House of Commons Hansard Debates for 5 Nov 1991

Mr. John Browne (Winchester) : Two of the most fundamental of human rights are the right to a fair trial and the right of appeal. Those two fundamental rights are enshrined in clauses 1 to 4 and in clause 5 of article 14 of the United Nations international convention of 1966 to which Her Majesty's Government are a signatory. That convention applies to both civil and political trials.

Political show trials follow a classic structure. First, they are preceded by a secret inquisition or inquiry, at which the prosecution case is established. The accused is then paraded in front of the public for a sham trial, in which the accused is not permitted any of the normal rights of defence. The prosecution holds sway and the jury is fixed.

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What is typical of almost all show trials is that there is no mechanism for appeal. That, in itself, is a breach of one of the most fundamental human rights enshrined in clause 5 of article 14 of the United Nations convention.

We are accustomed to thinking that political show trials happen only in foreign countries under regimes such as those that existed in Nazi Germany or communist Russia. The fact is that they do happen, very occasionally, even in our own country. The late Lord Boothby was subjected to one before the war, and one was slipped past the nose of the House on 7 March 1990. It is important that the House and country know something of what happened.

The accused was charged with no crime, just technical errors. He was therefore given none of the legal protections that the law normally affords to all those accused.

In examining my case, the Select Committee on Members' Interests systematically denied me almost every basic human right to natural justice. All its sessions were held in secret. None of the evidence was heard on oath. The onus of proof was placed squarely on the accused.

Contrary to Standing Orders of the House, I was not allowed even to attend and therefore to hear the evidence of the complainant or any other witness. I was therefore unable to cross-examine any witness in person.

I was specifically denied the authority to call witnesses in person for cross-examination. No representation was allowed to the accused. I was given no rights of discovery in order to put stolen documents selectively submitted against me into proper context.

No statute of limitations was imposed, with the result that great injustices were done by the vague but heavily coaxed recollections of witnesses of events some seven to 12 years earlier. Time pressures were allowed to affect the evidence sessions.

No prosecution case was ever made for me to answer. I was therefore given no structure and no knowledge of what points were considered important by the Committee. It was a vast case, involving some 20 companies over a period of some 12 years.

I was allowed to make no verbal defence to the Committee, but merely to answer almost 1,000 rapid-fire questions put by 11 prosecutors at random during long sessions. No declaration of interests was demanded of members of the Select Committee regarding their own relationships with witnesses. No requirement was made of members even to attend the evidence sessions on matters upon which they would vote.

Despite that catalogue of injustice, I was allowed no appeal. Again, that was in direct violation of article 14 of the United Nations convention.

The subsequent debate in the House was also subjected to quite deliberate and finely engineered pressures of injustice. In particular, there was no official Government-sponsored motion of clemency offered to Members upon which to vote. From the outset, hon. Members were encouraged in the normal parliamentary manner to follow the Leader of the House and vote for his amendment, thereby upholding the prestige of the House.

I was allowed to make not a speech but only an uncontroversial statement which the House was to hear in silence. I was therefore given no opportunity whatsoever to defend myself in the debate and was specifically denied the ability either to question or to challenge the speeches and interventions of other hon. Members in the debate.

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The speeches of the Leader of the House and the Chairman of the Select Committee in particular were seriously misleading, but went unchallenged.

Despite all that, the tone of the debate was for clemency. However, the vote of the House was along strictly party lines and was fixed or whipped with the Government operating a payroll and informal Whip. We had the spectacle of hon. Members, despite the pretence of a free vote, not being free to vote according to their consciences even in a judicial vote upon a fellow Member.

Finally, to rub salt into the wound, the House changed the rules retrospectively immediately after my sentence. However, there was no mechanism for appeal against that judgment. Again, that is in direct violation of the United Nations international convention. Here, for example, I ask the House to consider the dreadful implications of the undeclared interest of a member of the Select Committee. Sitting in judgment over me was a member of the Select Committee who was a friend of Mr. David Leigh, the chief complainant, and had a close working relationship with him, with an implied pecuniary relationship.

