House of Commons Hansard Debates for 14 Mar 1991

Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) : I wholly concur with the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris), as I am sure will all hon. Members. A few weeks ago, during a gala occasion at the Fishmongers hall, the Royal National Institute for the Deaf awarded its first communicator of the year award. In the light of the hon. Gentleman's speech, it is particularly appropriate to tell the House that it was awarded to Jill Morrell, who has been the leader of the Friends of John McCarthy group and ceaseless in trying to secure his release and the release of other hostages.

That enables me to move on to the matter about which I wish to speak. Cases which have been brought to my attention and my own activity demonstrate that the needs of deaf people in further and higher education are not being adequately and urgently addressed. Many people are losing out because they do not have adequate provision.

As somebody who has worked with organisations for the deaf for the past few years, I predict that the House will see growing militancy by deaf people in pursuit of their rights to the same education and training opportunities as hearing people.

I have introduced, but not secured time for, a Bill which was published last week and which has all-party support entitled Deaf Persons (Access to Further and Higher Education and Training) Bill. It is very much modelled on

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the practical legislation that exists in the United States. When that legislation was introduced in 1975 in the United States, it led to a tenfold increase in the number of courses for deaf people and the number of deaf people pursuing further and higher education within the United States. Matters are improving in the United Kingdom, but we are way behind that level of participation.

It is difficult to obtain figures showing how many deaf people are participating and how many are being shut out. A survey carried out by the RNID suggested that there are only about 20 deaf people in each academic year in further and higher education in the United Kingdom. That represents about one fifth of what might reasonably be expected given their profile within the population. It is worth saying that those statistics hide and disguise a great deal of personal frustration and misery of which I have evidence. Some students who secure entry to colleges or universities are forced to drop out through lack of adequate support, and many others--we do not know how many--are deterred from even trying, and are forced to settle for training and subsequent employment well below their capabilities.

I freely admit to a little plagiarism from a lecture delivered at the end of last year by the professor of education at Reading university, Professor Brian Palmer, who is active in trying to promote the interests of higher education for the deaf. Unusually, I shall follow his example and ask hon. Members who do not know what it is like to be deaf to watch my lips while I mouth words without using my voice. I then said, "This is unfair because it is difficult to lip-read at a distance. But deaf people watching an interpreter would know what was being said because they would see what was being signed." That demonstrates the frustration that deaf people will have in trying to participate in full-time education, as intelligent as any hon. Member but unable to do so because they do not have the support and assistance that they need.

Only a limited number of institutions in Britain provide for the deaf. I have already mentioned Reading university ; Durham university is another. Lancashire and Sheffield polytechnics, Derbyshire college of higher education, the Open university and Doncaster technical college also make such provision. But, across the board, provision remains abysmal.

My Bill proposed the establishment of an education and training council for deaf people which could produce statistics which are not available and co- ordinate the development of provision. It would also give deaf people an absolute right to the support that they need to pursue courses. It would block discrimination and recognise British sign language, the right to interpreters and all support aid at no cost to the student.

The Leader of the House may be interested in what I am about to say given his former role as Secretary of State for Education and Science. I genuinely welcome the recent changes that the Government introduced to the allowances which provide for £3,000-worth of equipment per course and £4,000 per annum towards interpreters. Those sums are necessary and they are welcome, but they remain means-tested, and that is unfair. They do not secure the co-ordination of development which the proposed council would achieve. Not only that, but before I came into the House this afternoon I was advised that they were not working in the interests of deaf people, as the

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Minister, when he announced them, assured us they would. Deaf people are not getting access to those funds as they hoped they would and believe they should.

Rather than just giving bald statistics, I will cite some cases to show what that means to individuals. There is the case of a female student taking a BA in sociology at a university, who received the disabled students' allowances, but they were not sufficient to cover all interpreter and note-taker costs. She needs an extra £1,000 this year. Under the existing provisions, she should be getting that, but she is not.

A male student taking an MA in environmental planning has been refused funds by his local education authority, and he needs more than £4,500 to cover interpreting and note-taking costs for the year. A female student doing a three-year qualification in youth and community work at a polytechnic does not qualify for the disabled students' allowances because she is part-time. The voluntary organisation by which she is employed as an assistant youth worker can pay only her fees and she needs just under £4,000 to pay for an interpreter this year.

That means that deaf people are effectively doubly disadvantaged. It is more expensive for them to take a course and, if they are not funded, other organisations which raise money for the deaf have to divert money to support them. There is also a severe shortage of interpreters for the deaf throughout Britain. The director of the National Deaf Children's Society, Harry Cayton, told me that when he needs an interpreter for a meeting at his office it takes his secretary an average of 14 phone calls to find one. It must be borne in mind that deaf people do not have the same facility with the telephone as a hearing person.

Those examples show the problems that deaf people face. I shall not detain the House with other examples that the Royal National Institute for the Deaf gave me that show the shortfall in funding. My Bill has all-party support and the backing of all the major organisations for deaf people--the RNID, the National Deaf Children's Society and the British Deaf Association. It would help in improving the role and aspirations of deaf people. When I meet deaf people abroad, it is a source of shame to me that Britain is regarded as the poor relation in providing facilities for deaf people.

I am glad that some of the campaigning has had an effect, which I acknowledge, but there is more to do. I pray in aid Professor Brian Palmer, who said in his lecture that, if my Bill

"were enacted, it would largely achieve in legislation what is necessary to equalise opportunites for deaf people in post-school education."

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this subject. I appreciate that, as the House is preparing to adjourn, many people may regard it as a narrow, esoteric issue that does not justify detaining the House, but the problems of many deaf people require urgent attention. I have been given examples of deaf people being accepted for courses of higher education and training who have experienced difficulty in keeping up or have been forced to drop out. Many others do not even try, because they know that, without support, they would not cope.

As many hon. Members will know, I have a direct personal interest, as my daughter, who is 14 and is profoundly deaf, may go on to further education in the

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next two or three years. I am not making a special plea on her behalf, but because of her I have encountered so many other people who face this deprivation.

The Government have moved in the right direction, but they should take on board that the deaf community are not satisfied with the support they are receiving or the way in which the additional support that was recently offered is working. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science to ensure that more applications from deaf people for educational support are granted so that they meet the need for which they were intended, because that is not happening at present?

5.52 pm

Mr. Conal Gregory (York) : Before we rise for the Easter adjournment, I should like to mention the problems that are facing tourism, particularly following the crisis in the Gulf. Those problems present an opportunity for the Government to assist, perhaps as never before, those working in and dependent on tourism. When agriculture experienced difficulties with BSE, the Government paid £587 compensation for each mad cow. In 1989, the last year for which statistics are available, each overseas visitor to the United Kingdom brought £397 into this country, yet I am afraid that the Government have given the British Tourist Authority a derisory £800, 000 to promote the United Kingdom out of the tourism crisis. We are not giving good value to those who are employed in Britain's fastest-growing industry, and are risking the long-term future of tourism.

The position nationally and in York and Yorkshire is extremely worrying. I should declare an interest as the parliamentary consultant to Consort Hotels, which is based in my constituency and is the largest consortium of independent hoteliers in this country. It is appropriate that it keeps me in touch with developments. I have calculated that as many as 20,000 jobs in tour operators, airlines and hotels could be lost, representing an estimated whole-year cost to the Treasury of £6,000 per job.

The knock-on effects of that on jobs in retail and other sectors have begun to show. Overseas earnings are very important but are often neglected when commentators consider invisible earnings. Of whole-year earnings of £8 billion, £700 million has been lost in the first quarter, and of £1.5 billion of earnings from the United States, we expect £500 million to be lost. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor must take into account the dramatic effect of that on tourism when he prepares the Budget for Tuesday. I should not be surprised by a year-end loss in earnings of £1.5 billion unless--this is the important opportunity for the Government--the Government support a major promotion of tourism.

Those who reside in London during the week are aware that 38 per cent. of London's theatregoers and 44 per cent. of people who attend London art galleries are overseas tourists. Sadly, the figures for the first three months of this year are down. The retail sector derives up to 20 per cent. of its income from overseas visitors, and the Treasury derives more than £60 from each visitor in value added tax.

The earnings and jobs of every constituency are affected by tourism. In Yorkshire, there has been a worrying fall in bookings by overseas visitors. Tour operators, hoteliers and coach companies have all received cancellations. But our message should be that Britain is a safe destination for

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business travel or recreation. We have increased security at our airports, ferry terminals and railway stations. We must follow that with a high-profile marketing campaign targeted on north America, the far east and Australasia, so that we have not just quantity but quality of visitors.

Tourism is worth £14 billion in England and £994 million in Yorkshire and Humberside. Investment must continue. York has been fortunate in attracting new construction and venues such as the museum of automata, and other sites have been imaginatively developed. I would welcome my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to Fairfax house and the Yorkshire museum, both of which have been extensively developed in recent years. However, more hotels are being built in Paris than in London.

