| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Amendment)
Ms Debra Shipley accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 with regard to the status of the father of a child conceived posthumously: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 9 June, and to be printed [Bill 138].
Opposition Day
[12th ALLOTTED DAY]
Equal Opportunities in Britain
Madam Speaker: We now come to the first debate on the Opposition motions. I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
3.40 pm
Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Inverness, West): I beg to move,
- That this House believes that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was being simplistic and divisive in attacking the admissions procedure of Oxford University on the basis of a single, individual case; regrets the lack of action by the Government to promote freedom and opportunity for all the people of the United Kingdom; and calls on the Government to match its rhetoric with action, by removing government obstacles to the less well-off entering university, significantly increasing investment in education, taking those on low incomes out of income tax, tackling pensioner poverty, improving the quality of healthcare for all, and ensuring access to basic services in both rural and urban communities.
It is invariably a mistake to enter into gesture politics, as we are all tempted to do from time to time. It is certainly a mistake for senior politicians to take a specific example and to generalise from it. That was one of the great mistakes that the leader of the Conservative party made recently over the Tony Martin case. Equally, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stands accused of taking a specific issue and overgeneralising it, in the Laura Spence case. That results in bad attitudes and, if legislation were ever to flow from it, worse laws.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), who has been particularly prolific over the past week in respect of the Laura Spence case, put the issue well when he said that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer tries to raise a principle on the back of one specific case, he must answer the question on which he remains completely silent: which of the other candidates should have been turned down? Not to answer that question is gesture politics of the worst kind.
What matters is reality. Much of what the Government are saying--and to some extent the Conservatives as well, in so far as they intrude upon reality these days--is not what real life is about. I asked the Prime Minister this afternoon about tuition fees. Applications are up in Scotland from Scottish students, and down in Wales and England from Welsh and English students. The Prime Minister answered very carefully. He did not answer the question. He said that enrolments were up. As the Minister knows, applications and enrolments are two entirely different things in the tertiary education sector.
Speaking as a Scot, I welcome the fact that Scotland has a different policy, which is advantageous compared with that in England and Wales. However, I do not
welcome the fact that the Government will not acknowledge the deficiencies of their policy on a United Kingdom basis. I hope that the change in policy that was effected in the Scottish Parliament will provide a beacon for a policy change in respect of education in England and Wales.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon): We in Wales are jealous of the Scottish Parliament's ability to enact such legislation; we would very much like to do that. I hope that the Government hear the right hon. Gentleman's encouraging words. Does he agree that, among the red herrings that have been trawled around, the needs of thousands of ordinary children are forgotten? That applies especially to those who may not go to university, but cannot get the resources to train in further education colleges.
Mr. Kennedy: In the spirit of celtic comradeship, may I say that I agree with the right hon. Gentleman and that the Liberal Democrats wish that the Welsh Assembly had the legislative capacity to make the sort of decision that was made in Edinburgh? I hope that that case will be advanced in due course. I endorse the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes. Amid all the heat that the Chancellor's comments generated and the debate that they sparked, very little light has been shed on educational reality.
I have a copy of a letter, which was written to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) by a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones). The writer considers student funding in general and tuition fees in particular. The letter reflects reality, as opposed to the headlines, and the news management that the Government have attempted. I have the student's permission to quote the letter. It states:
- My opposition and "outrage" stems from the fact that the proposals as leaked in the recent Russell Group report . . . would mean that I couldn't afford to go to Oxford university. I came from a state comprehensive and was the first person from my school EVER to get a place at Oxbridge. My Dad is a fireman and my Mum works with disabled kids. They are typical middle class people, not affluent, but not too hard up. If they are expected to pay £5,000 per year for my university education, simply because I'm clever enough to get a place at Oxford, they cannot afford to do so.
The Government's approach, especially to opportunity in higher and tertiary education, has been grossly deficient. They have also failed to invest adequately in the education system in general. If my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough catches your eye, Madam Speaker, he will want to concentrate on that issue. I cannot cover every item in our admittedly wide-ranging motion. Education and social opportunity is essential and I do not apologise for focusing on that to a large extent.
The second issue that we want to consider is the national health service. The Government have embarked on a fundamental rethink of the NHS. That was not promised or flagged up three years ago. The rhetoric at the end of the general election campaign stressed that people had a week in which to save the NHS by voting Labour, and that any other outcome would mean the demise of the NHS. The health service is not in that parlous state, thank God, but it is in deep difficulty, and staff morale is low; there is considerable disillusionment.
The Prime Minister has embarked on his great review. I do not know about the Minister's experience, or that of the Prime Minister, but, as a Member of Parliament who has visited many hospitals up and down the country in the past 17 years, the one persistent and consistent comment that I heard from health service staff is that they need more money, and that the last thing they need is politicians reorganising them yet again. Every Government fall prey to the temptation of reorganisation because they are unwilling to confront themselves or the tax-paying public with the harsh reality that if we want a better health service, we must be prepared to dig deeper in our pockets to provide it. That is where the political priority should lie, not in yet another bureaucratic, politically motivated and orchestrated reorganisation.
I do not believe that NHS staff are encouraged by the thought that yet another set of political masters will tear up the plant to see how it is growing; they want that plant to be better tended in the first place. That is how the funding priorities should have been set in the first half of this Parliament. We said so before, during and after the general election.
Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough): We will say it at the next election.
Mr. Kennedy: I agree with my hon. Friend; we will say it at the next election, and we have been proved comprehensively correct.
Mr. Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West): Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us how much he welcomes today's Mental Health Alliance lobby of Parliament? Will he join me in regretting that, in all 11 pages of the major speech that the Secretary of State for Health made yesterday, there was no reference to users of mental health services, their carers or mental health staff?
Mr. Kennedy: I welcome that lobby, and several of my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have had discussions with those involved today. That oversight is certainly significant and sad. I hope that the fact that the hon. Gentleman has taken the opportunity to put it on the parliamentary record will stop any such deficiency occurring in future. I very much agree with him.
Mr. Alan W. Williams (East Carmarthen and Dinefwr): Although I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about NHS resources--I am delighted that substantial extra resources will be provided during the next three years--I am surprised that he thinks that fundamental reform is not needed. Is he happy about the fact that part-time consultants in the NHS, especially orthopaedic surgeons, have long waiting lists and that people have to wait perhaps a year for hip operations that could be carried out next week if they went private and paid for them?
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |