House of Commons Hansard Debates for 12 Nov 1990

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housing. Women are suffering agonies because they have no home for their children. Anyone really concerned about families would ensure that they had decent homes.

The availability of child care was second in the list of people's priorities for family policy. Again, Britain's record under this Tory Government is deplorable in that regard. There has been one small improvement, with the abolition of the tax on workplace nurseries. That was important more for its principle and potential than for any mass effect, because very few workplace nurseries exist.

The Opposition welcome any good quality nursery provision. However, most of us would prefer to see local council provision so that changing a job does not mean having to change a child's nursery. What is happening now? The Prime Minister's favourite council, Wandsworth, is planning to close all its day nurseries. A mother might have to pay as much as £100 a week for a private nursery in Wandsworth. Even in Preston, the going rate is around £50 a week.

Training is another imperative if women are to have real equal opportunities. There is no national strategy for training of women. Indeed, the newest training scheme caused the chief executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission to express great concern at the discriminatory effects of the new arrangements.

Women going out to work can mean women improving their standard of living, getting job satisfaction and laying the groundwork for satisfactory long- term employment. However, too often it does not mean that. Too often, women are driven out to work by mortgages, rents and poll tax. They are struggling to maintain--not improve--their standard of living, often doing jobs that are damaging to health, working when they are over-stressed and worried about their children.

Health and safety at work is still too much seen in terms of accidents and not enough in terms of functional health. However, jobs such as supermarket checkout operator involve twisting, lifting one-handedly and repetitive movements which cause great strain to the back, arms and neck. But what can the Health and Safety Executive do with a total budget of £120 million and an inspectorate of 200 fewer than it had when the Government came to office?

A Government who were really concerned about women would make sure that there was good child care, good training, healthier work conditions and better pay for women. They would help unions instead of hindering them.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am sorry but I must stop the hon. Lady. I call Sir Rhodes Boyson.

6.59 pm

Sir Rhodes Boyson (Brent, North) : I welcome the proposed war crimes Bill. It is a matter of principle. Certain events in the Gulf, where war crimes may be happening again, make it even more topical then it was before.

The rights, freedoms and responsibilities about which I am concerned are those about which my constituents are also concerned. One responsibility is the state of the environment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Mr. Durant) mentioned. The Gracious Speech states :

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"My Government will continue to work for the regeneration of our cities."

We allowed the destruction of the inner city, and that has occurred over 20 years. Unless we are careful, we shall destroy suburbia at the same time by overbuilding, destroying sports fields, and back-garden development. In 20 years we will ask, "Why did we not stop it before it got into this state?"

The Government should take note of three simple issues which I have mentioned before and all of which are supported by hon. Members from my area, irrespective of party affiliation, and by hon. Members from big cities. First, no house should be allowed to be knocked down without planning permission. One can knock a house down now and make it look like a bomb site and then apply to build something. To buy the peace, the application goes through. If we need planning permission before we build, there should be planning permission to knock down.

Secondly, it is against justice and against the little man and woman who have saved all their lives to own a house, that if a planning application goes through a local council there is no appeal by the little people who live round the area. However, if a planning application is turned down by a council, there is a right of appeal by the developer to the Secretary of State. That is against justice, freedoms and responsibilities.

Thirdly, no planning application should be allowed until people own the land concerned or until they have a letter saying that they agree to the development. Several years ago, in respect of people living in 700 houses, a planning application went in and the person concerned did not own one centimetre of land. The worry of the old people in that area was such that I had to go from door to door to settle them down before they were almost forced by salesmen at the door to sell at reduced prices.

In the area that I have the honour to represent, some of the things that housing associations are building are certainly worse than I have seen any councils build, apart from the fashion of the tower block. One evening in my constituency, I visited 150 people who were gathered because of a further development going on behind their homes. They lived in a housing development with hardly any garages or gardens--it was a window box society. They had done their best to make it better. They then found that a sports field behind them was subject to a planning application which would confine them in a concrete jungle and, to mix metaphors--why not, if one is enjoying it?--it was worse than the back-to-back developments of the 19th century.

There is a right to a decent standard of education. All of us know that there is a problem with education standards at present. If hon. Members do not know that, they must have been having no surgeries and not opening their letters. The Government have five things to do. The Gracious Speech states :

"My Government will continue to take action to improve quality in education."

I thought that I should state where the Government should take action to help them along their way.

First, the seven-plus tests are good, but they should be made and conducted by teachers, not by an educational establishment which has hardly seen children for the past 20 years. Tests that take one and a half weeks, when the sadly demoted 11-plus test took two hours, and that come from outside are totally wrong. If we put six infant

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teachers in a room with six heads of infant schools, they could make the tests in an hour. They do not need £6 million and all the committees and bureaucracy that are attached to it.

Secondly, we need specialist schools for children aged 14 and upwards. All our competitors have such schools--Russia, Japan, Germany and Sweden, irrespective of their economic system. Such schools must be brought in. The Labour party destroyed the grammar schools which 75 per cent. of the population want back. They will not come back, but specialist schools should. Any party that takes up that suggestion, brings in specialist schools for pupils aged 14 to 18 and trains them for proper apprenticeships will have the support of masses of people in this country. Thirdly, I believe in grant-maintained schools, but every school in the country should have to vote on whether to become grant-maintained.

Fourthly, if we are to have three-year degree courses, we must maintain A- level standards. Fifthly, there must be an improvement in teachers' salaries. That matters more than buildings or anything else. We must have good teachers more than lower pupil-teacher ratios. Good teachers are more important than a reduction in the size of classes. Any teacher who can control 20 children can control 30 children. Those who cannot control 20 children would have a riot with a dead rabbit, and there is nothing we can do about that. One fears for the teachers who cannot cope inside the classroom.

In a debate on education in July, the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong) referred to my views on the assisted places scheme as given in a review that I did for The Times higher education supplement. I explained that in at least one case the results were very different from what was intended. The hon. Lady kindly sent me a note that she was to speak, but, unfortunately, I had already left for a radio broadcast so I was not here to comment. I fully support the assisted places scheme. Anything that one starts finishes rather differently from what one started. In that review I indicated how the differences work. I still strongly deplore the Labour party's stated policy to end the assisted places scheme, the remaining grammar schools, grant-maintained schools and city technology colleges, all in pursuit of an egalitarian, socialist education policy that was long ago long left behind by the rest of the world.

Another right is the right to movement. Twenty thousand people in my constituency travel by tube to London every day. The third biggest debate in my constituuency--I will tell nobody tonight what the biggest debate is ; it has nothing to do with their Member of Parliament, incidentially--is about getting to work on time without having to set off early and getting back in time before the evening meal. We are creating a sandwich society. There are sandwich bars everywhere. Passengers never know when they will get into London, and they never know when they will get out.

I welcome the fact that transport investment has gone up to £16 billion over three years, which is £4 billion more than the previous three years and £2 billion more than we thought it would be last week. We need many more tube lines in London. It is not good enough playing around extending bits and pieces. If we are to get London right, four or five new tube lines must be built in the 1990s. We should privatise British Rail, which is what I would prefer to do, or invest in it. We cannot leave it as a running

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sore for which the Government take responsibility. Yesterday, I was trying to get from Manchester to London so that I could be here today, but there was a guards' strike. The first train from Manchester to London was at 5.30. I could have walked to London in that time--I do not mind getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning. Fortunately, we have privatised British Airways, and there was no strike. In the case of British Rail, the customer does not matter, because the railways are still a nationalised industry.

I have two more minutes, I believe. On Europe--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : One minute.

Sir Rhodes Boyson : Just over one minute. I am obeying the Chair. I shall miss out something. Hon. Members will never know what I was going to say about Europe. They will have to wait for another speech.

In Brent, the money from the standard spending assessment has gone up this year from £190 million to £216 million, which is a 13.5 per cent. increase. Provided that the Labour party and the Liberal party in Brent behave properly, which would be a new experience, but there is still time for it to happen, because I have always believed in the forgiveness of sums -- [Interruption.] --and the forgiveness of sins, and the salvation of men--and provided that those parties co-operate with the biggest party in Brent, which is the Conservative party, I believe that we can bring the community charge there down to below £400. If we can do that, people will be able to afford more sandwiches and to move their children to the grant-maintained schools more than they can at present, and then they will come and see me in the constituency to ask me my views on Europe.

7.9 pm

Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : As the hon. Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) said, we may be living in a "sandwich society" in which one never knows when one is coming in or getting out, but no one could describe this as a "sandwich debate" because, as the hon. Gentleman found, hon. Members know when they are going to be cut off in midstream.

The debate is about rights and responsibilities. One right which is not protected in this House is the right of minority parties to be heard. We heard an interesting speech, lasting 50 minutes from the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, with a good deal of which I agree. Although an effective speech may be made in 10 minutes--the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) made such a speech--it is not possible to do justice in that time to the political philosophy of the Liberal Democrats in the matters facing the country. Therefore, I shall not attempt to deal with or even to refer to all the matters that concern us deeply. It is right to note that the public will be mystified when reading the report of the debate because there will be so little in it about the views of the Liberal Democrats, and they will comment on the fact that it is not possible to develop those matters.

I begin by referring to the speech within a speech by the Home Secretary on the merger between BSB and Sky. His scant regard for the illegalities struck a jarring note at the beginning of a speech in which he thought fit to take the official Opposition to task for their attitude to the poll tax. The fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not think it odd that the Prime Minister had not notified him

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about the impending illegality was, frankly, bizarre. The Home Secretary shows himself more sensitive to certain breaches of the law than to others especially, it appears, when his friends are involved.

I submit that it is not in the viewers' interests for satellite television to be further disrupted now ; nor it is is it in their interests to allow such ownership concentration in the long run as now appears likely. When a non-domestic satellite service can reach 15 to 20 per cent. of the total television audience, it should then be subject to the same ownership rules as other television services. Then, a level playing field will be achieved, the public will be protected from ownership abuse and those who have invested in the new services will be enabled to make a fair return. Unless the Government act, the merger threatens to undermine the Independent Television Commission before it has come into operation, and will mean that the Broadcasting Act 1990, which we spent so long labouring to put on the statute book last Session, will not be worth the paper on which it is written.

The Home Secretary did not touch on a further point arising from the merger --the threat to the D-Mac technology that is used by BSB. The technology has been developed in Britain. It has been supported by the European Broadcasting Union and has the potential to become the world leader for the new high-quality televisions of the future. The Government should underwrite the ownership of the satellites and the uplinking station, and reallocate the BSB frequencies. The terrestrial channels could be duplicated on those frequencies, using D-Mac. Thus, if they chose, people could receive the main services with far higher quality than now, and those with poor or non-existent reception would have the opportunity to improve their service. Alternatively, the frequencies could be handed to the BBC or jointly to the BBC and the IBA, which could run them on a public service basis. Channels could be designated for news, public information, sports, arts or education. It would be a tragedy for the future of British engineering and electronics if D-Mac technology were allowed to wither. Ministers must not allow their enthusiasm to promote News International's operations to damage Britain's and Europe's long-term industrial and broadcasting interests.

Most of this debate has naturally focused on the Government's proposals for the reform of the criminal law. That is scarcely surprising because we meet against an extremely sombre background of lawlessness and criminal outrage which is probably unparalleled in western Europe. I beg the Home Secretary not to underplay this by making trivial partisan points across the Floor of the House in our major debate of the year on this matter.

We have witnessed serious rioting in Trafalgar square, involving the wounding of many people--innocent passers-by and policemen alike. We have witnessed the devastation of Strangeways prison in Manchester. We have been shocked by the repeated suicides of young unconvicted people in our prisons, most notably at Armley in Leeds. Terrorists have struck down our citizens, and not only in the Province of Northern Ireland. In this country they struck down our colleague, Ian Gow, who was a valued Member of the House.

