House of Commons Hansard Debates for 7 Dec 1990

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repeatedly--is the hard Right. Imagine what would have happened if the right hon. Member for Chingford had stood as a candidate, as I understand that it was thought repeatedly that he might.

Mr. Skinner : There was a meeting in the Tea Room when that issue was discussed.

Mr. Grocott : I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, whose information is tremendous. Who knows how many votes the right hon. Member for Chingford would have secured? The 50 or 60 votes that would have gone to him were clearly delivered en masse to the present Prime Minister. That is indicative of the way in which the Conservative party operates.

Mr. Wilshire rose --

Mr. Grocott : I have been generous in giving way, but I must now get on.

Another reason why the present Prime Minister was bound to be elected leader was that the constituency pressure became overwhelming when it became known that the former Prime Minister had declared him as her appointed successor. It was the Tory party's way of expunging its guilt and saying, "Sorry, Margaret." That is why, almost from nowhere, the present Prime Minister took over. He is still blinking in the sunlight. He cannot quite believe what has happened to him. That is the history of the last three weeks. It needs fleshing out, but Conservative Members have shown their almost awesome ruthlessness in detecting a massive electoral disadvantage, cleansing the party as rapidly as possible and then allegedly closing ranks, although they will find great difficulty when the witch hunts begin in the constituencies. I look forward to articles appearing in The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express about tightly knit groups of politically motivated people usurping democracy in constituency parties. That is the kind of article with which we are well familiar and which will no doubt be appearing in due course.

We have seen Conservative Members ditch a Prime Minister. Now they have a final job on their hands, which is to start ditching some of their policies if they are to have any chance of winning the next election. Foremost on that agenda--the cheek that they have shown in this respect is awesome--is to find a way of getting out of the fiasco of the poll tax. Having spent the past three and a half years telling us what a marvellous system it was and voting down every amendment that we suggested to try to mitigate it, they have the presumption to come to us now and say, "Please help us out, we do not know what to do about this. We are facing disaster, please give us a hand." They act as though the poll tax were a marginal aspect of Tory policy, but it was central to their last general election manifesto. Hon. Members should re-read that document--I always have copies of it with me. It states :

"We will reform local government finance to strengthen local democracy and accountability We will legislate in the first Session of the new Parliament to abolish the unfair domestic rating system and replace rates with a fairer Community Charge."

The poll tax was central to the Conservative election manifesto and dominated parliamentary time for three years. I should imagine that it has taken up the time of all the civil servants in Marsham street as they try to make sense of a nonsensical proposition. It dominated every local authority up and down the country. My own local

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authority, The Wrekin, is also wrestling with the problems that it involves. The cost of collecting it in my own constituency is £1.25 million--two and a half times the cost of collecting the rates. It is massively more difficult to collect the poll tax and authorities have to borrow far more money at inflated rates of interest to sustain themselves through the political year.

The poll tax was no marginal policy commitment by the Tory party. It was a failed experiment on a massive scale. It came about because the Government would not listen, but had the arrogance of power. It would be bad enough if the poll tax were an isolated example, but it is not--it is symptomatic of Thatcherism in all sectors of policy. The Government had the arrogance of power, with contempt for opposition and for the weak. We are delighted that the decade of Thatcherism under their former leader has ended and we shall be delighted when the people of this country have the chance to get rid of the current Prime Minister in a general election.

1.42 pm

Mr. Ian Stewart (Hertfordshire, North) : I certainly do not want to follow the example of the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) because much of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) covered the essence of reasons that lie behind his tabling of the motion. I am glad to be able to speak on the motion, and to do so more briefly than the hon. Member for The Wrekin, to place on record my profound respect and regard for my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), because of not just her policies and the success of the Conservative Government during the past 10 years, but the personal consideration she gives to her colleagues in the House, a point which is often overlooked by those who do not know her. When I had to retire from the Government as a result of injury, I appreciated her consideration. I suspect that other hon. Members can recall many similar incidents.

Today's Order Paper includes a motion that I tabled regarding the initiatives of my right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister on the reduction of the debt burden of the poorest countries, which I am sure we shall not reach today. I do not want to stray out of order by speaking to it more than in passing because I realise that other hon. Members wish to participate in the debate, and it is only right that they should do so.

It is not without significance that it was under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley that the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson), and the present Prime Minister put forward initiatives of major importance that led the thinking in the international financial community, the International Monetary Fund and the Paris club on how to relieve the appalling burden of debt on the sub-Saharan African and other countries that do not have natural resources in abundance and have been crippled by not only the accumulation of debt, but the considerable effect of cumulatively high levels of interest on dollar borrowings.

It was a measure of the realism of the Conservative Government in the 1980s and of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and her Chancellors that it was this country that took the initiative in putting forward

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practical proposals for recognising all this. It exemplifies an important part of the contribution that my right hon. Friend made during her time as Prime Minister. She injected realism into the consideration of domestic and international political affairs. For instance, my right hon. Friend tackled economic problems realistically. It was she who realised that large budget deficits and uncontrolled public expenditure would cause growing economic problems in this and other countries. She it was who encouraged Chancellors of the Exchequer to bring our budget back into balance over time and to acknowledge that an economy performs more successfully when tax rates are lower--and that the yield from personal taxation rises when those rates are lower.

That is a lesson that no one believed 10 or 12 years ago, but it has been proved in this country. As a Treasury Minister I was only too aware that most people did not believe that what we said would come about. But when we reduced tax rates we found an improved energy, efficiency and enterprise in the economy that led to higher yields, which enabled us to devote more public expenditure to essential services. At the same time, they enabled us to lower the tax burden on private individuals to finance that public expenditure. The realism of my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley was very important for many years in the European Community. Records of the past few weeks have greatly distorted the part played by my right hon. Friend in the evolution of the Community. The summit that discussed the prospects for economic and monetary union showed the Community at its worst. Proposals were brought forward which had not been thought out and Heads of Government were asked to make commitments to ideas that had not been properly explained to them. Once again my right hon. Friend had the courage--she was the only one who had--to explain that this was no way to take the European Community forward successfully. I vividly recall my personal experience of what happened in the mid-1980s. I had the fortune, or misfortune, to be the Treasury Minister representing the United Kingdom at the Budget Council of the European Community during the critical years leading up to and immediately after the Fountainebleau agreement on budgetary restitution to this country.

At the time the Prime Minister had been arguing powerfully for several years that unless the major imbalance of contributions from which we were suffering was put right, it would serve to undermine the future of the Community. We had a direct national interest in the matter, but it was also in the Community's interest to put it right, because while it hung over us progress could not be made on other matters. It was only my right hon. Friend's persistence and determination which led to an agreement which saved us many billions of pounds in contributions to the Community and which removed from the agenda a running sore that was doing terrible damage to the development of the European Community, to which we belonged and which we hoped would be successful.

My right hon. Friend--I remember many all-night sessions in Brussels when I was personally involved in the consequences of this--pointed out that the common agricultural policy was almost bound, in its then form, to lead to explosive demands on the European Community budget--demands which could not be met from member states' contributions. She also said that it would distort agricultural markets not only in the world but in the

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Community and that that would destabilise world trade and ultimately lead to the sort of problems that are now being faced in the GATT round. In her recognition of that, my right hon. Friend was years ahead of other Government leaders and she started to campaign for changes which have gradually been introduced, although they have not yet gone far enough.

We should listen to my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley when she talks about constitutional aspects of the Community and the problems of monetary union, a subject that has had much attention in the House recently, and I do not propose to speak about it in detail. However, I should like to make one point. It is easy to draw attention to the obvious arguments about sovereignty. Essentially, it is a political and constitutional matter which comes readily to the mind of professional politicians. However, there is a much more difficult and important issue in the near term, namely, the practical possibilities and implications of economic and monetary union. They have attracted rather less attention in public debate, but it is vital for them to be given more prominence from now on. I hope that at the intergovernmental conferences the Government will do all that they can to draw attention to the fact that one of our major worries, in addition to the one about sovereignty, is that the Community should not embark on a road that is likely to lead to its destruction.

I am far from being an uncritical supporter of the Community, but it is in the interests of all its nations to belong to it and to see it become successful and move forward. Nothing is more likely to undermine it or cause it to split apart than monetary union being brought about prematurely at a time when there is a wide divergence between the economic performance of member states. That would lead to serious rises in unemployment in some of the less developed parts of the Community, and that would undoubtedly give rise to political and international pressures for major transfers of resources from the Community's more prosperous members. Such transfers would place on the Community's budget a burden that it simply could not sustain. Those implications of monetary union have not begun to be considered seriously enough in most of the other member states.

In her typically courageous way, my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley was the first, and so far the only, Head of Government in the Community who had the realism to raise those issues. I hope that my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the other Ministers who take part in the discussions will strive for a wider debate in other member states so that these issues may be understood.

Whatever one's views about the desirability in the fullness of time of economic and monetary union, they are simply not practical in the immediate future or even in the easily foreseeable future. When people realise that, we will get a more rational, practical and sensible debate about economic developments and progress in the Community and will be more likely to make a success of it. I hope that the legacy of realism and creative proposals for the development of the Community left to us by my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley can be taken forward by her successor into the 1990s. It will be a major credit to her if the Community can develop more realistically rather than getting sidetracked by rather weird and wonderful abstract concepts which are the enemy of dealing with its immediate practical problems. I shall end on that note because others want to take part in the

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debate. I have already come to the conclusion that I shall not have the opportunity to debate my motion, so I am grateful to have had the chance to take part in this debate.

1.55 pm

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : The right hon. Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Stewart) spoke about how the previous Prime Minister played a significant part in the development of the Common Market over the past five years. I do not doubt for a minute that one can see where her footprints have been inside the Common Market, but her role was not the one painted by the populist press. The hon. Gentleman referred to the money that the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) brought back from the Common Market negotiations shortly after she became Prime Minister. If anybody cared to look at the amount that we are now paying into the Common Market, he would begin to wonder what happened to those barrel loads of money. We are paying £2.5 billion towards it. When I say "We", I do not mean Members of Parliament. I mean those 50 million or so people in Britain who pay that money so that Britain can be a member of the club called the Common Market, which has been an unmitigated disaster since Britain went into it.

Many people in Britain, especially those in Parliament, have got on the gravy train of the Common Market and go on every possible jaunt. They believe that the Common Market is here to stay and that the Rome treaty will last for ever. What nonsense. In the past 1,200 or 1,300 years, thousands of treaties have been made in Europe. Where are most of them now? In the dustbin. That will happen to the Rome treaty. It is based on the free movement of capital and labour, which preceded the monetarism of this Government and of the American Government headed first by Ronald Reagan and now by Bush.

Let us dismiss the idea that the ex-Prime Minister was doing a great job for Britain in the Common Market. Not only did she not bring the money back, but we have now paid £14,000 million to the Common Market, to be a member. A man can join a miners' welfare in Derbyshire for 4s 4d in old money and get a better return on his cash. Every family in Britain is paying £17 a week to finance the farmers of Germany, France and the rest of the Common Market. The right hon. Lady said that she was against a European market and Labour Members thought that that was a good idea and that we should vote against it because it would give more power to the Germans and the rest of them in the Common Market, so we voted against it. What did the ex-Prime Minister do? She got her troops together this was when she used to control them--and said, "We're going to stop those Opposition Members, and some of ours, talking about the Common Market and we'll have a guillotine." She then forced it through. Then she had the cheek to go on television with Brian Walden and all those other patsies and kid them on that somehow she stands up for Britain. It is the biggest load of hypocrisy I have ever seen in my time as a Member of Parliament.

Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East) : What about the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major)?

Mr. Skinner : The new bloke? The grey man? He used to be called John Major-Ball. He was so ashamed of his name that he dropped his Ball. Has anybody seen him perform?

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He was put there because the Tory party got fed up of the previous Prime Minister and decided to knife her and turn her out like a dog in the night.

