House of Commons Hansard Debates for 22 May 1990

Mr. Skinner : Is the Minister aware that earlier this afternoon the Prime Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary was engaged in a training scheme on the Government side of the House? He was trying to get planted questions put to the Prime Minister and was going around giving training to Tory Members so that the Prime Minister would be aware of the questions that would come up when she turns up in the House at a quarter past three.

Mr. Howard rose --

Mr. Skinner : And the Prime Minister's PPS is not registered for VAT.

Mr. Howard : I am sure that no amount of training would enable anyone to predict a question asked by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) if he is fortunate enough to catch your eye later this afternoon, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Butcher : Will my right hon. and learned Friend liaise with his colleague the Secretary of State for Education and Science and encourage him to give greater autonomy to local education authority colleges of further education which, if given that autonomy, more self government and more responsibility for their budgets and employment policies, could market their wares far more effectively into a rapidly changing training market?

Mr. Howard : My hon. Friend will doubtless be aware of our proposals for pilot training credit schemes. Those who obtain the training buying power that the credits will provide will be able to use them at colleges of further education and I believe that that will go a long way towards achieving the objective to which my hon. Friend referred.

Training

11. Mr. Jack Thompson : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will estimate the numbers of employees receiving training in Britain.

Mr. Eggar : Figures from the labour force survey show that, in the spring of 1989, 3.1 million employees received job-related training in the four weeks prior to the survey. That was an increase of more than 70 per cent. compared with the same period in 1984.

Mr. Thompson : When will the Minister recognise that in the north- east of England the coal mining, shipbuilding and heavy engineering industries have now been decimated? They were the basis of good training schemes in the past. Such schemes need to be replaced by other means of training, which cannot be supported by the

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market forces philosophy. They need Government support. When will the Minister bear in mind the pleas of the Engineering Council and the Machine Tool Technologies Association for training, particularly in engineering, to be considered as a national asset, as it is in other European countries, where it does not necessarily respond to market forces?

Mr. Eggar : I agree with the hon. Gentleman that training is important to the future prosperity of the north-east, as it is in the rest of the country. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in welcoming the splendid way in which the north-east has responded to the initiative to set up training and enterprise councils. Indeed, three of the first 10 TECs to be established were from the north-east.

Mr. Batiste : Does my hon. Friend agree that, as the demographic trough bites in the 1990s, it is important that the reducing number of young people leaving school should receive the fullest possible training? Will he therefore liaise with his colleagues in the Department of Education and Science to ensure that, as the national curriculum develops, children leave school with the skills that they need to take advantage of the training opportunities that his Department is making available?

Mr. Eggar : I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Liaison between schools and industry is extremely important. I pay tribute to the major contribution made by senior industrialists by going on to governing bodies of schools, by supporting the compacts scheme and various other schools-- industry proposals that have been put forward, and are being put forward almost daily. They are extremely important. It is right that youngsters should be work-ready and training-ready when they leave school.

Noise at Work

13. Mr. John Evans : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether his Department will commission any research into the effectiveness of the noise at work regulations.

Mr. Nicholls : The Health and Safety Executive is already planning to evaluate those regulations. During 1991 and 1992 it will be undertaking a survey of the extent to which the required measures have been carried out in industry.

Mr. Evans : Is the Minister aware that hundreds and probably thousands of people in St. Helens have had their hearing severely impaired by the dreadful noise levels that appertain in the glass industry and that they are still not covered by the noise at work regulations? Will the Minister accept an invitation from me to visit a glass factory in St. Helens so that I can convince him of the justice that those workers deserve?

Mr. Nicholls : I thank the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in telling me that he wished to raise this issue. As I understand the position, the regulations apply to all places of work. I can see no reason why they should not apply to such a place of work. If the hon. Gentleman can tell me why he has been given that information or where the information has come from, I promise that I shall look into it at once.

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Sir Anthony Grant : Will the research into noise at work include the House of Commons? The noise here and the audibility of the system are such as to make work almost impossible sometimes.

Mr. Nicholls : The powers of the Government may be great, but they are not sufficient to take care of the level or quality of the noise in the House. I am afraid that both may defeat us.

Low Pay

14. Mr. Campbell-Savours : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what representations he received on low pay in the current year from the north of England.

Mr. Eggar : Since 1 January 1990, my right hon. and learned Friend has received 13 representations on low pay from the north of England.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : Why is it that more than 1 million people in the north and north-west of England earn what the Council of Europe defines as low pay? What possible moral justification can there be for a newspaper to publish advertisements offering people less than £2 an hour in the 1990s? People cannot live on that amount. What are the Government going to do about it?

Mr. Eggar : I will tell the hon. Gentleman what the Government are not going to do. They are not going to do what the Opposition want to do-- introduce a national minimum wage which will reduce the number of jobs available to the people of this country. The hon. Gentleman must remember that, if we were to introduce a national minimum wage of half average manual earnings, there is likely to be a loss of jobs of about 750,000 over three to four years. Low pay is a great deal better than no pay.

Labour Statistics

15. Mr. Oppenheim : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the average annual number of working days lost in (a) 1970 to 1979, (b) 1980 to 1989 and (c) the most recent 12-month period for which figures are available.

Mr. Howard : On average, there were 12.9 million working days lost a year in the period 1970 to 1979 ; 7.2 million in the period 1980 to 1989 ; and, it is provisionally estimated, 5.1 million in 12 months to March 1990. The number of stoppages in 1989 was the lowest for over 50 years.

Mr. Oppenheim : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that that good news has some relationship to the massive improvement in the performance of British industry in the past decade? Does he further agree that a return to unbridled secondary picketing would destroy all the progress that British industry has made and would return us to the days of the 1970s when British manufacturing output fell under the last Labour Government?

Mr. Howard : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Nothing would be more guaranteed to deal a death blow to this country's economic prospects than the Opposition's

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proposals to make striking easier, which would lower output, lower prosperity and lower the living standards of everybody in Britain.

PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Q1. Mr. David Nicholson : To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 May 1990.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher) : This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I hope to have an audience of Her Majesty the Queen.

Mr. Nicholson : Will my right hon. Friend spend a few moments today recalling the material damage done to this nation, and the damage to its reputation and to individual liberties, by the episodes at Saltley, Grunwick, Wapping and during the 1984 miners' strike? Will she give a pledge to the House that, despite certain proposals from certain other sources this week, no Government under her leadership would legalise secondary industrial action or secondary picketing?

The Prime Minister : I am glad to give my hon. Friend the assurance he seeks. All who remember the scenes of the secondary picketing and the terrible intimidation recall also the admiration we felt for those who were determined to exercise their right to go to their place of work and who had the courage to go through the lines. I heard my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Employment say a few moments ago that since we brought in our revised laws on secondary picketing and trade union reform the number of industrial stoppage last year was the lowest for a very long time.

Mr. Kinnock : Will the Prime Minister confirm, as her Chancellor acknowledged earlier today, that under her Government the tax burden on British families is higher than it has ever been under any Government in history?

The Prime Minister : I confirm-- [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker : Order. The Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister : I confirm that at all levels of income the rates of income tax have been reduced--on earned income, from 83 per cent., when we went into Downing street, to some 40 per cent. at the top rate, and, on the standard rate, from 33p in the pound to 25p in the pound. The people have done very well both as to increased income and reduced tax levels.

Mr. Kinnock : Yes, and after that disposable income has been obtained, people are then faced with doubled VAT, higher charges and now the poll tax, which is the reason why, as the Prime Minister should admit, she is charging the highest burden of taxation of any Government in history. Why are the Government and the Prime Minister so reluctant to claim what is truly theirs--the record for being the biggest taxers ever?

