| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. In the time available for the remainder of the
18 Dec 1996 : Column 873
debate, no fewer than 11 hon. Members are hoping to catch my eye. With a little co-operation, all of them might be successful.10.13 am
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich): I value the time for this debate, so I hope that I shall be able to express my views succinctly.
You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I have been Members of this House long enough to know that one of the Government's habits is to wait until the House is nearing the recess and then provide--especially on the last day--a series of written answers containing a great deal of politically sensitive and difficult material. That is not a new trick, but is one that the current Government have played with total effrontery and, in the past few years, with an increasing lack of respect. I do not think that the Leader of the House is aware of the extent to which individual Ministries save up for the last day those matters that they do not know how to present and put them all on the Order Paper at the last minute. A classic example is the difficulties relating to the important issue of railway pensions.
I am an individual member of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, and I remember that, during the passage of the Railways Act 1993, there was a considerable altercation with the Government, who accepted that they could not deal with the existing pension fund by simply taking all the money into the Treasury and keeping it for their own purposes. The Government did not make it clear, however, that future pensioners of the railway industry would have to see large sums of money being taken out of the pension funds and used as sweeteners for private buyers of existing assets, yet that is happening on an increasing scale.
It is deplorable that those who contribute to a pension fund--either taxpayers or fund members--should suddenly discover that their moneys are to be used, not to enhance benefits for individual pensioners, but to improve the tax position of someone who is already buying assets that will be of considerable use in the future. When we examine carefully what has happened in respect of railway franchises, we see that some of them do not make sense--they are being lauded as of such advantage to taxpayer that the incoming companies will end up in a negative position: in other words, they will be paying the Government for the holding of the franchise.
I am a very trusting creature, but when I read that, my little brain thinks, "That's interesting--why should a commercial firm want to take over assets in that manner and be prepared to pay a considerable sum to the Government at the end of its period of tenure?" Then I read the report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of the National Audit Office on the award of the first three passenger rail franchises. We have not yet reached the stage at which we can use visual aids, which will come as a great relief to most hon. Members; but it is important that hon. Members should know that when I refer to the report, I am talking about figure 8 on page 33, which sets out the subsidy payable to British Rail in 1995-96 and to the franchise companies from 1996 onwards.
Figure 8 shows that there is an impressive fall in the amount of subsidy for the three franchises, so taxpayers should be delighted that they are, in theory, getting such
18 Dec 1996 : Column 874
In my opinion, that is sharp practice, and I think that members of the pension funds will agree with me. If there are surpluses in a pension fund, as there are in the British Rail fund, those surpluses should be used to enhance the benefits of those who contributed to the fund and those who work in the industry. They should not be consistently used to subsidise private companies.
That is an extremely unhealthy and unacceptable practice, which the Government have kept very quiet about. They have not sought to draw it to the attention of people considering the effects of the Bill that became the Railways Act 1993 or of people who currently contribute to pension funds. If it is such an excellent process, why is that the case? Why have not the Government simply said, "One of the deals that we shall make in unloading what we regard as loss-making services on to the private sector is that we shall give large sweeteners--£500 million sweeteners at every level--so that the franchise companies do jolly well out of it, whatever happens"?
There are fears--which, sadly, I believe to be well founded--that some companies will take the money from the public service obligation, bank it or squirrel it away and, when the going gets rough, find it very easy to go bankrupt. The 1993 Act provides that, if that does happen and private companies go bankrupt, the taxpayer, who owned the original asset, who lost that asset to a private company and who is sweetening that private company's finances, must pay for replacement services. Whichever way one looks at it, the taxpayer is caught coming and going, and that is reprehensible.
I am afraid that several nasty little bombs are sitting upstairs in the Press Gallery, waiting for the Government. When access is given to information, nasty questions are always tucked away in the Press Gallery long before they are given to Members of Parliament, and we might have a nasty habit of raising those matters on the Floor of the House just before we rise. That will not happen, because we shall not have the information.
I nevertheless believe that the Leader of the House has a specific task for the recess--to say firmly to some Ministers that, irrespective of party involvement, it does them and the House of Commons no good if that practice becomes more widespread. It is not helpful when Ministers say in a text that they hand out to the press, "We are thinking of privatising the Coastguard," and then, when Members such as myself question that, the Government say, "We did not mean that. The Minister did not say that. It is one of the things that he is thinking about, but he did not say it even though it was in the text." When Ministers of the Crown send out press notices and texts, if they do not intend to do what they have said they will do, they should tell everyone why they have changed their minds.
The acquisition of people's surplus pension funds will not damage the employees of the old British Rail--who, luckily, were protected by the action of Members of
18 Dec 1996 : Column 875
Mr. David Amess (Basildon):
Before the House adjourns for the Christmas recess, I wish to raise three matters, but first I shall mention some pieces of good news.
It is splendid news that unemployment has fallen below 2 million--I understand that the precise figure is 1,938,000. Obviously, every person who wants to work and cannot find employment is a human tragedy, but the House will rejoice that unemployment has fallen below 2 million for the first time. I understand that there has also been an unexpected boost to retail sales and that the markets are reacting extremely well.
The second piece of good news is that the present Conservative Government introduced the national lottery. Increasingly, not enough credit is given to the Government for the amount of money given to various organisations in our constituencies. I am delighted, therefore, that yesterday I received a letter headed, "Third grant programme: Health, Disability and Care", telling me that the Basildon and District Crossroads organisation--a community-based respite service for carers of people suffering from short-term memory loss--will be given £118,477. That is magnificent. I know that all the local carers will be delighted.
The third piece of good news was the ten-minute rule Bill--the Abortion (Amendment) Bill--which I successfully introduced yesterday, to amend the Abortion Act 1967. I was delighted that it received an unopposed First Reading. I was slightly confused, however. An Opposition Member spoke for seven minutes against the Bill. There was a loud call of "Division" and I appointed Tellers but, for some reason, no Opposition Tellers were appointed.
I know that there is some difficulty between the Government and the Opposition at the moment, but I am confused. An Opposition Member spoke for seven minutes and any number of Members entered the Chamber to oppose the Bill. One would have thought that two Tellers could have been appointed from the people who opposed the Bill, but no doubt--
Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West):
I got in a bit of trouble about that yesterday. The hon. Gentleman is constantly confused about such situations. The voice of the hon. Member opposing the ten-minute rule Bill motion is what matters. There does not necessarily have to be a Division.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |