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Debate on the Address
Madam Speaker: It will be for the convenience of the House to know that the subjects for debate on the Queen's Speech will be as follows.
Thursday 16 November--foreign affairs and defence; Friday 17 November--health; Monday 20 November-- investment (trade, industry and transport); Tuesday 21 November--social affairs (education and home affairs); Wednesday 22 November--the economy.
>Mr. Douglas Hurd (Witney): Mr. Douglas Hurd-->
I beg to move,
I hope that the House will not think it impolite when I say that when I leave Parliament, it will be my constituency that I shall miss the most. It is true that in my giddy youth I dabbled with various ideas about proportional representation, but I am clearly of the opinion that the system in which single Members of this House represent single constituencies containing thousands of people--whether they voted for them or against them--is a precious part of our constitution.
The west Oxfordshire constituency starts on the outskirts of Oxford and stretches westwards into the Cotswolds. To the south, it begins on the old county boundary of the River Thames, and continues north across the royal forest of Wychwood up to Warwickshire. It is a mixture of substantial towns--some old, some new--and a great number of traditional villages. It is at its best, perhaps, on a spring evening when the daffodils are bright against the grey stone. Then, it seems entirely placid and rustic. But that is an illusion, because all human nature is there--together with a great deal of human activity--and always has been. The stone from the Taynton quarries came down by river to be used in the building of Windsor castle and St. Paul's. Gloves were made at Woodstock through the centuries; blankets are still made in Witney.
In the 21 years that I have been in the House, there has been a substantial change in west Oxfordshire. When I started, the big employer was British Leyland and the component manufacturers around it. Buses called at the villages in the morning and came back at night, taking hundreds and hundreds of my constituents to work at Cowley. However, working at Cowley was not in any way to be taken for granted in those days. There was a reign of confusion and uncertainty by shop stewards at British Leyland. Now, there are many fewer jobs at Cowley, but they are good ones.
The change has come round all the market towns and big villages that I represent, where there is now a ring of thriving industrial estates. Along the River Windrush, in one of the old blanket mills--until recently there was actually a donkey on the payroll--people now make electronic components for aircraft manufacturers round the world. That is the new and competitive British economy in which Conservative Members firmly believe.
Oxfordshire has a strong faith in education, and we welcome the provision for nursery places outlined in the Gracious Speech. Witney certainly got there first--as it was put at the time, thanks to the praiseworthy zeal of Rev. Charles Jerram, the infant school was founded in 1836. I have with me the song of those infant school children:
I have found very strong support for the achievement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment--and, indeed, strong personal affection for her. I support the measures in the Gracious Speech to improve the position of grant-maintained schools. I am a strong supporter of the assisted places scheme. The abolition of direct grant schools was an act of particular vandalism in Oxfordshire, because of the excellent schools that were in the city and in Abingdon. The assisted places scheme does something to redress that.
I know that the quality of teaching is more important than the size of the class--[Interruption.] I should have thought that that was an obvious statement. I know, too, that the figures for my county are worse than they might be, because of the financial policies of the county council. But I also know that when my constituents listen to the Budget speech in a few weeks' time, they will hope and expect my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to strike a difficult balance. They will certainly listen with one ear--one eager ear--for news about taxes, but they will also want to be sure that he gives full and practical effect to what the Prime Minister has said about priority for spending on education.
I congratulate the Prime Minister not only on his return from New Zealand--[Laughter.] Safe coming and going is always an achievement in this world. In particular, I
congratulate my right hon. Friend on the way in which he represented the interests of this country in New Zealand. I thought that he came across extremely well, especially on the two main difficult subjects that he had to handle-- nuclear tests and Nigeria. Neither is easy, and I thought that the Prime Minister represented the interests and views of this country firmly, clearly and without pretence on both those issues.
No one can suppose that the task that the Commonwealth, Europe or the United Nations are setting themselves on Nigeria will be easy; the right balance will not be at all easy to strike. But if we continue on the way that my right hon. Friend charted at Auckland, we shall both build up the reputation of the Commonwealth and do our best for the people of Nigeria.
I return to, and conclude on, the last sentence of the Gracious Speech, which is always there, in which the Queen prays that the blessing of almighty God may rest upon our counsels. The counsels that we give from this House, and the way in which we arrive at them, are under attack. I believe that we should be more self-confident, perhaps, than we have shown ourselves to be in recent weeks and months in responding to those attacks; otherwise there is a danger that we may look for the wrong defence and the wrong remedy.
I do not believe that sleaze and scandal are really what worries people about this Parliament. What worries them most--it worries many thoughtful people--is the sense of empty noise and phoney warfare. Here, to my faint surprise, I find myself agreeing with remarks made by my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Tebbit the other day. For most people outside Parliament, education, the economy, Europe and the other themes of political argument in this country--big themes, on which there is plenty of natural disagreement--are more than playing fields on which two or three teams of politicians pit themselves against each other.
There used to be in this country a strong and vivid appetite for adversarial politics--in the days of Gladstone and Disraeli, or of Gladstone and Lord Randolph. But for one reason or another, that has gone, and there is a real danger that, egged on by the media, all parties in the House--all of us--may play out the old play not realising that beyond the footlights half the audience has crept away, and the other half is sitting there in mounting irritation.
In that context, I am glad that the divorce reform and mediation Bill is in the Gracious Speech; it is right that it should be debated. It may well be right that the conscience clauses should be decided by the House on a free vote. On past form, that procedure has led to a better debate in the House and probably to a more acceptable conclusion in the country. What I have said is intended not as high-minded exhortation, but as low political advice.
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom and Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
I am delighted to have this honour, with my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth), for several reasons--not least because tradition allows me to start with a short hymn of praise to my constituency. It will be short, and it will also be disinterested, because I am not seeking to represent the seat again.
"This is Witney Infant School, Where we are taught the happy rule, To love our God and parents kind, And leave all useless things behind. But we must come with faces clean, Neat clothes--all whole--fit to be seen . . . Then let us all attend to time, Be there before, or just at nine: And in the afternoon so true Be always in the school at two"-- and it stresses:
During the past year, I have visited many schools and met many governors, parents and teachers. Like my right hon. and hon. Friends, I have also received huge numbers of letters. There is a mood of anxiety about the subject. Those concerned have met the reductions in individual school budgets with some hardship, but on the whole they have met them with once-and-for-all devices such as using school reserves. They are now stripped of that protection and are waiting for this year's figures.
"And only a penny we do pay Per week for learning every day." The difficulty now is that it costs a little more than a penny a week.
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