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10.54 pm
Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton): I listened to the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) with growing incredulity. He put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State a question that can be answered only when the Bill is passed. We can only estimate the number of beneficiaries from the measure because the information that the Bill makes available is not yet available. When it is available, my right hon. Friend will be able to assess accurately and with total precision the number of beneficiaries.
The sheer ignorance shown by the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues about the origins of the licence and the way in which it is collected and used is extraordinary.
Mr. Ainsworth: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: I will in a moment. Let me make that point clear. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) spoke quite inaccurately about the origins of the licence and its purpose. The licence was introduced not to fund the BBC, but as a tax on the ownership of a wireless set. It was introduced by a Conservative Government. It was equivalent to the tax on the ownership of a dog, which then existed. The money went to the BBC because the BBC was the only broadcasting organisation.
Mr. Fabricant: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: No. In the same way, the hon. Member--
Mr. Fabricant: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned my name and said that I had got something historically wrong. He has misled the House--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman must not rise on a point of order and then make a point that is simply a matter for debate.
Mr. Fabricant: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will not even complain about the hon. Gentleman's use of unparliamentary language when he said that I had misled the House. You did not hear that. If you had heard it, you would have asked him to withdraw it. As the hon. Gentleman is making such a total fool of himself--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps we should proceed in a slightly calmer way.
Mr. Ainsworth: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: There are several points that I wish to make, then I shall certainly give way to the hon. Member for East Surrey.
In a speech full of cheap points, the hon. Gentleman attacked the Government for what he called a paltry increase of 75p a week in the pension. I happen to believe that that increase is too small, and I have encouraged my right hon. Friends to increase it, but the only reason that it is 75p is that the hon. Gentleman's party in office cut the link between earnings and pensions, and linked pensions to inflation. The 75p increase is the result of that link. Whereas Labour Members of Parliament certainly have a right to say that they wish that the increase were higher, Conservatives have not. The formula was introduced by the Conservatives.
Mr. Ainsworth: I am grateful. I hesitate to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman in one of his more vituperative and dyspeptic moods. May I take him back to his opening remarks? He said that the Secretary of State had not been able to produce the definitive number of households
because the information did not exist. If the information does not exist on the national insurance database, what is the point of providing the information to the BBC? The BBC does not have access to the information, but that is not to say that it does not exist.
Mr. Kaufman: My right hon. Friend wasted his breath by correcting the hon. Gentleman when he misnamed the Department of Social Security as the Department of Social Services. Since on their showing today the Conservatives will never hold any of those offices, regardless of what they are called, I do not know why my right hon. Friend bothered.
Mr. Fabricant: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way to me?
Mr. Kaufman: No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman because he is behaving immoderately. When he can contain himself, and when his expression changes from the deep red on his face now--
Mr. Fabricant: It is a suntan.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I remind the House that the Bill concerns simply the transfer of information from the DSS to the BBC? Perhaps we can now get back calmly to the content of the Bill.
Mr. Kaufman: I shall do so happily. It had been my only end to deal with that matter--before the Opposition began to make such utter idiots of themselves throughout today's proceedings, something that we shall certainly be communicating to the electorate in, for example, the Lichfield constituency.
Mr. Fabricant: Right: will the right hon. Gentleman now give way?
Mr. Kaufman: Yes, I will now give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Fabricant: I have made it absolutely clear that I welcome the provision. As the right hon. Gentleman probably does not have any understanding of history and would not want deliberately to mislead the House, may I inform him that I was correct? The licence was introduced as a fee when the BBC received its royal charter in 1926, as I said. He is wrong; the radio tax was introduced in 1923, when the BBC was the British Broadcasting Company. We are talking about the British Broadcasting Corporation. Will he now apologise?
Mr. Kaufman: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman feels better for having got that off his chest. Of course, the BBC was founded not in 1923 but in 1922. So, we are all square on that. He can now calm down and recover his breath, and we can go on to discuss the contents of the Bill, as I had always intended to do.
I feel particular pride and pleasure in the Bill because, as shadow Home Secretary, I made free licences for pensioners Labour party policy. The Bill is a partial fulfilment of that. It is a matter of great satisfaction to many thousands of my constituents, as it will be to millions of people all over the country, that the Government have introduced this excellent measure.
The hon. Member for East Surrey, among many other things when the election comes, will have to explain why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) said, the Conservatives in 18 years never introduced something that they now say is a good thing and will not oppose. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) would say that he introduced a Bill on the subject during that time. That is absolutely true; he has a record on the issue that is nearly as good as mine.
I am delighted that the Government have introduced the Bill not for the reasons that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State stated but for those to which the hon. Member for East Surrey alluded. I approve of the measure very strongly indeed, and so will very many of my constituents, but not only because it will introduce free licences for people aged 75 and older. Its provisions make it possible to introduce free licences for a great many others. I very much hope that, as the years proceed, with this Government in power, as they will be, they will use the order-making power to widen the scope of the concession.
I am delighted that more than 3 million people now qualify for free television licences, and so are my constituents. That is excellent, but since the information will be available, there is scope for the provision to be widened, and for all pensioners to receive a free licence. I have sufficient confidence in the way in which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor runs the economy to believe that it will not be too long before the Government can introduce free licences for 60-year-old women and 65-year-old men.
The hon. Member for East Surrey--this bit of the Bill he had read and understands--made the point that the Bill refers to disclosure of information about people on income support. I very much hope that the finances of this country, under the enlightened policies of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, will eventually lead us to providing free licences for those on other benefits, too.
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): I am grateful for the plug that my right hon. Friend gave me, but does he agree that it would be wise for us in the coming general election campaign, whenever it is, to warn the electorate that, if the Conservatives were to take office, what we are introducing would certainly be taken away?
Mr. Kaufman: The possibility of a Conservative Government is not a hypothesis; it is fantasy. My hon. Friend knows that I respect him, but I do not want to speculate on that, because the notion of Conservative Members forming a Government after their antics today is so absurd that it is not worth contemplating for more than a moment.
Mr. Winnick: We should warn the electors all the same.
Mr. Kaufman: Yes, I do not mind issuing a big warning. I shall go to Lichfield among other places to do that.
Mr. Winnick: Is the majority 277?
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