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Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government seem to be extremely sensitive on this issue? When I tabled a question to ask why the grant was given, the President of the Board of Trade replied that she had not been involved in the grant. That did not answer the question. Was not the right hon. Lady over-defensive before an allegation was even made?
Mr. Redwood: My hon. Friend is right. As Ministers are so secretive about all their doings, it is only natural that they become jumpy when we ask questions. If they were more open, they would avoid many more problems. The more secretive they are, the more suspicions build up and the more questions we shall table.
Those who want to know why we are worried about process could well study the question of formula one. We are told that the £1 million given by Mr. Ecclestone to Labour was unconnected with Mr. Ecclestone seeing the Prime Minister. We are told that that was not why the Prime Minister personally intervened to break a manifesto promise to save some jobs.
I contrast that position with that of the coal industry, which I think has not given £1 million to Labour. Its representatives have found it extremely difficult to see the Prime Minister. We now see Labour breaking its pre-election promises on better treatment for the coal industry and destroying jobs.
Perhaps the President of the Board of Trade would like to explain why two industries are treated in such a way. Let us have a system whereby anyone with a reasonable grievance may get to see the responsible Minister or Prime Minister, whoever may be dealing with the matter, without any suggestion of any impropriety occurring. We need a fair and open system. I had to intervene on the Minister without Portfolio in a television programme, to enable representatives of sports other than formula one to see the Prime Minister, who had not been able to see him on the formula one issue.
We are fortunate in having a Department of Trade and Industry memorandum in circulation, which speaks volumes about the Government's way of handling the coal industry issue and many others, which I am sure are the subject of similar memorandums. The memorandum does not tell us anything about what the President of the Board of Trade could do to save the coal industry. Instead, it tells us how the right hon. Lady could handle the presentation of the impending disaster under her policy.
The memorandum takes as given the depressing idea that the entire coal industry will be shut down within the next 10 years. It then goes on to propose how the media might be persuaded that that is a good idea. To do that would take more than an army of the finest spin consultants in the land. The Government will discover the painful way that there are some things that even spinning cannot make palatable.
The memorandum tells the President of the Board of Trade:
Instead of discussing how policies might be changed to help the industry, the memorandum then discusses how the existing bad policies can be presented to the public and press as inevitable. The idea is ventured that a low-profile reaction could work. It is proposed that the argument be left to the generators and mining companies. We are told:
Mr. Geraint Davies (Croydon, Central):
Is it not the case that under the previous Government, the coal industry was emasculated, decimated and destroyed? As Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. Gentleman did nothing to defend Welsh jobs. Is it not a disgrace that he has the audacity to come to the House and to make such suggestions?
Mr. Redwood:
That is another failure by the spin doctors; the hon. Gentleman should do his homework. He would then discover that I fought hard to allow the miners and the employees of the Tower colliery to buy their pit. I, like them, thought that they could make a success of it. I am pleased to say that, through their efforts, that is exactly what they did. I confess that I intervened in the Department of Trade and Industry to ensure that they had that opportunity, and I am proud of having done so. It is a lot more than the President of the Board of Trade has done for the industry since she has been in her post.
Fortunately, the newspapers are much wiser than the DTI gives them credit for being. They have seen that the Government have options and have some responsibility. It is a pity that the BBC played into the hands of the DTI's cynical media manipulation. It turned down the coal story for the "Today" programme when I first offered it last Monday. It then failed to ask the President of the Board of Trade a single question on this most important of issues when she was interviewed at an exhibition for the "The World at One" later in the week.
All that the President of the Board of Trade has managed to do while the coal controversy has raged is to go to a caravan exhibition and to mislead the public about my views. Instead of telling us what she would do for the coal industry--she has been as quiet as the grave on that--she claimed in the interview that I was hostile to caravans and the caravan industry. I insist today that she apologises to the House for misleading people in that way. There is no quotation, no comment and no shred of evidence to show that I am hostile to caravans and the caravan industry. I wish to put that firmly on the record.
There is, however, plenty of evidence to show that I think that the President of the Board of Trade has spent a little too much time in her caravan this summer; that was the point of
my criticism. I do not begrudge her a good holiday--I had one myself--but I think that she should have spent more time in her office sorting out the problems of business that the Government are creating and producing an energy policy with more chance of working.
From the wonderful memorandum, it is clear that the DTI strongly believed that, if it briefed a few journalists, they would write "what we say". If only. That breathtaking cynicism was compounded one page further on by the comment:
While the right hon. Lady is about it, will she now complete the review of electricity prices urgently? Does she know that the coal industry's case is that it can generate more power at a lower cost than the new gas stations if she comes to the right conclusion in her review? Why will she not tell us what her policy is on those new gas power stations? Is the BP station to be the only big one permitted, or will she license more from the 27 applications sitting on her desk? If so, how many more mines will have to close? When does she expect to stop importing electricity from France? Every extra megawatt imported means more British jobs lost.
The President of the Board of Trade has plenty of options. Instead of spending her days thinking about how to duck interviews and debates, she should start doing some real work on the issues facing the miners.
Mr. David Prior (North Norfolk):
Would my right hon. Friend be surprised to know that one of the largest users of electricity in this country cites one of the reasons for increases in the market price of electricity as being that generators are treating the windfall tax as a business cost and recovering it through their prices?
Mr. Redwood:
My hon. Friend makes an extremely powerful point, and I am grateful to him. The windfall tax is, indeed, a cost that gets passed on, and it is another reason why the Government's energy policy is in such a mess.
The President of the Board of Trade also owes the House an explanation of why she misled us on more than one occasion concerning the shareholding of her ministerial colleagues. On 4 July, the right hon. Lady told us that the Minister for Trade and Competitiveness in Europe, Lord Simon, had undertaken not to trade his holdings in BP before January 1998. Subsequently, we were told that Lord Simon planned to sell them this summer. On 4 July, she told us--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that the President of the Board of Trade deliberately withheld information from the House?
Mr. Redwood:
I am going on to make my case and to offer two possible explanations.
"There is an expectation that deep mined coal will effectively end within ten years unless the government intervenes to protect it by changing its environmental and energy policies."
I look forward to hearing the right hon. Lady's remarks on that view of herself and her Department.
"We have also found these arguments on commercial negotiations between companies useful when declining bids for ministerial interviews, so preventing the 'we asked the minister to appear but he declined' statement."
That is not the only way in which Ministers have refused interviews or have refused to debate this and other subjects.
"Since the government could be portrayed as driving the nails in the coal industry's coffin, these points deliberately do not highlight the government's environmental targets for Kyoto."
Of course they do not, because the famous hard choices that the Prime Minister has said we have to make have been ducked. The Government have not resolved the question whether it is more important to stop burning coal for environmental reasons or to encourage the burning of coal for energy policy and mining reasons. Today, the President of the Board of Trade must not be allowed out of the House without explaining how she will resolve that dilemma and without setting out an energy policy.
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