LAST week the people of Newark elected a great Conservative MP in Robert Jenrick in the first by-election we have won as a governing party for 25 years. This is a huge vote of confidence in our long-term economic plan that is securing a better future for Britain.
It was in this context that MPs attended the State Opening of Parliament by the Queen for the 61st time in her reign, to hear the Queen's Speech which lists all the Bills that Parliament is to debate and discuss for the following year.
It marks the next big step in our long-term economic plan to build a stronger, more competitive economy and gives hardworking people peace of mind for the future.
The centrepiece of the Queen's Speech was the Pensions Bill which will give people who work hard and do the right thing more security in their retirement. By no longer forcing people to buy an annuity, we are giving them total control over the money they have put aside over their lifetime and greater financial security in their old age.
We are also freezing fuel duty for the rest of the Parliament. By the end of the Parliament fuel duty would have been frozen for nearly four and half years which makes this Government's duty freeze the longest in more than 20 years. Rural commuters already pay 25% more to travel to work and travel an additional 10,000 miles to access essential public services.
This will be especially welcome in Devon, with nearly 56 per cent of residents living in rural areas across the county, where a car is often not a luxury but a necessity for many of thousands of people to get to work.
Four years into this Government and our long-term economic plan is starting to take effect. The deficit down by over a third, income tax cut for 25 million people by an average £705, there are 1.5 million more jobs and 1.7 million more apprentices. However, the gains made can easily be reversed if the Government's plan is abandoned and there are still those who are yet to feel the benefits of the recovery and whose working conditions have not improved.
The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill is intended to give a boost to small businesses by giving them better access to Government and other public sector procurement. With an annual spend of £230bn public sector procurement is vital for many businesses and if we are to continue to grow the economy and create jobs we must give small businesses a fair bite of the cherry.
The Bill will also help address key weaknesses in employment law such as tackling minimum wage and zero hours contract abuses by providing tougher penalties for businesses not adhering to the rules. It will also give greater flexibility to childcare regulations to benefit working families.
Also announced in the Queen's speech were measures to tackle one of the world's great social evils that sadly plague developed countries such as the UK. I am of course talking about the abhorrent crime of modern day slavery. This Bill, which was published in December 2013 and has already been under pre-legislative, seeks to create an Anti-Slavery Commissioner to help develop multi-agency action at the local level, puts a new duty on local authorities to report potential victims of trafficking to the National Crime Agency and increases the maximum custodial sentence from 14 years to life.
Human trafficking is something that should concern all of this and it certainly is not limited to major cities. Given the difficulties in identifying the victims of modern day slavery it is hard to get specific statistics, but the recent figures show that in 2011/12 there were 148 cannabis farms in Devon and Cornwall, and many run by child slaves who have often been trafficked to Britain from South East Asia.
I have long been a support of the Human Trafficking Foundation's campaign to eradicate Modern-Day Slavery. Over the past months I have been corresponding with the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police, Shaun Sawyer, as well as the Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Hogg to ask what action plan Devon and Cornwall Constabulary have developed to help fight modern day slavery, and importantly, what can be done to ensure that victims of this crime are not themselves punished.
I have received helpful responses from both these officials and I am currently in contact with Devon County Council's Children's Social Work Service and Child Protection to press them on their strategy for both identifying and protecting victims of modern day slavery.
