| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Baker: Yes, I am happy to accept that the Government have made promises in good faith; but it remains to be seen whether the promises are fulfilled. In my speech, I have not touched on "greening government" as the hon. Gentleman uses the term--as a correlated approach within government, which is a key test of how the Government react to environmental issues. The history of this Government and the previous Government--of all Governments--has been a failure to take the environment seriously outside the Department that leads on the environment. It is a key point.
Mr. Kidney: As the hon. Gentleman is so graciously giving some credit to the Government for their actions, will he give some credit to the Treasury for ratcheting up the fuel duty escalator; for providing extra money for rural bus services and innovative transport services in rural areas; for its consultation papers on a variable vehicle excise duty and Lord Marshall's energy tax; and for its 18 proposals--on which progress will be made--in the pre-Budget report, each of which has an environmental aspect?
Mr. Baker: I am always happy to give credit where credit is due, as I hope that hon. Members will accept. However, I think that some of the Treasury's motivations on, for example, VAT on fuel, landfill tax and possibly aggregates tax are not predominantly environmental but revenue raising. Treasury Ministers put a green coat on measures to raise revenue, so that they can claim environmental credit. I shall be happy when Treasury Ministers start to produce a green book, which they have not done; when they are more prepared to accept hypothecated taxes, which they currently are not; and when the Treasury--which likes to think that it is leading edge, although it is not; it is outmoded and old-fashioned--starts to understand that environmental economics is a way to deliver not only good environmental policy but good social and economic policy. When the Treasury takes those actions, I shall give it the credence that the hon. Member for Stafford thinks that I should give it.
I question the motivation of Treasury Ministers. One reason why we have not seen a co-ordinated approach across the Government is that Ministers in the Treasury
and in the Department of Trade and Industry--whom I think of as the environmental bad guys--have used blocking tactics. Neither I nor the Liberal Democrat party is suggesting raising taxes--I should say, before Labour Members say it, not even a penny on income tax--to deal with environmental issues. We suggest that we should change the way in which taxes are raised, so that we have taxes on bad things, such as pollution, and fewer taxes on good things, such as employment. The tax take will remain the same, but we can change tax raising so that it is not only about raising money but about achieving social and environmental objectives.
I should like Treasury Ministers to take much more action than they have taken so far. I hope that the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) will be good enough to concede that Treasury Ministers' performance at the Environmental Audit Select Committee's hearings was not one that will go down as one of the best in the annals of this Parliament's history.
Mr. Brian White (Milton Keynes, North-East):
Last year, when I made my maiden speech, on the first day of the debate on the Loyal Address, I spoke after the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker). As I was lucky last year and was called to speak on the first day, I thought that I would try to do the same this year. However, I was called to speak after the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), who spoke after me last year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) gave us an interesting history lesson, which reminded me of a story that I was told when I first started working in the computer industry. Just before the 1970 general election, a computer operator was carrying a tray of cards on United Kingdom export figures and dropped it. He scooped up all the cards, put them back in the box and fed them through the computer. The figures duly came out. Later that month, a blip in Britain's exports was revealed, putting us back into the red. Subsequently, the operator discovered that he had missed a card, which was for a £1 million aeroplane export order. The subsequent official figures showed that Britain was back in the black. The operator was a socialist and has never forgiven himself for causing the 1964-70 Labour Government to lose the general election. The story illustrates the potential impact of technology.
Not all of today's speeches have dealt with one of the key points made by the Prime Minister, who said that the electronic commerce Bill was one of the key Bills in the Queen's Speech. I think that he was absolutely right about that. Although an electronic commerce Bill may seem innocuous, in years to come it will be thought of as one that defined the United Kingdom. The Bill addresses many important issues--of civil liberties; of types of regulation; of whether American-style self-regulation will dominate or we will adopt more sensible regulation; and of encryption and third-party trusted key holders.
