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8.16 pm
Mr. Martin Salter (Reading, West): It speaks volumes that, when Liberal Democrats Members finally get their place in the sun by securing a debate in the Chamber on the important issue of public services, only 10 per cent. of their total parliamentary strength turns out to support the important and incisive arguments that their Front Benchers are trying to make.
I have become worried about the tone of this debate-- I was certainly concerned about it earlier--because, unlike other Labour Members, I quite like Liberal Democrat Members. Many of my colleagues are antagonistic towards the Liberal Democrats. Although they do not say so, many of them oppose their involvement in Cabinet committees. I not only think that the Liberal Democrats are okay: I think that every council should have one. They may be largely irrelevant, but they provide useful entertainment and a useful contrast between the real world and the fantasy world which their politicians inhabit.
Only this morning--as evidence of my fondness for Liberal Democrats--I was working with the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) on an important debate in Westminster Hall. I was a lot more supportive of him than his colleagues were in his abortive leadership bid. I see that the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) is leaving the Chamber--leaving us with less than 10 per cent. of Liberal Democrat Members attending the debate.
I should like briefly to contrast the taxation and public services record of Liberal Democrat councils with that of our Labour Government. Liberal Democrat politicians are quite happy to take a brave stance on taxation and to encourage other people from other parties to increase tax. But how do they react when council tax levels increase in their own local authority areas? They do not like it and are not necessarily prepared to justify it, and they whinge as only Liberal Democrats can.
Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South):
The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point. I draw his attention to the four years for which I led Hampshire county council, when we never once shied away from increasing council tax, sometimes by as much as 14 per cent., to pay for good services. In that time, we recruited and employed 600 more teachers, 200 more policemen--whom we paid for ourselves--and more than 300 more social workers. Before the hon. Gentleman starts to knock Liberal Democrat councils, he should consider the example that we have set everyone in Hampshire, and the way in which the country's largest local authority responded to the real world. We are not shy of tax increases: we are proud of them because they delivered the services in the real world that real people needed.
Mr. Salter:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point so well. The Liberal Democrats' record in Hampshire was so successful that they were rejected by the people of Hampshire. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would care to reflect on that.
I can only speak about the councils that I know about and of which I have direct experience. The town of Reading has far outgrown its earlier boundaries. A third
of my constituents had the misfortune to come under West Berkshire council. On the other side of town, a third of the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths) come under Wokingham council, which varies between primarily Conservative control and occasional bursts of Lib-Demery. It is worth looking at the level of public services provided by those councils.
In West Berkshire, which has been Liberal-controlled since 1991, a recent customer satisfaction survey found that more than two thirds of the population considered that the council had an appalling record on public services: they were dissatisfied with the level of services, youth facilities and road maintenance and felt that the council provided poor value for money.
The Liberal Democrats shed a lot of crocodile tears for public services and pensioner services, but what sort of concessionary fares scheme does Liberal Democrat- controlled West Berkshire council deliver for pensioners in my constituency? Reading, which has been Labour- controlled since 1986, provides a free bus pass at any time of the day or night throughout the Greater Reading travel area. What does the generous Liberal Democrat council deliver for pensioners in my constituency? A total of £26 worth of tokens a year. That is worth 50p a week. Someone from the edge of my constituency, which is not particularly large, who had to travel to the Royal Berkshire hospital to visit a loved one twice a week would use up their annual allocation of concessionary travel tokens in five weeks. What does the Liberal Democrat council say to those pensioners for the other 47 weeks of the year? They have to pay the full fare.
When we ran a campaign to extend a proper concessionary fares scheme throughout my constituency and into the urban areas of West Berkshire council, Sally Hannon, the chair of environmental services, said publicly that if those whingeing pensioners wanted to have Labour services, they could move to a Labour authority. That speaks volumes about how much Liberal Democrats care about public services for pensioners. I found it amusing, but sad. The Liberals whinge as only they can. They are blatant opportunists. Liberal Democrats can be easily defined: they are all things to all people.
It comes ill from the lips of people who have controlled local authorities with some of the worst standards of public service to criticise the good start that the Government have made on tax and the development and enhancement of essential public services. The Labour Government have introduced a new 10p rate of tax, helping the lower-paid and halving the tax bill for 1.8 million low-paid workers. They have also introduced record increases in child benefit, and the working families tax credit, which will mean an extra £24 a week for lower-paid families.
We cannot consider the Liberal Democrats as a serious party of Government. They are on occasion a party of local government, but they certainly could not be trusted to run our national economy. As was said earlier in the debate, they have spent their 1p in the pound many times over. In their 1997 manifesto, they said that they would spend an extra £9.5 billion on education and an extra £3.5 billion on health over five years. The Labour Government are investing £19 billion extra over three years in education, and £21 billion extra over three years in health.
The Liberal Democrat sums do not add up. We have seen their hypocrisy on spending and the treatment of pensioners. I shall end my short and friendly contribution--I could go on for a long time--with my favourite quote on Liberals. It was John Diefenbaker who said:
Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South):
I have been caught by surprise being called so early, but it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter), who obviously sees everything through rose-coloured glasses provided by Millbank Tower, which seem to distort most things, including most of the hon. Gentleman's speech tonight.
Let us talk about the real world. At Question Time today, the Prime Minister once again failed to grasp the issues of the day and respond with any authority. He talked about long-term planning for the NHS, but the real issues facing people today are waiting lists. Labour has been in power for nearly three years and people on waiting lists have died. Not everybody can afford to wait another five years for staff to be trained or for facilities to improve.
In the real world--outside the Chamber and away from Downing Street--people are suffering real illnesses. They do not go to the doctor for nothing. They do not say that they do not mind waiting for their operation. There are many people who have been examined by well-qualified doctors, sometimes with years of experience, and perhaps then seen by a second or third doctor as well and been told that they need an operation that could be life-saving. Sadly, they are not getting those operations.
We hear promises of more money being put into the health service, and talk about the money that has already been put in. If so much money had been put in, we would have seen dramatic improvements, but the real world tells us that there have not been dramatic improvements. There is not a hospital in the country that does not have a significant problem. There are shortages of nurses, doctors and consultants, non-existent accident and emergency assessment centres and overworked and overstrained staff--yet still the Government's complacency is beyond belief when they start to talk about what they have done for the health service. If it is so good, why are there so many problems? If they have put so much in, why is there so little to show for it?
It is no good the Prime Minister telling us that 37 hospitals are to be built with the help of the private finance initiative. Five years or more from now, a Government will have to pick up the financial consequences of the PFI bids going ahead today for hospitals and schools. Those projects will screw the health service and the education system and will ruin much of what we have. The private finance initiative may be seen as a short-term solution to get the Government off the hook, but it is not a long-term solution. In the end, the buildings will cost more and less will be done in them because of that. It is about time that the nation woke up to the falsehood of the PFI as a solution for most problems. It is nonsense.
It is the same with schools. I listened with great interest this morning to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment talking about the Government's commitment to failing secondary schools. By 2003, most schoolchildren should expect to leave secondary school with at least five GCSE passes at grade A, B or C. That does not help children now. Those failing schools were there three years ago--I have some in my constituency, sadly. Overcrowded, inner-city schools are desperately short of resources and the sort of assistance that we are told is coming. If it comes five years from now, however, that is no good for today's pupils. Their one chance of a decent education is evaporating, and yet another generation of kids will be served nothing but a second-rate education.
Liberals are the flying saucers of politics. No one can make head nor tail of them and they are never seen in the same place twice.
8.25 pm
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