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this country without flinching, this year, next year and for years to come. That Government will remain on the Government side of the House after the election.Several Hon. Members rose --
Mr. Speaker : I call Mr. Ashdown-- [Interruption.] I ask hon. Members who are not remaining to leave quietly and rapidly. 4.43 pm
Mr. Paddy Ashdown (Yeovil) : If what we have seen in this House for the past two and a quarter hours is to set the tone for the rest of this Session and through the general election, God help us. I wonder whether hon. Members understand the appalling impression conveyed by the way in which we conduct our business. The nation will have seen on its television sets the scenes that we witnessed here this afternoon--scenes that were, as an example of what we should and could be doing, an absolute disgrace-- [Interruption.] Both sides of the House were guilty. The nation and the House have a right to hear the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister. The scenes of this afternoon prove the desperate necessity to change our procedures. Today the House recommended what voters in the forthcoming by-elections should do. We have no right to tell those people how to behave when we behave in this fashion--
Mrs. Alice Mahon (Halifax) : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ashdown : Not on this point ; I shall give way in due course. I start by echoing the comments of the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister--
Mrs. Mahon rose --
Mr. Thomas McAvoy (Glasgow, Rutherglen) : The right hon. Gentleman is too sanctimonious.
Mr. Ashdown : I challenge the hon. Gentleman to go out and ask his constituents how they feel about what they have just seen. Let them decide whether what I am saying is sanctimonious. Hon. Members may not agree with me but the feeling that I describe is widespread in the nation it is time the House reformed the way in which it conducts its business.
Mrs. Mahon : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Speaker : Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.
Mr. Ashdown : I shall give way later in my speech if hon. Members want to intervene on points of substance. I have made it clear to the hon. Lady that on this point I am not giving way.
I echo the comments of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition about those who spoke first in the debate, the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) and the hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken). Both of them entertained the House enormously--
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Mrs. Mahon : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman has cast aspersions on the behaviour of all hon. Members today. Surely, if I have a point to make about that, it would be courteous if he gave way to me.
Mr. Speaker : The hon. Lady has been here for a number of years now, and she knows that if a right hon. Member does not give way she must resume her seat. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he is not giving way at the moment.
Mr. Ashdown : The hon. Member for Thanet, South reflected on how these decisions are made, When I learnt that he and the right hon. Member for Worcester were to move and second the Loyal Address I fell to thinking along the same lines. The right hon. Member for Worcester represents the most pro-European part of the Conservative party ; the hon. Member for Thanet, South, the most anti-European. Their selection portrayed precisely the dilemma facing the Conservative Government.
I also echo the comments of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on the three hon. Members who are absent from our deliberations today. Alick Buchanan-Smith was widely respected and loved, not only in the House but in his constituency. George Buckley was a strong voice for his community, and I am delighted that the Prime Minister mentioned Richard Holt, whose peculiarly rumbustious style in the House will be greatly missed.
This was a curious Gracious Speech--half an apology, half a speech in mitigation for what the Government have done in the past. It was half a statement to the British people that the Government are awfully sorry for some of the things that they have done and that they promise to try to put those things right before the people go to vote when the Prime Minister chooses the date for an election. Nevertheless, half the Speech makes it clear that the Government intend to continue in precisely the same way. They intend to ram through the council tax, just as they rammed through the poll tax, and I predict that that will have the same appalling consequences. It struck me that the Gracious Speech was the programme of a Government who have nothing further to say. It should never have been presented to the House because we should either have had a general election or be in the process of one.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) : Our Parliament runs for five years.
Mr. Ashdown : The hon. Gentleman may not have noticed, but we do not have a fixed-term Parliament. But he raises an important point, because the Prime Minister, quite rightly, desperately wants and needs a mandate. However, he has not dared to go to the electorate to get one and has had to postpone the election twice. He has twice turned away from the people of Britain because he knows that they have turned away from his Government. He lacks a mandate, and that shows in the Queen's Speech.
