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Action to diversify the London economy, so that the necessary investment is created to revitalise our manufacturing and industrial base, has always been missing from Government policy. The Government do not place much priority on that revitalisation, but that is required to achieve long-term improvement in the economy. Investment is also needed in infrastructure. Public transport is an obvious example. Why is investment in London Underground being cut? If one looks at the autumn statements for 1991 and 1992, the difference in the expenditure of the Department of Transport was virtually zero--about £7,000 out of nearly £6 million. However, that Department has now decided--it is not a Treasury decision--to shift expenditure from public transport to roads. Spending on the roads has gone up while investment in the underground has gone down. London Underground has made it clear that the reduced level of investment means that it will never reach the targets it set to deliver a proper public transport system in London, because it will not receive the necessary returns on investment to make the necessary improvements. Once bus deregulation is introduced, perhaps within a couple of years, further cuts will be made to public transport in London. I sympathise with the action that the bus workers have decided to take tomorrow because they are being offered less pay for working more hours. It is not surprising that people who have been pushed around year after year have now reached the point where they believe that they have no option but to strike. That action may cause inconvenience to people, but it will be nothing to the inconvenience that they will experience once the bus service has been deregulated.Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : My hon. Friend may like to know that what he is saying is being confirmed by the various interviews being conducted by the media among the travelling public in London. The public are saying that it will be inconvenient, that it is a pity that there is to be strike action on the London transport system on Friday, but that they fully understand what the workers in London have had to put up with. There is much sympathy for the action, even though everyone understands how much inconvenience it will mean.
Mr. Gerrard : I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution, and I agree with him. We have experienced such reactions when previous action has been taken. In my constituency, Walthamstow bus garage shut down 18 months ago as a result of routes going out to tender. There was no doubt that when bus drivers in that garage took strike action to try to prevent what was happening they received a great deal of public sympathy and support.
A great many socially useful jobs will disappear in public transport. Why cannot we have station staff? Why are ticket collectors being removed from stations? Why are there no staff at night? I suspect that it costs at least as much in lost fares and the fact that people are scared to travel as is saved by getting rid of staff. Walthamstow Central station in my constituency is a joint underground and British Rail station, controlled by British Rail, which unilaterally decided to take away the ticket collectors. London Underground can do nothing about that as it does
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not control the booking halls and such areas. People know that they can ride on the underground free, walk out and their tickets will not be checked.Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) : Has my hon. Friend received the kind of complaints that I have from constituents who discover that ticket machines are not working because they have been vandalised or because they have not been replenished due to shortage of staff? That causes acute embarrassment to legitimate travellers on public transport. Some machines are also fouled by vandals at night when there are no station staff.
Mr. Gerrard : Absolutely. I have dealt with the cases of constituents who have boarded a British Rail train in such circumstances and been made to pay penalty fares when the original problem was that they could not buy a ticket.
Ms Glenda Jackson : The all-party disability group had a meeting a few months ago on the issue of the difficulties experienced by disabled passengers when travelling, particularly at night, due to lack of staff not only on stations but on trains. A person in a wheelchair attempting to travel alone depends on staff being present at the stations. That is another area of life where the public are being denied access to the public transport system.
Mr. Gerrard : My hon. Friend raises an important issue, which is becoming a bigger and bigger problem--and deregulation on the buses will make it worse. I am convinced that private operators will not be prepared to invest in mobility buses and low-level platforms. There is a ludicrous situation on the underground system. To revert to the problems at my own local station, I wrote to British Rail and said that removing ticket collectors would cause a problem as people would take advantage of that. British Rail is not worried as it operates a penalty fare system and people getting off the train at Liverpool Street station will be caught if they have not bought a ticket. But London Underground will suffer. Having refused to listen, British Rail is now erecting notices at the station warning people that ticket touts are in operation. Immediately the ticket collectors were removed, a thriving business in buying and selling travelcards was established. Passengers get off the train, someone buys their travelcard for £1 and sells it to someone else to go in the other direction.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : It is all part of the enterprise economy.
Mr. Gerrard : Yes, it is all part of the enterprise economy. It never happened when there were staff.
It would be easy to say that it is all British Rail's fault, but I do not believe that it is good enough to do that. British Rail did not introduce the philosophy of low staffing and railways having to break even or make money without any subsidies. The inevitable consequence is such policies being put into effect. Many useful jobs could be done and should still be done, at a time when we are prepared to keep people on the dole.