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In the past year, the gravest miscarriages of justice have been revealed, with the wrongful imprisonment of our citizens coming to light after years and years of protest and investigation. We have had the highest recorded crime rates in our history. We know that the public are showing a growing loss of confidence in the probity and effectiveness of some of our police forces.

It is against that appalling background that the Home Secretary's programme for the year must be judged. The Criminal Justice Bill is a major measure of reform. Much of it is to be welcomed. Because I am confined in the debate to 10 minutes, I do not propose to dwell on that Bill, except to make one adverse point. I regret that so much weight rests on the proposal to interfere with the income support arrangements in substitution for fines. That will place the burden of the penalty on innocent families, not on the criminal.

Against the background to which I have alluded, it is a sad comment on the Government's priorities that the Home Secretary himself gave so much attention to the War Crimes Bill. The right hon. Member for Aylesbury made the case against that Bill and I do not propose to repeat his arguments. Indeed, the case for such a Bill was comprehensively demolished in another place. The fact that it should now take up valuable legislative time seems a gross diversion of parliamentary effort.

In the two minutes left to me, I conclude by making an appeal to the Home Secretary--that when he approaches the matter of criminal law reform, he will recognise the structural defects of his own office and the fact that, by dividing the responsibility for law reform between the Lord Chancellor and himself, and through his own Department's involvement not only in matters of law reform, but in the necessary maintenance of internal security, he must too often face a conflict of interest between the protection of human rights and of citizen's rights, and the maintenance of law and order. I do not think that that is an appropriate structure of government. That is why I advocate that the right hon. and learned Gentleman seriously considers the possibility of establishing a Ministry of Justice, with full responsibility for law reform and the administration of justice. It is perhaps because we do not have such a Ministry that the Government have not introduced a proposal to enact the findings of the Law Commission and encode the entire criminal law in an Act of 210 sections. That would have made for accessibility, comprehensibility, consistency and certainty. In the words of the Lord Chancellor himself :

"It would have saved money and time at all levels."

That would be a major contribution to the changes that we need if our criminal justice system is to be restored to effectiveness. 7.19 pm

Mr. Robert Boscawen (Somerton and Frome) : This year, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will have some of the most important and major parts of the Government's programme to handle--in particular, the Criminal Justice Bill, to which the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) just referred. In particular, my right hon. and learned Friend intends to introduce measures to increase parental responsibility. I do not wish to dwell on that side, but I hope that he will also consider counselling of hard-pressed families, particularly families in which the marriage is in difficulties. When a couple splits up, it causes a great deal

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of pressure on the single mother and, in consequence, on the children. In many ways, that can affect the crime figures. So often, it is children from families under such pressure in the home who go wrong. My right hon. and learned Friend knows as well as I and all other hon. Members know that rising crime among young persons is one of the saddest features of today's society.

Will my right hon. and learned Friend ensure that his colleagues whose duty it is to assist the creation of family centres do so? Family centres are a good idea, because they bring in the voluntary element as well as the National Health Service and local authority social services to counsel families who are in danger, before the trouble starts.

Several of my hon. Friends have mentioned what is perhaps not the most important but is nevertheless a worrying proposal in the Queen's Speech-- that to reactivate the Bill on war crimes. My right hon. and learned Friend and his colleagues know that I do not like the proposal. I suppose that I am one of the few hon. Members in a position to represent the thousands of people in my generation who were front-line service men in the war, albeit at a junior level. Many of us witnessed or heard at first hand about the terrible atrocities that took place in central Europe 45 or 50 years ago. We saw more of such horror than perhaps most people have seen in a lifetime. It gave us many sleepless nights.

No one who took part in those terrible days at the end of the second world war would go soft on war crimes. But it is a mistake for Her Majesty's Government to introduce a War Crimes Bill which has retrospective effect and seeks to catch a few of those who remained in Britain or escaped here, as my right hon. and learned Friend said, to evade capture and trial for the atrocious crimes committed all those years ago.

