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Mrs. Bottomley: I had absolutely no intention of doing that. I was provoked by the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Beard), and I have always had a difficulty about being provoked in interventions. I shall try not to give way, and to stick to the main issue--which is the Government's serious lack of progress in the Queen's Speech on implementing Neill's recommendations. The public will make their own deductions about why the Government have not favoured such progress.
There was an omission also to mention any of the substantive issues dear to the right hon. Member for Yeovil. I do not blame him for yearning for a job.
Mrs. Bottomley:
It is understandable for one to feel a yearning and sense of injustice after serving for so long but never having a ministerial car or a red box. I tell the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) that, to those of us who have had 10 years accompanied by red boxes and other people driving the car, the opportunity to be eccentric, difficult and opinionated is irresistible.
The right hon. Member for Yeovil seems to have been sold short by the Government. Although the Prime Minister stayed in the Chamber for his speech, the right
hon. Gentleman seems--in no uncertain terms--to have been strung along on substantive matters, including a freedom of information Act, among many others.
Some of the proposals in the Queen's Speech are welcome. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said, it is important that we establish a disability rights commission. My right hon. Friend is entitled to recognition for his important work on disability legislation, for which he has been widely commended.
I should like Ministers to be aware of the situationof Peter Stock, in Godalming. After the passage of community care legislation, he was an active memberof the users and carers group. He will give strong witness to the degree to which disabled people and users' interests have been disregarded. He will give even stronger evidence on the degree to which the Government have taken a vindictive approach in the distortion of local government funds and health funds, which benefit metropolitan areas to the profound disadvantage of the shire counties.
Areas such as mine receive a 2.9 per cent. increase in health spending, whereas the average increase is 4 per cent. There is enormous demand, very large waiting lists and severe staff shortages. It is impossible to attract staff because of local cost factors. Moreover, there are no funds with which to attract staff. I am sure that Ministers will have to seek better answers in passing their legislation on the disability rights commission, and tell us why they have taken such a partisan approach to funding services for disabled people, which is operating to the disadvantage of areas such as my own.
The hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) mentioned the fairness at work measures--which, undoubtedly, are part of the "no say, no pay" response. I saw Lord Sawyer being introduced into the House of Lords recently as part, I suppose, of the some say, some pay process, which has long been understood in the Labour party.
The local government changes allow local authorities off the compulsory competitive tendering hook--once again, a payback to local government friends and the Labour party's power base.
Many will watch with anxiety what is delicately called the modernisation of justice. This is a Government with enormously close relationships with fat cat lawyers--I think that that is how they keep being described. I wonder what happens at the dinner tables of all these families where there seem to be a number of fat cat lawyers closely involved with leading politicians. The serious point is that the principle of justice, and our system in Britain, depends on independent lawyers. The Government's proposal is one that is easy to suggest, but will be extremely difficult to implement unless the legal profession is more tolerant of the Lord Chancellor now than it has been over the wallpaper and the tights, and the big modernisation step of turning his back on Her Majesty this morning.
The national health service proposals are, again, a triumph of rhetoric and ideology over common sense. It is nonsense for the Government to talk about bringing an end to the internal market while saying that they will maintain the distinction between the purchaser and the provider. The Queen's Speech refers to decentralised arrangements. That contrasts with the comments made by my GPs, who believe that the new arrangements are bureaucratic, cumbersome and stifling to innovation and
will result in inertia. The point about GP fundholding was that it encouraged GPs and primary care services to do things differently. That led to innovation and changes in practice from which others could learn. I recently spoke to osteopaths, who said that the first time that osteopathy was available on the NHS was when GP fundholding was introduced. Once a change in service provision had been tried, it was possible to apply it elsewhere.