Many countries do not have a strategy on developing information technology and electronic commerce, thereby giving Britain an opportunity to take the lead. The
Government should be congratulated on their recent performance at the meeting of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The United Kingdom does not have a sufficient skills base to benefit fully from information technology. I was told recently--I do not know whether it is true--that the American Government have issued 500,000 green cards for people skilled in IT, so that they can work in the United States. Many people have gone from the United Kingdom to the United States because of the opportunities that that country makes available to them. We train people who subsequently work in the United States, which reaps the benefits. The Government have to ensure that we keep our skilled workers in the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom has a tremendous shortage--the latest estimate is about 50,000--of good programmers and analysts. Although the new deal has started to tackle the shortage, we must do much more. The millennium bug programme is helping to fill the shortage, but we must do much more. The speed of technological change is being grossly underestimated, and we have to keep re-skilling our work force if we are to keep up. Although we have the advantage of being able to re-skill, we will have to ensure that new skills can be acquired not only by those designing systems but for those using them.
The electronic commerce Bill will have to perform a difficult task. It will not only have to remove barriers preventing competition and development in electronic commerce, but do so without removing the protections that have developed over the years. The Bill also must not create new barriers.
The Bill will change the culture of the United Kingdom. The internet will open up government and public services and facilitate business's competitive instincts. If we get the framework right, the Bill will enable us to accomplish many goals. If we get it wrong, we will damage the United Kingdom for decades to come. Therefore, it is one of the key Bills. I am certain that the Government will get it right, but it is important that we recognise that it is key.
The issue of culture has also been raised tonight. I agree not only with the concerns expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark), but with his conclusions that the terms of the freedom of information Bill must be right. It is important that we subject it to the draft legislation process rather than put a half-cocked piece of legislation on the statute book. We have done that too often in this place. It is important that we get that Bill right because it will be a key piece of legislation for the next century.
The drive towards better government and freedom of information will lead to a change of culture in our public services. I recently saw an example of that. Stockholm city council decided to cable all of Stockholm and make that cable available to the businesses that could use it. It created a private company and, although its shareholders were Stockholm city council, in all respects it was a private venture because it went to the market to raise the necessary capital. It then dug the cable through Stockholm and made it available to all companies to enable them to compete, whether they were in public or private ownership.
Stockholm city council, as shareholder, got its return and the investors, through the private market, got their return. The case put me in mind of the way in which the
Victorian English cities, such as Birmingham and Manchester, developed the new technologies of their day--electricity, gas and sewers--from which we are still benefiting today. If we are to allow Britain to move forward, despite the scoffs of the Opposition parties about modernisation, we need to remove the shackles from innovation and new technologies.
All that brings me to the peers. I made an earlier suggestion about what the Government should do about the House of Lords other than abolish the voting rights of hereditary peers. Some time ago--after the third defeat, I think--I suggested that we should give every Tory voter a peerage and use the Parliament Act 1911 to reduce the time for which they could hold that office to one month. We would then have a permanent non-Tory Government. Anyone who dared to vote Tory would be made a peer and lose his or her right to vote. I am not sure that that is very democratic, but it appealed to my sense of humour.
It is important to make it clear that, when voting rights are removed from hereditary peers, there will not be a Labour majority in the other place. I would prefer a Chamber that had a permanent Labour majority, but then that is my old Stalinist background coming out. It is important to recognise that Labour will not have a majority in the second Chamber and that the process of appointment to it will change.
I welcome the fact that the work of the royal commission will be subject to a time limit. When the Scotland Bill went through, it was said that it related to unfinished business, but the issue of hereditary peers is unfinished business that goes back even longer than that. The hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) said that the Labour party did not understand history, but the old saying that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it definitely applies to the Tory party at the moment.
The other crucial issue in the Queen's Speech on which we will be judged is welfare reform, in which I am a strong believer. It is critical. I come to it from a simple point of view--the current system does not work. Week in and week out, I see people at my surgery who are suffering under the current system because they cannot get the benefits that they need. In 1997, I did not think that it was possible that people who did not have any money were told, "The only thing that you can do is go down to the Salvation Army and get some food vouchers," yet that is what happened just after we took over in May 1997. It is wrong that that could occur at the end of the 20th century.
The welfare system was designed in the late 1940s, when men worked and women stayed at home, and when the ratio of working people to pensioners was far greater than now. It is long overdue for reform. I shall judge the welfare reforms on the simple question of whether the people who lose out under the current system will benefit under the new one. It is important that those people who desperately want to work can do so, whether part time or full time, or with changing hours. The way in which work is organised will fundamentally change in the coming years and it is important that the benefits system, and the support that it gives to families, recognises that the work pattern will not always be as it is now. We need a system that responds to that. We do not need a system under
which different benefits are paid out on different days but need a system under which money can be transferred to where people need it.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |