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HEATHROW EXPRESS RAILWAY (No. 2) BILL (By Order.) Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.-- [Mr. Neil Thorne.]
Question put and agreed to.
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Bill referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.Column 804
British Technology Group Bill [Money]
Queen's Recommendation having been signified --
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the British Technology Group Bill, it is expedient to authorise--
(a) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of-- (
(i) any expenses incurred by the Treasury or the Secretary of State in acquiring securities of the successor company (within the meaning of that Act) or rights to subscribe for any such securities ; and (
(ii) any administrative expenses incurred by the Secretary of State or the Treasury in consequence of the provisions of that Act ; (
(b) the payment out of the National Loans Fund of any sums required by the Secretary of State for making loans to the successor company ;
(c) payments into the Consolidated Fund or the National Loans Fund.-- [Mr. Boswell.]
8.17 pm
Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : There has been a gap between the Second Reading debate and this money resolution. Before the Minister mentions my absence from the Chamber during the Second Reading debate, I should tell him that I was chairing the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. It is not a glamorous job, but it has to be done, and it takes me out of the Chamber for a couple of hours every Tuesday afternoon from 4.30 pm. Therefore, I apologise for not being here during the bulk of the debate, but, as the Minister knows, I was here for the Front-Bench replies, so I am familiar with the arguments used.
The money resolution provides, in the usual form, for covering expenses-- one cannot cavil at that. It relates to administrative expenses in addition to expenses involved in acquiring securities of the successor company. However, the second part of the resolution causes me some concern, because it authorises
"the payment out of the National Loans Fund of any sums required by the Secretary of State for making loans to the successor company". The successor company is the replacement for the British Technology Group. When the Minister spoke, he had that fanatical gleam that comes to the eyes of any Members of the no-turning-back or goose-stepping tendency in the Conservative party. We have seen on previous privatisation occasions how the rules of probity and good sense that normally govern the operation of our government are cast to the wind.
I want to suggest to the Minister a possible scenario. Let us consider a contributor to the Conservative party, such as Lord Hanson, who at one time was put forward to buy at least one of the generating companies that are now being offered to the public. It was hoped that he would get the Government off the hook in that area of privatisation. Let us suppose that a Tory party sympathiser comes along and says, "I am very willing to take up the purchase of the British Technology Group." Arrangements are then made to privatise it, and the most influential purchaser of shares in the company is Lord Hanson. What is to stop the Minister expressing his appreciation of that by making loans to the company? He could not do that when it was not a Crown company, but there is a time before full privatisation when the Secretary of State has control of the company and can make loans under clause 8(3). He can lay down conditions and require that the loan
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"shall be repaid to him as such time and by such methods, and interest on it shall be paid to him as such rate and at such time, as he may, with the consent of the Treasury, from time to time direct." That is a pretty wide power to give the Secretary of State, and it is included in the primary legislation. I am not talking about his producing any delegated powers of any rules subject to approval by the House.All that is saving us from handing over loans at preferential rates of interest to a company that it is arranged is about to be bought by an influential figure in the City scene--or whomever it may be--is the consent of the Treasury. It is rather alarming that, in the money resolution, we are handing over such powers in a process that I regard as wholly lamentable and which is in the hands of Ministers who are deeply committed not only to privatisation, but to privatisation on the basis that the process will not be subject to the criticism of hon. Members. Those Ministers need to make the process as successful as they can.
One of the ways in which Ministers can make the transfer successful is to ensure that the company is given all the loan money that it needs from the public purse. This will not be the first time that that has happened. Rover was an example of a privatisation in which a firm with assets of more than £750 million was handed over to British Aerospace at a cost of about £150 million. Lord Young, who was then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, was criticised by the European Commission for the sweeteners that he allowed to be given to British Aerospace and which were not revealed to the public at large in the privatisation. This is a matter of considerable alarm. My hon. Friend will recall that Lord Macmillan talked about selling off the family silver. We are now getting on to the peripheral pieces of family silver about which most people do not know. We are going into the attic. However, in this attic there is a highly successful group, as has been acknowledged by everyone. All the privatisation proposals have involved organisations that have been widely praised by the Government for the devotion and determination of the workers involved. Yet the Government thrust them out into what is euphemistically termed the "marketplace".
