House of Commons Hansard Debates for 1 Apr 1993

Mr. Tony Banks : In this period of honest addressing of the facts in his own constituency, at the last general election, did the hon. Gentleman suggest that a Conservative Government might increase national insurance contributions by 1 per cent., which is the same as putting up income tax by 1p in the pound, or put 17.5 per cent. value added tax on domestic fuel?

Mr. Shaw : One of the commitments that I gave in the general election was that we would ensure that the national insurance fund, which is fundamental in looking after the nation's pensions, would be properly funded. I do not subscribe to the view that one should rush around increasing national insurance and I was very much against the Labour Government when they increased it, but given that we should fund our state pensions, it is appropriate for national insurance to be increased. My constituents will see that the decisions in the Budget are entirely consistent with any election literature that I put out. I said that we would lower income tax and move towards a 20 per cent. rate and we have done that.

Especially after the Rio summit, I never said that we would not put VAT on energy. Hon. Members will know that it is not practical to go to a summit in Rio de Janeiro and give a commitment to all the countries in the rest of the world that we shall work to reduce greenhouse gases and then not take steps to deliver on that commitment. Everyone in the House who is at all honest will recognise that we have to do something to affect the price of energy so that people will be encouraged to conserve it. That is consistent with all the material that I put out in the election campaign.

Mr. Corbyn : I did not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman on national insurance, but if I can take him back to the situation in his constituency, what message can he give the people of Deal, particularly the large number of unemployed miners who worked extremely hard in the remaining coalfields in Kent until 1985-86 when the Government that he supports closed down the remaining Kent coalfield, brutally, in my view? We have now lost those skills and productive capacity and there is great unhappiness and misery among those who formerly worked in that industry.

Mr. Shaw : In 1985-86 I was not a Member of Parliament, so I was not in a position to take an active role in supporting the coalfields that were closed prior to my election. I was elected in 1987 and one coalfield was closed after that. I spent considerable time trying to establish

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whether there was any way in which it could be kept open. I was on the phone to the chairman of British Coal and liaised closely with a number of miners--people of a different political persuasion from myself, perhaps of a more extreme political persuasion. I tried to act in their best interests to find an opportunity for a buy-out or some other way to keep that pit open.

One of the problems in my discussions with the chairman of British Coal was the attitude of a small group of miners who were in control of the trade union. They were so negative in their relationship with British Coal that I could not get British Coal or its chairman to the point at which we could effect sensible negotiations. Although the attitude of British Coal was not ideal in the circumstances, after the violence of the coal strike of 1984 I could not help but understand why the attitude of the National Union of Mineworkers and those in my constituency who had sided with Arthur Scargill at the time resulted in the closure of the pit.

I would have welcomed an opportunity for the pit to remain open, but the trade union was more Sheffield-orientated in its obedience to the NUM than many other pro-Scargill parts of the union. The blind attitude towards the standard policy of the NUM was outrageous. That is why, sadly, production in the Betteshanger colliery never achieved an economically viable level. I saw British Coal's investment programme for Betteshanger. It could have remained open until recently, even in the present situation, had it achieved the production levels that British Coal and I wanted. I still see many of those miners, and I believe that they were let down by a small group of trade union officials' slavish obedience to Sheffield. Labour's policies and attitudes would have a disastrous impact on my constituency. Those attitudes, even when they are displayed by those in opposition, are sometimes extremely damaging because they encourage people to think that there are alternative ways in which to obtain jobs other than through the private sector. They encourage people to think that there are other ways in which to create successful businesses other than through existing businesses which create profits.

Many people still write to me saying, "Isn't profit a dirty word?" Even after 14 years of Conservative Government, some people do not understand that if there are no profits, one does not attract more investment, and that without that investment, one does not create jobs. People go on about the high salaries of managers and the profits earned, but they do not realise that they are taxed and that that tax revenue helps the economy. They do not realise that those factors attract people to bring their businesses here. Tremendous opportunities are often lost because people worry about what might happen if Labour party attitudes became more influential--the party need not be in government--because they believe that they are wrong and do not help business development.

Those concerns may explain why we only attract 50 per cent. of inward investment to Europe from around the world. I should not say "only" 50 per cent. when the remaining countries of the European Community attract the other 50 per cent. between them. The investment that we attract represents a major vote of confidence in the Government. I have no doubt that if the Labour party were in power we would not receive such a vote from abroad.

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Mr. Tom Cox (Tooting) : My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North- West (Mr. Banks) and I are members of the Council of the Europe. On Monday we attended a meeting of the Social and Health Committee in Brussels and were given a presentation on social dumping--the hon. Gentleman will know what I mean by that. The hon. Gentleman may speak about foreign confidence in the United Kingdom, but other members of the Council did not express confidence in the policy of social dumping, now encouraged by his Government, which operates at the expense of workers in other European countries. He should meet some of his political colleagues in Europe and learn at first hand about that problem.

