House of Commons Hansard Debates for 23 Jul 1991

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. I shall call the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), but I remind the hon. Gentleman and the House that this is a consolidation measure and it is only in order to discuss whether consolidation should take place.

Sir Teddy Taylor : That is exactly the point that I want to raise. As the Solicitor-General rightly said, this is a technical Bill that repeals some 700 obsolete enactments that have been repealed for the United Kingdom but not for the Isle of Man. The Solicitor-General omitted to mention that there are two items that are not in that category and I wonder whether we should consolidate them. One of those measures is the Military Lands Act 1900 and the other is described as 7 Jac. 1 c.4.

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Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but if I understand him correctly, he is dealing with Acts that are not consolidated. If that is the case, it is out of order.

Sir Teddy Taylor : I am not seeking to do that. I am simply saying that we are repealing two proposals that did not apply to the United Kingdom but only to the Isle of Man. I simply want to know what they are. This went through the House of Lords without any discussion. The Isle of Man has no representative in the House, and it would be wrong for us to repeal this legislation without knowing what it is. The measure is entitled Assurance of the Isle of Man.

I went to the House of Commons Library because we have an obligation to the Isle of Man. I asked about that measure. We looked up the books and found that it was an Act for the execution of divers laws made against rogues, vagabounds, sturdy beggars and other lewd persons. The Library said that it must be a private Bill but, sadly, it was not available.

Although we are restricted in our discussion, bearing in mind our obligations to the Isle of Man, it is important to know what we are repealing. My simple point is whether the Solicitor-General can tell us what it is ; what was the assurance of the Isle of Man and why is it necessary to repeal it now ? It is a technical matter, but it is important. If we are dealing with legislation that applies to the Isle of Man, we should know what we are doing. If we do not, we are not doing our job for the Isle of Man.

8.13 pm

The Solicitor-General : I understand fully the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), and I shall give him an answer.

If I understand him correctly, he was referring to the Bill that is mentioned in abbreviated form and described as 7 Jac. 1. c4 under the title, Assurance of the Isle of Man.

That Act settled the lordship of the Isle of Man on the Earl of Derby and his heirs. The lordship was revested in the Crown by the legislation of 1765, 5 Geo. 3 c. 26, which was repealed by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1976. Therefore, this Act is obsolete. I hope that that gives my hon. Friend the information that he requires.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House. [Mr. Sackville.]

Bill immediately considered in Committee ; reported, without amendment.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 75 (Third Reading) and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

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Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Bill [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

8.16 pm

The Solicitor-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell) : I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Having regard to my Scottish ancestry, which involves the law and farming in Scotland, I am glad and privileged to have the opportunity, on behalf of my Scottish colleagues, to introduce this Bill, which consolidates the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1949. That Act remains the primary piece of legislation on agricultural tenancy matters in Scotland, but it has been quite extensively amended over the years. The Bill incorporates these amendments and disposes of certain spent provisions.

It has long been recognised that there was a need to clarify the statutory position in Scotland which, because of the many amendments, had become unnecessarily complex. The Bill is pure consolidation and makes no change in substance to the existing law, but the result will be a much simpler and more straightforward account, which will be welcomed by those who need to advise and act on behalf of farmers and landowners in Scotland.

The preparation of this Bill has been a long and difficult task, and I must thank all those with an involvement in its preparation. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.-- [Mr. Sackville.]

Bill immediately considered in Committee : reported, without amendment.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 75 (Third Reading) and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

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Northern Ireland

8.18 pm

The Solicitor-General (Mr. Nicholas Lyell) : I beg to move, That the draft Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Regulations 1991, which were laid before this House on 18th June, be approved. Again I feel privileged to introduce these regulations. When the new Emergency Provisions Act comes into effect on 27 August, the whole of the Emergency Provisions Act 1978 will be repealed, including the regulations contained in schedule 3 to that Act. As these regulations remain essential provisions, the House needs to ensure their continued survival after the repeal of the 1978 Act. That is the purpose of this statutory instrument. It consolidates the existing regulations without amendment.

Question put and agreed to.

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Scottish Bus Company (Privatisation)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. Sackville.]

8.19 pm

Mr. Henry McLeish (Fife, Central) : I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the privatisation of the Scottish Bus Company with particular reference to the sale of Fife Scottish, the bus company which covers the five parliamentary constituencies of Fife, including my own.

