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Adjournment (Whitsun)

Stunning, staggering and spectacular—that is how local papers will report the 11 maiden speeches that the House has been blessed with today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) has trawled through them each in turn, I will not do so. Stunning, staggering and spectacular was how my local paper described my election result on 5 May. I pay tribute to my four opponents in that election, who are all excellent people, to Ian Yeomans, who organised the election, and to the general election team, which delivered such a cracking result. I have known defeat as well as victory, so I hope that the House will allow me to send our best wishes to each of our colleagues, from whatever party, who stood and lost in the election on 5 May. We wish them well in whatever they choose to do in the future. Some of them may, like me and my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mr. Fraser), return to the House eventually and serve their constituents well, as they did in the past. However, we must wish them well. Like me, they were removed by a combination of factors. They may have been voted out by the sound hand of local democracy—people power. It may have been because of their own failures. That was certainly what happened in my case. I failed in certain ways, but I hope that I have learned from that defeat and come back as a stronger and better MP to serve my constituents better. However, the main factor that swept them away was macroeconomic trends, which none of us, as individuals, has control over. I will certainly not be complacent in my constituency after my victory. I will redouble my efforts and work for our third road and improved infrastructure across the constituency, including at Saddlers Farm and Hadleigh. I will fight for a return to the old, traditional and comfortable Hadleigh village centre atmosphere—we must return that vibrant village atmosphere to that part of my constituency. I will fight to stop the ruin of our borough by overdevelopment. I will also fight to stop the rot of post office closures and for a new post office to be opened for the Canvey Island shopping centre, where one was closed. Thankfully, the Post Office has agreed to try to find a new location for that post office, and that cannot come soon enough. I will be fighting to safeguard the interests of our special educational needs children and our special schools, particularly Cedar Hall moderate learning difficulty special school in Thundersley. It is a wonderful school that needs to be protected and to have a sound intake of pupils who can benefit from the services that it offers, particularly at primary stage, rather than only at secondary stage, when it is often too late to build the foundations that special pupils need. Early intervention is good and more cost-effective. When parents want to choose special schools, we should make them available. I welcome the charming and appropriate clock that was recently erected in my constituency by Councillor Wendy Goodwin in memory of Bernard Braine, who was like a father to me. He was my predecessor and represented Castle Point for about 40 years. Imagine following a man who was here for 42 years; it was a difficult job. He was a wonderful, courteous constituency MP—the epitome of what a constituency MP should be. He ended up as the Father of the House, and those Members who knew him will, I am sure, remember him fondly. He was a true gentleman of the old school. Bernard would have agreed with me that we should formally celebrate our patron saint, St. George. I shall be working with like-minded colleagues—I see some in their places today—to bring that about. Bernard would also have supported the campaign for fair funding for hospices, which has been taken up by local newspapers. I congratulate them on that and I also congratulate hospice staff, carers, volunteers and fund raisers on their excellent contributions to keeping our hospices going throughout the country. I also want to mention the Hadleigh, Canvey Island and Benfleet Conservative clubs, which do so much to raise money for all charities, but particularly for the Little Haven hospice in my constituency. I pay tribute to all the good people who are involved in that. About 20 per cent. of adult hospice funding and about 5 per cent. of children’s hospice funding comes from the public purse, but less than 2 per cent. of public funds went to the Little Haven hospice last year, which is simply not good enough. I will keep on the backs of the Government to tackle that problem. They cannot pass it down by saying that it is not their business, but only that of the primary care trusts. The Government must take action and I shall hound them at every opportunity on the Floor of the House and in Westminster Hall to force a proper resolution of the problem. The Conservative party believes in 40 per cent. funding both for children’s and adult hospices, and I hope that we shall repeat that winning policy in our next manifesto. We are going to win the next election, building on the fantastic foundation that we have now, so I hope that it comes sooner rather than later. Lo and behold, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I received a letter this week from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, which provides a sign of hope. It states:"““I know you are a keen champion of the work of hospices, both in your constituency and nationally, and I applaud the initiative you took in bringing the funding difficulties faced by hospices to debate in the House last autumn . . . Your speech in the House referred to ‘Treasury Rules’. I believe you were referring to Treasury guidance on the question of Full Cost Recovery for voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations . . . My officials are currently working with the Department of Health who, in turn, meet regularly with representatives from the hospice sector in order to clarify what the above means for hospices, with two aims. Firstly, to arrive at a common understanding of how Government should fund those crucial services which hospices deliver. And secondly, to improve individual funding relationships between PCTs and hospices, which is what we would all like to see.””" I look forward to the officials writing to me again in greater detail, as promised, to advise me of what conclusion is reached. It certainly seems like light at the end of the tunnel for hospice funding and it will be welcomed by the hospice movement. I hope that the Chief Secretary will not mind me putting that on the record. During the election, two local issues were often raised. One was overdevelopment, which I shall not touch on now, and the other was law and order. Let me make it clear that Castle Point is a safe constituency with low levels of crime. Indeed, the only significant crime is the street crime of kids. It is annoying and it increases the fear of crime among residents. Let me also make it clear that we generally have great kids in Castle Point. There are wonderful kids who do much to help the community—kids that we can all be proud of—but they are spoiled by just a few yobs. We must do all that we can to tackle the behaviour of those yobs, but Labour’s hands-off, politically correct attitude towards crime and punishment and the failure of tough parental control have created a yob culture in my constituency. I do not want to talk only about the negative side today. I shall take a positive approach instead, as we need that as much as we need tough deterrents. We must give people pathways away from crime and especially from crime driven by addiction to drugs. I see that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is in his place, as always. He is an assiduous Member of Parliament and he has always emphasised the need to tackle the drug culture by providing rehabilitation places. Although he sits on the Labour Benches, I am pleased to see him. He has fought for that cause consistently for many years, and I congratulate him on his work. Last weekend, I attended Thundersley Congregational church, where Teen Challenge UK was making a presentation entitled ““The Evidence””. I wanted to learn from people who do not sit down and grumble about the drugs problem but get up off their backsides and do something about it. I also wanted to learn from people who had left crime and drugs behind so that they could rebuild their lives. The Government must find better ways to convert people—and some of them really are the scum of our streets—who, driven by addiction, prey off innocent people and businesses. Such people need to be helped to become decent, tax-paying citizens who give something back to society. We all accept that the Government must find better ways to rescue these addicts, whose every hour of every day is focused on finding money, usually by nefarious means, to get their next hit. However, the solutions will be complex: what works for one person may not work for another. Therefore, we need a range of solutions, in a range of areas. Prison is often part of the problem, rather than the solution, for drug-driven crime, although I accept that it is a very good form of prevention, as it takes users off the street. Teen Challenge UK rescues and redeems the saddest cases, the people who are at the bottom with little hope. It does a fantastic job and succeeds where other remedies have failed. It is less expensive than Home Office rehabilitation residential places. In fact, it raises one third of its money from voluntary contributions, often from Christian organisations, and that is to be welcomed. Teen Challenge UK has a success rate of 76 per cent. That is remarkable enough in itself, but I am not talking only about people getting off drugs and crime. The organisation’s success lies in the fact that it gets people back to work. That means that they pay tax and reconnect with their families—a very important element—and that they contribute again to society. Teen Challenge UK has 80 of the worst addiction-driven criminals waiting for a bed place, and that is just in its centre for men in south Wales. The people who are waiting for those places are sad cases. They are gagging for a chance to get their lives and families back, and simply to be decent again. Some of the men are self-harming and at the very end of their tether. They know that they will commit several crimes every day, which brings innocent people into the equation. Why on earth, therefore, has Teen Challenge UK’s priming funding of £700,000 been withdrawn? Fact is sometimes stranger than fiction, and that is the case here. The organisation’s grant was removed essentially because it has Christian roots and is run by Christians. Teen Challenge UK is in no way discriminatory in its work: most of its clients are not Christians and will not become Christians as a result of getting off drugs and out of crime. Mr. Deputy Speaker, are you thinking what we are thinking? I think that you probably are. It was the Welsh Assembly that decided to remove the grant, and I think that it is bonkers for doing so. I do not know whether ““bonkers”” constitutes unparliamentary language, but I should be happy to withdraw it and replace it with ““insane”” or ““mad””. I would even go so far as to say what all of us think—that this is an example of political correctness gone mad. The politically correct approach has been driven to an absurd extreme, to the extent that what is being done is evil in itself. No right-minded person would think it sensible to take away that funding and prevent that very good and cost-effective attempt to address that complicated and difficult problem. The grant was withdrawn by the Welsh Assembly, on which Labour and the Liberal Democrats must have some influence. The media certainly has some influence and I hope that the matter will be taken up. Teen Challenge UK went to judicial review of the decision and the judge thought that what had happened was outrageous. He found for Teen Challenge UK and the Assembly has agreed to look again at the matter. I encourage every right-minded person to press the Assembly to make a good decision. For the sake of all those sad addicts and for society at large, let us hope that political correctness is dropped and that Teen Challenge UK has its funding replaced, so that it can help hurting people, which is its slogan. I recommend the organisation’s presentation, ““The Evidence””, and I thank all who work there for taking the trouble to get off their backsides and do something about what is a serious problem for society.