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Mr. Hayes: May I intervene, more briefly than last time and on that specific point? In their response to the Agriculture Committee, the Government said:
- the Sea Fisheries Inspectorate and the Ministry's Legal Department recognise the importance of dealing with suspected infringements promptly and issuing summonses through the Courts in good time.
- Separate legal systems operate in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Dr. Godman: That was a remarkably brief intervention for the hon. Gentleman, who is always courteous. He makes an important point, but I do not want to drift off course, if you will pardon the expression, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Being the navigator that you are, you would sort me out.
Mr. Andrew George (St. Ives): Like other hon. Members, I regret that we have no adequate opportunity to debate fishing matters. However, this debate does not present such an opportunity, because we are considering a narrowly focused Bill. We cannot therefore spend many minutes regretting that.
I appreciate the fact that the Bill is intended to be a tidying-up measure. For the reasons that the Minister outlined, it will clarify the powers of the Sea Fish Industry Authority by giving it the ability to levy administration charges for processing applications for grant aid. The Bill will apply retrospectively, and validate practice since the Fisheries Act 1981 was passed. Despite the comments and explanations of the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss), it is not appropriate to debate whether the Government's legal advisers were doing their job properly.
Hon. Members have drawn attention to paragraph 11 of the explanatory notes. It states:
Mr. Bercow:
I note the hon. Gentleman's last remark. May I infer from his comments that he, as the representative of a fishing constituency, and in the absence of published Government legal advice, would not feel comfortable supporting the Bill in the Lobby for fear of the possibility that, despite the Minister's assurances, it might not be compatible with convention rights?
Mr. George:
I am happy to support Second Reading. We will have an opportunity at a later stage to pore over the matter in more detail and perhaps resolve the matter. I do not believe that we shall store up problems simply by supporting the Government this evening. We intend to do that.
As the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) rightly pointed out, I represent a constituency that has a considerable fishing interest. It is appropriate to point out that when I realised that the Bill would be discussed, I attempted to consult the industry as widely as possible, not only in my constituency but nationally and, indeed, internationally in England, Scotland and Cornwall--
Dr. Godman:
And Northern Ireland.
Mr. George:
Yes, and Northern Ireland. Like the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman), I found that the industry had no burning ambition for the measure to be reviewed seriously, or that the House should be detained with matters of detail.
Mr. Peter Atkinson:
When the hon. Gentleman consulted the fishing organisations, did he explain that it was possible that they had paid £7 million that they should not have paid? In the current financial climate, £7 million would be most welcome to the fishing industry.
Mr. George:
I am grateful for that intervention. The information about the 13,000 cases and £7.3 million was germane to the consultations and the industry knew about it. The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) knows that if we examine the matter retrospectively, we must also consider Governments from 1981 who were responsible for overseeing the loss.
The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire was right to draw attention, within the narrow scope of the Bill, to the need for the Minister to tackle fishing safety grants. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food made a statement in May last year in which he announced the withdrawal of those grants. Yet in June, on a visit to Cornwall and the south-west amid much fanfare, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions had found the money to reinstate the grant. However, in a letter in November, the Deputy Prime Minister wrote to the chief
executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations to say that the grants could not simply be restored as he had originally understood.
We have covered that ground before, but the Minister knows that the industry is anxious to restore the grants. On a recent visit to Cornwall, which the Western Morning News reported, the Prime Minister stated we would get some news soon. We anticipate positive news that fishing safety grants will be reinstated soon. We are anxious for confirmation of that.
Mr. Hayes:
The hon. Gentleman shared experiences on fishing trawlers with me--[Hon. Members: "Tell us more."] I remember that we were linking arms.
Safety grants came within the orbit of the 1981 discussions, with which the hon. Gentleman will be as familiar as I am. The Select Committee on Agriculture, on which we both served specifically referred to safety grants in the context of an ageing fleet. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on that in relation to the Select Committee's work and recommendations?
Mr. George:
I am grateful for that intervention, which is relevant to the matter that I am considering. The Select Committee made important recommendations on the lines that I am outlining. I ask the Minister to tackle those points in his winding-up speech.
The explanatory notes state that the SFIA was told to stop levying charges on 3 May 1996. However, we can find no public statement on that date, or any reference to the fact in the authority's annual report. We should consider what constitutes appropriate action by a public body. It is surprising that the matter was not considered sufficiently important.
It being Seven o'clock, further proceedings stood postponed.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin):
Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro and St. Austell):
I beg to move,
All the briefings on the Budget, which now appear with monotonous regularity in the press, have one thing in common:
It is considered doubtful that the Authority had statutory authority to make these charges.
We have to take that on trust. Perhaps the Minister will deal with the matter in his winding-up speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) rightly suggested that we should have access to that legal advice at a later stage. Apart from the bald statement that I quoted, we have no further evidence to go on.
7 pm
That this House notes the continued underfunding of the National Health Service compared to the European average, as recently highlighted by the Prime Minister, the continued underfunding of schools, with average class sizes rising for most age groups since the election of the Labour Government, that government investment in public transport is significantly below that provided by the previous Government, that police numbers are falling, and that the 75p increase in the weekly pension is grossly inadequate; and concludes that instead of tax cuts the Chancellor should give greater priority to further improvement in the National Health Service, schools funding, public transport, the police and a greater increase in state pensions.
The House should listen to these words:
Nobody wants to pay more taxes but cutting is another matter. What bothers me is whether the money that goes in tax cuts . . . would be better spent on areas of direct social need.
They are not mine, but those of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) in The Daily Telegraph on 5 February. They were bravely and, we believe, rightly spoken and they are the substantive reason for the Liberal Democrats initiating tonight's debate. The Government are failing to meet their election pledges to save the national health service, prioritise education, education, education and ensure that pensioners share in the growing wealth of the nation. Instead, the one thing that we know the Chancellor will deliver in the new financial year is an income tax cut, which is not mentioned anywhere in Labour's manifesto. Not only that, but it seems that rich business men will be the biggest gainers from the Budget.
the government . . . is on the side of the risk taker;
there will be a "Budget for business"; and
the budget will introduce tax breaks for share schemes and new corporate ventures.
All of them say that the Chancellor is planning to cut capital gains tax. His previous changes, which were announced in the taper, saved the partners of Goldman Sachs in the United Kingdom alone £500 million, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) £1.5 million, and Lord Sainsbury £200 million. In other words, they were tax breaks for the rich, but in his 1996 Labour party conference speech the Chancellor said:
While the Tories want a millionaire's tax cut for themselves . . . a
Labour
Chancellor will not waste money on boardroom excesses.
He attacked the Conservatives for introducing policies similar to his own.
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