Surrey Heath MP AL Pinkerton gives maiden speech in the House of Commons.
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00:00Madam Deputy Speaker, I'm grateful to you for allowing me the opportunity to intervene
00:04in this important debate and in so doing to give my maiden speech. I also congratulate
00:10you on both of your recent election successes and welcome you to the chair. It's a privilege
00:17to follow the Honourable Member for Derby North. I was delighted in particular to hear
00:21about your recent abseiling exploits. I wondered if you were giving your maiden speech or a
00:26pitch to be the next Lib Dem party leader. But it was wonderful to hear your rich and
00:33powerful invocation of Derby North. Thank you very much. I also pay tribute, if I may,
00:40to the other maiden speakers today and last week. The quality of speeches and the intellectual
00:45energy of those new members suggest that this Parliament will be enhanced by a new generation
00:50of thinkers and doers who will serve this place and their constituents well.
00:56Madam Deputy Speaker, I'm especially grateful to you for allowing me to catch your eye on
01:01an occasion when education is placed into the Parliamentary spotlight. I have dedicated
01:06my working life to teaching and researching in higher education, most recently as a Professor
01:11of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway University of London. There, I have worked with generations
01:17of incredible students who have gone on to incredible things in the public, private and
01:22charitable sectors. I'm very proud to say that three of my former students were candidates
01:28in the recent general election. At least two are current heads of office or special advisers
01:34to senior members of this House, with one a rising star of the lobby press. I take no
01:40credit for what they do, what they have achieved. They have achieved themselves, but I hope
01:44they will forgive me if I feel some sense of pride in what they do and the contributions
01:49they make, even if those contributions are all too often disproportionately favoured
01:53towards the Conservative party.
01:59Surrey Heath is blessed with an extraordinary state and independent school system within
02:04and local to our constituency. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to
02:09the work that teachers and senior leaderships do in supporting generations of young people
02:14and providing them with knowledge and the critical and practical skills that are vital
02:19preparations for further learning and successful careers. As was reinforced in the recent general
02:26election campaign, Surrey Heath State Schools achieve all of this while edging ever closer
02:31to financial crisis. I welcome and will support any initiative put before this House that
02:38raises educational standards and drives opportunity. Education, after all, is the engine of social
02:45mobility and our country's future economic prosperity. I sincerely hope that, with this
02:51change of government, the hostility that has been directed towards the UK's genuinely
02:55world-leading universities will come to an end. This new government now has an opportunity
03:01to walk the sector back from the brink of financial crisis—indeed, catastrophe, as
03:06I saw in the newspapers this week—and to recognise again the intrinsic value of higher
03:11education and the role of our universities as powerful instruments of local economic
03:15growth and the foundation of our national success in research, innovation and skills.
03:23Surrey Heath is a wonderful place to live. We are blessed with striking and historic
03:27landscapes. As the name of the constituency suggests, we are defined by ancient lowland
03:33heaths, lasting remnants of prehistoric woodland, cleared over the centuries and kept clear
03:40by grazing, burning and cutting. Although not strictly natural, these heaths are the
03:45preserve of unique ecosystems and biodiversity. Chobham Common is today one of the finest
03:50remaining examples of lowland heath left anywhere in the world. Wildfires are common, increasingly
03:57so as we are gripped by the climate crisis. We are grateful to the brave men and women
04:02of Surrey Fire and Rescue, who battle the toughest of conditions to keep residents and
04:07their property safe. They deserve our fullest support, especially now as they go into battle
04:12again, facing another round of cuts to this vital-to-life service.
04:18Surrey Heath is a borough and a constituency with a long and proud military tradition.
04:23From the development of Chobham Armour in the 1960s to the present-day home of ATC Purbright,
04:29a place that any new recruit to the British Army will come to know all too well. Surrey
04:34Heath is also home to Gordon School, founded in 1885. It is both an award-winning state
04:39boarding school and the national monument to General Gordon of Khartoum. The Royal Military
04:46Academy in Sandhurst, the place where British Army officers are trained, straddles the boundaries
04:51of Surrey Heath and nearby Bracknell Forest. Although most of the RMA's buildings are
04:55technically in Berkshire—I am going to claim them a little bit for Surrey Heath today—there
04:59can be no doubt of the connection that exists between Sandhurst and Surrey Heath's main
05:03market town of Camberley.
05:06Camberley is a product of the Royal Military College, which was formed in Sandhurst in
05:111812. In the years that followed, settlements formed at the margins of the college, including
05:17the planned community of Cambridgetown, named after the Duke of Cambridge, the head of the
05:22British Army at the time. As the town grew, so did confusion between Cambridgetown and
05:29Cambridge. It is a much less well-known and less distinguished namesake, somewhere in
05:33the Midlands—with apologies to hon. Members representing Cambridge. This was a problem
05:39especially felt by users of the Postal Service, whose letters would frequently find themselves
05:44long delayed and hundreds of miles from their intended destinations. A hundred and fifty
05:49years has gone by, and little has changed.
05:53The Royal Mail requested a name change, and it was the newer upstart Cambridgetown that
05:59obliged and relented, changing its identity in 1877 to Camberley, a portmanteau referencing
06:06the River Canne that still runs underneath the town, Amber in reference to the nearby
06:11Amber Hill, and Lee, the Anglo-Saxon for a forest clearing, and commonly used in suffixes
06:17of nearby place names, such as Frimley and Bisley, also in Surrey Heath.
06:22Surrey Heath has a rich musical and artistic tradition. Camberley was the childhood home
06:26of Sir Arthur Sullivan, Bross, and is today home to musician, astrophysicist and animal
06:37welfare activist Dr Brian May. Daphne du Maurier wrote Jamaica Inn while living in Frimley,
06:44and we are hopeful that a blue plaque may soon mark that spot in Surrey Heath's contribution
06:48to British literary history.
06:49We are home to extraordinary local, national and international businesses, to numerous
06:53to mention, as well as a vibrant charitable and voluntary sector, and a community of multiple
06:58faiths, traditions, ethnicities and nationalities, including a large and historic Gurkha community.
07:05During the pandemic, residents self-organised into a remarkable community-wide response
07:09to covid-19. Surrey Heath Prepared delivered essential food parcels and thousands of prescriptions
07:15to the isolating and the vulnerable, an expression of community resilience and solidarity when
07:21it was most needed. I hope that contributions of that kind, of the likes of Surrey Heath
07:26Prepared and similar mutual aid groups across the country will not be forgotten in the inquiries
07:31now underway into the way that the UK responded to the pandemic.
07:36Following the recent boundary review that brought the beautiful villages of Normandy
07:39and Perbright into the constituency, Surrey Heath is now officially the resting place
07:45of at least two significant figures of empire. Sir Henry Morton Stanley is buried in Perbright,
07:51near the home he created for himself after his return from Africa. But perhaps worthy
07:55of greater celebration is John Pennycook, an extraordinary engineer and colonial administrator
08:02with the vision and skill to construct the Mullaperio Dam. Since its construction in
08:081895, the dam has been credited with saving tens of thousands of lives by protecting communities
08:12from seasonal flooding and in bringing nearly a quarter of a million acres of land into
08:17crop-bearing productivity. Today, Pennycook is revered in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
08:24Children are given his name in his honour, and yet he is almost unknown here in the UK.
08:30I hope his mention here in this House today may be a small contribution to addressing
08:34that historical absence.
08:36Today, drivers on the M3 motorway slip quickly and efficiently, when it is not clogged up,
08:44as they travel between London and the south-west, often without even realising they are passing
08:48through this fine constituency. Surrey Heath road users, on the other hand, may be more
08:52aware of the less smooth and much less efficient point of entry onto the M3 at the junction
08:57with the A322. My predecessor, Michael Gove, more on whom in just a moment, spent many
09:03an hour at that particular road junction over the years, but even his formidable talents
09:08could not resolve this serious shared local frustration. I hope I can make some headway
09:13on that issue in months and years to come.