Mr. Shaw : If the hon. Gentleman told Sony, Toyota and Nissan that their plants in Wales, Derbyshire and Washington represented social dumping they would be deeply offended and would say, "If you don't want our investment and jobs, we'll go home." That is not the attitude of the Conservative Government, thank goodness. The Government have been successful in attracting good jobs which offer good wages and opportunities. If the hon. Gentleman is worried about what might be called social dumping, he should be concerned about low wages. We are trying to become a high-wage economy, but that cannot be achieved with the dinosaur- like attitudes of the Labour party and the trade unions to industries in the past.

If we listened to Labour party attitudes and statements we would think that we were trying to preserve the candle industry or the horse-drawn carriage industry. My constituency had to suffer in 1846 when the horse-drawn carriage industry went out of business overnight because of the railway. With the introduction of the railway, many people lost their jobs in my constituency. The same was true with the introduction of iron and steel ships, when all the repairers of wooden ships lost their jobs. The Labour party would be trying to keep wooden ships, the horse-drawn carriage trade and the horses. There are better jobs to be had among the more efficient, technical jobs of the future. We must go forward with new technology and better jobs for the future. As the Government continue in office--I hope, for many more years--I hope that they will bring in more international investment as it often brings good ideas. Sadly, those ideas are not always developed here because we cannot always develop every idea in the world. However, we still win many more Nobel prizes than most countries per thousand of population. As we cannot develop every idea, we have to continue to attract a lot of outside investment. The Labour party has negative attitudes to profit and business--the latest Trades Union Congress document contains no reference to profits. Such attitudes mean that we are not having an important political debate in this country. On the Floor of the House of Commons we should have debates about which side can produce better profits for British industry, which side can produce higher added value and, in consequence, higher wages, better standards of living and more taxes paid on the profits to provide a better financed health service and education system, and all the advantages that come with high profitability in business and industry.

All that we hear from the Labour party is talk of more and more regulations on business and industry. One Labour Member has just spoken of more authorities, the need to set up more bodies and another Greater London

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body to mimic the Greater London council. Those of us who have to live in London during the week have been far better off without a GLC and all the interference.

I served on a borough council with the hon. Member for Thurrock, who must surely remember the constant referral to the GLC that we had to have from Kingston about planning issues. There was constant interference from the GLC. If the hon. Gentleman is honest, he must surely remember that it was nothing but a nuisance constantly to have to refer issues from Kingston to the GLC.

Mr. Gerrard : I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's comments about the number of bodies that the Labour party want to create. How many organisations did the Conservative Government create to replace the one organisation that used to exist in London, the GLC? How many quangos now exist to do the job that that one body used to do?

Mr. Shaw : Sometimes it is not the number of organisations that is important, but the powers and staff that they are given to interfere in other people's lives. An organisation which consists primarily of volunteers acting in an advisory capacity is totally different from a Greater London council with 30,000 staff which was constantly interfering in our decision-making processes. When I was a member of Kingston council, it was unable to make many important decisions without having the Greater London council interfering in the way we operated.

Mr. Mackinlay : A Conservative Government created the Greater London council. When things were going well for them, they were pleased to gain control of the council. When they lost control, they did not like the fact that it provided checks and balances against their excessive power here at Westminster. The council was destroyed because the former Prime Minister, Lady Thatcher, did not like anybody challenging her authority--for no other reason.

Mr. Shaw : The hon. Gentleman is deliberately trying to shorten history. As I recall, what happened was that we had the London county council. Under Labour, that body was totally corrupt, and tried to build the Conservatives out of London.

Mr. Corbyn : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to announce that the former LCC was totally corrupt without specifying what form that corruption took, who benefited from it, or anything else? It seems to me that a blanket assertion like that is not in order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse) : It is in order. Mr. Shaw : Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. John Marshall : Does my hon. Friend agree that the real test of the efficiency of local government in London since the abolition of the GLC is the number of people employed by local authority bodies such as the London residuary body? Has there not been a substantial reduction in the number of people employed in local government in London? Furthermore, has not the LRB raised a great deal of money, to the benefit of all Londoners, by selling off surplus assets?

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Mr. Shaw : My hon. Friend, who knows a great deal about London, is right. In answer to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) let me say that I was coming on to make the point that the reason why the LCC was corrupt was that one of its major policy aims was to build the Conservatives out of London. Many of the social and crime problems of London are the result of LCC housing estates, many of them strategically built in the attempt to do that. That has backfired on the Labour party, because now each boundary commission change gives more seats to the Conservatives outside London because more and more Conservative-thinking people have had enough of certain areas and have moved out to the shire counties.

When one looks at Labour-run councils such as Lambeth, Haringey and Hackney, which waste money and have corrupt practices, one has to recognise that the cycle of corruption will have to be stopped soon, in the interests of the British people. Many of those councils are over-employing because they have to appease the trade unions which elect the councillors at the Labour party branch meetings. Until we can break that cycle, we shall not have proper and democratic local government. There is a particular problem in London and the south-east where Government policy must be ever more forceful, alert and aware of the problems.

My constituency is concerned about transport and transport arrangements. Those are fundamental, given the position of Dover and Deal in relation to the south-east and access to it. We are grateful to the Government for the A20 road link that is being built. We are concerned about the delays, and I am grateful to the Minister for Roads and Traffic, who has made sure that many of my constituents, especially those running businesses which have suffered, will receive compensation. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will convey my thanks, and my concern that, among his Easter recess enjoyments, the Minister will look into his red box to see the difficulty that the road construction is still creating for certain of my constituents, so that their businesses can be saved from bankruptcy. I know that he is taking an active interest, but I should like to place on record the concerns of my constituents that that should be looked at, even during the Easter recess.

I am also grateful for the fact that the former Secretary of State for Transport, now in the House of Lords--Lord Parkinson--agreed to the dualling of the A2 between Dover and Lydden, which will be of immense benefit to people in the south-east who want to communicate with the continent via Dover. The reality, however, is that the planning stages in the dualling of the A2 are taking a long time. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minster will take note of that and ensure that the Department of Transport will do everything possible to quicken the process of planning the road improvements between Dover and Lydden, which are important for my constituents.

I cannot give the Government full marks, sadly, when assessing the way in which British Rail is operating, especially in terms of rolling stock. Primarily it is a British Rail problem, however, and not a Government one. The Government have given British Rail massive investment moneys. Large sums have been directed to BR's external financing limit to enable it to undertake a considerable investment programme. Unfortunately, a large part of that programme is related to channel tunnel rolling stock. British Rail seems to be under the impression that it can continue spending on lots of lovely rolling stock for the

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channel tunnel and without providing a decent amount of new rolling stock on the south Kent coastal route. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will draw the attention of Department of Transport Ministers to the continued failure of BR to produce a sensible programme for introducing new rolling stock on the coastal route.

The Government, with the Opposition's full support, have implemented the construction of the channel tunnel--obviously through the private sector, but with the full approval of the House in terms of legislation. The tunnel, combined with the single European market changes, will have a considerable effect on the number of jobs available in my constituency. Unemployment will result from these changes. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take on board that sometimes far too much attention is focused on coal mining and other areas when changes are taking place elsewhere as a result of Government and international policies which reduce job opportunities. The effects of the channel tunnel and the single European market need to be considered carefully by the Government.

We shall face many changes in Dover. We can face tay, but we may need some Government assistance. We are not making as great a fuss as some areas. We take the view that that is not necessary on the basis that a sensible, well put together argument presented rationally will be listened to by the Government. I hope that my hon. Friend will draw to the attention of Ministers at the Department of Trade and Industry who are examining assisted area status the need for some form of assistance for Dover and Deal to enable the area to tackle the problems which lie ahead.

The designation of assisted area status is not always the best way of helping an area. I subscribe to the view that enterprise zone status offers many opportunities. I have been told that there is a ridiculous European Community-inspired principle that an area cannot have enterprise zone status without first having assisted area status. I hope that that advice is wrong, but I fear that, sadly, it is true. That bureaucratic principle may stop Dover and Deal from securing the ideal status--enterprise zone status--which would bring more assistance and benefit to my constituency.

We should like to develop an industrial park at Whitfield. The council has the land organised and there is the opportunity to go ahead. Dover's harbour board is up front in trying to get a development programme in place for the Wellington and Western docks. I pay tribute to the management team and others who have been involved in putting the plan together. There is a tremendous opportunity for Dover, and with the right roads we can move forward. We need some form of Government assistance to ensure that the various projects can come to fruition. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will confirm tonight that the Government will give Dover as much assistance as is reasonable, and a fair share of assistance relative to other areas of the country.

I know that the Government will help London, the south-east, Dover and Deal, and east Kent far more than any Labour Government would. A Labour Government's priorities would be elsewhere. A Labour Government's agenda would be elsewhere--and a Labour agenda always costs the country dear. It would be far more expensive for

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my constituents than any other. I want a Conservative Government with lots of energy and enthusiasm to help to tackle the problems of the south-east and to help us move forward to the year 2000 with confidence. I know that a Conservative Government will do that. 11.20 pm

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : Driving to the House this evening, I travelled along St. Pancras way, in the borough of Camden, just north of King's Cross and St. Pancras stations. I saw one of London's normal sights--a group of 50 people carrying plastic bags, waiting alongside dustbins and rubbish piled up against the wall for the night shelter hostel to open. It opens each night at about 10 o'clock. The homeless can get a roof over their head and a bed for the night, and in the morning they must leave again--and spend another day tramping the streets of London.

Last night I attended a moving gathering at Islington town hall organised by a youth group called Speak Out for the Homeless. It was not a traditional public meeting, with a series of speeches by councillors, housing pressure group members, Members of Parliament, and so on. Most of the evening was taken up with young homeless people telling the story of their lives on the streets of London. They included young women who had grown up in children's homes, and received inadequate community care at the time of leaving the home. They then found themselves in inadequate accommodation, involved in drugs and prostitution, and suffered all manner of violence against them. They ended up drugged, wasted and destroyed, hanging around Piccadilly circus and the streets of this capital city. They have got out of that, to the extent that they now enjoy some form of regular shelter and are at least able to tell the rest of us about their experiences.