I do not wish to rehearse the legal reasons and the legal and mechanical difficulties of obtaining evidence and identification, which were so well rehearsed in another place before the House rose last summer. They were all valid arguments. I am sorry that my right hon. Friends did not find those arguments overwhelming. I feel strongly that we should not resurrect those terrible atrocities now, rake over them before the courts, go through all the lurid details of the massacre of innocent people, and inevitably raise the demon of vengeance in certain people's minds, as we would be bound to do. We should say, "Let bygones be bygones ; 50 years is a very long time ago."

We in the United Kingdom have nothing whatever to reproach ourselves for in the way in which we handled the Nazi criminals at the end of the second world war. First, we pursued and our leaders accepted for us a policy of unconditional surrender. By doing so, we were able to take absolute power to deal with the criminal masters of Nazi Germany, and we did so.

The war crimes trials were stopped after a few years, as my right hon. and learned Friend and others have said. Perhaps it is not understood why that was so. Those of us who were near at hand and saw the trials know why they were stopped. The inevitable sentence for murder in the British zone of Germany was the capital sentence, as it was in the United Kingdom at the time. In consequence, morning after morning, week after week and month after month, British soldiers had to lead a score or more of men and women to the gallows. That had a great effect on the morale of the people stationed there. We were as human then as we are today. The trials had more effect on us than

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on the indigenous population, who of course were interested only in their own survival in the terrible conditions of food, housing and heat shortages.

I ask the Government once again to reconsider their policy, and not rake up the matter again. A great friend of mine who died earlier this year spent two years at Sachsenhausen outside Dresden. He was one of the two or three score British soldiers sentenced to the concentration camps for enabling Jews to escape through their wire into our camps and out into the world. He lived in indescribable conditions. I and my late colleague, Airey Neave, and others--I believe that Mr. Deputy Speaker, who has just left the Chair, was also one of them--helped those men when I first came to the House. We campaigned to give them extra help to overcome the indescribable difficulties which they suffered.

I went to see my friend, Mr. Jim Franklin, in January this year, as he was dying in incredible stomach pain caused by what he suffered in the concentration camp. He said to me, "Don't let them do it. It is all too long ago. Let's not rake up that wicked, evil past that we all suffered." I hope that my colleagues on the Front Bench will remember that view.

7.29 pm

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : I agree with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Boscawen) that forgiveness is far more important than revenge. I am perhaps one of the few people on Opposition Benches who greatly regret the Government's intention to reintroduce the war crimes legislation.

Over the past 11 years when I have listened to Queen's Speeches, I have regretted what was in them and what was omitted from them. On this occasion I am most concerned about the omissions. Although today's subject for debate is rights, I should like briefly to put on record my anxieties about the situation in the middle east. I want to see Kuwait free and under democratic Government. I do not go along with all this heady stuff about a new world order, if the conflict is settled by the use of force.

Such a conflict would be just like any other war--ordinary people would be killed. It would be almost as pointless as the many other wars that have been proclaimed as wars to end wars. If we are to talk about some new world order, we must ensure that right succeeds as a result of peaceful means. That is why making sanctions work is one of the most important tasks. I do not mind if it takes a long time. We should be prepared to accept that it might take even up to five years. If a solution is found as a result of sanctions and peaceful endeavours, it will be far more worth while in the long term. I understand why George Bush and our Prime Minister have reservations about sanctions. So long as they preside over greed societies, they must have reservations about how long they can persuade people to forgo profits on trade and make sanctions work. I wish that world leaders who talk about the use of force spent more time ensuring that sanctions worked. I welcomed the Government's action in expelling two Iraqi officials who appeareded to try to break sanctions. I hope that the Government are applying all the pressure they can to ensure that sanctions work.

If we are to talk about a new world order, we must ensure that we put principle and people's lives before profit. We should also remember that profit is part of the

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problem in the middle east. We have been only too happy to sell arms to almost any obnoxious regime and we should consider that seriously.

To make a new world order succeed, we must make sanctions work and tackle the issue of arms. We must make certain that the test ban treaty operates, so that we do not continue polluting the world with nuclear material. It is appalling that the Government should go ahead with a nuclear test on Wednesday. If we had any intent to make the non-proliferation discussions of a few months ago or the test ban treaty work, we should be prepared to forgo that test. I do not understand how anyone can believe that our Trident has a useful purpose or our test any value.

If we want a new world order, we must consider arms manufacture across the world. I welcome Labour's commitment to an arms conversion agency in the United Kingdom. The British Government should press the European Community to set up such an agency within the EC. We should also consider that issue in eastern Europe. Far too many people depend on making arms for a job. So long as we make arms in such quantities, we shall store up further conflicts for ourselves. If we are to talk of a new world order, we must eliminate the possibility of those conflicts.

We need to find alternative work for those involved in arms manufacture. We must rid the world of so many arms. It is sad how, first, are are procured by major powers, then sold second-hand to second-rate powers and, finally, find their way into the third world. Each time they are used for destruction and finally they may find their way to terrorist organisations. The United Nations or the EC should look hard at whether they can buy up those second-hand arms and take them out of circulation.

For most of the past 10 years I have been secretary to the parliamentary Labour party's civil liberties group. We have often tabled an amendment to the address, listing some items that we regret the Government have not tackled. During that period the task has got harder and harder. Our amendment, which has not been selected for debate, lists all our regrets at the Government's failure to act and the areas where they have acted wrongly in reducing civil rights. The problem is that the list that we should like to record has got longer, so that it is difficult to keep it within the 250 words to stay in order.

I cannot refer to all the items on the list, but I should like to refer to a few. There is a little in the Criminal Justice Bill, which I welcome, but not much. If we are to make our prisons work effectively, we must give prisoners far more rights. It is easy to give rights to people whom we approve of. The trouble is that we must give civil liberties to people of whom we least approve. That is a problem with prisoners. They are in prison to be punished, but we must ensure that they have a just system in prison. By the way we treat them, we must show how we want them to treat society when they are released. They must be told clearly what their rights are, the conditions for parole and the conditions that they must observe when they are out on parole. As the Bill progresses, I hope that I can argue further about that issue of rights.

It is sad that, during the past 10 years, we have not had a freedom of information Act. Many hon. Members talk proudly about how the new Select Committees work effectively. So many of their supposed triumphs involve

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getting information out of the Government. We should not need Select Committees for that. If we had a freedom of information Act, that information would be readily available without the whole paraphernalia of Select Committees and without the need to convince Members that they are being useful because they tease out information from Ministers which should be freely available.

I agree with my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench that we should speed up trials. I realise that there is sometimes a conspiracy between some prisoners and their lawyers who tell them that they are better off on remand than convicted because conditions are supposedly better. Speedy trials are extremely important, particularly for those who are found innocent and should not have spent a long time on remand.

In particular, I should like to press the Home Secretary on what is happening in Manchester. It is regrettable that, following Strangeways, the Government have been unable to remove more remand prisoners from police cells. Some policemen like the overtime involved, although that presents the Greater Manchester police authority with the problem of paying for it. The Home Secretary must consider that. Many of the cells where remand prisoners are kept are unsuitable and cause major problems to the efficient running of the police stations. We should not be paying overtime to policemen who look after remand prisoners there. The Home Secretary should deal with that problem rapidly.

Several constituents with relatives in the Gulf have expressed their anxieties about the way in which the media have treated them. As someone in public service, I must accept a certain amount of media attention whether I like it or not, but I have a great deal of sympathy for my constituents who are under a great deal of pressure. I hope that legislation on privacy will be introduced in due course. Why have not the Government included proposals to reform the private Bill procedure? Given that this is a slack Session it would have been possible to include such proposals in the Queen's Speech. I regret that the Queen's Speech does not do more to confer civil rights on all our people, particularly those who are already at a disadvantage.

