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they like and no one has any control over that? Once the port authority is a public limited company, shareholders and others will not have that stricture.Mr. Worthington : That is a helpful intervention, because it shows that we have considered the port authority Bills completely the wrong way round. There would be general agreement among hon. Members that the structure of port authorities is thoroughly inadequate because there is no accountability. There is a strange procedure in Scotland whereby the Department of Transport--God love it--and not the Secretary of State for Scotland, appoints the members of the trust authority. There seems no logic in the fact that a remote, London-based body plucks out 10 or a dozen people to run the port authority. Does that body exercise any scrutiny over the activities of the port authority? No, it does not.
I wrote to the Secretary of State for Transport and received a reply from the Minister in which he said that there was no monitoring of the work of the port authority. In other words, we take no interest in whether it does a good or a bad job. The authorities are simply appointed and they get on with the work. There is no scrutiny of or interest in how they fulfil the task, so we have no idea whether the Tees and Hartlepool port authority or the Clyde port authority is efficient. Neither the Government nor anyone else asks whether the authorities do a good job.
Is there a need for legislation? It seems that the present structure of the port authorities is inefficient, and I suspect that the Minister agrees. A proper analysis of the way in which the port authorities have developed should have been carried out to obtain an appraisal of what was going right and what was going wrong. I believe that the Clyde port authority could have been massively improved. I also believe that it was unacceptable that the authority was neither a democratic nor a private body. It was not accountable to anyone, which led to the incredible statement by the director of the authority, which is engraved on my mind for ever, that
"above the Clyde port authority there is God."
That is strangely pompous, but it is also strangely true. Nobody can call the Clyde port authority to account. It could perform its task efficiently or inefficiently year in and year out.
One would have thought that the first action of a responsible Government who were confronted either with their own legislation or with private legislation would have been to appraise whether the present structure was working correctly.
Mr. Holt : If the trust ports were such an eyesore, why did no Labour Government have the courage to do anything about them?
Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I am sure that the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) will deal with the motion.
Mr. Worthington : I am grateful both to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt), whose intervention is relevant in considering whether to breathe life into the Clyde Port Authority Bill and into the others. I did not say that the port authorities were an eyesore, although a major eyesore in my constituency is under the control of the Clyde port authority. I was saying that no hon. Member has ever
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carried out research into how the port authorities work and into whether they are working efficiently or inefficiently.The contentious issue is whether the authorities powers are restricted so that they cannot undertake activities that would make them efficient. That has never been appraised by anyone except the ports authorities, which have a vested interest.
This is a fundamentally inadequate way to proceed with legislation. During the passage of the Clyde Port Authority Bill, there has been no analysis of whether we need legislation or what form of legislation we need. It will be sad for hon. Members who represent constituencies in the area of the Clyde port authority and of the Tees and Hartlepool port authority to know that a far better analysis of the role of the other trust ports will be undertaken through the presentation of a public Bill. Ministers will come to the House having been fully briefed by the Department of Transport, and they will be able to argue their case properly.
With the Clyde Port Authority Bill, we did not have those advantages. We had a private Bill sponsored by the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), who has shown the extent of his interest in the Bill by his absence tonight. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Langbaurgh wish to intervene?
Mr. Holt : The hon. Gentleman is attacking a man who has been made a Minister and who cannot be here for that reason. That is most unparliamentary.
Mr. Worthington : It so happens that the hon. Member for Eastwood has been made the Minister responsible for industry and employment in Scotland and the Bill is of significance to the development of Scotland. That the hon. Gentleman should have taken his interest in promoting the Bill outside the House and put other interests--
Mr. Worthington : All right : I shall not withdraw my remarks, because I think they are justified, but I shall take the House back to the Second Reading debate which took place while the hon. Gentleman was but a Back Bencher.
Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. We are not discussing the Second Reading debate. The hon. Gentleman is fully aware that we are debating a revival motion, and I should like to hear arguments about whether the Bill should be passed to another place.
Mr. Worthington : I do not think that the Bill should be revived, Madam Deputy Speaker, because the House has never had the opportunity--on Second Reading, tonight or at any other stage--to consider its merits. The sponsor of the Bill, who now happens to be a Minister--I hope that he will prepare himself better in his new job--came to the House without knowing anything about the Bill and could not answer any of our questions. One of the central questions on the Bill, to which we really ought to be given an answer, concerns the identity of those who will be able to control the port authority in future.
Just to show the confusion that there was on Second Reading--a confusion which persists tonight--let me remind the House that, at that time, the sponsor of the Bill
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was talking in terms of the flotation of a public company. Only at a later stage did we find that the authority was to be floated not as a public but as a private company.Mr. Bell : Is it not a fact that Mr. John Hackney has not been able to reconcile himself with Mr. Charles Wellington, the chief of Hartlepool, and that we do not know whether there will be a stock market flotation or not?
Mr. Worthington : My hon. Friend confirms the lack of certainty about who will be able to control the company in future. I have heard from the authority that some of the shares will go to the work force. We do not know what proportion it will be, although Opposition Members accept that there should be some employee share ownership. We do not know who else will control the company in future. We have heard only that some of the shares are likely to go to local institutions and organisations. As a local institution myself, I fully intend to apply for shares. I shall write to the company and say, "As a local institution--the MP for Clydebank and Milngavie--I should like shares in the Clyde port authority." I hasten to say to my hon. Friends that I have no intention of profiting from the shares : any profit will be given to local charities.
I shall be interested to hear the authority's response when I write to it to say that, out of interest in the future of the port and the river, I should like to be on the inside of the company. I wonder whether I shall be given the chance. Some of my hon. Friends may also wish to buy shares, although I shall not tonight commit them to doing so.
Mr. Harry Barnes : Whatever the share arrangement, we have some indication of what has been ruled out. On the Tees and Hartlepool Bill, on the Chairman's casting vote, the proposal that 50 per cent. of voting shares should go to the workers was defeated. Also, a proposal that the majority of the shares should go to the employees' pension fund and port users combined was defeated.
Mr. Worthington : That is why we should not breathe life into the Bill. What rules are the Bills setting up for the distribution of shares? We know nothing, and have been told nothing, about that basic issue. It would be a dereliction of duty to let the Bills go any further without clarification of that issue. I hope that that issue will be directly addressed in the Government's Bill.
With a normal privatisation, the Government lay down the terms under which the privatisation is to occur. They will say, for example, as they did with the electricity privatisation, "We are issuing shares at so much per share." Everybody gets a chance to bid for the shares. But that has not happened in this case. With the Government's Bill, it will be interesting to see whether they give fair access to the purchase of shares for any of the other trust ports or whether they will give privileged access to those who are already on the inside because they are members of the port authority.
Another major issue which has never been fully explored, and which is another reason why we should not breathe life into the Bill or revive it, is the valuation of the company's assets. The port authority has to set up the conditions in which the Clyde port authority will be sold to an institution. It must decide how it will realise the assets that I previously thought were public assets, but
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apparently it is a difficult situation, in which there is no real owner, and something that I thought was public is to be turned into a private asset.To sell off the assets of the port authority, they must first be valued by the port authority. Therefore, a firm, which I hope will be independent, will have to be hired to decide what value to put on the assets of the port authority. There may be talk of that firm being independent. However, if I wish to sell a property and I hire someone to value it for me, the valuer will assess that property on my behalf knowing that I am the seller of the property. Obviously, his duty is to me--I have hired him. His duty is to put the maximum possible value on the property. If I wish to buy property, I will hire professional advice from someone who will tell me the cheapest price for which I could get the assets and the lowest price that I should bid for them.
Under the Bill, the buyer and the seller are the same body. The Clyde port authority is liquidating itself, seeking to sell its assets and setting up a new company. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) eloquently said, initially the only members of the new company will be the Clyde port authority board members, because they will have liquidated themselves as a port authority and reconstituted themselves as the new trust and then as the new company. Who is to carry out a valuation when the buyer and the seller are the same? That issue has never been explored in the House, but it is another reason why we should hesitate to breathe life into these Bills. The issues have never been fully explained. Other issues did not receive an airing until my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) spoke earlier. We are also talking about navigation rights, not simply about property on the banks of the river. We are talking about the maintenance of good conditions for sailing up and down, not only the Clyde, but as far as halfway down Arran and all the surrounding sea lochs. We are talking about the public good. My hon. Friend reminded us of the recent tragic accident caused by submarines using the same channel as fishing boats. Clearly the public good must be at the forefront of our minds.
There are many other important issues. We have not even mentioned dredging tonight because we did not want to go back over the Second Reading debate. However, we have given abundant reasons why it would be prudent for the House not to breathe life into these Bills. I hope that the forthcoming public Bill will deal with these issues much more sensibly and will have the public interest more at heart, and that we shall not proceed with these private Bills.
9.41 pm
Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : It has been said that this is only a procedural motion, with the implication that it is therefore of less significance than the substantive issues. However, as trade unionists among my hon. Friends know, procedural agreements can often be more important than substantive agreements. Sometimes in trade union negotiations on wages, an employer will try to give a good substantive agreement, but part of the terms include selling out the procedural arrangements. Therefore, procedure is important because it is by that process that legislation proceeds.
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Hon. Members have referred only briefly to the fact that the motion deals with a number of other Bills apart from the port authority Bills. The motion refers also to the London Underground (Victoria) Bill and to the Shard Bridge Bill. Those may well be reasonable and honourable Bills, and they may well deserve to proceed--I do not know, because I have not investigated them and I have not read the Committee reports. Furthermore, I have heard nothing today to tell me why those two Bills, together with the port authority Bills, should proceed. It would have been procedurally sensible to have a different motion which would have allowed some division and separate debates on some of the Bills. The major elements in our discussions on the Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority Bill and the Clyde Port Authority Bill could perhaps have gone together because many of the principles arising from them are the same.It is because the motion relates to the port authority Bills and because they are obnoxious in nature that we should not pass it. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, would not allow me to go into detail about those obnoxious provisions, so I simply direct hon. Members to the Committee reports and to our earlier debates in which they were spelt out in considerable detail.
I also oppose the motion insofar as it relates to the Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority Bill, of which I have some knowledge because I served on the Committee dealing with it, because that Bill has already had its chance. Unless I hear some special reason today as to why we should pass the revival motion--I prefer to call it a Lazarus motion, as it brings the Bill back from the dead to pass it on to the Lords--I do not see why we should do so. No Conservative Member has sought to argue the merits of the procedure in which we are engaged. It has been said that as it is only procedure we should let it slip through, out of courtesy to the House of Lords. However, we are here not for purposes of courtesy but for serious investigation of legislation.
The THPA Bill has had its chance. It was deposited in the House on 27 November last year and went to Committee on 15 May. There were seven Committee meetings up to 6 June and a disastrous decision was made in Committee, with the Chairman's casting vote, that Committee members would not visit Tees and Hartlepool to see what they were talking about and meet the community in the district. That procedural nonsense led to two Labour Committee members walking out and insisting that the visit should take place. They were not seeking to hold up the Committee's procedures, but were concerned that they should do their duty before making their final decision. It took seven weeks for that trip to be organised and the day after it took place the matter went back to Committee, on 25 July. If the decision taken in Committee had been to allow the visit to stand, it would have done so the week following 6 June, there would have been substantially more time in which to deal with the measure and pass it to the Lords, and we could have made progress by now.
The Bill's statute of limitations has run out and we should not seek to revive it. It has been said that the Bill has been superseded by a measure in the Queen's Speech, which I believe is one of the most important provisions. The Tees and Hartlepool Bill, and the trouble that it caused, might have been one of the factors which led the
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Government to decide to include the other measure in the Queen's Speech. Having been included in the Queen's Speech, that provision should have superseded the Bill.We need to sort out trusts. There has been a statement in the House today, and we are establishing a new range of trusts related to the national health service. It was said that Hospitals would not opt out but that trusts would operate--but who can trust the trusts when they operate like those at Clyde and at Tees and Hartlepool have done and seek their own privatisation provisions in future. It seems that that pattern is likely to follow in the health service.
We should reject the measure above all because it is a Government Bill in all but name, behind which lie all sorts of Government involvement and manipulation. That has come from the Department of Transport, which encouraged the trust authorities of Clyde, and of Hartlepool and Tees to bring the measure forward. When the authorities failed to advance at sufficient speed, pressure was brought to ensure decisions which were carried on casting votes. The Government took over the measure when they realised that the other trust port provisions in this country would result in long-drawn-out processes. It is therefore most important that we should reject the motion.
9.47 pm
Mr. Thomas Graham (Renfrew, West and Inverclyde) : In speaking against the revival motion, I should say that not one Member of Parliament from the banks of the River Clyde supports the privatisation of the Clyde port authority or has spoken in favour of it. I am deeply disappointed that the Bill's sponsor is not here to listen to some of the arguments put to stop the Bill going to the Lords.
It is appalling that the work force in the Clyde port authority is not to have control of the livelihood of its members. That matter should have been included in the Bill. Only last week, some of my constituents asked me what would happen to the profit from the sale of land that they had thought, for years and years, belonged to the public--the people of Renfrew, Glasgow and Inverclyde. Land that has belonged to the people of our areas is disappearing. This Bill is another rip-off ; it is a disastrous step, which will lead to the shabby treatment of the Clyde. It will lead to the same sort of disasters as have happened along the banks of the Thames in London. We do not want that in Scotland. The River Clyde could and should be one of the most beautiful rivers in the country.
This is not the way forward for the people of the River Clyde and of Scotland. Time is not on my side, so I cannot say all that I should have liked to say against the revival motion. We are doing a disservice to the members of the public who fought for years to make the Clyde renowned. We have seen the demise of shipbuilding there, but I hope that the river can be cleared up and put to better use. Whether we like it or not, the Clyde port authority is one of the major landowners on the Clyde and the greedy vultures are ready to descend, eager to take its huge assets into private hands. I hope that the Minister has listened to those points.
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9.50 pmMr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North) : The outstanding feature of the debate has been the fact that we have not heard a solitary speech by a Conservative Member in support of any of these measures having fresh life breathed into them. We heard briefly from the Minister, although not as briefly as he had intended, but apart from that there has been nothing but the silence of the grave. Tory Members know that they can sit back and the work will be done for them by other forces.
Throughout most of the debate none of the sponsors of these Bills has been present, although two of them now are. It is particularly fascinating to wonder who the sponsor of the Clyde Port Authority Bill will be. In its first existence, its sponsor was the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), who has been exalted to great heights recently. Such is his commitment to the future of the Clyde port, such is his genuine interest in the matter--he has been trying to put the Bill through the House for a year --such is his enthusiasm for the benefits to come to the industry of Scotland, for which he now has ministerial responsibility, and such is his sincerity that I understand that throughout these proceedings he has been in the Strangers Dining Room.
That shows what a con the Bills are. Little private vested interests controlled by people with an eye on the main chance nobble a Member and say, "Look pal, you put the Bill through for us, and once the arrangements have been made, who knows what will come out the other end?" The hon. Member for Eastwood has found his advancement in another form, so we wonder who will take the Bill forward. Will it be the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn), or will it perhaps be the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker)? After that we begin to run out of Scottish Tory Members--the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) is a decent cove who would have nothing to do with the business. Who else is there? That is probably the greatest decision that the Clyde port authority has had to take for some time : to whom to pass the baton to take the Bill through the House? We have heard much about the port authorities on many nights similar to this, and fortunately, due to the efforts of Opposition Members, the private Bills have not yet gone through. We assure Conservative Members that we shall continue to mount as much opposition as possible.
