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of the House is a man of integrity, so I should like him to tell me, and my constituents who will be in that position next year or the year after, what decision they should take.My second specific constituency point concerns the Sikh community, and I have raised it with the Leader of the House before. The right hon. Gentleman will know that a European directive will compel everyone, including Sikhs, to wear protective helmets in all industrial situations. He will also know that Sikhs are now exempted from the requirement to wear crash helmets on motor bikes and hard-top safety helmets on construction sites, because successive Governments, Labour as well as Conservative, have agreed that they should be exempted for religious reasons. The European directive, although it will not reverse those two exemptions, will compel Sikhs to wear protective helmets on all industrial premises.
The Secretary of State for Employment has refused to take the matter seriously or to go back to Brussels and seek to renegotiate the directive. She fails to understand the anger and outrage in the Sikh community caused by the new directive. Sikhs are firmly convinced that, once the directive is fully implemented, either they will have to disregard their religion and wear the safety helmets, or, if they refuse to wear them, they will lose their jobs.
Increasingly, the Sikh community feels that one consequence of the European directive will be increased unemployment among male Sikhs. I ask the Leader of the House again, even at this late stage, to seek to convince his fellow Cabinet Minister of the urgency of the matter, of the outrage among the Sikh community, and of the need, if it is not too late, to renegotiate with our Community colleagues to try to widen the exemptions for the Sikh community.
My final point concerns section 11 expenditure ; I have raised it before with the Leader of the House. Hon. Members will be aware that that expenditure, which has existed for many years, is directed towards local authorities which have responsibility for substantial numbers of children from ethnic minorities, specifically from Commonwealth countries. It has assisted in ensuring that children who are taught English as a second language can compete on a more even footing with other children.
There is a widespread fear that the reduction in section 11 expenditure next year will mean that many teachers will lose their jobs, but, more importantly, that many children will suffer adversely because they will no longer receive the extra teaching they need to be able to compete on an equal footing with other children. I plead with the Leader of the House to talk to his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and emphasise to him the need to get the Home Office to see sense and reverse the decision.
7.11 pm
Mr. David Porter (Waveney) : In the debate on the summer Adjournment last year, I was fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to raise some issues about the quality of life in rural areas. I did so bearing in mind the approaching tourist season, the ageing profile and shortage of youngsters, the changing agricultural base, the fact that one in five people in England lives in a rural area, and the background of a real urban/rural divide. I said that any aspect of life today has a rural angle and that if we accept cost-benefit audits, citizens' audits, environmental audits, family audits and audits of audits,
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we should consider the idea of rural audits for all departments of government, local and national. Unfortunately, my time ran out in that debate and I was unable to raise various issues which I hope to deal with now because a focus on rural England is urgent at this point in the economic cycle.Small village schools have often been called the cement of society. Few who have seen what can be achieved in village schools would disagree. Obviously, a school for every village is not on, and village schools do not have to be small, but where bussing has to take place, it would sometimes make as much sense to bus town children into the country as the reverse. It must be recognised that it costs a local authority more to deliver the same standard of service to a rural area than to a built-up area. That is nobody's fault but a basic fact of life.
Equally with social services, emergency services, community care, health care, or indeed any service, the distances involved add on costs that towns do not have. No doubt we have all mouthed the well-worn mantra that rural shops, post offices, garages, pubs and even the telephone kiosks are the cornerstones of rural life and must be safeguarded. We often say that as yet another closes. Of course, it is true, but if the Department of Social Security experiment to encourage pensioners to accept automatic credit transfer of their pensions is made permanent, it will hit all small post office businesses hard, particularly in rural areas.
The uniform business rate has not been a full-blown salvation for some rural businesses, and often rural sub-post offices are in shared premises with general stores and other private retail businesses. More local authorities have hardship relief schemes, which I welcome, because they allow local authorities to decide their own priorities. The Post Office is asking the Department of the Environment to consider exempting from the uniform business rate the mixed business rural shops which are in post office use. That is a simple device which could be effective in money value terms.
SAVES, the Shopkeepers Association for Villages in East Suffolk, is keen to point out, rightly, that uniform business rate valuations on village shops are too high and that the criteria should perhaps be reconsidered. The Church of England's Commission on Rural Areas has recommended that help be given to village shops and post offices which are clearly community facilities. By the way, my attention has been drawn to an exercise in which £10 worth of groceries priced at an urban Sainsbury's were priced at £9.40 in a village Mace shop. On that basis, adding travel costs, it may be more expensive to shop in an urban supermarket, though choice may be greater there. It is all about affordable shopping.
"Affordable" is a word which is often applied to housing. We can all argue the need for socially affordable housing in rural areas. We can back schemes to bring it about and understand that it is part and parcel of planning. The Housing Corporation recognises a specific need for rural development schemes to provide affordable social housing in rural areas. It dispels the myth that countryside life is always idyllic because successive surveys show that the condition of housing stock is often worse in rural areas. The DOE should be congratulated on a notable shift in policy in that regard. Until recently, local authority attitudes varied. Now no local authority can duck out of its responsibility and we have the basis for a uniform national policy, subject to local conditions.
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A good deal of public money has been invested in recent years, for example, in the Rural Development Commission with its rural development areas, into one of which a large part of my constituency falls. It has worked hard at encouraging community projects to diversify the rural economy, stimulating job growth. The RDC has argued for a completely new rural development initiative, forecasting that in 10 years there will be 100,000 fewer full-time employees on the land and 50,000 fewer related jobs. Even if the reduction is not as severe, the structure and operation of agriculture will change in a way without parallel in two centuries. There will be fewer land workers, but more people living in the countryside and more visiting it for leisure. Traditional agriculture will increasingly see itself as a countryside resource manager.A recognition from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the DOE that land owners and land cultivators are countryside guardians and that their work is the best hope for our natural environment is a beginning. That phrase will be more acceptable to the tax-paying public than the misleading phrase, "paying farmers to do nothing".
One fresh idea is helping to regenerate rural enterprise. In my area, the Norfolk and Waveney training and enterprise council has a mobile tele- cottage, a bus which gathers people into one well-equipped place for work and training. Soon the idea will be expanded into redundant buildings. There is no reason why the rural village should be excluded from the global village.
National initiatives developed locally are successful too and should be recognised. A range of schemes, such as areas of outstanding natural beauty, the heritage coast, environmentally sensitive areas, and the work in my area of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, all contribute much to saving, restoring and developing natural habitats andrea. That adds to the pressure on social services, the health service and all the other services, and in some cases local people cannot acquire houses locally.
Bus deregulation, like lager, has reached many previously unreached parts and there are more bus miles, but isolation still exists in many areas. The people become the victims of a vicious circle. Isolation leads to a reduction in services and to a holiday home disease, with services for locals being further cut, leading to yet more isolation. So it goes on.
As seasons roll one into the next, there is realistic optimism. Falling interest rates help rural businesses, home buyers and builders. It must not get out of balance again. The balance of rural tourism, as the English tourist board has stressed, must be on a scale compatible with rural locations. In the future, we may not be growing too much food--we may be nearer that than we think--so not all our farmland should become adventure and theme parks. We need a balance in farmland capacity.
Equally, in the local government review, we are promised an enhanced role for parish and town councils. Let us get the balance right and give local services for local people, provided by local people, real weight in the English countryside.
In conclusion, my three arguments are, first, we need a rural audit of Government policy ; secondly, we must recognise that farmers are, essentially, countryside guardians ; and, thirdly, a balance must be achieved and a
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balance against rurality must be redressed and then maintained properly. Being aware of the urban-rural divide means that half the battle against rural Britain becoming another country is won. The hard part is winning the other half, but we must try, because not only the quality of life for those one in five citizens who live in the rural areas but the health and well-being of our whole nation are at stake.7.19 pm
Mr. David Amess (Basildon) : Before the House adjourns for the Easter recess, I should like to draw attention to matters involving Hoover, Raoul Wallenberg, national hospital radio broadcasting and employment in my constituency. The British like a bargain. We all know that that is why they tend to vote Conservative rather than socialist. On Monday this week, I had the privilege of being the first British politician on French soil to welcome the new Conservative Government in France. O that I had the same privilege of welcoming a similar Government in Australia, but it was not to be. As far as Hoover is concerned, I thought that it was a startling marketing exercise to offer free flights when people spent more than £100 on one of their products. Accordingly, I, my wife and my wife's parents bought Hoover products. We filled in our forms and waited for the letter to be returned when we had made the choice about the specific resort to which we wished to go.
We were absolutely astonished when the fiasco developed. I can describe it only as a fiasco. It is a fiasco, and it has been a grave deception of the British public. The free flights to the United States campaign has boomeranged with ferocity against what I had always thought was a highly reputable organisation. It has debased the good marketing techniques which have been practised with success by other large companies. This appalling episode has brought disgrace to a truly respected household name with excellent products ; it has been sabotaged by sub-standard executives, who have rightly been dismissed.
Why were the many conditions all in small print? Why did the Hoover marketing company rely on the fact that it thought that most purchasers would not understand the small print or would be satisfied to be fobbed off by excuses? Many of my constituents have written to me about the offer. As far as they are concerned, the Office of Fair Trading did not react quickly or, indeed, the matter seems to have been--dare I say it--hoovered under the carpet, hoping that it would eventually go away. I hope that this most unfortunate marketing exercise will be put right quickly so that I, my wife, my wife's parents and all the other people who purchased tickets will get that to which they believe they are entitled--their free flights. My second subject is Raoul Wallenberg. About five years ago, I introduced a 10 -minute Bill which was supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House. We obtained an unopposed Committee on the Bill, which sought to get honorary British citizenship for Raoul Wallenberg--so many other countries have given their citizenship to this Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of more than 100,000 children, women and men in the second world war, and who suddenly disappeared in 1945.
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I was unsuccessful in that aim, so I decided that the next best thing would be to obtain a memorial in the centre of London so that we could all remember the achievements of Raoul Wallenberg. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have asked me what progress I have made. For about four years, we have been continually frustrated. Only recently, discussions took place with the local authority, because we wanted a statue to be located somewhere near the Swedish embassy. Rather than the local authority approving a statue, the discussions have resulted in the offer of a park bench. That is a disgrace and an insult.The first site to be considered was in Bryanston square, which was owned by Bryanston square trustees. The chairman approved the idea and was only too happy to put it to the rest of the trustees. The Rev. David Evans, who is in charge of St. Mary's parish church in Bryanston square--the pedestrian walkway would be affected--welcomed the idea.
A park bench is simply not good enough a memorial to such a magnificent person. Frankly, if it is a park bench or nothing at all, we will give the money to dedicating a wing in a hospital in the centre of London. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will pass on my concerns to the affected parties.
My third subject is national hospital broadcasting.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Amess : No, I must press on. The hon. Gentleman has just walked into the Chamber, and it would not be fair to others.
I am the unpaid parliamentary spokesman for national hospital radio broadcasting. Most hon. Members have hospitals in their constituencies with radio broadcasting organisations. We have been trying to get a frequency for hospital radio.
I am delighted to tell the House that, through the good efforts of Councillor Alf Partridge, we secured meetings with my hon. Friends the Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage and the Under-Secretary of State for Technology at the Department of Trade and Industry. As a result of those meetings and a subsequent meeting with Mr. Peter Baldwin, who is the chairman of the Broadcasting Authority, we have made considerable progress. It appears that, at long last, there are to be pilot schemes. I hope that hon. Members who have been involved in the campaign will judge that it has been a success.
My final matter relates to employment. In the past year, my constituency of Basildon has attracted some attention, none of which has been of my making. Basildon has attracted attention for all sort of reasons. I have noticed that Labour Members seem continually to visit my constituency. I find it somewhat extraordinary that they come to the constituency which re-elected a Conservative Member of Parliament and which was responsible for having the socialist council thrown out of office last year. Labour Members seem to be making jobs an issue in my constituency.
The level of unemployment in my constituency is the same as it was when I became a Member of Parliament 10 years ago. I regret that, and I intend to continue to work towards changing it. It is extraordinary that Labour Members come to Basildon, especially when one considers
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that the socialist council was thrown out of office because of all it did to destroy jobs in my constituency. Such were the disgraceful antics of the socialists in Basildon that they have left my excellent Conservative council with enormous debt. It has been left with debt on the Towngate theatre and other capital projects. The interest charges on the debt for the theatre alone are £1.5 million a year. The council has debts of £126 million, which have destroyed jobs in my constituency.The week before the Budget, the hon. Members for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), for Peckham (Ms Harman), for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) and for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) came to Basildon town hall to launch an alternative Budget for jobs. So successful was that visit that I am delighted to tell the House that, in the unemployment figures which were announced two weeks ago, Basildon showed the largest fall in unemployment in the south-east. I hope that my hon. Friends will send out similar invitations to those four hon. Members in the light of their considerable achievements in reducing unemployment in my constituency.
Mr. Mackinlay : Will the hon. Gentleman give way ?
I hope that those same Opposition Members will support my plea to locate the headquarters of National Lotteries in Basildon. We heard a great deal about it being located in Liverpool and other parts of the country, but we in the south-east have lost many jobs in the construction industry and the service industry. I should have thought that Basildon was the ideal site for the headquarters of National Lotteries. I look forward to receiving the support of Opposition Members.
Socialists talk about unemployment. They put up boards when unemployment is rising. They keep going on about it, because the message is, "If you don't have a job, vote Labour." As soon as unemployment goes down, as happened two weeks ago, socialists on the Opposition Benches say nothing. I am delighted to tell the House that, on 14 April in the House of Commons, my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade will launch the "Buy British Goods from Basildon" campaign. We shall hold a half-day seminar, in which experts will meet all my local businesses to assist them in exploring the opportunities to sell, not only in Europe but throughout the world, the excellent goods and services we produce in Basildon. I hope that the scheme, which will undoubtedly be a success, will be copied throughout the rest of Britain.
7.32 pm
Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton) : I am grateful to have five or six minutes to speak in the debate. The House should not adjourn until we have discussed family planning services, which is what I wish to do in the time available to me.
Ironically, I wish to express support for a Minister. That may be strange for an Opposition Member, but the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), recently stated that contraceptives should be supplied to teenagers in our schools. I support that statement, although it came in for a great deal of criticism from several of his Back Benchers. It is important that we get to grips with the serious crisis of teenage pregnancies, which has come about because sex education and family planning services are simply not
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good enough. They are nowhere near as good as those provided by our neighbours. The result is severe problems for the teenagers affected.I remember raising family planning services when I was first elected as a councillor many years ago in the London borough of Waltham Forest. For doing that, I was accused of being a foolish virgin--I sent in a disclaimer especially on the foolish part. I remember the debate well. One councillor gave a long list of the different types of contraceptives, in which one wit interjected, "Withdraw!"
My resolution was that contraceptives should be supplied free. I was told that, if my resolution was passed, condoms would litter the streets. Of course, shortly afterwards, contraceptive services were taken over by the health authority, and family planning clinics started to supply contraceptives free. Condoms did not litter the streets.
We need to return to a proper family planning service. It has been seriously eroded and whittled away. It has been an expendable service for health authorities, as they have faced cash crises within the NHS. I refer the House to an excellent article by Nicki Pope in the Today newspaper of 26 March 1993. She gave some of the statistics. Some 8,000 under-16s become pregnant every year in Britain. That is two for every secondary school. The rate is 69 in every 1,000. That is double the rate for France and six times higher than the rate for the Netherlands. In Germany only 14, and in Spain only 15, in every 1,000 under-16s become pregnant, as compared to 69 per thousand in Britain. That is the extent of the crisis. The problem is serious. Various surveys have shown that there is considerable ignorance among teenagers. Only 30 per cent. of teenage boys and 40 per cent. of teenage girls use contraception.
