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Rev. Martin Smyth: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, particularly regarding registration. One of my constituents was on the register of a London constituency and moved to Belfast towards the end of September. That constituent cannot appear on the new register in Belfast and, as my constituent was not in London before the October date, cannot appear on the London register. That example surely supports the argument--which the hon. Gentleman has espoused for some time--for a rolling registration.
Mr. Barnes: Rolling registration techniques should certainly be introduced, and I am disappointed that that measure is not in the Queen's Speech. Much good progress has been made: developments have occurred within the Home Office, the Labour party national executive committee has adopted the rolling register, and the idea enjoys wide cross-party support. Unfortunately, we must wait a little longer for the introduction of legislation. The Prime Minister, as shadow Home Secretary, accepted that argument and encouraged hon. Members to support the electoral legislation that I introduced. I hope that that means that the Government will respond favourably in the future.
The hon. Member for Belfast, South mentioned several other matters. He referred correctly to the position of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and to obvious concerns about the outcome of current investigations. A Select Committee report recognises the important work of the RUC. Its suggestions for reform include not dismantling the RUC or dramatic changes but developing an environment in which the RUC can represent people both across the communities and across the sexual divide--the sexes are not represented equally in that force.
The hon. Member for Belfast, South referred to the terrorist problem in Northern Ireland. Decommissioning is important if the peace process is to continue. At a recent meeting of the Friends of the Union, which took place in the House, Sean O'Callaghan pointed out that various Members, including Labour Members, say that giving up arms is beside the point because more can be acquired. As he said, if arms were given up and IRA commanders told their activists to rob a bank to get money to purchase weapons, the activists would reply, "What do you mean? You have just handed over the weapons and now you
want us to rob a bank to replace arms that have been built up over years." Decommissioning is tremendously important and cannot be switched on and off like a tap. Once the arms situation is tackled, it will be difficult to restore it.
The only other comment that I want to make on the speech of the hon. Member for Belfast, South relates to the joke that Chris McGimpsey made at a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference. I know who claimed to pass on the joke to Chris McGimpsey, and I shall tell the hon. Gentleman later.
I want to deal with the overall Government position on the Queen's Speech. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) implied that the Government's talk about modernisation is vague, that they pick up bits and pieces of policy from all over the place just because they are modern and that there is no broad approach. He is entirely mistaken. The Government have a clear set of ideas, with which I am not always in tune, but they are definite positions which need to be understood. Modernisation is part of that. It is stressed in the first paragraph of the Queen's Speech, which refers to
Before I develop further points about that topic, I shall stress other ideas that link with that notion and clarify it. The first is partnership. The Commonwealth Development Corporation is to undergo a form of privatisation and become a public-private partnership.
Another idea, which is not contained in the Queen's Speech but influences it, is the Prime Minister's philosophy of the third way. He has produced a Fabian pamphlet that expresses those ideas, and theorists are producing related ideas. The third way will interlink the free market and social justice, and the Queen's Speech contains such ideas. There is stress on measures that have already been taken, such as giving the Bank of England control over interest rates, which is the free market aspect. The Queen's Speech also includes many social justice measures, some of which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Belfast, South. Those relate to reform of benefits and are influenced by the joint approach of the free market plus social justice.
Another point that is continually stressed is globalisation. Because of the international markets, there are restrictions on the actions in which any Government can engage. There is some sign that these points have been taken on board, in that the Queen's Speech refers to the G7 partners working together on financial issues, and there is also reference to the global climate.
I have stressed modernisation, partnership, the third way and globalisation and shall now relate them to points made in the Queen's Speech. If one takes modernisation by itself, as the hon. Member for Blaby did, one sees that it is an odd idea. It is not clear, like the traditional sort of Conservatism that we generally had before Lady Thatcher became leader of the Conservative party and handbagged it into taking a particular approach. We might ask, as the hon. Member for Blaby did, what we are supposed to modernise.
I am in favour of some of the suggested modernisations in the Queen's Speech. We are going to replace the internal market in the national health service. That will be
a distinct advantage, because the operation of that market has involved a waste of resources, which can now be used to fulfil the health service's real purpose.
We will also establish a disability rights commission. I should have liked us to go further. I introduced the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, the thrust of which I hope will be enacted in future. When the previous Conservative Government presented what was then the Disability Discrimination Bill, it was said that the best change to it would have been the inclusion of such a commission, because the commission was the dynamic that would help to improve disability legislation.
I welcome the fact that more money is to go to the health service and education. I also welcome what is to happen to the other place, although--to quote Bernard Crick--I regard it as "nibbling at the ermine". In other words, we are doing only a little to tackle the issue by getting rid of hereditary peers' powers, but in the hope of something more substantial at a later date. Even that may not be as dramatic as some of the solutions that I could suggest, but it is a step in the right direction.
Eventually, we are to have the food standards agency and freedom of information legislation. I wish that firm proposals had been included in the Queen's Speech, but we are at least starting to move in the right direction.
The Queen's Speech contains many nice, modern measures, but why do I like them? What is it that attracts me to them? I am attracted to them because I am a democratic socialist and they are an extension of either democracy or social welfare. I sign up to these measures and will be keen to support the Government in the Lobbies, although I encourage the Government to go further.
There are some modernisations in the Queen's Speech that I distrust. They include the modernisation of local government. The local government White Paper seems to be about turning back-bench councillors into lobby fodder. What happens in the House is what people often believe happens on councils. When Labour Members who were councillors attend meetings of the parliamentary Labour party, the first thing they say is how differently things operate in the Labour groups and in the PLP. They say that, on the council, issues were debated, decisions were made and then the councillors would adhere solidly to the whip. But now, the position is determined from on high. That allows greater scope for rebellion, because we have not been party to a decision, but it means that we have not been party to the decision making either.
That is what the Government are about in establishing mayors, chief executives and centralised systems. Phrases in the White Paper are rather anti group activity. I know that many councils do not operate as they should, but reforms can be introduced to stimulate activity. Often, better facilities, and especially greater resources, are required for councillors to perform their functions.
I do not like what has happened to the Bank of England, with the resultant loss of control over interest rates. The measure was mentioned in the Queen's Speech, although it had already been implemented. It represents a loss of democracy. The House needs to take some issues more seriously on board, and greater controls should be introduced. Control over bodies such as the Bank of England should be in the hands of elected representatives.
Nor do I like much that is going on concerning the European Parliamentary Elections Bill. Because of the furore in the other place, a little low-level politicking has
been turned into a matter of high constitutional principle, and the detail is therefore being ignored. I happen to think that details are quite important. I am abstaining on everything related to the issue because I am against lists. I am against closed lists, because of the power of party bureaucrats, and open lists, because people from the same party fight each other over seats, as they do in the Republic of Ireland. We should not institutionalise conflicts between members of the same party; there can be enough conflict without it.
I am worried that we may not get some of the modernising moves right. I am not in one camp or the other; I will need to prod the issues. Labour has made a commitment on fairness at work, but concerns have been expressed by the Trades Union Congress about what will emerge in the Bill in the end. Its executive committee
The Queen's Speech says that we are in favour of European Union enlargement. I think that the priority in the EU is democratisation. It has been said that, if the EU applied for membership to itself, it would not be granted it because it does not have the democratic arrangements and provisions required in order to operate. Tremendous pressure should be put on achieving proper democratisation in a federal, social and democratic Europe, which would provide scope for expansion. New members would know the terms of the club that they applied to join.
I like the commitment on education, but I want some proof of it. Derbyshire, for instance, in which my constituency lies, suffered tremendously under the previous Government's arrangements, and it has suffered fantastic cumulative losses in education spending. We are hoping that, in the standard spending assessment statement in December, the Government will provide extra moneys and that we fare proportionately better than some. Several other counties have suffered in such a way, and are part of organisations such as the fair funding campaign. So, under the notion of modernisation, I go for some things because I am a democratic socialist, I am really worried about others, and some will depend on how they pan out.
I return to the issue of partnership, which was mentioned frequently in the Labour party's election manifesto and in documents published before the general election, and has been talked about considerably since then. Labour, when it was founded, was a mixture of socialists, trade unionists and workers in what was called a labour alliance. It was not a particularly left-wing body, but socialists could work with people who had a labourite interest, those who were exploited and who wanted to try to correct things.
The then opposition to us became the Conservative party. It was clearly the party of free enterprise and capitalism. Labour and the Conservative party conflicted with each other. However, there were periods of compromise, consensus and mutual moderation, which Harold Macmillan in the 1930s would have called the "middle way". That might not be very different from the third way that is now propounded.
Despite comings-together on many occasions, there were distinct different interests that were often discussed between the two sides. The old-style Liberals, not the Liberal Democrats, represented the party that attempted to square the circle. It was the party of partnership. Liberals thought that it was possible to get capital and labour around the table and that their representatives would be after the same thing once they had talked to one another.
I am not against capital and labour talking, but their representatives should realise that they are negotiating. They are making temporary compromises today so that they may argue and manoeuvre for temporary compromises tomorrow. It is part of what I dare to call the class struggle, which still takes place within society. The old Liberals ignored that. However, new Labour now has this philosophy of partnership. That is reflected in the private finance initiative, for instance, of which the council in my constituency is making good use. The council has to respond to the world in which it finds itself. However, I would sooner see public resources being supplied to local authorities. The participation concept is provided for in the Queen's Speech in terms of the Commonwealth Development Corporation.
I was talking about the third way, which is free markets and social justice. This is not a new way. It is not something that has just come about. It has some similarities, as I have said, with Harold Macmillan's middle way. To some extent, it is an ideal. Its historical background comes from people such as Lloyd George. The Lloyd George social liberalism reflects the third way considerably. That has a problem for me as a socialist. To me, free markets produce inequality, injustice and exploitation. If we want to see that readily and easily, there are international examples. After all, we have a global economy and the third world is included. Let us consider, for example, countries such as Malawi where there is destitution. That is part of the experience.
Social justice will be stunted if it has to take place within free market arrangements. There is the idea that the free market lays the golden egg and that thereafter there is some redistribution. I think that we must examine the way in which the market works and the problems that it produces.
Labour reflects some of the third-way notions. The Queen's Speech refers to
I did not realise until after the election that the slogan "Off benefit into work" was meant to be taken as it was produced. It was intended to say, "Get people off benefit and you will get them into work." It should have said, "Provide work and it will get people off benefit."
That reflects part of the problem that we experienced with single-parent benefit and perhaps, to an extent, with disability. Although many good measures are contained in the White Papers on benefits and on disability, we are in danger of moving increasingly towards selective help
and further away from universal benefits. I am a universal benefit man because that is implicit in the democratic socialist philosophy that I hold.
My next point is about globalisation. I hope that we are not expected to accept that we are hermetically sealed inside a world capitalist order and that in no circumstances can we get out. I would accept a great deal of the philosophy behind new Labour's programme if it were a temporary compromise because of the circumstances in which we found ourselves, so that we could build for tomorrow. If, however, it were seen as our long-term objective, that would be a serious mistake.
The third world suffers deprivation. There is the prospect of the multilateral agreement on investment, at the behest of multinational companies, with their particular interests. We should not say that we can do nothing about that. The weapons to tackle the evils of international free markets are what they have always been for democratic socialists: democracy and demands for social justice. That means organising with people to achieve those objectives--for example, by assisting those who work in co-operatives in Africa.
We should not think about bombing Iraq into submission, because we would be bombing the Iraqi people. Similar cases were the bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan. We should not always follow Clinton's lead.
Although we do not yet have a society that is ready to accept a fully fledged socialist programme, we should modernise in a democratic socialist direction. We should extend democracy. We hear much talk about fancy franchises and other arrangements. Whatever they are, everybody should be part of the process. At the beginning of the discussion, I suggested a rolling register, which still seems to be entirely relevant.
Socialism entails working to tackle world poverty. In the case of Iraq, that is hindered by the operation of sanctions. The standard of living in Iraq is probably about one tenth what it was when Saddam Hussein emerged, much of that due to him and his conduct of the war with Iran.
"modernisation of the country, its institutions, its public services, and its economy."
Modernisation is therefore tremendously important.
"continues to express its strong concerns at reports that the government is giving sympathetic consideration to employer lobbying aimed at sabotaging clear principles set out in the White Paper."
The White Paper was already a compromise towards which the unions had been pushed, but it seemed acceptable. We may now be going too far in placating employer interests.
"work for those who can".
I hope that that means that we shall create work. It is no use saying that there should be work for people who can work, after we have sorted out the people who are to work, if there is little work for them and they must accept poor wages, even though we are producing minimum wage legislation.
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