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Mr. Dorrell: --supported by plebiscite.
Mr. Fabricant: My right hon. Friend is correct. Having the opportunity to debate anything is becoming a luxury rather than the right of all parliamentarians.
Education appears at the top of the Queen's Speech. Before the election, education, education, education was the mantra. It was said that it would be the primary concern of the Labour Government to invest in our children's future. No one could argue with that, either. It is of paramount importance to invest in the future of this nation. The question is: how will it be paid for?
We have heard about the abolition of the assisted places scheme. Some 38,000 children of poor parents, whose average income is £10,800, benefit from the scheme. Missing from the calculation is how children who benefit from the scheme will be funded in the state system, irrespective of whether the abolition will be staggered. Some schools in my constituency will be affected, including S Mary and S Anne in Abbots Bromley. As a result of the change, 38,000 students will flood into the state sector, where of course they will have to be paid for.
The average cost per pupil in the state system under standard spending assessments is a little more than the cost of an assisted place. I cannot therefore understand how extra money will be generated. I could understand it if those 38,000 students remained in the private sector--but they will not. They will go into the state-run education system, so no extra money will be available. During the election campaign--it was repeated today by the Secretary of State--we heard again and again the Labour promise that class sizes would be reduced by abolishing the assisted places scheme. The figures do not add up, as I am sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer will tell the Secretary of State for Education and Employment in due course.
The Chancellor has his own problems, of course, not least a £12 billion gap in his spending and income projections. It was calculated by the Treasury only a few weeks ago--by the same officials who serve the Chancellor today--that a £12 billion gap will have to be filled somehow. I trust the Labour Government not to increase income tax rates, because to do so would be too blatant a lie even for a Labour Government. They put up posters promising not to increase income tax rates, but already there have been certain tax increases.
The first tax increase--it will presumably be debated because it did not appear in the manifesto--is the tax on mobile telephones. Are they really a luxury? Many would argue that, for small businesses particularly, they are far from a luxury. They enable many small businesses to survive.
Labour Ministers may claim that the independence of the Bank of England was foreshadowed in the manifesto; others would argue that it was not. Various models have been offered as success stories of independent banks in other countries, yet the most truly successful independent bank, the Federal Reserve in the United States of America, owes its success to the directive issued to Alan Greenspan not just to keep inflation low--that may involve putting up interest rates--but to aim for full employment. The two do not necessarily go together.
At the moment, the Bank of England has been given only one directive: to keep inflation within the bounds set by the Chancellor. That formula will be bad for small businesses and, more to the point, bad for the future of the United Kingdom.
Large businesses that are major exporters will be affected as interest rates rise. I remember the Chancellor, when he was still shadow Chancellor, criticising the Government by saying that the pound's value was too high. In the same breath, he claimed that the public finances were weak. How one can have weak public finances yet a strong pound I do not know. The strength of the pound derives not just from interest rates but from confidence in a country's economy. Still, the Bank is now free to raise interest rates in order to curb inflation, as it sees fit, while having no regard to the future of small businesses. If the pound is driven up, small businesses and large exporters alike will be adversely affected.
We have still not been enlightened about the rate at which the national minimum wage will be set. I remember the Deputy Prime Minister, when still in opposition, discussing that in the House of Commons just a few months ago. When I intervened on him to ask about the effects of the national minimum wage on small businesses, he said, "Well, it works in America, doesn't it?" It works in America because the national minimum wage there is around £2 an hour. Is that to be the national minimum wage in the United Kingdom? If it is, many trade unions will regard it as an insult. If it is not--if the figure is £4 or £4.50 an hour--it will be an insult to people in work.
Only a few years ago, did not the Foreign Secretary, when he was shadow Secretary of State for Health, say that any sensible minimum wage would result in £500 million-worth of extra costs a year on the national health service? That will affect the health of the nation far more than any of the Labour party's plans--which are bad enough--to abolish fundholding and perhaps trusts.
I am also concerned about the use of the national lottery to fund health and education projects. The national lottery was introduced on the basis that the principle of additionality would not be broken. It was to be used to fund projects that are not funded by the taxpayer. However, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer walked into the Treasury he found that the estimate of a £12 billion gap in his finances was correct. The civil servants who made that projection are the same ones now telling him that the gap indeed exists, so the shortfall must be made up quickly. The national lottery is now to be used to fund health and education--services that should always be funded by the state. The Labour party may well have introduced
the national health service and the welfare state, but time and time again Conservative Governments have shown their worth as stewards of the welfare state.
I have already said that I support the freedom of information proposals. I am pleased that they might be introduced, although I am disappointed that they will appear in a White Paper rather than a Bill.
In the latter part of her speech, Her Majesty talked about the European Union--the completion of the single market and the adoption of the social chapter. The Prime Minister said before the election--and he has repeated it since--that he would not adopt any measure that would damage British business and employment prospects. He does not seem to understand--or does not choose to admit--that he cannot cherry-pick. Once he has signed the social chapter, all measures are decided by qualified majority voting. There is no veto. That means that if France and Germany want a point enforced in law, it will be enforced by a directive from Brussels. There will be no cherry-picking.
I believe that the Prime Minister has misled the nation by saying that we can cherry-pick. If he feels strongly about the measures, why will he not introduce them in the House? If further legislation were introduced in Brussels and he chooses to cherry-pick, the House can cherry-pick. With its large majority, the Labour party can decide whether it wants a particular measure and pass it in the House. By signing up to the social chapter, the right hon. Gentleman takes that power away from Westminster and gives it to Brussels. The Labour party will learn to regret that as unemployment rises.
I said in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Social Security that unemployment fell to just 2.9 per cent. in Lichfield last month. I hope that it stays at the level. If it starts to climb, it will only be duplicating what is already happening in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. What is the common denominator in those countries? It is not that they are on continental Europe, but that they have signed up to the social chapter and to state intervention in all things. Although new Labour calls itself new Labour and has all the rhetoric of new Labour, I believe that it still does not understand that Governments cannot make work; private individuals, entrepreneurs, companies, the market and customers make work. Businesses will be damaged by the social chapter and the national minimum wage.
Mr. Winnick:
The hon. Gentleman has attacked the idea of a national minimum wage. Will he give the House an idea of how much he earns--his parliamentary salary plus anything else? Does he not feel some responsibility to do so, when he wants to deny his fellow citizens and many of his constituents a decent minimum wage?
Mr. Fabricant:
The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) is renowned in Walsall. If he would like to contact the Fees Office he can find out for himself what he earns. The public are not as ridiculous as the hon. Gentleman--
Mr. Fabricant:
The hon. Gentleman knows full well that the figure has been publicised many times and is in the public domain.
Mr. Fabricant:
The hon. Gentleman has never done a job in his life, unlike me--I have run a company. I know that the minimum wage will affect not just people who are on minimum wages--
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