House of Commons Hansard Debates for 31 Oct 1991

Column 80

Europe, or that east European textiles or foodstuffs should have unregulated access to our markets without any protection for our producers? Of course they are not.

These people call themselves pro-European, but what kind of Europe do they want? Do they want a free trade area? Quite apart from the fact that they are the first to complain about the flood of imports from the European Community, how can they maintain that a free trade area can work properly without rules governing free trade and competition and institutions--the Commission if need be--to enforce and adapt those rules? Furthermore--this is what matters more to me--what possible contribution to greater security could be made to an increasingly balkanised continent by loose co-operation between fully sovereign states, each jealously clinging to its right of veto and to the right, in the last resort, to invade or bomb its neighbours if they become sufficiently annoying?

The so-called European sceptics are not European at all. They want to weaken the European Community and, if possible, to destroy it. That is the policy that Harold Macmillan allowed Reggie Maudling to toy with in 1960, and a hideous failure it was. Harold Macmillan was quick enough to draw the conclusion that we could not beat them, so we had better join them as soon as we could. It is just the same today. To imagine that we British can stop the other 11 member states from going ahead with the steady--it is somewhat erratic--progress towards monetary, economic and eventually political union is the most foolish sort of daydreaming. It was brilliantly described by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence at Blackpool earlier this month, when he spoke of somebody living in a world of his own in which he had great influence.

Of course we can opt out of the process of integration. Of course we can refuse to take part in the agreement on a single currency. We can settle for the second rank if we want to. Personally, I will fight against it as long as I have political breath in my body. What we cannot do, and it is downright dishonest for any politician to pretend that we can, is to stop the other 11 from going ahead without us, and to blather on about using our veto.

Any fool can see that the other 11 could sign a new treaty among themselves, leaving us out. The personal charm of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the diplomatic skills of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary have seemingly averted that for the time being, although in practice there are already two ranks in the European Commuity--for the exchange rate mechanism and for the abolition of frontier controls--and in both cases, I am sorry to say, we are already in the second rank.

Shall we never learn? I thought that we had finished with that sort of nonsense when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pledged that we would play our part in the centre of Europe. That is where we must be. It is far more important to uphold Britain's long-term vital interests in Europe than to buy off a potential revolt by the irreconcilable anti-Europeans in the Conservative party.

There is indeed talk of right hon. and hon. Friends who might be ready to put their anti-European convictions before their party loyalties and to vote against any move towards European monetary union. I do not for one moment question their absolute right to do so, although I feel entitled to say that, for the most part, they are the ones who most stridently proclaim their party loyalty. I must make it clear that there are quite as many of my hon. Friends who came into the Conservative party because it was--I believe that it still is--the party of

Column 81

Europe. We are as entitled to put our European convictions first as are the so-called Euro-sceptics. Moreover, unlike the anti-Europeans, who have nowhere else to go, our views are consistent with what has become, I am glad to say, a consensus that stretches right across the parties in the Chamber.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Mr. Knox), I attended the dinner earlier this week to mark the 20th anniversary of the vote on Second Reading of what was then the European Communities Bill. In that vote, 69 Labour Members, including the then chairman of the Parliamentary Labour party, defied a three-line Whip to vote for the Conservative proposal of membership of the European Community.

I came into politics and joined the Conservative party because I wanted my country to take its proper place in Europe, and because I took the Conservative party to be the party of Europe, as it has been since 1962. Although I have been deselected by my constituency party because of the minor role which I played in the events that brought my right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister to office, I have pledged myself to work as hard as I can for a Conservative victory, both nationally and in my constituency. However, if some people on the right of the Conservative party are to start threatening to vote against the Government if they go too far down the road towards European unity, I must tell them that there are those at the other end of the party who feel equally strongly, and that we are prepared, if need be, to go equally far in support of our convictions. What is more, we know that it is we who are in the main stream of both British and European politics, and that the future belongs to us and to Europe.

7.56 pm

Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse (Pontefract and Castleford) : I wish to associate myself with the remarks that have been made about our late colleagues, Alick Buchanan-Smith, Richard Holt and my dear friend George Buckley. They all brought their individual personalities to the House, and most certainly they all left their mark. They will certainly be missed.

A section of the Gracious Speech says that the Government "continue to prepare for the privatisation of the British Railways Board and the British Coal Corporation."

The Government have been doing that since 1984. We have seen a rapid decline in the coal industry. The industry has been savaged without any thought for the social consequences. In 1986, in a report on the coal industry, the Select Committee on Energy referred to the dangers. It warned that the rundown was too rapid and that insufficient thought had been given to the social consequences. Since then, those consequences have been extremely severe. In 1986, it was the men over 50 years of age who were mainly affected. They were made redundant, and few of them have worked again.

In the period since 1984, miners' homes that were formerly owned by British Coal have been sold off to private property speculators. In Castleford, there is an estate of about 240 houses, 48 per cent. of which are empty. The policy of the property owner has been not to occupy the houses when they have become empty, because he purchased them for the price of the land. Hardly any repairs have been undertaken and miners have to live in squalid conditions.

Column 82

Miners and their widows are being pestered by British Coal to sell off their concessionary fuel entitlements for a small sum. There are miners who spent their working lives in the coal industry who are suffering from emphysema, a dreaded disease which is extremely disabling. Many of these men are unable to put coal on the fire. They can hardly lift a cup to their lips. They have been told clearly by British Coal that, if the local authority were able to move them out of their houses into houses where they would not have to handle solid fuel, they would face the loss of their concessionary fuel entitlement. That is what has been happening. Those have been the social consequences during the period to which I have referred. Consultants at Pontefract general infirmary have made statements to the effect that some of the unfortunate people to whom I have referred are receiving substandard treatment because of insufficient finances to enable doctors to provide the treatment that is needed. The Select Committee on Energy reported in July. I shall quote a passage that serves to highlight the position now :

"The main conclusion of this part of our Report is that a long-term view needs to be taken of the value of having a substantial indigenous coal industry offering secure supplies at stable prices, and of coal's place among other fuels in providing for the country's long-term energy needs The market may in the event be effective in reflecting some of the long-term considerations, but we do not believe it can be relied on to do so, and if the generators take decisions which turn out to have unfortunate long-term consequences, it is the nation as a whole (and electricity consumers in particular) who will pay the price, rather than the generators themselves ... Above all, if a significant proportion of the UK's coal reserves were abandoned, which we hope will not happen, resulting in a major reduction of long-term energy security, the Government should understand that the country will see this not as a commercial decision, but a largely irreversible decision of historical significance for the UK."

We are now facing that situation. I am sure that we have all heard of the recent Rothschild report which suggests that, if British Coal is to be privatised--as suggested in the Queen's Speech--it will have to be run down to 14 pits mining about 30 million tonnes of coal. In that case, we shall finish up with about 12,000 miners. It will mean that we shall be able to meet only half of the country's demand for coal. It would be crazy for a Government to sterilise millions, or billions, of tonnes of coal--a natural energy resource which the nation will need in the medium and long term-- merely for short-term commercial considerations.

Such circumstances have been brought about by the policies of National Power and PowerGen, which are hell bent on importing as much as they can which is why they have taken 80 per cent. control of the subsidiary company of the Associated British Ports to extend the ports at Immingham. We shall have to pay high prices for imported coal once we can no longer meet our own demand. That makes no sense. The average age of the young men working in the pits is 33. Many of them have been encouraged to go to other coal mines when their mines have closed. The Selby coalfield is supposed to be the jewel of the coal industry. If the Rothschild report is correct and if the coal industry is privatised, some of the pits at Selby--the jewel in the crown where, over the past 10 to 15 years, billions of pounds have been spent--will close.

The young men were promised a secure future and they have mortgaged themselves to buy lovely homes to which they are entitled. They are now worried sick because they

Column 83

can see a time coming in the not too distant future when their jobs will be taken from them and they will not be able to meet the mortgage payments. At the same time, we are taking decisions to sterilise our natural source of energy.

What else has happened in the mining industry? The young men who left school at 16 had an automatic avenue into the coal industry, but that is no longer the case. Like the rest of the country, we have suffered severely from unemployment--there has been mass unemployment among the 16 to 24-year -olds. These young men see no hope. In the town of Pontefract where I live, we have one pit left--there were eight pits in the area in 1984. The major pit now left is one that, according to the Rothschild report, will close.

Since 1984, the Government have not given one penny of assistance by way of grants. There was some hope of financial assistance in the form of the European RECHAR programme. However, we now discover that the Government are also blocking that avenue. The Government may say that they are not blocking it. We do not concede that the money should come to the Government, even though it comes from the European regional fund for mining communities, and that the Government should decide where to distribute it. But Commissioner Millan says that it is the Community's duty to decide where there is real need in the mining communities.

Therefore, the mining areas are more or less piggy in the middle. If the money comes from the RECHAR programme in Europe to the Government, what guarantee to the mining communities such as mine have that the money will find its way to where it was intended to go? The Government's track record in such circumstances does not fill us with confidence, because we have received nothing yet.

Wec have recently received what I hope will not be a fatal blow. A few months ago, I was delighted when British Coal decided to site its freight depot for the north in my constituency and in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien). However, we found that, for some reason, the Secretary of State has called in the planning application. That means that there will be at least a long delay, and the probable threat of the developers losing interest. That freight depot could be the saviour of our area. We have been told that it could eventually generate 10,000 jobs, and it would go a long way to replace the 20,000 or so jobs lost in the mining industry. I am confident that the mining industry will never be privatised, because I do not believe that the Government will win the next election. Should they win--God forbid--how could any responsible Government decide to make the nation rely for its energy needs on foreign competition? If the Government privatised the mining industry, they would have to run it down in accordance with the Rothschild report. The report states that the industry would have to be run down to such an extent because it would not otherwise be saleable, just as the nuclear element was not saleable in the electricity privatisation.

If the Government are hell bent on privatising the industry--and the Rothschild report states that they would have to reduce it to 14 pits--they will have to take a major decision. I hope that, even at this late stage, they will seriously consider forgetting the privatisation of the

Column 84

mining industry. Such a privatisation would create dangerous conditions, which I experienced in my younger days.

In recent years, the mining industry has rightly made repeated attempts to get its prices down and during the past five years it has done a hell of a good job in increasing tonnage and so on. If the mining industry finds that it cannot reduce costs any further and if the Government continue to close down the industry, we shall--God forbid--see a breakdown of law and order in these communities. None of us would condone mischief, vandalism or theft, but what would we do if we were teenagers with no jobs, no money and no light at the end of the tunnel which might be a job? What would we do if all we had to do was to get up in the morning and join our pals on the street corner? There is an age-old saying that the devil makes work for idle hands to do. I do not know what I would do if I was a 16-year-old youth in those circumstances. There was a 27 per cent. increase in crime in West Yorkshire last year, but there are 200 fewer policemen on the beat because the authority's budget is controlled by the Department of the Environment and not by the Home Office as it should be.

The signs are clear. If we do not do something for our mining communities, they face a bleak future. If this Tory Government are returned to office-- and that is doubtful--I hope that they will seriously reconsider and not privatise the coal industry.

8.11 pm

Sir Alan Glyn (Windsor and Maidenhead) : It is more than 30 years since I first spoke in a debate on the Loyal Address. I pay tribute to the speeches made by the proposer and the seconder of the motion and I also pay tribute to our colleagues Alick Buchanan-Smith, Richard Holt and George Buckley who we wish were with us. The tributes that have been paid to them by hon. Members on both sides of the House show how much we feel about them.

The Queen's Speech can be divided into several portions. The first part is related to the individual and promotes freedom of individual choice. Parents will have control over which schools their children attend and there is a promise that education will be improved. Patients will also have new rights and there will be a citizens charter. The Queen's Speech also deals with defence and the European Community. It looks ahead from the 20th century into the future. Our defence commitments are so great that the proposed reforms will leave us with inadequate forces to deal with NATO, about which agreements have been made, in addition to our other obligations around the world. Unlike other countries, we have many such obligations. We do not know what might happen. Could we possibly mount another expedition as we did to the Falklands? Could we deal with another Gulf war with such slender defences? I cannot endorse such reductions in our forces. They are too great and too soon in an uncertain world.

The world has already changed. Gorbachev came to prominence in a few months, but things could change. Indeed, the whole edifice might collapse, although of course we hope that it will not.

In the Queen's Speech, I welcome the co-operation with the Soviet Union, so long as it behaves itself. It has its own problems with the Ukraine and other satellite countries.

Column 85

One lesson that must be learnt is that we, as a nation, must retain our Trident defence. We must maintain it not necessarily against the Soviets or Russia, but against countries such as Israel which have or are developing their own nuclear capability. I also welcome the reference in the Queen's Speech that we will continue our policies in respect of Iraq.

Any arms reductions must take account of our possible--not our actual-- requirements. In that respect, it is necessary for us to retain our Trident nuclear capability. I do not want now to consider the reductions in the Army as that will be for another debate. However, I am sad that the reductions will affect the tremendous spirit of our services and in particular the Territorial Army. I also welcome the reference in the Queen's Speech to the "Association Agreements with Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia" and to the recognition of the Baltic states. Incidentally, we have never broken off contacts with Lithuania, and they retained their ambassador here. When those countries are free, perhaps they will look to the European Community and join some kind of association. We might then have a very large trading community. However, I must warn the House that immigration might be a problem if that occurs. We are a small island and there is a limit to the number of people who we can absorb. We already have difficulties with asylum seekers and I am glad that the Government intend to tackle that problem. However, the problem could be much greater and we must consider it on a European scale.

What kind of Europe do we want? Do we want to lose all our sovereignty? Do we want the ecu straight away? Do we want European economic and monetary union? I do not believe that we want those things. I have been pro-Europe for 25 years. However, there is a danger of going too far. I have every faith in my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I am certain that he will ensure that nothing is given away at the meeting in December. This Parliament must control its own affairs. It should not be told what to do by Brussels--by the Commission--instead of by an elected Parliament, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear for the first time today. Why should we be controlled by the Commission? We want to remain a sovereign Parliament and work as such in Europe. We do not particularly want a common European currency. However, there will be difficulties and nothing definite might happen for 10 or 15 years or before we are fully integrated. It is a choice which this House alone can make in line with the Government's recommendations. I am certain that all hon. Members would exercise their unique talents and knowledge to achieve a settlement on proposals laid before us by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

There may be dangers, but there is also tremendous potential. This coming together of nations offers the best opportunity to preserve peace in the world. Nations which were previously potential enemies are now with us. There will be a conglomeration of nations most of which, instead of being anti-Europe, will be part of the European family and will recognise the advantages of democracy and the creation of wealth.

I now refer to health. It is the patient who matters. Hospitals must have the freedom to run themselves. I am against enormous expenditure on district, regional or area health authorities, all with vast offices and computers. I

Column 86

should like to think that most of the money is being spent on patients and on hospitals. I am old-fashioned--I am sure that I will be challenged on this--but I would like to see hospitals run by matrons. When hospitals were run by matrons they were a jolly sight more efficient. We know that we need more money--there is no question about that. The Government have given more money and I am certain that they will continue to do so in future.

I will not compare the present Government with the previous Labour Government--it is no good doing that. We must consider what the patient is getting. We must see where the mistakes and the hold-ups are. We must consider transferring patients from one area to another. Those are the things that matter to patients. Instead of saying that they have another two years to wait, we should look for another hospital where there is a bed and a surgeon who can satisfactorily perform the necessary operation. Those are the ways in which to cut waiting lists. The Government intend to make hospitals more independent.

I now refer to the waste of talent and the unattractive wages that are paid to some ancillary staff. We must consider how best we can serve the patient, reduce waiting lists, and make time spent in hospital more pleasant. Many people do not agree with me, but I do not see why a patient who is awaiting a serious operation should not go to another health authority. People now spend a shorter time in hospital after an operation. Surely it would be better for people to be separated from their families for three days rather than suffer the inconvenience and unpleasantness of a chronic disease or ailment.

The implementation of the citizens charter is a great step forward in respect of the citizen's right of redress against the state without having to approach Parliament. That is an inherent right which has at last been grasped by our Prime Minister and I am sure that he will continue to do so. Many cases come to hon. Members that never should come to them. Our constituents write to government authorities but receive useless replies or no replies at all. The citizens charter will enable people to get a proper service from agents who are paid by the Government, anyway, so there is no reason why they should not be civil to their customers. A direct approach under the charter will help.

We look for freedom of opportunity and freedom of choice, whether it be in respect of schools, health, education or whatever. I was very impressed by the amount of money that the Government will spend on further education. Further education is vital for the future of our nation. New technologies can be learnt only through higher education.

In the months before the general election, let us hope that these words can be inscribed in the Tory party and in the nation : that a person has freedom and the right to choose how he is treated, how his children are treated and how he himself can preserve his wealth and position in society.

8.24 pm

Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North) : On such occasions I normally refer to defence and foreign affairs, but I shall not be tempted down that road, although the hon. Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Sir A. Glyn) will find that I refer to the national health service. I associate myself with the tributes that have been paid to the recently

Column 87

departed hon. Members, George Buckley and Alick Buchanan-Smith, each of whom was gracious in his manner and good in his humour. Their work rate and conscientious application to duty would serve as a role model for any hon. Member.

I must make particular reference to Richard Holt. Richard Holt was not only a fairly close neighbour in constituency terms, but he entered the House on the same day as I did. I later found out that he had gone to the same school. Richard, as we all know, was strong-minded, single-minded and independent-minded, but we would expect that of a product of a Jesuit school--it would be strange if that were not the case. Richard Holt is already missed because, as has happened when I have spoken in previous debates on the Queen's Speech, he would be intervening and contradicting something that I said. I am certain that, somewhere or other, he is smiling a wry smile because I am confessing that he is missed. Rest well, Richard, and other departed colleagues, such as Eric Heffer.

Hon. Members will have seen me getting slightly agitated during the Prime Minister's speech. I should explain why. I was somewhat aggrieved because of his bland references to Europe. He was simultaneously trying to say everything and nothing. I could not help comparing that attitude with his disparaging references to issues such as the national minimum wage and the potential benefits of the social charter. My dissatisfaction stems from the fact that, time and again, we and British industry are told about a level playing field--the common base from which we are all supposed to benefit. Her Majesty's Government fail on two counts to deliver their promises in relation to that level playing field. They deny support for the national minimum wage, despite the fact that many of our EEC partners recognise a national minimum wage, in much the same way as they allow the British work force to lose out on holiday, pension and other entitlements, compared with standards in our EEC partner countries. British industry suffers from the Government's dilatory standards in creating a level playing field when compared with other industrialised countries throughout the EEC. For example, I refer to the current Davy bid for the refurbishment of the Roukela steel plant in India, where there is a need for aid and trade provision and for export credit guarantees to match two German bids which, incidentally, I am led to believe are considerably higher than ours. Our ATP support and export credit guarantee needs are being studiously ignored by both Departments responsible for them. There is a real danger that British industry, especially the steel industry, is being put gravely at risk by the Government's reluctance to render it the same type of aid, on the same scale and at the same time, as that which is rendered to German industry by the German Government. We should not be surprised by such a failure to deliver a promise because every Government paper that has been published by this regime should have carried a Government truth warning. Without exception, they are deliberately misleading. The hon. Member for Windsor and Maidenhead referred to defence, which provides an ample illustration of my point. Let us consider the very title of "Options for Change". There may well be "change", but although the word "options" suggests

Column 88

alternatives, the Government have studiously ignored the pleas from every quarter to consider any alternatives. The paper on the health service, which has the encouraging title "Working for Patients", actually reveals a set of proposals that would do anything but work for patients.

I do not want to knock the national health service because I have every reason to be grateful to it. At 6.15 am today my wife and I were the proud grandparents of five grandchildren--Lyanne, Jemma, Vanessa, Claire and Megan. We also have an adoptive granddaughter, called Charlotte, courtesy of a son-in-law who joined our family not long ago. I can now tell the House with some pleasure that at 6.17 am today my eldest daughter delivered a grandson--

Mr. Don Dixon (Jarrow) : Get out the cigars then.

Mr. Cook : That may well come, but not in the Chamber. Later, I hope.

I am very grateful to the staff concerned because I understand that the overnight delivery was somewhat arduous and that the staff were as patient, hardworking and diligent as ever, as they were to me 12 months ago when they took a substantial cancer from my body and put me back together again over a long period. They were magnificent to me and, at the same time, to another daughter who was in a different hospital having gall bladder surgery. I am sure that magnificence among health service staff not only has been and is, but will continue to be the norm. That is the way in which they have been trained and how they apply themselves to their task.

I make no complaints about the staff, but as I lay awake at night in Westminster hospital, I saw staff who were sorely distressed and in tears because of redundancies that were being made, wards that were being closed, beds that were being removed and because elective surgery that had been cancelled in October would not be carried out until April. That was happening in a teaching hospital where trainee doctors who were supposed to gain experience of surgery, albeit at arm's length, could not get that experience for another six months. That is the sort of criticism that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I are making about what is happening in our national health service. When we talk about underfunding, we are talking not about the size of the budgets, but about where the money is spent and how it is used. There is a big difference between parties on this. I appeal to those thinking Conservative Members--I know that there are some--to try to understand exactly what we are saying.

Two important things have happened in the politics of the health service in the past few months and neither can be of any comfort to the Government. First, opinion poll after opinion poll has demonstrated that people do not trust the Conservative party with the national health service. Secondly, as a result of that public perception, it has become clear that the Government are rapidly becoming hysterical because they have been found out. Both the Prime Minister and his predecessor have said, and continue to maintain, that the national health service is safe in their hands. However, the people who are about to vote in the by-elections this week, and especially the people of Langbaurgh, are clear in their minds that that is not true. The underfunding of the past 12 years has caused severe problems generally, and even more severe local problems in South Tees. More than one in three acute hospital beds has been cut since 1979. In the South Tees

Column 89

area last year nearly 4,000 people were left in pain when their non-emergency operations were cancelled. More than 4,000 people are still waiting for hospital treatment.

The Government say that there simply is not enough money, but they have spent literally hundreds of millions of pounds on their opt-out experiment and on employing those individuals who might be prepared to try to put their plans into effect. Not a penny of that money has been spent on doctors or nurses. All the money has been spent on accountants and computers that have been brought in to commercialise the system. The Government have tried to turn hospitals into supermarkets, doctors into accountants, and nurses into some kind of super-efficient and almost bilocated skivvies.

Having been discovered doing that, the Government have now become hysterical because people believe that they will privatise the health service. The Government's hysteria has been caused because they have been rumbled. Having been rumbled, they realise that they are now lumbered with that public perception--and not only in the three coming by-elections, but in the general election. With their customary common sense, the British people have made up their minds based on what they have already seen of the Government's actions. I must advise Conservative Members that what the Labour party is saying about health is not what the Labour party is telling the people, but what the people are telling the Labour party. If the Government choose to ignore that, it will be to their own cost at the next election.

In 1979, everyone had the right to a free eye test, but the Government have changed that--they now charge people. This spring, the Association of Optometrists calculated that only 40 per cent. of the public qualified for a free eye test. That means that 60 per cent. of the population do not get a service that is free at the point of delivery. In my book, that is privatisation. The association has also calculated that 2.7 million people have not had a test because they cannot afford the average cost of £12. A mathematical calculation reveals that 4,500 electors in Langbaurgh have not had an eye test because they cannot afford it. The association also estimates that the eyesight of 5,500 people will deteriorate because they cannot get an eye test. That means that just over 1,000 people will be affected in Langbaurgh. In my book, that is privatisation.

On 16 October, the Secretary of State for Health claimed in his statement to the House that each application to opt out of the local health service had been

"the subject of a full public consultation."--[ Official Report, 16 October 1991 ; Vol. 196, c. 311.]

That consultation was more of a public relations exercise. The Conservative party's attitude to the public is different from that of most people in Langbaurgh. I can testify to that from experience canvassing on the doorsteps.

Last July, the opinion pollsters, MORI, revealed that three quarters of the people of Cleveland wanted a real vote on whether their hospitals and ambulance service would opt out of the NHS. There is little chance of them getting it. Not surprisingly, the Government have so far refused to give the people the right to vote on keeping their local health service in one piece. We all know why. They know that they would lose. However, the by- election on 7 November will provide an opportunity for the people of Langbaurgh at least within Cleveland to have a say. Those

Column 90

of us who have campaigned in the constituency know that the people's view is clear and will be made clear a week today. People want to keep their local hospitals and ambulance service within the local health service. The by-election will be a referendum on whether the local hospitals and the local ambulance service should opt out of the local national health service. Unlike his counterpart in Kincardine and Deeside, the Conservative candidate, who is from Gateshead, supports the opt-out proposals. Labour supports the local campaign to keep our local health service in one piece.

In the past few days, following the development of hysteria on the health service, the Conservative campaign in Langbaurgh has become increasingly frantic. The Conservatives claim that Langbaurgh is in the middle of an economic recovery. That is surprising news to all of us. They seem to think that the economy depends on abstractions such as confidence. The Labour candidate, whom I look forward to greeting next week as the next Langbaurgh Member of Parliament, works in industry. Along with other local people in Langbaurgh, he knows that the real economy is about the bread and butter issues of jobs, full employment and investment.

If the Conservative candidate thinks that recovery has started, he should take a trip to the jobcentre in Guisborough. There are no signs of recovery there, I am afraid. Indeed, most of the 183 jobs on display are outside the constituency. Almost a quarter of them--43--offer wages which are lower than the £3.40 per hour that the Prime Minister described so disparagingly earlier today. That would be the minimum wage under Labour's policy for a national minimum wage. A further 63 job adverts--or 34 per cent.--do not give a wage range. They say that pay is negotiable or on a commission-only basis. What have we sunk to?

One job advert was for a trainee butcher in Saltburn to be paid at £1.50 an hour. Another advert was for a driver at £1.77 an hour. Another was for a security guard at £2 an hour. But one of the conditions of employment was that that employee supply his own dog. I suppose that eventually we shall have steel workers supplying their own steel furnaces. Those are the jobs on offer to the 5,000 unemployed people in Langbaurgh.

Each person who is unemployed costs the nation dear. Apart from the cost of unemployment benefit, there is the loss to the nation of the tax which that person would pay to the state. Across Langbaurgh constituency unemployment is wasting over £44 million. From Loftus and Brotton through Guisborough and Middlesbrough, unemployment in every area costs millions of pounds. The Conservative party claims that an economic recovery is under way in that region. If it believes that, perhaps it can tell the constituency when it expects unemployment to fall below the 5,000 currently on the register and when the Government will stop squandering money through their unemployment policy.

The Gracious Speech is a fairly barren document. I wish to give one reason for saying that. In the summer of this year I took my wife to Germany to visit my son who is in the British forces stationed in Hameln. We went from Hull to Europoort by ferry. As we approached the port in the morning we had breakfast at a table with an elderly couple who were clearly Dutch. Being the friendly soul that I am, I happened to ask them whether they enjoyed their holiday in the United Kingdom. The gentleman was clearly

Column 91

suspicious of this Brit. He immediately said to me in an aggressive tone, "We are Dutch." I said, "Yes, I can see that clearly," and left it at that. His wife was somewhat abashed by his aggression. She said that they had been not on holiday but to visit their son who was working in Britain. I asked whether he was well and she said yes and that he was happy and settled and things were going well. The Dutch lady said to me, "Isn't England a poor country?" I said, "What do you mean by poor?" She said, "Everything is for sale. Wherever you look, this, that and the other is for sale. Why do Englishmen want to sell their country?" I was stumped for an answer. While I was stumped, the old gentleman who had been so aggressive jumped in and said, "And there are holes in the road everywhere. Don't the English know how to repair their roads any more?" It is never my practice to flaunt my position in public. Those hon. Members who see me walking around during the recess will see that I look more like a dustman than a Member of Parliament.

Mr. Dixon : You wear your badge though !

Mr. Cook : At the moment, yes. My usual reluctance was reinforced on that occasion because I should have been doubly embarrassed to admit to the Dutch travellers that I was a Member of Parliament. My point is that I see nothing in the Gracious Speech to enable me to counter the opinions expressed by our European partners who are still proud to know us but bemused that we have a Britain which in their eyes is no longer as great as it was.

8.46 pm

Mr. William Powell (Corby) : I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) on becoming a grandfather again. I thank him for his most generous tribute to our former colleague Richard Holt, who will be remembered by hon. Members on both sides of the House with considerable affection. The hon. Member for Stockton, North said that, when he had only been going two minutes, Richard Holt was already on his feet challenging him. That is the most authentic memory that many of us have of Richard Holt. How things have changed, both at home and abroad, during the year since the last Queen's Speech. It was almost exactly a year ago that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) resigned, with momentous consequences for the politics of our country. As is well known, I was one of those who felt that adjustments and changes were needed to the Conservative party and to the policies which were being pursued by the Government. I welcome the changes that have been made since then and the leadership which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has given the country. They are reflected, of course, in the contents of the Queen's Speech which we are now discussing.

I wholeheartedly welcome and endorse the proposals contained in the Gracious Speech, with only one minor caveat. One matter which I should like to have seen included would almost certainly have merited parliamentary discussion before the inevitable dissolution of this Parliament, which will make this a short Session.

For some time we have been promised legislation to reform the laws on friendly societies. Such legislation has

Column 92

been through detailed preparation including the publication of draft clauses. Such a Bill could have passed through Parliament with considerable agreement among hon. Members on both sides of this House and another place. I hope that my right hon. Friends will consider finding time for such legislation when they penetrate the meaning of that wonderful phrase, "Further measures will be laid before you." There is absolutely no doubt that the legislation that governs friendly societies is long overdue for reform.

Many generous and warm tributes have been paid to my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) for not only his speech but the massive contribution that he has made to this Parliament and our country during the last generation. I wish to pick up one matter from his speech--that of dyslexia. As the parent of a daughter who has had to struggle and cope with dyslexia, I have perhaps more personal knowledge of the difficulties that it causes than many hon. Members. Earlier, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science, was in the Chamber and I know that he takes a personal interest in the subject. I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, who is on the Treasury Bench, will ask the Department of Education and Science to take a much more robust attitude with certain local education authorities, probably the majority, about the provision of a statement of special needs for children with dyslexia in our public state system, as many provide a monstrously inadequate one. I know from constituency experience that the Northamptonshire education authority does not provide a satisfactory statement of special needs for such children, but it is by no means the only local authority of which that could be said.

The House heard the gibberish of the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) about the Labour party's position on the current intergovernmental conferences on future developments in the European Community. It was impossible for anybody to make head or tail of what he was saying. Certainly it is being put around that the Labour party is enthusiastic about participating in further developments that will tie EC countries more closely together. All those who are repeating headlines handed out in press releases are not looking at the small print, which needs to be examined much more closely.

Before and after the Maastricht summit, it will become plain in our debates on the changes that will take place in Europe that there is an enormous split between the Leader of the Opposition, whom we can expect to take a pro-European line, and the dozens and dozens of Labour Back-Bench Members who will take a very different line. That different and hostile line towards the EC will come not merely from the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). Nor will it be confined to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). One Labour Member after another will pour scorn on any effort to draw Europe closer together in the manner in which it is being discussed. When we consider the Labour party's attitude towards a common currency, let us bear in mind that it lays down two fundamental conditions before supporting economic and monetary union. The first is that there shall be a central bank that is under "democratic control". What the Leader of the Opposition means by that is fundamentally different from what the German Chancellor and others in

Column 93

Germany mean by it. They certainly do not want the right hon. Gentleman's fingerprints on any central bank, because they know perfectly well that its work will be completely undermined. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) spoke the truth when he said that, although the Labour party says that it is in favour of these things, it is clear from the small print that it is not.

The second condition is a massive increase in the amount of regional and social aid funds coming to the United Kingdom. Let us all remember that the Community is financed by Germany and Great Britain, and that although France is a modest contributor, all the other countries are net gainers. Not one other Community country is prepared to accept the Labour party's proposals for massive increases in regional and social funds to Great Britain. After all, it can be only at the expense of Greece, Portugal, Spain or Italy. None of those countries will agree to it. Alternatively, such an increase could be bought at the price of a massive increase in public expenditure in this country, to be paid for by higher taxes, given over to Brussels and then handed back to us after a dividend has been deducted on the way. It is about time that everybody in this House and elsewhere woke up to the fraud that is contained in the figleaf devised by the Leader of the Opposition in relation to economic and monetary union.

We have listened to much discussion on the national health service and there will be more. The hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) said that the Labour party was listening to the people. At present, it is building up expectations that cannot possibly be fulfilled. Every Labour Member knows that that is the case--it is clear beyond peradventure. Although it is useful to point to what happened between 1974 and 1979, many of our people cannot recall that period and, of course, the Labour party relies on that. The other night I tried to work out what happened and I could make out only one or two things. It is a mist to me.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton : Not to me.

Mr. Powell : It may not be to my hon. Friend, who has a very much better memory than I have.

France today, which has the equivalent of a Labour Government, shows what is happening to its health provision. Within the past fortnight, the socialist Government of France has teargassed nurses in Paris. To those who say that a British Labour Government would not do the same, I say let us remember the unburied dead and the chaos to which the NHS was reduced by the end of 1978.

Nurses being teargassed on the streets of France is bad enough, but there is worse. One of the minor but important changes that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made as soon as he became First Lord of the Treasury was to reverse Government policy and to pay compensation to haemophiliacs who had inadvertently been given by the NHS blood contaminated with AIDS. Last week three doctors in France were charged with a serious criminal offence : they had knowingly supplied blood contaminated with AIDS to haemophiliac patients. We were past that stage years ago. The doctors said that it was done to save money in the health service in France, under instructions, essentially, from the Government.

An enormous amount of humbug is talked about these matters. Expectations that cannot possibly be fulfilled are being built up. It is about time that my right hon. Friends

Column 94

on the Treasury Bench and all the people in the media who are gathered to pack the Press Gallery this evening woke up to the fact that France today shows us what the inevitable consequences of a British Labour Government would be. In particular, according to the Leader of the Opposition, who appears to accept the disciplines of the European monetary system, a Labour Government would pursue more or less the same policies as those pursued by the socialist Government of France today.

I welcome the commitment to NATO in the Gracious Speech. NATO must remain the fundamental cornerstone of our defence, as it has been throughout the previous generation. However, in our enthusiasm for NATO we must bear it in mind that things are beginning to change in Europe. France does not share our enthusiasm for NATO, because the French cannot stand the American involvement in Europe. Just over a year ago, the then French Minister of Defence, Mr. Chevenement, used to breathe fire and brimstone against the Americans, and say that French participation in the military side of NATO was impossible because of American involvement in Europe.

Until recently the Germans took a robust attitude towards the French on NATO, but there are clear signs that, although many people in Germany--Mr. Kohl, for example, and many among the Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Union--remain sound, that is not the universal view in German politics. There are signs that the German nation as a whole may not be as keen on NATO as it used to be. It is foreseeable that, as these trends develop, we may be asked to remove the remaining part of the Army of the Rhine from German territory in a year or two or three.

We must be alert to the fact that changes are taking place in western Europe, just as they have taken place in central and eastern Europe, and we must do what we can through active diplomacy to ensure that the worst does not happen, that the French vision of the defence of Europe does not prevail. A United States withdrawal from Europe would be the fastest way to ensure the return of instability and of rivalry between European nations. Twice this century, the Americans have had to rescue Europe from itself. We must never forget that ; no country in Europe should be allowed to forget it.

I welcome the emphasis on education in the Queen's Speech. My right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester was right to say that education is fundamental to our domestic policy. I am delighted that, since my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) became Secretary of State for Education--I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt) is here, too--there have been substantial efforts to improve the quality of the state education system. The changes are long term. We shall not see the full benefit of them for a generation, or perhaps longer. We must be patient and see the reforms through. They are of fundamental importance. We all know that too many of the 50 per cent. of children in our state system who are average--not those with special needs or those who can take advantage of our superb higher education facilities--are failing. The information in the reports in last Sunday's edition of The Sunday Times is based on a sample three times the size of the opinion poll samples on which so many of us plot the chances for the future. If that

Column 95

research is anything like accurate, the first testing of 7-year-olds shows a serious failure among those children to be able to answer straightforward questions.

I know from my constituency and my county how serious is the crisis in the public education system. Let us not forget, either, the often overlooked fact that, during the past decade, 70 per cent. of children have been educated under the auspices of local authorities controlled by the Labour party or by the Liberals and the Labour party. Labour-controlled education authorities have been responsible for the direction of resources and so on for the education of the overwhelming majority of children. The Labour party cannot escape its involvement in local education authorities, in rural as well as urban areas, over the past decade. That fact must be emphasised more to our people.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton : I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend's excellent speech. Will he emphasise what the Government have done to encourage liaison between industry and education? Clearly, the closer the contacts and involvement between education, whether in the private or the maintained sector, and industry and commerce, the better for the country and the more meaningful young people's careers will be in due course.

Mr. Powell : I could not agree more. My hon. Friend leads me on to my next point.

Seventeen city technology colleges have been set up to provide a new style of education with a new curriculum. I am fortunate enough to have one in my constituency. It is an outstanding institution. I am not one of those who believes that CTCs should be confined to a few--far from it. On the basis of the experiment with the initial 17 CTCs, we must build upon the experience gained, so that CTCs are established across the country. That will involve a massive investment of public funds in public education. As soon as it is expedient, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Government will give the green light for such CTCs. That is the direction in which we should go.

Comprehensive education is an experiment which, by and large, has failed. In the late 1990s and in the early part of the next century, it will be no good trying to make a success of a form of social experimentation that does not work. The new type of school will be based on the CTC model. It is important that we should learn the lessons from that CTC experiment and move ahead as quickly as we can.

During the summer, we witnessed events in Yugoslavia that besmirched the reputation of our continent. I have watched and admired the way in which Croatia has suffered and bled as a result of a dispute that it is virtually impossible for anyone in Yugoslavia to explain to the rest of the world. That dispute must end, and we in western Europe must use our strongest diplomatic efforts to put an end to what has become a disgrace to our continent.

Throughout my years in the House, I have taken great interest in the piracy of computer software. Fortunately, the law has been strengthened and there have been many criminal prosecutions and civil actions to tighten up on the huge amount of theft of other people's property. We need to ensure that software is audited each year, in common with company accounts. That is already beginning to

Next Section

Home Page