None of that was declared either to the Select Committee or to the House. In columns 935 and 936 of Hansard, the hon. Member even resisted the declaration. That Select Committee member pressed me very hard about a libel case that I had out against Mr. Leigh on the Sama and Chidiac affair. The libel case was sub judice

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. I am obviously listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I know that he feels strongly about the way in which he has been treated, but he is now getting close to casting aspersions on other hon. Members. If he intends to do so, can he assure me that he has given those hon. Members notice that he intended so to do?

Mr. Browne : At the end of the previous parliamentary Session, I signed early-day motion 1210 drawing particular attention to the matter.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am asking the hon. Gentleman whether he has given personal notice that he intended to make these remarks this evening.

Mr. Browne : Only by means of the early-day motion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Then I must ask the hon. Gentleman to move on to other matters and to leave that one. He has had a good run on that point.

Mr. Browne : I was referring of course to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), who is identified in early-day motion 1210.

My unintentional transgressions resulted in no financial gain to me, harmed no one, and neither influenced nor changed any Government policy. I was, however, subjected to a sustained denial of human rights and to deliberate injustice.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I ask the hon. Member to respect my judgment. He is now casting serious aspersions against other hon. Members. I am glad that he was frank with the Chair in admitting that he had not given notice of his intended remarks to the hon. Members concerned, and accordingly he must desist from that line of argument.

Mr. Browne : I respect your decision, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was offered a guarantee, described more fully in

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early-day motion 1211 of the last Session, that I would not be punished by the House in any way, provided that I stood down from my seat. That offer was entirely unconstitutional, in that it sought to deny to my constituents the right to vote for or against their sitting Member of Parliament at the next general election. Worse still, it was a grave abuse of judicial power.

The House was grossly misled throughout that political show trial. I place on record the fact that I do not hold the vast majority of Back Benchers to blame in any way, for they voted and even spoke in complete ignorance of what was happening and of the facts. The deliberate injustice of a political show trial still exists, even in our country.

I have submitted a formal appeal to my right hon. Friends the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister, in the hope that they, as honourable gentlemen, will move quickly and decisively in investigating my case and will bring it back to the House in Government time, so that such a thing will never again happen to another right hon. or hon. Member, as it happened to me and to the late Lord Boothby.

I hope that my right hon. Friends will respond positively to my request that the United Nations convention be allowed to operate freely in our country.

8.31 pm

Mr. John McAllion (Dundee, East) : A subject mentioned only briefly in tonight's debate is that of constitutional reform--or as I prefer to describe it, the break-up of the Westminster system. Tonight's debate falls on the anniversary of another attempt to blow up the Westminster system, but I stress that it is my intention to change it by democratic means and the force of argument, and by no other method.

Our debate concerns in part the question of freedom, whose definitions include autonomy, self-government, and independence. By those definitions, the Scottish nation remains unfree while we debate freedom in the context of the Queen's Speech. Scotland remains neither autonomous, self-governing, nor independent. It could have chosen otherwise. The Scottish people could have opted, of their own free will, to remain part of the unitary Westminster state and of the indivisible whole that is the union of the United Kingdom. They have long had the perfect political vehicle for doing so, and it is called the Conservative and Unionist party, whose Members of Parliament form the majority in the House, and which is now the only political force in Scotland that still stands for the status quo.

The freedoms that the Tories offer come wrapped inside the Westminster state. They are the freedoms to choose private medicine, benefit from the assisted places scheme in private education, and personal tax cuts. They offer the freedom to say, "I'm all right, Jack", provided that is done under the Tories and under the Union Jack of the Westminster state.

Where is the evidence that the Scottish people want those freedoms within such a political state? It cannot be found in the opinion polls, which regularly show that a huge majority of Scottish people oppose the Conservative and Unionist party and are in favour of some form of autonomy, self-government, or independence. Neither can

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the evidence be found in the results of the last general election. Although this may be painful for Government members to recall, they represented nothing less than a wholly unambiguous rejection of the status quo.

The evidence cannot be found in the parliamentary by-elections held in Scotland since 1987. Whatever else might be said about the constituencies of Glasgow, Govan, Glasgow, Central, Paisley, North or Paisley, South, they can hardly be described as ringing endorsements of faith in the Westminster state. The Conservative candidates in all four by-elections polled just 10,000 votes from a total of 110,000 cast. The other 100,000 votes were cast against the principles for which the Government stand.