Mr. Jim Dowd (Lewisham, West) : My hon. Friend has spoken about the impact of travelling and the loss of fares. Will he also deal with the problems of increased crime and vandalism? The latter was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms. Jackson). I had to deal with the case of a woman in Sydenham who, since staff have been taken from that station, has
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approached me to ask Network SouthEast to put close-boarded fencing up, backing on to the platform, in place of the chain link that is there at the moment. She said that that would give her protection from the vandals who turn up at least once every week to wreck the waiting room.Mr. Gerrard : I am sure that that point will be echoed in many parts of London.
Hon. Members have asked me, when I leave late at night to travel home on the last tube, whether I feel worried about doing so. If I, or people in a similar position, do not feel safe, it is not surprising that many other people feel extremely unsafe and will not use public transport.
I have set out a whole sector where investment has been missing. That investment could be channelled through local authorities. We have a huge homelessness problem at the same time as thousands of skilled building workers are on the dole and capital receipts cannot be spent. The autumn s buy, is to give them little. There is great potential for investment, which will get the construction industry back to work.
Reading the newspapers today about the implementation of the care in the community policy, I was struck by the opportunities that that policy could offer for the creation of useful jobs. Local authorities have to produce statements of need for the people who are their responsibility. At the same time, the Government are telling them that if it seems that, once the assessment has been done, the need cannot be met, the people concerned should not be told. Local authorities do not know where to turn. Are they supposed to produce a statement of need and then be faced with a court action when they cannot provide for it because they do not have the money? We are told that it is all up to the local authorities. According to this morning's newspapers, the Secretary of State for Social Security has said that local authorities will have to make decisions about priorities. The trouble is that they are told the same thing about every service : their money is being cut, but they must decide priorities. Something has to give. People who should be receiving a service through care in the community will not be receiving it and local authorities will be getting the blame when it is impossible for them to deliver.
I spoke earlier of training schemes, for which there is a crying need. The existing schemes do not work. Often all that they offer is training for a non-existent job, so it is not surprising that people are not interested and that there are high drop-out rates. We need training schemes designed to produce a high level of skills. When I worked in further education before I came here, I found it extremely annoying to see the attitudes and what went on. Often in a poor area what was on offer was poor and of low quality. People took the view that a poor area whose people were unskilled and incapable of A-levels or higher levels of technical qualification and so did not need to be offered them, but rather something basic in the guise of serving the community. It was an insult to the people in those areas not to offer them high quality training.
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I am sure that many other issues affecting London will be focused on during the debate--the national health service, policing, education and a strategic authority--and I am convinced that without significant changes in Government policy the present disaster that we see in the economy will continue and London will deteriorate further. 10 pmMr. Jim Dowd (Lewisham, West) : I shall not say that I shall be brief because that seems to be code in this place for going on for at least half an hour. I shall say what I have to say as quickly as I can.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on his good fortune in securing the debate tonight. Matters relating to London and the south-east are clearly of importance to people in London and the south-east. But London, as our capital city, has a particular place and prominence which goes far beyond the concerns of simply those who live and are fortunate enough to work in London.
I want to concentrate for a few moments on the damage that Government policy during the past decade has done to the governance of London. Before the Government took office the London Boroughs Association represented all London boroughs, whether under Conservative, Labour or other control. There was a general feeling at the time that, despite partisan and political differences and despite the entirely proper change in emphasis from one authority to another because problems confronting people in different authorities vary, London was an entity, that it was far more than the sum of its parts and that it had a potential and a future from which we all, as Londoners, whether from inner or outer London, could benefit. The Government, by their policies during the 1980s, have wrecked that consensus and, as a consequence, the people of London have paid a dreadful price. The split between the London Boroughs Association and the Association of London Authorities was solely attributable to the Government's determination to abolish the Greater London council.
I shall not call this evening for the reinstitution of the GLC or conjure up spectres of filling county hall again with various bureaucrats working on behalf of London, despite that being a far more attractive proposition than filling it up with tourists, which seems to be the prospect for at least part of the building. Only the riverside building has been sold at the moment. The north and south blocks and the island block of county hall remain a white elephant, costing London council tax payers a sum of money to keep empty for no practical purpose.
It is not necessary to reconstruct the GLC, but there is considerable need for a strategic city-wide authority along the lines found in every other city, not just in Britain but throughout the western world and certainly in our most immediate competitor countries in western Europe. London needs to co-ordinate its transport and traffic management services, health, ambulance and emergency services, waste regulation, environmental audits and scientific services.
There is also a need for strategic research on policy and planning for land use, economic development, housing, training, environmental improvements, conservation, the arts, culture, sport, entertainment, tourism and many other issues, which cannot and will never be satisfactorily
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dealt with by each of the London boroughs acting on its own. We now know that it is impossible to operate a different transport policy in Bexley or Croydon than in Hillingdon or Havering, and we are paying a fearful price in terms of not just the quality of life but opportunities denied to Londoners.It is seven years to the day since the Greater London council was abolished.
Mr. Tony Banks : Seven years to yesterday.
Mr. Dowd : My hon. Friend, pedantic as ever, reminds me that today is the seventh anniversary of the first day that Londoners had to survive without a strategic planning authority. The intervening years have brought a degree of recognition on the Government Benches that they will have to row back from that--that certain things can only be done Londonwide.
We have seen the latest fiasco this week, with the launch of the London Forum--a collection of Tory knights and business worthies who are supposed to attract tourism to the capital. Its chairman is Sir Allen Sheppard, chief executive of Grand Metropolitan, and its deputy chairman is Sir Colin Marshall, chairman of British Airways. I can only assume that Sir Colin has been brought in to do the dirty on Paris or Frankfurt and is probably arranging to have their telephone lines bugged and their computers intercepted even as we speak. The forum's other members include Rocco Forte, the chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi, and the senior partner of Coopers and Lybrand--a rich cross-section of Londoners if ever there was-- hand picked, tame individuals who will simply do the Government's bidding. They are supposed to stimulate tourism in the depths of a recession. No one would argue with that objective and the forum itself requested local authority members--but the Secretary of State turned that request down flat. At least the forum's members recognised that provision must be made for the genuine and authentic voice of Londoners to be heard when attempting to co-ordinate strategy across the city.
The salami approach to London's problems can never be successful. I hesitate to suggest how many London-wide bodies exist now, established merely to replicate the role that a city-wide authority could play as a matter of course. They have failed one after another or have met with only mixed success, but I suspect that we will see many more created before the truth finally dawns on the Conservative Benches.
On Monday, I was interviewed on LBC and asked, "Is it not the case that most Government supporters would admit the need for a London-wide authority in private, but because it has become such a politicised question, none will ever say so in public?" That has become the truth that dare not speak its name on the Government Benches. The reinstatement of a London-wide authority will come about one day. The issue will go away. One will hardly find a Conservative supporter at the time who will admit ever to having been in favour of scrapping the GLC in the first place--just as no Government supporter will admit today to being enthusiastic about the poll tax. The explanation will probably follow the same lines--"It was that woman. She made us do it. We didn't really understand it all. She said it would all be all right." The truth for Londoners is that the absence of a London-wide authority has been far from all right.
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To give right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House a grasp of London's loss, I will relate an incident that occurred last year, when I was mayor of Lewisham and had the privilege of attending the final service of the closure of Cane Hill mental institution in Coulsdon. I was pleased to observe that so many residents had gone on to receive a more caring and appropriate form of support in the community than could be offered by that place.It should be realised, however, that, when it originated nearly a century ago, Cane Hill was a very advanced facility of its kind, for its time. It was established in the 1890s by the London county council, which took the brave step of providing for sufferers from acute mental illness by buying land in the distant area of Coulsdon, thus helping people who would otherwise have been untreated, unsupported and on the streets. That our predecessors in the LCC were able and willing to do that at the turn of the century speaks volumes for their vision.
When I attended that service, it struck me that social care should have moved on in the better part of a century. We should be able to provide a far more sensitive, secure and compassionate service. But where in London is the necessary authority? Who will provide such a service today, so that, in a hundred years, those who come after us will thank us for our perception, our compassion and our ability to make decisions and provide accordingly? I fear that the answer is "No one". I do not know who once described conservatism as an ideology that does not recognise the past and therefore makes no provision for the future, but nowhere is that clearer than in the story of London since the spiteful politicisation of its activities and the abolition of its London-wide authorities.
I cannot fail to mention the Inner London Education Authority. If anything, its abolition was an act of even greater vandalism, for which the people of inner London will pay a sorry price for many years. When the real price is known, it will be much too late to do anything about it. Conservative Members will be pleased to learn that I do not advocate the return even of an inner Londonwide education authority, because I feel that that has gone for good ; none the less, I shall not allow the abolition of ILEA to pass without saying that it was an act of gross betrayal and appalling insensitivity. ILEA's reputation for provision for the under-fives and post -16s was exemplary : in many of its activities, especially post-16 provision, it led the nation, if not the world. The price of its abolition is already coming home to Londoners.
