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Mr. Jim Marshall (Leicester, South): I shall not follow the path trodden not so lightly by the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer), who seems bemused and obsessed by conspiracy theories. I have my own doubts about the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Liberal Democrats, but they do not resonate with the hon. Gentleman's views.
I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) on his speech. There can be no one more appropriate than a poacher turned gamekeeper to respond to the Queen's Speech. Unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark), I am not convinced that my hon. Friend is
always a font of common sense, but he always speaks from the heart, and I think that that came over in his speech.
May I issue a mild reproach? My hon. Friend referred to his birth and upbringing in Sheffield--particularly Attercliffe--and to the canal that runs through Attercliffe, which featured in the film "The Full Monty". Not all Members may know this, but my hon. Friend and I know that, when we are in company, as we were this afternoon--perhaps a company of 500 more than that to which we are used--and he regales the company with his story, he nearly always states that he and I were born and lived with 150 yd of each other. Today of all days, my hon. Friend could have mentioned that: it would have gained more publicity for me and for my constituency, today and tomorrow, than this or any other speech that I am likely to make in the current Parliament.
Mr. Ashton:
I must disappoint my hon. Friend. Although we grew up within 150 yd of each other, the house in which I was born was bombed in the blitz.
My hon. Friend has not mentioned the fact that the neighbourhood, near the canal, contained a Sir and a Dame, both of whom led Sheffield city council. There must be something in Attercliffe that breeds good politicians.
Mr. Marshall:
The House will be pleased to know that the houses involved have now been pulled down, so none of it is likely to occur again.
I agree with everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields said about the freedom of information legislation. I am sorry that it did not appear this time, and I hope that the Government will honour their commitment to introduce it in next year's Queen's Speech; I am sure that they will.
In general, I give a cautious welcome to the Queen's Speech, which further implements some of our election pledges. I want to mention five topics, four of which were clearly itemised in the Speech. I hope, for the sake of remaining in order, that the fifth is covered by the words
Like the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), I believe that the Government should reintroduce the European Parliamentary Elections Bill. I am not a great supporter of the closed-list system--indeed, I am probably an opponent of it--but I nevertheless think that the House of Lords was wrong to continue its opposition to the Bill. The convention is clear, and has been for at least 50 years: the House of Lords can oppose once, perhaps twice, but, ultimately, it gives in. There is no precedent for defeating the Government's business on five occasions.
We could all think of constitutional situations where the House of Lords would be correct to continue to defy the will of the House of Commons, but by no stretch of the imagination, including even the wild rhetoric of the Leader of the Opposition, can the closed-list system be argued to pose a constitutional threat to the United Kingdom, so the House of Lords was wrong. It was wrongly advised by the Tory leadership in the House of Commons.
It is clear that the backbone of the Tories in the House of Lords was reinforced by the will of the Tory leadership in the House of Commons. I just hope that the Tory leadership in the other House will now decide to do what I believe it wanted to do at the death last week: to acquiesce in the passage of the legislation. I hope that the Tory noble Lords will be able to convince the Tory leadership in the House of Commons of the need to progress the legislation through the House of Commons and House of Lords by January next year, so that the Government can put in place proportional representation for elections to the European Parliament in June.
I welcome the legislation to abolish the right of hereditary peers to sit and to vote in the House of Lords. I am not sure from the Gracious Speech whether we are also going to remove their right to continue to use the House of Lords as a club; I would certainly favour doing that. If we are going to abolish their right to sit and to vote there, we might as well go the whole hog and deny them admission to the House of Lords.
There is no doubt that the Government's proposal is correct. Despite what Opposition Members may say, there is widespread agreement that the anachronism that has existed for 800 years, whereby 750 individuals, by the accident and privilege of their birth, have conferred on them the right to participate in Parliament, must be ended as soon as possible.
I understand the argument that there is a need to progress fairly quickly the total package of reform of the House of Lords. We cannot continue for any great length of time to have just a rump House of Lords, but that should not prevent us from proceeding with the Government's legislation.
I hope that the Government make it absolutely clear to the royal commission that is to examine the future of the House of Lords that it is duty bound to report within two years, so that the Government, and particularly the Labour party, can put proposals to the British electorate at the next election--because we are talking about the next Parliament, not this one--and again get a mandate for the total package of reform of the House of Lords.
My third item concerns the Government's proposals on the fairness at work legislation. I congratulate the Government on bringing that forward. I just hope that my congratulations are not premature.
I hope that the Government will persist in the proposals that were outlined in the White Paper "Fairness at Work" some months ago. I think that many of my parliamentary colleagues would agree that the proposals, particularly those dealing with trade union recognition, represent a modest change to redress the imbalance that was introduced by Tory legislation over 18 years. The operative word there is "modest" because, despite the bluster--there has been a lot of bluster about the issue both in the House and in the country at large--of some individual employers, the proposals do not represent a transformation, or resurgence, of trade union power.
I hope that the Government will not qualify the 50 per cent.-plus-one rule for automatic union recognition by imposing arbitrary time limits on union membership before a union member is able to participate in ballots, or by saying that someone has to have been a member of
the trade union for a sufficient length of time for the rule to apply. If the Government accede to that request, and I understand that the CBI, even at the 11th hour, still continues to put pressure on the Government to accept such a change, it could lead to chaos in British industry for two reasons.
First--clearly, this does not apply to all employers--there will be unscrupulous employers who will use that time limit on membership to question each and every individual union membership, which would delay virtually indefinitely the recognition of a trade union in that company or place of work. Secondly, trade union recognition in those companies or industries where there is a high turnover of employees would be virtually impossible. For those reasons, the Government should not acquiesce in the CBI's request for time limits.
I wish that the Government would ensure that companies that had fewer than 20 employees came within the ambit of the legislation. The Government are making a grave mistake in excluding such companies. I hope that, even at this late stage, we shall be able to convince the Government, when we discuss the nitty-gritty of the legislation, to accept an amendment that will reduce the figure from 20.
Having been critical, let me say that I warmly welcome the proposed reduction--from two years to one year--of the qualification period for protection against unfair dismissal. That change is long overdue. The period is still a far cry from the six months that we originally had when legislation such as this was introduced by Labour Governments in the 1970s. Nevertheless, it represents a step in the right direction. If my reading of the press notices is correct, I should also welcome the increase in the ceiling for damages against unfair dismissal from £12,000 to £50,000.
I welcome proposed asylum and immigration legislation to include an appeals procedure for prospective visitors to the UK who are refused an entry certificate. Hon. Members who have a constituency such as mine, where many people are directly from, or are descended from citizens of, the Indian sub-continent, will be aware of the great distress that the present system causes.
Many of those constituents still have close family ties with people living abroad, particularly in the Indian sub-continent. Hundreds of those people visit my office in Leicester--yearly, I emphasise, not daily--and are at a total loss to understand why their relatives have been refused a visa. Often to them--and occasionally to me--the reasons given for the refusal appear perverse. The development of an appeals procedure will be an undoubted improvement as it will at least ensure greater conformity in decision making and the independent review of executive decisions.
My main concern about the proposal is the level of charge that an individual will have to pay for his appeal to be heard. In an exchange with the Home Secretary on the Floor of the House at the time of the publication of the White Paper, I asked what the charge would be. If my memory serves me correctly, the Home Secretary said that it would be somewhere in excess of £200 per applicant.
That is a prohibitively large sum for many people living in the Indian sub-continent and probably for those in other parts of the world as well. I hope that the Government will consider levying an additional charge on all those who apply for an entry certificate for this country. That
money could go towards funding the independent appeals procedure. I hope that we shall be able to convince the Government to make that change.
The Government clearly intend to make welfare reform one of the centrepieces of the legislative programme for this year. I accept their argument about the need to ensure that public funds are not abused. I accept their argument that those in greatest need must receive the most benefit and, of necessity, be targeted. I also agree that, if jobs are available--that could be a severe constraint--it is better for people to be in work than to be dependent on benefits. However, I do not accept the notion--I hope that the Government do not accept it either--that the welfare system is being systematically sucked dry by the healthy and workshy. I do not believe that for one moment.
As individual constituency Members of Parliament--I am sure that others experience the same thing--we see the victims and casualties of the failure of our economic system in our advice surgeries and local constituency offices on a daily basis. We have to ensure that, in the zeal for welfare reform, the lives of those who are dependent on the system are not made more difficult than they are already.
"Other measures will be laid before you".
Government spokespersons may consider some of my comments to be mildly critical--they would be right to do so--but I hope that some of what I say will strike them as helpful and useful.
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