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11.53 am
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire): The beauty of listening to debates such as this is that we learn things from other hon. Members. Sometimes, we can convey what we have learnt to constituents who come to us with problems. For instance, I have learnt from my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Mr. Dobbin) where the lantern is that was snatched from Guy Fawkes. When some primary schoolchildren wrote to me about Guy Fawkes, I had to do some research in order to answer their questions, but I was unable to answer one question: what had happened to the lantern? Now, however, I can respond to the children of Renishaw primary school.
I have learnt many other things during today's debate. I did not know, for example, that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) had fought Nicholas Bennett at the last general election. That reminded me of a debate that took place here one Friday. Before the Jopling reforms, we used to be able to put in for the chance to lead debates on various motions. One such debate was led by Neil Hamilton, and was entitled "The future of socialism". It was the first occasion on which there had been a solid debate in the House about socialism as a general theory since the days of Philip Snowden. Finally, Nicholas Bennett raised a point of order, because I had been talking for even longer than my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West--partly to prevent Nicholas Bennett from speaking. The debate was largely taken over by Labour Members, particularly members of the socialist Campaign group.
We should have more opportunities to engage in debates of that kind. We should not have to depend on Front Benchers or on Opposition days. Neil Hamilton did the House a valuable service that day.
Hon. Members have raised questions relating to the future of democracy, and I think that it would be useful to have a debate on that. Democratic socialists are interested in that subject: it is part of their socialist vision. Let me develop one or two of the views that have been expressed today. Unfortunately, it is not easy to deal with such big issues in a short speech; we really need a fuller debate.
One massive problem affecting democracy is the European Union. I am not opposed to the European Union itself, but I feel that it should be reformed and developed. It is clearly a bureaucratic, centralising structure, with much of its power and authority derived from "creeping competences". An interesting report on road safety produced by the Select Committee on European Legislation illustrates the division and transfer of power between our Parliament and the European Union. The report shows how power slips from the national parliament to the European Union, and is relevant to many issues besides road safety.
Ultimately, the Council of Ministers--which is still far too secretive--makes decisions over the heads of the national parliaments. Its members do deals among themselves. Our ability to scrutinise the measures that result from those decisions is limited. We should extend the work of the Standing Committees that examine European legislation, and extend the authority of the Select Committee, which does valiant work in difficult circumstances.
It is claimed that the European Union has been opened up and that there is more transparency--that we can see what goes on in meetings of the Council of Ministers, and obtain a few details about voting. That has not been done very effectively, however. The much-vaunted principle of subsidiarity, which holds that legislation should be dealt with at national level wherever possible, has no significant legal import. It is inadequate in terms of explaining who does what and showing national authority. A much more sensible way of achieving that would be a system of clear division and an overall constitution. Such a structure would be federalist, but it does not have to be centralised: arrangements could be drafted to avoid that.
We must grasp the fact that democracy is slipping away from us towards Europe and that many important decisions are made without parliamentary checks and balances. All power should go to parliaments--the European Parliament dealing with European matters and national parliaments dealing with the business that is appropriate to nation states. Many actions need to be taken to advance the powers of parliaments in relation to the Executives. European matters should be decided by the European Parliament, which should not be a mere consultative assembly. There have been nudges towards improving matters, but we are still far short of what is required.
I should like to see a fully fledged, federal, social and democratic Europe. It is only when people have the vote to appoint representatives and, therefore, the power to control and check them that they get the actions that are important to them. That is how the House developed provisions such as the welfare state. The franchise and, therefore, democracy were fully extended, but current arrangements are allowing many such advances to slip away.
Our democracy has many shortcomings and we need to put our own house in order. Some hon. Members spoke about that when discussing Wales and Scotland. Some of our actions have allowed the franchise to slip away. Many people are missing from the electoral register and we need an up-to-date, modern system that will bring about a full franchise--for example, homeless people should be placed on the electoral register.
Parliament must be jealous of the operation of its powers. Labour Members are moving into a new situation and, as it develops, Back Benchers will start to flex their muscles and prod the Executive a bit more. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] I have some sympathy with Opposition conclusions, but not with the way in which they put their arguments. When I was in opposition, I observed some hypocrisy in government.
There should be more statements in the House and we should be careful about the operation of guillotines. The procedure should be structured and they should not imposed before there has been proper debate. We should not encourage non-question times, by which I mean
underarm bowling to elicit predetermined answers. However, that is not new: it happened under the Conservative Government. Labour Back Benchers should not be too soft on the Government; nor should we be hard on them all the time, looking them in the eye and sticking them with an issue, as we did when we were in opposition. We must be much more sophisticated in pushing our concerns and getting Executive answers. We must remember that we are elected to serve our constituents.
Much more needs to be done in the democratic game. Much has been said about local government having adequate finances. Altering the standard spending assessment formula would confer a massive advantage in that respect. Ian Mikardo was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West who also spoke about world government. A democratic structure within the European Union could be a framework for extension and development. One of the world's problems is the unanswerable power of capitalism in multinational companies whose operations cross many boundaries. We need political frameworks that will counter such powers.
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire):
The hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), in his inimitable way, has taken us from European federalism to world government in about 10 minutes. He made a robust speech in which he dared to mention socialism, for which he deserves the thanks and congratulations of us all. The four hon. Members who deserve special congratulations are those who made their maiden speeches.