Mr. Anderson : Is my hon. Friend aware that the Conservative party has made a major new blunder? Instead of embarking on a new, classless society, the Prime Minister has recreated the hereditary principle in favour of Denis Thatcher.

Mr. Skinner : I have the news here. It has just been announced on the wireless that the Deaconess of Dulwich has got an Order of Merit and he will be a baronet, whatever that is worth. I suppose that it gets him into the House of Lords, with £100 a day tax-free expenses and all the rest of it.

The Prime Minister says that she is against the single European market, yet she hands over even more power to Helmut Kohl and all the rest of them. Then she says that she is against the exchange rate mechanism. She kids all the people who are daft enough to listen to her that she is against that, too. What happens? A couple of her people in prominent Cabinet positions knife her. They tell her, "If you don't accept ERM, we're going to resign." So she brings a podium out into the middle of Downing street, behind those big Ceausescu gates that she had built for protection, and says "We"--note the "we"--"are in favour of ERM." She brags about it. That has been the tale all along--kidding people on. She had the newspapers to back her, by and large, especially Mr. Murdoch and his gang. They met her every so often to have a glass or two of whisky on the side so that she could tell them what to put in the papers the following morning. That is the legacy of the past 11 years. When I was asked on television what the legacy of the Thatcher years was, I said that she had been sacked and Scargill is still in office.

Mr. John Marshall : Does Mr. Scargill intend to stand for re- election?

Mr. Skinner : The hon. Gentleman talks about re-election. When I stood outside Committee Room 12 asking Tory Members how they had voted, the hon. Gentleman was one of those who were very quiet about how they had voted in the second ballot. Why was that? He was after a job from whoever of the three won. He was one of the 500 Tory Members--that inflated number- -who were telling every pollster in sight that they were backing whoever might win because they wanted a job and a ministerial car.

Mr. Marshall : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Skinner : I do not have time to give way. [Hon. Members :-- "Oh."] Very well, if the hon. Gentleman is desperate.

Mr. Marshall : In all honesty, the hon. Gentleman ought to recognise that he never asked me how I had voted in either ballot. I should like to place it on record that I supported my political neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), in the first ballot. I stated in the press before the second ballot took place that I intended to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), the present Prime

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Minister. If the hon. Gentleman were to look at the press instead of indulging in fiction, he would discover those things in advance.

Mr. Skinner : That is the third one this morning who has declared after the event. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman does not say to the Back-Bench 1922 Committee, "Next time, we want a recorded vote." Every vote in the House of Commons is recorded. Every time we decide to vote, whether for or against the Common Market, or the Budget, our vote is recorded, so that people understand how we voted. It is high time that the Tory party did what the Labour party does and declared how its members vote. That is one change that it ought to make.

Something else has characterised the past 11 years--money for the wealthy. A recent calculation showed that during the past 11 years the wealthiest 1 per cent. in Britain received £26.2 billion in tax cuts, yet the poorest in Britain finished up paying more. That is a real redistribution of wealth. The previous Prime Minister knew what she was on about. When she got her mandate in 1979 she knew that what she had to do was to finance the people who financed the Tory party--to put money into the pockets of the City. That is why we have had a casino economy.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) referred to manufacturing industry, which, he says has been decimated. It has. One sector of the economy is not, however, under attack. That is the casino economy. If we walk down the main street in any town or city in Great Britain, we see finance houses, whether they be represented by building societies or estate agents. They are not selling many houses, not with interest rates so high. However, they represent the massive shift in Britain's economy. When we walked down the main street 20 years ago, we saw a different set of shops. Everything has changed. The casino economy is all about allowing people to make money out of somebody else's money.

Mrs. Gorman : In his thesis, how does the hon. Gentleman account for the growth of hypermarkets, supermarkets and shopping malls, particularly in the north of England, where the spending power of ordinary people on a Saturday afternoon exceeds that of people in the south because of the prosperity achieved in the north by this Government?

Mr. Skinner : The hon. Lady talks about prosperity. I invite her to go along the Strand after 7 pm or 8 pm when the shops are shut and to have a look in the doorways. When I came down here in 1970, I never walked along the Strand and saw rows of cardboard boxes. I never went to Waterloo station and saw a cardboard city. When people ask me, "What is the legacy of the past 11 years?", I say that we now have a tourist attraction at Waterloo called cardboard city.

That is there because there has been hardly any public sector housebuilding in the past 11 years. In our last year in office, we had 112,000 public sector council houses built. That was not enough in my opinion, but there were times when the figure was higher than that. What is it now? It is a job to get top side of 20,000 in the public sector. Is it any wonder that people are coming down to the city of London on their bikes? The right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit), before he took all his directorships, said, "Get on your bike," so they came to London on their bikes but finished up squatting and littered about in doorways. That is the legacy of Thatcherism. She has redistributed wealth

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to the wealthiest 1 per cent.--her own friends and the same people who have given her the Order of Merit. They have benefited well. The Queen does not pay the poll tax.

Mr. Peter Bottomley : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, especially as he is in mid-rant. In 1977, 1978 and 1979, I had the habit of going on the soup runs in London with Father John Cusack of the Cyrenians. The hon. Gentleman will probably discover that the needs of people sleeping rough in London have not changed much in the past 100 years.

Mr. Anderson : It was not a cardboard city then.

Mr. Bottomley : The hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) says that it was not a cardboard city. It was behind the Savoy and the Regent Palace hotel, at Waterloo and where the soup run starts at Bondway. The hon. Gentleman can see for himself now. We should recognise with some humility that those problems need dealing with and that they existed before.

Mr. Skinner : It stares anybody in the face. The Government can try to fiddle the figures, as they do for the cost of living figures, the balance of payments figures--they will fiddle them before the next election --the dole figures or the housing figures. The truth is that it is staring people in the face, and that is the legacy of the past 11 years.

It is also true in the national health service, where 71,000 beds have gone missing. Why? Because the Government decided that it is better to look after the private system inside and outside the national health service. That is why there are 71,000 fewer beds. That is why, instead of a waiting list of just over 500,000, we now have a waiting list of well over 1 million.

After 11 years, our schools are crumbling. Last year, 50,000 teachers quit the profession because of bad pay and the state of schools. That is what happens when the Government decide to look after the wealthy and forget the rest of the nation.

Tory Members table motions paying a wonderful tribute to the previous Prime Minister. She knew what she was about, and the rest of them followed, except those who got the sack. Nineteen ex-Cabinet Ministers now have 59 directorships between them. They are not too unhappy about the past 11 years. I am talking about only the 19 ex-Cabinet Ministers, but 200 Tory Members have other moonlighting jobs.

I tell my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin that we want something in the next Labour manifesto, and it is quite simple. It is high time that Labour said that when it is elected we shall have full-time Members of Parliament with one job only. That would send some of that lot scurrying for cover.

Mr. Wilshire : Some of your lot too.

Mr. Skinner : That might be true, but not of me. I cannot speak for those who are not satisfied with £26,000 a year ; I think that it is a lot of money. I cannot understand why people need extra jobs to make a living. There are more than 2 million people out of work. Thousands of young lad and lasses who have left school under Thatcher have never had a job. They have flitted from one employment training scheme to the next slave labour scheme and have been paid £26 or £27 a week. We should encourage young people to vote for Labour. We

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should say that the next Labour Government will ensure that training will be proper training and that the trade union rates of pay will be applicable to the job.

Mr. Anderson : Does my hon. Friend agree that it is curious that so many former Cabinet Ministers resigned so that they could have more time with their families and then immediately took jobs that prevented them from having time with their families?

Mr. Skinner : I do not know about that. I know that it is all about money and I do not get caught up in little cul-de-sacs. If politics in the real world is about anything, it is about changing the system. It is about giving more money to one side than to the other. I have not been elected here to play silly little games. I believe that my job is to represent my class. When the next Labour Government come to power, I want them to redistribute some of the wealth. I want them to bring back the £26 billion that has gone to the wealthiest 1 per cent. and to use it to finance the national health service.