We should have had a new Parliament, a new programme and a new mandate today. Instead, we have the tail end of an old Government portraying old ideas and determined to drag out their old life to the bitter end. The Queen's Speech lifts the curtain on the general election, which will not-- however much the Conservative party
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may try to persuade the public that it will-- be a judgment on the new Prime Minister. Rather, it will be a judgment on the Government over a period of a full 12 years in which the Prime Minister and his Front Bench have been fully and consistently implicated.We can look at one of two aspects of the Queen's Speech : an affirmation that the Government have been right for the past 12 years and that they intend to continue--a convincing conviction that that is the right way to proceed ; alternatively, we could look for a new direction under the new Prime Minister--a new spirit. The question is, continuity or change? The answer is that the Government are confused. They have now been revealed as unable to justify their past and having no clear idea of where they want to go in the future. That split seems to run right through the Cabinet, some members of which support the continuation of the past while others are opposed to it. Some are prepared to tell Mr. Walden on Sunday that they are opposed to it and then say, the following Wednesday, that they are prepared to support it because of their colleagues.
That does not add up to a programme for the 1990s, nor to a justification for what happened in the 1980s. We should not be surprised, because the record of the 1980s and the past 12 years is pretty miserable. The Prime Minister tried to massage the figures in his speech but people know what has happened in the past 12 years. Despite their propaganda, we now clearly see that the Government have brought about no economic miracle. There has been no industrial renaissance. As in the previous three decades, prices have risen ahead of the average for OECD countries ; the balance of payments deficit returns to stalk our economy again and again ; and Britain has been forced around the back-breaking cycle of boom and bust twice. Wages have continued to rise ahead of inflation faster than those of our competitors, just as they did in the previous 30 years. Despite the Government's promise, inflation has returned to beset us and it must now be tackled in a way that damages our industry and loses jobs.
The Government say that inflation is now going down. Good. They say that it will stay down. We shall wait and see because we have heard that before. If the Government have achieved that, has not it been done at a terrifying price? Throughout the country, today and increasingly in the approaching months, thousands of business men and tens of thousands of their employees are paying with their livelihoods and jobs for the Government's economic mismanagement. That will increase, as all the figures, including those of the Government, now show. We are approaching what will come to be known as the bleak mid-winter of 1991 for lost jobs and lost employment. However the Prime Minister may like to dodge the fact, our industry has been weakened by two recessions, starved of investment and denied access to the skills that it needs to compete. It is too emaciated to meet the demand which the Government desperately hope will occur around Christmas this year. If that demand occurs as the Government want, our industrial base may fail to meet consumer demand. We know what happens next because we have seen it before. Demand goes up, British industry cannot supply it and imports are sucked in. That results in a balance of trade deficit, the pound comes under pressure and round we go again on the appalling cycle which, decade after decade, has broken the back of British industry and the morale of our people.
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Britain now lies exhausted after two Conservative recessions in a single decade, with its infrastructure under- funded, its education system demoralised, its public services in decline and its private sector burdened with debt. The public must now ask, what has changed after 12 years of this Government? Almost nothing has changed. I do not deny some of the changes that the Government have made with respect to the trade union movement. They were necessary, important and should not be undone. But the fundamentals of our economy remain unchanged. Britain has now suffered 40 years of decline under the Conservative and Labour parties. They have shared equally in the government of our country and we have not pulled out of what has happened consistently for 40 years. Those two parties share the responsibility for that and, if they have their chance, it will continue.The leader of the Labour party spoke about his promises and undertakings for our country, but how are they to be delivered? The Labour party is good at complaining. It complains about under-funding of the health service but will not guarantee a penny more to spend on it. It is rather poor on action. Labour Members complain about under-investment in education but will say not a single word about a commitment to increase that fundamental investment in our education and training system which this nation needs so badly. We often hear about the Labour party's priorities--whatever the subject this week, it is always a priority. The problem with the Labour party is that everything is always a priority, but nothing is ever a commitment. The Labour party now says that it has changed its mind on Europe. That is not unusual, as it has done so twice each decade for the past 40 years. There is a new solution. Since yesterday, we now understand that the Labour party will accept a single currency, but it attaches a series of conditions to that. If those conditions were attached, could the Leader of the Opposition have signed the text now proposed by the Dutch at Maastricht? The Labour party says that it is in favour of Europe but the conditions that it attaches are such that it could not now sign the deal which we hope the Government will sign in Maastricht later this year. Indeed, it now imposes conditions on the running of European monetary union that are totally irresponsible. Without an independent central bank we cannot have that central rock upon which a firm anti-inflationary European economic policy must be based.
The Government say that they are not prepared to propose solutions on Europe that are unacceptable to the House. The Labour party says that the conditions that it proposes would be unacceptable to the German parliament. I suspect that they would be unacceptable to almost every other parliament.
Britain would be mad to choose either of those two parties. Why should we allow the Government, who are responsible for two recessions in one decade, to take over the continuous economic running of this country? Why should the people of this country entrust the recovery, if it comes, and the next Parliament, into the hands of a Government who have given us two recessions in a single decade? Why should the people trust the Opposition, who have abandoned all their past policies and principles, and refuse to say how they will fund their present ones?
Sir Ian Lloyd (Havant) : Has not the right hon. Gentleman been hoisted by his own petard? I understand
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that as the leader of an Opposition party he prides himself on his understanding of economic matters and his use of economic statistics. Therefore, he will surely know that the recession which has inflicted itself on this country has also done so on all the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. However, the right hon. Gentleman called it a Conservative recession and laid responsibility for it on the Conservative Government. What would the Liberal party have done to prevent the world-wide recession from hitting this country?Mr. Ashdown : The hon. Gentleman should look at my speech. I did not say that it was a Conservative recession. I said that the Government had given us two recessions in a decade, and I shall explain my statement to the hon. Gentleman. I agree that there has been a world-wide recession and it is fair to say that no Government could have dodged that. But the hon. Gentleman must answer the difficult question : why is it that Britain entered the recession before, plunged into it deeper and will come out of it after its competitor nations? Britain did so despite the huge bonanza of North sea oil that it has enjoyed. It cannot be doubted that, as the country comes out of this recession--as I hope it will soon--we shall find that, during the course of the recession, Britain's share of the world markets has fallen below that which it originally held, whereas other countries' shares will have increased or returned to their former levels.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Maples) rose-- Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) rose--
Mr. Ashdown : I shall give way to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond).
Hon. Members : What about the Minister?
Mr. Salmond : The Minister can wait his turn.
I shall consider an issue on which the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) has changed his mind in recent years, the Trident missile system. The right hon. Gentleman will have noticed that, according to newspapers, doubts are surfacing, even in the Ministry of Defence, about the efficacy of spending £23,000 million over the lifetime of a useless strategic nuclear deterrent. Will the right hon. Gentleman change his mind again on that issue or is he to stay in a cosy conspiracy of lunacy with the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister?
Mr. Ashdown : The hon. Gentleman's example was incorrect. I should like to have a Government and politicians who are prepared to change their mind in the face of events. I think that that would produce a much saner country and a better form of government. We all change our minds ; the Prime Minister has changed the policies of his predecessor, as has the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. Campbell-Savours : The right hon. Gentleman changed his mind on Trident.
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Mr. Ashdown : There is something of a difference between changing one's mind when it needs to be changed and changing one's mind twice in every decade since the war, which is taking changing one's mind to an art form.
The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan was wrong. My party opposed the building of Trident. We believed that it should not have been undertaken, but that decision has now been made into reality--Trident is there. One cannot pretend that one would not have something which already exists. The question is whether or not this country will have a minimal deterrent. I believe that it needs one, and I have always believed so.
Mr. Campbell-Savours : What about the Liberal conference in 1984?
Mr. Ashdown : That is absolutely wrong. I have always believed that this country needs the protection of a minimal deterrent, which Trident now provides. I wish that it was not there but it is. If that is the only means of delivering a minimal deterrent, we must hang on to it until it is safe to get rid of it.
I believe that this country has to find a way to break out of the long, miserable cycle of decline inflicted upon it by the two major parties. We need a new Government and a new system of government.
Mr. Maples : The right hon. Gentleman has returned to the economy. I wonder if he can square the description he has given of the British economy with the fact that between 1980 and 1990 the British economy grew faster than that of France or Germany. It grew faster than that of any other OECD country except Spain, and investment grew faster here than in any other G7 country except Japan.
Mr. Ashdown : The hon. Gentleman should look at his figures again-- do they really refer to 1980? Is he not selectively choosing his figures from 1981--precisely when we were at the bottom of the recession? If not, he is starting from an appallingly low base. He mentioned investment and I shall answer his question. I predict that by the end of this year overall investment in industry as a percentage of gross domestic product will be lower than it was in 1979. Will the hon. Gentleman give me a commitment that that will not be true? He does not. I do not need any further answers. I also predict that unemployment will be massively higher than it was in 1979.
