| Home Page |
Column 147
Tees and Hartlepool Port
3.30 pm
Mr. Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) : I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the proposed sale of the Tees and Hartlepool port to a consortium that includes Humberside Holdings Ltd., with consequences for the local communities of Tees and Hartlepool, and the sale of British ports in general."
The matter is specific in that the Tees and Hartlepool board yesterday announced its recommendation to the Secretary of State for Transport to sell the port to a consortium that includes Humberside Holdings Ltd. The board does not appear to have taken into account the fact that Humberside Holdings Ltd. saw two of its associated companies, Lindsey Dock Services Ltd. and John Sutcliffe Stevedores Ltd., go into liquidation with outstanding liabilities to dockers on the abolition of the dock labour scheme of £3,034,001 in the case of Lindsey Dock Services Ltd. and £3,598,314 in the case of John Sutcliffe Stevedores Ltd. Humberside Holdings Ltd. set up a third company, East Coast Port Services, to make it the largest stevedore group in Grimsby and Immingham, providing the same services as those companies that went into liquidation. John Sutcliffe Stevedores also left on its books, by way of non-preferential claims, £142,247 to 43 small firms.
The matter is important as not only is Humberside Holdings Ltd. not a fit and proper bidder for the port of Tees and Hartlepool, but the Government, during the passage of the Ports Act 1991, stated that preference would be given to worker-management buy-out schemes and gave assurances, both to the consortium of Tees and
Hartlepool--consisting of managers and workers alike--and to the other trust ports throughout the land, that such schemes would be favoured. As a consequence, there are management-employee buy-outs on the table for the ports of Tilbury, Medway and Clyde, all of which are likely to be affected by the decision of the Secretary of State for Transport to ignore the bid of the local Tees and Hartlepool consortium.
The matter is urgent because the Secretary of State cannot even entertain the recommendation of the Tees and Hartlepool board because Parliament has not empowered him to do so. The requisite statutory instrument dealing with the clawback of funds from the sale of land owned by
Column 148
port authorities has not completed its passage through Parliament, so it cannot be right to announce what the Secretary of State is minded to do until the Ports Act 1991 is perfected. If that were to happen, what would have happened to the will of Parliament? A full debate on the Floor of the House would give all Members who served on the Ports Bill, and other Members with constituency interests, a chance to give their views on what constitutes an abdication of Government responsibility, a reneging of promises given and undertakings entered into.Therefore, I call for a debate because what we see in Humberside Holdings Ltd. is the ugly and unacceptable face of capitalism.
Mr. Speaker : The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) seeks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely, "the proposed sale of the Tees and Hartlepool port to Humberside Holdings Ltd., with consequences for the local community of Tees and Hartlepool."
I have listened with concern to what the hon. Gentleman had to say on this matter, but, as he knows, I have to decide whether to give his application precedence over the business set down for today or tomorrow. I must rule in this case that it does not meet the criteria of the order and I cannot therefore submit his application to the House.
Mr. Tim Devlin (Stockton, South) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You may remember that I raised this matter with you by way of a request for a private notice question on Tuesday--[ Hon. Members :-- "Order."]
Mr. Speaker : Order. That is not a matter that we discuss in the Chamber. Had the hon. Gentleman raised it under Standing Order No. 20, that would have been different.
Mr. Devlin : Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I asked the Leader of the House on Thursday for a statement on this subject. It is a matter of grave concern to the people of Teesside and there should be some opportunity for the Government to set out their views on it before the end of this Session.
Mr. Speaker : The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) has raised the matter under Standing Order No. 20, and I have ruled. I have nothing to add. I hope that there will be other opportunities to raise this matter.
Column 149
Points of Order
3.37 pm
Mr. Derek Enright (Hemsworth) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, which arises out of the debate on RECHAR which you so kindly allowed me to initiate last week and during which the Under-Secretary of State responsible for consumer affairs argued fiercely that the Government's stance was absolutely correct, that they would not change it, and that it was legally entirely clear.
We discovered this morning that at much the same time the Secretary of State for the Environment was drafting a letter that says : "I believe"--
Mr. Speaker : Order. I must tell the hon. Member, who has not been here long, that I cannot rule on whether what Ministers say is right or wrong. This is not a matter for me.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : Just hear him out.
Mr. Speaker : Order. Will the hon. Gentleman leave the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Enright) to me please--and that goes for his hon. Friends who are prompting him from either side, too? I am not responsible for answers given in the Chamber ; I have no idea whether they are right or wrong. I am responsible for matters of order. Is this a matter of order?
Mr. Enright : I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker. I would not want to accuse either of the gentlemen in question of misleading the House, because that would be unparliamentary, but it is important for the House to know which of them is right. Will the Prime Minister act as referee and tell us which half of the Cabinet he supports so that my constituency can get its RECHAR funds before Christmas?
Mr. Speaker : As long as the hon. Gentleman does not ask me to referee.
Mr. Frank Haynes (Ashfield) : Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker--
Mr. Speaker : It was not a point of order.
Mr. Haynes : Mine is. You have a wonderful opportunity, Mr. Speaker, since the Secretary of State for the Environment does not come here very often--but he happens to be here now. Get him on his feet!
Mr. Speaker : I cannot get the right hon. Gentleman on his feet now, although I will in a minute on the Local Government Finance Bill.
Dame Peggy Fenner (Medway) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will know that I am not given to raising bogus points of order--[ Hon. Members :-- "Oh?"]--but I ask you-- [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker : Order. What is it?
Dame Peggy Fenner : I accept the principle that, if you call a Member to explain why he wants to apply under Standing Order No. 20 for an emergency debate on a subject, no one else may contribute ; but if that Member mentions another's constituency and the concern felt by Medway port authority, one is still left with no way of
Column 150
contributing. It is therefore unfortunate that we have no way of replying when our constituencies are mentioned in these circumstances.Mr. Speaker : The hon. Lady should draw that to the attention of the Procedure Committee. I am bound by the rules, and the rule is that, on a Standing Order No. 20 application, only one three-minute speech may be made.
Mr. Kenneth Hind (Lancashire, West) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance about something that arose in the Consolidated Fund Bill debates on the Adjournment last Thursday when we debated the question of pensions. During that debate some Opposition Members wished to quote what Members of the upper House who are directors of Maxwell companies said in the other place. I seek your guidance as to what the rules are about quoting speakers in the other place. We are able to quote our own record, Shakespeare and everybody else, but it appears that we cannot quote the report of the upper House.
Mr. Speaker : There is a strict rule about this. Ministers in the other place may be quoted but not Back-Bench speeches made in the same Session. The relevant passage in "Erskine May" is at page 375.
Mr. Bill Michie (Sheffield, Heeley) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to know why there was so much delay before I knew that my question 7 on defence was to be linked to question 1. Without a tip-off from some of my colleagues, I would not have come to the Chamber ; I would not have known and I could have lost the question. Secondly, how did the House decide on the linkage between my question 7 and question 1, which is a regional matter? Thirdly, what does it mean when the Minister says that "With permission", he will link questions? Whose permission is it--mine, yours, Mr. Speaker, or that of the House?
Mr. Speaker : This question is frequently raised with me. I regret to tell the hon. Member that "With permission" does not mean with my permission. It is merely a form of words ; it is a convention. However, it is the Minister's responsibility to let hon. Members whose questions are linked know about this. I am surprised that this was not done, and I think that the hon. Member should take it up with the Minister concerned.
Mr. Stuart Bell ( Middlesbrough) : Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to place on record that I advised my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) and the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) that I proposed to raise the matter. The ports concerned covered too wide an area for one specific question.
Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to draw attention to the fact that a number of questions that I put down yesterday about the Security Service were blocked, as is usual. In one of those questions I asked the Prime Minister to make a statement
Mr. Speaker : Order. That is a plain case of cheating. The hon. Member, whose question was not accepted, cannot read it out in the Chamber now.
Mr. Flynn : May I make the point to you, Mr. Speaker, that in this morning's papers this very matter was the
Column 151
subject of a press release. If there is a new period of glasnost with MI5 or MI6, can it be extended to hon. Members and not limited to the press?Mr. Speaker : That is not a matter for me.
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance? You will probably be aware that the new head of MI5 has for the first time been identified. Questions have previously been refused by the Table Office because of the blocking system regarding the Security Service. Would it be possible for that to be reviewed in the light of the fact that the head of MI5 has been named? There is a spirit of glasnost, but only a bit, and many of us believe that the Security Service should be accountable to Parliament. In the absence of that, would it be possible for the Table Office to accept questions such as those to which my hon. Friend has referred, which until today have been blocked? I hope that you, Mr. Speaker, will give this matter careful consideration.
Mr. Speaker : That has already been done. In the light of the new circumstances, the Table Office allows questions on certain matters.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Michie) about the linkage of his question with question 1. It used to be the practice that, if an hon. Member was not present when the question with which his has been linked was answered, his question would be answered separately by the Minister when it was reached. That practice should still apply.
Mr. Speaker : Those are all matters that the Procedure Committee could well consider. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. So-called reforms frequently lead to other problems.
Column 152
Armed Forces (Liability for Injury)
3.45 pm
Mr. John Browne (Winchester) : I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that, in an action for liability in tort in a case involving the armed forces, a plaintiff need not in all cases show negligence on the part of the Crown.
My Bill would reverse the onus of proof of negligence for compensation for those armed services personnel who have sustained severe injuries in the course of their duties. It would ensure that, where obvious and serious injury was sustained by members of the armed forces in the course of their duties, compensation which would equate to that in civilian life would be paid by the Ministry of Defence as a matter of course unless the MOD could prove negligence on the part of the service people involved. That reverses the present onus of proof whereby injured service personnel must prove negligence on behalf of the mighty MOD, a Ministry which can and all too easily and often does withhold on the grounds of secrecy documents that are vital to proving a case of negligence.
Ours is a warrior nation. Because of that the men and women of our armed forces hold a special place in our hearts, at least in times of war. Sadly, in times of peace we are sometimes apt, as in Kipling's famous poem "Tommy", to take them for granted.
Because we truly are a warrior nation, probably all British people, including all hon. Members, yearly, on the vigil of Remembrance Sunday, echo those time-honoured words, "We will remember them". It is true, Mr. Speaker, we will remember them. But what about those who are not killed, or at least not quite? I speak of those who suffer horrific wounds but are saved from death by the miracles of modern science, good luck and their own outstanding mental fortitude. Many of them live on but are severely disabled. Do we truly remember them? The honest answer is yes ; officially we do remember them, but not nearly well enough.
I believe that, regardless of political party, the British people feel that the Government should care more--much more--for our injured service men and, with regard to our armed forces, should be seen to be the very model of a good employer.
In 1987, my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) introduced the Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Bill. It was a most progressive and well-intentioned Bill, supported by the MOD. In Committee, the then Under- Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Freeman), for whom I have the highest personal regard, set out the Government's three principles for settling these cases. He said :
"we wish to settle out of court in the interests of the plaintiffs we are not seeking to set up legal barriers by employing a raft of lawyers to deter genuine plaintiffs we shall proceed diligently and quickly to reach settlements. We shall not seek to protract cases.--[ Official Report, Standing Committee C, 18 March 1987 ; c. 21-22.]
The Under-Secretary of State also mentioned another most interesting fact. He said that the civil service estimate of the financial cost of the Bill would be about £13 million per year after 10 years. Mr. Speaker, it is now some five years since that Act came into force and the total cost of claims is put at only £1 million a year. Yet the still-deformed bodies of some of our injured service men
Column 153
are living proof of the injustice of under- compensation. As to under-compensation, those figures speak for themselves and confirm that is so.I turn now to the case of the three injured Grenadier Guardsmen. I do so because theirs is a well known case, but sadly its settlement was a very rare exception.
In the summer of 1989, those Grenadiers were ordered to prepare a trench on the Batus live firing range in Canada. In digging, one of them struck a buried, unexploded anti-tank shell that had been fired some years before and lay concealed in the ground. The shell exploded, blowing the legs off all three Grenadiers. Their bodies were injured so badly that, despite prompt casevac, it took the best in medical science two years to nurse them back to sufficient health even to be invalided out of the armed forces.
A board of inquiry was convened, but while it concluded that none of the Grenadiers was to blame, the board was not even required to investigate why the blind shell was in the area used for trench digging, or whether or not all safety briefings had been effectively observed. Despite that, the House was told that no blame was attributable to anyone.
Eighteen months later, when the first Grenadier was invalided out of the Army, the Government appeared to dig in their heels at the very thought of paying compensation anywhere near that equating to the levels applicable in civilian life.
Those three men were cut down by devastating injuries in the prime of their youth. After their two-year ordeal, they were mentally drained, and were depressed by their immobility. Furthermore, they had no real personal wealth, yet the mighty Ministry of Defence challenged those mutilated Grenadiers to prove legal negligence. Worse still, the same Ministry withheld the the board of inquiry's full findings, which were vital to the guardsmen's case. The Ministry provided only an abridged version that left out the crucial damning details.
Where was the spirit of the Government's assurances to the Committee on 18 March 1987? They were ignored, and the Government fought those injured men to the last trench. We all know that pressure was brought in part by the House, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister personally intervened, and a just settlement was agreed. Those Grenadiers were lucky, but many, many more ex-service men in similar states of severe disablement have yet to receive anything like proper compensation. Something must be done fast to correct that great injustice.
Column 154
My Bill sets out to do something at least for those most badly injured, by reversing the present unjust burden of proof. It would not open the floodgates to minor injury claims, for it would extend only to the most severe and obvious injuries, such as loss of limbs. My Bill is modest, and would come well within the Government's present budget of £13 million a year in respect of the 1987 Act. I commend it to the House--and if right hon. and hon. Members accept my Bill today, I beg the Government not to kill it.Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Browne, Sir Bernard Braine, Mr. Jack Ashley, Sir Russell Johnston, Mr. John Hannam, Mr. Ray Powell, Mr. Ivan Lawrence, Mr. Merlyn Rees, Sir Marcus Fox, Sir Patrick Duffy, Mr. Michael Colvin and Mr. Churchill.
Armed Forces (liability for injury) Bill
Mr. John Brown accordingly presented a Bill to provide that, in an action for liability in tort in a case involving the armed forces, a plaintiff need not in all cases show negligence on the part of the Crown : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 17 January 1992, and to be printed. [Bill 45.]
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker : Is it about the Bill presented by the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) ?
Mr. Winnick : Yes, Mr. Speaker. I have raised this matter before on a number of occasions, as you may be aware--for instance, in Adjournment debates and during Question Time. One of the people mentioned by the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) is a constituent of mine.
I am very pleased that the Government finally relented and that an agreement was reached. There are no differences between Conservative and Opposition Back Benchers on this important issue. I note, however, that, although an Opposition spokesman on defence is present, no defence Ministers are. That is very unfortunate. Do not Ministers consider the issue to be important ?
Mr. Speaker : I am sure that what the hon. Gentleman has said will have been heard by the Ministers who are present.
Column 155
Orders of the Day
Local Government Finance Bill
[2 nd Allotted Day]
As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.
Clause 1
Council tax in respect of dwellings
3.55 pm
Mr. David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside) : I beg to move amendment No. 62, in page 1, line 10, after beginning', insert in 1992, the Secretary of State shall by order provide that 100 per cent. of liability for personal community charge shall be eligible for community charge benefit and in the year beginning in '.
If there is one single step that we could take to relieve the suffering and misery of millions and, at the same time, remove chaos and costs from the administration of the last year of the poll tax, it is surely the abolition of the 20 per cent. contribution. If we lived in a sensible world in which democracy worked effectively, that is what would happen, for hon. Members on both sides of the House have repeatedly pressed for the abolition of that contribution. Successive Conservative Members did so on 13 and 26 March. I welcome the fact that the principle that no one should make a 20 per cent. minimum contribution to the Government's alternative to the poll tax has already been conceded, as has the principle that there should be no clawback from the amount allegedly put into benefits to compensate for that contribution ; an announcement to that effect was made at a Government press conference.
Although we welcome those measures wholeheartedly, we wish to ask a simple question. The principle has been conceded ; no clawback will take place after April 1993. Why can that not happen immediately? In Committee, the Minister of State said that the new tax would be a different tax. The poll tax was a people tax, he said--a personal tax--and it was therefore impossible to abolish the minimum contribution before the introduction of a property tax.
That is a trifle strange, because the 20 per cent. contribution was introduced under the old rating system. The Government have conceded that they were meddling with the previous principle of allowing those on nil or very low incomes to pay nothing when they introduced a 20 per cent. property tax contribution. They seem to think, however, that the principle that the poll tax must engender a universal contribution of at least 20 per cent. cannot be removed between now and April 1993.
The truth is that a dispute is in progress within the Government, and even within the Department of the Environment. The Secretary of State believes, and has made it clear--
The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities (Mr. Michael Portillo) : Here we go
Mr. Blunkett : We do not have to go far : we always find disagreement in the Conservative ranks. The Secretary of State believes that the contribution should have been
Column 156
abolished months ago, and we are very pleased about that ; the Under-Secretary of State--who, bless his cotton socks, lives in a world of his own--cannot even understand why we want to abolish it. When, a few weeks ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) made a simple statement--that the 20 per cent. contribution should go now--the Minister said, "Why?" The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities does not believe in the abolition of the 20 per cent., so we do not even have to debate with him why ; he understands why he does not want it to be abolished. He thinks that every person, whatever their means- -even if they have no income to pay it, which applies to 3 million women who are subject, with their husbands, to joint and several liability-- should make a contribution, because he still believes in that charge. Everybody else, however, is left with the mess that has been created, not merely in terms of individual difficulty and suffering but in terms of the administrative and legal chaos engendered by the problems of collection. The cost of collection is something that even those who are willing to contemplate the misery of the poll tax are able to understand.In the first short debate yesterday, when my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) raised the 20 per cent. question and the difficulty that faces students who have never been compensated for the 20 per cent. contribution, the Minister of State suggested that the Audit Commission had not come down firmly in favour of the abolition of contribution and questioned my hon. Friend's figures. It may be instructive, therefore--in order to prevent the waters from being muddied--to put on record what the Audit Commission said. In response to the Government's original consultation paper on the council tax, "A New Tax for Local Government", in paragraph 15 the Audit Commission said :
"The administrative costs of the principle of universal payment of community charge are high. On average, after taking into account the uplift in income support which they have received, charge payers, who receive 80 per cent. relief, contributed about £6 a year net to the public purse in 1990-91."
In paragraph 16 the Audit Commission said :
"Pursuing these defaulters for such small amounts is not a good use of scarce recovery resources when there are much larger debts outstanding."
In the document entitled "Administration of the Community Charge : Some Longer Term Considerations" the Audit Commission said : "Exempting 20 per cent. of payers would more than pay for itself and would ease the pressure on the system, particularly in areas where collection is very difficult, anyway."
Those clear quotations from what the Audit Commission said vindicate my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and suggest clearly that there is widespread support for abolishing the 20 per cent. contribution now in order to prevent the chaos that already exists over collecting the poll tax now.
I should have thought that the problems of collection would have been a matter of concern for anyone who claimed that he or she was in favour of probity and prudence in respect of public finance. The problems of collection are mirrored nationally in other forms of taxation, with £4 billion of tax outstanding from the last financial year in income tax, value-added tax, corporation tax and duties. Over £1 billion is outstanding on VAT. As much as £364 million of income tax was written off last
Column 157
year, never mind awaiting collection. I must be compensating for some of that lost revenue because I am still trying to get the Inland Revenue to pay back some of the money that it owes me.The problems of non-collection of the poll tax are exacerbated at local level in a way that none of us could have foreseen. We made strong predictions about the problems which would occur. That is why we believe that it is crucial to tackle them head on, not in the daft ways about which we heard in Committee. We were told that local authorities that were struggling to collect the tax should be penalised by ensuring that their services had to be cut still further--a more insensitive suggestion is unimaginable. Lord Boyd-Carpenter repeated that suggestion from somewhere in the depths of the countryside.
Inner-city local authorities have had to face the problems of deprivation, education, housing, transport, the environment, leisure and public health while struggling through the courts with the 7.5 million summonses which had to be taken out this year to enforce collection of the poll tax.
Conservatives in this House and in the other place have made stupid suggestions about how to deal with this genuine problem. Some people ask, "Could not the tax be collected through deductions in benefits?" The need to go through the courts and obtain deduction orders contributes to the administrative and legal difficulties. Even if deductions from benefits could be managed--suddenly, that has become a favoured solution to the problems engendered by inadequate incomes and by increased interest rates and mortgage charges--we cannot continue to pile deduction on deduction. There are deductions for mortgage interest payments, deductions for the direct fuel costs of people with small children or elderly relatives who would otherwise be threatened with having their service cut off, deductions for outstanding community care loans--another Government invention--and deductions for water charges.
One cannot have all those deductions and expect people to have their poll tax contributions deducted as well. They would be left with virtually no money with which to buy their food and clothes. Presumably, their only recourse would be to EEC handouts and the Salvation Army. If one took that into account--and presumably a gift at Christmas to salve someone else's conscience--they would still be left in the new year with the impossibility of making ends meet. That is the reality of the struggle that people face in paying the poll tax.
What are we to do ? How do we persuade the Government about the reality ? Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) pointed out the struggle that occurs in Strathclyde, which has faced an additional year of the poll tax, and the £34 million of cuts which had to be made to cope with last year's problems of non-collection. Those are real cuts and difficulties, not imagined ones.
Conservative Members would dismiss that point on the ground that a Labour authority cannot manage its affairs, but it would be difficult to pursue that case. Strathclyde council has never been pilloried as a loony-left council. It struggles with the problems that occur in major inner-city areas of Glasgow and a major rural hinterland.
| Next Section
| Home Page |