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I ask Conservative Members to recall that it was Edmund Burke, one of their heroes, who said :"In my causes I have known and, according to my measure, have co-operated with great men ; and I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who are much inferior in under-standing to the person who took the lead in the business."
The Home Secretary stands head and shoulders above his colleagues as the Minister who does not listen. He is the Minister who did not listen to Judge Tumin who warned that Brixton could not safely contain high-security prisoners. He was the Minister who turned a deaf ear to the High Court, when it had forbidden the deportation of a refugee from Zaire, and prayed in aid sovereign immunity. He is the Minister who has announced that he will withdraw legal aid from asylum seekers in this country. In response to my intervention, he made it clear that he has no intention of listening to the Commission for Racial Equality, which has pointed out that that proposal contravenes the Race Relations Act 1976.
We shall have other occasions on which to debate the Asylum Bill at length and I hope that I will not be so confined in my remarks on that occasion as I must necessarily be today. The Bill is deplorable and disreputable and it will almost certainly cause us to be dragged before the European Court of Human Rights. It is certainly a violation of our international obligations under the United Nations convention of 1951. It denies asylum seekers the proper right to be heard and have their cases duly considered. The Bill will rob them of the right to independent legal representation, which is a grave injustice.
The other matters with a Home Office content referred to in the Queen's Speech are minor compared to what might have been included. The proposal on prison escapes is simply a smokescreen to cover the Home Secretary's negligence in the Brixton case. Violent prisoners are, of course, already subject to the full rigours of the law. The Home Secretary, by introducing such legislation in the dying days of the Government, is simply misguidedly diverting attention from the inadequacy of his response to the Woolf committee's programme for prison reform.
In the few weeks before the Maastricht conference, I ask the Home Secretary to raise with his colleagues the possibility of strengthening our protection against racial discrimination in this country by seeking an amendment to the treaty of Rome that would state clearly the Community's competence to legislate against such discrimination.
I ask the right hon. Gentleman to seek to protect our citizens who live abroad within the Community by calling for a directive that will outline measures to combat racial discrimination. I ask him to support freedom of movement within the Community for all permanently settled third-country nationals, giving them the same rights as EC nationals with regards to employment, establishment and family unity.
The time has come for the Home Secretary to recognise that our citizens' rights are bound up with those who live in other parts of the EC. Some other countries that have not legislated on this matter should do so. Unless there is such legislation--I believe that it should result from an initiative of the Community--citizens will not enjoy the protection to which they are entitled.
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It is not only the Home Secretary who is responsible for the rights or the abridgement of rights that the Government have perpetrated during their term. The Foreign Secretary, in his discussions with China, has abandoned the provisions of the joint Sino- British declaration of 1984 that guaranteed that judges from overseas jurisdiction could be appointed to the Court of Final Appeal. That international obligation, enshirined in the Basic Law, has been abridged by an agreement announced on 27 September. That agreement will curtail the right to appoint foreign judges, so our citizens in Hong Kong wil be exposed to the whim of the Beijing Government in the Court of Final Appeal, notwithstanding the Government's alleged support of human rights in that colony.Other Ministers have also opposed the protections available under the law. The Secretary of State for Employment is currently seeking to oppose the Equal Opportunities Commission, which is seeking to protect women's rights as part-time employed people. The Minister is relentlessly pursuing through the courts the idea that equal opportunities legislation, although it is, by the admission of British judges, discriminatory, should not apply to part-time women workers.
The Government have an appalling record on rights. I wish that it could be said that we could look to the alternative, to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), with any degree of optimism, in the hope that he would show himself more sensitive to these matters. But he reaffirmed his position in an extraordinary article in this week's New Statesman and Society --that the adoption of a Bill of Rights with enforceable protections in our courts was to be postponed beyond the achievement of a socialist utopia. If he were at the levers of power he would be no more sensitive than a Conservative Minister. It was noticeable today that he would not answer the question about carriers' liability, although he was pressed to do so. The House will have drawn the conclusion that he has every intention of keeping the obnoxious legislation in place and using carriers as immigration officers. Had it not been so, he would have taken the opportunity to deny it.
Until the House is prepared to adopt as superior law fundamental rights against which we can strike down legislation that curtails the freedoms and rights of citizens, we shall fail in our obligation to protect the citizens of this country.
7.31 pm
Mr. Iain Mills (Meriden) : The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) spoke of dying stages. If he wants to play undertaker, I suggest that he looks at the ashes of his own party, not at the vigorous programme proposed in the Queen's Speech. We look forward eagerly to many months of debates in Committee on some of these important measures.
Mr. James Wallace (Orkney and Shetland) : Can the hon. Gentleman say that with a straight face?
Mr. Mills : Absolutely. I still look forward to it after 12 years. I quite enjoy Standing Committees and discussions with the statutory Liberal Democrat spokesman, who rarely appears--but we are kind to him when he does.
The Queen's Speech introduced several important measures. I fought in the early 1980s with my right hon.
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Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbitt) on trade union legislation, and the right not to strike and the new legislation that we propose are vital.We have increased police establishments. There are arguments over resources, but efficient police authorities can cope. The West Midlands authority will cope, having achieved much through civilianisation and putting more policemen on the beat.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) talked about devolution and constitutional reform. His party apparently wants us in a federal Europe with a centralised bureaucracy under which we would be dictated to by non-elected people in Brussels. Yet the right hon. Gentleman talks about devolving power to Scotland, Wales and the English regions. That is illogical. Perhaps the hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson), who is on the Opposition Front Bench, will ask her right hon. Friend to comment on that lack of logic when he returns. It defies logic to want devolution in this country and centralisation in a federal Europe. Halloween has just taken place. Perhaps, in a Home Office debate, we should consider it for the future, especially the trick or treat phenomenon. I do not believe that this is a Government problem, but it is one with which communities are having to deal. On Saturday morning constituents came to my advice bureau telling me that pensioners in bungalows in Chiswick Green had bricks hurled through their windows--presumably that was the trick because the pensioners had not given a treat. Other pensioners in my usually well- behaved constituency had eggs thrown at them.
I cannot propose any real solutions yet. Perhaps there should be more national publicity warning older people in sheltered accommodation that young people who knock on their doors may cause them some harm. Perhaps greater parental control is the answer. Why are these young people out at that time of night indulging in these tricks?
I represent an area that includes the national exhibition centre, Birmingham international airport and Birmingham international station. All three have the biggest car parks in the United Kingdom, if not in Europe, and they are filled with luxury cars that are vulnerable, due to their design, to what my hon. and learned Friend the member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) and I agree are death riders. Luxury cars in these huge car parks near the M6 are vulnerable targets. The thieves deliberately choose the highest-powered models and spray slogans on the back, such as "Chase me, Charlie", to get the police involved. They then go up to another part of my constituency, Chelmsley Wood or Castle Bromwich, where there are many walkways. There they perform high-speed runs. There has been one fatal accident and there have been many other serious ones. The death riders go to the end of the walkways, stop and run off. It is extremely difficult for the police to chase them without going in for the same sort of speeding. The fantastic Ford Cosworth and the BMW 7 series are the favourite models to steal, and the police have no chance of keeping up unless they too indulge in dangerous driving. I seek an assurance from the Minister that the penalties that we shall propose against this vicious and dangerous crime will be severe so that they act as a deterrent. Solihull and Birmingham magistrates have told me of their
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frustration when prosecuting these young offenders because of the difficulties of imposing stiff enough penalties under current legislation.Earlier this year, I tabled a parliamentary question, to which the Minister replied that the Home Office had no plans at present to increase the maximum penalty of six months' imprisonment for taking a motor vehicle without the owner's consent. He said that, when those who have taken a car are convicted of reckless driving, they are liable to as much as two years' imprisonment, or five years if they have caused a death. What are the Government's intentions? I was worrried about their absence from the Queen's Speech, but I am delighted to have confirmation from many sources that the Government are to introduce a severe penalty.
Like most Conservative Members, I have been a committed European. What concerns me is that the removal of "Economic" from the title European Economic Community and the apparent delight on the part of Monsieur Delors and others at that fact both have a real impact on the affairs that we are discussing tonight.
I am worried about the effect of a federal Europe on our home affairs policies. I am speaking not just about immigration but about many other issues of policy. The Bill fairly to assess refugees who seek asylum is wholly justified. How would a federal Europe encompassing foreign and defence policy without NATO and the Americans allow us to provide for the protection of our people and formulate domestic policy on rights, freedoms and responsibilities? Are those things to be negated by means of a great bureaucratic dream of a socialist republic?
We must maintain our national sovereignty on all key issues. Before the referendum on Europe, I worked to make sure of an economic Community. Why have we left the single market and the economic Community apparently to seek what eastern European countries are now rejecting--central bureaucratic control? They are rejecting that with joy and moving towards freedom and individuality--which raises the question of access to a totally federal Europe of people from other European Countries.
7.41 pm
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : I welcome the opportunity to discuss rights, and stress that the one about which I am most concerned is the right of my constituents not to have their lives marred by crime. Britain needs more police. My constituency certainly needs more. Yesterday, I went to see the newly appointed chief constable of Greater Manchester to plead with him to provide more police in my constituency. Of course he would love to be able to provide more police in my constituency and in the rest of Greater Manchester, but that cannot be done because of the Government's failure to provide money to increase establishment.
I was delighted to hear that tomorrow's financial statement will propose money for an extra 1,000 police. I hope that that is true. Although 1,000 extra police sounds impressive, Greater Manchester would get about 50. When that number is divided among all the areas of Greater Manchester, my constituency might receive one extra policeman for three or four days a week.
I do not want to dwell too long on resources. The Government could have done much to improve rights at
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no cost. We are all proud of the fact that we live in a democracy, but we cannot call it a genuine democracy if we deny people the information that they require to make decisions. It is tragic that the Queen's Speech contains no proposals for a freedom of information Act. Democracy is about much more than elections and votes. It is about having informed debate and, where possible, reaching consensus. There is not much point in asking people to vote every four of five years for a man in a grey suit or a dark suit, for someone with or without hair or for someone wearing a rose or a primrose. We must give them the information on which to base a decision. We will not have genuine democracy until we have a freedom of information Act. I have often argued that it would be dangerous for the House to support a Bill of Rights which merely transferred power from Parliament to unelected judges. However, we are now in difficulties because we have signed the European convention on human rights, which means that we have a second-hand Bill of Rights providing very slow justice. That is unsatisfactory. We must search for a way to produce an effective Bill. I welcome the fact that the National Council for Civil Liberties has advanced a peoples charter with mechanisms which do not remove the sovereignty of Parliament but nevertheless try to enshrine rights. I hope that my hon. Friends will look carefully at those proposals.The Data Protection Registrar deals with computer records, but it is a scandal that there is no system to control paper records. The police national computer No. 2 was brought into operation in the autumn without checks or safeguards. In 1978, the Lindop committee said that a national computer system for police records would have to separate factual information from criminal information and supposition. That has not happened and the Home Office does not seem to think that there is a problem. There is a major problem because, if there are 40 million records on the police national computer, it is high time we had a proper mechanism to control it and to allow people access to it. After the activities of the West Midlands serious crimes squad, it is essential to have proper safeguards for confessions on which people are convicted.
I shall now return to the subject of policing in Greater Manchester. The Minister of State, Home Office has not been particularly fair to the House in her answers to questions about what has happened in the aftermath of Strangeways. As she knows, I have tabled many questions and I have had an Adjournment debate. I received repeated assurances from Ministers that they are dealing with Greater Manchester's problems about looking after prisoners. The situation is now worse than it was immediately after the Strangeways riot. There are now 760 prisoners from Greater Manchester in police cells. Only 300 of them are in Manchester police cells ; the other 460 are scattered around the country. Eighteen police forces now hold prisoners who would normally be in prison.
The Minister has been to Greater Manchester and knows that some of the cells in which people are being held are totally inadequate and unsatisfactory. That has been going on for 18 months and I understand that it has cost the Home Office £27 million. Probation reports cannot be prepared and solicitors cannot see prisoners effectively
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when they are being held in police cells. The system is unfair to the prisoners and their families. Some convicted prisoners have served the whole of their sentence in a police cell. That cannot continue. Although the Home Secretary addressed the issue when I intervened, he has not come up with a satisfactory solution. Strangeways has created another problem for Manchester police. A substantial number of officers have spent the past 18 months interviewing prisoners and collecting statements. Soon they will have to appear in court and present their evidence. That work means that those officers have not been on the beat in my constituency and in other Greater Manchester constituencies dealing with crime. The Government should have provided extra resources to take account of that.I shall now deal with car thefts--so-called joyriding. I welcome what Stockport police and others have accomplished through vehicle watch. Perhaps they could take the scheme a little further and consider having three number plates on cars. The additional one would contain a vehicle watch number and it would be removed by the owner when he leaves the vehicle. The car thief would then have the problem of having to provide a third number plate. It might not stop sophisticated criminals, but it would certainly stop many kids who are tempted to take cars.
I urge the Government to be careful and not to rush through a joyriding Bill. Their rushed legislation on dogs turned out to be worthless. It has involved the police in much more administration and has given little benefit.
Policemen in Greater Manchester who have to chase criminals who have committed serious crimes increasingly have to go to places where the criminals have rottweilers, Staffordshire bull terriers or other such dogs. It is not very nice tip-toeing up to the door to canvass, or just to put a leaflet through it, but police officers who know that they have to go into the house quickly to try to apprehend a criminal are put off by the knowledge that such vicious dogs are behind the door. The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 has made no useful impact. I hope that the Government will not go through a public relations exercise on joyriding that will do nothing to solve the problem. This is a complex problem, which needs effective legislation.
In the debate on liberty and rights, we should emphasise that the first thing that a civilised society should have is an informed democracy in which people can make decisions based on genuinely free information. Once we can do that, we have to ensure that we confer on the people we do not like the same rights and privileges. That is extremely difficult. Too many of the policies in the Queen's Speech take away rights--for example, those of asylum seekers--and assume that other people can be subject to a different quality of life from that which we want for ourselves.
7.51 pm
Mr. Chris Butler (Warrington, South) : Crime cannot be cracked and freedom cannot be guaranteed by the hard clamp of the law alone. With 5 million notified offences every year and only 40,000 prison places, prison cannot be the only answer. Nor can the harshness of punishment be any guarantee of rehabilitation. When convicts were transported to Australia in the last century and still
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rebelled, their flesh was sometimes flogged off their backs to the extent that their shoulder blades shone like polished ivory, yet they still reoffended.Our criminal justice system must be the long stop when homes and schools have failed to socialise individuals. Individuals are first taught respect for other individuals in the family unit, and if the family is weakened or derided, as it has been all too often since the 1960s, it cannot be surprising that there has been an increase in the blind selfishness of criminality. The permissive society has so often become the uncivilised society.
Many single parents are single parents through no fault of their own. Sometimes, it is a result of a personal tragedy. The majority of them strive courageously to bring up their children well, but I cannot help thinking that it is a handicap when a key archstone of the family unit is missing. When we came to power in 1979, the illegitimacy rate was 10.6 per cent. It has nearly trebled since then, to 28 per cent., which represents a social time bomb of nuclear proportions.
In some areas, single motherhood has almost become a local industry. It is embarked upon in order to obtain a council home and an independent income. All too often, these incentives seem to outweigh the long-term trap of dependency and relative poverty. The United States experience shows that things can get even worse. Broken families have become so common that whole neighbourhoods have become sinks populated by a violent under-class. Some United States politicians have developed a theory of "bridefare", in which fathers are forced to assume their responsibilities, even to the extent of being provided with workfare employment if they try to shuffle off their financial responsibilities on to the taxpayer. That is not a bad idea.
In education, we are still reaping the whirlwind of the 1960s. The louts production line in education must be stopped. Adventure methods, ill- discipline, a scorn for competitiveness and the "anything goes" attitude of the 1960s are all taking their toll. The British Institute of Management undertook a wide-scale survey of its members, in which they repeatedly said that school leavers were incompetent in mathematics, reading and writing. Those are the basic educational skills, as basic as the moral respect of one person for another. I hope that the new fleet of school inspectors will look at moral education as a priority.
If homes and schools are not made into the mechanisms of socialisation that they should be, our crime wave will continue. In the meantime, we must tailor law and order and strengthen it so as to maximise our protection. Therefore, I welcome the Bill against death racing, because that crime epitomises the selfishness of the lout. I wonder how many of those death riders are already on bail. The Avon and Somerset police say that half the people arrested for car crime or burglary are on bail for another offence. In Warrington, 72 people arrested over a two-month period were already on bail. The chief constable of Cheshire is concerned about these bail bandits. He says that 10 per cent. of all criminals arrested are already on bail. In Bristol, that figure reaches 35 per cent. One Northumbrian youth admitted to 274 offences while on bail and the Northumbrian police believe that there would be 5,000 fewer offences per year if bail were more restricted.
The head of the Avon and Somerset police says :
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"I am under pressure to reduce crime, but the law as it stands is tying one hand behind my back."Chief Inspector Brookes of the same force says :
"It is devastating to the morale of officers to spend hours and hours, sometimes days, dealing with the same offenders only to find them coming back again and committing more crime and to receive more bail."
The chief constable of Northumbria says :
"The right to bail has to be graduated. You would not let a mad animal loose--you would lock it up."
Too often, magistrates have released supposed offenders on bail in the teeth of police opposition. There have been suggestions of a separate offence of committing a crime while on bail. The United States has an offence of habitual criminality. Perhaps that is the way for us to go.
Police magazine of August 1991 highlighted the danger for us when it said :
"the small group of offenders who, in every area, account for almost all the domestic burglaries known to the police are being arrested, and they pass in and out of the police hands with almost monotonous regularity The bail scandal is a microcosm of what is bound to happen as this Government's policy of punishment in the community' takes effect It's the criminal who takes the liberty. It's the community that takes the punishment."
That is it. There is a link between the rise in crime and the number of persistent offenders, and it must not be ignored. If Government policy is to recycle these persistent offenders back into the community, ultimately the public will say no, and the policy will collapse.
Prison has the role of punishment and deterrence where the processes of socialisation have failed. It also has a legitimate role in containment. Police magazine of March 1988 summed it up when it said :
"Any sentencing procedure which allows the persistent offender to go on offending is a contradiction of the judiciary's first duty--to protect society."
That should be our first duty as legislators as well.
8 pm
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle) : The hon. Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) typifies Conservative Members on both the Government Front Bench and their Back Benches. When there is a success, they will take the credit for it ; when there is disaster, they claim that they are not responsible. Unfortunately, many of the problems that are caused by young people are the result of the Government's policy failures. In many instances these are Thatcher's children, and the Government should take responsibility for their actions.
Crime is increasing in Cumbria, including my constituency. The area does not have inner-city problems and there is still a good quality of life, which we are trying to preserve, but last year crime in Cumbria increased by 36 per cent., one of the highest increases in the country. That had much to do with the Government's policies, and I see nothing in the Gracious Speech that will help to alleviate the problem. The Government are running away from crime prevention and I suggest that we should be talking more about prevention and less about what we do when we catch criminals. Surely it would be better if crime were not committed.
The Government believe in free market economics even when we talk about crime prevention, and the people are paying the price. They realise that when their bills come through the letter box. The cost of house insurance has increased by about £100. The rate of burglaries has soared in Cumbria as it has everywhere else. Are we seeing the privatisation of crime prevention? The cost of insuring a
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car has increased by £100, or perhaps by £200, yet insurance companies are making massive losses because insufficient attention is being given to crime prevention.If anyone had walked down the street where I live 10 years ago he or she would have seen no burglar alarms. Today, about 90 per cent. of the houses have alarms. The owners of the other 10 per cent. have large dogs. It costs £250 or even £500 for a good burglar alarm system, and then there is the cost of installing security lighting and security locks. Many citizens are paying about £500 a year to prevent criminals from entering their homes. Surely it would be more sensible to place an extra £10, £20 or £30 on poll tax charges to enable more policemen to be recruited to reduce the crime rate. That is not the Government's way. They believe in the free market. They say, "Let the people look after themselves. If they cannot do that, that's too bad." Those who suffer from crime are, in many instances, not middle class or rich but the poor. Poorer people can ill afford to be robbed or in other ways to be the victims of crime. The Government do not discuss providing any extra assistance for crime prevention. The Home Secretary ridiculed our proposals to give more crime prevention powers to local authorities. The responsibility for crime prevention that is with the police should remain with them, but the police will never give priority to crime prevention because they are always busy trying to solve crime. We need, therefore, to adopt a new approach.
A good doctor friend of mine did not believe in health education. He said, "If you give me an extra £10,000, I will save an extra three or four lives." If we give the police more money, more police officers will be employed to catch more criminals. As I have said, the police will not make crime prevention a priority. That is why we must give local authorities a role.
We must plan and design with a view to reducing crime when we build houses and estates. We must take crime into consideration. There is a well- designed shopping precinct in my constituency, St. Nicholas Gates, which is in a residential neighbourhood. Unfortunately, the design did not take into account the activity of boy racers, who made the life of the nearby residents intolerable. The boy racers were carrying on until 3, 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. It has now been decided, after a great deal of fuss, that the precinct will have gates. If gates had been part of the design at the beginning, the boy racer problem would not have arisen.
I understand that building regulations will have to be altered to take account of smoke detectors and fire regulations. Surely some emphasis should be placed on ensuring that there is general security, so that there are fewer burglaries and fewer crime-related problems. Many public car parks are not manned and are not illuminated. They present opportunities for car thieves and great worries for many women, who are terrified to enter them in the dark. Surely car parks should be manned and floodlit. That would reduce crime.
We believe that car manufacturers should improve the security of their products, and I understand that the Home Secretary has entered into serious discussions with them. There should be legislation to ensure that the manufacturers have a minimum security standard. There are minimum safety standards and we should introduce
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security standards. Such legislation would mean that no motor car manufacturer would be at a disadvantage. That would be a positive approach to crime prevention. As I have said, crime prevention does not rest with catching criminals.The Government have many reasons to be disgusted with themselves. They have created an underclass, which the hon. Member for Warrington, South mentioned. There was no talk of it 12 years ago. We may have had a working class, and we were proud of it, but there was no underclass. The Government have created a society which is devoid of the social qualities which we once knew, and they should not be surprised if there is an increase in crime. Their policy of dividing the nation between the rich and the poor has had its consequences. We must not make excuses for criminality, but perhaps that is a reason for what has happened.
Some of the most hardened criminals are those who left school and went to find their place in the labour market during the first Tory slump. Police officers will say that those people are the most hardened criminals, but we must do something to try to help them. If they are using violence, intimidation, firearms and weapons generally, however, they must be locked away, and in many instances for long periods. Decent citizens should not have to tolerate the anti-social behaviour that terrorises so many in urban areas and, in some instances, rural communities.
We need a policy for the future that will start to eliminate poverty, which is the breeding ground for crime. The Governemnt created the swamp and we have to face the consequences.
The process of justice needs to be quickened. The granting of bail has been criticised, but one of the reasons for it is the overcrowding of prisons and police cells. People cannot be kept in prison because our system of justice is too slow. Surely those who have been on remand for many months must have been insulted when an actor took a newspaper to court because it had accused him of being boring. Surely we should be doing something more productive with our courts than using them to deal with such trivialities. Similarly, many of those who have suffered industrial injuries must have been insulted by the action to which I have referred. I am sure that if the allegation of being boring were to be directed to politicians, there would be many law suits. The complainant received £50,000, which suggests to me that there is something wrong with our society. Carlisle, and Cumbria generally, needs more police officers. We are asking for them. There are problems in rural areas as well as urban areas. When the police committee asks for 24 additional constables, I hope that the Home Secretary will agree that they should be recruited and appointed. In the past, the area has done extremely badly. 8.9 pm
Mr. David Porter (Waveney) : I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief contribution to the early stages of what will probably be the longest general election campaign in modern times. Even so, this is a shortened Session, and as we must wait until next year for the start of a fourth Conservative term in office, we must now get on with the measures contained in the Gracious Speech.
In considering rights, freedoms and responsibilities, we must consider the choice already afforded by Conservative
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legislation. It is freedom of choice built on the view that it is individuals--not big brother, bureaucrats, councillors or even Members of Parliament--who know best. Whether individual voters, parents, taxpayers, travellers or patients, it is the individual who counts. There is to be an offshore safety Bill. It is a relatively modest measure which should enjoy a trouble-free passage because it is welcomed by both sides of the offshore industry. I will not make a Second Reading speech now, but simply say that a safety culture built around individuals and the operating companies' involvement and responsibilities is the only way to ensure the safest possible working environment.In education, extended parental choice has been a marvellous idea put into practice effectively. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State's tackling of the vested interests in education and the Government's push to put children first--individual children, which means putting parents alongside them--is to be applauded. Local management of schools, giving parents more information, and the assessing of schools, children and teachers have all been good ideas.
