Mark Francois MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 12 Sept 2024 · Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate · Hansard source

  More

  I hope Hansard got that! I want to raise three specific topics. The first is animal welfare; the second is local NHS services, perhaps in a non-partisan way; and the third and final is the story about the election. To turn to animal welfare first, David was an absolutely renowned animal lover. He frequently raised a number of animal welfare issues in this House and campaigned for them passionately, including by forming alliances with people on the other side of the aisle, as they would say in Congress. Specifically, he was a patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, a wonderful organisation run by two brilliant people, Christopher and Lorraine Platt. It has actively campaigned for a number of years on animal welfare issues such as increasing penalties for animal cruelty, seeking to ban imports of hunting trophies and ending the cruel use of farrowing crates for sows and piglets. It has succeeded with one of those—two more to go. David was also a serial entrant to the Westminster dog of the year competition. Every year he would faithfully enter his dog, and every year he would come back to his office full of faux outrage about the fact that, for some inexplicable reason, his dog had not been awarded the prize. My office was around the corner on the same corridor, and we always knew to hide when David was coming back from the competition, except that in his final year he entered his French pug named Vivienne. She was named, incidentally, after Julia Roberts’s character in “Pretty Woman”. Only my mate could name a pet after a lady who earned her money in that way. When David put Vivienne in, he was asked by a local journalist, “Why should members of the public vote for Vivienne rather than one of the other dogs?” His answer was, “Because Vivienne wants Southend to become a city.” He won twice: after he was murdered, Southend did become a city, so we like to think he won in the end, and on a wave of public sympathy, Vivienne was indeed voted the Westminster dog of the year. My great friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) and I had the privilege of accepting the award on David’s behalf, with Vivienne in tow. I am delighted to tell the House that I am very honoured to have been asked to become a patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, a duty I have proudly taken up this week, partly in David’s memory. I will attempt to match his legacy in campaigning for animal welfare, and I am deeply indebted to the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation for giving me that opportunity. Secondly, David always had a strong interest in the national health service. He served for many years as a senior member of the Health Committee of this House. I declare an interest at this stage, as I am proud to say that my wife Olivia works as a senior neuroradiographer in the NHS and has done for many years. I am very proud of what she and all the other staff of the national health service achieve for us day in and day out. I had the privilege of going on a ride-out with the East of England ambulance service a few weeks ago. I was accompanied by a senior paramedic named Emily, who showed me the ambulance service in action. We were in an emergency response vehicle, and I was immensely impressed not just by her professionalism, but by her empathy with the people with whom she came into contact—an absolute professional. I am pleased to report that, while the East of England ambulance service has been through a turbulent time—it was in special measures for a while—it came out of special measures under the leadership of its previous chief executive, Tom Abell. Whereas before there were often a dozen ambulances in the car park early on a Thursday evening, when we went to Southend hospital as part of my ride-out, there were only three. However, there is an issue at Southend because the A&E unit is, shall we say, not very well designed. There is a very narrow entrance to it, such that if there is a trolley in the corridor, it is very difficult to get people in and out. So I am pleased to report that the hospital trust has secured £8 million of capital to completely rebuild A&E with a proper, purpose-designed entrance that ambulances can back into and discharge their patients from more quickly. The first phase of that will, I hope, open prior to Christmas, and it will also be possible to expand capacity in A&E and to treat more patients more quickly. That was something David and his successor, Anna Firth, campaigned for very hard, and he would be pleased to know that. I campaigned some years ago to expand primary care in my constituency. I helped to get an expansion of Audley Mills surgery in Rayleigh, and I have been involved in campaigns to expand two others: the Riverside medical centre in Hullbridge and the Jones Family practice in Hockley. As it happens, Tom Abell has now taken over as the chief executive of the new Mid and South Essex integrated care board, and I had a meeting with him about these surgeries only a week or so ago. I am pleased to report to the House that it was a very positive meeting, and I am therefore hopeful that we will be able to secure those expansions. I did say that I would tell the House about the 1983 general election, but I am not sure whether what I am about to reveal has previously been in the public domain. For context, in 1979 Basildon was one of the largest constituencies in the country, so in the early 1980s the boundary review basically divided it in two along the A127 arterial road. David never liked the term “safe seat”, because he felt it implied that one took one’s constituents for granted, which he palpably never did. However, the pundits said that a safe Tory seat had been created around Billericay to the north of the A127 and a safe Labour seat had been created in Basildon new town, so at the time it was regarded as a one-all draw. But a Tory sacrificial lamb still had to come along and fight this seat, so along came David Amess. He had fought a Newham seat at the 1979 general election in his late 20s, and at age 31 he became the Conservative candidate for Basildon. The campaign did not get off to an auspicious start. In those days, electoral law required that prospective candidates should have a formal meeting at which they would be legally adopted by their party. David’s local association had hired the Northlands community centre in Pitsea to have the meeting. Unfortunately, there had been a miscommunication, and when they arrived the place was padlocked up. There were no mobile phones in those days, so a colleague was immediately dispatched to a nearby telephone box to try to get the council caretaker to come and open the community centre. These efforts proved unsuccessful. By now it was approaching dusk, so he was adopted as the parliamentary candidate while standing under a lamp post in the community centre car park—and thus he went into battle. David being David, he fought a feisty campaign. There was lots of music and balloons, and it was all very high profile. However, as he told me when we had supper a few years ago, he thought that he was going to lose but that he would go down fighting. So in the run-up to the count, he wrote a defiant speech, saying that although he had been defeated, Margaret Thatcher would surely win the election and carry the torch forward. He arrived at the election count armed with this speech, steeling himself for what was to come. As hon. Members will know, at an election count there is a moment before the result is read out when the returning officer calls the candidates and agents together to go through the result with them first, and to make sure there are no irregularities and no one wants a recount. The call went out for candidates and agents, and David walked across. There was a small huddle around the returning officer, who turned to David and said, “We’ve completed the count, and there is a clear winner. Well done, Mr Amess—you’ve won.” David looked at him and said, “What?” and the chap said, “You’ve won. You’ve been elected. You’re the Member of Parliament for Basildon. I’m going to read it out in five minutes’ time. I hope you’ve got your speech ready.” David looked at the returning officer in awe, and said, “Could you just give me one moment?” He dashed into the gents, ripped off some loo paper and jotted down some bullet points, because obviously the speech he had prepared was no longer appropriate, and he went out on to the stage. For the record, he won by 1,379 votes. The result was read out and he observed all the courtesies, and he thanked the returning officer and other officers for conducting an efficient count, he thanked the police for maintaining order, and then he said, “I never doubted for one moment that I would win this seat. I always knew that by fighting an active and lively campaign, I would be elected to represent the people of Basildon in the House of Commons.” And so it was sheer chutzpah literally from the first moment. Those of us who knew him know that he carried on like that for the rest of his career, and that is why the House loved him. David always had great concern for all colleagues on all sides of the House, so if he were here now he would be thinking of those about to make their maiden speeches, and he would say something like, “Don’t worry, don’t be nervous, you’ll be absolutely fine.” And of course you will. After all, you worked very hard to get here—even if you were not adopted under a lamp post. So ladies and gentlemen, it is wonderful to have this debate in his name, and I thank the House and the Chair for the great honour of being allowed to open it. To all those who are about to make their first speech in Parliament, I say, “I wish you all the very best of luck—but not too much.”

• 12 Sept 2024 · Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate · Hansard source

  More

  Yes, of course—even on the Adjournment.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate · Hansard source

  More

  I generally agree with my right hon. Friend, particularly about defence matters, and he has summed my great friend up very well. At the end of my speech, however, I will make a small revelation about David and the 1983 general election, which I hope colleagues will find amusing.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate · Hansard source

  More

  I think my right hon. Friend is being too modest about his own achievements.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate · Hansard source

  More

  No, I can reassure the hon. Gentleman and the House that I only intend to raise three topics.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate · Hansard source

  More

  I am honoured to open this debate in the memory of our great friend—my great friend—Sir David Amess, a fallen comrade whose plaque I am looking at right now. It is on the other side of the Chamber, just above where he used to sit; appropriately enough, it is directly opposite that of Jo Cox, another fallen comrade who graced this House while she was here. As there are a number of new Members in the Chamber, maybe nervously waiting to make their maiden speech—I remember that feeling, too—perhaps I could explain why we call this debate the Sir David Amess debate. It is not just in honour of his service, but because he was a past master at making use of it. In essence, David would manage to cram a vast number of different topics, usually related to his constituency, into a very small amount of time. From memory, the all-time record was 20 different subjects in 12 minutes, each of which mysteriously led to a subsequent press release. He basically turned it into an art form, and as a result, the end-of-term Adjournment debate was always known in the Commons Tea Room as the Sir David Amess debate. As such, after his loss, Mr Speaker and the House authorities decided to turn that from de facto to de jure, and formalised it by giving the debate his name. I am delighted that we have done so, because it helps to keep his name alive. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