We need a new Government and a new system of government, and the Queen's Speech should have introduced such a proposal. We wanted the Queen's Speech to give us a new direction for our country, and an independent central bank established to run the British economy. I can understand why Conservative and Labour Members do not want that. They want to continue to be able to debauch our national economy to buy votes before an election, and make British people and British industry pay the price later in jobs and lost industry. I believe that an independent central bank will come : the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer argued for it, and I believe that it is necessary as the rock on which to build a decent, strong, anti- inflationary policy.
The Queen's Speech should have portrayed a series of policies that were much tougher on competition, particularly in relation to the utilities. That would almost certainly be necessary in the banking and finance sector as well. The Queen's Speech should have contained a Government programme proposing a decent charter for
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small businesses with a tough set of policies to encourage small businesses. It should have mentioned late payment of debts, discriminatory discounts and specific assistance for small businesses that need it at the point of expansion, not when they start up. The Government should have made a commitment to increase funding in education to the percentage of GDP equivalent to that established by our European partners--about an extra £1.8 billion or £1.9 billion. That money should have been invested in three specific sectors : giving every child in this land the right of access to one year's pre-school education ; ensuring that all those aged over 16 have access to decent education and training ; and providing, supporting and building up our adult education system to match the needs of an age of high technology.The Queen's Speech could have contained a commitment to enable British Rail's high speed link to the channel tunnel, with the sort of connections needed to allow industrial developments in the regions. The speech could have included a commitment to allow private services access to the British Rail network and allow British Rail access to private markets to gain the funding that has been so significantly lacking during the past 12 years. The speech could have included the establishment of a long-term energy policy that would begin to tackle the environmental challenges confronting us. The speech could have made it clear that Britain was to be a leader in Europe, not the laggard of Europe.
We heard none of those proposals and no commitment to changing the systems of government--a change which Britain desperately needs. Four years ago the House considered the poll tax, and rammed the legislation through against the dictates of common sense and against the clearly expressed will of the people. The legislation was rammed through on the basis of a minority of votes. The Government who held the minority of votes had a majority of 140 in the House. Unbroken lines of Conservative Members trooped through the Lobby, but now one can scarcely find a supporter for the poll tax outside Finchley and Tewkesbury, which tells us something. The Government are about to make exactly the same mistake again. They are about to push through the ill-thought-out council tax in an even shorter time than that taken for the poll tax. The likelihood is that the Government will make as big a mistake again. The truth is that this country must have a fair voting system that prevents any minority from riding roughshod over the will of the majority, pushing through its ideas, and producing legislation, such as the poll tax, that clearly damages not only our country and its people, but the Government.
We have not only a bad Government but a bad system of government. Far more preferable would be a Gracious Speech that tackled that and introduced fair voting ; a freedom of information Act, so that the Government would be unable to retreat behind the iron doors of secrecy--to protect not the nation's secrets but itself ; a Bill of Rights to enshrine and protect those liberties of the citizen that ought not to be trodden on by Governments, bureaucracies, or big business ; and established Parliaments in Scotland and Wales. Such a Gracious Speech would mark out a new agenda and direction for our country. As to the Gracious Speech that is before us, it reveals a Government who are trapped by their past and terrified by their future ; a Government who are afraid to defend their inheritance but unable to
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find the courage to reject it. It is time for this failed Government to go, and for Britain's failed system of government to go too.Several Hon. Members rose --
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Clearly a large number of right hon. and hon. Members seek to participate in the debate. Brief speeches will cut the number who will be disappointed.
5.11 pm
Sir Patrick McNair-Wilson (New Forest) : Having listened to the speech of the leader of the Liberal Democrats, I can only hope that his party will never be in government. It was one of the most confused and confusing speeches I have ever heard in the House. I am left speechless by the right hon. Gentleman's attempt to blame the Government for the current recession, given that, in 1987, when the world faced the biggest economic disaster since 1929, the Liberals, Labour and almost every economist around the world suggested that we should pour money into the hole left by that crash.
Mr. Ashdown : We did not do as the hon. Gentleman suggests. The Labour party may have advocated such a policy, but if the hon. Gentleman will study the record, he will find that my party did not.
Sir Patrick McNair-Wilson : That is not my understanding. If the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the Liberals advocated in 1987 that we should tighten up on credit, as was done in 1929, I do not believe it.
I regard today's Gracious Speech as one of the most important during the lifetime of this Parliament. The issues before us today are perhaps even more significant than any we have witnessed since this Parliament was elected in 1987. The first page and a half of the Gracious Speech deals with Britain's role overseas : in Europe, the Commonwealth, and--because of this country's great experience in the region--the middle east.
