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Popular Music Industry
16. Mr. Fabricant: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what assessment she has made of the impact of the British popular music industry on (a) British cultural life and (b) tourism. [16713]
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: British popular music makes an enormous contribution to the cultural life of the country. Domestic sales rose in 1996 to £1.08 billion, making ours the fourth largest music market in the world. Twenty per cent. of recordings sold worldwide contain a British element. British talent and technical expertise reach hundreds of millions of homes around the globe.
Mr. Fabricant: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does she recall that, in the 1970s, many rock and pop stars left the country because of punitive taxation? Is she delighted that, under the present Conservative Government, the Spice Girls have stayed in this country, and will she congratulate the Spice Girls on winning the best single award in the Brit awards? Was she heartened, as I was, to hear that Margaret Thatcher was the original Spice Girl?
Mr. Cunliffe: Will the right hon. Lady request the national lottery board to keep a better sense of proportion, fairness and, to some degree, equity? How can it reconcile giving £55 million to the royal opera house in London for wealthy pleasure-seekers while refusing substantial grants to the Marie Curie Cancer Care unit, which operates hospices for dying people? The board has given 277 times more in subsidies to the opera than in grants to hospices. How can we, as Christians, given the criteria that have been set, accept the encouragement of the growth of opera houses as against hospices?
Madam Speaker: That was a very interesting question, but it does not relate to the one that is on my Order Paper. Would the Minister like to make a response?
Madam Speaker: A generous lady.
Mrs. Bottomley: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was auditioning for next year's Brit awards, but I was going to respond anyway.
Although I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's point, I am pleased that £160 million has been spent on health-related charities; he knows how strongly I felt about that when I first became Secretary of State. However, I believe that he would miss the point if he failed to recognise what an incredible opportunity the national lottery has been for our country, enabling us to invest in our arts, heritage and cultural life.
Sir Ernest Hall, a member of the Arts Council, said:
"Through the Lottery we have an opportunity to do for our towns and cities what the enlightened patronage of the Papacy and the Medicis did for the cities of Italy. We can realise Blake's dream of making England, 'an envied storehouse of intellectual riches'."
I believe that it is a magnificent opportunity. As the Department reaches its fifth anniversary, it can see the way in which it has invested in the initiatives that matter to the people of this country.
Legal Aid (Industrial Tribunals)
28. Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what representations he has received on extending legal aid to cases before industrial tribunals. [16725]
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. Gary Streeter): A number of representations on extending the scheme to cases before industrial tribunals and other tribunals were received by the Department in response to the Lord Chancellor's Green Paper on legal aid published in May 1995.
Mr. Marshall: Does my hon. Friend agree that such a course of action would merely burden the already overburdened legal aid fund, place additional burdens on industry and make job creation more difficult? Will he therefore comment on the interview in the New Statesman with Lord Irvine of Lairg?
Mr. Streeter: My hon. Friend knows that our policy is to bring the legal aid budget under control--to bring an end to its demand-led, runaway nature before any thoughts of applying legal aid elsewhere can be entertained. I was therefore shocked to read the shadow Lord Chancellor's proposals to extend legal aid to industrial tribunals that appeared in the New Statesman in December. [Interruption.] I have it here and can read it if the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) wants me to.
Every year, 80,000 cases are heard by industrial tribunals. If only half of them were to attract £1,000 per case, that would add £40 million to the legal aid bill. Is it any wonder that the first act of any unlikely incoming Labour Government would be to have a summer Budget to pay for their massive spending plans?
Mr. Janner:
Has the Minister considered what steps he could take to provide aid, legal or otherwise, for himself and his colleagues when they consider themselves unfairly dismissed by an ungrateful but fairly discerning electorate?
Mr. Streeter:
We Conservatives believe in democracy. Although the hon. and learned Gentleman has served with distinction in the House, he has never been very good at predicting the future: he was wrong in 1992 and he is wrong today.
30. Mr. Mark Robinson:
To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when he last met the chief executive of the Legal Aid Board to discuss reform of the legal aid system. [16727]
Mr. Streeter:
I last met the chief executive of the Legal Aid Board on Wednesday 26 February 1997. We reviewed the White Paper reforms, which will cash-limit the budget, set national and regional priorities, dispense legal aid through block contracts with high-quality
In the meantime, we have reformed the way in which solicitors and barristers are paid, which gives us greater control and will reduce costs. We have set up a special investigations unit to crack down on bogus claims. That is already beginning to bear fruit. We have also introduced regulations to stop legal aid abuse by the apparently wealthy.
Mr. Robinson:
I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, as far as it goes, but I am sure that he is aware that many of my constituents read reports in the tabloid newspapers to the effect that large sums are being paid in legal aid to undeserving people who could well afford to pay. Are there any steps that he could take now to crack down on the abuse of legal aid?
Mr. Streeter:
My hon. Friend is right to press me on this point. Although our reforms are right and positive results and savings from the measures that we have already taken are beginning to emerge, it remains clear that too many cases that should not get it are still receiving legal aid. Accordingly, my Department is now looking at two further areas in which I want to make more progress.
First, we shall review the use made by the Legal Aid Board of counsels' opinions. We shall explore ways of cracking down on over-optimistic opinions from barristers that lead to legal aid being granted when it should not be.
Secondly, it is increasingly obvious that many of the cases that cause widespread public concern are decisions by area committees reversing initial refusals by the Legal Aid Board. We shall explore ways of bringing area committees more into line with public concern and common sense.
Mr. Boateng:
What action does the Minister propose to take to deal with the grotesque imbalance between public expenditure on civil legal aid for ordinary, hard-working, honest taxpayers, and on criminal legal aid for those who are convicted of crimes yet are required to pay nothing towards the cost of their defence? Is it not time to recognise the fact that, under the Labour Government, about 80 per cent. of households had access to civil justice, whereas under this Government that number has fallen to 49 per cent.? Is it not time to return access to the courts to the ordinary, hard-working British people?
Mr. Streeter:
Once again the hon. Gentleman appears to be calling for a change in the rules that will enable more people to claim and more money to be spent by the Government. He is a big-spending member of the Labour party--I do not mean just his suits. He does not seem to realise that the Government cannot spend money that they do not have. If we are to spend more, we must tax more. This is old Labour in a new suit: tax and spend.
31. Mr. Fabricant:
To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what assessment
Mr. Streeter:
None, but it is widely believed that our legal aid system compares favourably with any in the European Union.
Mr. Fabricant:
I am disappointed that my hon. Friend could not provide me with the actual figures. If he could, I believe that they would show that this country is more than generous with legal aid compared with other European countries.
I wish to press my hon. Friend on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Robinson). What action will he take to target legal aid precisely--with particular reference to the area committees that he mentioned earlier?
Mr. Streeter:
My hon. Friend will know that the White Paper reforms that we announced last year and the measures that I announced this afternoon will do exactly what he asks: target resources where they are most needed. It is now clear that the fact that our legal aid system is as comprehensive as any in the European Union can be added to the good news of rapidly falling unemployment compared with our European competitors, to demonstrate that life is better in a Conservative Britain.
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