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Scotland that show a picture of a house with vultures sitting on top of its roof. Those vultures represent the Socialists, the Labour party, and that campaign is having a major impact in Scotland. I am sure that, when the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) becomes a little less coy about the Labour party proposals for England, we shall witness growing consternation about the threat of a Labour Government introducing a roof tax, which would be extremely unfair. As with all its proposals, the more the Labour party alternative to the community charge comes under scrutiny, the more it wriggles about and suggests that everyone would be better off under the roof tax. In reality, most people would be a lot worse off. The roof tax would be extremely unfair and bear heavily upon widows, widowers, single householders and people who live in areas where the capital values of property go up because of market demand. The roof tax would also bear heavily on the sort of people I met yesterday when I visited Stoke-on-Trent and a local improvement area in which the value of properties had gone up substantially as a result of improvement grants and the efforts of the council, housing associations and the private sector to improve the quality of the properties. I said yesterday--the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley), who was present, did not deny it-- that under the roof tax people who benefit from improvements to their properties will be expected, by reason of that benefit, to contribute significantly more towards the cost of local government services. Opposition Members may think that that is fair. I do not, and nor do most of the British people.Mr. Dalyell : Ornithologically, the vulture is a bird of warning. May this particular vulture give the Minister a word of warning? In disputed cases in Scotland we find that there is argument about where a person was at a particular time. That has to be established, and people are then asked where they were on a particular night. That question easily becomes interpreted as the question, "With whom were you?" Such a situation shows that it is difficult to tax mobility. At least property is static. The general idea of the roof tax, which is actually the rates wrapped up under a new name, is basically as good as one will get.
Mr. Chope : That is an interesting observation, but the roof tax goes further than the old rating system because the document produced by the Scottish Labour party states that it not only taxes on the property value, but takes into account the income of those living in it.
Mr. Nigel Griffiths indicated assent.
Mr. Chope : I see that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South confirms that that is so. If it takes into account the income of those living in the property, it has to identify them and be able to work out their means. That means that the roof tax proposal is even more complicated than the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) seems to be prepared to accept, and certainly much more complicated than the community charge, which does not require another property valuation every time there is a change in the market, an improvement is carried out to somebody's home or facilities are added on for the disabled.
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Mr. Griffiths : Under the Labour proposal, it is not intended that every time an improvement is made in the home another valuation should be made. That makes it completely different from the poll tax, under which every change of circumstance and every move that people make, no matter how temporary, affects their assessment. Under the Labour scheme, with 100 per cent. rebates, the very widow to whom the Minister and Prime Minister enjoy referring will gain. The poor widow will get a 100 per cent. rebate. At present, the Minister makes such widows pay tens of hundreds of pounds.
Mr. Chope : Under the existing domestic rating system in England, widows and widowers pay many hundreds of pounds, often thousands of pounds. Single pensioners will be the main beneficiaries from the abolition of the domestic rating system in England.
I think that the hon. Gentleman is saying that, in Scotland, vast numbers of people, regardless of their means and merely because they are widows-- even if they are millionairess widows--will be entitled to a 100 per cent. rebate.
Mr. Chope : Oh, so not all widows and widowers will be exempt? Gradually, we are getting the information about this scheme. How many people will be exempt from the roof tax in Scotland or England, and what would be the extent of those exemptions? It is clear that the overall impact would be average bills of about £1,000 per adult, if not more. It would be a bureaucratic nightmare ; most people in Scotland can see that, which is why they are increasingly rejecting the idea. When it is developed further in England, people here will also wish to reject it.
Politics is all about alternatives. It is easy to criticise a system, particularly a taxation system. Most people agree with Conservative Members, and say that they feel in their bones that most of our town halls could spend much less money, and be substantially more efficient. We need a system that will bring pressure to bear to ensure that those efficiency savings are made.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South referred in passing to some selected examples of increases in spending in England. I shall take him to task on one or two of them to show that he is entirely out of touch with reality. He criticised Derby, which is
Conservative-controlled and has a well-run council. He said that there would be a substantial community charge in Derby. That is right, but whereas Conservative-controlled Derby city council has a budget below its standard spending assessment--in other words, it is providing services with greater than average efficiency--Derby county council is spending at 25 per cent. above its standard spending assessment. That spending amounts to £157 per adult on top of what would have to be paid if the council spent in line with its standard spending assessment.
The hon. Gentleman has scored an own goal. Whereas Derby city council, under Conservative control, has shown that it is well able to live within the standard spending assessment and provide good quality services, Labour- controlled Derbyshire county council has shown that it is extravagant and has no regard to the means of the people living in its area to meet high community charge bills. There are those who say that Derbyshire county council should be capped to provide some protection to the hard-pressed community charge payers in that area.
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Mr. Nigel Griffiths : What about Beverley?Mr. Chope : The situation in Beverley is not dissimilar from that in Derby. Humberside county council is Labour-controlled, and it increased its spending dramatically. Some of the Beverley councillors fear that it will not come across clearly to the people that the increase in spending and the high community charges are associated with the high-spending Labour policies of the county council. When the bills come through, however, that should become apparent. The hon. Gentleman would wish that not to be so, but the reason will become increasingly apparent.
Perhaps it would help the House if I said a little about the relative spending levels of different counties and districts that are under different political control. Labour-controlled counties are planning precepts that are £82 a head more than their standard spending assessments, whereas Conservative-controlled counties are planning precepts that are only £25 more than theirs. On average, Labour-controlled counties are overspending by three times as much as Conservative ones.
Labour-controlled shire districts are planning precepts of £45 per head more than their standard spending assessments, whereas Conservative districts are planning spending only £7 a head more than their assessments.
The starkest contrast is to be found in the London boroughs. Many regard the London Labour-controlled boroughs as the heartland of the Labour party. Much Labour party policy is developed in these areas, including high spending by local authorities. These boroughs dominate the Labour party. In London, the Labour-controlled boroughs are spending £223 a head above their standard spending assessments, whereas Conservative boroughs are spending only £3 a head above theirs. In other words, £220 per adult more than the standard spending assessments is being spent in Labour- controlled boroughs compared with the small excess of Conservative- controlled boroughs. That is a strong message that is going
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out to the people of London. It will bring home to them and to others nationally the extent of Labour extravagance and overspending.Mr. Andy Stewart (Sherwood) : My hon. Friend was talking about Derbyshire and Humberside. He might like to know that Nottinghamshire is in the same position as those counties. It is overspending and overcharging the Nottinghamshire people by £80. The Conservative opposition drew up a budget that would have been almost on target and would have saved charge payers £80 each. My hon. Friend might also like to know that, last year, Nottinghamshire could not even balance its education budget. It was overspent by £2.5 million. Worse still, the authority could not account for £750,000. Those are the sort of people who are running Nottinghamshire.
Mr. Chope : I hear what my hon. Friend says, and I sympathise with his constituents who have to live under that council.
The essence of the new system is that it will bring increased accountability so that people can choose between the better councils and the worse councils. Almost without exception, Conservatives in opposition are proposing substantial reductions in the community charge when they are elected to office.
Let me conclude by referring to the position in the
Labour-controlled metropolitan districts, which are spending £93 a head over their standard spending assessments, whereas
Conservative-controlled metropolitan districts are spending only £20 over the SSAs. We see a pattern across the country of Labour spendthrift policies and Labour overspending. That is why the Labour party despises the community charge. The community charge puts a premium on accountability and the Labour party does not like accountability. It does not like local people to realise where the blame for high spending and high bills lies-- almost without exception in Labour town halls.
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Opposition Parties (Financial Assistance)
6.50 am
Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East) : I am delighted to have been called, as I was uncertain that my debate would be reached. When I checked on the progress of the debate last night, I was told that it had only a small chance of being reached by 9 am, when the debate ends, so I was surprised to find that I was to be called earlier. I had imagined that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) would not be up quite so early, as I know that the Scots oppose the early introduction of double summer time. I thought that the hon. Gentleman would at least ensure that his hon. Friends allowed him to stay in bed a little longer. I had some difficulty in getting my application for the ballot in by 9 o'clock on Monday, and I am indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale) who got my name into the office in time.
I have chosen this subject because I believe that most of the public are ignorant of the fact that more than £1 million was given to the Opposition parties to enable them to conduct their opposition. The history of that goes back a little. The Library has given me a note of the development of the various Acts which have brought the present system about. They go back to 1937, when the Leader of the Opposition was first granted a salary to help him in his job. In 1975, we had the granting of Short money, followed by the Houghton committee report in 1976 and a Hansard Society commission report in 1981, both of which came down in favour of helping active political parties as an essential part of a healthy democracy. I think that we would all agree with that, in the light of developments in eastern Europe.
The money is paid on condition that it is used exclusively in relation to parliamentary business. I wish to clarify whether the money is being used for that purpose, in view of some of the failures of the Opposition parties to conduct themselves in a proper democratic fashion. In 1975, when the Short moneys were introduced, we had a responsible Opposition, who I am sure would not have condoned some of the practices that we have now. We have a list of Labour Members who signed a declaration, published on 19 January, that they would refuse to pay the community charge. As it is taxpayers' money that is funding the Short moneys, I question whether it is right for the Labour party to continue to include among its whipped Members those who refuse to pay a legitimately raised tax. Why should people pay tax for others who refuse to pay it although they are clearly able to do so? It is for purely political purposes that they refuse to pay--purposes which go beyond the political process.
The declaration that the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) issued on 19 January 1990 says :
"Labour MPs are linking up with the only force which can defeat the legislation--the mass action of millions of ordinary people involved in the Non-Payment Campaign organised into the All Britain Federation, which will become a mighty force in the coming weeks."
Is that parliamentary action or unparliamentary action by the official Opposition party--financed by the taxpayer?
I call on you, Mr. Speaker, to find a way in which payment of these moneys- -I understand that payments are made monthly--can be suspended while that party
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condones such action. Why does not the official Opposition leadership condemn it and throw out the Members who signed the declaration?The press release issued on 19 January makes the intriguing statement that "nearly 30 Labour MPs" have given their backing to the action. I have tried to check exactly who has given this backing. On the papers that I have been given, there are 29 names. I think that 28 people signed up on 19 January but that a list published by The Daily Telegraph on 9 March contains an additional name.
To clarify the situation, I should like to put the names on the record. The hon. Member for Coventry, South-East included the names of the following Members : the hon. Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mr. Fields) ; the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan), against whom there are currently legal proceedings, which in themselves, I should have thought, were grounds for immediate withdrawal of the official Opposition Whip ; the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden)--
Mr. Speaker : Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not dealing with cases that are sub judice.
Mr. Thurnham : That is the only sub judice case of which I am aware. There is no such impediment in the other cases--at any rate, not at this stage.
The list includes also the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) ; the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Wray) ; the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) who, of all those Members, I should have thought would want to obey the parliamentary process--
Mr. Bruce Grocott (The Wrekin) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. What has this to do with the financial aid given to Opposition parties? I have looked in the Library, just as the hon. Gentleman has done, but I can see no reference to any material of this sort. The hon. Gentleman seems to be getting very wide of the subject of debate.
Mr. Speaker : The hon. Gentleman has just started and is outlining his case. However, he must not deal with matters that are sub judice.
Mr. Thurnham : Let me make the position absolutely clear. The note that I have received from the Library says that, if the Accounting Officer has any reasonable doubt about the validity of any claim for official money, he should refer the matter to Mr. Speaker. The purpose of this debate is to establish whether there is some ground for an investigation by the Accounting Officer into whether any of the official money being paid to the official Opposition party is in any way leading to unparliamentary activity. If there is any doubt, either the Leader of the Opposition must withdraw the Whip from the 29 Members or the Short money should be suspended. Why should taxpayers pay nearly £1 million a year to help the official Opposition to oppose in a parliamentary fashion, when that Opposition clearly condone unparliamentary activity by allowing those 29 Members to continue?