09:17In restoration England of the 1600s, hold-ups on the highways of Surrey Heath were of a
09:23rather different kind. The Great West Road, less prosaically today known as the A30, was
09:29the main connecting route between London and the great port cities of the south coast,
09:34and was a lucrative prospect for highwomen and opportunistic cutpurses, especially on
09:41the long, isolated stretches around Bagshot Heath. William Davis, the so-called Golden
09:47Farmer, and Claude Duval were two of the most notorious and noteworthy of the seventeenth-century
09:53land pirates. Duval is recalled as a gentleman of the road. Gracious to the point of obsequiousness,
10:01he would relieve you of your jewels while dancing with your wife and complimenting you
10:06on the finery of your apparel. An abhorrer of physical violence, the history books recall
10:11him as a master of politeness, smiling pleasantly to your face while metaphorically sticking
10:16the knife in. Now, the sharp-eared amongst you may recognise at passing one might even
10:21say limited and specific similarity between Duval and other more recent gentlemen of Surrey
10:26Heath Roads. I refer, of course, to the former member for Surrey Heath, my predecessor, Michael
10:31Gove, who served the constituency and this house with considerable distinction and flair
10:36for just shy of twenty years. Both men possessed of a singular vision, noted for their grace
10:42and observance of the highest courtesies and manners. Unlike Duval, there's no evidence
10:49that Michael's outings to the A322 involved any public displays of dancing.
10:55Those, as far as we can tell, he saved for the nightclubs of Old Aberdeen.
11:00The hon. Members to my right may go further, but for my part I'm certain that's where any
11:04similarities end. Michael Gove will rightly be remembered as a transformative Minister,
11:10even by teachers, who during a debate on education will consider him transformative,
11:17but not necessarily beneficially so. He was indeed a talented parliamentarian.
11:23His oratorical skills mark him out as a once-in-a-generation performer at the Dispatch Box.
11:29He will, I'm sure, be greatly missed in this house by both his friends and his opponents,
11:33and you will want to join me in wishing him well for whatever his future has in store.
11:38Personally, I'm hugely indebted to the people of Surrey Heath for electing me to be the first
11:43non-Conservative MP for our constituency in 118 years. This was a vote to be taken seriously
11:51again for a local MP who will work in this place to further the cause of a great community,
11:57and we need that now more than ever. Surrey Heath's roads and rail infrastructure require
12:01significant investment. It cannot be right that it takes longer to travel between Camberley and
12:07London in 2024 than it did a century ago. We need to end the postcode lottery of health,
12:14and to address the deep inequalities in life expectancy and life opportunities that scar
12:19and divide our communities. While I welcome the Secretary of State for Health's commitment to
12:25prioritising the rebuilding of WRAC-affected hospitals, such as Frimley Park in my own
12:29constituency, we do need reassurance that the new Frimley Park will be the right hospital,
12:34providing the right services and sited in the most appropriate location, accessible via road,
12:40rail and bus, and not at the expense of losing vital green or amenity space.
12:46We also need a fair deal for our young people. With genuinely affordable homes and new education
12:52and training opportunities, we urgently need to fix Surrey's broken special educational needs
12:57provision. In the spirit that there is always more that unites us than divides us, I look
13:02forward to working with Members across this House to achieve these things for Surrey Heath and in
13:06support of communities across the UK. Finally, and in conclusion, our families all too often
13:16pay a high price—indeed, the highest price—to enable us to do what we do in this House and to
13:20participate in the long campaigns that have gone before and which, soon enough, will come again.
13:27In closing, may I just express my love and thanks to my wife, Philippa,
13:30and to my children, Jamie and Will, for putting up with me,
13:34for their limitless support and for being the best team that anyone could ever hope to be part of.