The article also quotes Ms Grigg of the Family Planning Association as saying :
"We are doing our teenagers a grave disservice. We teach children to cross the road and stay safe, but we actively deny them access to safe sexuality."
We have the worst teenage pregnancy record in Europe. The Government must do something about it and take steps to reduce it. A much easier and cheaper supply of contraceptives needs to be available. The Government have moved in the wrong direction by putting some contraceptives on the limited list and making it harder for people to get them.
General practitioners and family planning clinics have a vital role to play in providing a cheap and easy supply of contraceptives. The service should be guaranteed confidential. I do not see why teenagers have to see their GP. They should be given contraception if they ask for it. It should be free to all teenagers, but certainly to school pupils under the age of 16.
Sex education needs to be dramatically improved. We need to get away from the priggishness with which the matter has been treated. Of course it is necessary to teach restraint and responsibility, but young people must be given knowledge. As Nicki Pope said in the article in Today, we need a comprehensive family planning service open in out-of-school hours. That should be in addition to improved GP and family planning services.
I am grateful to the House for the opportunity to say those few words.
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7.38 pmMr. Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne, East) : I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) on managing to get in towards the end of the debate to make his excellent speech. When the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) rose to make his contribution to what has been a wide-ranging debate, I slightly misheard him. When he referred to his right hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler), I thought that he was talking about graves. I thought that he was about to make a speech about the three 15p cemeteries. That would have been an unusual topic for the hon. Gentleman, but he went on to talk about not graves but raves. He has picked the right debate and the right member of the Government to address his remarks to, because if anyone can organise all-night raves, it is the Leader of the House. Since Christmas we have been treated to all-night raves on Maastricht and when we return after Easter we shall be able to have all-night raves on the Finance Bill as well. That is something that we are all looking forward to after the short break that Easter affords us.
One of the common themes in the debate has been a matter raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox). Indeed, the hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) also referred to it. It is the difficulty of getting replies to correspondence from the Prime Minister.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall), who followed the hon. Member for Corby, said that now that the matter has been raised in the debate the hon. Member can be sure of getting a reply from the Prime Minister. I am not certain that that is so. My own experience has been as disappointing as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton and my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting.
I remember writing on two occasions to the previous leader of the Conservative party, the last Prime Minister, about shipbuilding issues in east Newcastle and procurement issues on Tyneside. I received a very full reply from her on both occasions. Indeed, she did me and my then hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend, Mr. Ted Garrett, the courtesy of seeing us at one of the crucial moments in a procurement campaign after Prime Minister's questions. I appreciated that very much, particularly in view of the enormous calls on the Prime Minister's time.
However, since the change in the leadership of the Conservative party, my right hon. and hon. Friends--and I suspect that the experience of Conservative Members is the same--have been getting a letter from the Prime Minister's office thanking us for our letters and promising to reply shortly. But we never get the reply. I have written to the Prime Minister on two occasions, again about industrial matters in the constituency, and I have had the acknowledgement but not the follow up. I am saddened to hear that my experience has been echoed by a substantial number of hon. Members who have taken part in this debate. I hope that by mentioning it from the Opposition Dispatch Box I contribute to the hon. Member for Corby's getting a reply to his letter.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton raised a specific list of constituency cases and correspondence to which he was not getting replies from agencies that come
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under the general tutelage, or are the responsibility of, the Department of Social Security and the Department of Health. What has been said about the difficulty of getting replies from some of the agencies under the Department of Social Security has been echoed throughout the House. It is now a common complaint that we cannot get our constituency cases dealt with. I hope that the Leader of the House will take note of what has been said and will encourage his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, whether in France or in this country, to address the matters that have been raised. The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Sir F. Montgomery) referred to the way that Trafford is being poorly treated under the health authority's capital programme. I certainly hope that his remarks are listened to with sympathy by those on his own Front Bench, not least because, as he candidly pointed out to the House, he is my pair and obviously I wish his representations well.The hon. Gentleman also referred to persistent juvenile offenders and cited a case from Tyneside. The issue is now probably the largest single cause of surgery work for me on Tyneside, and I suspect that that is true for other hon. Members with Tyneside constituencies. When I was elected to this place in 1983, it was very unusual for a constituent to come to the surgery and raise a question relating to crime or the justice system. Now things are quite different. It is either the largest or, given social security issues, the second largest cause of concern.
The issue is always the same : it is repeat offending by juveniles that cannot be contained by the system. It is dispiriting for the judiciary, especially magistrates, but also for the police officers, who are arresting and rearresting the same people and then seeing them go back into the community and reoffend. The position clearly requires review and I cannot stress too strongly the strength of feeling on Tyneside--I have no doubt in other inner-city areas as well--about this matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) raised the question of access to the legal profession, meaning entry into the profession, and made the case for mandatory grants for the final part of the professional exams. It is demonstrably the case that ethnic minorities, people from working- class backgrounds and, indeed, women are under-represented in the profession, and that the mandatory awarding of grants, particularly if they could be awarded in such a way as to redress that balance, would go some way towards solving the problem. My hon. Friend spoke knowledgeably about the subject, and I think that his remarks found an echo on both sides of the House. The hon. Member for Corby returned to a theme that I remember him raising before Christmas--atrocities in Yugoslavia. My hon. Friend the Member for Tooting spoke again, as he did before the Christmas recess, about the situation in Kashmir. I thought that his contribution to that debate was most moving, and he is doing the whole House a service by returning to the topic now, in particular in referring to the human rights violations in Kashmir. Perhaps that issue is not raised as often as it should be in the House, and my hon. Friend is right to remind us again just how serious the situation is and how many people are affected by it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South followed the hon. Member for Corby in talking about the situation in Yugoslavia, and then went on to say how deeply offended his constituents were by the pretty wide-ranging breach of election promises by the
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Conservative party. He listed a large number of them, but it was not a comprehensive list by any means. The party which was committed to membership of the exchange rate mechanism, which gave a clear pledge that value added tax would not be increased and that the base would not be extended and which said it was committed to reducing direct taxation has now managed to put an extra penny on national insurance. The penny on national insurance is more regressive in its effects than a penny on income tax. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Luton, North is heckling me to say 1 per cent., which is a penny in the pound.The 1 per cent. on national insurance is more of an advantage to the 20 per cent. of top earners than a similar increase in income tax would have been, whereas for the next 50 per cent. the position is relatively worse. And, of course, the eventual imposition of value added tax on fuel is undoubtedly the most regressive route that the Government could have taken to deal with the problem that they themselves created of the budget deficit.
I remember that before the general election--as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South remembers--the Conservative party leaders, those running their election campaign, added all our election pledges together, put them all into the first year, rounded up the potential cost, and told the electorate that Labour would cost them £20 per week. It was not true then, and they knew that it was not true, but they alleged it. They never said anything about their costing the average family £8.50 per week.
What is perhaps most galling is that, although it was said before the election that the Labour party was the party of increased taxation, after the election the Financial Secretary, who seems to be showing increasing signs of strain, says that the Labour party has no policies for dealing with the budget deficit. It is not possible for the Conservative party to have it both ways. It is possible to allege either that we would cost everybody £20 a week, or that we would have no way of raising money to reduce the deficit, but it does not seem fair to make both points.
The hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) spoke about the red terror that had pertained there and the debt that the local authority had inherited from what he described as an eastern bloc type regime. He made it absolutely clear that massive debt was a bad thing. Of course, his remarks were addressed to the Opposition, but they should have been addressed to the Conservative party, and particularly to the Government.
The position in Basildon was obviously so bad that the hon. Gentleman decided to purchase a Hoover in the hope of getting airline tickets to flee to the United States of America, and no doubt freedom in the west. To make certain of getting his tickets, he appears to have encouraged all his relatives to purchase Hoovers so that he could be absolutely sure of being able to flee the country. I can understand his disappointment at having a collection of instruments for cleaning carpets, but no airline tickets.