I will resume my reading of the list. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield--
Mr. Grocott : Will the hon. Gentleman develop his argument a little and tell us what he thinks should be done about taxpayers' money which goes to the governing party, one of whose members has been suspended from this House?
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Mr. Thurnham : We are debating Short money. The point that the hon. Gentleman has raised is absolutely irrelevant. The hon. Gentleman questioned the relevance of what I was saying, but how can the right hon. Member for Chesterfield, of all people, condone something that is totally unparliamentary?Then we have the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Ms. Primarolo) and the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who is not here. However, he is one of the few people who has been consistent in the matter. If my recollection is correct, he voted against the payment of Short money when we last debated the subject two years ago.
Then we have the hon. Members for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), for Bradford, North (Mr. Wall)--the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) seems to have been left behind--the hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) and for Tottenham (Mr. Grant).
Now we have the hon. Member for Bradford, South and the hon. Members for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon), for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore), for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes), for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell), for Liverpool, Riverside (Mr. Parry), for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway), for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) and for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone). It sticks in my throat to call them honourable Members when they seek in an unparliamentary way to reverse legislation that has been passed by the House. Then there are the hon. Members for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott), for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay).
That is 28--not "nearly 30" as described in the press release. The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) gets me to 29--the nearly 30 names which were claimed. There may be another name that I have not yet had note of.
It is most unsatisfactory that the official Opposition should continue to allow those Members to take the Labour Whip. The Labour Whips' office is the principal beneficiary of the money that is provided, so it would surely be consistent to withdraw the Whip. The hon. Member for Coventry, South- East (Mr. Nellist) said that there will be a national demonstration this weekend, so surely now is the time for the Opposition to make a decision on the matter. Certainly 29 Labour Members have put their names to the declaration and will be involved with the demonstration this weekend. The Opposition Front Bench spokesmen are clearly condoning
unparliamentary activity and they must come to a decision. Either they must withdraw the Whip or ask you, Mr. Speaker, to suspend the payment of the Short money to them because they are clearly not carrying out their Opposition duties in a parliamentary fashion. The hon. Member for Coventry, South-East said that that was the only force which would defeat the legislation, but it is not. The force that can defeat the legislation is a vote in Parliament, not a mass demonstration organised outside the House in an attempt to persuade people not to pay the tax, which only imposes a greater burden on other taxpayers.
Some people may feel that the Short money should not be paid anyway. Perhaps it should be an optional extra on the community charge. When people pay their community charge, they should be asked whether they want to opt in
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to give the Opposition some money. Then we would know whether community charge payers wanted to encourage an Opposition who allow 29 or 30 of its members to say that they do not want to pay. We would then see exactly how much the British people want to pay towards Short money to assist the Opposition in carrying out their duties. If the Opposition act in such an unparliamentary way, people will feel less inclined to opt into the extra payment on their community charge. I have not done the arithmetic, but payment of a few pence on the community charge would be voluntary. The Opposition would then find out how keen the British people were to pay the Short money to them, and unparliamentary activity would obviously work against them.I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to consult your parliamentary Accounting Officer as to whether he is entirely satisfied that none of the money being paid is encouraging those 29 Members in their activities. As Members of the official Opposition, they are benefiting from the Short money. How can we condone such a situation?
I have a printout of newspaper articles from the Library, which quote many of the hon. Members whose names I have read out. I shall be pleased to provide this as evidence to the Accounting Officer, if he has any doubts. There is plenty of evidence here that Opposition Members are prepared to condone unparliamentary activity to reverse a parliamentary matter. It is most unsatisfactory that we should have had a great increase in the money paid at a time when the Opposition are failing to discipline their Members. The amount paid to the Labour party has doubled. According to the latest figures that I have found, in 1986 it was £440,000, in 1987 it was £436,000 and in 1988 it was £883,000, so the amount given to the Labour party to enable it to conduct its affairs in a parliamentary fashion has virtually doubled. What does the extra money do? It seems to encourage 10 per cent. of Labour Members to behave in a totally unparliamentary way. If we cannot suspend the Short money altogether, perhaps it would be best to have a debate on whether it should be reduced to its previous level as a discipline on the Labour party, which seems quite unable to discipline its own members.
I thank you for the opportunity to raise this subject, Mr. Speaker, in a short debate at such an early hour this morning. I hope that it will encourage the Opposition Front Bench to think carefully about their position in the next few days before the weekend demonstration, and to discipline its members. If the Opposition cannot discipline their own members, I think that the House should discipline the Opposition.
7.11 am
Mr. Bruce Grocott (The Wrekin) : When the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) reads his speech or watches it on the video, I do not think that he will be proud of it. The phrases that kept creeping in about disciplining Opposition parties would have tripped easily off the tongue of people usually associated with more totalitarian methods of ruling. Let us be crystal clear about the matter. If the income of whichever party is in opposition--I shall return to that point in a minute, because it is of particular interest, given the opinion polls today--were to depend on the whims of the Government majority, and on an assessment by Government Members
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of whether the Opposition were worthy of the money, and if the subject could be raised in debate whenever the Government felt it was appropriate, it would be a dangerous constitutional precedent. The power of the House is awesome. It can do anything by a majority vote. If the hon. Member wanted to use the effective electoral dictatorship which the majority has it could make the Labour party illegal. However, the House can operate only if the principles are observed and if there is no suggestion of the kind of attitude and principle--or rather lack of it-- that the hon. Gentleman has displayed by his suggestion that the Labour party's money should depend on a daily assessment and on the jurisdiction of the majority party in the House.I was about to say that the hon. Gentleman will be on the Opposition benches soon, viewing a party that he does not like in power. But he will not be with us when that occurs. Therefore, he has a certain freedom of speech on the subject, knowing that he will not be held accountable, although we shall ensure that some of his hon. Friends are held accountable, as soon as the happy day arrives when Government and Opposition are reversed.
I fully understand--I suspect that it will be exercising the minds of many of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues between now and the next general election--the importance of the rights of Opposition parties. That has been recognised over the years by those who have subjected these matters to serious debate. I make no apology for quoting Lord Prior--as he is now-- although I have done so in the past. In July 1974, when his party was in opposition, he said :
"Concerning additional cash for Opposition parties, I suppose that one of the benefits of the change in Government in recent years is that it has brought to the notice of Governments the very great difficulties from which Oppositions suffer, particularly Shadow Ministers
But certainly, as far as this proposal goes, I believe that Front Bench spokesmen, with the additional correspondence and additional research work that is now required of them--which is far greater than it was even a few years ago--do need the sort of assistance that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned."--[ Official Report, 29 July 1974 ; vol. 878, c. 33-4.]
Anyone who honestly reviews our work over the past 16 years will know that that work load has greatly increased since 1974, and that, given all the pressures and demands on Opposition parties which were rightly referred to then, the case has become stronger and stronger. I might add that the money that Opposition parties have with which to deal with those pressures has not increased in anything like the same proportion as the money that we pay to keep the Prime Minister in office. The hon. Gentleman gave the Labour party's 1986 figure as £440,000 and the current figure as £883,000. I took the precaution of putting down a question about the cost of running the Prime Minister's office, which I thought might be relevant to the debate. I was told that in 1987 the cost was £5,418,455.
Mr. Greg Knight (Derby, North) : So what?
Mr. Grocott : I shall be pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman intervene after the next figure. I know that he is tired ; he has probably been here for a long while. The duty of a Whip--
Mr. Thurnham : I have been listening carefully, but, although I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman
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would want to begin his speech by condemning the action of the 29 hon. Members whom I mentioned, I have not heard a word about it. After all, we have come to hear him answer the points that I made. I am surprised that he has got so far without even mentioning that.Mr. Grocott : The strange thing is that I am speaking to a subject put down by the hon. Gentleman, not me, entitled "Financial Assistance to Opposition parties". Had he wanted to discuss the poll tax, he could have put down a motion accordingly. Obviously he got up rather late this morning, grabbed the nearest set of notes, rushed into the Library and constructed the best job he could. I understand the problem ; I also understand the hon. Gentleman's wish to interrupt my comments about the cost of running the Prime Minister's office. Lest he forget, the cost in 1987 was £5,418,455 ; the estimate for 1989 is £7,924,979. That is a 50 per cent. increase since the general election.