It may be argued that Glasgow and Paisley are not representative of the whole of Scotland. They certainly are not representative of those parts of Scotland that the Tories claim to represent. However, what about the constituency of Kincardine and Deeside, which has traditionally been a Tory seat in a traditionally Tory and prosperous part of Scotland, having little unemployment, and situated well outside Scotland's central belt? It is precisely the kind of seat that should be susceptible to Tory scaremongering about a Scottish Parliament dominated by Strathclyde, yet there is little comfort for the Unionists in Kincardine and Deeside.

The latest opinion polls from that constituency scream out a message that must be heard even within these walls--that by majorities of three and four to one, the voters there intend to support parties that are committed to radically reforming the Westminster state and to establishing a Scottish Parliament. Soon the Unionists will be reduced to the third party in a four -party country and a political irrelevance, and they are on course to becoming an even greater irrelevance after the next general election.

Where is there any recognition in the Queen's Speech of those political realities in Scotland? It recognises that freedom is bound up with acceptance of national identity and the right of small nations to self- determination. The Gracious Speech commits the Government to settling the Palestinian problem and therefore to recognising the inherent right of the Palestinians to

self-determination. Similar recognition is extended to Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.

The Government promise to work for democratic institutions in central and eastern Europe, and even to help build a democratic society in South Africa. They pledge their support also to national self-determination and democratic institutions everywhere in the world, except in the United Kingdom and Scotland. One searches the Queen's Speech in vain for any reference to Scottish freedom, Scottish democracy, or Scottish nationhood. The Queen's Speech is silent on all three. That cannot be right, and neither can it be defended--for the Government's defence is non-existent.

The Government begin by telling the Scottish people that we do not know what is good for us ; that autonomy, self-government, and self- determination are bad for us and for our country. It does not seem to matter that we vote time and again for some form of Scottish autonomy, because the Government say that the Scottish people do not know what we are about and that they know what is best for us. That is the worst kind of imperialist and colonialist arrogance, but sadly it is typical of the Government who have dominated the House for the past 12 years.

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We are told also that the elected national parliament that we seek will be just another layer of bureaucracy between the people and the kind of country that they want. The Government ignore the 10,000 Scottish Office bureaucrats who are wholly unaccountable to the Scottish people's elected representatives. A Scottish parliament will not create an additional layer of bureaucracy, but will make accountable to the Scottish people an existing level of bureaucracy that currently does not answer to them. In doing so, it will extend the fabric of democracy in our country.

We are told that the democratic forums created in Scotland outside the formal Westminster structures are not democratic. Ministers describe as self-appointed the Scottish Constitutional Convention--a body that contains the majority of Scottish Members of Parliament. It also ranks among its numbers representatives of all Scottish local authorities, all of whom were individually elected by the Scottish people, Scottish political parties, Churches, trade unions, and other Scottish bodies. Yet they try to tell us that that convention is self-appointed and undemocratic.

We are expected to believe that democratic legitimacy rests with the Tory rump here in Westminster--a rump that holds less than one seventh of Scotland's parliamentary seats, and controls not a single council or local authority in Scotland ; a rump that cannot even find enough Conservative Back-Benchers to staff the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. The Government who are responsible for that undemocratic debacle have the nerve to lecture us in Scotland about democracy, freedom and the rights of our people.

Dealing with the Asylum Bill, the Home Secretary described my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) as harbouring an abiding contempt for the views of ordinary voters. He advised my right hon. Friend as follows : when he found himself in a hole, he should stop digging. Let me ask the Home Secretary which party harbours abiding contempt for the views of the Scottish voters, and which party is digging itself into an ever-deepening black Scottish hole. It is not the Labour party ; it is the Conservative and Unionist party, which refuses to listen to the democratically expressed views of the Scottish people.

