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Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) : My hon. Friend is dealing with a most important subject. So far as I know, not one Conservative Member over the past 10 or 12 years has protested to the Government that council dwellings have not been built. Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation is even worse than she has described because a
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substantial amount of local authority housing has been sold off? The best units--houses, not high-rise flats--have been sold. They have not been replaced, and that has been a deliberate act of Conservative policy.Mrs. Wise : My hon. Friend is right. Perusal of the Housing Corporation's report shows that it has referred to that issue many times. Not only are no houses being built, but others are being taken from the stock of houses available for rent and are, therefore, not available to the people in the greatest need.
Of course, such problems extend to the private housing stock in many areas. In Preston more than 38 per cent. of private houses were built before 1919. Six thousand one hundred are unfit for habitation and more than 14,000 are in need of renovation. Resources need to be allocated for the necessary improvement of private housing stock as well as council housing stock, but the Government's main contribution seems to have been to interpose a neighbourhood renewal assessment system which has made the process of providing help with renovation of the private housing stock and of dealing with unfit houses grind to a halt. The Government have introduced procedures that sound nice, but offers no resources with which to carry them out. Those procedures are merely another hurdle over which local authorities must jump, but they fail to do so.
There is not a word about housing in the Queen's Speech unless we are to assume that the Government are relying on the sentence, "other measures will be laid before you",
for the many social measures that are omitted.
I read the Queen's Speech to try to understand what lies behind the few promises of legislation which it contains. The Government intend to introduce legislation to reinforce the regulation of private utilities. I wonder whether that will include regulation of the inflated salaries that the chairmen of the privatised companies are now paying themselves. The Government intend to introduce legislation to deal with education, but there is no sign that such a Bill would deal with nursery education or that it would contain measures to improve school buildings or the funding of schools in constituencies such as mine. However, there is every suggestion that a Bill dealing with education will, like its forerunners, be more a reflection of Tory dogma than a means of meeting the needs of children in my constituency.
The Queen's Speech states that the Government will make available information about the performance of individual schools. Will they make equally available information about the problems faced by individual schools, or about the wonderful work being done by them, including the school in Preston attended by my grandchildren? There children become bilingual. The school has to cope with different languages and people from different cultures and does so in a way that enriches the background of the children, but it gets precious little help from the Government.
The Government intend to introduce a Bill to revise the health and safety arrangements of offshore installations. That is overdue and I welcome such a Bill, but what about more inspectors for health and safety? What about making it easier for people such as shop workers who suffer from repetitive strain injury to have that recognised and to obtain adequate compensation?
The Government intend
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"to replace private legislation as the means for authorising transport development schemes."That might be useful in a technical sense for the procedures of the House, but why is there to be no legislation for more, better and cheaper public transport? That alone would be of enormous help to women who find it difficult to get about cheaply and safely. I am deeply disappointed with the Queen's Speech, but not surprised. Its tone is epitomised by a couple of sentences on page three which state that the Government
"will maintain firm control of public spending with the aim of keeping its share of national income on a downward trend over time." The next sentence states :
"My Government attach the highest priority to improving public services."
The Government intend to improve public services while spending less and less on them--that demands not a competent Government, but members of the Magic Circle. So far, I have seen no sign that the Prime Minister or his colleagues have the competence or the dexterity--to use a word that was used earlier in the debate--to accomplish that miracle. It is impossible to improve public services while reducing costs, and citizens charters will prove to be empty words, just as this is an empty Queen's Speech.
5.45 pm
Mr. Harry Greenway (Ealing, North) : I hope that the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) will forgive me if I do not make such a wide-ranging speech as she did. We share a great love of animals, but she was not able to mention them and they are not mentioned in the Queen's Speech. I shall restrict myself to one or two topics in the interests of the many hon. Members who wish to participate in the debate.
In moving the Loyal Address, my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) spoke of "the faithful city", which is how Worcester has always been known. I was born there, and I could have invited my right hon. Friend to say a little more about it. The street leading to the cathedral is called Silver street because the local people there threw down silver and the Roundheads got off their horses to pick it up. Their doing so enabled the Cavaliers and the King's men to escape to safety after the battle of Worcester. That is why that fine city bears that name.
I pay tribute to the amusing and witty way in which my right hon. Friend moved the Loyal Address and to the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken). I was especially delighted to hear him speak of the advance of people through the equality of opportunity in education. During the 1987 general election, when my right hon. Friend came to my constituency, we walked along two or three streets where, as a boy of 14 or 15, he had delivered newspapers. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth--his mother was a widow and he delivered papers.
One or two of the people on whom we called remembered my right hon. Friend. The first person he canvassed in Worcester was my grandmother, who lived well into her 90s. I am sorry that he is not here to hear me say that he is an example of someone who has achieved much from humble beginnings and I warmly commend him. He achieved much through the equality of opportunity in education, as he explained, and I shall say a few words about education.
The Gracious Speech states :
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"Action will be taken to improve quality and choice in education." They are good words, and they will be well backed up. It continues :"Legislation will be introduced to reform funding of further education and sixth form colleges and to reform higher education in England and Wales, and to make information available about the performance of individual schools."
When I started to teach in 1957, one of my colleagues said that a parent was coming to see him that day, and he asked what he should say to him. Everyone else said, "What has it got to do with him? You don't need to talk to parents." That was the regrettable but widespread attitude in a great profession. Happily, things are changing, as change they must. The Gracious Speech will lead to more and vital changes.
I wish to pick up one point made by the hon. Member for Preston, because I also hope that attention will be paid to the conditions of buildings. Emergency measures had to be taken in my constituency to repair leaking roofs on four school buildings. It was an emergency : if that had not been done children would have been sent home and their schooling interrupted. Emergency shoring up has been necessary in another school.
Those buildings have not suddenly experienced those problems. The problems existed under successive Governments and local authorities of different political complexions over 50, 60 and 70 years. That makes some campaigns, particularly those of members of the Labour party, spurious, because those buildings have needed attention for many years. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning is in the Chamber because he can confirm that school buildings have not received the attention that they have deserved for many years.
The Queen's Speech promises reform of further education and, in particular, of adult education. For some years, I have been the chairman of the all- party adult education committee. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) is our excellent secretary. It is right to use the vehicle of adult education to set up courses to allow people to improve their qualifications and so apply for better jobs and perform their existing jobs more efficiently. In that regard, I am thinking of computer courses and courses in car maintenance, book-keeping and secretarial studies, as well as English language and foreign language courses. Those vocational courses clearly lead people to greater success in their professions.
However, I do not believe that vocational courses are more important than non-vocational courses. The two types of courses should be considered equally in adult education and it would be wrong for all resources to be devoted to vocational courses while non-vocational courses are starved of funds. Happily the Government have amended their original view expressed in the White Paper and now consider vocational and non-vocational studies on an equal basis. I have held senior posts in enormous schools in London. There were 2,200 pupils in my last school. However, I also found time to lecture in adult education for 12 years. Courses in flower arranging, painting, dance and physical education in all its aspects, including sports and body development and control, are valid for those who want to take those courses. At the height of their success, the education committee of the London county council and subsequently the Inner London education
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authority--I worked for both those bodies-- provided 2,000 different adult education courses, and they were all very successful.Mr. Roy Beggs (Antrim, East) : Should not the fees charged for non- vocational courses be such as to allow them to be open to people on the lowest incomes?
Mr. Greenway : Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Adult education must be accessible to people on all income levels. I hope that all hon. Members accept that adult education is an amazing vehicle through which people can have more fulfilled lives in respect both of leisure and of their professional careers. Adult education is cheap. I have worked in adult education for 12 years and I am proud, like the education spokesman for the Social and Liberal Democrats and, I think, the Leader of the Opposition, to be a vice-president of the Workers Educational Association. I hope that the Government will consider the potential of adult education in a new way and will do all they can to devote funds to it.
The Queen's Speech also states that information is to be "available about the performance of individual schools." Information about truancy rates will be available to parents. There will also be tables showing examination successes between schools. Somehow, schools must serve and respond to parental choices. However, I am wary of placing excessive pressure on children and teachers where there are behavioural difficulties or deprivation. In those circumstances, teachers do not have a chance of achieving the level of examination success that might be achieved in more favourable teaching conditions.
Where children are well motivated, well supported at home and well funded, they will be easier to teach, especially if the buildings are good, than pupils who struggle to get to school and whose parents are feckless and short of money. I know of a school not far from this place where there are many highly deprived children, but they work well. I do not want to let schools off : they should compete in terms of truancy or examination tables. However, everyone concerned must understand the difficulties that some schools face.
A school prospectus is vital. At the moment, parents find many school prospectuses dull and unexciting. Schools should also hold meetings for prospective parents. Many schools do not welcome the parents of prospective pupils or influence decisions about which school parents should choose for their children. Everything should be done to increase choice in respect of schools.
We should also do more to pay good classroom teachers. Everyone in the profession is aware that some people can be absent from teaching posts and not be missed. In some respects, we are better off without them. However, as a result of my 23 years in teaching, I know that people like that remain in post and nothing is done about it. They are paid the same as people who can teach brilliantly.
There must be a way of discovering why some people teach so well while others fail the children.
Mr. Frank Cook : Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to apply the same active principles to hon. Members?
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Mr. Greenway : I am sure that my colleagues and Opposition Members are highly conscientious people. They have nothing to fear. However, I do not want to be diverted from an issue that is very important to this nation's future. Somehow, children must achieve more from education. More children should gain success in examinations and gain the skills to survive difficulties in life. More children should enter higher education. That can be achieved through an improved teaching profession.
Teachers must be able to evaluate their own performances more openly. Their performance should also be evaluated more closely by their heads of department, heads of school, and inspectors. Good teachers should be paid differently from those who do not teach well. We would then begin to reward the wonderful people who do not want to take on the responsibility of deputy headship and so on, who remain in the classroom and do a wonderful job, but who are currently paid the same as people who are slack, late every day, off early, and so on. I hope that something will be achieved by the Bill.
5.59 pm
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) : I associate myself and my party with remarks by several hon. Members about Alick
Buchanan-Smith. He was a remarkable Member of Parliament. All hon. Members will miss him across the broad range of his activities. I agree with the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) that, if this debate is to be the effective start of the general election campaign, it is a very poor beginning. Indeed, if this is the shape of things to come in the general election campaign, the hon. and learned Member for Colchester, North (Sir A. Buck) will not be the only person to have difficulty staying awake over the coming weeks and months.
However, I disagree with the right hon. Member for Yeovil that this poor start is due to general misbehaviour in the House. I should have thought that it was due to the two rather bad speeches by the Leader of the Opposition and by the Prime Minister. There may be a reason for that. It has been argued that, as the Labour and Tory parties come closer together in policy and ideology, the standard of debate suffers because the ideology goes and only the personalities remain. I thought that the quality of debate at the start of this Session was very much reduced.
Mr. Frank Cook : The hon. Gentleman should show the House how it should be done.
Mr. Salmond : The hon. Gentleman will have to wait and see. The Sunday Times could not be called a house journal of the Conservative party in Scotland, but it certainly has the inside track. Last Sunday, it speculated on whether the Tory party had "run out of steam". It accurately forecast the contents of the Queen's Speech. It was a fag-end speech for a fag-end Parliament. The Tory party in Scotland has run out of both steam and ideas. It has even run out of legislation. We have one single, solitary Scottish Bill in this parliamentary Session, because the Conservative party no longer has enough Members north of the border even to man Scottish Committees. Legislation is constricted by the Government's inability to get enough hon. Members to turn up and man the Committees. Even the few measures that have some relevance to Scotland leave a bitter taste in the mouth. The Bill on
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higher and further education contains a proposal which will be widely welcomed--a funding council and an extension of the university system. However, parachuted into that legislation will be a further ideological attack on the social fabric of the Scottish education system and the compulsory publication of league tables of primary-tested pupils. I should have thought that, having encountered massive parental opposition to such tests in Scotland over the past year, the Government would have learnt that primary testing is unwanted in Scotland, and decided against moving towards the opting out of Scottish primary schools.The abolition of the poll tax is probably even more widely welcomed in Scotland than it is in the rest of the United Kingdom. However, it will not go unnoticed north of the border that not only was the poll tax introduced in Scotland a year early but that it was specific Scottish legislation. Scotland was used as a guinea pig for the introduction of the poll tax.
However, when it comes to the abolition of the poll tax, there is no separate Scottish legislation or separate Scottish scrutiny, despite the different structure of local government finance and organisation north of the border. If we were a guinea pig in the introduction of the poll tax, we are an afterthought in its abolition. Apart from anything else, given the various idiosyncracies, nonsense and blunders that were discovered in the poll tax legislation, I should have thought that the Government would welcome effective scrutiny of a new, untried and probably defective council tax system.
The legislation for safety offshore contains provisions that my party will certainly support. The implementation of the Cullen recommendations commands general respect and approval throughout the House. However, although I have not yet seen the detail of the legislation, I doubt whether it will extend to protecting offshore workers against victimisation or guaranteeing their proper rights of representation in trade union affairs.
I hope that the level of debate in the coming general election in Scotland will be somewhat higher than in the rest of the country. That is because clear political choices will be on offer to the Scottish people. There will be choices on the Scottish economy, social services, defence, and Scotland's future within the European Community.
Earlier this week the Royal Bank of Scotland published its authoritative oil index showing a 14 per cent. rise in output, more than 2 million barrels a day, for the first time in several months--perhaps on the way to a new peak in output of 3 million barrels a day of oil and gas equivalent by the end of this century. A basic choice is opening up for Scotland as that new oil and gas boom becomes a reality. With £40,000 million of revenue forecast for the next decade, will that enormous revenue from the North sea fund and bankroll right-wing Governments in London, or will it be invested in the future of the Scottish economy?
At a press conference during the Kincardine and Deeside by-election, I was asked why, in Norway, 60 to 70 per cent. of the orders generated by each oilfield found their way into the Norwegian economy, while the equivalent percentage in Scotland is less than 30 per cent. There is a simple answer. At present in Scotland, we see the active destruction of a steel industry which, over the next decade, should supply millions of tonnes of steel to the North sea market. However, that industry is in the process of being eliminated by British Steel, with the active connivance of the Government. If we destroy the
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industrial fabric which services and supplies that market opportunity, it is hardly surprising that the Scottish economy stands to lose yet again from the second great oil and gas boom. For Scotland's energy resources, the matter goes much further than that. Over the past year, the Energy Select Committee closely investigated the real costs of the nuclear industry. The hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) was interested to make a comparison with the costs of the coal industry, and I was interested to make a comparison with the cost of combined cycle gas generation. The best estimate at which we could arrive for the real cost of nuclear power was about 6p a unit of electricity, which is three times the cost of combined cycle gas generation. However, the Scottish economy faces the ridiculous position of being over-invested in nuclear technology while the great opportunity from massive condensate gasfields in own waters will go a-begging or, more accurately, will be subsidised and piped south to Teesside, again being offest, against petroleum revenue tax where it will then be used to undercut the Scottish industrial sector.Those are the hard and clear political choices that will be on offer to the Scottish people in the general election. However, there will also be clear choices on social services and on where expenditure should go as between defence and vital services. The right hon. Member for Yeovil has some difficulty in answering a clear question about his party's position on the Trident missile system. All three London-based parties will have that same difficulty in the general election.
Last Sunday's edition of Scotland on Sunday carried on its front page the story that there were severe doubts at senior level within the Ministry of Defence about the cost and effectiveness of the unwanted, dangerous and totally useless strategic nuclear deterrent with its lifetime cost of at least £23,000 million--perhaps more--and about the strains that that would place on the rest of the defence budget.
Let us nail the argument and the excuse that is used by both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party about their new-found support for the Trident nuclear system. They argue that the money has been spent anyway. That might be true of some elements of the capital cost. The most recent estimate is that about £6 billion has been committed, estimated and contracted for. However, the lifetime cost of the Trident system has been estimated at at least £23,000 million, of which, therefore, less than one third has already been committed. How can any party--especially the Labour party--which refuses to give a precise funding commitment to the national health service live with itself when it is prepared to give a precise funding commitment for the amount of money it will pour into the Trident missile system in the next 10 to 15 years?
I notice that one of the many hon. Members representing the Strathclyde region is now sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. He will be aware of the number of crumbling schools in Strathclyde, so perhaps he would like to comment on the calculation that the Scottish share of the savings from cancelling the Trident missile system could build 12,000 new houses, 16 new hospitals and 177 new schools--schools which I am sure his constituents would welcome.
Where on earth are the 512 warheads of the Trident system to be pointed? They have a range of 6,000 miles and were designed to penetrate the defences around Moscow.
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Are we really going to threaten Boris Yeltsin and the Russian federation with that useless military plaything for which we have no further strategic use and which will cripple not only the defence budget, but also the social services budget for the next 10 or 15 years unless we call an end now to the madness and obscenity? At the coming election, there will be a clear political choice in Scotland between bombs and beds, and bombs and bairns.I welcome the positive reference in the Queen's Speech : "The United Kingdom will continue to develop our good relations with the Soviet Union and its republics, and to encourage their integration into the world economy ; and will work to help Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania re-establish themselves in the international community."
I also welcomed the Prime Minister's speech in Paris just a few weeks ago in which he said that, during the coming decade, about 30 countries--new states, emerging democracies--would apply for and get a place within the European Community. Although the Prime Minister also said that no one could gainsay that process of democracy and its progress throughout Europe, like the leaders of the other London parties, he will have to explain why self- determination and democracy are good things across the continent of Europe, but cannot be applied to the Scottish people. I do not believe that Scotland will accept the second-class status of being a regional periphery in the Community when the first-class status of membership is available to us.
There is a clear choice. We can either be a regional backwater and allow Scotland's resources to be misused and wasted, or we can start to rebuild the Scottish economy, fund Scottish social services, and ensure that our country once again plays a full and responsible role in the international community. I have great confidence that, if this debate marks the onset of the general election campaign, its conclusion will be that the people will make a decisive political choice in favour of that future for Scotland.
6.14 pm
Mr. David Knox (Staffordshire, Moorlands) : I should like to join in the congratulations that have been paid to my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) who moved and seconded the Loyal Address.
It is now quite a long time since I first met my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester when I went along to canvass for him during the 1961 by-election in the Worcester constituency. Happily, I did not do him any harm and he was returned with a good majority. Since then, he has established himself as one of the outstanding parliamentarians of his generation. He has undoubtedly been one of the most successful departmental Ministers during the period that I have been a Member of the House. He has served at the Departments of the Environment, Trade and Industry and Energy, at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and, more recently, at the Welsh Office. Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend is leaving the House at the next general election. He will be greatly missed by hon. Members of all parties.
Unfortunately, the next months will be dominated by the forthcoming general election--indeed, we have seen some evidence of that this afternoon--and I am afraid that
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the British people will become fed up with politics and politicians before polling day. Although no one knows exactly when the election will take place, we do know that the Session has a maximum of eight months to run. It is therefore surprising that the Gracious Speech contains a remarkably full legislative programme, most of which I warmly welcome.Of the measures to be introduced, the council tax legislation is far and away the most important and the most welcome for negative as well as positive reasons. The Bill that will introduce the council tax is welcome for the negative reason that it will result in the removal of the poll tax from the statute book. That measure was fatally flawed from the start because it was a flat-rate tax and was consequently unfair. It violated the fundamental principle of sound taxation that a tax should bear some relation to ability to pay. However, the council tax should be welcomed for positive reasons also. First, it takes into consideration ability to pay. Generally speaking, better-off people live in bigger houses and, under the council tax, the occupants of bigger houses will pay more than those who live in smaller houses. The discount of 25 per cent. for single adult households recognises the position of those living on their own, more than two thirds of whom are over 60. Moreover, there will be only one bill per household and no expensive register to maintain despite what the leader of the Opposition said earlier. All in all, therefore, the council tax will be fairer and easier and cheaper to administer than either the poll tax or the rates and I warmly welcome its introduction. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is worthy of the warmest congratulations for burying the poll tax and devising what is undoubtedly a better system of raising local government revenue than any previous system.
I also warmly welcome the Government's commitment in the Gracious Speech to the national health service--not that that commitment should be in any doubt. On the basis of any objective assessment of the Government's performance during the past twelve and a half years, they have shown a very strong commitment to the national health service. By any standard, whether judged on the real-terms increase in expenditure, on the increase in the number of patients treated, on the increase in the number of nurses and doctors employed or on the shortening of waiting lists, the national health service is in a much better state and gives a much better service now than it did in May 1979. Of course, it is not perfect. From time to time things go wrong, particularly in such a large organisation as the national health service, employing as it does probably more people than any other organisation in Europe, But the deficiencies and weaknesses that occur do not excuse the disgraceful and deplorable campaign which is being run by the Labour party.
Labour's campaign is based on falsehoods and distortions which are causing worry to some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I have always believed that the Labour party is an honourable and caring party, although sometimes it is misguided. I hope that it will have second thoughts, at least about certain aspects of its campaign.
One of the main charges that the Opposition make about the health service is that it is underfunded. I am not sure what that means but if it means that more could be spent on the NHS, that is a statement of the obvious. It has
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always and always will be true, and not only about the national health service, it is true about everything, for the simple reason that resources are limited and always will be.Mr. Winnick : The hon. Gentleman makes points which will be replied to later in the debate from the Labour Back and Front Benches. Is he aware that a major credit company has sent out a leaflet telling peple that they should take various measures to safeguard themselves? It says :
"You probably find your whole way of life affected while you wait and wait to go into hospital. You might suffer irritation or embarrassment from a painful or unsightly condition. You may even be forced to take time off work."
That is from not the Labour party but a major credit company. It urges people to go private because it is aware of the long time that people have to wait for NHS treatment.
Mr. Knox : I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should quote a major credit company as gospel on an issue such as this. I should have thought that in most cases he would denounce such an organisation. Indeed, the opinion of one body does not matter very much. In any case, I think that I am right in saying that there was a bigger movement to the private health sector in 1979 when his friends were in office than has taken place at any other time.
I was talking about the limitation of resources. It is as well to remind the House that the Royal Commission on the national health service concluded that we could spend the entire gross domestic product on health and there would still be unsatisfied demand for health care. However, the real world is about determining priorities. The percentage of the GDP devoted to the national health service provides as good a measure as any of the priority which a Government give to health.
In an answer to a written parliamentary question which I received from my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell), the Under-Secretary of State for Health, on 22 October I was told that total Government expenditure on health as a proportion of the gross domestic product was 4.70 per cent. in 1974 and 4.77 per cent. in 1979. By 1990 it had risen to 5.22 per cent. The anticipated level for this year is 5.7 per cent.