Last week the people of Mid-Staffordshire were able--among other things--to judge whether they had been obtaining value for money over that period, and I think that the answer was pretty conclusive. We will not take from the Conservative party--during the months in Government that remain to it-- lectures about Opposition expenditure, when Government expenditure has increased on a vastly greater scale than ours. In any case, the Conservative party has support that is well out of our reach.
The Leader of the Opposition has a smallish office. Each of his shadow Secretaries of State has one researcher. That has to be compared with a Civil Service of over 500,000, which is what the Prime Minister has at her disposal. The disparity will become all too clear to Conservative Members before too long. Anyone who is concerned about democracy should be worried about the growing gap between the resources that are available to either side. When the positions are reversed, the hon. Member for Bolton, North- East will not find me, on that side of the House, arguing that the amount of money that is made available to the Opposition, however bad they may be, should be reduced.
The Government have increased massively the resources that are available to them. They have increased the amount of money that they spend on advertising their wares. There has been a sixfold increase in Government expenditure on advertising, particularly television advertising, since they came to power. In 1984, Department of Industry expenditure on television advertisements amounted to £32, 000. In 1989, that amount had increased to £13 million. The Government's power has greatly increased since they took office. They use television advertisements to try to persuade the electorate of their advantages over the Opposition. The water privatisation advertisements were party political advertisements. They had nothing to do with Government administration. In the cold light of day, a few Ministers and Conservative Members must have felt some guilt over the way in which that money was spent.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that the taxpayer should be able to opt in and out on the question whether the Opposition should be given any money. The taxpayers in Mid-Staffordshire clearly opted out of wanting to give any more money to the Government. I have not checked the hon. Gentleman's voting record, but I wonder whether he would argue that shareholders should have the right to
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opt out when payments are made on their behalf to political parties--always, of course, to the Conservative party.I do not think that the hon. Gentleman will be thrilled with his speech when he reads it. It was recognised overwhelmingly by previous Parliaments that money should be made available to Opposition parties. In my view, not nearly enough money is made available to them. The disparity is growing and is becoming frightening. I have given the figures relating to the cost of running the Prime Minister's office.
With their parliamentary majority, the Government can take that money away from Opposition parties. If a kangaroo court consisting of Conservative Back Benchers ever said, "We do not like the way that that Member of Parliament is behaving ; take away the Opposition's money," or, "We do not like the way that that shadow Minister is behaving ; take away the Opposition's money," it would be a sad day for democracy. In fact, it would be a near-terminal day for democracy. This is an unnecessary and not very good subject for debate. I hope that no one will take it too seriously.
7.25 am
The Parliamentary under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Christopher Chope) : In contrast to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott), I have no hesitation in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) on scoring a bullseye in this short debate. He gave the Opposition an opportunity to comment on the actions of Labour Members, and the hon. Member for The Wrekin, their spokesman, declined to comment. Perhaps he does not have sufficient discretion or flexibility to do so.
I would have hoped that all Members of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition would have no hesitation in saying that they believe in loyalty to the sovereign and the rule of law. The rule of law is fundamental to a democratic society, but a number of Labour Members seem to saying that they wish to reject the rule of law--
Mr. Don Dixon (Jarrow) : Get on with it.