The Prime Minister : The right hon. Gentleman would put up taxes all right. [Interruption.] I doubt very much whether the British people want to go back to 83p in the pound on earned income and 98p in the pound on savings

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income, or to have their taxes put up, as I understand the right hon. Gentleman would like to do. Their incomes have gone up tremendously and most of them--indeed, all of them--have had a substantial increase in their standard of living.

Mr. Kinnock : Does the Prime Minister recall making the promise that the share of the nation's income taken by the state would be steadily reduced under her Government? She ratted on that promise, of course, but will she now admit that, after 11 years, and despite the oil revenues, the asset sales and the fiddle on the pensioners, her Government are still the biggest taxers in history?

The Prime Minister : We have by far the biggest income in history and the lowest tax rates since before the war. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will remember that under Labour Governments, when the spending went up and up and up, the Chancellor had not the courage to finance it honestly and took a public sector borrowing requirement that was equal to 9 per cent. of GDP, an amount that would now equal a borrowing of £44 billion a year.

Mr. John Carlisle : Will my right hon. Friend confirm that her meeting last Saturday with President de Klerk of South Africa was extremely satisfactory and that she found him to be a man of integrity and courage and a man in a great hurry for reform? In those circumstances, will she continue to relax what few economic sanctions we have against that country, and withdraw from the innocuous Gleneagles agreement and resume sporting links with South Africa?

The Prime Minister : I think everyone has been impressed with President de Klerk's integrity and courage. He has embarked on a reform that will bring an end-- [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker : Order. We cannot have conversations across the Chamber. The Prime Minister is answering a question.

The Prime Minister : I shall start again, Mr. Speaker.

I think everyone who saw or heard him has admired President de Klerk's integrity and courage. He has embarked on reforms which are irreversible, which will bring an end to apartheid and which will, through negotiation, bring about a democratic Government on a non-racial basis. I believe that he deserves to be fully supported for the courageous reforms that he is making. I believe that there is now no place for sanctions and that they are almost irrelevant. Those people who want South Africa to have a prosperous economy should not support sanctions in any way.

Q2. Mr. Tony Lloyd : To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 May.

The Prime Minister : I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Lloyd : Is the Prime Minister aware that last year 514 fatal accidents were reported to the Health and Safety Executive, reversing the long-term downward trend in deaths at work? Given that background, can the Prime Minister explain why the HSE is seeking to make cuts in its establishment? Will she give the House the guarantee

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that, if the HSE wants more money to maintain or to improve the level of services that it now provides, that money will be made available?

The Prime Minister : As the hon. Gentleman knows, we believe that health and safety are of prime importance in the work force. Last year there were one or two terrible accidents that may have added to the total. We shall fully support the Health and Safety Executive in its arduous and very important work.

Sir Ian Gilmour : In view of my right hon. Friend's successful meeting last Saturday and the terrible killings in Palestine during the past few days, does she see any sign of an Israeli equivalent to Mr. de Klerk in Palestine?

The Prime Minister : As my right hon. Friend is aware, two of the great problems of the Arab-Israel situation at the moment are, first, that there is no Government of Israel with whom to negotiate and, secondly, there are no signs of talks beginning. We have done everything that we can- -and will continue to do everything that we can--to try to get those talks started. Events almost every day show the importance of that. We shall pursue the matter through our usual channels.

Q3. Mr. Livsey : To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 May.

The Prime Minister : I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Livsey : Does the Prime Minister agree that the subject of public health is above party politics and that the issue of BSE and beef has been subjected to the antics of politicians? Does she further agree that that issue needs to be tackled more firmly by the Government? Although British beef is indeed safe to eat, does the Prime Minister accept that she needs to consult further with scientists in the Department of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and with independent scientists? Will she please make a statement on that?

