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6.56 pm
Mr. Desmond Turner (Brighton, Kemptown): It is with great pride that I rise for the first time in this House representing Brighton, Kemptown. I should like to follow the tradition of the House and recognise my predecessor, Sir Andrew Bowden. He was a very hard man to remove, and held on to a marginal seat for 27 years. He did so largely because he was an effective constituency Member of Parliament who was extremely popular with his constituents and worked hard on their behalf. Although he was a Tory, I give him all credit for that. If I can establish an equal reputation to Sir Andrew's with my constituents, I shall be well satisfied.
I want to refer also to my predecessor's predecessor, the late Dennis Hobden, who was the first Labour Member of Parliament in Sussex. He won in 1964 by seven votes after four recounts and, if the House will bear with me, I shall explain how it was done. Before the election, the Conservative agent spoke to one of our organisers and asked whether he thought it was safe for his man to go on holiday in case the election was called. Our lad said, "You are an agent. You know the last person you want around your feet when an election is called is the candidate. Let him go." Two days later, the election was called, and the banner headline appeared in the local Evening Argus:
My constituency is fascinating. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) yesterday pointed out that the levels of unemployment and
social deprivation in his inner-city constituency in Manchester made the Queen's Speech relevant, because it addressed those issues. He added that his constituents would be happy with it. Hon. Members will be familiar with the elegant Regency facades of my constituency, but they hide levels of unemployment and deprivation that are exactly comparable with Gorton. There are areas of my constituency where one household in two has no one working. Our unemployment is double the national average--just about comparable with the unemployment in Gorton.
It therefore came as no surprise, certainly to me, that as we conducted our triumphal tour of the constituency the day after the election, people were hanging out of office windows shouting and cheering. People were really happy: they were going around the supermarkets with a new spring in their step. It was as if a great black cloud had been lifted from the nation, because we no longer had a Government who told us what could not be done.
That was the substance of the speech that we heard this afternoon from the former Secretary of State for Social Security, the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley). It was all about being negative--about saying, "You cannot do this; you have to suffer." Now people feel better, because they know that they have a Government who talk not about what they cannot do but about what they can do, and who will set about doing it. They will not be able to produce miracles at first--no one expects that--but they will make every honest attempt.
There was so much in the Queen's Speech. It really was radical. One could not imagine the Opposition producing anything as radical in their wildest nightmares.
There is high unemployment on the estates in one of the wards that I represent. Earlier this afternoon, there was some doubt about where Roedean was; I assure hon. Members that it is in my constituency, right next to--I believe--the third most socially deprived area in the country, where the effects of the windfall tax will really be felt. It will take young people off the dole, and put them into work or training for the first time.
Yes, we have problems of crime on our estates. That is not surprising: there are young people there who do not know what it means to have a job, because they have never had the opportunity of having one. Many of those young people will now have jobs. They will have a reason for getting up in the morning, and something to look forward to in life.
Brighton has another distinction--an unfortunate distinction. Along with Manchester, it is in the premier division in many respects, but not the ones that we would like. We would almost prefer the relegation of Brighton and Hove Albion to the levels of unemployment and deprivation that go with being in the premier division, along with some other inner-city constituencies. We have the highest level of homelessness outside certain London boroughs, and that is not funny. Walking around Brighton, we see just as many rough sleepers as can be seen in central London.
The ability to build again will make a significant contribution. That is only one part of the legislation proposed in the Queen's Speech, but it is a vital part. We must go back to building low-cost accommodation that people can afford. If we are to take people off the streets, we must have somewhere to put them. At present, we simply do not have the places in which to put all the
people who come knocking on our doors. It is tragic to have such appalling housing conditions as exist in large parts of my constituency, and the legislation will be devoutly welcomed there.
My constituents will also devoutly welcome the other main topic covered by the Queen's Speech--improvements in the health service. We have heard considerable debate about the health service this evening. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) was right to speak of the difficulty of obtaining an accurate picture of what is happening across the health service, and the real situation bequeathed to us by the former Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell). At present, we can do that only by collecting anecdotal data. I know the anecdotal data for my constituency, and they do not make pretty reading.
For instance, the chief executive of our local health care trust--the acute trust--has instructed surgeons not to treat anyone who has not been on the waiting list for at least 15 months for non-urgent surgery, except of course the patients of fundholding practices. In that case, it will depend on how generously funded the fundholding GP happens to feel at the time. It is not even a two-tier health service; it is a multi-tier health service, and "a lottery" is a very accurate description of it. The position is unacceptable, and we will abolish that lottery. Not only do we want equality of opportunity in education; we must have equality of opportunity when it comes to access to health care. That is probably old-fashioned socialism, but it is a principle--
Mr. Simon Hughes:
We shall vote for it.
Mr. Turner:
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I thought that he might. I believe that this is an area of common ground, on which we shall be happy to work.
It does not end there. Our health care trust has just closed a few wards--only a few, but they happen to be very important. They were highly specialist surgical wards dealing with specific types of cancer. The patients will now have to go to general surgical wards. The specialist teams have been broken up, and there is only one possible outcome: people will die, because their cancers--I am talking mainly about cancers of the colon and rectum--will not be diagnosed and treated as early as they might be. Those patients' chances of survival have been seriously impaired.
Is that the record bequeathed by a Government who proudly proclaimed that the health service was safe in their hands, and that they were continually spending more on the health service year on year? Why, then, are our health trusts in deficit? Why are they having to make damaging, life-threatening cuts? Only now are we able to find out just where the black holes in the health service are, and just what the truth is. It will be some time before we know what is needed for us to be able to deal with those black holes.
Mr. Piers Merchant (Beckenham):
I welcome you to your new elevated role, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do so with great pleasure--and it is also a delight to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Turner), which was of evidently high quality. It was fluent, delivered with the aid of hardly a note and most impressive in content and style. I am sure that the House will enjoy many more speeches from the hon. Gentleman in the not too distant future.
The hon. Gentleman paid a generous tribute to his predecessor, describing him as a hard act to remove; I am sure that he will also find him a hard act to follow, but his speech gives me confidence that he will succeed, and I wish him the best of luck.
I did not agree, however, with the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), which was of the highest quality and aptly reflected the views of Conservative Members. The only sadness is that my right hon. Friend is not at present able to sit on the Government Benches, perhaps in a different position from the one that he held before, to continue in the work of fundamental reform that he conducted so ably in his Department over the past five years.
Several matters referred to in the Gracious Speech are of considerable interest to my constituents and reflect the concern that they expressed during the general election campaign about aspects of Labour party policy. For the sake of brevity, as I know that many hon. Members are waiting to speak, I shall refer to only two such matters.
The first matter concerns health. The Labour party has, to put it mildly, been difficult to pin down over the past few years on policy for capital provision for the health service, and the private finance initiative in particular. At first, the party appeared to favour the abolition of the PFI; then it moved to advocating a review; and the latest position appears to favour amending the PFI. Perhaps we shall hear later whether the party has decided to support the PFI.
Certainly, the reference in the Gracious Speech to the Bill that will clarify the legal position of NHS trusts seemed to suggest that the new Government are prepared to run with the PFI. I hope, in the interests of practicality, that that is the case and that there has been a conversion. Clarification on that point would be helpful, not for the purposes of theory--interesting though that is--but for good practical reasons. A great number of major hospital projects that are now on stream were put together under the PFI; many are ready to be signed off and simply await Treasury approval.
As a matter of simple responsibility, the Government owe it to the health trusts and to the people in those areas to give a clear indication as soon as possible of whether the schemes will survive, because if they are not signed off shortly, they will quickly lose their relevance and become impractical.
I have a local vested interest, as an excellent package has been put together, based on the PFI, for a new Bromley district general hospital. The project is at the point of being signed off and can go ahead if the Government are prepared to move rapidly; if they are not, the project in its current form will collapse and the people of my area will be deprived, at least for the near future, of a new hospital. That is an important matter for the
future of health care in the area that I represent: the quality of that care depends on a new hospital, and there is no other way of overcoming the historical difficulties.
A tremendous amount of work has been done, and people at all levels--clinical staff, patients, future patients and administrators, who are often castigated but have in this case worked extremely hard to put the project together--need to know whether the project will work and can go ahead. At the very least, they need some assurance about whether the project's general basis, together with a timetable for the next few steps, will be accepted.
If that is not forthcoming, those in charge of the project will need to know whether the rug is to be pulled from under their feet and they are to be denied their new hospital, because they will then have to consider future plans, square it with the local population and explain that, unfortunately, the serious problems in the local NHS cannot be solved. I hope that the Government will have the sense not to follow that latter course, because if they do so, they will have some severe explaining to do to local people and will undoubtedly be blamed for delays in improving provision. I hope that the Government will respond to that point as early as possible, and preferably tonight.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) in an, as usual, interesting and thorough speech, referred to tobacco advertising and the health problems associated with tobacco. For a long time, I was against further restrictions on tobacco advertising. I formed that view as a result of the time that I spent working in the advertising industry.
I was not involved in tobacco advertising, but I became aware of the way in which advertising works and formed the view that controlling tobacco advertising has a smaller impact on consumption than is often fondly imagined. I have to an extent changed my position over the years, because I feel so strongly about the health aspects, and I am now more drawn towards an acceptance of a ban on tobacco advertising, as long as it is imposed in the clear understanding that it will not achieve the dramatic effects that many of those who argue in favour of it suggest, and as long as it is accompanied by other, in my view, more meaningful measures to restrict tobacco consumption.
In other words, if the ban is to be merely a gesture and an attempt to pretend that there is a genuine desire to reduce tobacco consumption, I do not consider it a convincing strategy, but if the Government can show that it is part of a coherent and serious drive to reduce consumption, I shall find it much more palatable. Reduction in consumption is much more important than mere gestures to appease those who argue in favour of a ban.
The second item that I want to talk about concerns education policy. I hope that the Secretary of State, who has already referred to the Greenwich judgment in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, will be more specific on that subject. He said that he felt that a change in the law--the only way of reversing the Greenwich judgment--was unlikely. I wonder whether I could encourage him or one of the Ministers in his Department to be a little more specific and make it clear whether he is ruling out any primary legislation or is leaving the door
open. The judgment cannot be taken any further through the court system, so primary legislation in this place would be needed to overturn it.
If the Secretary of State is not prepared to do that, is he saying effectively that he is not prepared to do anything to answer the legitimate and deeply felt concerns of my constituents about the fact that, in next year's secondary school admissions, a minimum of 804--that is the present figure--out-of-borough pupils will take school places in the London borough of Bromley, while 600 pupils in the borough do not have places in local schools? It is no longer a small issue. In my borough, it is a major issue that is causing parents severe stress. The problem must be sorted out one way or another. I hope that the Government realise the urgency of the effect of the Greenwich judgment.
I applaud the Government for their commitment to continue to improve education standards, which was a major element of the previous Government's policy. I welcome that, but I wonder how schools, parents, teachers and pupils will react if the impact of further changes is another major reorganisation that causes tremendous stress, dislocation and problems. There is a limit to the extent to which the structure of any large service, whether health or education, can be reorganised. The costs are not only financial but human and they affect the product--in this case, the quality of education.
The new Government will no doubt be motivated by zeal and by the desire to do new things and to prove themselves. I hope that they do not fall into the trap, into which Governments of all parties have fallen in the past, of rushing in believing that they have a new radical system that will make everything right. In rushing it into effect, they may find that they produce more problems than they solve. That is a danger for education, because teachers in particular have had to go through so much change in recent years. It was all intended for the best and I believe that most of it has been successful, but some of it has not been. For teachers to have to go through yet another change could prove counter-productive.
I especially hope that the Government will resist the temptation to use education as a political football and to introduce change for the sake of political dogma. I hope instead that they will err on the side of retaining stability in the system. The Government's approach to the assisted places scheme is a bad sign of what could happen, because I believe that the changes are based on political dogma. The Government will take away an education option from people in lower income brackets by depriving them of the opportunities offered by the scheme, which does not, as they sometimes argue, distort the system. Its abolition will not produce the funds that they pretend that it will. I am afraid that this is a bit of ideological spite, a mean-minded policy. It saddens me that they should want to pursue it, especially with the vigour that they intend. The people who will lose out will not be those whom the Government like to castigate as Tory voters, but will come from among their supporters and the groups that they pretend to champion.
"Tory MP hunts Loch Ness monster".
He lost by seven votes. That is an election strategy which I should like to commend to Opposition Members for future use.
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