7.39 pm

Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton) : I welcome the Government's programme as set out in the Gracious Speech, including the War Crimes Bill. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Boscawen) will forgive me if I do not dwell on my reasons for welcoming that Bill.

I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be there to see this programme implemented and that she will still be there to implement the programme that will emerge from the Queen's Speech in the Parliament which will follow the next general election.

It saddens and distresses me to see respected Conservative colleagues venting their frustrations on the party for which they have fought for so long and with such distinction. Tearing ourselves apart in response to goading from the media can do no good to the party, the country or those who are behaving in such a destructive manner. Do they really imagine that a party that does not stay loyal and united behind perhaps the most successful and

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purposeful Prime Minister that the nation has known in peacetime this century will continue to command the loyalty of the people come the next election?

It is a peculiar kind of conceit that imagines that this nation will admire disunity at a time of a threat to world stability and when the economic going gets rough. Will our forces in the Gulf be able to fight more steadfastly if their political leaders are in disarray? Will the tyrant Saddam Hussein be more easily removed if our leadership is divided? Will we be more able to stand up to the threat to our national sovereignty posed by those in Europe who want us to become part of a Euro-federal superstate where 80 per cent. of the laws will be made in Brussels?

I hope that common sense will prevail, that there will be no wounding leadership contest and that we can concentrate on implementing the programme set out in the Gracious Speech and on winning the next election.

The programme for this Session has been called thin--would that it were so. I fear that "other measures" are already proliferating, as will the European measures that are likely to keep us here night after night. If there were any thinness, I should welcome the opportunity for my right hon. and hon. Friend's to get out into the constituencies to communicate our policies better. If we did so, the public opinion polls would be substantially more in our favour. Crime, particularly violent crime, destroys not only the victim, but the society in which it flourishes, because it engenders fear. Only a tiny proportion of elderly people are assaulted, but all elderly people fear to go out into the streets at night in case of assault.

Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay) : The same goes for women on their own.

Mr. Lawrence : Yes.

I can remember no Government who have striven with more determination to take every reasonable step and opportunity to reduce crime, to strengthen the armoury of the law and the forces of law and order--sparing little expense. We now have more policemen, who are better paid, better equipped, better led and furnished with better laws, than ever before. We now have more courts, with more powers and better trained personnel.

Community involvement has been ensured through the neighbourhood watch scheme. A charter of rights for victims has been established. Community penalties are now widely used. There is the urban action programme. Now the Criminal Justice Bill advances the progress achieved several stages further and is most welcome.

I hope that the Criminal Justice Bill will frighten more potentially violent criminals from offending. They will be aware of the longer sentences to be given where appropriate. Those sentences will be further increased with the loss of parole for the sexual offender. If a capital punishment clause were added to the Bill, it would be even more frightening and more successful in deterring the violent offender. If we frightened the offender from offending, perhaps members of society would be less frightened of going into the streets.

The Bill will also affect the incidence of crime committed by young people, by placing a greater responsibility on parents. Although the average age of offending is rising, it still stands at only 16 years. It is too easy to blame teachers for lack of discipline : without

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parental responsibility and discipline in the home, teachers cannot hope to succeed. Both kinds of discipline are necessary.

However, we must be careful about trials involving children. If we intend to protect children from court appearances, we must be careful not to remove the right to question them properly. If we do that, we may find that innocent people are convicted through mistaken identity evidence that has not been properly investigated.

There is a manifest paradox about the crime figures. On the one hand, we have a record of action and achievement in introducing measures to control crime : on the other hand the criminal statistics are high, and in some areas they are rising. What is the explanation? The answer is there to be seen. Much more opportunistic crime is being committed, because people leave car doors, front doors and windows open. I do not know whether that is a reflection of a more prosperous society, but if fewer people left such doors open, we would not be talking about the increase in crime as recorded in the last quarter.