  More

  May I make the Secretary of State a little more nervous? The Darzi report makes seven high-level recommendations, the fourth of which is to drive productivity in hospitals. From 2017, in south Essex we saw a merger of Basildon, Chelmsford and Southend hospitals to create the Mid and South Essex NHS Hospital Trust. It has not been an unmitigated success. As local MPs, we were promised significant back office savings that could be channelled into patient care. In fact, the reverse has been true, and there has been such a turnover of senior managers in that trust in recent years it has been like a game of musical chairs. The trust is now trying to appoint three permanent managers and directors for each hospital to provide stability, which makes sense, but is offering a salary of £200,000 for each post, which is more than the Prime Minister earns to run the country. Now that this is on his watch, will the Secretary of State take a personal interest? We should pay a good rate for that job, but £200,000 sends the wrong signals to all the other very hard-working people in the trust.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

  More

  We have had a quote from Suvorov, and Napoleon famously said that “the moral is to the physical as three is to one.” After two and a half years of a barbaric Russian invasion, we cannot expect the Ukrainians to keep resisting with one hand tied behind their back. That means that, while the Russians attack power stations with long-range missiles at will with winter coming, and while they use glide bombs, which are brutally effective as tactical weapons on the frontline, we have to allow the Ukrainians full freedom of action to retaliate, not just as a military necessity, but to maintain their own morale. They must be bolstered to keep going. We could help them, and it is about time that we did that one thing.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Social Security · Hansard source

  More

  As I served with the hon. Lady on the PAC, I warmly congratulate her on her election as Chair of the Treasury Committee. The House has made a very good choice. Members of the Rayleigh, Rochford and District Association for Voluntary Service, whom I met last Friday, were genuinely worried about this policy. In a nutshell, their argument was that if people on very modest incomes are now frightened to heat their homes, that could lead to illness for many of those people, who will then present themselves to hospital and increase the winter pressures on A&E. By that method, it would be a false economy. The game is not worth the candle. What does the hon. Lady, whom I respect, say to that?

• 2 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

  More

  May I follow the excellent point made by the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), on Storm Shadow? There is no third country exercising a veto on how Putin uses long-range missiles, which he uses without compunction even to attack children’s hospitals in Ukraine. Yet the media consistently report that there is an American veto on the Ukrainian use of Storm Shadow missiles to attack targets at depth in Russia, even though that would materially assist the Ukrainian war effort. Will the Minister, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence talk with our American allies to get that veto removed? The Ukrainians are fighting for our freedom too and, two years in, they can no longer be expected to do it with one hand tied behind their back.

• 30 Jul 2024 · Budget Responsibility Bill · Hansard source

  More

  As the hon. Lady knows, the new Government have intimated that they may decide to mirror much new EU legislation, which could well have budgetary consequences. She and I have not quite always seen eye to eye on Europe, but does she agree, in that context, that it is actually a bad mistake to do what the Government want to do tonight and abolish the European Scrutiny Committee?

• 30 Jul 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and good luck in your new role. It is possible to have successful development, but from experience it has to be something done with people and not to people. This policy is the latter. These pernicious top-down targets have the practical effect at ground level of setting one town against another, one village against another and one local community against another; and given the Chancellor’s statement on public spending yesterday, who will pay for the tens of billions of pounds-worth of infrastructure that would be required to make all this work? All experience shows that, on development and house building, the man or woman in Whitehall really does not know best. Why then, is the Secretary of State going back to the old, failed way of doing it, which will not work?

• 29 Jul 2024 · Public Spending: Inheritance · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome the affirmation of the funding for Ukraine, which I presume was already fully allocated from the Treasury reserve, in the usual way. On the mainstream defence budget, the Chancellor has announced that all departmental spending will now be reviewed every two years. Given the speed at which Whitehall works, this means that the minute one review is finished, work will start on the next. All public spending, particularly capital spending, will effectively be under permanent review. This will not work. How can we commit to 10-year defence programmes, such as the vital new Tempest fighter, if all departmental budgets are up in the air every two years?