We know that the marketplace is not the never-never land that is so loved by the Minister. We know that it involves deals and arrangements between people who are in influential positions because they have a lot of money. If the Government seek to make this privatisation successful, they will want to make substantial loans. The money resolution and the components of the Bill provide that power. There are few safeguards in the Bill or in the money resolution to restrict what the Government can do.
It is alarming that the Minister, who has a reputation for extreme right- wing zeal, and the Secretary of State, who is part of the No Turning Back group and who is
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another little zealot in the Government machine, are ready to hand over large sums of taxpayers' money. What will happen? We shall be too late. The money resolution and the primary legislation will have been passed. The whole thing is to be handed over with a veneer of legality.However, we know that the process is designed to ensure not the reasonable loans that are needed but large sums to be handed over to a privatised company. The Government will then proclaim, "This is a success of privatisation." We know that it is a public success in every sense. The Government take a public organisation that has been successful and they then take public funds to provide further loans from the national loans fund to guarantee some sort of success. I raise those points in perturbation. I tend to examine money resolutions. It is not a convention to vote on those resolutions, although I think that it should be. I should like to vote on them more often, because the money is the key to the whole business. We have passed the primary legislation which authorises the Government to provide money. The money resolution is a specific control by Parliament so that we can say to Ministers, "You have got the power to do this." I should like to withhold that power. I wait with eagerness to see whether the Minister, with the zealot's gleam in his eye, provides a satisfactory explanation or whether he simply provides the defensive briefing on money resolutions with which, I am delighted to say, most Ministers are now provided because money resolutions tend to be debated more frequently these days. I look forward to the Minister's comments.
8.27 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Edward Leigh) : We always enjoy the contributions of the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) on money resolutions. It is true that I have come prepared for the comments that I thought that the hon. Gentleman might make. He had some fun, but I will not follow him down that road.
The essence of the hon. Gentleman's remarks was a technical point concerned with the national loans fund and with lending to the successor company under clause 8. If I understood the gist of what the hon. Gentleman said, he seemed to suggest that the money might be misused.
Mr. Cryer : Making excessive loans.
Mr. Leigh : I think that I can give him the reassurance that he needs about excessive loans. The Secretary of State is empowered only to lend money to the successor company from the national loans fund while it remains wholly Government owned. That is merely a contingency measure in case privatisation is delayed. I hope that I can also reassure the hon. Gentleman by saying that it will be a condition of any such loans that they are repaid in full before privatisation. I think that that answers the hon. Gentleman's point. Question put and agreed to.
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Namibia Bill [Lords]
Considered in Committee ; reported, without amendment. Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.-- [Mr. Lennox-Boyd.]
8.30 pm
Mrs. Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) : Before I give my support to the Bill on Third Reading, let me ask the Minister one or two questions following our Second Reading debate last week.
In her reply to that debate, the Minister for Overseas Development talked about Walvis bay. Do the Government envisage the "early" reintegration of Walvis bay into Namibia taking place before the end of this year? Will Namibia's 12 offshore islands be included, and what sort of encouragement-- the Minister's word--will the Government bring to bear on South Africa to relinquish its invalid territorial claim to Walvis bay?
What did the Minister for Overseas Development mean when she said that the Government would help the Namibian Government to tackle the problem of inherited debt, estimated at 800 million rand, which South Africa illegally imposed on the country before independence? Surely in international law the debt belongs to the South African reserve bank which, in turn, owes Namibia a large sum of accumulated foreign currency. Will the Minister support in principle the renunciation of the entire illegal debt?
We appreciate that development projects in education, agriculture and fisheries take time to plan, but does the Minister agree that the Government have been a bit slow off the mark--especially in agriculture and fisheries, given that other countries are already helping to drill bore holes, dig wells, train coastguards, provide seed and research fish stocks?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, but we had a fairly wide-ranging debate on Second Reading, and we are now on Third Reading. Hon. Members must direct their remarks to what is in the Bill. I am finding it slightly difficult to understand how the hon. Lady's present remarks can be related to what is in the Bill.