It is also important to consider how crime is reported in a free society. With better communications, and the police's more humane treatment of women who complain about assault, we must accept that more crimes are reported. Insurance companies now require that an offence should be reported to the police before they pay out. Obviously more crime is reported, but that almost certainly does not mean more crimes are being committed. Common sense on the crime statistics, should prevail, rather than the silly, simplistic criticism of the Opposition.

Do the Opposition have a better programme than ours? I listened carefully to the recipe of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) for less crime, but I am far from convinced, and I am sure that my constituents will share my doubts. I am doubtful whether elected police authorities would contribute to a better, more efficient and more effective police force, especially when the only purpose of electing them is to give those authorities more political control, particularly in Labour areas.

I have great difficulty in seeing how the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1989 would strengthen our fight against terrorism. I cannot see why it is necessary to have another independent police complaints authority when we already set one up under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984--especially when former or serving police officers are banned from membership. The commitments outlined by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook stopped short of spending any more money on law and order lest his right hon. and learned Friend the shadow Chancellor is angry with him.

It is unlikely that the prison system would be improved by the Opposition. Improvements were just as necessary when the Labour party was last in Government, but all it managed to do was cut capital spending by 20 per cent., while the prison population rose by 14.5 per cent. In its last election manifesto, the Labour party did not bother to mention prisons at all.

The Opposition have voted not only against the Prevention of Terrorism Acts, but against the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Public Order Act 1986 and the Criminal Justice Act 1988. With that track record, how can the Labour party expect to be treated with any real credibility when it says that it will take law and order seriously? I do not find the Opposition's case convincing and nor will my constituents.

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In the real world, we enjoy a free society only because there are laws that protect rights and help to enforce responsibilities. The question is, by what kind of criminal justice system can we enforce those rights and protect them? The answer is that the system must have sanctions. Some of which need only be educational ; others need to protect society ; and some need to be so severe that they frighten would -be offenders from offending.

Such a system needs to have a balance and also the support of the people. I believe that the proposed programme is balanced, and I hope that we shall have sufficient time during the current parliamentary Session to go out to the people to explain how important this law and our achievement is.

7.49 pm

Mrs. Alice Mahon (Halifax) : I wish to talk about the right of people to have decent health care and the Government's responsibility to provide it. Two news items caught my attention last week. The first, in The Independent on Wednesday was headlined

"NHS cuts 4,500 beds to save cash."

The second one, in the Morning Star on Saturday, described how leave for key staff in London hospitals had been cancelled. The first headline referred to the crisis facing the national health service, which was brought on, not by inefficient management or overpaid staff, but by a Government who have deliberately underfunded the national health service for the past 11 years. The survey in The Independent included beds that had been closed purely for the lack of cash in the past financial year. All the managers who replied to the survey were clear on the key reason for the bed losses--to wipe out deficits by the end of the financial year, whatever the cost in pain and misery. The survey underestimated the number of bed losses. It included my own local health authority, Calderdale, and said that the bed loss was 76, but the actual number is 99.

The last time that the national health service faced such a crisis was in 1987. Then as now, there was a massive bed closure and the Prime Minister stepped in and ordered a review--the rest is history. We are now stuck with the dreadful National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, with which nobody agreed but the Prime Minister and a few of her advisers. The Prime Minister based her model for new health care on the United States market structure. Early experience of that market-oriented model shows that it has abjectly and spectacularly failed.

In my health authority last week, we heard that a new hospital that should have been built had been put back yet another four years. The excuse given was the slump in the property market that has forced the regional health authority to delay its capital programme. I do not believe that the Government seriously intended to build the new hospital, but they closed wards and a laundry to make way for it and have thus seriously damaged the service. The recent advice from local consultants is that because of those closures, waiting lists will rise to more than 1,000 in a year, and in the gynaecological department, 500 women will have to wait more than 12 months for treatment. Those closures have obviously caused a great deal of damage to the service and many people on waiting lists will become ill ; some may even die.

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