It is a question not of solving housing problems in London but of witnessing a steady decline in housing standards. We are seeing young people's lives blighted by the shortage of affordable rented accommodation. We are witnessing the misery of young children suffering from chronic asthma or bronchitis living in damp, dirty, overcrowded flats that the council does not have the money to repair--and no other flats to which it can move such families. We are seeing at the same time, still, the endless, speculative building of office blocks all over the capital, which remain empty. That is a shame, it is disgusting, and it is appalling. Responsibility for it lies fairly, squarely and totally with central Government's attitude towards the capital's housing needs. I represent an inner-city constituency, as do a number of my hon. Friends. Our communities live for the most part in council accommodation. I am not particularly proud of the quality of much of it. It was built according to nonsensical, cost yardstick methods and too quickly, and inadequate thought was given to open space and nursery provision.

It is impossible for anyone to escape from tower block or deck access flats --there is simply nowhere to go. The idea that the Government are solving the problem is a hollow laugh. They produced a number of rough sleepers initiatives, which were introduced not out of any deep concern for the problems of London's homeless but to get them off the streets and into night shelters--to get them out of sight and out of mind.

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It is no life for people to live permanently in shelters and hostels ; it is no life for 18,000 to live in bed-and- breakfast accommodation. What can, must and, I hope, eventually will solve London's housing crisis is real investment by the public sector to ensure the provision of social housing, at affordable rents, for all the people of London, so that they have decent, safe, dry roofs over their heads. If anything less is provided, the city will continue to decline.

The knock-on effects of bad housing are family break-ups, under-achievement in schools, crime, unemployment and a great deal of misery. Last night, there was a repeat showing on television of "Cathy Come Home". That woman's prospect of finding a house all those years ago was much greater than it would be now. The film was moving in the 1960s, when it first came out ; it is a crying shame that the present situation in London is not better, but worse than it was when that marvellous film was made. It is about time that the Government woke up to the misery that they are causing thousands, if not millions, of people in this capital city--and, indeed, outside it-- through the shortage of decent, affordable housing.

The solution lies in the Government's hands. It does not lie in their constant attacks on local authorities. My authority, for example, has had to sell 5,000 homes in the past five years. It did not want to sell any of those homes : it knows that each sale means the removal of a home that could have been allocated to someone on the waiting list, or to a homeless family. But it had to sell them. It will not build any homes this year. Some housing associations, after a great deal of effort, will manage to build a very small number of places ; our waiting list, like that of every other London borough, is constantly lengthening, and the only people with a chance of being housed are the homeless--provided that they are vulnerable and have dependent children. The single homeless lose out completely because of the lack of a proper housing strategy for London. I shall give the Minister plenty of time to reply. I hope that he will tell us precisely what the Government are doing to solve London's housing crisis, and that he will not tell us that the private sector is to let rip. Letting rip in the private sector has led to private-sector rents of as much as £150 a week for a one-bedroom flat in my constituency. That is way beyond the means of anyone receiving the normal low wages that--tragically--exist throughout London. I do not want the Minister to tell me that the private sector will invest in affordable rented accommodation ; that simply is not credible. The only answer is a serious attempt to invest on the part of public authorities with public funds. Some years ago, we had an elected authority for London. We had a Greater London council ; before that, we had a London county council. The hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) seems to think that the London county council tried to destroy the Tory party in London by building decent houses. If the Tory party in London is afraid of decent houses, good : I am very glad. That exposes what their argument is about. The London county council's quality of construction was incredibly high. I am thinking of the Downham estate, the Debden estate and many other London estates, which were built to a very high standard. Later, building mistakes were made by every local authority, Tory and Labour, by the GLC and

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by other metropolitan authorities. We embarked on system building of high-rise developments far too rapidly-- perhaps, indeed, we should not have embarked on it at all--with all the attendant social problems.

Exactly the same problems are being created now by the Department of the Environment's attitude to cost yardsticks and the density of public-sector building. It is about time that we began to realise that if we want decent homes with gardens for ourselves, it is reasonable for everyone else to want the same. Such homes should be available from councils and housing associations just as easily as they are available on the open market in the private sector. I shall mention one or two other matters, but I think that housing problems are among the most serious, pervasive and destructive currently experienced by the people of London. We need a crash initiative to deal with the crisis ; otherwise, we shall reap the whirlwind later.

Tomorrow, London will be paralysed by traffic jams. There is to be a public transport strike. I understand the reasons why that strike is to take place. I understand why bus workers, who have given a lifetime of loyalty to London Transport, are going on strike--they are being forced to sign documents to reduce their wages, increase their hours and put their jobs out to competitive tendering at some time in the future. They believe in an integrated public transport system, just as the railway workers do. Why should they be forced to sign their own redundancy notices? That, in effect, is what privatisation of the railways and deregulation of the buses will mean.

When people from other parts of this country, or from other countries, visit London they say to me, "Why on earth do you put up with the chaos, the congestion, the pollution, the high fares and the inadequate service in London?" I tell them that it is good, compared with what it is likely to be in three or four years' time. At the moment we still have the vestiges of an integrated public transport system, but by the time the docklands light railway has been sold off, bus franchising has gone full circle, there has been total deregulation of the buses and the railways have been privatised, there will be no possibility of an integrated and decent public transport system in London. When one looks into the minutiae of the Department of Transport's capital spending plans, one begins to see that the logic of it is to transfer yet more journeys in London and the south-east--if not directly in and out of central London--from public transport to private car commuting. That is a disaster for us all.

Another issue to which I wish to refer--the health of Londoners as a whole- -is related to the two previous issues. I mentioned the pollution that results from the high level of private car ownership and usage in London and the child and adult health problems that are brought about by poor housing in London. London is not a particularly healthy city to live in. Its air is very polluted and it is very congested. There is a great deal of social and individual tension, brought about by poverty and unemployment. There are 150,000 people waiting for hospital appointments.

Logic tells me that to deal with this problem we should make full use of our existing hospitals and that we should even consider building new hospitals and providing additional health care. The Government propose to spend £170 million on a primary care initiative, which I have no objection to, except that it is far too small and is limited to only six boroughs. By using the long-arm tactic of regional

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health authorities, and others, the Government hope to get away with the closure of at least seven hospitals in London, with the loss of a very large number of hospital beds. I cannot understand how losing hospital beds and closing hospitals and casualty units will reduce waiting lists. Logic tells me that it is simply not possible to do it that way.

I hope that the appalling state of London's health services and the need for a London health authority and the planning of health care for London as a whole, rather than being divided between the four Thames health authority regions, will be recognised in the debate. I hope that it will also be recognised that the internal market is incapable of providing proper health care for the people of London, because all that matters to the internal market is the buying and selling of health care between health authorities and particular hospital trusts.

Both I and other Members with constituencies in the area, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson), recently had a very interesting meeting at the Whittington hospital. At the end of it, we were appalled to find that our local health authority had yet to sign a contract for this financial year for its patients--our constituents--to be treated by the hospital trust. It is crazy to run a health service in such a way that in March and April of each year there is a panic about whether a contract will be signed so that our constituents can get the health care for which they pay through their insurance and tax contributions.

It would not be right to mention health without also mentioning the ambulance service. Later tonight my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) has a debate on the subject. He is to be praised for the work that he has done over many years in exposing the way in which the London ambulance service has been run. He is also to be praised for his work with the unions and those who are employed by the London ambulance service to get a decent ambulance service for London. It was his work and that of the unions, community health councils and others that exposed the nonsensical way in which the London ambulance service was run. Eventually it led to the resignation of the director. Now the entire London ambulance service board has been dismissed. Everything has reverted to the South West Thames regional health authority.

The situation that has arisen in the London ambulance service is chronic, but it is a typical result of the notion that every public service can be run by some quango, that one has only to avoid public-sector control. The London ambulance service was founded by the London county council and was run by that body and, later, by the Greater London council. At that time, there was real public accountability. Here we have an object lesson for our approach to many other aspects of life in London.

This city is in a state of crisis. We have a crisis of housing, a crisis of transport, a crisis of health and a crisis of employment. We have 468,000 people registered as unemployed. Each of them is willing, able and ready to take a job, but the job is not there. Because of the way in which the list of the unemployed is drawn up, many people cannot even have their names put on it. Last year, fewer than a dozen school leavers in my borough went straight into a job. Obviously, some started further or higher education, but very many youngsters who had grown up in the borough, like many from other boroughs, went straight from school to unemployment.

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It is an appalling crisis. We have seen the closure of manufacturing industry. There is a lack of planning and a lack of investment, yet there is work to be done in the health service, improvement of the transport infrastructure, the building of homes and the redevelopment of some areas of manufacturing industry. But unless the capital city has a planning authority, and some concept of planning, this simply will not happen. The free market has entirely destroyed the manufacturing base, especially in north and east London. We saw the introduction to the east end and the City of lots of fly-by-night office jobs, which then disappeared. Now we have the nonsense of large numbers of empty office blocks as a testament to a period of lack of planning.

If ever there was a point in the history of a capital city at which chaos had been achieved and further chaos could be avoided, this is one. But to achieve that, we need an elected authority with a mandate to plan and to ensure that Londoners are decently housed and have decent health and education services and that somebody is taking responsibility for, and an interest in, the development of industry. Earlier this week a group of Labour Members stood on the steps of Westminster pier to promote a petition for an elected authority for London. We signed the petition, and it will be signed by thousands more Londoners. They understand the situation. They want to live in a clean, healthy and happy city. That cannot be achieved if the free market is allowed to rip, resulting in the destruction of all that is good in London and in the creation of a mess in which it will not be possible to solve any of the problems.

Seeing how few Members are in the Chamber, I am struck by the thought that the House may not be taking these problems very seriously tonight. None the less, we shall have to deal again and again with the choice between a properly run capital city and the propsect of further chaos and higher crime rates. Such misery is clearly beckoning.

Several hon. Members rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I call Ms Glenda Jackson. Before the hon. Lady speaks, I must point out that, as she has spoken already, she needs the leave of the House.

11.37 pm

Ms Glenda Jackson : I am most grateful to have the leave of the House to participate in this part of the debate, and I am equally grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) for giving us the opportunity to discuss the Government's policies--or, rather, the lack of Government policy--with regard to Greater London and the south-east.

There is a popular myth that my constituency of Hampstead and Highgate is a leafy suburb populated entirely by millionaires, who drink only champagne and whose only conversational exchange could be deemed to be chatter. I feel that a similar attitude prevails in relation to London as a whole. As all my hon. Friends have pointed out, the reality is very different. Unless perceptions--in particular, the perceptions of the Government--can be shifted, the decline that we have witnessed in the capital since the onset of the present recession could become irreversible.

Another popular myth circulating at present is that we can somehow talk our country, and with it our capital, back to economic health : if we do not criticise or find fault,

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confidence will return and everything in the garden will be rosy. However, it is precisely that head-in-the-sand attitude which has led to London's dire economic circumstances. Unless we begin to face up to London's problems, we shall never have a hope of overcoming them. A year ago, I made my maiden speech and referred to the 5,000 of my constituents who were without work. That figure has now topped 6,000, and a recent survey by the Association of London Authorities predicts that, by 1997, more than 7,000 of my constituents will have no job. One ward in my constituency has an unemployment rate of over 20 per cent., and unemployment in Hampstead and Highgate as a whole is worse than the average unemployment rate for any area of the United Kingdom with the exception of Northern Ireland.

Every eight hours, another job is lost in my constituency, but that is not a freak problem specific to my constituency. More than half the unemployment in the country is located in London and the south-east, and London alone has a greater number of unemployed people than Wales and Scotland put together. Indeed, last year London lost a job every seven and a half minutes, and 49 Londoners are now chasing every vacancy. That is the reality of London.

London is a city with major social and economic problems, which are not transient. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow referred to the apathy felt by young people who regard education as pointless because it will not lead to employment. That is confirmed by a case of which I heard from a dedicated worker with a group that attempts to stop drug abuse among young people. He said that he knows young people of 14 and 15 who can earn £1,300 a week selling, pushing and using drugs. He wondered what we had to offer as an alternative. What, indeed, after 14 years of Conservative government, do we have to offer them ?

Unemployment in London has become structural. Even if the most optimistic growth estimates for next year and the following year are realised, London will enter the next century with more than half a million people unemployed. London has an economy which is geared to the service sector, yet it has no industrial base to service. It has an economy which is primarily geared to the financial sector, yet a country whose capital is bidding to be the location of the European central bank cannot even maintain an exchange rate comparable with its European partners, and 20 million sq ft of office space in the capital is empty.

London has an economy which depends on being the gateway to Europe, yet, even though its roads are clogged with congestion which costs this country £10 billion a year, investment cannot be found for railways to link the east of the capital to the west or the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf, but £25 billion can be found for widening the M25.

How can we expect the economy of London to grow and to compete when more than 400,000 Londoners are forced to stand idle and when, with the year 2000 beckoning, we cannot provide more than 40,000 London families with a roof over their head which they can call their own ? My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) referred to the drama-documentary "Cathy Come Home", which was shown again on Channel 4 last night. It is 30 years since that film was made but Cathy still

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does not have a home. The hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) has a theory about reducing crime and social difficulties, problems that he laid at the door of the London county council for building homes. I assume that he endorses the Government's policy of reducing crime and possible social unrest by ensuring that people have no homes in which to live.

Despite there being more than 40,000 homeless families, since September 1990 more than 20,000 construction jobs have been lost in London. Setting aside the human tragedy involved, what are the economic implications of those statistics ?

How much does it cost to support homelessness in London ? The last estimate that I saw said that it cost £15,000 to keep a family of four in bed and breakfast. How much does it cost to support the 20, 000 construction workers who have lost their jobs ? It costs £180 million ayear in unemployment benefit alone, and that does not even begin to touch the loss in tax revenues and national insurance. How much does it cost the businesses that rely on the consuming power of those who are now homeless or unemployed, and therefore are no longer consumers ?

Few cities can have as much potential as the city of London--and few cities can have seen their potential so comprehensively wasted. London can still be turned round, but to do so will take direction, understanding and commitment. It is farcical that London remains the only capital city on earth that has no central strategic authority. How can London and Londoners pull together, or have any sense of common purpose, when London is governed by a maze of unelected, unaccountable quangos, joint boards, committees and units, all with their own agendas and ideas of what London wants and needs ? How can any economy flourish in an environment where planning and investment decisions must be made against such a chaotic background ? Also, what chance is there for London when so many of its problems are so blatantly dismissed or ignored ?

