simply to eradicate dissent in the other place? If so, this can be described only as self-serving political radicalism. Not content with a simple majority of 157 in the House of Commons—although I think that figure has gone down now as the number of independents has risen—this Government seemingly aim to eradicate dissent in the upper House through this damaging legislation. The Bill entails the removal of Conservatives, Cross Benchers, Liberal Democrats and non-affiliated peers—but only a small number of Labour peers—who often provide the most substantial dissent to and constructive criticism of the Government’s legislative proposals. Worse still, I fear that the removal of the 92 hereditary peers is only the beginning. The next step would be the introduction of an age cap for membership, provoking an even more numerically significant second cull of dissent, enabling Labour to pack the other place with political appointments and abolishing any form of effective Opposition in the upper House.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am puzzled. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman does not like the current system, but he does not explain how our legislation would be better for removing those people who have so much wisdom, experience and knowledge. How will our country’s legislation benefit from the change?

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is making some extremely valid points. I agree with him that if there is going to be change, it should be done altogether, but I am slightly concerned by the radicalism of this measure. I did not find that anybody on the doorsteps in Romford actually wanted to make this such a big issue and radically change our constitution. Did he find that in Billericay?

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is quite the opposite. There are many Members of the House of Lords—life peers and hereditary peers—who take the Conservative Whip but who frankly act like independents, doing what they believe is in the interests of our country. That can be said for many on the Labour side as well. He will find that there are many more rebellions and people voting in different ways in Parliament in the Lords than in the Commons, because they are there to serve and they do not face re-election. For that reason, they are not subject to the usual pressures —lobbying, the Whips and all the rest of it—that we are all subject to, and that is why having that element is so important and is part of the mix that makes up the success of our Parliament.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady talks about the family that hereditary peers happen to have been born into, and says that therefore it is wrong that they should have any influence over legislation. Is she therefore questioning the principle of Royal Assent?

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  We cannot turn the clock back, but very many good people were ejected in that first legislation under the Blair Government. The compromise was to keep the 92 there. I think that is a good compromise and I do not really understand the rush for change; we should keep things as they are. It is patently obvious that the Bill is a precursor for a wider and scandalous programme to weaken Parliament’s ability to hold the Executive to account and ride roughshod over our tried and tested constitution. Not only does the Bill open a slippery slope towards dissent-quelling, but it is an attack on the merits of the hereditary principle, which logically and inevitably leads to a fundamental undermining of the primary constitutional role of the monarchy itself. Maybe there are some Members on the Labour Benches who would like a republic, but I think the vast majority of British people would not want that, so to discard the hereditary principle is a very dangerous road to go down. I urge the House to consider with the utmost seriousness the weight of intergenerational custodianship upon our shoulders when we vote on matters such as this, which are of grave constitutional significance. The removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords would eradicate from the proceedings of Parliament some of the wisest and most dutiful servants of this great democratic institution. I believe the House should oppose this act of constitutional vandalism and continue to uphold the good and great conventions and traditions that have provided our cherished island nation with stability, continuity and wisdom for so many generations.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am deeply worried about the Minister’s arguments. If he talks in that way about accidents of birth, how can he possibly defend constitutional monarchy? If he questions the hereditary principle in this place, how can he defend the idea of a hereditary monarchy?

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  If we are to change our constitution so radically—I believe the Bill creates a radical change—then that should be done with thought, care and attention, as well as consultation and careful consideration. As I pointed out to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) earlier, I do not think this is an issue on the doorstep anywhere. During the general election campaign, I do not think anyone raised the issue as a serious matter they wanted us to deal with. There are so many other issues, yet we are rushing to make a major constitutional change without giving it due consideration. We share a deep intergenerational responsibility in this House that rests heaviest on the Government of the day. We are the custodians of our nation and all that belongs to it, and not its master. We have a responsibility to preserve our nation and its constitution—an obligation between those who have passed on, those who are living and those who are yet to be born. That is the importance of the hereditary principle, something that Members on the Government Benches, and indeed some on the Conservative Benches, fail to appreciate. Tony Blair’s new Labour Government took a three-inch-wide paintbrush to remake this great work of art of generations in their own image. They started a programme of thoughtless destruction, from the removal of the law Lords from the other place, with the creation of the Supreme Court, a notion alien to our constitutional heritage, to the culling of independently minded—I say those words clearly, Madam Deputy Speaker—hereditary peers and the appointment of partisan placemen. It is no good for our constitution and it adds nothing to the work of our Parliament. It now appears that today’s Labour Government have recklessly come to finish the hatchet job on an ill-thought-out constitutional revolution in the name of so-called modernisation.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  Looking at the other side of the Chamber, I see the coat of arms of our late, dear friend Sir David Amess, who was murdered exactly three years ago today. He was a staunch defender of our traditions, our conventions and our British constitution. If he were here, I have no doubt he would argue to protect the institution of the House of Lords. I will be doing the same, and I am proud to do so. The English constitution is not something that can be drafted today by a 21st century-style committee of experts. If we were to establish such a body, its product would be alien to us and offer far less respect and admiration than what we have today. Indeed, our English constitution— [ Interruption. ] Our British constitution is our birthright and the envy of the world. It is like a fine, intricate oil painting, with brush strokes meticulously painted by generation upon generation over a millennium. Our constitution depicts a priceless image of the values, the character and the way of life of the British people. I believe we must cherish and defend it, not discard it so easily without careful thought and attention to what we are doing.