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Mr. Hague: Yes, the £42 million is new money, in the sense that it is additional to the other amounts that I have announced in support of local government next year. The provision that I have made for the years up to and including 1998-99 will mean that the Welsh Office's support for transitional costs will total about £104 million over a five-year period.
The amount that I have announced in the statement will cover all the mandatory costs that my predecessor indicated would be covered. It will also cover a proportion of the discretionary costs of local government reorganisation. It would be wrong to meet all those costs, because that would lead to an increase in bids and an increase in the costs over time. We do not want to see that occur.
Mr. Win Griffiths (Bridgend):
I cannot believe that the Secretary of State is so unintelligent that he does not realise that this is a "Fantasy Island" budget, replete with Orwellian newspeak. When the Secretary of State talks about an increase in the Welsh Office budget, he actually means a cut.
The Secretary of State has announced cash increases for local government, but if we take into account inflation and local authorities' spending this year, we find that their funds will be cut. The Secretary of State has only to look at the statistics on local government education produced by his own Department. They show that the pupil-teacher ratio has increased in the past few years. More and more children are being taught in classes with more than 31 pupils, and last year the local authorities reduced their administrative costs by more than £8 million. Yet the Secretary of State is providing those authorities with less money to run the education system.
Will the Secretary of State confirm the figure that he gave to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) of a minimum 11 per cent. increase in the council tax budget in Wales? If authorities are to meet existing levels of service with reduced funding from the Welsh Office, they will have to increase their council tax by more than 11 per cent.
Mr. Hague:
Let us be clear that the Government's support for local government revenue funding will be £51 million higher next year. That will amount to a lower proportion of total standard spending by a small sum, which is why we need to increase the revenue raised locally in the coming year. I have already referred to that fact.
If the hon. Gentleman wishes to direct more resources to that area, he must say where he would find them. He must be able to tell us where he would get them. If he is not happy with the total budget of £6,865 million--as he implied in his question--he must confirm whether he has squared his views with the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East, and whether he believes that extra money should be raised through higher taxation, higher borrowing or reductions in spending elsewhere. Unless Labour Members are willing to confront that basic problem inherent in all their remarks, their criticisms of today's statement will have no credibility.
I find it extraordinary that Labour Members have not uttered a single word of welcome for a statement which announces this level of provision for health, education, training and the Countryside Council for Wales. They are professional gloom-mongers--but they have not even been successful in that regard this afternoon.
Mr. David Alton (Liverpool, Mossley Hill):
On a point of order, Madam Speaker, of which I have given you notice. You will be aware that, some weeks ago, Baroness Blatch, a Home Office Minister, announced in the other place that social security resolutions would be laid before the House on Monday next. They will come under our negative resolution procedure, so they will be eligible for debate only if a prayer is laid.
Given that the orders will be implemented on the day before the House returns from the Christmas recess on 8 January, it will mean that hon Members will not have the opportunity to debate the orders, which will lead to more than 10,000 refugees and asylum seekers being left destitute and on the streets.
I am sure that, as the defender of the House's liberties and our rights of free speech, you will recognise that, even if that is technically within the rules, it is against the spirit of the rules that we usually operate in this place. Therefore, I hope that you will examine our procedures and consider the question to ensure that, if someone raises a prayer with you on Monday, provision may be made for a debate to occur even on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West)
rose--
Madam Speaker:
I believe that the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) wishes to make a similar point of order. I ask the hon. Gentleman to be brief, as it is a very important matter.
Mr. Madden:
Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. While I endorse everything that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) has said, I must add that the Standing Committee on the Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is directly concerned with these matters, will not have an opportunity to debate them for several weeks. The Social Security Select Committee is considering the issue at this very moment, and it has still to report.
While we do not criticise you in any way, Madam Speaker--we realise that you have no responsibility for the way in which the Government choose to conduct their business--the procedure amounts to an abuse of Parliament, and demonstrates a contempt for Parliament. It is not an arcane matter: thousands of people will shortly be left with absolutely no income. Therefore, would you at least deprecate the procedure?
Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West):
Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. During the recent debate on the legislation, I intervened on the Home Secretary precisely to point out that many people who are perfectly legitimate refugees will be deprived of all their income on 8 January. They cannot work, and their families will have nothing to live on, yet Parliament is approving that outrageous and thoroughly unjust measure.
It is a disgrace that the matter cannot be debated properly before it comes into effect on 8 January. When I intervened on the Home Secretary, he promised to provide me with an answer. He has not done so, and I think that he should be made to explain his position to the House.
Madam Speaker:
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) for allowing me time to consider his point of order. He wrote me a long letter late yesterday afternoon. I have taken into consideration not only his point of order but also the other two points of order on the subject--which is a most unusual course for me--as I appreciate the seriousness of the situation, and the fact that hon. Members feel very strongly about it, and it is right that they should place their views on the record.
However, I must inform the House that the Chair has no power to do what the hon. Member for Mossley Hill and other hon. Members have requested. They want me to interfere with the Government's use of order-making powers which have been given to them by Parliament in statute. No Speaker has the right or the authority to intervene in that way, but I hope that the strong views that have been expressed today have been noted by those on the Treasury Bench.
Mr. Alton:
Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. Thank you for your reply. I ask you also to look very sympathetically at an application for a Standing Order No. 20 resolution so that the matter might be debated urgently next week.
Madam Speaker:
Does the hon. Gentleman seek to ask leave to move a Standing Order No. 20 application now?
Mr. Alton indicated assent.
Madam Speaker:
It is somewhat hypothetical. I think that the hon. Gentleman must submit the proposal to me at the appropriate time and of course I shall examine it, as I always do.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow):
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is usually unsatisfactory to try to grasshopper back to a previous statement, but I believe that there is a point of order for you, as you are responsible for the Clerks Department and its operation in the House.
The impression was given--I put it no higher than that--not so much in the statement as in answers from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that the Clerks Department was participating in matters--I shall not go into their merits, but they are nevertheless highly controversial--in relation to the privatisation of the Stationery Office. If the Clerks Department agreed to participate in the way in which the Minister certainly indicated to the House--Labour Front-Bench Members also received that impression--have they agreed to participate in the operations with contractors or potential contractors for the Stationery Office?
Madam Speaker:
I take the hon. Gentleman's point very seriously. We all have to interpret in our own way what Ministers say, particularly in answer to questions, but that was not the impression that I obtained. Although participation by parliamentary officials in Government decisions is, of course, quite improper, consultations between Government representatives and House authorities will be required at many stages of the proposed process of the privatisation of HMSO. However, there is an important difference between the two that must be maintained at all times, and I shall see that it is.
Points of Order
5.14 pm
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