At present London is suffering economic hardship as bad as that in any area of the country. Yet because only 17 per cent. of London jobs are now based in the industrial sector London is excluded from European regional development fund assistance. That is why it is essential that when the new assisted areas map is published London does not find itself excluded from domestic aid in the same way as it has been excluded from European assistance. What London requires above all else is commitment. Assisted area help is important, but London needs the long-term investment that will enable it to help itself.

It has been estimated that 150,000 additional local authority and housing association homes are required in London over the next five years. If a programme to tackle that housing deficit were launched today, it could create 26,000 jobs in the first year, rising to over 50,000 jobs by the time the project was completed. Alternatively, if the investment to provide the rail and other transport infrastructure improvements necessary to tackle London's appalling traffic congestion were provided, the rail projects alone would provide 49, 000 jobs. That is an unlikely prospect, on the day that the Government have announced that British Rail's public service requirement is to be cut by 23 per cent.--but that is the kind of commitment that London's economy needs.

Attempting to talk London up is an exercise in futility if we continue to allow a lack of investment to run London down. Rome was not built in a day, but Nero saw it burn

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in half that time. In the same way, we can either begin the slow, steady process of reversing the decline of our capital, or we can watch it spiral downwards, becoming little more than a curiosity, captured in the lenses and postcards of tourists who could not afford Marine World or wanted a break from Euro-Disney.

I believe that London deserves better than that--certainly Londoners deserve better than that--and that it can indeed be better. If we give London the tools, the people of London will finish the job--and what is, after all, the nation's capital can become a world capital, worthy of the name.

11.48 pm

Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South) rose --

Mr. Deputy Speaker : I shall call Mr. John Marshall, but before I do so I point out to him that, although he does not need the leave of the House to speak this time, he has a slot of his own later--No. 6--and if there were then an objection to his speaking, he would have lost his slot.

Mr. Marshall : I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that Opposition Members will be as tolerant of my short remarks as we were of the hon. Member's for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson). I notice that no Liberal Democrat Members are here tonight ; they are great talkers about community politics, but they have not stayed to take part in them.

I welcome the fact that we are having the debate tonight, because today we see the start of tomorrow's one-day national rail strike, which will cause great hardship to Londoners and other people in the south-east. When there was some comment on the subject earlier today, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) said that he supported the strike. I hope that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), who will be speaking on behalf of the Opposition, will condemn his colleague the hon. Member for Bradford, South, and the strike.

I welcome the fact that the Minister who will be summing up for the Government is the same Minister who made announcements earlier this week about un-authorised gipsy encampments. They have caused great hardship to many people in my constituency. We have had them on the Clitterhouse and Westcroft estates. I am grateful to the Minister for listening to the representations which I and others have made over the past few months. I am glad that he intends to act--in the very near future, I hope.

I have listened with interest to what has been said about the former Greater London council. For 15 years I was an elected councillor in the borough of Ealing. One found that the GLC was a source of duplication and delay. There were frequent disagreements between the boroughs and the GLC which resulted in a Minister having to appoint a planning inspector. Sometimes decisions which could have been reached in four or five months took four or five years. The removal of the delays and the costs has benefited ratepayers and development in London, and will lead to a more prosperous London than we have enjoyed historically.

As we look around, we can see Government policies creating great benefit for Londoners in education, housing and health. Let us consider health for a moment. Trust hospitals like the Royal Free are treating many more

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patients than they did before. The Tomlinson report will lead to a much better level of general practitioner services in inner London. That will lead to a better, not a poorer, health service. In housing, we have seen many hundreds of thousands of Londoners become home owners. Tonight there are more vacant beds in hostels in central London than there are people sleeping rough in the centre. We know that many thousands of council houses are empty in certain Labour-controlled boroughs which deprive people of the chance of having homes of their own. It ill behoves the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) to complain about housing in his borough when he knows that for every council house it sells in the coming financial year it can use the capital receipts to build anount which the council will have to allow is up to £50,000 per property, so it is impossible on the income from sales to replace the houses that are sold. The hon. Gentleman should tell the House the truth, that what one is doing is selling off the housing assets of London.

Mr. Marshall : One is not selling off the housing assets because the houses do not disappear. The families who lived in them before are still living in them. Islington is getting an opportunity to build new houses which would be available immediately for letting, and people would not have to wait many years for the present tenants to die or leave their homes.

One could say much more about the great education advances under the Government. Hendon school--one of the first to become a grant-maintained school--is heavily over-subscribed, which did not happen when it was a local authority school. One could compare the growth in popularity of that school with the complete failure of Highbury Grove school in Islington, which was once a popular school and over-subscribed. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) was its headmaster, it was a successful school. Today, under the Labour-controlled Islington council it is a disgrace, as the hon. Member for Islington, North will know.

Mr. Corbyn : Has the hon. Gentleman visited it ?

Mr. Marshall : I visited it when Mr. Norcross was the headmaster and it was successful then. As we know, it has been condemned now by the inspectors and even by some of the hon. Gentleman's friends in Islington.

I realise that the spokesmen for the two Front Benches have much to say, and it would be wrong of me to deprive them of the opportunity. I hope that I have given the House a few examples of how Government policies are benefiting Londoners, who can compare the efficiency of Barnet with the inefficiency of Lambeth. They can compare the school results of Barnet with those of Labour-controlled councils. Wherever they look, they will find that Conservative councils give good services at much less cost than Labour -controlled councils. 11.54 pm

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on securing the pole position for this slot. I often wonder whether this is the way to do it at this time of night.

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Government policies in London and the south- east are certainly an important subject. I hope that the Government will examine carefully the possibility of giving us an all-day debate on London and the south-east so that perhaps more hon. Members can participate and we will have a little more time to discuss the important issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow talked about decline in the east end. That is something that I know well, coming from an east end constituency. He mentioned begging and sleeping on the streets. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) mentioned the same situation.

The housing crisis in London is critical. I know from my own constituency case-load that housing has become the predominant issue with which I must deal. It now takes up perhaps 60 per cent. plus of all the constituency cases with which I deal. Indeed, one need only see the number of people who are homeless or in bed-and-breakfast and temporary accommodation to realise how dire the problem is. The hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) mentioned that people are able to purchase their own homes and how good that was as a Government policy. He must realise that more than 1 million people are living in homes with negative equity, of whom the largest concentration will be in London and the south-east.

The hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) attacked the London county council and the houses it had built. I must remind him that that council built some of the finest public sector housing in the world, and it is acknowledged as such. It gave people the first opportunity in London to have decent, sanitary housing. It was a matter of great pride that the Labour party played such a prominent role in achieving that for Londoners--at a time when Conservative politicians also supported the housing policies of the London county council. Since I am old enough now, I remember the days when rival leaders of the two main political parties used to vie with one another to brag about who built the most homes. I would willingly see such a contest being entered again, rather than having the situation which exists in the east end, around London and in other parts of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow mentioned begging--the young people who beg on the streets of London. It is a disgrace. When I go round the streets of London, I feel ashamed to see so many young people begging. It always comes back to me that it was the present Prime Minister, when he was the Minister for Social Security, who cut off all benefits for 16 and 17- year-olds. He need walk only a few yards from 10Downing street or the Palace of Westminster to see some of the appalling impact of that dreadful decision to cut off benefits for young people.

We had much discussion from my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson), about unemployment in London. Since the slump began in April 1990, unemployment in London has risen from about 200,000 to approaching 500,000. The increase in unemployment in London has been greater than in any other region in the European Community. That is a reflection of the way in which the

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Government's mismanagement of the economy has led to the United Kingdom performing much worse than all comparable countries in the current difficult times.

It is a reflection of a longer period of neglect by the Government. We look back to 1979 when the Conservative party gained office. At that time, unemployment in London was substantially below the national average. It stood at 2.7 per cent. in June 1979, compared with a national rate of only 4 per cent. under the Labour Government. Since that time, through both downswings and upswings in the economy, London's position relative to the national average has deteriorated. In June 1979, London's unemployment rate was 67 per cent. of the national average. By 1985, it stood at 81 per cent. of the national average. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow said, London's unemployment rate rose above the national average in October 1991, for the first time since records have been kept, and now stands at 11.7per cent., compared with a national rate of 10.4 per cent. It is evident that under Conservative Governments, London has been allowed to slide into long- term decline. London has been hit hard by the current slump because the problems that developed in its economy in the 1980s were allowed to fester and grow. Therefore, London was in no position to weather the renewed onslaught of recession. I shall touch on just a few of the problems. There was a devastating loss of manufacturing employment in the 1980s. From 1985 to 1990, half of all the maufacturing jobs lost in Britain were in London. As a result, London has a warped, unbalanced economy. It relied too heavily on the boom in the finance sector, which gave the impression that all was well. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow said, when the finance sector caught cold, London suffered severely.

Other problems are transport chaos, collapsing rail services and clogged roads. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North said, the air is unfit to breathe. Those are major deterrents to international businesses considering locating in London, as well as to tourists. London's chronically inefficient labour market fails to supply enough workers with high-level skills, yet traps thousands in poverty. During the boom in the late 1980s, when London employers were desperately short of labour, there were never fewer than 200,000 people unemployed in the city. Low-quality Government training programmes offer no solution to the problem. They dump people on the labour market with low levels of skill, where there is already an over-supply of labour. They fail to offer routes upwards to higher levels of skill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow mentioned how the impact of unemployment hits different communities in a different fashion. Unemployment in parts of London is as bad as anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Among young blacks, for example, unemployment in parts of the inner London boroughs now touches 70 and 80 per cent. So it is not surprising that there is so much social unrest. There is no justification for crime or for people taking the law into their own hands, but if we cut off large numbers of people from having any stake or say in the way in which society is run, it is not surprising that social problems proliferate.

My hon. Friends all mentioned transport in London. It is crucial. We have the most expensive urban transport system in Europe. The frustration of everyday travel in

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