However, it is a serious point and there has been widespread outrage at the way in which the offer has gone sour. It is the duty of the company that made the original promotion, although I always thought it implausible, to provide the airline tickets it had promised. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that narrow point, though he is about to be the beneficiary of a permanent criss-crossing of the Atlantic. I suppose that that is better than his coming here and telling us about Basildon, but that depends on one's point of view.
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It has been a wide-ranging debate ; serious and lighter matters have been raised and there is much for the Leader of the House to respond to. When he responded to the debate before Christmas, the Leader of the House, who needs no lessons in guile, concentrated on one or two key points at considerable length and then ran out of time. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give us a more wide-ranging and positive response to the points that my hon. Friends have raised. If he can do nothing else, perhaps I can ask him on behalf of all hon. Members to find some way of persuading the Prime Minister to answer his correspondence.7.52 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton) : Perhaps resent is rather a strong word for the relatively relaxed occasion such as this evening's debate when we discuss at some length whether we should have a holiday, with large numbers of hon. Members declaring their undying devotion to not having holidays and praying that the Leader of the House will not accept their representations and will withdraw the motion. Do you want a holiday, Mr. Deputy Speaker? If I may say so, you probably deserve one more than the rest of us and certainly more than some hon. Members here today, not all of whom were here all night on the various occasions recently. May I ask whether the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) was here all night?
Mr. Mackinlay : I am lost for words.
Mr. Newton : He is one Essex man who went back to Essex. I am not sure whether to say we are pleased to see him here, but at one stage I feared that there was about to be a House of Commons punch-up between Thurrock and Basildon. Perhaps the greatest compliment to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) was that as soon as he got to his feet, his neighbour, the hon. Member for Thurrock, came scurrying into the Chamber--no doubt to find out what stir he had been creating.
What I resented slightly was being accused of filibuster or guile to avoid answering questions. I can see what is coming down the path now, but if there is any sense of that, one of the reasons for it--I am sure that it is subconscious--is that there is no debate more calculated to produce in the person who is supposed to be answering it some sense of his own inadequacy in that he is expected to be an expert in the course of a few minutes on legal education, contraception for the young, Kashmir, raves, gipsies, international criminal courts, rural affairs, the hospitals at Altrincham and Sale, not to mention the affairs of Basildon in their various guises. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell), I would miss these debates. That is not to be taken as an instant reaction to his suggestions about a particular recommendation of the Jopling report, but undoubtedly they provide an opportunity for a wide range of subjects to be raised and it is a matter of interest both to the Leader of the House and to those who have the good fortune to attend the debates.
I shall say a word about the speeches in the order in which they were made. First, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who courteously told the House that he would not be able to be here at the
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end of the debate, made a fairly general attack on the way in which agencies and Ministers had been dealing with some of the constituency cases that he had put to them.As I said to him then and repeat now, given that he did not identify the particular cases that he raised, the only sensible course is for me to undertake to look into them or to ask my right hon. Friends to look into them and I shall do that.
I resist the right hon. Gentleman's general proposition that there is any suggestion of the introduction of agencies or that people should deal with the chief executives of agencies on matters on which they have day-to-day responsibility. There is no question of altering the fact that Ministers remain accountable to the House to deliver the services under the aegis of their Departments. Those chief executives are accountable to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State is accountable to the House and that should be absolutely clear.
We all accept that there have been particular difficulties arising from the disability living allowance, which was the focus of many of the right hon. Gentleman's cases. That was because it was a new benefit giving hundreds of millions of pounds of additional help to hundreds of thousands of people and it proved to be a very large task to get the new system into operation in the way that people would like. Against that background, my own experience in dealing with local benefit agency people is that they give very prompt, courteous and helpful replies and that should be firmly placed on record.
Mr. Nicholas Brown : That is because the Leader of the House is a former Secretary of State.
Mr. Newton : I was the Secretary of State when the Benefits Agency was created, as I recall. Nevertheless, I am recording my experience in recent times as a Member of Parliament dealing with the benefits agencies on my own constituency cases. I gather from the reaction of my hon. Friends that they share my experience.