This debate, which has been slightly changed by Jopling, originally took place over three hours before each recess to discuss why the House should not adjourn. Hon. Members would give reasons for special debates and say why the House should not adjourn until those debates had taken place. So many topics have been aired this morning in 13 diverse and interesting speeches that the House would sit almost until 27 October if the Leader of the House acceded to all the requests. I shall not endorse such requests and I hope that the right hon. Lady will allow us to go tomorrow after a fairly exhausting time in recent months.
I return to the four maiden speeches. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Hall) made a brave plea for the name of his constituency to be changed. No doubt those who deliberate on such matters will note what he said because he made a strong, if not an unanswerable, case. The hon. Gentleman paid a gracious tribute to his predecessor, Sir Trevor Skeet, and we are grateful to him for that because Sir Trevor endeared himself to hon. Members throughout the House. He was first elected to the House in 1959 and therefore had a long parliamentary pedigree. The hon. Member for Bedford also said how concerned
he was about the workings of the Child Support Agency. That concern is shared and has been voiced in all parts of the House for a considerable time.
We heard an interesting historical maiden speech, entirely non-controversial, from the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), a fellow Staffordshire Member. She talked with understandable pride about the brewing industry and with equally understandable pride about Uttoxeter race course. She also mentioned the marathon speech-making abilities of her predecessor, Sir Ivan Lawrence, who is much missed on the Conservative Benches and who rendered the House a signal service by the way in which he chaired the Select Committee on Home Affairs.
Listening to the maiden speech by the hon. Member for the new constituency of Heywood and Middleton (Mr. Dobbin), I wondered as I heard those rich Scottish tones whether, if and when the Scottish Parliament is established, so many English constituency associations will be willing to make the wise decision that his obviously did and choose a Scottish representative.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the gunpowder plot and the lantern, and we heard about the mutiny on the Bounty too. His speech was a veritable tour de force. He also made proper reference to his predecessor for part of the constituency, "Gentleman Jim" Callaghan--"Little Jim" as he called him. The hon. Gentleman also talked about the important links between local and central government. I shall not follow his slightly more provocative remarks, but most of his speech was certainly in the tradition of non-controversial maiden speeches.
I am not entirely sure that I can say the same about the longest of the maiden speeches that we heard this morning, by the hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter). As I listened to him, I could not help but recall the fact that I had the singular distinction of having to congratulate the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) on his maiden speech. I remember, way back in 1970, saying that I rather thought that the House might hear from him again. I suspect that the House will also hear quite a lot from the hon. Member for Reading, West, and I am sure that even if we do not agree with it we shall be entertained, and sometimes perhaps provoked, by it.
The hon. Gentleman paid a generous tribute to Sir Anthony Durant, for which we are grateful. He is a most convivial man, as the hon. Gentleman said, and he was always a redoubtable spokesman for his constituency of Reading, for which he had an enormous affection--an affection clearly shared by the hon. Gentleman who now represents that seat.
I was a little concerned by the fact that after only three months here the hon. Gentleman wants to modernise the entire system. I sometimes say to new colleagues that one must not assume that everything that was done before was decided by imbeciles or that things have evolved for no specific reason. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will become absorbed into our ways to some degree and will make a positive contribution to our debates.
We heard several other interesting speeches, including the unusual novelty, in such debates, of a speech from the Front Bench, by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who made what I am sure the Leader of the House will agree
was an admirably brief speech about the Government's desire to have an ethical foreign policy. We would all entirely endorse that desire, of course, but my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out some of the contradictions that have been evident in statements emanating from the Foreign Office in recent weeks. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will take an early opportunity to enlighten the House and share with us some of his detailed thoughts on a range of complex issues.
It is wonderful the way in which such debates vary from the great and global to the local. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) very properly took the opportunity to make a plea for his local hospital, the St. Helier hospital in Carshalton. I understand from the hon. Gentleman that the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), was born in that hospital, so that is an added reason why what the hon. Gentleman said should be taken carefully into account by the Secretary of State.
The hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) deserted, for once, his campaign directed at the Child Support Agency--a campaign for which we all pay him tribute. Today, he made a powerful speech in favour of an energy policy, which illustrated how important it is that the House should not neglect the coal industry. As one who represents a constituency that has seen its coal mines close, I have some fellow feeling with what the hon. Gentleman said.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) also spoke. Despite the request by the Leader of the House, I shall not touch on the point about submarines but will leave it for her to deal with. My hon. Friend made an important speech, drawing on his considerable knowledge as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, which deals with delegated legislation.
My hon. Friend talked in particular about the implications of devolution. If we have a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly, how will secondary legislation be dealt with? What will be the intricate relations with the House of Commons? That is an important subject which deserves careful and detailed consideration and a most careful answer.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) talked about the report of the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons. I echo his genuine tribute to the Leader of the House, who has chaired that Committee with exemplary skill and impartiality. I also echo his wish that all members of the present Government would take a leaf out of the right hon. Lady's book and behave towards the House with a respect that, while never veering into subservience, shows a true respect for its position and its traditions, and that they would not bypass the House when making announcements. The right hon. Lady may be too modest to talk to her colleagues about that, but I hope that her colleagues will take what has been said carefully to heart.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) talked about the beef industry, and made a strong plea, which I second, for the continuation of the Sunday lunch.
The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) talked about utopia as though we believed that utopia existed now. I remind him that it was a fantasy that existed in the mind
of a great man. With the hon. Gentleman's views on devolution, I think that he is conjuring up a fantasy utopia of his own that will not come to pass.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) made an eloquent Welsh plea for the maintenance of the green belt and the green and pleasant land that so many parts of this country still are. I am sure that that struck a responsive chord with most of us.
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