SUPPORTING YOUNG PEOPLE INTO WORK
Used a question in the Commons today to ask about the Government’s Kickstart Scheme and how we can make sure as many young people as possible in Ipswich benefit from the job placements it will create. I called on the Government to do this by also prioritising the excellent work being done by local charities like Inspire Suffolk to help young people improve their skills and wellbeing at this crucial point in their lives. This was something I saw first-hand when I visited the charity in Lindbergh Road last month.
It was also encouraging to hear more details about the roll out of the Kickstart Scheme in Ipswich, including the work that’s underway with local employers to get young people onto the Scheme. And that a local youth hub and new apprenticeship positions are being looked into. I’ll be following up on the progress with this over the coming weeks. Covid-19 has increased the challenges but I’ll keep doing everything I can to make sure young people in our town have every opportunity to succeed.
Awarding of A Level
ORANGE WANDS
Action not words
Action not words. That was my message last night when I met with the Immigration Minister Chris Philp along with a number of other Conservative MPs. I was invited as one of the MPs who has repeatably raised concerns about illegal channel crossings we’ve been seeing over the past few months. I one hundred percent share the same concerns as the majority of my constituents. This was a significant meeting and I feel confident that there is a solid plan to deal with the issue, for the first time since this really shot up the news agenda there is a real prospect of the issue being nipped in the bud in the not too distant future.
New legislation is likely soon to reform our failing asylum system (likely to be furiously opposed by Labour) as is robust action to stop the channel crossings in their tracks. I am limited in terms of the specific information I can reveal at this time but more will be announced by the Government soon. People are right to be extremely frustrated by the situation but I am confident that action is on the way. I feel significant compassion towards genuine refugees and its right that we have a process in place to legally accept those fleeing violence and persecution in their own countries. But under no circumstances should we accept these illegal crossings where the individuals in question are coming from other safe European countries, not war torn countries.
POLICING IN IPSWICH
RAVENSWOOD ROAD ACCESS
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Today I asked an urgent question to Home Office ministers about illegal channel crossings and to call for urgent legislation to get a grip of our easily exploited asylum system. Illegal migrants know that once they’re in our asylum system, the chances are they’ll be able to stay for good and this is a major reason why they continue to put their lives at risk to come here.
We must close ridiculous legal loopholes like those that allow failed asylum seekers to make repeated claims on entirely new grounds and avoid deportation. And end the unacceptable situation where tax payers’ money is spent on legal aid to support people who have broken our laws claim asylum. Over the last few months, I’ve been working with other Conservative MPs in the Common Sense Group to keep up the pressure on the Government on this issue by writing joint letters and meeting with the Home Secretary. And now Parliament has returned it’s important to continue this in the Chamber. I was glad to hear today that the Government is developing legislation to close these loopholes. This can’t come soon enough for many of my constituents who like me find the current situation unfair and unacceptable. And I’ll be monitoring developments very closely.
It was also disappointing today to see Labour accuse the Government of militarising the problem in the Channel and lacking compassion. This demonstrates how completely out of touch the Party has become with the law-abiding majority. And the real lack of compassion comes from those who defend the status quo, where migrants from safe European countries are incentivised to make dangerous crossings. And where our asylum system isn’t geared towards the most needy genuine asylum seekers around the world who want to come here legally.
SUPPORTING YOUNG PEOPLE:
Supporting young people has to be one of our main focuses now Parliament has returned. And today I asked the Education Secretary to continue funding for charities like Inspire Suffolk which works with disadvantaged children in Ipswich and complements the work done by local schools. This is even more important when charities have faced significant difficulties fundraising themselves during Covid-19.
Last week I brought the Childrens Minister to Lindbergh Road to see Inspire Suffolk’s excellent work to run summer activities for children over the summer. Their School Holiday Programme has been backed by Government funding and this type of funding for charities must continue as we face the next challenges like the return to school and addressing the disadvantage gap that’s opened up when schools have been closed.