Mr. Corbyn : I understand what my hon. Friend has said about the impossibility of returning to ILEA as it was. Does he agree, however, that there is a crying need for the co-ordination of special education provision throughout inner London? Many special schools have been closed and children with particular needs have lost the facilities that they require. We also need much better co-ordination of education for post-16s. I feel that many young Londoners have been failed by the lack of a co-ordinating body to ensure that there is a decent range of post-16 places.
Mr. Dowd : I agree. I was not suggesting for a moment that we could simply leave the boroughs to go their own way ; I was simply saying that, in organisational terms, it would be impossible to recreate ILEA in anything like its old form. Once certain things in this world are broken, they cannot be put together again. Nevertheless, those who
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broke ILEA should be made to face up to their responsibility, particularly in regard to special needs and post-16s.Much of ILEA's provision for special needs recognised no borough boundaries ; why should it have done so? Yet, on its break-up, some boroughs were left with two or three special units within schools, while others were left with none. There followed the ludicrous spectacle of boroughs being charged to send students to special units in other boroughs simply because they happened to be a few hundred yards--or even a few yards--the wrong side of a line that did not even exist when they were created.
The other day, I asked whether figures were available to show the number of post-16 courses in the London boroughs, compared with the number in the last year of ILEA's existence. The figures did not give the number of courses, but they gave the total number of enrolments. Since 1990, the figures show a reduction of 10 per cent., from 220, 000 down to 200,000 enrolments, at a time when unprecedented numbers of school leavers are taking up post-16 further education places, not because they are choosing freely to do so--although I hope that as many as possible do take them up freely--but because there are no real jobs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow made plain, for them to go to. They are, therefore, going on to further education. I am delighted that they are not rejecting the opportunity. My point, though, is that at a time when the pressure for further education places has grown to unprecedented proportions, a reduction in the number of further education enrolments in inner London is a matter for remark. There has been a huge drop in the number of mature people taking up non-vocational courses. Their lives were greatly enriched by that provision, but now it is denied to them. Many of the real effects of the abolition of ILEA are hard to determine and quantify. None the less, they are real. A tangible decline in the number of opportunities available to Londoners is leading to a substantial deterioration in the quality of their lives.
Nowhere is the lack of co-ordination across London more plain than in the case of transport. I can do no better than quote what was said last December by the CBI's regional task force :
"Traffic congestion costs businesses £10 billion a year. A single body, working with Government Departments, would be able to co-ordinate the efforts of no fewer than 60 organisations at present responsible for transport in London."
There is little or nothing to add to that. Traffic chaos in London is a fearful burden and a great impediment to getting London moving again, in more ways than one, and attracting the investment that we need to make up for the shortfall in job opportunities that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow so clearly outlined when he introduced the debate.
My hon. Friend also referred to bus deregulation. I draw his attention to an article that quoted the managing director of the east London subsidiary, based in Walthamstow, of London Buses Ltd. He estimates that a quarter of the mileage currently operated by London Buses will be at risk from deregulation. One bus route in four is threatened by deregulation. How on earth can the Conservatives believe that they are doing anything to regenerate London's economy when their wanton,
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doctrinaire and dogmatic attitude is putting it, on a flimsy pretext, at such risk? It is to everybody's extreme disadvantage. As for the police authority for London, the drift here is in entirely the opposite direction. Last week, the Home Secretary anounced at the Dispatch Box that he intended to create a Londonwide police authority. Despite any reservations there may be over the precise proportions and the process he will use to select people to serve on that authority, his statement is to be welcomed. I certainly welcome it. Nevertheless, it seems a strange decision. Last evening, I was speaking to my hon. Friends the Members for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), because all three of us, a decade or so ago, were involved in matters relating to policing in London. In the early 1980s, one of our principal demands was for a police authority, other than the Home Secretary, for London. The three of us, and many others, were treated like subversives--we were in the pay of the KGB and various other organisations. We were a danger to civilised society. We were called harmful radicals. It is amazing : we have not changed at all. [Interruption.] I apologise to the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) for waking him up. We have continued to argue persuasively, rationally and reasonably and the Home Secretary has now come to the very same conclusion. I am delighted about that, but I shall want to see precisely what is in the small print concerning the police authority for London.The London ambulance service is another story. In a debate later tonight, for which I hope hon. Members will stay, there will no doubt be a litany of incompetence, management failure, insensitivity and extremely bad service for the people of London. It was announced yesterday that the London ambulance board is to be replaced with a sub-committee of the South West Thames regional health authority, which is itself at least as culpable in respect of the failures of the London ambulance service. This is a furious, almost frantic, slashing around in the dark in an effort to find an answer when the reality is staring people in the face. What is needed is a Londonwide regional health authority to take control and do the planning. London is a great city with great potential, not just for its citizens but for the nation. It is an asset being wantony and flagrantly squandered. We in the Opposition look forward to its earliest possible regeneration and to the restoration of a citywide authority--something that the people of London have a right to expect.
10.21 pm
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) : I welcome the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) as it deals with the area inhabited by the greatest mass of population of this country. It deals with the impact of the Government's policies not only on people in this great, historic capital, but also on people in the area of south-east England outside Greater London--an area in which more than 10.5 million people live, and where more than 5 million of them pay income tax. Since September 1959, the area has lost 157,000 manufacturing jobs. The level of unemployment in the south-east, outside Greater London, is costing the country a colossal £4.3 billion each year. There are more than 140,000 long-term unemployed, and, tragically, 163,000 young people, between 16 and 24, are either on the
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dole or ought to be receiving some other form of benefit because they are unemployed. It is a serious charge that the Government are indifferent to the plight of young people who are denied the opportunity of friends at work, job satisfaction and creativity. To complete the picture, I should point out that, in the south-east, there are 25 people seeking every job vacancy. That is hardly surprising as, in the past year, the region had about 23,000 business failures.It is disgraceful that the attendance of Conservative Members representing the counties around London is so poor. Unhappily, on 9 April 1992 I became not just the only Labour MP but the only Opposition MP for many of the counties outside Greater London. Therefore, as well as speaking up for my constituents in Thurrock, which I am proud to do, and on whose behalf I shall outline the effects of the Government's policies and indifference, I can also legitimately claim to speak for not thousands but millions of people outside Greater London who oppose the Government and who are not otherwise represented in this debate.
If some hon. Members balk at that idea, I ask them to note that there is not a single Conservative Back Bencher from Essex here tonight ; there is not a single Conservative Back Bencher from Surrey ; there is not a single Conservative Back Bencher from West Sussex or East Sussex ; there is not a single Conservative Back Bencher from Berkshire or Hampshire, even though hundreds of thousands of people are unemployed in those counties. Thousands are languishing on hospital waiting lists, thousands are homeless and many families are threatened with the loss of their home. Despite that, not one Conservative Back-Bench Member is here to defend the Government's policies, let alone represent those people for whose plight the Government are responsible.
It is a great shame that those people have been let down in that way, especially when one bears in mind that the south-east of England was what could have been called Thatcher country. It unquestionably contributed significantly to Conservative victory after Conservative victory, but its people have been betrayed tonight because they are not represented in a debate on the impact of Government policies on the people of London and south-east England. The people of Thurrock have been battered and bruised by Government policies. Some of what I have to say relates also to the thousands, if not millions, of people in the south-east outside Greater London.
I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), here tonight. Although he is a courteous man and has extended the hand of friendship to me, I have to say that my constituents feel bitterly disappointed about his recent decision not to permit a public inquiry into what is known as the Aveley No. 3 pit. It is in an area where the residents close to the western boundary of Essex and Greater London will have to endure 17 years of constant tipping of rubbish, extraction and lorry movements. That will be to their great disadvantage and may also jeopardise their health. It is a matter of great concern to many of my constituents and people in the neighbouring London borough, but it is also indicative of what has happened elsewhere in my constituency.
If one were to go up in a helicopter or an aeroplane and look down on my constituency, it would look like a moonscape. For decades, it has been exploited by people with a rapacious appetite for tipping rubbish or extracting
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minerals. They have no regard for the long- term effects on the area, for its potential beauty or for the health of residents. We look to the Government to say, "Thus far, and no further." We want them to recognise that rubbish tipping and mineral extraction cause considerable problems, and that Thurrock has had more than its fair share. My constituents are bitterly disappointed that the Minister has so far declined to call a halt to tipping and extraction and to protect the people of Aveley by at least allowing them the opportunity to state their case before an independent public inquiry.I take this opportunity to ask the Minister again to pause and reflect on the matter. Will he at least give me an undertaking when he replies to the debate to reconsider his decision that my constituents will not have the opportunity of a public inquiry into the Aveley No. 3 pit? Will he assure me that the Government will examine much more critically the problem of mineral extraction and waste tipping that bedevils many people in Thurrock and throughout the south-east region and many hon. Members on both sides of the House, and insist on a vigorous application of environmental impact assessments before permissions are given?