Mrs. Clwyd : I appreciate that point, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I am bringing my remarks to a close.
Namibia is now a Commonwealth country and the Bill reinforces its status as such. The present situation is an example of what could happen elsewhere in southern Africa. Will the Minister therefore explain why, over the next three years, the Government are to provide only about a quarter of the bilateral aid that is to be provided by Sweden, and far less than many other countries are providing? Given that the most organised part of the Government's aid to Namibia so far is in military and police training, it is not good enough to say that all police forces should operate on the basis of full respect for human rights and the law. Hon. Members asked last week for the assurance that training will have a specific human rights component. Will the Minister now assure us that that will be the case?
I have several other questions, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I will not strain your considerable patience tonight, as
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we had a full debate last week. Nevertheless, I should be grateful if the Minister would respond more fully to my questions when he has an opportunity.8.34 pm
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) : I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the occupants of the Treasury Bench, to the House and to the Government and people of Namibia for not having attended the whole of the Second Reading debate last week. I was present for most of the winding- up speeches, but unfortunately until then was engaged on other commitments elsewhere in the House.
I warmly welcome the Bill. Some hon. Members will know that for almost all my 20 years in the House, I have taken a great interest in Namibia, which is a wonderful country. I do not hesitate to say that, if I was not a citizen of the United Kingdom, there is no other country in which I should like to live more than in Namibia--or South-West Africa, as it was known.
I have had the privilege of visiting that country on many occasions. I must say that the new Government of Namibia would not have been the Government of my choosing. I would much have preferred it had the Democratic Turnhaller Alliance won the election, but SWAPO and its allies won it fairly and squarely and I believe that they stand a chance of forging a multi-party democracy in that country which will stand the rest of Africa in good stead for the future. All of us watch Namibia with great interest.
The hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) referred to the debt that the new Government inevitably inherited from the Administration that preceded them. I hope that the United Kingdom Government, the EC and other countries will seek to ensure that the fragile body of democracy which is Namibia will not have a millstone round its neck in the form of the large debt that it inherited. I repeat that I have visited Namibia many times ; I have been to north, south, east and west. The infrastructure that has been built up is amazing. It is probably one of the best in the African continent. To that extent, the new Administration, under President Nujoma, have a good legacy on which to build for the future. But we do not want them to be handicapped and restricted by the heavy debt incurred by the previous Administration and so prevented from doing what is necessary to ensure their country's prosperity.
I go a little wide, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the Bill has gone through the House extremely quickly. I do not believe that the admission of a new country to the British Commonwealth should go through on the nod, without those who have some knowledge of that country contributing to the debate and wishing it well. I hope that Namibia's immense potential can be used by its people.
Many hon. Members will know that the country comprises at least 11 different tribal groups, speaking 16 or more different languages. The Namibians have immense problems with education and the provision of educational equipment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I must ask the hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Chairman's Panel, to help me. I have already called the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) to order. The occupant of the Chair
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allowed a long debate on Second Reading. We are now on Third Reading and we must discuss what is in the Bill. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will now do just that.Mr. Winterton : Indeed I will. You have brought me to order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall certainly accede to your instruction. I hope that Britain, as one of the leading countries of what was the British Commonwealth and is now simply the Commonwealth, will seek to play its part in ensuring the success of this fledgling country. Namibia has only 1.4 million people, but, as a member of the Commonwealth, it can take advantage of the immense wealth of good will and experience that is comprised in and can be obtained from the Commonwealth. I wish Namibia well. I wish its Government and its Opposition parties well. I hope that the country can set the example for the rest of Africa. I know that President de Klerk is doing his best in the Republic, but if there is success in African democracy--for that is what is important--there can be peace in that continent and Namibia can set the pace of reform and progress in the whole of southern Africa.
8.40 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd) : This is a technical Bill to amend United Kingdom law to take account of Namibia's independence and membership of the Commonwealth. There have been debates both in this House and another place, not on the provisions of the Bill, which are largely uncontentious, but on the policy towards the newly independent Government of Namibia. Members of both Houses have had ample opportunity to express their opinions and I am happy to say that the debates have shown universal good will towards Namibia, a good will which was reiterated tonight by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton).
The hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) asked several questions, to which I shall reply briefly. If any elaboration is needed, I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development will communicate with the hon. Lady.
As we have already said, we support the early integration of Walvis bay. In this context, "early" means as soon as practicable. It is for the Governments of South Africa and Namibia to determine the pace of negotiations. It is equally for them to determine the scope of any agreement and whether, for example, it would include the offshore islands presently administered with Walvis bay. As for encouragement, we have already emphasised in talks with the South Africans the importance of the talks to Namibia's prosperity. We believe that they will recognise the importance to the region and to themselves of an economically healthy Namibia and the key role of access to Walvis bay facilities.
The hon. Member for Cynon Valley also mentioned the inherited debt, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development made it clear that Namibia is already providing in its 1990 budget for servicing and repayment of that debt. Namibia has not sought renunciation of the entire legal debt.
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The hon. Lady asked several questions about aid. If I may, I shall draw them to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development. I know that she will read the Hansard report of the debate. I shall ask her to provide the hon. Lady with answers in writing. Let us all hope that the immense potential of Namibia will be realised, to use the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield. On that note, I am happy to commend the Bill to the House.Question put and agreed to.
Bill read the Third time, and passed, without amendment.
OVERSEA SUPERANNUATION BILL [Money]
Queen's Recommendation having been signified--
Resolved, That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Oversea Superannuation Bill, it is expedient to authorise-- (
(a) that payment out of money provided by Parliament of-- (
(i) any expenses incurred by a Minister of the Crown in consequence of any provision of the Act or of any scheme made or having effect as if made under section 2 of the Overseas Pensions Act 1973 by virtue of the Act ;
(ii) any administrative expenses incurred by a Government department in consequence of the Act ;
(iii) any increase attributable to the provisions of the Act in the sums payable out of such money under any other Act ;
(b) the making of payments into the Consolidated Fund.-- [Mr. Boswell.]
STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Lighthouse Authorities
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.). That the draft General Lighthouse Authorities (Beacons : Hyperbolic Systems) Order 1990, which was laid before this House on 20th December, be approved.-- [Mr. Boswell.]
Question agreed to.
Unfair Dismissal (Compensation)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.). That the draft Unfair Dismissal (Increase of Compensation Limit) Order 1991, which was laid before this House on 19th December, be approved.-- [Mr. Boswell.]
Question agreed to.
Unfair Dismissal (Awards)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.). That the draft Unfair Dismissal (Increase of Limits of Basic and Special Awards) Order 1991, which was laid before this House on 19th December, be approved.-- [Mr. Boswell.]
Question agreed to.
Employment Protection
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.). That the draft Employment Protection (Variation of Limits) Order 1991, which was laid before this House on 19th December, be approved.-- [Mr. Boswell.]
Question agreed to.
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House of Commons (Services)
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That Mr. Graham Bright and Mr. David Lightbown be discharged from the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) and Mr. Anthony Steen and Mr. Greg Knight be added to the Committee.-- [Mr. Boswell.]
Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill) : I object to this item on the grounds that the Government have continually failed to set up a Select Committee to deal with Scottish affairs. Until they do, we shall continue to object to motions of this type.
Question put and agreed to.
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The Gulf
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. Boswell.]
8.45 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : My good fortune to begin an Adjournment debate at a quarter to 9 on the role of the United Nations in relation to the Gulf is tinged with just a little sadness. It is sadness that the House of Commons has allowed time to pass from 21 January, when the important questions that I am about to ask should have been asked. In the House of Commons to which I was first elected and of which the father of the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs was a distinguished and powerful Member, those questions would have been asked not by a Back Bencher like me, but by Hugh Gaitskell from the Front Bench. These are major issues which belong to not an Adjournment debate but what should be a weekly major debate initiated by the Opposition party or the Government party in prime time.
Having said that, I should like to set some questions, talking quietly to the Minister, as we have the opportunity to do. The first is on the attitude to the United Nations of the Soviet Union. In his most recent statement, Mr. Gorbachev said :
"The events in the region of the Persian Gulf are assuming an increasingly alarming and dramatic turn. The fly-wheel"
the fly-wheel--
"of one of the major wars of recent decades is spinning free. The number of casualties, including among the civilian population, is multiplying. The military activity has already caused enormous material damage. Whole countries--first Kuwait and now Iraq and later possibly others--are under the threat of catastrophic destruction. The discharge of a gigantic amount of oil into the Persian Gulf may turn into the gravest ecological disaster."
That is part of the latest Russian attitude.
The House will allow me one more quotation on the Russians. It comes from Mr. Brinkley's interview of Marshal Akhromeyev, the chief military adviser to President Gorbachev and the former Soviet chief of staff. Mr. Brinkley said :
" Mr. Gorbachev has said recently, and again yesterday, that the alliance forces are in danger of exceeding the UN mandate, which is simply to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Is it your view, Marshall Akhromeyev, that by the tactics of comprehensive bombing in Iraq, the United States and its allies may be exceeding the UN mandate? And if so, what might the Soviet Union do about that?"
Marshal Akhromeyev replied :
"'You see, in life we sometimes come across such kind of situations. When a war has been started with just purposes, then it acquires a different kind of character."
I stress those words.
"Something of this kind is taking place in the Gulf area today. Who knows?' "
The Government asserted that the American and British force--for such in reality it ever was and has certainly now become--had Russian backing ; does it still have Russian backing? What assessment have the Goverment made of the Soviet position? I hear from several sources--there is no reason to suppose that the reports are in any way exaggerated--that men are walking from Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, Azarbaijan, Kazakhstan--Muslims from those southern Russian republics--to offer their services to Saddam Hussein. That is an ingredient of an extremely dangerous situation.
What is the Government's assessment of the Soviet attitude now that we are in week 4 of a military situation,
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the nature of which, as in most wars, has changed from the start of that war? The events of 1915 were very different from those surrounding the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Wars take on a momentum of their own.My second question, which is linked with the Russians, is about the Government's assessment of the bombing. My question is direct. Can the Minister point out to me whereabouts in the United Nations resolutions there is authority for the pounding of Baghdad night after night after night? There may be that authority, but I have not found it.
Bluntly, an increasing number of people, not only in Arabic and Islamic countries or in third-world countries, but in this country and thoughout the world, are embarrassed and unhappy--many are vomit-stricken--by what is happening. To think that those huge B52s leave that lovely Gloucestershire village of Fairford to go to drop their bombs--I do not know how accurately, except that Ramsey Clark makes it quite clear, as a former American Attorney-General, that the casualties are now mounting. Did the United Nations ever authorise that? Did it authorise the B52s?
What would the Minister or any of us here--my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer), for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham), for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes), for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse), for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), for Glasgow Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) and for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis)--do if we were subject to such bombing? If I had been bombed last year or in any year from 1979, I would have "got right behind Margaret Thatcher". It is human reaction to get behind the leader of the country when one is being attacked.
What is the Government's assessment of the reaction to the bombing of Baghdad? I suspect that the people of Baghdad are reacting in the same way as all human beings react, as Londoners in this city reacted in 1940 and as the people of Hamburg reacted in 1943. The people of that proud Hanseatic city did not like the Nazis or Hitler at all, but during the bombing they stepped up production. I cannot say that production is going up in Baghdad, but I suspect that that bombing makes people more determined, not less.
What is the Government's assessment of the effects of such bombing? Furthermore, what is the effect on the troops who are bombed? We may say that we are concentrating all our bombing on Kuwait, but are we sure that that does not make the troops more determined? I fear very much for a land battle, because that battle could be another Stalingrad. It could be a battle of hand-to-hand fighting, block by block. Are we sure that the United Nations authorises that? I am aware that we have some time for this debate, but my speech will not be endless. I have a specific question about the attitude of the United Nations Secretary General. I drew to the attention of the Foreign Office a report by Leonard Doyle from New York that appeared in The Independent on Monday 11 February under the banner headline "UN has no role in running war' ". Forgive me, but I thought that we were acting as the United Nations force. That is what I have been told
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