The Prime Minister : I am not certain whether the hon. Gentleman heard or read the debate yesterday. If he did, he will have heard my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture point out that we commissioned the Southwood report some time ago, and took action upon all its recommendations. We could not have used a more distinguished scientist. We then appointed Dr. Tyrrell of the medical research council to advise my right hon. Friend further, and any advice that he has given has been taken by my right hon. Friend. We can do no better than take the best scientific advice available. The chief medical officer has also given his advice. We foresaw some of the problems, we appointed the scientists and we have taken their advice. The hon. Gentleman cannot ask for more.

Q4. Dr. Twinn : To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 May.

The Prime Minister : I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Dr. Twinn : Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning the disgraceful attack on graves in the Jewish cemetery in Edmonton? Will she send her sympathy to the family and friends of those who are buried there who have suffered?

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The Prime Minister : I gladly respond to my hon. Friend's invitation, as would every hon. Member. Those attacks, wherever they occurred in the world, were appalling and should never have happened. We shall all do all that we can to ensure that they never happen again. We wish to express our sympathy for those who have suffered, and for all Jewish people everywhere who have been reminded again of such terrible events.

Mr. Livingstone : Does the Prime Minister agree that she would not be prepared to retain any individual in her Cabinet if it could be demonstrated that that person had been prepared to advocate an armed coup against the last Labour Government? Will she take action in relation to the letter from General Sir Walter Walker, in which he recounts details of a meal at which he was present with several City financiers, along with the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), and had to reprimand the right hon. Gentleman for taking exactly that line?

The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman brings out all kinds of tittle-tattle that is not worthy of reply. The last Labour Prime Minister answered the fundamental part of his question, and I have nothing further to add.

Q5. Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 May.

The Prime Minister : I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Will my right hon. Friend confirm that her Government will not increase taxes on people with relatively modest incomes--such as graduate and medium-ranking teachers with responsibility allowance, local government officers or nurses in grades H and I--and then turn around and describe them as high-income earners, as the Leader of the Opposition did in Bootle yesterday? He would skin them alive.

The Prime Minister : My hon. Friend puts her own view in her own way. I entirely agree that many medium-income people such as some teachers, nurses and policemen would be adversely affected by the increases in taxation proposed by the Labour party. I hope that it will never be put into office to implement those increases.

Mr. Rees : Was not it very unwise, given the political situation in Northern Ireland, for the right hon. Lady to allow her Ministers in Northern Ireland--who do an excellent job within the community, far better than any other Minister--to campaign for a Conservative candidate who ended up in the last six in the election? That was lower than the Irish Independence party, Sinn Fein and the Workers party. Surely the Prime Minister cannot let that happen again.

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The Prime Minister : In a democratic system, people are not precluded from putting up for a by-election if they wish to do so--unless they have to have a licence to do so in the Labour party.

Q6. Mr. David Evans : To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 May.

The Prime Minister : I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. David Evans : I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree with me that on this side of the House we have history and tradition on our side. [Laughter.]

Mr. Speaker : Order.

Mr. Evans : Does she think that it would be a good idea if we had a flag day to commemorate a day that is important to the Conservative party, such as the day on which Winston Churchill became Prime Minister--10 May 1940--or perhaps the day on which the task force set off for the Falklands to show the world that sovereignty and freedom came before everything else, or perhaps even the day that my right hon. Friend became Prime Minister? On the other hand, she might agree with me that the most significant day for the Conservative party was 1 October 1983, when the Leader of the Opposition became leader of the Labour party, went to Brighton beach and fell flat on his face. He has done just that every Tuesday and Thursday ever since.

The Prime Minister : I congratulate my hon. Friend on his ingenuity and clarity of expression. I entirely agree with him that we are the party with the longest history behind us and the longest future before us, all in serving the people.

NEW MEMBER

The following Member took and subscribed the Oath :

William David Trimble, Esq., for Upper Bann.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 8 JUNE Members successful in the ballot were :

Mr. Ian McCartney

Mr. Doug Hoyle

Sir Trevor Skeet.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Ordered,

That the draft Police (Dispensation from Requirement to Investigate Complaints) Regulations 1990 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.-- [Mr. Chapman.]

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