Mr. Tim Smith (Beaconsfield) rose --
Mr. Mackinlay : I will give way to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith), because I know that he has a particular and legitimate interest in the subject.
Mr. Smith : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way ; he knows that my constituency suffers from similar problems. However, he is being a little unfair to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. My hon. Friend understands what we have to put up with, which is why he has recently published new minerals planning guidance which recognises the problems and seeks alternative sources of supply for minerals.
Mr. Mackinlay : The hon. Gentleman's constituents will take note of his defence of the Government's policy. What has been done is too little too late, certainly for my constituents and, I would have thought, for his, too. I hope that the Minister will reflect on the matter and at least be prepared to take the subject away with him for further thought later tonight.
I shall move on to the next subject. My part of Essex is very much part of commuter country, and the people who live there are suffering from a clapped-out railway system, with high fares and an irregular service, which is threatened with franchising. My constituents want not a franchised railway but one which works and which provides them with a reliable service to take them to their places of employment in London. That will not be provided by a franchising operation. Prospective franchisers will be frightened off by the need to invest both in rolling stock and in the infrastructure. There are two possible scenarios. One is that the railway operation will be flogged off as a clapped-out system and will continue as such--a private monopoly under which commuters continue to be ripped off. The second is that no prospective franchisers will come forward.
The Government cannot escape from the fact that major public investment is needed in the London-Tilbury-Southend line. I hope that that idea will be taken on board.
Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South) : The hon. Gentleman talks about the need for increased investment
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and implies that privatisation will not help the railway industry. Is he not aware that there has been a massive increase in investment in every industry that has been privatised? If he wants extra investment in the railways he should vote for the Railways Bill.Mr. Mackinlay : I do not accept that. But it is true that where industries have been privatised there have been major increases in unemployment. That fact leads me to the subject of the West Thurrock power station, where yesterday the staff were told, without notice, that generation of power was to cease at 10 o'clock last night. More than 350 people face unemployment as a result, and that is in addition to the already high levels of unemployment in my constituency, in Essex as a whole and in east London.
Those people are losing their jobs as a direct consequence of privatisation. The Government refuse to adopt a co-ordinated and comprehensive energy policy that would bring together all the agencies that generate power and ensure that energy was produced effectively and cheaply while maximising the use of existing resources and plant. Instead, because the open market is competitive and unplanned, they permit electricity to be imported from France and allow the unplanned growth of new generating plant, while the recession caused by their economic policies has meant that there has been no increase in the demand for electricity. My constituents are facing the dole queue as a direct consequence of a combination of the Government's policies on energy, their policies that have caused the recession, and their privatisation programme. That is my response to the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall), who defends the privatisation of power, transport and many other important industries.
What has been the Government's response to all this unemployment? Last week, we had the publication of the glossy document containing the Government's proposals on the east Thames corridor which had been much heralded. I recognise the employment potential of the river Thames and its related areas in Kent, Essex and London. There is great potential for regeneration, creating employment, and providing mobility and forms of transport, as well as opportunities for recreation. But once we get beyond the glossy covers, there is no substance.
The document talks about regeneration and creating employment, but does not say how. There is only one way to achieve regeneration and that is by a major programme of public expenditure in the key areas of health, housing and education, and the refurbishment of our clapped-out railway system, but the Government decline to do that. So there is no substance to the document. It is a smokescreen for inaction to try to cover their embarrassment about the acute unemployment in Kent and Essex.
There has been talk about homes, and I want homes for families to live in. The problem in the so-called east Thames corridor is not that there is no land to build on, but that there are no customers. There are acres and acres of land with planning permissions for residential development, but, because of the collapse of confidence in the country, people cannot contemplate buying homes. In addition, the Government refuse to allow councils to build housing estates in which families could rent houses. In my constituency, there are thousands upon thousands of planning permissions, but there are no customers.
