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Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down): I had intended to speak in the debate, but, because of a mechanical problem, I was unable to do so. As I was rising to my feet, an hon. Member was entering the Chamber and I did not manage to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that, by convention, a lengthy intervention on the Minister's winding-up speech will be entertained.
I welcome the proposed order proscribing these two organisations. They are splinter groups--one, I understand, from the Combined Loyalist Military Command and the other from the IRA. However, it would be wrong to think, as I am sure the Minister will agree, that proscription is any sort of panacea for the type of activity in which those organisations engage.
One of the problems has been that democratic process attempts to come to terms with violent terrorism have not worked. It is clear that democracy cannot co-exist
with violent terrorism with political objectives. As I am sure the Minister will agree, the inevitable outcome of the over-exposure of democracy to terrorism is that democracy itself is first corrupted and is then capable of being subsumed by that terrorism.
Perhaps the Minister should be aware that the peace process policy, which was to some extent created by the previous Government, but which has been endorsed and subsequently adopted by the present Government, has itself brought about many of the problems that the Government have to deal with.
The Government will be attempting to deal with two particular objectives that are mutually exclusive. The first is the holding of a peace resolution conference with the plenipotentiaries of violent terrorism and the other is the bringing about of a negotiated stable political settlement in Northern Ireland. The more that the Government attempt to achieve the former, the less they make available the prospects of the latter. While they may help, perhaps more cosmetically than substantively, it would be foolish to think that they will make a great contribution to the elimination of terrorism in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Ingram:
I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman's points. Perhaps his last two strayed a little from the order. He said that proscription of itself would not achieve the desired end result. I made those very points at the start of my speech.
The hon. and learned Gentleman's name appeared on the annunciator during his intervention, which is most unusual. Perhaps new things are happening in Parliament--new Labour, new screens. We shall have to learn as we go along. However, I take on board the hon. and learned Gentleman's points, and I have no doubt that we shall return to them in later debates.
Before that intervention, I was replying to the speech of the right hon. Member for Devizes. I dealt with his comments about the need for sensitivity in the context of relationships throughout the Province's divided community. He also spoke about the new Government in Dublin. I am sure that we all want to see that Government work progressively towards the achievement of peace in Northern Ireland.
The hon. Member for Upper Bann spoke about the witness protection scheme. That goes beyond the thrust of what the order seeks to achieve. Obviously, we shall reflect on what he said. Perhaps if I write to him on the detailed point, that will help him and other hon. Members.
The speech of the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) was wide-ranging. We are debating the narrow issue of the proscription of two paramilitary organisations and, while it is not for me to say that any hon. Member strayed beyond the bounds of the order, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, had to call the hon. Gentleman to order. He raised several issues, including the functioning of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1996, the Lloyd review and the Diplock courts. He made some constructive criticisms, but perhaps it is better to deal with the hon. Gentleman's specific points when we debate those aspects in terms of the Government's legislative programme. I am sure
that the hon. Gentleman will raise many of those issues again, when the House will be able to deal with them at greater length and on a more structured basis.
My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow--I apologise. Perhaps I have gone native in Northern Ireland and have forgotten my homeland of Scotland and its constituencies. I hope not. My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman) spoke about the disgraceful scenes in Harryville. Today, I took the opportunity to go through the town of Harryville and I saw the church that is being repaired as a result of the weekend's events. We must all condemn what is going on there. It is simply outrageous. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke about the way in which attempts are being made to stop people who are going about their lawful business or following their religious persuasions and attending church.
The speeches in the debate will contribute to a better understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland. My final point relates to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in opening the debate. Of itself, proscription cannot guarantee the prevention of terrorist acts, but it will make life harder for the terrorists.
For example, it will be illegal to solicit, invite or accept financial or other material support for the LVF or the CAC or knowingly to contribute to them. The order will make it illegal to solicit or invite membership of those organisations or to solicit or invite a person to carry out orders or directions given on behalf of the LVF or the CAC or requests made by a member of either of them.
It will also be illegal to arrange, manage or address a meeting knowing that it is to support those organisations or that it is to be addressed by a member of them. Finally, it will be illegal to dress in any way that arouses the reasonable apprehension that a person is a member of either of those organisations.
The effects that flow from the proscription of an organisation are not retrospective. Therefore, a person may be prosecuted for activities only if any of the above offences occur after the date of proscription. People know the purpose of the order, and I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
Ordered,
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Graham Allen.]
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome):
This is a particularly timely debate in more ways than one. I am surprised to be addressing the House at such an early hour. As the Minister will appreciate, the debate is timely because of the announcement of the capping of Somerset county council a couple of weeks ago. It will come as no great surprise to him to hear me say that the capping announcement was a considerable disappointment to the many people I represent in Somerset and those in the wider county. They had hoped, perhaps in vain, for rather better from the new Government.
The county council will decide within the next week whether it wishes to appeal against that capping designation. I have a strong suspicion that it will decide that it will wish to appeal. If I am right, it will certainly have my support and that, I believe, of the other Members of Parliament representing Somerset. We will support the county council, because we believe that it has an extremely strong case.
That is not a surprising statement. All councils believe that they have a strong case to spend more. I have sat through enough meetings of the Consultative Council on Local Government Finance and other consultative bodies to know that the arguments that go backwards and forwards between local and central Government tend to be a little stereotypical and to be rehearsed in detail each year, but I honestly believe that there are good reasons why Somerset's case merits close consideration.
The first is that there is no doubt that Somerset county council is extremely badly treated by the formulae. Remember that, this time around, Somerset was given a capping limit of 2 per cent., the lowest of all the county authorities. Remember also that the amount that Somerset county council has budgeted to spend in excess of that limit is marginal in its context--a further 1.2 per cent and a total of £3.6 million.
Secondly, the county council has an extraordinary record of efficiency and prudence in the way in which it conducts its business, and we can substantiate that. Thirdly, the areas in which that money is be spent are precisely those that the new Government claim are their priorities over coming years. The county council has made it clear that its interests and priorities are to protect frail and elderly people, to provide a proper education for our children and to maintain the safety of citizens in Somerset. Those are, I hope, aspirations that the Government share.
Let us deal with the formulae. Somerset is not a high-spending authority. There are no aspects of county spending to which people can point and say, "There is an authority that spends over the top on its services." They can say, of course, that Somerset spends more than its standard spending assessment allowances. Were that not true, the county would be in a parlous state. It spends £12 million more than the education SSA. Despite that, its education spending is still 4 per cent. below the Audit Commission family average. No one who has visited Somerset schools and who knows the Somerset education service would believe that Somerset is a high-spending authority in terms of education.
Why, then, is the SSA so inadequate? Technical issues need to be considered. They are based on sparsity factors and the rural nature of Somerset, which falls between all the measures that are reflected in the SSA. The SSA fails to reflect properly the growth not only in the population but in the clientele in the most important sectors--the number of children in school and the number of elderly persons and persons needing support from the social services departments.
Therefore, the SSA is at fault; and then we have the area cost adjustment. Were the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) here, I am sure that he would want to intervene at this point to say how important it is that the area cost adjustment be reviewed. He has consistently held that view from the moment that he ceased to be a Minister with responsibility for the environment.
Other factors, such as the landfill tax, weigh heavily on a county such as Somerset, which has no realistic alternatives because--again--of the sparsity of the population. It faces a substantial imposition in terms of the landfill tax, without the room within the capping formulae to provide.
Remember that a previous Government already considered an appeal against capping designation by Somerset in 1995-96 and, wonder of wonders, they agreed with us. Somerset is the only authority that has ever successfully gone through the cap and been granted every penny that it asked for. The formulae were clearly out of step with the county's needs. In that year, the council was granted an extra £2.6 million, which represented a 1 per cent. addition to its expenditure.
Let us consider the efficiency and effectiveness of the authority's education service. Somerset has the lowest administrative costs of any authority in the country--£9.29 per child; some authorities spend more than £120 per child. That is out of all proportion, and shows the level of the education service's effectiveness and efficiency. Somerset has the highest proportion of spending devolved to schools and, as I have mentioned, the highest spending above SSA of any county. It also has the lowest proportion of surplus places in primary schools. Given that we have many village schools and schools that are monopoly providers for the area they serve, that is a remarkable achievement.
The maximum amount of money that is provided from Government is going to our schools, yet our schools still suffer from underfunding. Class sizes have been steadily increasing. Last year, before the general election, I was the first Somerset education committee chairman in eight years to propose a budget that did not involve real-terms cuts, which is remarkable, but that depended on the county council being allowed to spend above the capping designation.
Social services are equally important. Somerset was one of the first counties to externalise its residential care service and it is the only one to have externalised domiciliary care. That may be right or it may be wrong, but what is absolutely certain is that the results are very low unit costs and very low management and support costs. That has just been checked by the Audit Commission and the social services inspectorate and it is demonstrably the case. Again, the fire service has among the lowest costs in the country, yet it is one of the most
efficient brigades in terms of its call-out response time. Expenditure on highways maintenance, which is among the lowest in the country, has now been put into education.
All that means that the county is operating extremely effectively. There is no spare money. There is no scope for using reserves, as some authorities might, because there are no reserves. There have been no reserves for many years. Few--one can never say never--further administrative savings can be made within the county. The results of cutting real-terms expenditure are cuts in the services that people in the county need.
Where, therefore, will the extra £3.4 million of expenditure go? Is it to be frittered away? Of course not. It is to go in the main to education--an extra £2 million. Here I must declare an interest. I have two children in a Somerset school. They will be affected by the proposals. They will certainly be affected if the Government impose the capping limit.
I have mentioned that class sizes have increased. In 1995, 24.9 per cent. of primary classes in the county contained more than 30 children; in 1997, the figure has gone up to 31.6 per cent. We are not crying wolf. Those are real affects in our schools. As I have said, this year, we have a standstill budget, but what if the designation is confirmed? It will mean 90 teachers will lose their jobs. How do the Government reconcile that with the priority of education, education, education? How would they find the extra £1 million that will then have to be spent on redundancies, to sack teachers, instead of paying for more teachers for a better education for our children?
The rest of the money totals £1.4 million, which is to go towards social services. Already, we have limited support in the county for carers. Already, domestic support to the frail and elderly has been cut. Already, the home care service has been cut. If the designation is confirmed, 125 places for elderly people in care homes will be lost and 50,000 hours of personal care for the frail and elderly will be lost. The child care team will also be cut.
No caring council would contemplate making such cuts, and I suggest that no caring Government would contemplate enforcing them. I know that the Minister is a caring man: I am sure that he will consider my comments and listen to the representations made to him. I hope that he will not take it the wrong way when I ask him not to recite the brief to which he referred in replying to a similar debate on Oxfordshire several weeks ago. Parts of that brief seemed a little stale: perhaps they predated the change of Government and were written by the same civil servants. Perhaps the policy was a left-over from the previous Government.
I hope that the Minister will consider the realities of Somerset and its case. I hope that he will remember that the rationale for capping is to protect the public from irresponsible authorities and from excessive council tax increases. Somerset has a very low council tax compared with those of neighbouring authorities. It is not an extravagant authority, and there are no easy alternatives to be taken.
Who is being protected? Last week, I asked the Minister in a written question how many representations he had received from people in Somerset complaining about their council tax bills this year. The answer was none: not a single person from Somerset has complained
about his or her council tax. However, many people have written to say that they do not want cuts in education, social services or the fire service.
The Conservatives assisted us in the last county council election by opposing going through the cap, thereby presenting a clear alternative to the people of Somerset. As a result, the Liberal Democrats won by a massive margin and the Conservatives made very little progress. Therefore, like the Government in this place, the Liberal Democrats have a mandate in Somerset.
That the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1996 (Amendment) Order 1997 (S. I., 1997, No. 1403), which was laid before this House on 3rd June, be approved.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 108 (Welsh Grand Committee (sittings)),
That the Welsh Grand Committee shall meet in County Hall, Mold, on Monday 30th June at Eleven o'clock to take Questions pursuant to Standing Order No. 103 (Welsh Grand Committee (questions for oral answer)), and to consider a Matter pursuant to Standing Order No. 107 (Welsh Grand Committee (matters relating exclusively to Wales)), proceedings being interrupted at half-past Four o'clock.--[Mr. Graham Allen.]
Question agreed to.
That, at the sitting on Thursday 19th June, Standing Order No. 16 (Proceedings under an Act or on European Community documents) shall not apply to the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister relating to the Common Agricultural Policy, and the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on that Motion not later than three hours after their commencement.--[Mr. Graham Allen.]
12 Jun 1997 : Column 1334
6.47 pm
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