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6.6 pm
Sir Hector Monro (Dumfries): It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). All I can say to him is: best of luck at the national stadium on Saturday, when Wales play England. The rest of what he said, and of what the Scottish National party and Labour party spokesmen have said, was most disappointing. They always run the country down and never say a good word about the achievements of the past 18 years. I am quite sure that the Secretary of State for Wales will put the hon. Gentleman right about the tremendous economic achievements in Wales under a Conservative Government. I refer particularly to the remarkable amount of inward investment, of which we are all justly proud.
For some months now I have thought that each speech I made in this place would be my last, but more Scottish business seems to come up week by week. Likethe hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber(Sir R. Johnston), I arrived here in 1964 and made my maiden speech on Second Reading of the Finance Bill in November of that year--in front of a much more crowded and rumbustious House, during the white heat of the 100 days of socialism which ended in the raging disaster of the late 1960s.
Today represents a dreadful climbdown for the SNP. A fortnight ago there were headlines all over the Scottish press to the effect that the SNP would press for a vote of no confidence in the Government today. The Labour party, the Welsh and the Irishmen would support SNP Members in that endeavour, we read, and the Government would fall. In fact, hardly a socialist or Labour Member has been present for the debate--just two of them on the Front Bench and no Back Bencher, with the exception of the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson). So the whole idea of a vote of no confidence in the Government has failed. That just goes to show how the Labour party, the SNP and other parties in the House are at war with each other.
Perhaps Labour deserted this debate because of its significant fall in the polls last week; or perhaps it was to do with steamrollering democracy through the Labour party conference in Inverness at the weekend. Most disappointing of all is the fact that neither Labour, nor the Liberal Democrats, nor the SNP will clearly outline their policies even though we shall, in a week or two, be entering a general election period. The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) in particular refused absolutely to explain his party's policies for Scotland. He waved the question aside and said that the debate was over.
We shall enter the election period not knowing the Labour party's position on the West Lothian question, the tartan tax, pensions and how many Scottish Members of Parliament should be in Westminster; on local government expenditure in Scotland, all we know is that Labour is not prepared to give a penny more.
We are bemused by the fact that the Labour and Liberal parties have decided to have a referendum after a decision and legislation on proportional representation--our electoral system is an extremely important matter--yet the same Labour party is prepared to go ahead with a referendum on a Scottish Assembly before legislation is introduced, which is quite the wrong way round. The Opposition cannot have it one way for proportional representation and the other for the constitution.
Economic growth, success in controlling inflation and interest rates and the general expansion in industry with the consequent reduction in unemployment are all going well, as voters will know, yet the Opposition can do nothing but pour cold water on every aspect of Government activity over recent years.
The motion is full of fine phrases. We all want to
The Government have provided
The motion contains all those ideas, with which all hon. Members would agree, but ends without any indication of how they are to be paid for. The Opposition say that they do not accept the Red Book figures for this year and the next, which shows that they have no idea whatever how to pay for the additional facilities that they have called for in this debate.
The hon. Member for Hamilton, in particular, was rumbled, because he was nonplussed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's attack relative to the health service. The health service is doing exceptionally well in Scotland and quality is improving all the time. My local health board spent £121 million in 1994-95, increasing to
£131 million this year. That is a huge increase in real terms in health service spending. The hon. Member for Hamilton is prepared to cut staff and reduce expenditure by £30 million, which we all find hard to understand, bearing in mind our definite decision to continue increasing health service expenditure in real terms, year in and year out.
I asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about defence. The hon. Member for Moray dodged the issue. Nobody worked harder than many of us in the House of Commons to retain the Scottish regiments. We effectively lost two: the amalgamation of the Gordons and the Queen's Own Highlanders, and the second battalion of the Scots Guards.
As much as I disliked its happening, the total lost was only 1,000 men, while the Scottish National party's policy would affect many thousands of men currently serving at Lossiemouth, Kinloss and Leuchars and in the Royal Navy and the Scottish regiments. That would be a serious setback for Scotland in terms not only of employment but of the prestige of the services and our great love for our regimental and Royal Air Force service men.
The SNP also refused to accept the point about the inevitable loss of our voice in the world were we to go for independence. The United Kingdom as it is today has tremendous power throughout the world, but if we are cut down to a relatively small country, we shall lose the importance of our vote not only in Europe but further afield.
I find it hard to understand why, when the SNP continually complains, as does the Labour party, about quangos, it intends to set up a host of new ones, such as a Scottish land commission, a Scottish export unit, a Scottish forest enterprise board, a Scottish commission for racial equality--
Mr. George Robertson:
I said no such thing.
Sir Hector Monro:
I am not accusing the hon. Gentleman: I am talking about the Scottish National party; he should listen occasionally. He is not always in trouble--only 99 per cent. of the time.
There are costs, costs, costs under Opposition parties' socialist proposals, but no indication of where the money is to come from: it will come inevitably from increased taxation. The shadow Chancellor said that there would be no increase in income tax, but that means only that tax will go bang, bang, bang on everything else. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) rightly said, the windfall tax, especially on electricity, will inevitably have more impact than value added tax on electricity had. It will have a dramatic impact on fuel and power, yet the Labour party is prepared to go ahead with it.
Between now and the general election, Labour has a great deal of explaining to do about how the country is to be taxed out of existence to fulfil the many promises that it has made, largely with the support of the SNP and the Liberal Democrats.
Mr. John McFall (Dumbarton):
First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) on securing the debate and on the way in which she expounded her views. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) and the right hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) on their distinguished service in the House. I do not want them to be spirited away and would like their wise counsels to be available to us in the next Parliament from outside the Chamber, so I shall not go on for as long as did the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie).
Is not it amazing that the Secretary of State knows which the next party of government will be, in that he spent almost 90 per cent. of his 32 minutes attacking Labour in the style of a true oppositionist? He mentioned the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) about the national health service trusts and job losses.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. William Hague):
What is the hon. Gentleman going to say about that?
"eradicate poverty and create full employment",
although it would be interesting to ask the Opposition what they mean by full, because all Governments have accepted that there is a limit beyond which one cannot go. Of course we want to create
"a society free of social injustice"
and to espouse "democratic values". Conservative Members have those values, but we sometimes wonder about the Labour party and the Scottish nationalists.
"free health care . . . from cradle to grave"
with ever increasing significance and to an ever higher standard. We help elderly folk as much as we can, and further information will be forthcoming later this week on an important step forward in health care for the elderly. We all believe in the community values advocated in the motion.
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