I hope that, in the proposals for the national institute for clinical excellence, the Government will highlight the importance of innovation. I hope that they will not use NICE as a form of rationing. The right hon. Member for Yeovil is right to say that the Government should come clean on their priorities. GPs will be in an intolerable position if the Government do not take more lead in explaining what is and what is not available through the NHS, as the gap between people's wish list of health care treatments and their requirements grows ever wider, as is inevitable in the modern world.
I hope that, in taking forward their proposals for NICE, the Government will look again at the way in which they have run down the NHS research and development budget and disregarded the post of director of research and development. The work by Sir Michael Peckham as the first director was highly regarded. One of the steps that the Government took was to cut the NHS R and D budget. That is well understood. Behind the soundbites, the reality always tells a different story.
It is also a regret that in their legislation the Government have not found time to reform the Mental Health Act 1983, which needs revision to ensure that care in the community gains more public support and confidence and that there are more coherent measures to hold on to those who are not in an institution but need day-to-day monitoring and support. Much has been tried and discussed in mental health provision. The next step must be legislation.
The final omission from this Queen's Speech, about which my constituents will be most distressed, is the lack of any progress on the integrated transport strategy. My constituents, especially those who live in rural areas, feel that they have been lambasted by the Government. Their motoring taxes are about £30 billion a year. They are told that motorists are going to have to pay NHS bills as well, as a further penalty. They have nothing to show for it. They have one of the most serious road problems, with the A3 at Hindhead, in the entire south-east. They see a new regional development agency. They see layers and layers of bureaucracy, and they see politicians passing the buck when things go wrong and claiming the credit when things go right. Yet they see no action at Hindhead, and no measures in the Queen's Speech about integrated transport.
This is a disappointing Queen's Speech. As ever, it is about soundbites and spin. I much regret the degree to which the language in the Queen's Speech sounded very much more like a party political broadcast than the language we have been used to in a Queen's Speech over the years. That is another example of abusing conventions and customs and, in this case, drawing the monarch into party politics.
6.6 pm
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock):
Recently, I looked at my maiden speech, which I made on the first day of the Gracious Speech debate in 1992. I did so to gauge for myself to what extent I, as a supporter of my party, had achieved the objectives that I enunciated on that occasion--an occasion which for me, as for other hon. Members, was profoundly moving.
I was pleased to see identified in that speech, and reflected in today's Queen's Speech, a number of important items. The first one is the fact that the Queen's Speech today reiterates the United Kingdom Government's wish to play a full part in the enlargement of the European Union. For me, the geographical political entity of central Europe is extremely important. I include in that Estonia, which I was pleased to visit recently with the Foreign Affairs Committee. I believe that the admission into Europe of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Estonia, together with Slovenia, is a matter that stands deferred from Yalta. Those countries should be able to take their place as a matter of right in a free democratic club. I am pleased to see that, together with our European partners, the Government are pursuing that objective with vigour.
In my maiden speech, I referred to my desire to contribute in whatever way I could to the debate on constitutional and parliamentary reform. That is very much a feature of this Government. I disagree with some details of the Government's initiatives and plans, but the broad thrust is something of which all of us in the Labour party can be extremely proud. The United Kingdom constitution and its Parliament, of which all of us are proud, is basically a Victorian institution. It has not been substantially or materially altered to take account of the great growth in the role of modern government that occurs in all jurisdictions. We need to reform the constitution to make our democracy and institutions more sensitive.
Just to demonstrate that I am not making a partisan point here, I should say that we need always to remember that Lord St. John of Fawsley, when he was Leader of the House, largely initiated the modern Select Committee system, which is an enduring legacy on which we need to build. We have to enhance the status of Select Committees, increase the importance of their Chairpersons and give them more power to call the Executive to account.
With the exception of the Select Committees' creation, there has not been a radical look at how we deal with our democracy. Parliament has not evolved to take account of the vast responsibilities, budgets and interrelationships of modern government. I welcome the increments along the road of reform in the Queen's Speech, such as the announcement of legislation on the regional development agencies and new concepts of local government.
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