I happen to know a wee bit about the Shard Bridge Bill. Many hon. Members may wonder what the Shard Bridge Bill is and may reasonably wonder what I know about it. I know about it because I was appointed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills. I understand that people are paid large amounts to present Bills and to turn up and confront the members of such Committees. Like the three wise monkeys, the members of the Committee are supposed to nod the Bills through. We nodded through some fairly major Bills and then the Shard Bridge Bill came up. I asked what it was all about and I also asked what Shard was all about. I found that the Shard bridge is a toll bridge in the north-west of England. I also found that the purpose of the Bill was to increase the share capital of the Shard Bridge Company, which is doubtless owned by the great and good of Shard and the surrounding precincts.
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Mr. Richard Holt (Langbaurgh) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.Question put, That the Question be now put :-
The House divided : Ayes 113, Noes 43.
Division No. 18] [9.55 pm
AYES
Aitken, Jonathan
Alexander, Richard
Amos, Alan
Arbuthnot, James
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Arnold, Sir Thomas
Ashby, David
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)
Batiste, Spencer
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Beggs, Roy
Beith, A. J.
Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Benyon, W.
Boscawen, Hon Robert
Boswell, Tim
Bottomley, Peter
Bowis, John
Bright, Graham
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)
Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)
Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick
Burt, Alistair
Butcher, John
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Carrington, Matthew
Cash, William
Chapman, Sydney
Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Colvin, Michael
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Cope, Rt Hon John
Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)
Davis, David (Boothferry)
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Fallon, Michael
Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)
Fookes, Dame Janet
Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)
Forth, Eric
Fox, Sir Marcus
Franks, Cecil
Freeman, Roger
Gale, Roger
Gill, Christopher
Goodlad, Alastair
Greenway, John (Ryedale)
Hague, William
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')
Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)
Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)
Holt, Richard
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)
Irvine, Michael
Janman, Tim
Kennedy, Charles
Kilfedder, James
Kirkhope, Timothy
Knapman, Roger
Knight, Greg (Derby North)
Knowles, Michael
Lawrence, Ivan
Lee, John (Pendle)
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)
Lightbown, David
Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)
McLoughlin, Patrick
Major, Rt Hon John
Marland, Paul
Maude, Hon Francis
Miller, Sir Hal
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James
Monro, Sir Hector
Morrison, Sir Charles
Moss, Malcolm
Neubert, Michael
Nicholls, Patrick
Nicholson, David (Taunton)
Paice, James
Patnick, Irvine
Porter, David (Waveney)
Riddick, Graham
Ryder, Richard
Sackville, Hon Tom
Shaw, David (Dover)
Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Sims, Roger
Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Squire, Robin
Stern, Michael
Stevens, Lewis
Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Summerson, Hugo
Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Taylor, John M (Solihull)
Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman
Thorne, Neil
Trippier, David
Trotter, Neville
Twinn, Dr Ian
Walker, Bill (T'side North)
Waller, Gary
Warren, Kenneth
Watts, John
Wheeler, Sir John
Widdecombe, Ann
Wood, Timothy
Younger, Rt Hon George
Tellers for the Ayes :
Mr. Peter Thurnham and
Mr. Tony Durant.
NOES
Adams, Mrs. Katherine
Banks, Tony (Newham NW)
Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)
Buckley, George J.
Callaghan, Jim
Campbell-Savours, D. N.
Canavan, Dennis
Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Clelland, David
Clwyd, Mrs Ann
Cousins, Jim
Cryer, Bob
Dalyell, Tam
Dixon, Don
Dunnachie, Jimmy
Eastham, Ken
Flynn, Paul
Foster, Derek
Godman, Dr Norman A.
Graham, Thomas
Haynes, Frank
Henderson, Doug
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