Too many local authorities are unsympathetic to tourism and will not carefully interpret planning applications which seek to turn former warehouses that are of no use into potential hotels. Do the Hastings, Folkestones or Cliftonvilles have the infrastructure that we expect and see in Blackpool and Bournemouth? Sadly, they do not. Devolution from London to the regions will need a co-ordinated national campaign.

The Gulf crises will help in other respects. Many more British people will take short breaks not only in the delightful constituency of Norfolk, South --my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council was my Member of Parliament when I lived there--but in centres such as York. Given the strength of the United States dollar, we must look further afield. Anyone in Britain can enjoy our theatres and, except for "Phantom of the Opera", which I have been unable to see, can get into any London theatre. That is a very worrying development.

To achieve a boom in tourism, there must be a campaign. The uniform business rate is not helping small travel agents who wish to move from one site to another and sell their premises. The stepping-stone principle, which particularly affects the constituencies of City of Chester, Bath and York, effectively cripples the ability of small businesses to move, which is a great problem.

We must also abolish red tape. I commend my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Employment for securing the removal of visa requirements for visitors from the United States and for those travelling from this country to North America. That improvement must spread to other countries. Far too many youngsters do not know on which continent a certain country is to be found. If they want to visit, for example, Aruba on a package holiday, they do not know on which continent it is to be found. I hope that before too long they will pass their GCSE in tourism--at the moment offered by only one examination board--and that they will then know where such places are. I hope that they will also learn to appreciate the benefits of tourism in the United Kingdom and the opportunities that this country provides for them.

All too often, a person who goes into a Chicago or Tokyo travel agency when considering booking a holiday in the United Kingdom does not receive correct information. If that person books his holiday with a particular airline, he may find that it is locked into a hotel group, which may result in him not visiting the United Kingdom. Paris is increasingly becoming the central

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attraction for people coming to Europe. If they go to Paris--and shortly to Disneyland--will they then come to London and the rest of the United Kingdom?

Tourism is an international issue. Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend is unable to discuss it with the World Tourism Organisation. We are one of the very few developed countries that is not a member of the WTO, though I have yet to discover why. By the payment of a very small sum of money, we could have a major influence, in terms of British consultancies, on world tourism. The WTO is based in Madrid. It has master plans, apart from environmental issues which include blue tourism--a reference to safe beaches--and green tourism. If we are to have a major voice in world tourism, I hope that in due course my right hon. Friend will announce that this country intends to play a leading role in the World Tourism Organisation.

We should place emphasis on attracting quality markets. We should not attempt to exert pressure on eastern European visitors to come here. Many coachloads of people already enter Venice with their packed lunches. Those many thousands of people use its public facilities and see some of the wonders of Venice, but they spend not a single lira there. That form of tourism would be an unwelcome development here, though it would be nice to see people from Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia coming to this country on "fam" trips, as they are termed, to visit friends and relatives.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will discuss with the Secretary of State for Transport the environmental problems that assail north American and Japanese visitors to this country. I refer in particular to coach parking. When the changing of the guard takes place at Buckingham palace, we see coaches there belching out diesel fumes. That is an improper use of coach facilities. Coach parking has been neglected, but that problem could be tackled if a Minister were to be given responsibility for tourism throughout the United Kingdom. Junior members of the Government--usually in the other place--are responsible for tourism. I want elected Members of Parliament to be given that responsibility. They ought not to change their portfolio every 10 months or every year. They rush around at a great rate of knots, but by the time they have scoured the whole of their territory, they are promoted to another job.

The facilities available at our ports of entry are still poor. At our busiest port of entry, Dover, people have to find the road out of England en route for France if they want to visit the tourist information centre.

I could give many other examples, but I realise that this is not 1 April-- All Fools day. Sadly, such examples ought more appropriately to be given on that day. People's jobs are at risk from such inefficiencies. I hope, therefore, that before Easter the Government will give a strong lead to this key industry, having recognised the jobs that depend upon it, and that, from Easter onwards, the tourist industry will enjoy a substantial revival.

6.4 pm

Mr. Dave Nellist (Coventry, South-East) : The House of Commons ought not to rise for Easter until it has fully discussed the Gulf war. I do not intend to trespass on the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow

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(Mr. Dalyell) will raise in the debate that he has secured. However, I wish to refer to a few consequences of the Gulf war.