I sound one warning note about individual choice--it works in towns where parents can be given a choice of schools, up to the physical capacity of a school, but in rural areas that choice may be only theoretical. In many country areas there is no choice of school, doctor or pub. However, bearing that in mind, freedom of choice is best stimulated by exposing schools to some element of market discipline.
One of the themes of the 1990s that we can identify for ourselves--although what history will make of it we must wait and see--is the concept of government by charter, with the underlying idea that poor public service can be remedied by better management held by force and compensation to higher performance standards. One journalist in the Evening Standard last week likened the rain of these "whingeing charters", as he called the current spate of them, to confetti. I take the view that the charters go in the right direction. I suppose that any idea that catches a mood and a time will have many fathers. I know that my right hon. Friend and the Downing street team, the socialists with their council contracts, and the Liberal Democrats because they know a good bandwagon when they see one--and they must have seen one, because not a single Liberal Democrat is present--all claim to have sired the citizens charter concept.
In fact, the truth can now be told. It was not Downing street, the Labour party or the Liberal Democrats who sired the citizens charter--it was me, at least in the parliamentary sense. In May 1989 I first introduced a ten- minute rule Bill--the Public Service Contract Bill--which sought to establish minimum standards of public service with automatic compensation for failure. Of course, that Bill is now confetti, but it focused on local authorities, the Post Office and British Rail. Matters have moved on since then and those ideas are now very much on the agenda, and I am delighted by that.
Something that is not on the agenda, and that is disappointing, is a commitment to privatise British Rail quickly. There is a simple statement of intent in the Gracious Speech, but of itself that is not enough to stimulate a lumbering giant like British Rail into market-style change. Unless we can achieve that, the travellers charter will, at best, be only half-hearted.
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When I think of the misery, the frustration and the anger caused to my constituents on the east Suffolk line, I despair. When the promised sprinters were not delivered on time, when the fares increased in proportion to the decline in reliability, when children are stranded because trains have broken down, whenConservative-controlled Suffolk county council subsidises the late night train, and when central Government grant for British Rail goes up, yet the service is still like a lottery, I despaired, I despair, and I will continue to despair until we give individuals, travellers, employees and taxpayers a real incentive to make it work--the freedom to succeed in the private sector.
All that leads me to British Rail Bills, and the fact that only now are we talking about ditching the procedures of 150 years ago. That is symptomatic of our failure sometimes to move on. The dawn of the railway age brought in that bizarre, cumbersome process of private Bills for new and altered rail lines and other works. I speak as an hon. Member who has served time on four such Bills during the four years that I have been in the House--the City of London (Various Powers) Bill, the Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority Bill, and the London Underground Bills Nos. 1 and 2. Therefore, I can speak of the experience when four hon. Members sit in quasi-judicial godliness hearing the arguments for and against.
We are all familiar with that quaint parliamentary phrase, "It may be for the convenience of Members", and then some information is imparted that is often for anything but the convenience of hon. Members. Sitting on a private Bill Committee is in practice, if not in theory, designed for the maximum inconvenience of Members, especially when the learned counsel are paid by the hour--at least, it feels like that--or by the ream of Committee paper. Of course safeguards are necessary for the environment, for local residents, for local communities and for the right to a decent quality of life, so I warmly welcome the transport and works Bill, which will defend the safeguards but speed up the decision process.
On the proposed council tax, I have just one point to make on the theme of individual freedom. The basis of the tax--a two-person household--is wrong ; it should be one person. If it must be two, the 25 per cent. reduction for one is insufficient. In addition to the single people who choose to be alone, there are many hundreds of thousands of widows, widowers and unmarried people who do not choose to be alone, but are. They should have a 50 per cent. reduction if the tax is to be as fair as it needs to be.
I have not homed in on the word "rights" in my remarks. We used that word a great deal in the 1960s, when I had shoulder-length hair and many of my colleagues had even some hair. It is a word that trips too lightly off many tongues--often the tongues of those demanding rights without considering, in the same breath, the responsibilities. The theme of today's debate shows something of Labour party values. It promises the people the earth and excites them with talk of rights ; it pays lip service to freedom and choice and to freedom of choice, and then it lets someone else have the responsibility of paying for it.
I support the programme in the Gracious Speech. I do see it not as the fag end of an old Parliament, but as the threshold to continuing non-socialist government in this country.
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8.15 pmMiss Joan Lestor (Eccles) : I want to refer to the Asylum Bill and to some of the comments made by the Home Secretary. The Guardian has nicknamed the Bill the national humbug Bill. Unless the Home Secretary or the Minister can answer a few questions, that nickname may remain.
I am not surprised that the number of people seeking asylum in this country or elsewhere has increased. We all know that repression, war, political persecution and many other matters in various countries throughout the world have now been forced to the forefront. The Home Secretary did not answer the question : what is the point of this country's encouraging people to resist that sort of persecution and to stand up and fight for their rights if, when things get too hot for them and they want to become political refugees, we say, "You can't come here, we don't want you"?
The Home Secretary and the Minister must know that, if someone is fleeing persecution or political oppression, that person does not have his documents with him. He does not run back and say, "Where is my passport? Where is my visa?"-- [Interruption.] I wish hon. Members would not mumble when I have only a few moments to make my speech. Such people are caught in a terrible trap. If they try to falsify their documents, as many do, they are excluded.
If the Home Secretary is over-zealous in not allowing entry to someone who he believes is not a genuine refugee, and actually sends back a genuine refugee either to roam the world looking for somewhere to live or to persecution and possible death, he must face the reality of life for such people.
Next Wednesday, the Princess Royal will meet refugee children seeking asylum at the centre at Heathrow airport. She will later attend a seminar. She, more than most people in this country, knows something about refugee children and the problems facing them. I do not know whether she will be accompanied by anybody from the Home Office. I hope that she will, and I hope that that person listens to and understands the suffering and the plight of those children. There are no special provisions in the Bill to deal with unaccompanied refugee children, but that does not surprise me. In June last year, the Refugee Council put forward proposals for a new voluntary agency to provide care and assessment for children newly arrived in this country. Although, in fairness, the Home Secretary whispered to me behind the Chair that discussions were taking place, the council is still waiting for a reply. At that time, we were talking about 30 to 50 children a year, but in August and September last year some 170 children fled from the fighting in Eritrea and their arrival in this country brought into sharp focus the appalling lack of resources, knowledge and skills that local authorities need to look after the children properly.
A Refugee Council survey of 17 local authorities revealed that 25 children were held in detention by the immigration service. It is disgraceful that a child should be detained in that way and I want an assurance from the Minister that that practice has now ceased. Seventy children had to wait up to three months for a local authority to respond to their needs, many being moved more than three times in that period. A substantial number of them had no contact with people of their own culture and language during that time.
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Those children were sent to Britain by loving families and friends who were anxious that their children at least should escape to a better future, free from the traumas of war and persecution. They arrived in Britain frightened, confused and lonely, and they look to us to do something for them.We should not forget that, when war broke out in Britain, hundreds of our children were sent to Canada and elsewhere to escape the traumas of war. We have not yet ratified the convention on the rights of the child, but I hope that we shall. We are a signatory to the convention on refugees, but the convention on the rights of the child gives children the right to escape the oppression of war and its consequences. I hope that we shall honour that.
Because of the exceptional leave arrangements, those children were denied the right to be united with their families. We owe it to them to provide them with safety. We need a properly funded care agency to co-ordinate plans for their future. They need an expert allocated to them on arrival to act as an independent advocate, someone who can promote the rights of each child. They need to have their cases dealt with quickly and fairly.
The Government must recognise their responsibilities in the matter to local authorities through increased financial support for projects which can benefit refugee children such as day care, housing and language classes. They must also recognise their responsibility to the international community and especially to the third world through adherence to the spirit and letter of the United Nations convention on refugees and the convention on the rights of the child. Above all, they must recognise their responsibility to the children who experience the traumas of war and separation from close family only to be met in Britain by suspicion, inflexibility and a lack of compassion.
I hope that the Minister will explain why there is no mention of those children in the Bill, since that is what the Refugee Council understood it would deal with. I understand that the feedback from the Department of Health has been positive, but the Home Office said a short time ago that the Refugee Council would have to wait for the thorough review of the asylum procedures which has resulted in the Bill.
As the Bill does not address the problem and it is crucial that Britain should consider it, will the Minister give an assurance that a positive response to the Refugee Council's proposal is on its way and that we will be taking seriously our responsibilities to the world's refugees who are children?
8.22 pm
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