Ministers would do well to heed their own advice, and to stop digging themselves into an ever-deepening Scottish hole. They would do well to begin to climb back into the daylight of mainstream Scottish political life from which they have been excluded for so long. They will have to understand something that they are beginning to understand already in a European context : that political unions depend on the consent of the parties to those unions. If that principle applies at European level, it must be said to apply equally at United Kingdom level.

The survival of the United Kingdom depends on the consent of the Scottish people to the union that created it ; that consent in turn depends on constitutional reform, and, specifically, on the establishment of a Scottish Parliament. Unless that is forthcoming, the Scottish people will withdraw their consent from the union that this House represents.

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8.41 pm

Mr. Keith Raffan (Delyn) : The issues for debate today are rights, freedoms and responsibilities. Like the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion), I wish to address them in the context of constitutional reform of the future government of Wales, at both local and national level.

It may be thought that my party would be wise to approach all matters relating to the reform of local government--its functions, format and finance--with considerable caution. It is now widely accepted on both sides of the House that the reform of local government structure during the Administration of my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) was an unmitigated disaster. This time we must get matters right, and get them right once and for all.

Because of the political necessity of replacing the poll tax, and of doing so before the general election, we are, in my view, dealing with local government reforms the wrong way round--indeed, in reverse order. Surely it would have been more logical, and would have made more sense, to start with functions and internal management, then to go on to format and structure, and finally, move on to the vexed issue of how to finance the new structure with its revised functions. That would have been the common-sense approach ; but, sadly, political necessity has dictated otherwise.

The Gracious Speech refers to the introduction of legislation to establish a review of local government structure in England, but makes no such reference to Wales. The Principality is not to have an independent local government commission, the reason ostensibly being the virtually unanimous view in Wales that unitary authorities are desirable.

It is true that the local authority associations are divided. The Assembly of Welsh Counties wants a commission, whereas the Council of Welsh Districts does not. Despite that, I am not sure that the Government are wise not to set up such a commission in the Principality. By not doing so, they open themselves up to the charge that Wales is not receiving equal treatment with England ; their action also goes against the words of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who said on 25 June : "We will not repeat the errors of the 1970s. Then, local views were ignored when local government boundaries were redrawn. That must never be allowed to happen again. Under our proposals, we intend to give local people the opportunity to say what sort of structure suits them best. So there is no question of central Government dictating how local government should be organised."

Those are sensible words, but, in Wales, central Government will dictate how local government should be organised.

Yet it must be desirable for the new structure to command as wide a consensus as possible, so that future Governments do not continually tamper with it. That is why I believe that we need an independent local government commission for Wales, as in England, to take evidence, encourage informed debate, do justice to what are, indeed, complex issues and so reach objective, independent conclusions. The number of authorities and their boundaries must be decided independently. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales for his assurance that the local government boundary commission will draw

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up the boundaries for the new authorities in Wales, but the commission must have complete freedom to create coherent local authorities. The building blocks for those authorities should not be limited by the Welsh Office to existing district council areas. Community council areas make more sensible building blocks and would give the commission more flexibility to create coherent, integrated authorities.

Obviously, the local government boundary commission will have to consider a wide variety of views. It would have been much easier for the commission if it had had at its disposal views collected, collated and analysed by an independent commission.

Unitary authorities will not be fully effective without an all-Wales tier to discuss major infrastructure, transport, strategic planning and other all-Wales issues. Contrary to what the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said, constitutional matters are discussed within our party ; indeed, half the Welsh Conservatives in the House have said that they are in favour of some form of devolution.

Issues such as the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill, which I am delighted to see included in the Gracious Speech,and a Welsh language Bill, which I am sad to see has been excluded, could be discussed much more fully by an all- Wales tier. We need such a tier to respond to the distinctive needs of the Principality and its people. So far, the Government have opposed such a tier, on spurious grounds. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) looks astonished. I have expressed such views in the House before. Perhaps he is not here very often ; if he listens, he may learn a little. The Government have opposed a Welsh assembly on the spurious ground that the Secretary of State's position in the Cabinet might be somehow threatened as a result. It will be threatened only if the Government want it to be. In the week of the Conservative party conference, the party chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Patten), said that the Government were now considering a new voice for London--a Londonwide strategic body to address Londonwide issues such as environmental, economic, planning and transport problems. I would agree with such a proposal, but if such a body is needed in London, it is needed just as much in the Principality.

At a fringe meeting at the same party conference, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales said :

"If there is one core belief which we all share, it is surely a rejection of centralisation and a firm belief that the source of Europe's strength has always been the diversity of its peoples." That is the source of Britain's strength, too. If we reject centralisation in Europe--here I agree with the hon. Member for Dundee, East--we should also reject it here in the United Kingdom. The supreme irony is that, in the European context, the Government are determined to resist the centralisation of power in Brussels at any cost ; yet, in the United Kingdom context, they will defend such centralisation in Whitehall as sacrosanct.

Mr. Stuart Randall (Kingston upon Hull, West) : Vote Labour, then.

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Mr. Raffan : It is not just the Labour party that proposes devolution. Many other parties do. Indeed, my party proposed devolution way back in the late 1960s--almost before the hon. Gentleman was even thought of, and certainly before the present policy of his party was thought of. He may wish to refer to the declaration of Perth, and the Scottish devolution policy that the Conservative party then very wisely proposed I am only sorry that it was not accepted.

In Paris in September, the Prime Minister said :

"We must heed the way the world is moving--towards more decentralised, more accountable structures."

My right hon. Friend was, of course, right ; but what is applicable to Europe is also applicable here at home.

8.48 pm

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : The Gracious Speech refers to the implementation of the citizens charter. I doubt whether all the measures contained in the citizens charter will be implemented. In particular, I doubt whether the railways will be privatised in this Session.

The citizens charter is based, in part, on schoolboy humour, which befits something that is put forward by the Prime Minister. Its name apes the people's charters of 1838, 1842 and 1848. The citizens charter has been linked to some extent with the socialist tradition. It is even printed in red, or perhaps puce. It carries the slogan "Raising the Standard". It must have been lifted from the famous phrase

"We will raise the scarlet standard high."

This schoolboy humour technique puts all these things together ; they are supposed to be part of the Prime Minister's wish to foist upon us a classless society, built upon the principles to which he adheres. Good fun is intended by pinching socialist traditions and turning them on their heads. However, the joke falls flat when we examine the content of the citizens charter rather than its glib presentation.

Before I deal with the charter, I shall refer to the tradition upon which it is intended to be based and which it is trying to subvert--the people's charter of the 19th century, which was very much concerned with rights, freedoms and a responsible society. The charter contained six points, the first being universal male suffrage--an ideological slip. The suffragettes added to that the notion of female enfranchisement. The notion that the right to vote should be extended to all males and therefore to most families was a fantastic breakthrough.

The charter's second point was that there should be secret ballots to ensure that the franchise was exercised freely. Two attempts were made to ensure that the House of Commons was more representative of the people than hitherto--first, the ending of property qualifications for Members of Parliament and the payment of MPs. During the early days of the Labour party in Parliament, the make-up of Parliament began to alter due to those changes.

Another point in the charter was that constituencies should have equal electoral districts to overcome the remnants of the rotten boroughs. The final point--never fully implemented--was that there should be annual Parliaments, annually elected. In 1911, there was a move in the direction of more regular Parliaments, when the septennial convention was changed. Provision was then

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made for elections to take place within five -year periods. Recently, the tradition has grown up of elections every four years. However, the Government have found themselves in difficulties over that. They have therefore pushed themselves into a corner. The Parliament Act has therefore had to be brought into operation.

What have today's "pretend Chartists" done to the rights that were fought for by the original Chartists? They do not seem to be too keen to hold elections on a regular basis. Even more seriously, however, the Government have undermined the basic principles contained in the 19th century charter- -the universal male franchise and, with it, the equality of electoral districts. When redistribution takes place it can take place sensibly only if there is a full and universal franchise.

We know, however, that 1 million people are not on the electoral register. According to an official survey conducted by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, that represents 2.5 per cent. of the electorate. People in Scotland first began to disappear from the electoral register. That pattern was repeated in England and Wales, but it has not been repeated in Northern Ireland. That is due to the introduction of the poll tax. According to the citizens charter, there are to be charters for patients, parents, tenants, job seekers and the social services. However, there is to be no charter to enfranchise people and to ensure that they have the right to vote. That should worry Members of Parliament. The electoral register is in a ghastly state.

What do the Government intend to do between now and the general election to ensure that the missing1 million return to the electoral register so that there is full enfranchisement at the next election? People died in this country so that the franchise could be extended. People have died in Russia and the Eastern bloc to achieve universal suffrage. They are dying in South Africa to achieve the same objective. We should ensure that there is complete enfranchisement. What about the citizens charter? What are the six grand points that will stand comparison with the charter of the 19th century? Will people wish to struggle and die for the citizens charter? Does it contain anything that resembles the six points in the 19th century charter? I am afraid that it does not. It is based upon principles that are to be found on page 5 of the citizens charter. It refers to the fact that there will be more privatisation. There is no mention of the national health service, but reference is made to British Rail and London Buses. The buses are to be deregulated. Deregulation in my constituency led to massive petitions about the inadequacy of the bus services in Barrow Hill. Deregulation is to be extended to London. The citizens charter states that there is to be wider competition. The Post Office letters monopoly is to be destroyed. The advantages of the economies of scale within the postal service are to be destroyed due to the competition principle that the Government put forward at every opportunity, whether that principle is relevant or irrelevant.

The citizens charter also states that there is to be additional contracting out, with services bought from the private sector. That is to apply to the NHS, already seriously destabilised by many of the Government's actions. There are to be even more agencies. Fewer questions about public services will be asked in the House because those services will be shunted off to other bodies.

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No direct answers will be given to those questions. More and more destruction of local government provision will take place. I do not have time to talk about the remaining points of the charter that will destroy many of the existing provisions in this country. However, I can simply say that the fourth point is that there will be more performance-related pay. The fifth point is that there will be published performance targets, and the sixth is that the standards achieved will be published. I could criticise each of those points in the same way as I criticised the first three. If we are to have charters, they should be based on solid traditions and should not subvert previous charters in the way that this one does. Several Hon. Members rose --

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. The winding-up speeches are expected at 9.20 pm. I hope that the three hon. Members who wish to speak will agree to divide the time between them. 9 pm

Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton) : In the light of the speech of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes), I welcome the measures in the Gracious Speech to extend competitive tendering. I welcome also the measures to extend privatisation to British Coal. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and my hon. Friends will examine carefully all the arguments put to them about the privatisation of British Rail. We have heard at Question Times and in previous debates about the unsatisfactory situation facing passengers and those wishing to use British Rail for freight. Some Conservative Members and other hon. Members need to be convinced that a measure of privatisation would improve passenger and freight transport.

I welcome various measures in the Gracious Speech, which I regard as an extension of the citizens charter. I welcome particularly the charities legislation. The southern regional office of the Charities Commission, which extends over an area from Cornwall to Sussex--a generous definition of the southern region--has just been established in my constituency. When it was opened by Sir Philip Woodfield, who was responsible for the report on the work of charities, there was concern about whether a measure to implement the report would find its way into this year's legislative programme. I am delighted that it has done so, and I wish my right hon. and hon. Friends success in trying to improve the supervision and financial management of charities, enabling the Charity Commissioners to concentrate on their supervisory role and ensure that only deserving causes receive charitable status.

Following my earlier exchange with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), I must say that I welcome the Asylum Bill. British citizens need to have their freedoms and rights guaranteed against inflows of people who are not refugees or asylum seekers.

I welcome also the suggestion that joyriding is to be made an offence. As far as I am aware, joyriding has not occurred recently in my constituency, but I know that people there have been killed through reckless driving as a result of alcohol. There is a problem of car theft in my constituency, and I welcome the measures to prevent that.

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Mr. Randall : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Nicholson : Time is limited.

I welcome the measures to extend rights in education. The Somerset college of arts and technology in Taunton is looking forward to the freedoms and opportunities it will obtain under the legislation for further and higher education which will transfer further education and sixth-form colleges from local education authority control. I welcome particularly the proposals that were debated yesterday--I tried to intervene during the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science--to extend the parents charter in schools.

It has become clear to me locally that an annual written report on the progress of children is highly desirable. Sometimes parents are not aware that their children are not performing well at school until they receive a written report which exposes the problems. I welcome the fact that schools will be inspected frequently, that a short straightforward summary will be available to parents and that an action plan from the governors will be sent to all parents explaining how they will tackle problems pointed out by the inspectors. Housing has not been debated extensively today. There is a case for extending the citizens charter to the exchange arrangements for housing to give people the right to know within a certain period whether they are accepted for exchange or, if they are turned down, what the reasons are. People should have the right to receive regular progress reports on where they are in the queue.

My local authority and many other efficiently run

Conservative-controlled or until recently Conservative-controlled local authorities in southern England are experiencing considerable problems with waiting lists, because of the shortage of accommodation. I hope that the various nods and winks that we here have recently seen from Ministers--and which building employers' organisations have observed--about changes to allow councils to use more receipts from council house sales will be translated into action because that will be of much importance in the run- up to the general election.

I applaud my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's endorsement of the philosophy and style of Stanley Baldwin. This country needs a period of quiet and caution, which Baldwin typified in the 1920s and 1930s. I am conscious that, in moving the Loyal Address, my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) paid tribute to Leo Amery, who vigorously criticised Baldwin for not using his power effectively enough. No one who has sat through debates in the past four years or has studied the politics of the past 10 years would say that those who have held power have not used it.

I said in the debate on freedoms, rights and responsibilities a year ago that there is a case for rather more caution and care in implementing the power that is wielded here. I am glad to see the assurances in the citizens charter and from the numerous statements of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that that is how he intends to use his power.

9.6 pm

Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East) : I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on the Front Bench. I congratulate him on his excellent opening speech, particularly the way in which he stressed

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that law and order is a top priority of the Government. His speech was in sharp distinction to that of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), who made it clear that more immigration is the top priority of the Labour party. All he said on law and order was that the police should be put under the control of local councils. That has rightly been rejected by the public, who remember what happened to the police when Labour was last in power--their numbers were reduced and their morale sabotaged. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be interested to hear that I recently conducted a survey of opinion in my constituency. Not surprisingly, law and order emerged as the top issue. In the summer recess, I had six meetings with many constituents who were anxious to know what could be done to improve law and order. Meetings were attended by as many as 160 people, who made it clear they are fed up with high and persistent crime and particularly with gangs of juvenile delinquents. There is seen to be a problem with bored youth and I hope that our proposals on the local management of schools will help to deal with it.

I know that a Home Office working party is studying the causes of crime, but I should like to invite my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to visit Bolton to see the police station on a Saturday night and to meet our 14-year-old Houdini who has committed more than 140 crimes while supposedly under the care of the local authority. The police are fed up with arresting juvenile delinquents and returning them to the care of the local authority.

I suggest to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that some new initiatives are needed. A reply to a parliamentary question that I tabled says :

"My right hon. Friend is exploring what more can be done to develop policies for reducing the number of crimes committed by young people." [ Official Report, 24 July 1991 ; Vol. 195, c. 580. ] The Home Office should open a branch in Bolton so that it can see what is happening and become involved.

What would that branch do? For a start, there are 1,200 neighbourhood watch schemes in Bolton. The police say that they do not have the resources to supervise and organise them, so why does not the Home Office have a branch in Bolton to supervise and direct the efforts and energies of the people involved in those schemes? That would give the Home Office direct involvement in crime prevention. If it opened a crime prevention shop, I am sure that those premises would have many callers with all sorts of suggestions about what should be done to reduce crime.

Such a branch could also advise on setting up local action groups. That was suggested in the Home Office report "Safer Communities", which was published during the summer. It said that local action groups should be encouraged. Let us have someone on the ground who can advise local communities what they can do. Perhaps the Home Office could also encourage the recruitment of special constables. The police force does not seem to give every encouragement to the idea of recruiting more specials.

The police in Bolton have told me that more research should be carried out. They would like the Home Office to fund a study by Manchester university into many of the causes of crime, especially into what happens with bail offenders. I believe that a report on bail offenders will be published tomorrow.

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