Charities play an invaluable role in supporting young people across our town and it’s vital that local young people can keep benefiting from the work they do. I’m glad the Education Secretary recognises this and has committed to work with me and local charities to see how Government support can be delivered going forwards. I’ll be working closely with Inspire Suffolk and others on this over the coming weeks.
New £25 million A&E Department
First day back in Parliament today and I asked the Health Minister to accelerate the delivery of Ipswich Hospital’s new £25 million A&E Department so it’s there to benefit local people as soon as possible. It’s important we build on the £1.6 million already secured for our A&E to increase capacity ahead of the winter period. Like many I still have a number of questions about the direction of our hospital and the status of the merger after the decision to move elective orthopaedic surgery from Ipswich Hospital to a centre in Colchester. And the new A&E won’t stop these questions being asked.
The delivery of the new A&E is just one of the tangible benefits we need to see at Ipswich Hospital before these concerns can start to be addressed. Glad the Minister has heard this message and I’ll continue to monitor the development of the A&E plans and the merger very closely in Parliament.
Statement on the BBC Licence fee
Like many, I’ve had concerns about the BBC for a number of years now. The coverage of Brexit and last year’s General Election are just some of the high-profile examples of where the Corporation’s output has fallen below the standards the public expect from their national broadcaster.
However, I’ve always stopped short of joining others in calling into question the future of the licence fee. For me growing up, the BBC represented a unique part of our national identity and the role it played in our country’s life always gave me an emotional connection which I wouldn’t have with any other broadcaster.
I also recognised that the BBC has come in for criticism from both Conservatives and those on the radical Left over the years so perhaps the BBC was getting somewhere near the middle ground.
This has been my view on balance until the last few months where the BBC’s coverage and the actions of many of its publicly funded executives and journalists have unfortunately become completely out of control; leading me to reflect seriously on whether the licence fee continues to be justified.
Last week I sought the views of my constituents by setting up an online poll, asking people whether the licence fee should be abolished.
In total 4773 people took part and 97% were in favour of doing away with the licence fee. I asked people to enter their postcodes so I knew which responses came from constituents. The results were just as clear. Over 870 Ipswich residents voted with 90% in favour of abolishing it.
I understand this isn’t a scientific poll and that there is no perfect way to capture the views of everyone in Ipswich. I also know some will be disappointed they didn’t know the poll was up. Nevertheless, I do think the feedback provides a window to where many local people stand and how considerable their concerns are.
It’s with great reluctance that I now have to say I’ve reached the same conclusion as them on the licence fee. I’m reluctant because I do think in principal having a national broadcaster can be a public good. But the negative direction the BBC is heading in has only accelerated over recent months and I don’t believe the Corporation can ever get back to a position where my concerns will be alleviated.
This hasn’t come from a lack of warning from those of us who continued to hold out hope that the BBC could change course for the better. In June I spoke in Parliament about the important role local BBC services like Radio Suffolk and Look East play in our local democracy. And how plans to cut funding for popular regional news broadcasting would only heighten the sense among people in the country that senior executives at the BBC are out of touch with their audience and determined to take the Corporation on an ever more London-centric trajectory.
At time when the BBC should be further localising its services and looking beyond the M25 it seems to be going in the other direction.
Add to this the BBC’s decision to remove free TV licences for most over-75s and it becomes clearer how seemingly at every turn the BBC’s leadership makes bad situations worse.
This has been a bitter pill to swallow for many of my older constituents who have told me they’ll struggle to pay for a service which has anyway become completely detached from mainstream public opinion.
While the BBC has been making plans to cut back what makes the licence fee stomachable, it’s been chipping away at many of our most cherished cultural institutions. And has been played like a fiddle by woke Leftists who have demonstrated their determination to radically change the character of this country.