For many families, the ending of the war has been marked this week by funerals, not least by the funerals yesterday in Coventry of two teenagers- -Lee Thompson and Jason McFadden--who were killed in the Gulf war. Such deaths are deeply felt in Coventry and throughout the country. Those two teenagers will not be forgotten by their families, by their friends or by people in general. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Hughes) will, I know, want me to place on record the fact that we intend to ensure that the Ministry of Defence conducts a full public inquiry into the deaths of Lee and the other eight teenagers who, we were told euphemistically, died as a result of "friendly fire."

The war ended with light casualties on the allied side, and there is relief among people throughout the world that the war is over. However, that relief has been soured by growing realisation of the enormous number of deaths and the scale of destruction in Iraq. Some of us complained for many years about the vicious, repressive regime in Iraq. It imprisoned, tortured and murdered many tens of thousands of trade unionists, socialists, communists and ordinary people. However, Iraq has not been "liberated" by mass bombing on a scale that has not been seen for 50 years. According to information provided to me by the Library, during the 39 nights of allied bombing, half the tonnage of the bombs dropped on Europe during six years of war was dropped on Iraq.

Specific instances of that bombing ought to be examined. For example, 400 women and children were killed in the Al Amerieh bunker. That, too, has been euphemistically described--as "collateral damage". That number was surpassed by the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands who died in soft- topped lorries, cars and other vehicles at the Mutlaa gap on the road to Basra. Those people were retreating or fleeing from Kuwait. There was a seven-mile line of vehicles at that point. At about 12.40 pm on Monday last, there was a report on ITN, which I have not seen repeated, of a column 60 miles long north of Kuwait city. Tanks and armoured cars were reported to have been burnt out and no survivors were to be seen.

After 30 armies knocked seven bells out of Iraq, why are the Americans and everyone else still imposing sanctions on Iraq? What are they supposed to achieve? If the B52 planes that dropped the bulk of the 900,000 tonnes of bombs on Iraq did not achieve what their role in Vietnam was said to be--to knock that country back into the stone age--they certainly bombed Iraq back into the 19th century. There is little or no power and clean water, or health and emergency services. Raw sewage floats in the Tigris. Massive international relief must be organised for the country. Cholera, typhoid, hepatitis and polio outbreaks are already to be seen. Unless something is done quickly, they will reach epidemic proportions.

The right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) announced on Tuesday that Britain is giving £420,000-worth of aid to the International Red Cross. That compares with £3 billion spent on the war, and an estimated £50 billion to be spent on the restoration of Kuwait. One wonders how much of that will go on building palaces and luxury dwellings for the unelected al-Sabah dictatorship ; I give the figures merely to put the amount of aid in its context.

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For the people inside Iraq, the war has not stopped. The Iraqi intifada goes on--in the north in the Kurdish areas, and in the south and south-east of Shia areas. Saturday marks the third anniversary of Saddam Hussein bombing the village of Halabja, an incident in which 6,000 or 7,000 Kurds died when chemical weapons were used against them. In October that year several thousand marsh Arabs north of Basra died under the same chemical weapons. To the shame of our Government, within days of the second attack the present Secretary of State for Social Security, then in charge of trade and industry, announced an increase of £340 million in trade credits--almost as a reward--for the Saddam Hussein regime.

In the past 10 or 12 days, the eyes of the world may have been turned away from the affairs of Iraq. That is understandable perhaps given that, following the expulsion of many media personnel, it is becoming more difficult to see what is happening there, but a deliberate policy to leave Saddam Hussein in place is emerging. In The Guardian, a senior United States diplomat is quoted as saying : "Better the Saddam Hussein we know than an unwieldy weak coalition or a new strong man who is an unknown quantity."

It is, however, possible to get news of what is happening in Iraq. Today, for instance, I met people, including constituents, who are naturalised British citizens who originated from Iraq. They gave me two faxes from Iran dated yesterday. The first was an appeal from the people of Basra to everyone :

"We are fighting for all Iraqis and for all humanity everywhere. We are in full control of Basra, but your families, children, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers from Basra--they are in great need for food and medicines."

Much more follows in this handwritten fax.

The second fax is a letter from Mr. Hakim, head of the supreme command of the Islamic revolution in Iraq, a group based in Iran and fighting in the south of Iraq. The letter is addressed to Perez de Cuellar, head of the United Nations, and it speaks of the republican guard in Iraq--this has not been carried elsewhere, so it is news for those who will hear it--tying women and children on tanks and using them as human shields so that the Iraqi insurrectionists cannot defend what they have gained in Basra. According to that fax, in Basra's Sa'ad square, 45 resistance fighters have been executed, and in two areas outside Basra, chemical hand grenades have been used. Napalm has also been used and its victims have been taken to Iran for treatment for their injuries. So it is possible to find news from Iraq, given the will to do so.

Food, medicines, equipment and chemicals to purify water are all desperately and urgently needed. That is why I believe that sanctions should now be lifted by the British Government. My speeches on the subject in the past few months show that I have never agreed with sanctions, but no Member of this House can now defend their continued use against the ordinary people of Iraq.

I make only one exception to my view on sanctions, and it concerns the arms trade. A couple of weeks after the war ended articles in newspapers and television programmes have begun to claim that "showcase", "combat-proven" weapons used in the middle east are now on sale elsewhere. "Newsnight" carried an item yesterday which spoke of a possible $50 billion to $150 billion-worth of United States arms sales to the middle east. It is worth recording that half of all the oil wealth accumulated in the history of middle eastern oil extraction has been spent on battlefields.

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For the millions of people in the region, let alone the hundreds of millions more close by in north Africa, that is a tale of misspent money, which could have been better used in other ways.

We need a full examination of the arms trade. Who armed Saddam in the first place? This House does not even have what the United States Congress has--a Javits amendment, under which arms sales of more than $7 million have to be reported to Congress. Had such a measure been in place in this country, the £12 million sale of lathes to churn out shell casings which went from Matrix Churchill, via Chile, to Iraq a couple of years ago would have been exposed. Had such a measure been in place, we could have questioned the Department of Trade and Industry when it allowed the same firm, Matrix Churchill, to be taken over by the Iraqi secret service three years ago. When sanctions were imposed, the Department allowed that firm almost to collapse. No one would trade with the firm given the uncertainty surrounding contracts with it, and more than 100 workers in Coventry lost their jobs because of the Government sanctions imposed on the firm.

Defence jobs have never been secure. There have been about 150,000 redundancies in the industry in the past 10 years. Workers at the Filton plant in Bristol must be worried that their plant may be threatened in the same way as Preston and other British Aerospace plants have been in the past couple of months. My party is beginning to come to grips with the issue. When we look into ending arms sales, we must parallel that activity by guaranteeing defence workers alternative jobs, through diversification, so that they and their families do not pay the price for the cuts in defence spending that we want. We should end arms sales to repressive regimes, and we should stop promoting arms.

In the meantime, we should ask why, in July 1979, days before Saddam Hussein was promoted from vice-president to president, Lord Carrington went to Iraq to sign deals. We should ask why, in October 1979, the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Parkinson), then a Trade Minister, was in Iraq doing business. We should ask why, in July 1981, the present Foreign Secretary was in Iraq selling arms--and why, after the war, the present Secretary of State for Social Security allowed Iraq more trade credit. Why did the Government sponsor the arms fair in Iraq, in Baghdad itself, in 1989--a fair which 13 British firms attended? Why, after 91 Opposition Members from six parties tabled an early-day motion opposing Government help for the fair, did not a single Tory Member sign it? Since 2 August we have been subjected to lectures suggesting that the Opposition support dictators because we opposed the war.

My final question is why, on 14 May in the national exhibition centre in Birmingham, there is to be a British arms fair of defence components and equipment. Countries no less repressive than Iraq are due to attend it perhaps, for example, new-found "allies" of ours such as Syria, with its vicious police force ; or old "allies", such as Indonesia, where 200,000 people--one third of the civilian population--have been murdered in East Timor since 1975. Perhaps such countries will show up for two or three days to buy equipment--

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Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley) : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Nellist : I am afraid that I do not have time.

I am against such exhibitions, as are many of my hon. Friends who have signed the early-day motion to that effect. It is not as though we are against war. We are not pacifists. Plenty of regimes in the middle east and elsewhere need toppling. To paraphrase the Prime Minister, I shall not shed any tears if the al-Sabah royal family goes, if all it promises to do is to restore the 1962 constitution which allowed only 8 per cent. of men, and no women, to vote. We did not go to war for freedom and democracy on that basis.

But there are wars to be fought--against poverty, ignorance and disease. One Tornado costs the same as 80 hospital wards, one Lynx helicopter costs the equivalent of 880 hip replacements, and one Warrior infantry fighting vehicle of the kind in which Lee Thompson and his eight teenage colleagues were killed by "friendly fire" costs the same as training 200 ambulance personnel.

Before we rise for Easter, the House should debate the international trade in arms to repressive regimes, which must be stopped. The House should lift the sanctions that Britain is still imposing on Iraq. If we want peace and stability in the middle east, as I and my hon. Friends certainly do, it will come about only when democracy and socialism are brought to the people of those countries, allowing them to determine their own future. That has not happened through a war waged by 30 countries against Iraq ; it will not happen as a result of the sanctions still being imposed on Iraq and the Iraqi people ; and it will not happen if America is allowed to sell $50 billion to $100 billion-worth of arms to the middle east. Who will be next after Iraq goes down?

6.20 pm

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South) : I am tempted to take issue with some of the arguments that the hon. Member for Coventry, South- East (Mr. Nellist) advanced, but in the interest of brevity I shall not do so. The House will at least be grateful to the hon. Gentleman for underlining the appalling atrocities that are still being committed in Iraq. Many of us feel deeply unhappy that, although the war is over and, relieved though we are at that, that evil man, the butcher of Baghdad, remains in power. There will be no semblance of democracy or freedom and no semblance of humanity in that terribly torn country until that man has gone.

I wished to contribute briefly to the debate, because I wanted to give support to my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris). We had a pact that whoever was called first would raise the subject, and whoever was called thereafter would endorse. I too wish to talk about the plight of the hostages. Over the past weeks, we have all been preoccupied with events in the middle east, and during that understandable preoccupation, we have not spent enough time, perhaps, discussing the fate of the three men--the four, if we add Mr. Cooper. Although Mr. Cooper is not strictly a hostage, he is held in similar and terrible circumstances.

I well remember attending a meeting organised by Christian Wives before Christmas 1986, when the guest of honour in Mr. Speaker's house was Terry Waite. It was a moving occasion, attended by Members and their wives of all parties. I think that everyone who met Mr. Waite and

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listened to what he had to say was greatly impressed by what he had achieved and deeply troubled by the fact that he was returning to the middle east. He made it plain in his public remarks to those of us who were at the meeting, and privately to some of us afterwards, that he was returning with a sense of foreboding. We all know what happened. It is proper that, before the House rises for the Easter recess, we should remember that Terry Waite has been incarcerated since a few weeks after the meeting to which I have referred in Mr. Speaker's house. We should remember also that John McCarthy has been incarcerated for even longer, and that Jackie Mann has been incarcerated for about three years.

I am talking of three men who were guilty of no crimes, who have been sentenced without trial to the most appalling form of imprisonment. The events of the past few weeks have made us all conscious of the need to try to work for stability in the middle east. Although there has been a genuine and respectable difference of opinion in the House on what specific methods should be used, I believe that there is universal relief that the war is over, and a universal desire to see peace and stability in the middle east. Peace and stability in the middle east demand various preconditions. One of those is that the countries of the middle east--this is why it is impossible to conceive of proper peace and stability while Saddam Hussein remains in power--should accept certain basic civilised values. I would like to think that, before the Easter recess, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will communicate specially--I know that he has done it many times before--with middle east ambassadors in the United Kingdom and with our representatives in the middle east to stress that it is incumbent upon us all to bring whatever pressure can be brought to bear upon those who hold the hostages.

We cannot move into a new era while people are allowed to behave like those who hold the hostages. I am not making any criticism of the Government's general stance, because I believe that they have been wholly right not to talk about deals. Terry Waite impressed upon us in his moving speech that, if he fell victim, he did not want deals to be done. He told us that he did not want his position to weaken the resolve of the west. The Government have been right not to do deals but as we move, perhaps, to a middle east peace conference, we must intensify the pressure upon all those who have any influence to recognise the uncivilised nature of those who hold the hostages. I am sure that it is not very often that a Member of this place feels that he speaks for everyone who is present in the Chamber and for most of those who are not present, but I am sure that I speak for all those who are in their places now and for most of those who are not when I say that those outside who think that we have forgotten about the hostages are wrong. Those who think that the hostages are out of our minds are wrong. They are very much in our minds and on our minds. Many of us received special cards at Christmas that were sent by the friends of John McCarthy to remind us of the hostages. I say with great respect and understanding to those who sent the cards that it was a nice gesture, but we did not need reminding of the hostages in that sense.

Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster presided at a meeting in the House which was organised by a committee set up to secure the release of the hostages, of which he is a joint chairman and of which I am an officer.