I regret having to bring this matter before the House because the debate is about the incompetence of the Scottish Transport Group, the insensitivity and duplicity of Scottish Office Ministers, and the intimidation of the management-employee buy-out of Fife Scottish by Stagecoach Holdings Ltd. They were the key players involved in the sale of Fife Scottish and, in a sense, the debate is about the failure of the management buy-out to buy its own future. What began as the sell-off of the best bus company in Britain has become the sell-out of the Fife Scottish bus group and the abandonment of the clear principle of which the Government often talk but on which they rarely act.

It is interesting to refer back to the earlier debate on the Ports Bill because there was much talk about support for

management-employee buy-outs but, as the debate ensues, we shall find that, in the Scottish Office in particular, there is no enthusiasm for such a step towards the privatisation of a particular company. The intimidation, insensitivity and incompetence to which I have referred has left 850 of my constituents very bitter, bewildered and betrayed. They have been frustrated and blocked by an unprincipled and unprecedented set of circumstances and by a coincidence of factors that I should more appropriately describe as a conspiracy by certain groups to kill the hopes and aspirations of a very enthusiastic work force, including the management.

The tragedy is that the employees and management of Fife Scottish did nothing wrong. They had worked enthusiastically for three years to set up the context in which to bid for their company, their jobs and their future. They had invested large sums of money from their earnings into the management-employee buy-out. They had made tremendous gains in efficiency to turn Fife Scottish into not just the best bus company in Britain, but the most profitable. They also brought the skills, enthusiasm and commitment to the service that they deployed for the benefit of the people of Fife. The simple question is, why did they fail when they had everything going for them, and when the Government purported to support the idea of a management-employee buy-out? That is the key issue that I wish to discuss.

Before I get to the technical aspects of the debate, I refer to the Scottish Office. A group of Tory Ministers said that they supported management-employee buy-outs. They invested £50,000 in the quest for the buy-out within the company, but when the bid was made it was rejected out of hand. Of course, that group of Tory Ministers wanted to get the highest price for the company, but when Fife Scottish put in a second bid, the Scottish Office Ministers again rejected it. I hope that the Scottish Office will publish the detailed bids from Stagecoach Holdings to satisfy my curiosity and that of the employees as to whether it submitted a bid that was not heavily qualified by conditions that were dealt with in secret.

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The group of Tory Ministers made it quite clear that Fife Scottish could obtain no assistance from public funds, although the Scottish Office was happy to sit and see the Scottish Development Agency invest £500,000 of taxpayers' money in Stagecoach Holdings, thereby giving it a competitive advantage in terms of the security of its equity base. We heard from Scottish Office Ministers that they wanted a quality bus service, so why did they sell out to a company with no track record of services in Britain, a company with an unenviable record of employment conditions and a reputation for tough talking, asset stripping and anti-competitive practices? That was the quality handed down to the people of Fife by Scottish Office Ministers. The employees, the people of Fife and I might say that this was nothing more than characteristic Tory hypocrisy. We could also say that it was a breach of good faith, but the tragedy is that the charges against the Government go much deeper than that. The story that must be told this evening is about the role of the Scottish Office, the Scottish Transport Group and Stagecoach Holdings. To set the scene for the details that will follow, I draw the Minister's attention to the private meeting attended by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown). We warned the Minister at that time that we had heard from Deloitte, which was advising the Scottish Transport Group, that the level playing field was fast disappearing. There would seem to have been no continuing enthusiasm for the management-employee buy-out and it was implied that perhaps there had been too many management-employee buy-outs. We also heard that the Scottish Transport Group had completely bungled the estimate of sales and proceeds from the privatisation process, so it appears that, as Fife Scottish was well back in the list of sales, Ministers were looking for the highest bid and excluding all considerations of quality, of management-employee buy- outs and a host of other considerations which were important to people whom I represent. We advised the Minister that those concerns had been expressed by the STG and from Deloitte and that in confidence we were willing to exchange our concerns with him. The Minister said--and confirmed in a letter--that we should have no fears and that it was a level playing field. Of course, the Scottish Office ministerial team was still wedded to the idea of giving management-employee buy-outs a fair wind. We were also reassured two weeks before the bid that there was nothing wrong and nothing to be upset about.

As for the bidding process itself, Stagecoach Holdings had put in a bid almost £2 million in excess of the valuation of the company's assets. We believe the figure to have been £9.1 million--the Minister can correct or confirm that figure. That meant that the bid was, we believe, more that £1 million above the Fife Scottish bid which, in turn, was £1 million more than a realistic valuation of the company's assets. One does not have to be a financial genius to work out that if one bids way above the asset value of a company, it is extremely difficult to get the necessary financial support.

Indeed, the first act of sabotage carried out Stagecoach Holdings was to put in a loss-leading bid. The company had upped its turnover in Britain from about £28 million to nearly £100 million in about two years. It could deploy

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assets and investment and, at a stroke, put the fledgling management-employee buy-out at a competitive disavantage, so that is what it did.

From the moment of the first bids, known as the sealed bids, it was clear that the company was loss leading in a way that would destabilise the management-employee buy-out. Ministers may say, "That is the marketplace, and if a company wants to loss lead, that is fine." But Scottish Office Ministers have a responsibility not to be carried away by a company with assets but whose record on quality is dubious, to say the least. Some consideration should have been given over and above the final deliberations to the management-employee buy-out, which was a fair bid based on a fair appreciation of the assets. The bid by Stagecoach Holding Ltd. was not that type of bid. Now we come to the heart of the matter. There were two sealed bids--one for about £8.1 million and the other, we believe, for about £9.1 million. Because Fife Scottish had bid realistically it found, to its amazement, that it had been outbid by Stagecoach Holdings and was apparently being given short shrift by the Scottish Transport Group, Deloitte and, it would appear, by the Scottish Office. Despite that financial pressure at an early stage, Fife Scottish obtained a commitment for the extra £1.1 million from the Bank of Boston and put in another bid to the Scottish Office. That bid was competently submitted--there was never any doubt about that. Indeed, I quote from a private and confidential letter from Mr. M. S. Roxburgh, commercial and planning executive to Mr. Stuart of Fife Scottish Omnibuses Ltd. :

"If prior to completion a new competitive offer is made, STG is obliged to make the contents of such an offer known to the Secretary of State, and there may be no alternative but to consider that offer. It is therefore in your interest"--

that is, in the interests of Fife Scottish--

"to be able to complete the transaction as soon as possible. STG will not be obliged to recommend to the Secretary of State acceptance of the highest or any bid."

The STG itself then reneged on the principles that it had agreed with the Secretary of State for Scotland, and which were part of the legislation that went through the House.

I will tell the shabby tale of incompetence that ensued after the second bid was received, but first I shall give the details of the technical background to the bid. Following submission of the formal offer by Touche Ross on behalf of Fife Scottish on 24 April, Touche Ross was engaged in discussions and correspondence with the STG. The question of increasing the price in the management-employee buy-out's former offer was discussed. The important aspect was that the STG did not reply to letters dated 24, 28 and 29 May from Touche Ross. Consequently, Touche Ross wrote to the Parliamentary

Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) on 7 June 1991, and Henderson and Jackson, the solicitors acting for Fife Scottish, wrote on 10 June to the STG, with a copy to the Secretary of State for Scotland. Again, no replies were received.

I will spell out what that shabby process meant in practice. Fife Scottish timeously submitted a bid on 24 April. On 9 May it got in touch by telephone with the Scottish Transport Group. On 24 May Touche Ross wrote a letter to Mr. Roxburgh of the STG :

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"I refer to our telephone conversations today and on 9 May when I explained that it might be possible for the management team to consider an increased offer for Fife Scottish if that became necessary. I understand that you will have advised the relevant parties of this and it may now be helpful to provide you with further information."

The telephone call of 9 May was not passed on to the Scottish Office. I ask the Minister to confirm or deny that when he replies. The letter went on to suggest that a new offer of £9.1 million was being submitted, and to offer to meet representatives of the STG that week. Again, that was not done, because there was no response to the letter. Finally, Touche Ross's letter said :

"I should be most grateful if you would ensure that this information is conveyed to the Scottish Office and I trust that I shall hear from you prior to any final decision."

No action was taken ; there was no response.

After the letter that referred to 9 May and 24 May, another letter was sent on 28 May, again to Mr. Roxburgh, referring to telephone conversations on 24 and 9 and a previous letter sent on 24 May : "regarding an increase in the offer from the MEBO team at Fife Scottish I find this surprising when the offer from the MEBO team is close to the rumoured £9.1 million from Stagecoach, particularly in the light of competitive issues surrounding East coast bus services. There has been no attempt whatsoever to negotiate acceptable terms with the MEBO team and I must ask you to give further consideration to our request for a meeting".

Again, no action was taken. The letter was not even acknowledged. Exasperated, Touche Ross again wrote to Mr. Roxburgh, who was obviously an avid reader, but not so good at sending letters on to the Scottish Office or replying to the people who had sent them, as follows :

"I refer to our telephone conversations on 9 May, and 24 May and my letters dated 24 and 28 May, to which there has been no response. I have heard indirectly that these approaches have not been properly considered as they did not represent a formal offer. If this is indeed the case. I find it astonishing that you have been unable to advise me of your position, to enable the offer of the management and employees to be properly considered. I should like an explanation as to how your approach can be compatible with the requirements of the relevant legislation."

The letter ended :

"I must insist that this offer is communicated to the Secretary of State for Scotland without further delay and that you acknowledge receipt of this letter."

The House has guessed it in one--no action was taken, and no response was given.

The company had intimated on 9 May that it wanted to submit a formal bid and to have further discussions. Yet between 9 May and the time that the Scottish Office was willing to make a formal announcement on 29 May there was no reply to eight representations to the STG. That is disgraceful. It may involve a great deal more than a Fife Member of Parliament heaping disgrace upon the STG. We must ask what the role of the STG is. That is simple--it is handling the privatisation. Taxpayers are paying Deloitte hundreds of thousands of pounds to advise the STG and for it in turn to advise the Scottish Office.

Will the Minister tell the House whether, before29 May, he knew of any of the representations made to the STG, and to Mr. Roxburgh in particular? More specifically, was the hon. Gentleman aware that on 9 May, a few days after the sealed bids were submitted, Fife Scottish, as was allowed for in the privatisation document, wished to discuss a new way forward and to meet either the

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STG officials, Scottish Office officials or Ministers? These points are crucial to my argument, and I hope that the Minister will deal with them in his reply.

The Minister may want to comment on another interesting point. This whole shabby process continued until the Fife Members received letters dated 28 May confirming that the Scottish Office would be making a formal announcement on 29 May. It is now quite clear that Stagecoach was given preferred bid status on 23 May ; indeed, we believe that a deposit was lodged with the Scottish Office on 20 May. So in essence, we were to be given a formal announcement nine days after the debacle unfolded, and after the whole process had been sewn up by Ministers and the Scottish Transport Group.

At 9.20 am on the day on which I received the letter from the Scottish Office, I telephoned the Minister and asked whether he had received any further representations regarding a bid. My judgment was that the Minister had not received any further representations and I asked him to contact the Scottish Transport Group to ascertain what had happened to the formal bid which had come in by telephone on 9, 24 and 28 May and which had then been faxed to the STG on 29 May and conveyed to the Scottish Office on the same day.

The important point is that it was a competent bid. The question that must be posed is what level of incompetence led the STG not to bother the Scottish Office ministerial team with any of the discussions and bids until the very day on which the Scottish Office was to make a formal announcement. Was the STG guilty of a dereliction of duty in not consulting its political masters at the Scottish Office? My judgment is that it was.

There is another, more serious, point, however. Did Scottish Ministers know about the discussions, telephone conversations and bids, and, if so, why did they do nothing about them? It seems to me that we need an inquiry into what Mr. Roxburgh, the commercial and planning executive of STG, and Mr. Elwyn, the chairman and chief executive of STG were doing between 9 May and 29 May. Not only was their behaviour disgraceful ; it was a gross dereliction of duty not to pass on important information affecting the future of 850 employees. I hope that the Minister will respond to that. Two weeks later, after the Minister had withdrawn the announcement of 29 May, the Secretary of State confirmed that he was proceeding with the bid after due consideration. Let me quote from the letter of 7 June advising me that, after deliberations, Stagecoach Holdings Ltd. was to be given preferred bid status :

"I do however wish to emphasise that I am satisfied that the sale process has been properly conducted in accordance with the Disposal Programme and that the objectives of the Disposal Programme in this case will be met by proceeding with the sale of Fife Scottish to Stagecoach."

It is obvious, following the three days in the Court of Session, that the STG intimated to the Secretary of State for Scotland on 29 May the existence of the final offer. It is quite clear that the right hon. Gentleman did not exercise his discretion to look at the bid sensibly, because he was swayed by the advice given by STG to the effect that, because it had come in after the sealed bid process, it should not be considered. I believe that the ministerial team at the Scottish Office is in dereliction of its duty because it did not take the new offer seriously and, indeed, because it did not know about it until the eleventh hour. That crucial point is germane to my argument.

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Fife Scottish did not lose. It could never win, because there was a conspiracy of forces. The incompetence of the Scottish Office and STG prevailed, and Ministers made the decision regardless of quality of service, of the management-employee buy-out consideration and of the company record of Stagecoach Holdings Ltd.

The whole shabby tale does not finish there, however. I can report to the House that, before the judicial review was heard in the Court of Session, my hon. Friends the Members of Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) and for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie) and I had a meeting with the senior management of Fife Scottish on a Saturday evening at which we were told of the company's decision to pull out of the judicial review process.

When asked why, the company's representatives gave a very forthright answer. The bus industry had heard from Stagecoach Holdings Ltd.--in characteristic style--that if Stagecoach lost in the Court of Session, and if Fife Scottish secured the contract, Stagecoach would come into Fife and destroy the newly fledged MEBO operation. Two of the directors decided that they had had enough, and I can understand why. At that point, the Bank of Boston withdrew its funding, with the result that the financial structure of the company nearly collapsed. Following frustration at the incompetence of the Scottish Office, we now have the first signs of intimidation by Stagecoach Holdings Ltd.

Fortunately, the courage of the employees and the finance of the Transport and General Workers Union came to the rescue, and Fife Scottish decided to proceed with the judicial review. The House will understand how the 850 employees felt. For three years, they had done nothing wrong. They had been treated with contempt by the Scottish Office and now, in the marketplace, they found that they were dealing with a predator who would stop at nothing to secure the bid and who was prepared to threaten to come in and destroy their company. I find that sickening in the extreme--but that was part of the process in which Stagecoach was involved.

There is another serious matter that I wish to raise in connection with this affair, and I have written to the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Waker) to tell him that I am raising it. The Glasgow Herald of 26 February 1990 reported that my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) had had a discussion with the hon. Member for Tayside, North in the Committee that considered the legislation :

"Mr. Wilson said : The question which now arises is, when the various parts of the Scottish Bus Group come up for sale, will he' "--

the hon. Member for Tayside, North--

" be lobbying for management-employee buy-outs, which is supposed to be the Scottish Tory policy, or will he be lobbying for Stagecoach, because the two will be in direct opposition?' ".

It gives me no particular pleasure to say this, and I am not a judge of the activities of hon. Members--there are appropriate Committees for dealing with such matters--but in the Dunfermline Press and West of Fife Advertiser on Friday 31 May, we read : "Last-minute bid stops bus sell-off Tayside North Tory MP Bill Walker who is also a Stagecoach director said he had written to Ministers expressing his concern at the turn of events. He said The decision they made originally was the right one.' ".

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How did he know? I do not know whether it was the right decision or the wrong one. Clearly the hon. Member for Tayside, North has extra-sensory perception--or, at least, an unusual insight--into what was happening.

After that article in the Dunfermline Press, the Sunday Mail reported :

"Mr. Walker expressed his concern about the delay in a letter to the Scottish Office.

He said, The original decision made by Ministers was the right one.'

He was not available for comment last night."

The Daily Record reported on 11 June in an article entitled "It's War on the Buses" :

"But last night Mr. Walker, MP for Tayside said"--

I want hon. Members to note the next word--

" We stuck to the rules for bidding for Fife Scottish and won fair and square.

If anyone is suggesting I have done anything improper, they had better have proof to back it up.' "

I had a meeting with Mr. Brian Souter, the chairman of Stagecoach Holdings, in Westminster Hall cafeteria. Mr. Souter may be a good businessman, but he has an awfully slack tongue. He said to me, "Mr. McLeish, don't be silly. Mr. Walker has been doing the same as yourself and Mr. Brown. He has been lobbying intensively on our behalf and of course, not only is he a director of Stagecoach (Malawi) Ltd"--which I find an interesting idea--"and Stagecoach International Ltd., but he is a paid consultant." I bow to the greater wisdom of my colleagues in this place, but his behaviour outraged and incensed the people who had fought for three years and then found that there was a conspiracy of interest in the Scottish Office, in this House and within Stagecoach Holdings which frustrated their admirable hopes and aspirations for the future.

I feel very sad that this matter has to be raised. I hope that a Committee of this House which deals with such matters, would want to receive the submission that I will put forward about this matter and that it will be considered once more.

To complete the story of the sell-out of those 850 employees, I refer to another comment made by Brian Souter in Westminster Hall cafeteria. He said that, if they managed to take over Fife Scottish, he would destroy the competition of Rennies and Moffat and Williamson within nine months. He said, "That's the way we operate." Will the Minister confirm that I sent him a letter on 7 June advising that we had serious information about anti- competitive practices around the country involving Stagecoach and that we had details of transactions in the bus industry which could result in Stagecoach taking over north of England firms which already had an investment in Scottish bus companies? I received a reply to my letter from the Minister on 10 June which was illuminating, but unhelpful. He wrote :

"With regard to points you make about Stagecoach's competitive activities within areas of their existing operations, I suggest that, if you have any evidence of anti-competitive practice, you draw it to the attention of the Office of Fair Trading."

That seemed reasonable, but notwithstanding the fact that in the procedures for the disposal of the companies within the ambit of the Scottish Bus Group, those anti-competitive practices had been mentioned. It was stated that, if there was a hint of any company closing down its competitors, that would be a serious issue which

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should be addressed. What happened? There was a dismissive letter from the Scottish Office advising that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry should be contacted for further discussions. That was not done at the time, but it will be done now.

A tragic situation has developed which brings no credit on Scottish Office Ministers for having been involved in such a shabby and duplicitous process. The privatisation of Fife Scottish has been highly irregular and unprofessional in the extreme, and it provides a shocking insight into the tawdry behaviour of what employees in my constituency can describe only as a complete whitewash of their aspirations and a determination to sell to Stagecoach, regardless of whether there was an MEBO involving £50,000 of taxpayers' money and regardless of quality and the £500,000 invested in Stagecoach through the Scottish Development Agency. We have now reached the stage where I cannot trust the Scottish Office to deal with any further privatisations of the Scottish Bus Group, if the experience of the Fife team is anything to go by.

We are looking at some fairly serious accusations of intimidation, incompetence, insider dealing and indifference, on behalf of the Scottish Office, to all the activities around it. I have met the Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir John Bourn, who is interested in an investigation into the matter before he considers the wider aspects of privatisation of the bus group in Scotland. I will pass my material to him after this debate and on the completion of the court case.

I want to refer the activities of the hon. Member for Tayside, North to the Select Committee on Members' Interests. I want an investigation by the Scottish Office into why the STG refused on eight occasions to respond to letters or telephone calls from Fife Scottish and, in turn, did not pass on any of the information to Scottish Office civil servants or Ministers. Of course, I would like the Scottish Office, if it was technically possible, to hold Stagecoach Holdings Ltd. to account for its intimidation, destabilisation of the management buy-out because of the loss-leading bid, and anti-competitive practices which could result in Stagecoach Holdings Ltd. controlling every bus route and service between the north of Scotland, the east coast of Scotland, through the central belt of Scotland and into Glasgow. All that has happened after the Government said that bids would be received from two or more companies and that they could not be on a contiguous basis. What hypocrisy that was when we consider what has happened.

What has happened may be disturbing the conscience of the Scottish Office, but there is nothing much that we can do now. The employees have a new owner, and I wish them well. Stagecoach Holdings has a group of men and women whom it does not deserve. For the benefit of the travelling public in Fife and for the benefit of the employees, I hope that it will go from strength to strength.

I believe that there is enough evidence, however, for a wide-ranging inquiry into the issues that I have raised. The behaviour of STG has been so deplorable and disgraceful that the chairman and chief executive should be suspended until the matter has been resolved. That would be a small price to pay for the betrayal of 850 employees and the best bus service in Britain, which has been passed over to a shady group with no track record and no good employment conditions and which has made hasty promises which I fear will not be kept.

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