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Mr. Tim Devlin (Stockton, South): If that is the position, why is the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) writing to his constituents as follows:
- "We do not wish to ban all innocent members of the public from owning shotguns and participating in shooting sports"?
- "People such as yourself will still be able to own handguns but they must be kept safely under lock and key at properly run centres."
Mr. Blair: The hon. Gentleman mentions my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton, North and for Hartlepool. I have just said that there should be a free vote so that Members can vote as they wish.
I believed that it might be possible simply to leave handguns in clubs. However, when I spoke to those who had examined the matter carefully, and when I considered the evidence in the Cullen report, I concluded--I believe that most people will--that the halfway house option was not the right way to leave the matter. If we want to take the bold and proper step to protect our people, we should have a total ban. If people think differently--there are some Conservative Back Benchers who think differently from those who occupy the Government Front Bench--that should be their right. Let us have a free vote, and let us determine the issue properly.
The Queen's Speech reflects a Government who see existing as all that they have left to do.
Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blair:
Like the Government, it is born of drift. There is no leadership and no direction.
Mr. Marlow:
I have a simple question for the right hon. Gentleman. I have listened to his speech from the beginning. When will he stop negative campaigning?
Mr. Blair:
I do not know whether the Opposition or the Government were more worried about that question. It is a pity that the chairman of the Conservative party is not in the Chamber. It would have been interesting to see whether even he would blush at such a question from the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blair:
No. I shall make progress.
Madam Speaker:
Order. Is the Leader of the Opposition giving way?
Mr. Blair:
I am not giving way, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker:
If that is the position, the hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.
Mr. Blair:
Drift means damage. It means also that the decisions that the country needs to be taken are not taken. The choices that it needs to make are not faced. Drift is not neutral. Drift holds the country back when it is urgent to move it forward. There is drift, as violent crime increases.
Where, in the Queen's Speech, are the Bills on stalking and a register of paedophiles--those Bills that were made so much of in the conference speeches of Conservative Members? Let me make them this offer now: produce those Bills on stalking and paedophiles, as Government Bills, and we will co-operate to take them through the House without delay. It could be done. The Conservatives should stop playing politics and point scoring. It could be done; let us do it, and do it without delay.
Sir Ivan Lawrence (Burton):
Will the right hon. Gentleman also be supporting our proposals for automatic minimum sentences for persistent offenders?
Mr. Blair:
I gather that the hon. and learned Gentleman actually opposed them. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) has said that we will examine the proposals presented by the Home Secretary--but even the Home Secretary is now changing them. They go one way, then they go another.
Can the hon. and learned Gentleman explain to me why the Government cannot produce Bills on stalking and paedophiles now? It could be done; it could be done perfectly easily; it could be done without delay. But it is not being done, because the Government would rather play politics with the issues than get them through the House of Commons.
Whatever happened to the issue of beef in the Queen's Speech? We drift in that regard as well. A few months ago, the Prime Minister told us that the beef ban in Europe would be lifted by November. Well, we are a week away from November. There is not the slightest chance of the ban's being lifted by November. The cattle cull and the compensation scheme are in confusion; meanwhile, the only responsibility that the Government have rests on the shoulders of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in whom the National Farmers Union has just passed a vote of no confidence.
There is drift on beef, drift on crime and drift on Europe. Let no one pretend that the truce in the Conservative party will hold together. Everything is just being swept under the carpet. [Interruption.] Perhaps we can have an answer to this question. I have just read the interview that the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave "The World This Weekend" two weeks ago. He said that, if the economic conditions were right, he wanted to join the single currency. He said that the test was the national economic interest. We agree with that, but is that the Government's position? Is that the Prime Minister's position? The Chancellor says that there is no insuperable objection, constitutionally, to a single currency; the Secretary of State for Defence says that there is. What is the Government's position? We do not know: we never know. We do not know what their position is, because their divisions are so deep that they cannot make their mind up.
Drift has never been more in evidence, or more damaging, than in the national health service. We can bandy statistics for ever, although I do not believe that the massive rise in administration costs in the health service is in doubt any longer. There are 20,000 more senior managers, and 50,000 fewer nurses. But it is people's experience that counts. Let me tell two stories that I have heard within the last week just from people of my own acquaintance. [Interruption.] Conservative Members do not like to hear about what is actually happening in the national health service.
One story concerns an injured little boy waiting hours in casualty before finally being seen in the early hours of the morning. There is, I am afraid, nothing unusual in that nowadays; the point is the scene in casualty that greeted his parents. Patients under the supposed community care programme were being abusive and sick. A woman waiting to give birth was screaming. People who should have been in beds were lying on trolleys.
The other story is that of a man injured playing football, and taken to hospital with a swollen leg. He waited for three hours, but the consultant was unable to see him. He was told to go home, and that the swelling would go down. It did not. By chance, a doctor friend of his looked in on him. He was rushed to hospital, and, four operations later, he is lucky to have kept his leg. That is the reality of the national health service Tory-style.
The Tories say, "Talk to national health service staff." We do. Those staff are wonderful--at times, they have the patience and commitment of saints--but they are being subjected to pressure that is intolerable and wrong. "Listen to the doctors," the Prime Minister said the other day. We do. According to the chairman of the consultants committee of the British Medical Association, the NHS--[Interruption.] The Tories always deride this as well. The Tories say, "Talk to the people in the national health service," but when we talk to them and give them the evidence, they ignore it. "Close to collapse," were the words that James Johnson, head of the consultants committee, used.
The national health service is being steadily and consistently undermined by the Government. One of the people I mentioned earlier said to me very simply, "If I had the money, you know, I'd go private." Unless change comes, that is what will undermine the national health service, and the only party capable of rebuilding the national health service is the party that gave birth to it.
Mrs. Marion Roe (Broxbourne):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give a guarantee to the House that he will match the commitment that has been made by right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to spend more in real terms on the national health service during the lifetime of the next Parliament?
Mr. Blair:
Those commitments from the Government have been shown to be utterly worthless. [Interruption.] The previous Labour Government spent more on the national health service in real terms than the Conservatives, and if we speak to the people operating in the national health service--[Interruption.] If Conservative Members want to pit their commitment to the national health service against ours, let them call an election and let the people decide.
Another miracle that the Government claim in their record is on the economy. They claim that they have created an economic miracle. Again, of course, conveniently they make that claim just before the general election. My hon. Friends and I remember that they have always claimed these economic miracles just before the general election. Of course the economy is in better shape than it was four years ago, but who put it in the shape that it was in four years ago? Not even the Conservatives can keep the economy in recession for ever.
Yes, inflation and interest rates are lower, but they are lower the world over, and this Government are not running for re-election on the record of 12 months. They
have been in power for 17 years, and during that time they have given us the most unstable economy the developed world over: we have growth rates below other European countries; in the world living standards league table, we have fallen from 13th to 18th in 17 years; investment, even now, is less than in any previous economic upswing; manufacturing investment was down in the past year; a million fewer jobs since the Prime Minister took office; and there are 900,000 long-term unemployed. That is not a record of which any Government should be proud.
What about the Government accounts? Any sign of a miracle there? Here is a staggering fact. Up to 1990, when the right hon. Gentleman became Prime Minister, all the Governments in the United Kingdom's history had borrowed a cumulative total of £190 billion. During his premiership, the Government have added more than £170 billion to the national debt. Given another six months in office, he will have increased the net amount of national debt by as much as all the previous Governments in the United Kingdom's history put together. And they call that a record of economic management of which they should be proud. Some £25 billion a year is spent in interest payments alone, and that is without North sea oil, £120 billion, and the asset sales, £80 billion. They have had chances denied to all other Governments and they have squandered the money. It has gone.
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