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Many hon. Members attended the meeting, although it was a day when we were not whipped and there was not heavy business in the House. Those who attended included the shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and the foreign affairs spokesman of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel). Also present were many of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

We were brought together because we had one overriding concern, which was to see the three men and Mr. Cooper, reunited with their families. It must be understood that the families have gone through hell while not knowing but knowing at the same time. They have not known precisely what was happening, but they have known that their loved ones have been in darkness, with little or no opportunity for any dialogue. They know that they have been subject to the most intolerable pressures. We all learned that when Mr. Brian Keenan ceased to be a hostage last year. I am sure that we were all greatly moved by what he said.

I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will heed the message from my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster and myself. I hope that he will recognise also that we are speaking on behalf of colleagues of all parties in the House of Commons and for both Houses of Parliament in asking that everything possible should be done to intensify the pressure and to bring home to all parties in the middle east the fact that there can be no move towards a stable, secure and civilised middle east while those who behave in a barbaric manner are tolerated in any way.

6.29 pm

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : I would echo everything that we have heard this evening about the hostages. It is tragic that they remain incarcerated and separated from their families. I hope that the hostages will be released before Easter. The problem for their relatives and friends is not knowing. It is not only those people who are in that position, because many thousands of people throughout the world have relatives in Iraq and have no knowledge of what is happening to them. Many of us have constituents who are in that position. It is to be hoped that all those who have friends and loved ones in Iraq about whom they have no information at present will receive that information as quickly as possible. It is ridiculous that the House should go away for 18 days at Easter and an additional day for the spring bank holiday. I understand why the Government are keen to get us all away ; there is so much ferment on their Benches and so much in-fighting in the Conservative party that they prefer to send hon. Members to their constituencies to simmer down. It is nonsense for the House to go away for 18 days when we should be getting to grips with so many important issues. For example, we should spend time trying to find a solution to homelessness.We should try to deal with the problems of people who are sleeping in the streets of London and the homeless within our constituencies.

It is ridiculous that we cannot have a proper debate to assess the military implications of what is happening in the Gulf. We should get to grips with the points stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr.

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Nellist). We need a proper debate about arms sales and the whole question whether the middle east is to be re- armed. We should face up to the fact that we should be stopping arms sales to other countries and seeking alternative jobs for those involved in arms manufacture. I would willingly give up all 18 days away from the House over Easter if we could have legislation to get rid of the poll tax and to put something else in its place. I am sure that all Opposition Members would willingly give up their time to deal with such legislation.

The House might debate less dramatic issues. I raised at business questions the reform of the procedure on private Bills. Again, I should have thought that it would be a good idea for the Leader of the House to give us only a week off at Easter and to devote one day to that subject.

I regret particularly that we shall not have a chance to debate satanic abuse and the cases that have appeared in the newspapers in recent weeks. I shall not deal with what has gone on in Nottingham, Rochdale or the Orkneys ; I leave that to the hon. Members who represent those areas. Unless we have a proper debate on the matter, we shall find that the same problems will crop up elsewhere. I plead with the Leader of the House for an early opportunity to debate the Government's guidelines and to make sure that there is proper debate in the country on the whole issue of satanic abuse.

We should try to ensure that teachers and social workers put the issue into the context of the normal behaviour of normal children and into historic perspective in relation to the way in which such allegations have recurred century after century since Roman times. We should also learn from the witch persecutions of the middle ages. If there were to be a debate, I should want to emphasise that teachers, social workers and others should be aware of children's behaviour in relation to the telling of scare stories.

I am concerned that not enough parents, teachers and social workers understand the phenomenon. I have been aware of it as a parent and as a teacher. I have also had the opportunity to listen to a tape recording made by a folklorist of a group of children telling scare stories. Once an adult is involved, that changes the behaviour of the children, but it is important to understand that children tell scare stories.

As a child, I was conscious of the practice. I remember that, when I was about seven, a group of children used to congregate at every playtime in a corner of the playground to tell stories. The whole question was whether one had the courage to stop and listen or was too frightened and would run away during the telling of the story. Later, I was aware of a group of older girls telling similar stories, with young boys hanging around to listen to them. Later still, when I was in the scouts, I remember my first camp when scare stories were told until someone got upset.

Sometimes I still wake up at night, remembering a story that horrified me as a seven-year-old at the end of the war. People had in mind Hitler as a bogeyman. The story was that, to celebrate his birthday, he cut off children's fingers to stick on a birthday cake ; then he lit the fingers and watched them burn away. That story was told, by older children to scare the younger ones. I remember other stories that the girls told about babies with two or three heads. In the scouts, we heard various ghost stories.

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As the stories were being told, someone would say, "You must be kidding." That is an interesting phrase. Half the time the children knew that a story was being made up as the teller went along. When someone interjected, "You must be kidding," the other youngster would say, "No, I'm not. My brother told me." Very often, the child would call on a brother or an older person to justify the story. Most of us knew that the story was being made up, but some children were in the odd position of not knowing whether it was true. I suspect that horror films and videos come into the same category, between fantasy and reality.

The problem is that the moment an adult enters the scene, everything changes. If a child is so frightened by a story that he tells it to an adult, he is almost forced to believe the story and it ceases to be fantasy. Most children listen to the story and go away, but the odd one ends up repeating it to an adult. Once that happens, the danger is that the adult asks the child to justify it, and the child gets caught in a mechanism of trying to say that the story is true. He cannot admit that it was fantasy because, if it was fantasy, why should he be frightened by it? I make a plea to social workers, teachers and others to spend a little time considering how children normally tell horror stories and not to be taken in by the idea that behind the story there is reality rather than fantasy.

Social workers should bear in mind the way in which people have been writing recently about satanic abuse. I asked the Library to dig out for me all references to satanic abuse in a national daily newspaper over the last two or three years. I chose The Independent because I was aware that it had published quite a few articles. The computer produced well over 100 entries about satanic abuse. Having looked at the headlines, I got the impression that at the beginning the reporters on the whole believed the stories. As time went on, the accounts showed a growing disbelief among reporters. Eventually it became clear that that newspaper's reporters did not believe the stories.

I will not go through all the articles, but it is worth drawing attention to one which appeared on 13 January in The Independent on Sunday, by Rosie Waterhouse, on the spread of charismatic Christianity in Britain under the heading :

"Hungry for Souls : The evangelicals are on the march--out of the church, down the corridors of power and on to the air waves. But is their fervour bringing with it a dangerous intolerance?"

Rosie Waterhouse observed :

"Evangelical Christian groups are also largely responsible for spreading stories lat year that children were being sexually abused by satanists in black-magic ceremonies, and that teenage girls were being used as brood mares' to produce foetuses for sacrificial rites. No evidence in support of these allegations has been found by the police".

That seems to be a carefully worded reference to cases that were recently published in newspapers. The article concludes by suggesting that there was a conspiracy to put across such allegations. The same allegations have appeared over many centuries in folk lore. They have particular resonance as traditional libels that were pinned on a variety of minorities by often powerful groups that the authorities or the Government of the day considered to be deviant, subversive, or otherwise dangerous. I recommend to any right hon. or hon. Member who takes an interest in the subject Norman Cohn's book, "Europe's Inner Demons".

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He traces such accusations with great thoroughness, from Roman times to the present day, over 2,000 disgraceful years.

Norman Cohn's book points out that the early Christians and dissident Christian sects, Cathars, Templars, and those persecuted for witchcraft in the middle ages were all accused in turn of engaging in orgiastic sex, baby killing, and cannibalism in the service of evil. Originally, those who followed the Christian Church were accused of such activities, but gradually that situation reversed, so that the Church came to accuse other groups. Descriptions of so-called satanic activities go back to the year 1000.

Century after century, the same allegations were made of satanic abuse, yet evidence was never produced to substantiate them. One thinks also of the blood libel legend, which was a regular element of anti-Semitic folk lore in medieval times. It appears in Chaucer's work, "The Prioress's Tale" and in the traditional ballad, "The Jew's Daughter". Blood libels have no sexual element, but sometimes involve cannibalism. In 1255, Jews in Lincoln who were the victims of blood libels had to be taken into protective custody against the mob. I plead with social workers to be aware of the continuing retelling of such myths in presenting a particular point of view in society, as a means of criticising or attacking a particular group. Before we rise for the Easter recess, time should be found for a proper debate on satanic abuse, not only to help devise guidelines for the Government in dealing with such allegations, but so that when they are made, social workers also will have at the back of their minds the fact that it is a natural activity of children to fantasise and to manufacture scare stories, and that we try to force children to justify them at our peril.

Allegations of satanic abuse have endured for more than 2,000 years with no evidence to support them, but to persecute others either in trying to promote a particular religion or to suppress the beliefs of others. Before social workers are taken too far down the line of satanic abuse, they should see Arthur Miller's play, "The Crucible", which presents the background to the witch persecutions in Salem and elsewhere in the world. They will then realise how amazingly easy it is to persuade children to make allegations that have no basis in fact. I urge the House to debate the whole question of child abuse, and of satanic abuse in particular, at an early stage.

6.44 pm

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