Mr. Wilshire : We can all tolerate being shouted at and we can all tolerate party political abuse. However, did I hear the hon. Gentleman correctly? Did he say that he was sent here to represent his class? Is he saying that the constituents whom he does not consider to be of his class are not worthy of his efforts or of his representation? If so, it is a disgrace.

Mr. Skinner : The hon. Gentleman does not know what "class" means. It is not about for whom people vote, but about those who are exploiting and those who are being exploited.

Mr. Nicholas Baker (Dorset, North) : We know what you mean, Dennis.

Mr. Skinner : I shall explain to the hon. Gentleman who, as a Whip, is supposed to be quiet. If an old lady in my constituency who might have voted for the Tories complains about a landlord who might have voted Labour because the bedroom window is falling out, it is my job to represent that old lady irrespective of how she voted because she is being exploited by the bosses.

Mr. Wilshire : The hon. Gentleman said the opposite.

Mr. Skinner : No, I did not. The hon. Gentleman does not know the meaning of the word "class". It is about those who are exploited as opposed to those who do the exploiting. The Tory party represents the wealthy, exploiting class and the Labour party, traditionally, should represent those who are being exploited. It is not a question of whom people vote for. It is not, for example, my job to put more money into the banker's pocket. However, if the banker comes to me and says, "I have never voted for you, Mr. Skinner, but I have to tell you that I have fallen on hard times, I have had to apply for supplementary benefit and this lousy, rotten Government have taken £5 a week off me so I can't make ends meet", he is then a part of that exploited class.

Mr. Wilshire : The hon. Gentleman is back-tracking now.

Mr. Skinner : No, I am clear about this ; I have always held this view. If the hon. Gentleman had been in the

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House longer, he might have heard my views before. I have no difficulty in representing constituents who have problems.

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South) : My hon. Friend will remember something that the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) has forgotten. A former Labour Prime Minister got it right when he made a distinction between those who make money and those who earn it. Is not it true that a graduate of Oxford university--who might be regarded as being of a certain class, even if he has a third or fourth-class chemistry degree--who becomes a teacher in a school may be exploited and that someone who leaves school with two O-levels and who goes into a bank may be exploiting him? This Government have destroyed the teachers' negotiating machinery.

Mr. Skinner : My hon. Friend used to be a teacher, so he knows about that.

Examples of exploitation are to be found in every walk of life and it is the job of Labour Members to represent the exploited. Conservative Members represent the bosses. That is why the new Prime Minister's talk of a classless society is such nonsense. What a joke. Whoever heard of a Tory Member wanting a classless society? If the right hon. Gentleman is to achieve a classless society, he must get rid of the royal family. If he wants a classless society, he must get rid of the House of Lords, yet the Conservatives prop it up ; there are four Tory members to every Labour member. I believe in abolishing the House of Lords and I shall be happy to support the Prime Minister if he wants to abolish it. But he ain't going to do it. He is trotting out generalisations which mean nothing.

If the Prime Minister wants a classless society, he must get rid of all the private beds in the national health service. In a classless society, we cannot have tax breaks for the wealthy, or an honours list. In a classless society, we cannot give people the privilege of sending their kids to public schools and have the ordinary taxpayer foot the bill.

Mrs. Gorman : In a really classless society, people would keep their money and be able to buy private education instead of putting up with the rotten lousy state stuff in socialist-controlled inner cities. People would be able to buy health care in place of some of the stuff doled out in the state-controlled health service and they would all be properly housed because we would have an effective and healthy private housing sector-- something that the Labour party has been opposing for as long as I can remember.

Mr. Skinner : The hon. Lady has spelt out her idea of a classless society. It is about jumping the queue and about privilege. It is about people lining their pockets and leaving people down there in the gutter to fend for themselves. The hon. Lady has made it clear where she stands. In a classless society, she would have trouble looking after the Wimbledon ticket touts because there would not be any. Everyone would have a ticket to Wimbledon. When the revolution starts under the new Prime Minister's regime, everybody will have a ticket to the Henley regatta. It is a joke. It is one of the daftest things that the Prime Minister has said. Mind you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he has been in

