12:38 James Cleverly (Conservative)

“but respectfully regret that the Gracious Speech does not commit to boosting defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 with a fully funded plan, fails to include measures that provide an adequate deterrent to migrants crossing the channel illegally, fails to mention rural communities, farming and fishing, does not include a legally binding target to enhance the UK’s food security or a commitment to increase the UK-wide agriculture budget by £1 billion over the course of the Parliament, introduces new burdens on businesses without sufficient measures to support them, fails to set out a concrete plan to tackle the unsustainable post-covid rise in the welfare bill, does not adequately protect family finances and the UK’s energy security in the move to net zero, and fails to provide adequate protections for pensioners and working people to keep more of the money they have worked hard for.”

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14:28 Beccy Cooper (Labour)

Worthing West is made up of two thirds of Worthing town, the other third now being ably represented by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tom Rutland). In this part of my constituency people can find Worthing town centre, our beautiful old lido building, and the recently returned Worthing wheel. Before being elected to Parliament, I had the great privilege of being the leader of Worthing council. Our vision for Worthing is for it to be both the fairest and the greenest coastal town in the UK, an ambition that I am sure my coastal colleagues will try to wrestle from me. Alongside an ambitious decarbonisation plan, work on Worthing’s town centre gardens will begin this autumn in a community and council-led project. We are also privileged to be part of the Sussex Bay project, a movement of radical collaboration initiated by Adur & Worthing Councils with the mission of restoring a healthy blue ecosystem to our seas and waterways in which nature, people and the local economy can thrive.

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15:21 Lola McEvoy (Labour)

One of the artefacts that caught my eye in the museum, among the railway medals and the framed timetables, was an award from 2019 for the manufacturing giant Cleveland Bridge. Like so many brilliant companies over recent years, Cleveland Bridge has ceased trading. What makes this company particularly of note is its vast global contribution. It built the Sydney harbour bridge and, in fact, the former Health Secretary and Labour Darlington MP, the right hon. Alan Milburn, referenced it in his maiden speech two decades ago. I am determined that our manufacturing contribution in Darlington is not consigned to museums and the history books. We are proud people and we are grafters. We do not need handouts; we need a Government who allow our brilliance to shine again. I have already had the excellent engineering firm Cummins to Parliament to discuss making our area a green hydrogen cluster and ensuring that hydrogen is at the heart of our decarbonisation strategy. I look forward to working with my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), an expert in green hydrogen and the future of steel, in his new brief.

This Labour Government are committed to tackling climate change and wealth creation, and that is an opportunity for our region that must be grabbed with both hands. That is why I have already visited Hitachi with my neighbour and friend the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland), to put my full support behind efforts to secure the future of skilled and essential jobs at the Newton Aycliffe plant that employs many of my constituents.

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15:41 Richard Tice (Reform)

The first people who are not very jolly are the fishermen themselves, who feel that various bureaucrats including the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities are acting so as to try to suppress or destroy this great industry for our seafaring nation, one that produces food and generates great revenues. In addition, bureaucrats are making the issue of flooding a serious problem in my constituency. Thousands of homes have been flooded, and with a failure to properly maintain sea level defences, tens of thousands of homes are at risk, again because of bureaucracy and inertia. Another reason why my constituents are really quite grumpy is that the stupid net zero policies will result in hundreds of massive, ugly pylons blighting the environment and countryside of my constituency, as well as solar farms planned on incredibly productive agricultural farmland. It is absolute idiocy.

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16:23 George Freeman (Conservative)

The second issue mentioned was housing and planning. There is deep exhaustion with the way that too many big developers are running rings round our councils and dumping big commuter housing estates in the wrong places, with no investment in infrastructure. We need new towns on railway lines to drive a net zero and sustainable model of living.

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16:57 Brian Leishman (Labour)

The term “just transition” has entered the modern lexicon, but many people I spoke with while out campaigning did not know what it actually means. It simply means moving from one industry to another without leaving workers and their communities behind to deal with devastating economic and social consequences. Historically, many workers in Alloa and Grangemouth have been victims of deindustrialisation and so-called market forces in a system that has valued profits over people and created a society of gross inequality.

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17:04 Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat)

I am proud to have already kept my first promise as a Member of Parliament. I have joined the Robins Trust, which supports Cheltenham Town FC. They remain a division ahead of Forest Green Rovers, despite being relegated last season—with my apologies to the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher). I have led campaigns already to invest in affordable housing in Cheltenham, to fight climate change and to support food banks, because we have them. It is a disgrace that a town as wealthy as Cheltenham has more than 700 people using food banks regularly. We have a unique scheme in Cheltenham where food bank users also get free access to the leisure centre. I would recommend that all Members try to roll that out in their area. However, if there is one priority I will pursue relentlessly, it will be undoing the harm caused to our local health services these past few years. Alongside the word “education”, our town crest also features the world “health”. I will defend our local hospital, and I will campaign on primary care, too.

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17:25 Richard Baker (Labour)

The communities of my constituency can look back on a proud industrial heritage, but it is vital that they can also look forward to their future as a hub for innovation, technology and our growing renewable sector. The biomass plant at Markinch, the hydrogen for domestic energy pilot at Buckhaven, and the Fife energy park at Methil are all examples of how our constituency can benefit from the exciting plans for GB Energy and our goal for Scotland to play a leading role in making Britain a green energy powerhouse.

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17:37 Paulette Hamilton (Labour)

I am delighted to say that this King’s Speech has filled me with hope. We have suffered over a decade of Tory neglect, mismanagement and chaos. We have endured five Prime Ministers, seven Chancellors, 10 Education Secretaries, 12 Culture Secretaries and 16 Housing Ministers. Finally, we have a Labour Government with a plan to put politics back into the service of working people. We have a plan to save the NHS; nationalise the railways; reform benefits; recruit more teachers; properly fund councils; invest in green energy; clean up our rivers; provide children with breakfast in school every day; prioritise women’s health; reduce the gender pay gap; create a national care service; and bring transparency and accountability back to public office. It finally feels like the adults have entered the room, but I am under no illusion: the hard work is just beginning.

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18:15 Matt Western (Labour)

The legislation to deliver GB Energy will be so important for transforming the energy mix in this country, doubling our onshore wind, trebling our solar energy production and quadrupling our offshore wind. The great grid upgrade, for which National Grid has been pushing for so long, will be so important. Critically, it will bring down bills by an average of £300 per household while addressing climate change at the same time.

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18:21 Helena Dollimore (Labour)

There are also some points of our history that we would rather forget, such as the unveiling of a certain stone tablet in Hastings during the 2015 general election campaign by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband). That stone may have been consigned to history, but I know that my right hon. Friend will be back very soon to unveil some new green energy infrastructure, and that it will be longer-lasting than the stone.

We are at a time in history when more children are growing up in conflict than ever before. Rightly, much focus has been devoted recently to the appalling events in Israel and Palestine—there, too, it is children bearing the brunt of war. We must redouble our efforts to bring about peaceful solutions to all these conflicts, and must remember that all the global issues we face, from climate change to migration, can only be solved by working across borders with our international allies and through strong, multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.

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18:29 Clive Lewis (Labour)

I am hoping, for colleagues’ sake, that I have to make this contribution to the King’s Speech debate only once; believe me, doing things twice is not what it is cracked up to be. Either way, it makes a wonderful change to be on the Government Benches to speak in a King’s Speech debate in which for once stability eclipses chaos, renewal surpasses decay and hope trumps despair. Let me tell my new colleagues that it is not usually like this, at least it has not been for the past nine or 10 years, maybe longer. Too often, we have been here making speeches that mourn the erosion of our democracy and our rights at work and that can only bemoan the continual and unceasing scapegoating of our communities, the destruction of our rivers, the undermining of our judicial system, the betrayal of international human rights and the deepening of a climate crisis. But not today, because this King’s Speech is a veritable cornucopia of progressive policies pregnant with the potential to unpick decades of drift and deterioration. I would not try to say that after a couple of pints.

I want to conclude with this observation. The true risk to this country is not the rivers of blood, as some would have us believe, but rather rivers of excrement and rivers running dry. In only a few decades’ time, my constituency might not have drinking water, because of a combination of the climate crisis and corporate corruption in the form of price gouging and criminal levels of under-investment. Immigration and asylum did not lead us here any more than membership of the EU did. Failing institutions, the erosion of democracy and economic failure brought us here. It is that our Government must fix, so let us get to it.

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