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend was a very good Defence Procurement Minister, and we on the Committee liked him because, crikey, he actually answered the questions. He will know from that experience that even the Americans, who have a new thing called the next generation air dominance fighter, are struggling to afford it; there have been media reports in the US that they may even cancel that programme, because even the Americans cannot afford to do everything unilaterally anymore. In the light of that, does my hon. Friend believe that a three-way programme represents good value for money?

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  Before my hon. Friend does so, would he give way very briefly?

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  And the Navy, in which my father served, for completeness. The Royal Air Force needs this aircraft. We need it. The Japanese, the Italians and the west need it. By all means, let us control the costs, but let us keep it. We are not going to scrap the Spitfire of the future.

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  Madam Deputy Speaker, may I begin by congratulating you on your election and welcoming you to the Chair? I am sure that you will chair our proceedings excellently. We wish you all good luck. May I also thank the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) for a fine, fluent and—if I may say so—at times poignant maiden speech? He spoke well on behalf of his constituents. I have it on good authority that when my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) was the procurement Minister, the hon. Member took him on a tour of Brize Norton and helped to brief him on the A400M. My hon. Friend has asked me to pass on his thanks. As a former Army officer, may I say to a former RAF officer what a great pleasure it is to see the RAF turn up on time? There is indeed a first time for everything. [ Laughter. ] The purpose of the order is laid out clearly in paragraph 4.1 of the explanatory memorandum, which states that it “gives effect to the Convention between the Government of the Italian Republic, the Government of Japan and the Government of the United Kingdom…establishing the Global Combat Air Programme International Government Organisation signed on 14 December 2023”. It points out that “The Convention was negotiated by the Ministry of Defence.” My third welcome is to the Minister; it is good to see her in her place. However, as the convention was nominated by the Ministry of Defence, could she explain for clarity why the FCDO and not the MOD is handling this statutory instrument? The Minister kindly nominated me for a place on the House of Commons Defence Committee. As today appears to be a day for people taking up nominations, I will gladly accept that and announce that I am going to run—for that Committee. I also point out that in the explanatory memorandum the policy context for the order—this is important—is described as follows: “In December 2022, the Prime Ministers of UK, Japan and Italy launched GCAP to deliver a next generation aircraft by 2035. The signing of the GCAP Convention between the partners took place in December 2023 and was conducted by the respective Defence Secretaries of the three nations. The GIGO will function as the executive body with the legal capacity to place contracts with industrial partners engaged in the GCAP.” So far, so good. The debate takes on some additional resonance, however, because we now have a defence review, which some people have interpreted as a sword of Damocles hanging over this important programme. My fourth welcome is to the new Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who represents a military constituency; it is good to see him in his place, too. A few minutes ago at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister described GCAP as a “really important programme”. It is. It is good that he was able to go to Farnborough, see the mock-up of the aircraft for himself and receive a briefing. When I served on the Defence Committee in the last Parliament, in March 2024 we travelled to Japan to examine the programme as best we could from the Japanese perspective. We spoke to politicians, civil servants, industrialists and the Japanese air self-defence force—its military. We were going to write what I believe would have been a very positive report, and then someone went and called a general election. We cannot blame the Minister for that, but she and some of her colleagues did somehow appear to benefit from it. I would like to stress three themes from that trip, which came out strongly. The first was the absolute unanimity of purpose among the Japanese to deliver the programme. As one politician put it to us, “We live in a tough neighbourhood, including three autocracies with nuclear weapons. We need to strengthen our defences, and this programme is fundamental to that.” I think that is a very good summary of the Japanese perspective. Secondly, we were struck by the willingness of the Japanese to consider third party exports of GCAP to make the aircraft affordable by increasing its production run. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk was always hot on that when he was the procurement Minister. For various historical reasons, I do not think that the Japanese would necessarily have taken that view even a few years ago; that is important. Thirdly, the Japanese have an absolute determination to achieve the in-service date of 2035, which is referred to directly in the memorandum. The Japanese air self-defence force uses a mixture of F-15J Eagle aircraft and the F-2, which is sort of a souped-up version of the American F-16. They are both good and capable aircraft, but they are getting rather long in the tooth. The Japanese have to plan forward against a threat from the Chinese J-20 or the Russian Su-57. The risk is that by the mid-2030s those aircraft will be outmatched by those two powerful new combat aircraft. Reference has been made to the F-35. It is a fine aircraft, but it is expensive to buy and very expensive to run. The Americans have found that to their cost—the F-35 was nicknamed by the American media “the plane that ate the Pentagon”. It might not necessarily be the answer to the Treasury’s dream. Moreover, for the record, deliveries of the F-35 to the United States forces were suspended for nearly a year—they have only just been resumed—because of problems in upgrading the computers and the software. If we are to talk about the realities, the F-35 has been quite a troubled programme and, to some extent, continues to be so. What would be the implications of cancellation of GCAP? This is an international agreement and, as it says in paragraph 7 of the explanatory memorandum: “No external consultation was undertaken as the instrument implements provisions of an international agreement to which the United Kingdom will be obliged to give effect as a matter of international law once it enters into force.” The first implication were we to cancel it is that it would put back Anglo-Japanese relations and Anglo-Italian relations, arguably for decades. I would not want to be the CEO of a British company trying to sell something to the Japanese Government in the aftermath of the cancellation of GCAP. Secondly, given the scale and the prominence of the programme, there would be a serious risk that we in the United Kingdom would achieve a reputation as an unreliable partner in major military collaborative programmes—everything from AUKUS through to collaboration in space. In an era when things such as a sixth-generation combat aircraft are so expensive that, as I intimated earlier, even the Americans are struggling to afford one on their own, the reality for us as a medium power is that we need to collaborate. We would find it very difficult to find future partners if we suddenly cancelled such an important and sizeable programme for financial reasons. Thirdly, it would make a nonsense of the UK’s so-called tilt to the Pacific, which was inherent to the so-called integrated review and was reinforced when the review was refreshed before the general election. How can we tilt to the Pacific if we then cancel a major collaborative programme with a critical Pacific partner, which faces challenges from Russia and China even more immediately than we do? Bluntly, our name would be mud in that theatre of operations if we were to do that. Fourthly, there is what one might call the prosperity agenda. As they said in the King’s Speech, the Government are very committed to growth—let us not debate building and the green belt now, but focus on this issue. In the last few years, about 80% of the UK’s defence exports have come from combat air—mainly sales of Typhoon or our 15% workshare on the F-35. That has averaged roughly £6 billion a year. Again, what would be the threat to our exports and our reputation as a reliable supplier if we were to cancel the programme? What should we do? The GIGO, which this memorandum establishes, will incorporate prominent representatives from all three countries—the UK, Japan and Italy—and it will be headquartered here. If the programme is to survive, which I strongly believe it should, the GIGO has a vital role to play as the management organisation. It will have to be leaner and less bureaucratic than its predecessor organisations, which oversaw the Tornado and Typhoon programmes—two wonderful aircraft with a proud heritage in the Royal Air Force. I think everyone in the industry would admit that those organisations were a bit too bureaucratic. The GIGO will have to be a lot leaner and meaner to get the job done. The principal industrial partners—BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Leonardo, among others—will have a real challenge. Historically, the answer to such a dilemma might have been, “Look, it’s a very complicated programme. It will take years to achieve, and it all depends on how many countries join, how many aircraft they buy and what configuration they go for. Will the Saudis participate? Will they want it built in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia if they do participate? There are lots of imponderables, so we will come back to you in about five years’ time with a unit price.” That will not wash. I would submit that one of the first tasks of the GIGO, working with those industrial partners and the three Governments, is to come up with at least a realistic pricing envelope for the programme, which the Treasury can look at and, hopefully, take a positive view on. If they do not do that, there can be no blank cheque, even for this. To conclude, there is no such thing as an uncancellable defence programme—although I still hope for Ajax—but this comes close. To cancel this programme for short-term financial reasons would be a disaster militarily, politically, diplomatically and industrially. If it comes down to GCAP, AUKUS or Ajax, for me, Ajax has to go, and I say that as a former soldier. We need to understand how extremely serious the implications are of cancelling this programme. I was a soldier, but the Royal Air Force has a proud tradition in the defence of this country and its interests, going back to the Battle of Britain and the first world war—when it grew out of the Army, I hasten to say.

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman is quite right to highlight what happened to TSR-2, which was a generation ahead of its time and a world beater. It was scrapped because the Treasury wanted to buy the F-111 instead, which was an American aircraft, and then it did not end up buying it. There is a lesson from history there too, is there not?

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  I am not a Minister, but I was for three years. Will the Minister give way?

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Minister for giving way. She is a Foreign Office Minister heading this up, I believe, not a Defence Minister, which is interesting, but it is an international agreement. Can she tell the House whether, because of the threat to the programme from the defence review, she has had any representations from the Japanese Government or the Italian Government, our two other major programme partners, to express their concern about any threat to GCAP?

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister give way?

• 22 Jul 2024 · Economy, Welfare and Public Services · Hansard source

  More

  On the matter of mandatory housing targets, having been a constituency MP for 23 years and seen them tried in a number of different ways, may I humbly offer the Chancellor this, with all sincerity? There is such a thing as good development, but it only works if it is something that we do with people and not to people. This Stalinist approach will not work.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Economy, Welfare and Public Services · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for kindly calling me to contribute to this important debate on the King's Speech, after 11 very good maiden speeches and 11 very promising—even fabulous—starts to parliamentary careers. Those who have been in this House a little longer will know that our great friend the late Sir David Amess, whose plaque now rightfully hangs on the wall, had a great talent for managing to combine a very large number of topics into one speech. I lack Sir David’s skill, so I will seek to confine my remarks this evening to three topics, all development related. The first topic relates to an expansion in medical capacity for the NHS, and specifically to proposals to expand the Jones family practice in Hockley. I declare an interest: my wife Olivia has worked in the NHS for nearly 20 years. In essence, the plan is to expand the practice, with a first-floor extension to create eight new GP consulting rooms and additional training facilities. Rochford district council recently approved planning permission for the extension, and the senior partner, Professor Dr Mahmud, and his active practice management team are now seeking approval from local NHS bosses to support the scheme. It is my intention as the recently re-elected local MP—for which I am very grateful to my constituents—to lend weight to these positive proposals. They are designed not just to expand capacity, but hopefully to provide training places for graduates from the new medical school at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford. For the record, I have also been working for some time to try to expand Riverside medical centre in Hullbridge, and I will be pursuing that with the NHS as well. Secondly, the town of Wickford has suffered a dearth of supermarket capacity in recent years. My constituents endured something of a perfect storm last year when the Aldi supermarket was closed, while at the same time the old Co-op nearby has effectively stood semi-derelict for three years. During that supermarket vacuum, my constituents were forced to fall back on the small Iceland in the high street and Wickford market. I was very pleased to reopen the enlarged Aldi last autumn, and it is now doing a brisk trade. However, the Co-op still remains undeveloped and, while boarded up, is occupying valuable spaces in the town’s principal car park. It is a long and complicated saga. Suffice it to say that the site was bought several years ago by a development company named Heriot, which originally came up with a plan in conjunction with the supermarket chain Morrisons to redevelop the store, with an underground car park and some flats above. I always had doubts about the commercial viability of those proposals, especially the underground car park, and the scheme collapsed some months ago. Nevertheless, Heriot is working on what might be called a plan B, and for some months has been in what it describes as “advanced talks” with another major supermarket chain. For commercial reasons Heriot asked me not to name the supermarket in this speech, something I have agreed to respect—although I have to say that the name of the company in question is now effectively an open secret, and was even being reported back to me on doorsteps by my Wickford constituents during the general election. I spoke to the directors of Heriot in advance of this debate, who assure me they are seeking to bring their commercial negotiations to a conclusion as soon as possible. They are well aware of my frustration at these three years of delay, which I conveyed to them again this morning, and they have asked me to relate that they realise that my Wickford constituents have already waited a long while for a new supermarket. That is an issue I campaigned on heavily at the general election, so I hope Heriot will be able to announce something definitive this summer. My message to Heriot is simple: “You have had more than enough time—get on with it.” Finally, over two decades I have seen examples of both good and bad development in my constituency. Young people cannot live at home with their parents into their 50s and 60s, so it must be possible to build some houses in a sustainable manner to meet the housing need. Crucially, however, the infrastructure required to accompany them has to be built first. To put it another way, from long experience, if development is to be successful—and it can be—as I said earlier, it has to be done with people, rather than to people. The proposals at a place called Dollymans Farm in my constituency, which I was re-elected with a mandate to oppose, are precisely the opposite of that. We all want to find somewhere suitable and appropriate for people to live, but we have to do that in the right way.