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the job for only three weeks so perhaps it was said in a flurry of excitement. The truth is that he will not be able to sustain it. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin about the legacy of the past 11 years. During that period, the education system has lost £3.75 billion and 468 hospitals have closed. The economy is up to its neck in trouble. We were lectured to by a Cabinet full of business men--and one woman--and told that Labour could not run the economy, but that same Cabinet has produced the worst economic situation that we have had since the end of the second world war. Not only did we have a trade deficit of £20 billion last year ; the chances are that this year the deficit will exceed the forecast made by the Chancellor in his autumn statement. It will get even worse. The Government have made invisibles invisible. We have lost every single benefit that we had. The Government used to tell us that we could make £700 million a month on trade in invisibles. They used to tell the workers, "Never mind the deficit in manufactured goods ; we can always make it up from the City." All that has disappeared from view after 11 years of what they call "Thatcherism". In addition, companies are borrowing more money today in an attempt to keep their heads above water than at any time in the past 50 years. The present figure for company borrowing is £6,000 million. That is the legacy of Thatcherism.

There have also been more than 120,000 bankruptcies and liquidations over the past 11 years. All that has happened while the Government have had the benefit of North sea oil. The other day it was announced that over the past 11 years more than £100 billion has been created for the Government through the taxation of North sea oil receipts. The previous Labour Government did not have the benefit of that money. When we get back into power, we must use that sort of money not for the rich, the wealthy or the bosses who had a 28 per cent. pay increase last year and a 33 per cent. increase the year before when the ambulance workers were told that they must make do with 6.5 per cent., but to finance the national health service and to give back to pensioners the £13 a week that the Government robbed them of by changing the system of payments for pensioners. As I said, there have been more than 120,000 bankruptcies and liquidations. Even the Tory party's own blue rosette company has gone bankrupt. Similarly, the County Hall development group, which was to take over the GLC building, has gone bankrupt. It is an ill wind that blows no one any good and I cheered when I heard about that. Over the past 11 years, people in the City of London have made money for themselves, not for the country. They are now asking us to bail them out. The new Secretary of State for the Environment came into the House the other day and said--and I am paraphrasing him here- -"We are in a hell of a mess. Can you bail us out? We've been hammering these people with the poll tax and 14 million of them are not paying. Will you in the Opposition come to our aid?" Some chance. The only way to resolve the problem of the poll tax is to get rid of it, a proposal that was passed by the Labour party executive recently and has now become Labour party policy.

When the former Prime Minister came to power, credit represented 45 per cent. of take-home pay once national insurance and income tax had been subtracted from average income. For every £100 earned by the ordinary

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person, £45 went on credit. We must remember that the former Prime Minister told us that if a Labour Government were elected, they would borrow. That was their maxim. After the past 11 years, the average earner now pays out 87 per cent. of his income in borrowing and credit. So much for all that talk about borrowing.

The Thatcher Government preached to people not to borrow, but the country is awash with credit. That is the legacy. I believe that that problem will haunt successive Governments for a long time to come. There has also been much talk about shares and this property-owning, share-owning democracy. When the former Prime Minister came to power, pension funds and private institutions held 60 per cent. of the wealth in shares. The Government and overseas investors owned 10 per cent. and 30 per cent. was owned by private individuals. After all those so called privatisations, the figures have hardly changed except the percentage owned by private individuals has fallen from 30 per cent. to 20 per cent. A few more people have the odd share here and there, but the general situation has not improved.

In a way, I suppose that I am pleased with the motion because it gives us a chance to put the record straight. People ouside have had a bellyful of Thatcherism. People must understand that the new regime is no different. They represent the same class interests that the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) represents. He represents the interests of the bosses and the wealthy. I represent another interest--those who are exploited. Under the new regime, now that they have shuffled the pack, things will be the same as before. There will be no concessions to the poor. I challenge the Treasury Bench--now that the Government are talking about consultation--to ask Labour Members to help to formulate the next Budget. If it is all right for the poll tax, let us formulate the Budget. Let us have consultation and let us tell the Government what we shall do with the Budget. Let us tell them that we shall take the £26 billion that has gone to the wealthiest 1 per cent. Let us tell them about taxation, VAT, and the run- down of our schools and our health service. Let us tell them that we want to spend another £5 billion, £6 billion or £7 billion on those who must use those services. What a great opportunity. If we are in the business of consultation, let us have it right across the board.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Maples) : We know what the Labour party means by consultation on the Budget. I seem to remember that, when Labour Members were in office, they let the last two or three be written by the International Monetary Fund.