In the debate on the national health service in the House on 21 October the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) said :
"Over the lifetime of the Parliament, we shall seek to restore the underfunding We shall do it next time because we did it last time."--[ Official Report, 21 October 1991 ; Vol. 196, col. 673.] My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister quoted that this afternoon. But the figures show an increase in the proportion of GDP devoted to the NHS of only 0.07 per cent. when the last Labour Government were in power, compared with an increase of 0.5 per cent. of GDP between 1979 and 1990, and an anticipated further increase of 0.5 per cent. this year. That makes a total increase of about 1 per cent. under this Government.
The figures show clearly that the present Conservative Government have given higher priority to national health service spending than did their Labour predecessors. They also show that the Government have given higher priority to reducing underfunding in the national health service than did Labour. So we know what Labour did the last
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time. The hon. Member for Livingston has warned us that Labour will do the same again. Therefore, the NHS can expect little or nothing from a future Labour Government.Despite the Government's reasonably good record on health spending, I personally believe that we should spend a higher proportion of our GDP on the NHS. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is being generous to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health in this year's public spending round. While I accept that throwing money at problems does not necessarily solve them, it can help. If anyone doubts that, perhaps I could remind them of the £140 per person thrown at poll tax payers in the Budget this year.
Earlier this week I attended a dinner to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the vote in this House on 28 October 1971 in favour of the principle of British membership of the European Community. My passionate belief in the unity of Europe made that vote the high point of my membership of the House. Since 1971 progress on the Community has been disappointingly slow, although the establishment of the European monetary system and the Single European Act were important and significant advances.
During the past 20 years Britain's attitude to the Community has left a great deal to be desired. Too often we have opted out of negotiations about new developments in the European Community, only to have to accept at a later date decisions in which we played no part and which do not particularly suit us. Therefore, I am pleased that Britain is playing a full part in the negotiations in the intergovernmental conferences on political union and economic and monetary union.
Greater political co-operation in the Community is essential if our influence is to be felt in the world. It is becoming increasingly obvious that if the countries of the Community speak with one voice in the world they will exert more influence than if they speak with separate voices. For example, does anyone seriously believe that the Prime Minister's safe haven plan for the Kurds would have been a starter if it had been a purely British rather than a European Community initiative?
Greater economic and monetary union are also essential if Britain and her European Community partners are to ensure that they gain full advantage from the single market, which will be completed in 14 months. Despite the Government's hesitations, I am convinced that a single currency in the European Community is in the interests of Britain, in exactly the same way that a single United Kingdom currency has been in the interests of the member countries of the United Kingdom and that a single United States currency has been in the interests of the states of the USA.
Surely no one seriously suggests that California, which has a population not greatly different in size from that of Britain, would be as prosperous if it and the other American states had separate currencies, with all the obstacles that that would create for the flow of trade and other economic activity. Why should things be any different in the European Community? A single currency must be in the interests of the people of the Community, and the sooner we have it the better.
The draft treaty on economic and monetary union which was published on Monday offers to member countries the possibility of opting out of the single currency. That has been hailed as a triumph for British
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diplomacy. But opting out of a single currency is not an option that Britain should seek to adopt. Why of the Twelve should we appear to be the only country to need that option, even if only in reserve? Opting out would be for the second rate and I do not believe that Britain is second rate, although we are perhaps somewhat lacking in self-confidence.I should like to make two, final, brief points about the intergovernmental conferences. First, I hope that my right hon. Friends will not allow themselves to be influenced in the negotiations by scare stories about conceding sovereignty. A great deal of the substance of our supposed sovereignty has already passed from this country for reasons beyond our control. Only the form of sovereignty remains with us. The only way in which we can retrieve the substance of that sovereignty is by pooling the form with our European Community partners. United we can exert far more sovereignty than the sum total of what we can exert separately.
Secondly, there is much criticism of the democratic deficit in the European Community. I have a great deal of sympathy with that criticism. If we want to do something about the democratic deficit, we must show a greater willingness to give increased powers to the one body that can make the Community more democratic--the European Parliament. After all, it is elected by universal suffrage. Because of our long experience of democracy in this country, I have always hoped that we would play an important part in the democratisation of the Community. I hope that we can now give a lead to the Community in that respect.
6.30 pm
Mr. Roy Hughes (Newport, East) : It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Mr. Knox). Although I found some of his arguments persuasive, I do not intend to pursue them.
We have all read with great interest the proposals in the Gracious Speech. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), the leader of the Liberal Democratic party, made his customary argument for fixed-term Parliaments. Whatever the merits of the argument, by common consent this Government are now living on borrowed time. We had 12 years of Thatcherism, which was supposed to have cured all evils. On the contrary, in a recent book Mr. Christopher Johnson, a well-known and respected economic commentator and a Treasury adviser during some of the Thatcher years, points out that her reign achieved little. He asserts that the country
"is still suffering from the ills she set out to cure." The right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) constantly lectured the nation about the dangers of living beyond its means, but her Government presided over the biggest spending boom in British history. In the mid-1980s people were bombarded with literature from banks, building societies and business firms imploring them to borrow and lay out money far beyond their means. The consequence of all that mismanagement is the recession and all the hardship suffered by British people, particularly in the past 18 months. Yet the Gracious Speech refers to pursuing "firm financial policies". It seems to be a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
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Our public services have been shamefully run down and the blame attributed to our local authorities. There has been a marked widening of the gap between rich and poor. The introduction of the poll tax was a disaster of the first order and its successor--"the new council tax" referred to in the Gracious Speech--is likely to be equally unjust.In the Gracious Speech the Government say :
"Action will be taken to improve quality and choice in education." That action is vitally needed because the morale of our teachers is at an all- time low. Students are being denied state benefits during vacations and many of them, invariably from working-class homes, are quitting their courses.
The Gracious Speech also refers to improving
"the working of the economy."
Again, that is long overdue. Bankruptcies are at a record level. In the first nine months of this year more than 33,500 businesses collapsed. Every working day 200 firms fail. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, the present Prime Minister held interest rates at their highest ever for the longest ever, placing a crushing burden on British business. Home repossessions are running at a record 100,000 a year, with all the anguish and hardship that they cause. In the Gracious Speech the Government say that they will "develop policies to enhance the nation's health."
Yet our national health service, once the pride of the nation, is now ill equipped and underfunded, besides suffering from creeping privatisation under the guise of reform. No gimmicky patients charter can paper over the cracks.
The greatest scourge of all is the ever-escalating rise in the unemployment figures. In the Gracious Speech the Government say that they will
"maintain the conditions necessary for sustained growth." The Chancellor of the Exchequer has told us that unemployment is a price worth paying--we heard that straight from the horses's mouth, so to speak--but unemployment is not a thing ; it is made up of life upon life and person upon person whose existence is cramped and crushed by the inability to earn money and have the self-respect of working. Unemployment has risen nationwide for the 18th consecutive month and has now reached a peak of well over 2.4 million. The cost of unemployment to the Exchequer is reckoned to be £8,900 for every benefit claimant.
The cost in social and human terms is even greater. All manner of deprivation is associated with unemployment. Research has consistently shown that unemployment and poverty are linked to ill-health. The escalating crime rate is also clearly associated. Likewise, unemployment can be closely identified with the escalating divorce rates, child abuse and child battering. Yet the same Government who have created this heavy unemployment claim a commitment to family life and talk about the sanctity of children's rights. They could have fooled me.
My constituency has good communications. On the eastern seaboard it is linked to the motorway network both to the south-east and to the midlands. Yet unemployment in the Newport travel-to-work area now stands at 11.7 per cent. In my constituency 27 people compete for each vacancy. Ministers constantly lecture us about high wages being a major factor in the rise in unemployment, yet Wales, which is invariably top of the league for the number of jobless, is correspondingly
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