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Mr. David Nicholson: Would my hon. Friend care to link those two themes, because, in the past 17 years, the Government have taken measures to curb the cost of pensions and to encourage people to have occupational and private pensions, whereas European countries have not? If we were to go into European monetary union, there is a fear, which I think my hon. Friend knows more about than I do, that we would have to share the burden of those countries in paying for their old people?
Sir Michael Spicer: If one accepts that we would be part of a single currency, coincidentally there would have to be a large public sector budget for various purposes such as supporting poorer countries that would not be able to cope with the single currency's demands. The argument would arise that, under a single currency and under a federal state of Europe, which would go together, in a fair and free market, pensions, for instance, should be comparably funded throughout the European Union.
In those circumstances, it is probable that German taxpayers, who would effectively rule the roost, as there would be as many of them as Frenchmen and British people put together, would argue that there should be fairness in this, and that a budget should be created so that there was an even playing field and so that the Germans did not pay a disproportionate amount of taxes. In those circumstances, British taxpayers, despite the fact that they already had good occupational pensions, would have to transfer funds into a European budget. At least that is a strong possibility and it must be considered before we even deign to think about going into a single currency.
Neither of the twin problems of our relationship with Europe and of how we deal with the welfare state--my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) is right to say that they are linked--will be dealt with by the Labour and Liberal parties. Neither party could ever bring itself to accept, for instance, that welfare support should be given not, as some universal right, but from the basis of need. That means that the Labour party, if it ever came into office, would never be able to produce arithmetic in which the sums added up.
In his speech, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) criticised the Government for still having a large public sector debt. He did not seem to create much excitement on the Labour Benches, but the implication was that the Labour party would do something about the debt.
At the same time, the Labour party says that it will not raise taxes. In his speech, the Leader of the Opposition made commitments towards greater expenditure. It is true that that is what Labour stands for. It stands for spending money at the centre. That is what it is all about. Labour Members looked very glum, during their leader's speech, and I do not blame them. If I were a Labour Member, I would look extremely glum because it has lost direction on these matters. If I were in the Labour party, I would be seriously alarmed that my leader had talked about financial probity and had denied that the Labour party was going to spend more.
Mr. Barry Jones (Alyn and Deeside):
I reject the attack of the hon. Member for South Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer) on my party, but I am always glad to follow him, and I watch with a sense of wonder his European campaign. The best that I can say is that he has a beautiful constituency, a fine cricket team and a lovely county ground.
I support my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in his approach to handguns. I looked in the Gracious Speech for the signing of the social chapter and for the minimum wage. I also wanted my county of Flintshire and my country of Wales to be exempt from the nursery voucher scheme, but that was not to be.
Today, thousands of beef farmers from all Britain, Wales and the Clywd hills in my constituency came to the House. This afternoon, Mr. Terrig Morgan and Mr. Idris Jones of Pwll farm, Treuddyn, and Mr. Kevin Owen and Mr. George Jones of Trimley hall, Llanfynydd, told me of the crisis in the beef industry. They made persuasive points, and I will briefly describe their difficulties.
The price of clean beef has collapsed in recent months, and the farmers urge the Government to implement a temporary guaranteed price system to help to restore market confidence. Also, a severe problem exists in relation to the slaughter of casualty stock under the 30-month scheme, which leads to animal distress and welfare problems. Mr. Morgan told me that, a week ago, one of his milking cows, a Friesian, did the splits in the milking parlour. The vet said that the beast had to be put down, but Mr. Morgan had a problem getting the cow off his premises and to the slaughterer, and in completing the appropriate form and obtaining compensation.
My constituents also told me that there is an immense backlog with the 30-month scheme, with some local farmers having failed to dispose of one animal since the
scheme's implementation. That backlog must be cleared as quickly as possible, and compensation must return to the original rate of one ecu, or 83.3p, per kilo live weight. Beef farmers in my constituency are in desperate trouble. I ask the Government to help them as winter approaches.
The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield(Sir N. Fowler), in proposing the Loyal Address, made a charming, humorous and well-judged speech, and the seconder is a doughty defender of the Isle of Wight. I enjoyed the vigour, elan, panache and dynamism shown in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). I was watching the faces of members of the Treasury Bench as my right hon. Friend spoke, and I saw fear, unease, indignation, fascination and even detestation. I knew from their expressions that my right hon. Friend was doing a good job.
One should never underestimate the present Prime Minister. He is a survivor, a determined counter-puncher, a steely performer and a true professional--as one would expect of a British Prime Minister. However, the right hon. Gentleman's speech was sheer electioneering, and did not carry an atom of conviction. It will not be well received in the country.
From my 26 years' in the House, I think that this year's Queen's Speech is opportunistic, short-term and shallow. I thought of Mohammed Ali in his latter years--lying on the ropes, ducking and weaving, fighting for only half a minute and being exhausted for the rest of the round. Likewise pugilistically, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition reminded me of the young Mohammed Ali. He floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. He puts fear into the hearts of Government Members. Not for long will the members of the Treasury Bench remain there, and they know it--my right hon. Friend will see to that.
The Minister of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Greg Knight):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jones:
No. I have been here 26 years and know when not to give way and to whom to give way--I pay a compliment to the Minister. He will have his turn.
Mr. Mackinlay:
When he is in opposition.
Mr. Jones:
Yes, in opposition.
I was about to say, when I was so inconsiderately interrupted, that I enjoyed the speech of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). What a speech. It was saturnine, self-contained and almost stealthy. I remember the right hon. Gentleman as a courteous Secretary of State for Wales whom I found most accessible, if rather bureaucratic. He was certainly detached. He had never stayed in Wales until his appointment to that great office.
He is now a man transformed. Last year, with his breathtaking dare, the right hon. Gentleman electrified the political scene and nearly electrocuted his leader. Today he looks fit, lean and relaxed, yet hungry. He senses the decay among the members of the Cabinet that he once graced. For the right hon. Gentleman, the Back Benches are, like Guinness, good for you. I see the right hon. Member for Wokingham as a more certain, younger, focused challenger--certainly more so than was the right
hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). I see the right hon. Gentleman as a dark-suited, sharp-suited Demosthenes, and he was electioneering as well.
There has been a Conservative Administration since 1979, which is a whole generation and an era in British politics. Those Administrations have enjoyed £120 billion of North sea oil revenues and £80 billion privatisation revenue from the sale of the former public utilities--the family silver, as the former Harold Macmillan once said. Where has that £200 billion gone? It has gone not to Wales or my constituency but elsewhere. It has been wasted, squandered and misapplied. Our nation is in dire need of investment.
Those Conservative Administrations have also overseen the erosion of our manufacturing base. We have no coal industry or shipbuilding industry left to speak of, and the steel industry has been slimmed down. The manufacturing base has all but disappeared. All we have left is the engineering and aerospace industries, and what remains of steelmaking.
Sir Keith Joseph, once head of the Department of Trade and Industry, and Sir Geoffrey Howe, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, were powerful and committed Cabinet Ministers who implemented the policies that denuded Britain of her manufacturing base, to which no thought is given in the Queen's Speech. At least 2 million prime manufacturing jobs have simply disappeared within a few years, and those terrible twins of the economy of the early 1980s, Sir Keith and Sir Geoffrey, allowed that to happen, encouraged by their Prime Minister.
In order to slot this Gracious Speech into the context of nearly 18 years of Conservative government, I also emphasise the auction and surrender of our public utilities--the scandal of our political times. Once the people of my nation owned the Welsh water authority and the thousands of acres of beautiful land therein, but now those acres, that industry, that utility, are in the hands of shareholders, and it is the City of London which decides what shall be in that industry. Once the British people owned the electricity and gas industries, but not now, and I regret that. The wealth of the nation has been squandered--£80 billion for the public utilities.
But, above all, a great social divide has opened up. Socially and economically, there is a chasm between those who are reasonably well off and well off and those who have very little. There is a chasm between the classes which is as obvious and as massive as those permanent, massive and so very obvious earthworks by King Offa and King Wat in my constituency. That great divide is the consequence of nearly 18 years of one-party rule.
What we could have done with those massive revenues that have been squandered. How we could have changed the future of our nation. Instead, the achievement of an era of one-party rule is an underclass, with all the unjust consequences. I have in mind those huge, aging council estates. They are sorry sights, but they are home to millions of our fellow citizens. On those estates there is unemployment, burglary, graffiti, vandalism, drug abuse, car theft, fear, distress, intimidation, poverty and hopelessness. No one can deny those facts. They are the consequence of all the years of these Conservative Administrations. Yet still, the Queen's speech does not address those problems.
It is a scar on our society that there many people have no sense of hope and no future. Our fellow citizens have no hope, and it is this Government who have brought our nation so low. That has to be said before we usher out this dying Government. I regret the poverty, the hopelessness, and the scarring legacies of four Conservative Administrations.
Like many right hon. and hon. Members of all parties, I hold my constituency surgeries conscientiously. They are the best contribution that any hon. Member can make for his people. But those encounters with my constituents are disturbing and worrying. I see the problems of some of the British underclass, and it is right that their dilemma should be spelled out here, in the mother of Parliaments.
I measure the disasters of Thatcherism at my surgeries. I measure the inability of a British Cabinet to comfort, aid, restore and give hope to my constituents and my fellow citizens throughout the nation. There is no hope and no comfort for them in the Gracious Speech. There are no real or lasting jobs. School leavers know that they have no prospect of a real job, particularly those with few academic qualifications.
I wanted today's Queen's Speech to tackle the great divide between the better-off and the have-nots. I wanted to see the beginning of the reconciliation of our people in order to end that divide. It is not good for any of the people of Britain, particularly the rich, for there to be so great a contrast between those who are poor and those who are prosperous. There will be trouble if that chasm remains. I would be the first to say that to end that chasm is a mighty challenge to any Government, but the fact that that chasm has become so great is the responsibility of Conservative Administrations.
To illustrate my concern, I quote from an article in The Sunday Times a week or so ago. It is a review of a book about the poor in Britain, aptly entitled "A Journey to the Edge". Between 8 million and 12 million of our fellow citizens have no great future and no hope for the future. The oil revenues and the privatisation moneys were not devoted to their future; to enhancing the lives of the jobless, the homeless, those who have disabilities, those stricken by poverty or those who are cold, alone or ill.
This substantial review, headed "Always with us", is by Sean O'Brien, a poet, who says:
"As he goes, introduced by a network of contacts . . . he invites people to talk--thieves in Brixton, Somalis in Liverpool, junkies in Glasgow, mental health workers in Barrow-in-Furness, teenagers in Bradford and Salford, kneecapped Belfast joyriders, a hardworking counsellor in the ravaged west end of Newcastle."
He continues:
"Most people are familiar with a lawless housing estate, with aimless teenage glueys on the street, with the unemployed children of the unemployed as they drift away from recognisable society. Originality is hardly the point, though. The sheer extent of civil catastrophe and human waste revealed here threatens to beggar belief."
It is a sobering review. It goes on:
"Without a radical transformation of the workings of the state and parliament towards the achievement of the common good we shall soon have not merely two nations but a degree of social disorder which many would have supposed impossible."
Maybe, maybe not, but there is a grave problem. There is a divide which the Gracious Speech does not address, and the Cabinet does not acknowledge its responsibility for the problem that faces an incoming Government.
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