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Madam Speaker: For the guidance of Members, the topics of debate on the Queen's Speech over the next few days are as follows: Wednesday 25 November--tradeand industry, education and employment; Thursday26 November--health and welfare; Friday 26 November-- foreign affairs and defence; Monday 29 November--the constitution and Parliament; Tuesday 30 November--the economy.
I shall call Mr. Joe Ashton to move, and Dr. Lynda Clark to second, the Address.
2.34 pm
Mr. Joe Ashton (Bassetlaw): I beg to move,
- That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
This month, I shall have been in the House 30 years; I entered it on Guy Fawkes day, 1968. Last Friday, the Bassetlaw Labour party celebrated its 80th birthday. It was formed a week after Armistice day, at the end of the first world war. The Tories last won the seat in 1924. In the past 63 years, only two MPs--I and my predecessor, Fred Bellinger--have represented the constituency. Many visitors to the constituency are surprised to hear that, having expected that huge rural area to be a Conservative seat, but it is an area noted for dissent.
The mythical Robin Hood is supposed to have come from just south of the constituency, and John Wesley, who provided all the chapels, came from just north of it, but, in the middle of the constituency, is the birthplace of the pilgrim fathers, Brewster and Bradford. It is a tragedy that the national heritage memorial fund will not advance cash to build a replica of the Mayflower because it has a policy against building replicas of any sort, although I am certain that, if it would allow a replica of that little ship to be built and stationed near the dome, it would be of massive interest to the 22 million Americans who are descended from the pilgrim fathers.
Obviously, the constituents are awkward and stubborn--as we saw in the miners' strike, when half the constituency's miners went on strike with the National Union of Mineworkers and the other half went to work with the Nottinghamshire miners--which is probably why I have been here for 30 years.
In 1968, the situation was very similar to the present one. Two years earlier, a Labour Government had come to power, with a majority of 99. Unfortunately, after a year, Harold Wilson devalued the pound, and Britain was in a terrible financial crisis. That year, there was a local
election disaster. The Tories might be interested to know that, in 1968, they had a majority of 50 seats in Liverpool and 63 in Leeds. They had a majority of 60 in Birmingham, where Labour did not win one council seat. They had a majority of 30 in Manchester. That year, Labour lost Sheffield for the first time in 37 years, and it lost Islington and Lambeth by a landslide. In Bassetlaw, the council had doubled the rents, and it was announced that the biggest pit would close. In short, everything in politics for Labour was a total disaster.
It was then, at the Blackpool conference, that Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister, sent for me. In his private room, he said, "It's all down to you now, Joe, lad." I am happy to say that we held Bassetlaw on a recount; those obstinate, contrary, obstreperous, lovely loyal Labour voters of Bassetlaw had stood firm. When I reached the House, it was like the relief of Mafeking, with Harold Wilson shaking my hand in Downing street.
I nearly did not get here at all, because there was a furious row in the media, and the Conservatives were arguing that I should not be allowed to take the oath. Two days before polling day, Barbara Castle had addressed a meeting of 500 people in Bassetlaw, at which she strongly denied that the Government would resort to the panic measures of introducing a freeze on spending and a mini-Budget or take further action to protect the pound. On Thursday, the Leader of the House echoed that denial to the now right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath)--who may remember it. The recount finished at 1 o'clock in the morning; at 11.15 am, Tony Crosland walked into the Chamber, announced the measures and implemented them.
There was absolute uproar even on the Government Benches because unemployment was touching 600,000 and people were very worried. Barbara Castle denied before the election that the Government intended to take panic measures and afterwards, when she was challenged, simply smiled sweetly and said that she had merely done what Harold Macmillan did when he was Chancellor in three previous by-elections at Gainsborough, Hereford and Taunton. So I was allowed to come in here and take my seat. It was old Labour at its finest.
The difference between then and today is that then old Labour was 27 per cent. behind in the polls whereas today new Labour is 27 per cent. in front. Yet there are some similarities between the Queen's Speech in 1968 and the Queen's Speech today. My by-election happened a couple of days after the Queen's Speech, but in that Queen's Speech there was of course reform of the House of Lords, exactly as there is in today's. Harold Wilson and the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, the Leader of the Opposition at that time, had come to a deal and were fully agreed on how the House of Lords should be reformed. Unfortunately, they forgot to consult Michael Foot and Enoch Powell. Michael Foot led the Back Benchers on the Government side who wanted to blow up the House of Lords and demolish the place, and Enoch Powell led the Back Benchers on the Opposition side who did not want to alter a stick or a stone. They got together and simply talked for ever.
I remember that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), who has been in Parliament for longer than I have and perhaps does not like to be reminded about it, spoke on the first amendment to clause 1 for three hours. Then he came back three weeks later to talk on clause 1 stand part. He used a very
famous saying--that the place is mythology based on a mediaeval society. Absolutely right then; absolutely right today. Amendments were put down such as one that said that no more than 25 lawyers should be allowed to sit in any second chamber. They were brilliant, but there was no guillotine and the debate went on for ever.
We had a character on our side then who used to do the same job as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) does now. It was just before my hon. Friend came into Parliament. That character was Willie Hamilton. He got fed up of all the debates and he had a bright idea of how to tame the House of Lords. He simply outed all the noble families. He took all the nobles, read through their family trees and said what a bunch of villains and rogues they were. He told us who had made money from the slave trade and from sending kids down the pit and whose great granny was a bimbo at the Brighton pavilion. It got to the stage inside a week where the Lords were queueing up to say to Willie that they would vote for anything, provided he did not mention that Lloyd George not only knew their father but knew their mother and sisters as well. It was the time when Rupert Murdoch had just bought the News of the World. He never had to print any sleaze on Sunday; he just printed Willie Hamilton's speeches until the Lords were begging for mercy.
We have a limbo down there with the EC elections, just as we did then. It is absolute chaos now, with candidates not knowing whether they are in or out or whatever. If hon. Members remember, the proposal then was whether to join the EC. Big chunks on the Opposition side were against it and big chunks were for it. It was the same on this side. Willie Hamilton, in exasperation, stood up and said, "This is crazy. This is absolute chaos. This is not the politics of Europe. It is the politics of coitus interruptus." A little voice shouted, "Withdraw!". If they know what is good for them, some Members of the House of Lords down the Corridor will withdraw to their rolling acres for good.
There are many other things in the Queen's Speech. One of the things that I am particularly pleased about is the new age of consent. The House will remember that, in July, I put down an amendment to the proposal to lower the age of homosexual consent from 18 to 16. It said that the age should be 18 for both boys and girls and that it should be a criminal offence for an adult in a position of supervision, authority or trust to have that sort of relationship. I am very glad to understand from my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that there will be a criminal offence, that adults covered by the offence will be those in a position of authority or trust and that the behaviour prohibited will be all sexual activity.
Harold Wilson brought in a different age of consent in 1968. He allowed all teenagers to have votes at 18. The Tories strongly opposed that. Harold was the only Prime Minister to win the world cup. He thought that, if he gave votes to all the kids at 18, he could not fail to be re-elected. If England had held on to the world cup in 1970, he would have been re-elected, but they lost it four days before.
The first speech that I heard in the House was by Gerry Fitt, who was unknown at the time. Three weeks earlier, he had been in the first Northern Ireland riots in Derry. Gerry had been hit over the head with a police truncheon. He told the House of the situation in Northern Ireland,
where one man in Derry had 24 votes because he was a business man and another 8,000 people--Catholic and Protestant--did not have a vote. He warned that we would have problems similar to those in the southern states of the USA unless we brought in viable democracy. It is wonderful to know that 30 years later--it has taken a long time--it looks as though we shall eventually achieve that.
The number of women Members of Parliament is also new. It not only looks better; it smells sweeter round here. It is 88 years this week since the suffragettes stormed the opening of Parliament, demanding votes for women. We are understandably pleased that there are now 140 women in the House. For many Parliaments when I first came here, the percentage of women in Parliament was the same as the percentage of women in prison. That shows who the rogues and vagabonds are among the sexes. We now have a woman Speaker, we have had a woman Prime Minister, we have a woman Leader of the House and a woman Chief Whip.
I am sure that everybody will welcome the working families tax credit and the minimum wage proposals, which will help women far more than any measures for many years. Thirty years ago, there were rows about equal pay. Conservative Members said that it would bankrupt Woolworths and Debenhams. We said that it would not--and it did not. The women at Woolworths went across to Debenhams and bought some curtains and carpets and the women at Debenhams went across to Woolworths and bought six tins of paint and a paint brush for the old man to get on with doing the kitchen. It created more work than any legislation ever. The working families tax credit will do the same. There will be fairness at work for the unions, which is all that they have ever asked for. I am very pleased about that.
Thirty years ago, Tom Jones had a song--that shows how old he is--called, "What's New, Pussycat?" Now we are getting down to just a few old Labour pussycats still here: there is my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) and me. We represent three neighbouring constituencies and come here to reminisce about old Labour. It is a bit like "Last of the Summer Wine"--but last of the summer Labour--with Compo, Foggy and Clegg. We spend our time wondering whether Wall street will crash, just like the Berlin wall crashed down, but Bill Clinton always bounces free.
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