I recall, during my own military service, leaving the port of Haifa on 15 May 1948, at the end of the British mandate in Palestine--which led to the establishment of the state of Israel and to the unhappy conflict that has existed between that country and its neighbours ever since. Those passages in the Gracious Speech that deal with that region are of the greatest possible significance, and the opportunity to solve its difficulties which Madrid provides is unlikely to present itself again.
The first page and a half of the Gracious Speech also makes a renewed commitment to the Commonwealth, and lays great weight on Britain's relationship with our friends in Europe. In the near future--certainly until 10 December, and probably right through to polling day for a general election next year--Britain's role in Europe will be a dominant topic for debate in Parliament.
I have no objection to working more closely with our colleagues in Europe. My family has had a home in France for many years-- [Laughter.] -- and I have a daughter who lives there permanently. To those hon. Members who laugh, I may say that it is rather important to know how the people of other European countries live, rather than simply to attend conferences while staying in big hotels, finding out how other Europeans live only at third hand.
One learns, for example, that France today, far from the glorious economic picture painted by Opposition
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Members, is a country racked with problems. Recently, there were major demonstrations by workers in all the major public services in Paris, and by farmers who burned British lamb. They are all desperately concerned about what Europe has done to them. In the last two years, there has been more change and upheaval in Europe than at any time since the Community was established. The Community of Jean Monnet--the Community of the balanced states--has been totally changed by the emergence of a unified Germany. It is the biggest country in Europe, and has its largest population. Germany's economy is potentially the strongest in Europe, but unification has clearly upset its economic balance and its currency's place as the strongest in Europe. Anyone who attempts to cobble institutions together at a time of such turmoil is likely to find that those institutions will swiftly be overtaken by events.The events in Yugoslavia are a microcosm of what could happen, albeit many years hence, if we tried to compress the countries of Europe into a single state framework. We would have nothing but trouble in the future.
The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) spoke of the need for a central European bank, to ensure that we are never again confronted by inflation and that there will always be prosperity throughout Europe. It would be a central bank answerable to no one, not elected by Members of the House, probably dominated by the Bundesbank, and in a position to determine which part of this country--or even the whole of it--is likely to be a recipient in future of grants and aid. To throw away all control of our economy and hand it over to a bunch of faceless civil servants somewhere on the other side of the channel would be ludicrous and dangerous.
The Gracious Speech refers to European monetary co-operation, and quite properly to the exchange rate mechanism, which has worked remarkably well. Critics of the exchange rate mechanism say that it prevents the Government from expanding the economy as swiftly as some might wish, but they seem to forget that, long before we joined the ERM, we had the same problems about protecting sterling against the dollar. Forty per cent. of all our exports, including North sea oil, are paid for in dollars, and we have always needed to protect sterling, and always will.
The exchange rate mechanism merely formalises that protection, and it works extremely well. However, I caution against going for the narrower 2.5 per cent. band in the near future, because of the unusual character of the British economy. Whether one likes it or not, ours is an oil economy--and fluctuating oil prices can affect the value of our currency. Nevertheless, the degree of monetary co-operation represented by the exchange rate mechanism has worked well, and our membership of it is no more of a constraint on the growth of the British economy than was the old need to protect sterling's relationship with the dollar.
As we move towards the single European market next year and Britain's presidency of the Community from 1 July 1992, we must be cautious. The changes in Europe are not complete. The European countries, and probably the whole of the western world, are unlikely to see substantial growth for five years. Until the Germans have been able to
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resolve their problems with the east, and until the German economy is able once again to play its part in lending money to the rest of the world, there will be a gradual growth slope of up to five years. In that time, it would be folly to become involved in monetary institutions that further limited our ability, within those narrow confines, to take action for ourselves. The need for freedom of action will never be greater than in the next 12 months, and indeed in the next five years. To be forced into the straitjacket of a central bank, or anything that looked like a single currency, would be enormously damaging for Britain and her economy.Page 1 of the Gracious Speech has remarks about NATO and defence, a subject ably covered by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Again, the need for freedom of action is desperately important. To be compressed into a European institution dealing with foreign affairs and events would be, as we found over the Gulf, the Falklands Islands and other incidents, to surrender an essential piece of our sovereignty which has proved of value not only to Britain but to our allies around the world.
As Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and as one who has led the crusade of reform of the private Bill procedure, you will be proud of, and delighted to find, this commitment in the Gracious Speech :
"A Bill will be introduced to replace private legislation as the means for authorising transport development schemes."
Effectively, that means that, for the first time, the railway system, through British Rail, will have to adopt different procedures if it wishes to make changes in its structure, build new tracks, close lines, or whatever. The Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure, of which I have the honour to be Chairman, and which sprang directly from your decision, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to have this matter reviewed, came forward with proposals on the matters covered in the Gracious Speech.
Obviously, British Rail's position is unique in that it requires exemption from nuisance and the ability to interrupt public utilities, and a private Bill not only provides that but wraps up separate works programmes into one document. Although I have been sponsoring British Rail legislation for 10 years, I have never felt that to have a Back-Bench Member of Parliament sponsoring a Bill for what is a nationalised industry, but in whatever form it takes will always be a vastly important industry, is the most sensible way forward. In his report on the Clapham disaster, Sir Anthony Hidden heard that safety legislation needed review. It is not sensible to have railway development in a way totally different from that for motorway development. Therefore, when it comes to the channel tunnel link, to bring that important railway project to Parliament and discuss it in the way that most private Bills are discussed, and to have it sponsored by an individual Back Bencher, would be to take risks with the safety of that important line.
If British Rail today, or a railway company in the future, wants to add significantly to its already considerable system, or wants to take decisions that are of importance to those who use the system, it should go to the Department of Transport, set out its proposals, receive a draft order and, where there are bones of contention or problems in the system that it wishes to build, have proper local public inquiries. The private Bill procedure is not adequate, although I can see the advantages.
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In welcoming this proposal and the Bill that we hope will be introduced this Session, I emphasise that it will be essential to ensure that, when inquiries are to take place, there is no undue waiting time for the appointment of inspectors. If there are such delays, there will be a hold-up in railway construction at a time when it seems to be increasing.Mr. Nicholas Winterton : Will my hon. Friend go a little further in respect of the role of railways? Does he agree that the improvement of the railway infrastructure should not be paid for only out of the profitability of British Rail but that, inevitably, it is part of the responsibility of British Government--including the House--to ensure an adequate railway system? Therefore, if the Government need to assist in the improvement of the infrastructure, the House should ensure that such assistance is provided.
Sir Patrick McNair-Wilson : My hon. Friend is a persuasive and clever debater. If he is trying to persuade me to suggest that the Government should pay for the channel link, that is ground on which I would not wish to trespass.
I agree that the railway system will inevitably be the responsibility of the Department of Transport, and to that extent we have to recognise that British Rail is receiving more investment than it has ever received before, and that is a good thing. However, I am concerned to ensure that, when we use that investment to build a new railway system, we do so through schemes that the Government have thoroughly vetted, and that they have not been introduced at the whim of a Back-Bench Member and subjected to the vagaries of the private Bill procedure. Schemes should be given full approval by the Department, with proper inquiries in those areas where people feel aggrieved.
I have nothing against the private Bill procedure. No one would wish to see it taken away but, sadly, it has sometimes been used as an excuse for wrapping up in one document several proposals which, if taken separately, might have suffered a different fate.
I am delighted with the whole of the Gracious Speech. Britain's position in the world and in Europe are well spelt out. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was crystal clear about what will happen in Maastricht, and that was, with great respect, quite unlike what the Leader of the Opposition said. I look forward to this Session as the end of a first-class Parliament which will go out on a high note. 5.28 pm
Mrs. Audrey Wise (Preston) : In 1988, I made an alternative Queen's Speech for women. Last year, I updated it and had to report a worsening of the situation of many women. Today, I listened eagerly for measures specifically angled towards women. After all, here are a Government on the verge of an election and women form the majority of the electorate. This is a Prime Minister who, just this week, spoke of his commitment to the advancement of women, yet not only has he still no women in his Cabinet, but there is not a single mention of women in the Queen's Speech, nor any measures directed specifically at helping them.
In fairness, I must admit that there is little of anything in this extraordinarily empty Queen's Speech. For a Government presumably setting out their shop window
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for an election, this is feeble. If I were window shopping, I would recognise an establishment on the verge of collapse.The Government promise to improve the economy. In my constituency, unemployment increased by a quarter in the past year. It is 18.5 per cent. male and 13.1 per cent. overall, despite the twistings and turnings that we all recognise in the reckoning of the figures. This is a record of increasing misery.