Mr. Skinner : I was around at the time--I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was. I was one of those who did not support that. The Prime Minister of the day should have said to the IMF--I tell the hon. Gentleman because he does not seem to understand--"Look here, we have some North sea oil revenues round the corner. We have a lot of collateral and we are going to use it, so don't tell us what to do." I would have said to Mr. Witteveen, or whatever his name was, "Sling your hook, we will look after our own affairs." I would say the same to Helmut Kohl now that the Tory Government have got into bed with the rest of them, with the ERM, EMU, the single currency, and the central European bank. It applies to everybody--I would say the same to them.

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Helmut Kohl is not a socialist. He has just been returned with a majority, with the help of his Free Democrats, for another four years. The British people do not want to be dominated by the German Bundesbank. Do not worry about that. I would say the same to Witteveen as I would to Helmut Kohl and all the rest. I do not take kindly to the idea that, somehow, this nation is not big enough to stand on its own two feet. I know what we need to do to make sure that we win votes and keep them for the future, and that is to ensure that we keep our promises to the people and the class we represent. We must say to them that we shall take money out of the pockets of the rich and finance the health service, look after pensioners, start building houses again, and look after the education system. Conservative Members tell me that socialism has dropped off the end of the agenda, but there are lots of things to do. If only we cleaned up the cardboard city, which is a legacy of the Government, we would make a start.

I am not too bothered now that the 11 years have gone. I am a socialist, and a socialist has to be an optimist. I am concerned about the next 11 years. I want to make sure that when we formulate our plans and put them before the British people, they are capable of getting support from the British people for the 11 years that it will take for us to clean up the mess that the Tories have left, and that they provide benefits for our people.

2.28 pm

Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay) : After that socialist rant in which the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) failed to justify why droves and droves of his so-called class, to which he somehow lays claim, managed to vote us into power three times in a row with a massive majority, which no Opposition Government have ever achieved in his lifetime or in mine, I can tell him that we know perfectly well where people see their best interests being protected--and that is with the Conservative party, not the Opposition.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), whom we are discussing, led the country to three magnificent Conservative victories. I had hoped that she would do the same again, but matters turned out differently. However, I shall not go over that again. We are here to talk about my right hon. Friend's great personal qualities, which are so well recognised outside the House by the public that many people are still grieving for her loss. My right hon. Friend was not only the leader of our Conservative party ; she was the Prime Minister and a great international figure. We should continue--

It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND ARTS

Ordered ,

That Mr. Win Griffiths be discharged from the Education, Science and Arts Committee and Mrs. Sylvia Heal be added to the Committee.-- [Sir Marcus Fox, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

EMPLOYMENT

Ordered ,

That Sir Philip Goodhart be discharged from the Employment Committee and Mr. Ian Bruce be added to the Committee.-- [Sir Marcus Fox, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

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HEALTH

Motion made, and Question proposed ,

That Mr. Tom Clarke, Mr. James Couchman, Mr. Jerry Hayes, Mr. David Hinchliffe, Alice Mahon, Sir David Price, Mr. Andrew Rowe, Mr. Roger Sims, the Reverend Martin Smyth, Mr. Nicholas Winterton and Audrey Wise be members of the Health Committee.-- [Sir Marcus Fox, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

Hon. Members : Object.

SOCIAL SECURITY

Motion made, and Question proposed ,

That Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Mr. John Browne, Mr. Jeremy Corbyn, Mr. Stephen Day, Mr. Frank Field, Mr. Clifford Forsythe, Mr. Robert G. Hughes (Harrow, West), Mr. Ian McCartney and Mr. Patrick Nicholls be members of the Social Security Committee.-- [Sir Marcus Fox, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

Hon. Members : Object.

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