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Throughout the region and not just in my constituency there is acute depression. It is a new feature of the south- east. Hitherto, it has been an area of relative wealth, abundance and full employment, but in the latter years of the Thatcher premiership and under the stewardship of the present Prime Minister we have seen it go into decline, with high unemployment as well as a tragic number of business failures, which are increments of family grief and anxiety. I speak for, and am angry on behalf of, those people who invested their lives in small businesses, with the prospect of being able to nurture them and hand them on to their children, only to see them fail, not because of their recklessness or lack of business acumen, but because of the failures and indifference of the Government. What lost their livelihoods and homes as a consequence, and many others have lost their jobs through the failures and the reduction in demand in key industries.In January, we had unprecedented levels of unemployment in Essex and Kent. A couple of weeks ago Members on the Government Benches were full of glee because somehow there had been a small reduction in the total unemployment figures in the region. However on that occasion unemployment increased in Surrey and in Berkshire. There was a small drop in the other counties which had already reached high levels in January and in many marginal seats which the Government were delighted to have captured at the polls just a year ago. In an earlier debate the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) spoke at great length. I dropped him a note to say that I would be referring to him, because of the nature of his speech this evening and those that he has made on other occasions. He boasted that his victory a year ago was of great significance. I guess that is a matter of historical fact. Clearly, the Conservative win in Basildon is written into the history books. Therefore, it becomes a shibboleth and totem of what the Conservatives achieved that night. They cannot be surprised if they are subsequently shot down and indicted for all that Basildon represents and the fact that the people of Basildon now feel bitterly betrayed.
At a time when the hon. Member for Basildon is claiming that there was also a small reduction in unemployment in his constituency, there was an unprecedented council election victory for Labour in Basildon in which David Kirkman won with a 24 per cent. swing to Labour. Indeed, David Kirkman has a higher majority than the hon. Member for Basildon has in the House. This evening in my constituency, the Labour council candidate, John Kent, took 60 per cent. of the poll in a three-corner contest in Grays.
The people of Essex have had enough of this Government. They feel that they have been betrayed by the consequences of electing a Conservative Government. I see it each week in my constituency surgery as, perhaps, do other hon. Members, especially in the south-east of England. There a large number of people were encouraged to purchase their homes and seek the best for their families. I applaud that, as someone who also aspired to that for his family. But in my surgery I see people who are heartbroken, distressed and do not know where to go. They come into our constituency surgeries each week because they have lost their jobs and, as a consequence, are losing their homes. Such families are not reckless. They are
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husbands and wives with delightful children and they want to provide the best for their families. However, they find that their homes have gone, not through their fault but through the Government's failure to provide the opportunity and security which come from being in employment.One could continue at great length with indictments against the Government. Conservative Members mutter because--to use the words of Corporal Jones in "Dad's Army"--
"They don't like it up 'em".
I suspect that they will get more of it from my colleagues this evening because almost all of the Government's programmes have failed the British people and particularly the people of this region. I can illustrate the matter in another way. The Secretary of State for National Heritage has failed this region and London--which is a major tourist area, in which we earn dollars and an area to which we can invite people from overseas--by his neglect of, and indifference to, the fabric of so many of our great monuments and historic sites. If I had lived at the time of the good Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, I might not have been among his greatest fans, but is not it ridiculous and absurd that, in a major tourist part of London, the Albert memorial is covered up? Apparently it is covered in scaffolding and is rotting because the Government will not ensure that the memorial is protected. The Albert memorial is located in an area which crawls with people from north America who come here to enjoy the beauty of London and spend their dollars. However, this major monument is not so much in mothballs but is rotting because the Secretary of State for National Heritage cannot or will not find the money for it.
In the past 24 hours, I have received a letter which was prompted by the Secretary of State--presumably, he does not read the letters which his underlings write to hon. Members--in which the Master of the Armouries at the Tower of London says that he would have liked to make improvements in terms of fire precautions and safety, "but lack of funds has so far made"--
it--
"impossible".
He refers specifically to
"the installation of full automatic fire detection and suppression throughout the museum".
He tries to reassure me, but does not, that
"This is an area of improvement which we have seen as necessary to protect the buildings and our collections rather than the visiting public, for in a fully staffed building like the White Tower any danger is soon seen by staff and appropriate measures taken to safeguard the public."
The great historic Tower of London, a symbol of our national independence, is vulnerable to fire. I am not satisfied that the thousands upon thousands of visitors who go there are safe, particularly when the management is reducing the number of staff and Yeoman warders at that great historic site.
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The last matter with which I wish to deal is the health of my area. Just this evening, I have been informed by the Basildon and Thurrock hospital trust that it will have to make redundant a large number of non-clinical employees. That is not because the trust has been dilatory. It has not. It is not because it has not fulfilled its obligations. It has. It has worked hard to fulfil its contracts. The trouble is that the crazy system of funding the national health service which the Government have introduced means that the health authority does not have the funds to buy the operations which the trust can provide. The money is not there.Yet in my area there are large pockets of great poverty and consequential poor health. The accident and emergency department at Orsett hospital in Thurrock was closed due to the Government's indifference to the representations of thousands upon thousands of people from Thurrock and, indeed, Basildon.
I keep returning to the theme that people not only in my constituency but in south-east England outside Greater London seem to have fallen off the table of the Government's consideration. I believe that that is because I am the only Opposition Member for the area and the other seats are deemed to be safe Conservative seats. However, I believe that times are changing. It is interesting that so few Tory Members have attended the debate tonight. Apart from the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw), at this moment there is not one Conservative Back-Bencher in the Chamber.
I am not surprised that the hon. Member for Dover is here, because he represents a marginal seat. His constituency will probably suffer from the construction of the channel tunnel route. There will be acute depression in some areas of his constituency of Dover and in other areas such as Thanet because there will be a gravitational pull of industry and wealth along the corridor of the channel tunnel route. That will jeopardise much of his constituency. So the mind of the hon. Member for Dover has been concentrated on the need to defend his position and his Government's policies in the period running up to the general election.
But let us give the hon. Member for Dover full marks. He is here tonight. Where are the other hundreds of Conservative Members of Parliament? They are not here. I hope that if one message comes through tonight, it will be that when the House of Commons had the opportunity to debate unemployment, health, transport, homelessness and housing, no Conservative Members of Parliament were present from the counties of Surrey, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, East Sussex, West Sussex or Hampshire. That is the greatest indictment of Conservative Members. I hope that their constituents will remember it when we have an opportunity to call them to account at the poll.
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10.48 pmMr. David Shaw (Dover) : This debate is about Government policies and their effect on London and the south-east. It gives me a great sense of de ja vu to follow the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay). He and I last debated together some 18 years back in the council chamber of Kingston upon Thames. I could not accept his views then and I am afraid that I cannot do so now. But I have always enjoyed his conversation, especially afterwards.
The economy of Dover is much tied up with the economy and well-being of London and the south-east. The Romans landed in Dover well before they came up to see this area of London, which was eventually developed in many respects by the Romans. The Romans were unable to land directly in Dover ; we repulsed them, and they were forced to go up the beach to the delightful area in my constituency known as Walmer, where they finally managed to get ashore. The reason why I mention the Romans is that one of the big concerns in my constituency is the road linkage to London, and the A2 road, among others. Indeed, the Old Kent road has a very significant meaning for my constituents.
The Minister knows well the details of my constituency ; he has recently visited it and taken a great interest in one particular problem. I know that the nuns of Kearsney are very grateful to him for the considerable support and assistance that he has given them in ensuring that there has been water in the lake at Kearsney recently. His interest in that matter has certainly been very welcome indeed. The ferries of Dover are well known to many hon. Members and many of them would perhaps accuse me of raising the concerns of those who work in our ferry industry overmuch, but they will understand that for me those concerns can never be raised too much in the House. The ferries of Dover take many millions of Londoners and residents of the south-east on holiday every year. The many transport links to Dover, the road links, are fundamental and important in helping Londoners and residents of the south-east going on those trips and holidays abroad. This debate, therefore, is in my view very important to the interests of Dover.
Many of us who have sat through recent debates on the coal industry and other issues affecting other areas of the country sometimes get the feeling that the House does not discuss the needs of London and the south-east enough. Far too much attention is directed to the needs of certain other areas of the country which have had historically important positions in the economy but may not have kept their own industries and businesses up to date with the latest technology and developments. In consequence, they are undergoing change processes which affect them very deeply, but at the same time attract far more attention than one sometimes feels that they deserve. This detracts from the attention that should sometimes be given, I believe, to the problems that places such as Dover and Deal and other areas of the south-east face.
We all face process of change, especially during a recession, because recession heightens the need within the economy for old industries to give way to the new businesses and new technology which will develop the job opportunities of the following decade. I feel that much is going on in the south-east at present which indicates that
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this process of change is now accelerating. We are coming out of recession and we shall be seeing considerable development in the future, and it may well be that the Government can assist in that development in various ways.Certainly, one way in which the Government can assist is by not going down the route that Labour was offering us at the last general election, because Labour's policies would have been disastrous. It was not difficult for me to point out to my constituents that raising income tax to the level to which Labour wanted to raise it for people earning £21,000 a year or more would hit not only 50 per cent. or thereabouts of people who work on Dover's ferries but, more importantly, 50 per cent. or thereabouts of the people who use Dover's ferry industry. That would have been a fundamental disaster for Dover's No. 1 industry.
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