This has now reached an unbearable crescendo with the farce over the Last Night of the Proms. The reports of plans to expunge ‘Rule Britannia!’ and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ entirely and then the BBC’s announcement they would be played without their lyrics, represent an assault on one of the most important nights in our cultural calendar.
This decision has been taken under the cover of Covid-19 with no concert audience there to disappoint directly. And the messaging that dropping the lyrics is a one-off this year is ridiculous as the words to other songs will still be sung.
This condescending and judgemental censorship follows the mass removal of past episodes of British comedy programmes like Fawlty Towers and Little Britain. I wrote extensively earlier this year about how this politically correct attack on our sense of humour is not what the vast majority of tax and licence fee payers pay the large salaries of BBC executives to do.
We don’t fund these executives at our supposedly politically neutral national broadcaster for their views on politics, but increasingly this seems to be what guides what they say and do.
Many will have read the disgraceful comments by the Executive Producer of the BBC’s Songs of Praise programme likening the singing of Rule Britannia to Nazis singing about gas chambers because of the slave trade.
In her rush to apologise for the history of this country, she must have forgotten the blood and treasure the Royal Navy spent in abolishing the appalling Atlantic slave trade and how we can be proud of that today.
This is by far not the only abject failure of impartiality by those paid well to keep their biases in check. The article on exam results by Newsnight’s policy editor, Lewis Goodall, which took the front page of the left-wing New Statesman magazine last week, didn’t even pay lip service to the principle of impartiality in its hostile and partisan attacks on the Government.
By all means people should criticise the Government whenever they feel it’s appropriate but too many times journalists at the publicly funded BBC have taken advantage of the special and privileged role they hold and forgotten the responsibilities that come with it.
In other words, if Lewis Goodall wants to make a living out of launching political attacks on the Government I’m sure he can find a well paid job at The Guardian or the New Stateman but I’ll be dammed if I’m going to be silent whilst both I and my constituents contribute towards his publicly funded salary at the BBC.
This bias now also frequently seeps into the BBC’s own news coverage. People won’t so readily forget the Newsnight programme at the height of concerns about PPE which presented the views of five doctors and nurses critical of the Government who all later turned out to be long-standing Labour Party activists or supporters. Or the time when even the BBC felt it had to rebuke journalist Emily Maitlis for her completely one-sided television monologue on Dominic Cumming’s decision to go to Durham (something that I myself expressed concerns with at the time, but that is beside the point).
It’s given me no pleasure at all to go on this journey with the BBC and I’m sad it’s got to the point where I can no longer look my constituents in the eye and justify them paying the licence fee if they don’t want to.
But the BBC has continued its long, and now irreparable, march away from its audience. Not the other way around. The woke, metropolitan and censorious worldview that the BBC is offering no longer interests vast swathes of people up and down the country, many of which have become frustrated at being obliged to pay for content they don’t want, cuts to content they do want and an organisation which fundamentally doesn’t represent them and doesn’t even look like it wants to.
Sometimes it seems as though the BBC exists in its own parallel universe and even if it wanted to change, I believe it would be unable to do so. Outgoing BBC Director-General Tony Hall stated last week that post-Brexit the BBC has a unique responsibility to promote our country’s “voice and values”, sadly, I’m not sure whether the BBC leadership even know what these values are and I can’t think of a group of people less suited to taking on such a pivotal ambassadorial role..
I haven’t taken this decision lightly and my decision is in no way a reflection on the highly effective local BBC journalists that perform such a key role in supporting local democracy in Suffolk, my view is that they’ve been badly let down by the organisation’s national leadership.
As it stands I know the Government is seriously considering decriminalising the non-payment of the BBC licence fee and I will encourage the them to take this step. This would be a significant step and one could well path the way for the whole licence fee structure as a way of funding the BBC being reviewed at the nearest opportunity (most likely when the BBC Charter is next up for renewal). Ultimately I believe its time to look forward to a future where the BBC is no longer our country’s publicly funded state broadcaster.