We heard a substantial speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Sir F. Montgomery) about the saga of his hopes, first, for a district hospital and then for a community hospital in his constituency, during which I over which his story extended. I do not remember specific issues coming to me at that time, but I well understand the anxieties that my hon. Friend expressed and I was glad to be told in the excellent briefing that I received during the debate that my hon. Friend is due to have a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health towards the end of April. Meanwhile, I will draw the points that he raised tonight to her attention so that she will have a good idea of the agenda for the meeting when it takes place.
My hon. Friend also made a number of points about juvenile offenders, which were echoed by a number of hon. Members. I read the story in the Daily Mail about the 14-year-old boy and I accept that considerable public concern has been expressed about some recent cases. I am sure that my hon. Friend would readily accept, however, that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary
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has already acknowledged and sought to respond to that concern with the proposals that he announced in the House recently.My hon. Friend, in common with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle), also adverted to more recent proposals from the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for the Environment about illegal raves and illegal camping. I appreciate the concern that those activities cause and the understandable pressure for us to proceed as fast as possible to translate those proposals into legislation. I know that a number of hon. Members who are not present share that concern. I thank my hon. Friends for recognising what has been done to bring forward the proposals. In common with many others, I have had the constituency experience of illegal encampments and the upset that they can cause. I, too, am concerned that we should legislate as quickly as we reasonably can.
The hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) referred again, as he did in our debate at Christmas, to Kashmir. In a debate in which there has been endless reference to undelivered or unsent letters, the hon. Gentleman was kind enough to say that, in the wake of his speech at Christmas, he had received an extensive letter from one of the Ministers at the Foreign and Comonwealth Office. I shall do my best to ensure that his references today to Kashmir are similarly followed by some missive.
My hon. Friend the Member for Corby also made an extremely impressive speech during that Christmas debate when he expressed his concern about international war crimes. Unfortunately, he did not hear anything following that debate. I shall ensure that my hon. Friends and I do rather better for him this time and that he receives some comments on his significant request for acknowledging the importance of making progress in this respect. I noted his commendation of the Canadian Administration, who have made resources available to pave the way for the action that my hon. Friend desires.
I have passed by the remarks of the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser)-- by accident, I assure him--about legal education and discretionary and mandatory grants. I should declare an interest because I have a daughter who recently graduated who is currently undertaking a course of precisely, I suspect, the kind that the hon. Gentleman described. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Law Society finals courses are postgraduate and, as the law stands, they cannot attract a mandatory award. Although the trend of local authority expenditure on discretionary awards rose up to 1991--the latest year for which returns are available--there have been suggestions, including those contained in a survey by the College of Law to which the hon. Gentleman referred, that the number of such awards has declined. That survey, however, also revealed that almost half the students who applied for an LEA discretionary award have received some assistance. We would be wrong to exaggerate the problem and the difficulties to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Variation in provision between LEAs is bound to arise in a discretionary system that was designed to provide a degree of flexibility. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Department for Education is monitoring the situation carefully. I shall ensure, however, that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has his attention drawn to the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
The hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) set out to raise the political temperature, as did his hon.
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Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown), rather higher than I think is appropriate in a debate of this kind. The hon. Member for Leicester, South tempted me--the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East even more so--to provide a full list of all the excellent things that have happened on this very day, 1 April 1993. Today is the day on which our community care reforms come into effect, aided by £565 million of ring-fenced money ; 139 new NHS trusts become operational ; the number of doctors in fund-holding practices has doubled to 6,000 ; the council tax has come into effect to provide a much fairer basis either than the rates or the community charge for raising local revenue ; 155 more schools have become grant maintained ; and all 480 further education and sixth-form colleges, including some very good institutions in my constituency, have become independent of local authority control.Without attempting to mix it with those hon. Gentlemen , I am not prepared to listen to their suggestions that this has been other than a period in which much fruitful activity has been undertaken which will benefit people.
Mr. Nicholas Brown rose --
Mr. Newton : If the hon. Gentleman intervenes he will prevent me from saying anything else.
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