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9.19 pm
Sir George Young (North-West Hampshire): It is my privilege, for the second year in succession, to wind up for the Opposition in the debate on the Queen's Speech. More than 120 hon. Members have taken part in the debate, including a Prime Minister, a former Prime Minister, a former Deputy Prime Minister, a former Chancellor and a large number of right hon. and hon. Members.
It seems a long time since the Queen's Speech left Bassetlaw and Edinburgh, Pentlands a week ago, but it got off to a cracking pace thanks to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, whose parliamentary performances were rightly recognised by the judges of The Spectator parliamentarian of the year award the following day. Those of us at the ceremony witnessed the pride with which my right hon. Friend accepted that award, and the pleasure that it gave the Deputy Prime Minister to present it to him.
To be impartial, I shall congratulate the Leader of the House on her recent Variety performance in aid of charity, which attracted some colourful, if mixed, comments. One newspaper reporter, a braver man than I am, described her voice as having the potential to "stun charging bullocks" and "keep mosquitoes at bay".
I remind the right hon. Lady of some words that she used not on that occasion, but five years ago when she was shadow Leader of the House, speaking as I am now at the end of the debate on the Address. She said:
Our debate this afternoon was opened by the Chief Secretary. He took some risks by making an assertion in his speech that he was unable to substantiate. We expect him to produce chapter and verse for his assertion that my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) has opposed the £40 billion on health and education. If he cannot produce that substantiation, I know that, as an hon. Member, he would want to withdraw his assertion.
The Chief Secretary sounded more and more like Baroness Thatcher as he outlined with relish how he would use the veto if certain European policies developed in a certain direction. However, he did not answer all the questions posed by my right hon. Friend. Having listened to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a rather defensive performance on the "Today" programme this morning, and having listened to the Chief Secretary this afternoon, I am not wholly reassured about the Government's policies on tax harmonisation. It is a subject to which we shall want to return on many future occasions.
The hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) made some kind remarks about the Opposition's amendment. I hope that that means that the Liberal Democrats will vote for it. I am sorry to see hon. Members shaking their head, as the hon. Gentleman said that the Opposition amendment was spot on. It is disappointing that the Liberal Democrats will not support us in the Lobby. The hon. Member for Gordon accused the Government of drift on Europe, implying rightly that, behind the facade, there are tensions, pulling the Government in opposite directions and inducing paralysis.
The next speech in the debate, that of the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), brought to light some of those tensions on the Government Benches. In a brave speech that was somewhat off-message, he made it clear that he believed that we should be in the first wave when it comes to joining the euro. He referred to some of the risks that would confront the City of London if certain measures went ahead, and he took the House with him on that. He made some eminently sensible comments about the composition of the Monetary Policy Committee.
My hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir P. Tapsell) said that we would hold the Government to the commitments that they gave today, and we will. He pointed out that we pay a price in terms of growth and employment if we delegate to the Bank an inflation target, with no other economic targets to go with it.
The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice) made a good Keynesian speech, gently chiding the Government for a lack of clarity on policy on EMU. He made a brave attack on The Sun--the sort of attack that an hon. Member can make only if he has a blameless personal life.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe(Sir R. Whitney) reasserted that we left the economy in good shape. He rightly pointed out that the reduction of £20 billion in the public sector borrowing requirement was due to policies that the Government inherited, rather than policies that they implemented. He queried, as did a number of hon. Members, some of the more optimistic growth forecasts from the Treasury Benches.
I enjoyed the speech of the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies). It was a thoughtful speech that put the economy in a broader context--not just a European, but an international context. He explained economics in words that a child could understand, and his speech should be widely read.
From basic economics to advanced psychology: my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) was right to point out that climate, mood, confidence and the feel-good factor are important to economic success. At the moment, as he rightly pointed out, they are not
there. He also expressed the hope that the Government would maintain the momentum on streamlining the tax system, into which he invested a lot of effort.
The right hon. Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) was one of the few speakers to focus on the less-developed countries and on the economic problems that confront them. He criticised the short-term approach, which can often harm the long-term development of those countries. He wanted to refocus globalisation to help rather than harm those countries, and he spoke with feeling and knowledge on an important issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) described how he came face to face with President Castro--face to beard would be a better description of that encounter. My hon. Friend gave a cool assessment of the issues surrounding the launch of the euro and the terms of trade on the debate about the euro. He posed a number of questions, to which I hope that, at some point, the Government will be good enough to reply.
The hon. Member for Bolton, West (Ms Kelly) focused on the international system and made some perceptive comments about the need for reform of the international monetary system to take account of today's markets. She carried the House with her on that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) criticised the lack of vision in the Queen's Speech and outlined some retrograde steps that have been portrayed as forward looking.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) lifted his eyes beyond the horizon of the arts world, which has preoccupied him for so long, and made a thoughtful contribution--based on a realistic assessment of the economy--focusing on electronic trading and its potential. He rightly urged the House not to forget the importance of manufacturing industry.
The hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) gave some warnings about the working families tax credit. Every Member on the Treasury Bench should read what he said, reinforcing points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith). The criticisms that he made about the working families tax credit demand a reply.
The hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Mr. Williams) welcomed the reflationary impact of the expenditure on health and education, but in so doing he slightly undermined the case that the Government have made by implying that reflation will be necessary in three years, when the Chancellor has been predicting some robust growth.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) described the impact of the world downturn on our economy and exports, and then spoke about the impact of the economy on pensions. He was the only hon. Member to focus specifically on pensions. He identified the Government's failure to answer a number of pension questions, after some false starts, and some possible solutions, quoting Baroness Castle as an ally.
The hon. Member for West Tyrone (Mr. Thompson) made a robust, Euro-sceptic speech. The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) picked up on the Acheson report and focused on those who cannot work. She invited the Government to come up with a more credible strategy for those for whom work is not an option. It was one of the most supportive speeches that
I have heard the hon. Lady make in the House. For that reason, it was a slight disappointment to have to listen to it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) talked about tax harmonisation and rightly pointed out that a number of issues have not been resolved. Even as the debate is taking place, there are threats to the United Kingdom film and shipbuilding industries, to which we shall want to return.
I commend the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) for her patience in sitting all the way through the debate. I listened to what she said about the inner city, drawing on her time as leader of Southwark council. I remember working with her on regenerating some of the difficult estates in Peckham and Camberwell, and I hope that she exempted from her critical remarks the work of the Department of the Environment in the mid-1990s.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser) focused on the supply side of the economy and rightly reminded us of the need to make sure that our industry remains competitive by looking at supply side measures.
Re-reading the Queen's Speech last night, and looking out for rhetoric and soundbites, I noticed that the word "modernise" appeared 12 times--10 times in the first two pages. It appeared 11 times in a much shorter article on the Queen's Speech written by the Prime Minister for this week's issue of The House Magazine.
That has been the spin--the Chief Secretary referred to that in his opening remarks--but what does it mean? When one considers the measures in the Queen's Speech, I do not think that it means a lot. Forcing GPs into a new relationship about which many of them are unhappy is, apparently, to
That leads me to my second point. Spending two or three days in my constituency in the middle of a six-day debate on the Queen's Speech demonstrated to me the difference between two worlds: the modernised world of the Queen's Speech, elegantly spun and crafted by wordsmiths--although, sadly, someone overlooked the need to equip the Prime Minister with the decent speech to which he was entitled--and the real world in which we and our constituents lead our daily lives.
In Labour's world, local government will be more efficient and more responsive. In the real world--given tomorrow's revenue support grant statement--all that the
public in my constituency and, I suspect, elsewhere will get will be higher council taxes and more pressure on social services, aggravated by the need to make good the shortfall in pension funds caused by the raid in last year's Budget. Without a full local government Bill, the grand strategy for democratic renewal that the Deputy Prime Minister has been trumpeting will have to wait another year.
In Labour's world, on the very day of the Queen's Speech, the Deputy Prime Minister dreamt of bringing back the dawn chorus and the linnet. The Queen's Speech refers to protecting the environment, but, in the real world, the Deputy Prime Minister overrules county councils and makes them develop green-field sites that they do not want to develop. Hampshire county council's structure plan faces the threat of being overruled by the Government; in West Sussex, that has already happened.
In London--Labour's capital--the Government have promised
"The Government's programme, as embodied in the Queen's Speech, was rightly described by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition as thin. Tonight, after six days of debate, we know clearly why. . . The purpose of this Queen's Speech has been . . . to fob us off with rhetoric, sound bites and scapegoats."--[Official Report, 25 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 662.]
Those words seem more appropriate tonight than when the right hon. Lady originally spoke them.
"continue to build a modern National Health Service".
Taking cash away from some potential claimants on modest incomes is "to modernise legal aid". Saving £500 million from women whose husbands die young is "modernising benefits for widows". Removing incentives from the town hall to improve efficiency and quality of service is
"to modernise local government in England and Wales".
Even this Government, however, are unable to describe their proposals for London, involving the appointment of a mayor--a post that dates back several hundred years--as "modernising", using instead the word "new". That shows the absurdity of trying to brand a speech or programme by applying one adjective to it: the verbal elastic simply snaps. Once we take off the label and look at the contents, we see that the Queen's Speech lacks coherence, shape and momentum--a point well made in The Times yesterday by Peter Riddell.
"a range of powers to help make London a world class city".
Some of us would assert that London was a world-class city long before the people's party arrived on the scene, but, apparently, it is not yet resilient enough to be entrusted to the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone). I must tell the Deputy Prime Minister that, until he implements a policy that will secure resources for London Transport, his strategy will lack credibility. We have heard some tough talk from the Government about improving rail services, but if the Deputy Prime Minister cannot make his Bills run on time, what chance has he of making the trains run on time?
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