Eighty five constituencies are in an even worse position than Preston. The highest unemployment is to be found in Liverpool, Riverside. It is 27.5 per cent. overall and 37.7 per cent. male. If it is thought that that is because the north-west is especially unfortunate, let it be recognised that 10 of the 25 per cent. worst constituencies in terms of unemployment are in London.
The unemployment figures for women are even more disguised than general unemployment figures. That is because women are frequently not entitled to benefits and, therefore, are not included in the figures. Many women suffer from a forced reduction in their hours. They are part-time workers and their hours are reduced against their will. They are not unemployed, but they are certainly underemployed. They are employed for fewer hours than they would wish and they earn much less money than they would wish.
I know through my union, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, that we are now meeting the phenomenon of zerohours contracts. This means that employers make no commitment to employ people for any particular length of time in any particular week. The employee has to sign a contract in which he accepts that lack of commitment, which means that he or she remains at the employer's will and pleasure. The employee is not counted as unemployed and is not entitled to unemployment benefit, even if she receives no wages in a certain week. It is no wonder that female unemployment, on paper, is less than male unemployment.
For families, the unemployment of both men and women is deplorable. There are repercussions, of course, In 1980, the homes of 3,500 owner-occupiers were repossessed because of mortgage arrears. In the first half of 1991 there have been nearly 34,000 repossessions. About a quarter of a million owner-occupiers are more than two months in arrears. I am sure that the misery that lies behind these figures is not recognised by Conservative Members. For ordinary people, however, they represent despair.
The plight of those who are having difficulty in paying their mortgages has been deliberately worsened by the Conservative party. In 1986, the changes made to social security legislation meant that owner-occupiers on income support have to pay half their mortgage interest for the first 16 weeks of receipt of that support. That change was extremely bad for many people. It was brought about by the party that talks about a property-owning democracy. That is another illustration of its well-known hypocrisy.
Housing problems cover more than repossessions or arrears of mortgage payments. Homelessness is rocketing. Recently I dealt with a woman constituent who has a three-year-old child and is now pregnant with twins. She is living, if it can be called that, in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. The number of people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation has been shooting up since 1982, despite the fact that the Tory party manifesto of 1983 stated :
Column 51
"Our goal is to make Britain the best-housed nation in Europe." Instead, the Government have presided over a reduction in public investment in housing by 70 per cent. since 1979. In 1986, the Audit Commission--not an arm of the Labour party--called for higher spending on the improvement and repair of council housing. That is prevented directly by the Conservative Government.On 27 March 1990, the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. Spicer), then Minister for Housing and Planning, said on behalf of the Government :
"Our main aim is to reduce the use of bed and breakfast by councils."
Preston council did not have to use bed-and-breakfast accommodation when that statement was made, but it has to do so now. The Housing Corporation, in its latest report, describes housing in Preston as follows :
"Preston's housing problems have intensified in recent years, following a period of rapid increases in house prices and increasing pressure on demand on the rented sector at all levels of security of tenure. Homelessness has now reached crisis proportions, with the local authority stock continuing to diminish and a continuing reduction in the number of net relet vacancies. The Council's own hostel accommodation is fully occupied, flats in multi-storey blocks continue to be shared"
not just occupied but shared, by people with children--
"by homeless families and increasing reliance is being placed on bed and breakfast accommodation."
I know that Preston council has fought against doing any of those things. It has tried desperately to avoid doing so. With the attitude of the Conservative party to council housing, it is no wonder that the council is failing to meet the needs, and that my constituents are in agony.
Last year I referred to the agony of women who cannot provide their children with a home. That agony has intensified this year and has spread to far more people. It must be noted, however, that there is not a mention of housing in the Queen's Speech. The Conservative party does not care about housing and forecasts no steps for housing.
In June, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo), said :
"Getting people out of unsatisfactory temporary accommodation has been one of the Government's top priorities since 1989."
Bearing in mind the Government's record when dealing with one of their priorities, I shudder to think of what happens to objectives that are merely regarded by them as desirable. The underlying reason for the problem is a shortage of housing and a shortage of resources to repair and improve existing housing.
In 1980 local authority housebuilding produced 41,500 new dwellings ; there were only 8,700 new dwellings built in 1990. It is no wonder that there is a shortage. Should the Minister claim that that building is being replaced by housing association building, I can tell him that association new building in 1990 increased by fewer than 2,000 properties as compared with 1980.
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