Mr. Chope : I get the impression that the Opposition Whip wishes to interrupt, albeit from a sedentary position. Perhaps he would like to take this opportunity to condemn
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his hon. Friends who are going round the country encouraging people not to pay the community charge, thereby imposing a higher burden on those who will pay, and at the same time saying that they themselves will not pay. What an appalling example to set.Mr. Chope : Clearly, the Opposition Whip must be as concerned about that as are others. The hon. Gentleman cannot take the medicine. Only when Opposition Members show themselves to be worthy upholders of the rule of law will they be taken seriously in the country. They have an opportunity now, at 7.25 am, to say unequivocally that all those Labour Members who say that they will not pay the community charge are wrong. I hope that not only words but actions will follow and that the Leader of the Opposition will say that, if they continue to encourage people not to pay the community charge and not to uphold the rule of law, they will be expelled from the Labour party.
Mr. Grocott : Will the Minister be clear on one point, for his remarks are obviously more serious when uttered from the Dispatch Box than when said from the Back Benches? Is he saying, as a Member of the Government, that the Opposition's money should be dependent on his assessment--the Government's assessment--of how well they are doing their work?
Mr. Chope : I am not saying that. The Opposition's money is not their money but the taxpayers' money, and I should have thought that they were entitled to know whether the money that is going in their name to the Opposition is going to a responsible or irresponsible Opposition. That is the point that my hon. Friend raised in this debate.
It will be noted that in his intervention, the hon. Member for The Wrekin resolutely declined to criticise in any way the action of almost one seventh of parliamentary Labour party members, who have said that they are not prepared to pay the community charge, who are encouraging others not to pay it and who, in other words, are not prepared to uphold the rule of law. They are picking and choosing which laws they wish to obey. To do that is not democracy but anarchy.
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Forensic Entomology
7.27 am
Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery) : I am grateful for the opportunity to put before the House a subject which I believe has not been debated in the House before but which will become increasingly important in the future of forensic science. It is the subject of forensic entomology, and I wish in particular to highlight the case of Dr. Zakaria Erzinclioglu, a forensic entomologist, and the funding of his research.
I begin with a riddle to which I will give the answer shortly. When is a corpse not just a corpse?
During the night, when I was huddled in an armchair in a distant corner of the Palace of Westminster, I had a dream--this is the truth--about you, Mr. Speaker. In the course of this dream, which I had at about 4 am, I dreamed that there was one of those noisy scenes which have made you, something of a star of the small screen since television reached this House. During that noisy scene--it was no doubt an anxiety dream, as I was the target of some of your irritation, if I can be forgiven for using that word--a forensic scientist suddenly came to your rescue with a magical spray which enabled you to quell the wrath of hon. Members with each other, and to bring the proceedings to order in an instant.
The forensic scientist in that dream was not Dr. Zakaria Erzinclioglu, who is the subject of this debate, but another forensic scientist, Professor Alec Jeffreys of Leicester university. He is a forensic scientist who has come to fame in recent years because of his discovery of DNA fingerprinting or DNA profiling, as it is also known.
I had the privilege in a prosecution that I conducted at Mold Crown court in north Wales of calling Professor Jeffreys as an expert witness and of seeing the ability of DNA profiling to prove a rape charge that would otherwise have been completely unprovable. There was no more substantial evidence against the defendant than the DNA profile, of which Professor Jeffreys gave evidence.
When I started to practise at the Bar in 1971, if somebody had said to me that a scientist would come along in fewer than 20 years and produce what was in effect a photograph that looked as though it had a bar code on it, and which would identify one man from the whole population as a rapist, I should have said that he was quite mad. Yet fewer than 20 years later, it happened. Forensic science is gathering pace and forensic entomology is a growing aspect of forensic science that I believe will develop greatly in the next 20 years provided that it is given Government support.
Britain's only full-time forensic entomologist is Dr. Zakaria Erzinclioglu to whom I shall now refer for shorthand as Dr. Zak. I know that he does not object to that and everyone else seems to refer to him in that way. Dr. Zak is youngish and brilliant and the only full-time forensic entomologist in the United Kingdom. He works at the department of zoology in the university of Cambridge. He likens his profession to that of an archaeologist. He says :
"A forensic investigation is building up a picture of the past. We're faced with evidence of what has happened and we aim to reconstruct those events."
In one case which he helped to solve, a 13-year-old girl has gone missing and a man suspected of her murder was found to be in possession of human bones which he had
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