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Huw Irranca-Davies: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Salter: I am more than happy to take a polite intervention.
Huw Irranca-Davies: I should like to suggest the possibility of twinning. The motion mentions Britain, so perhaps we could twin Reading and Ogmore. I am sure that, like me, my hon. Friend welcomes the additional £100 million of capital funding for regenerating our Victorian schools throughout Wales, including Ogmore. Three schools in our constituency have benefited from it, in addition to the 6 per cent. real-terms increase in education funding in Wales.
Mr. Salter: The only twinning between Reading and Ogmore of which I know happened when I telephone canvassed for my hon. Friend. I am sure that my humble efforts made little difference to his massive majority, but I am pleased that the largesse that the good people of Reading are experiencing is shared in Ogmore. One day, my hon. Friend must show me where it is.
Let us consider families, because politics is supposed to be about making things better for ordinary people, those whom we represent. Perhaps one of the most welcome, if not the largest, Government funding scheme is the sure start project. In my constituency, the £3 million allocated is making a genuine difference to people who have to cope with difficult circumstances, for example, lone parents, many of whom are trying to bring up three or four kids and possibly leaving abusive relationships. The funding gives people a vision and opportunity to which every human being is entitled. People are entitled to an opportunity to improve the quality of their lives, to train and retrain, and not to spend the rest of their lives on benefit, at the beck and call of whichever Government decide to give them however many pounds in however many weeks.
Tony Cunningham: When I opened a sure start project about three weeks ago in Flimby in my constituency, one of the leaders said "I've never known any Government invest so much in families." Does my hon. Friend share that experience?
Mr. Salter: I intended to speak about the new tax credits later, but I know that several other hon. Members want to speak and I shall therefore take the opportunity to mention them in passing and to say that I shall not judge the Government's success on their performance at the ballot box—the state of the Conservative party means that any surprises at the next general election are unlikely. I shall judge the true Labourness of the Government on what they do for ordinary families, who struggle with the challenges of modern life. That goes for many Labour Members. I say to the Minister in all comradeship that sure start is a great start, but much remains to be done.
We have also seen regeneration. Contrary to popular mythology, the Thames valley—Reading and Slough in particular—suffers from run-down communities and areas that need significant additional capital. The market cannot supply the answer to everything. We have received some £14 million—probably peanuts compared to the sums received by some towns and cities—in the single regeneration budget over the past six years. That money has regenerated the Oxford road area in my constituency and the Newtown area of east Reading, where I used to be a councillor. The drugs action teams have received £3.8 million.
I could go on and on reading out figures, but I shall just say this: these figures represent real cash and real improvements. They are making a difference to real people and real lives. None of this would have happened under a Conservative Government. Most of the budget heads that I have read out did not even exist under the Conservative Government. The Conservatives are supposed to rise to the challenge of being an alternative Government. Have they got alternative schemes to sure start? Have they heck! All that they want to do is to cut public expenditure by 20 per cent., as we heard earlier. No wonder they are flatlining in the polls, not just in Reading but nationally. No wonder they are not yet ready for government. The problem for the Conservative party is that it has not yet found its Neil Kinnock. It has not yet found the person who is going to lead it from the trough of despair in opposition to the
verge of government, never mind into government. They are so many miles away from achieving power that it is unbelievable.I shall move on to policing. I find it incredible that the Conservatives seek to make political capital out of the issues of crime and policing when they themselves have such a sorry story to tell. Under the Tories, crime doubled and police numbers fell. Let us have a little look at police numbers in the Thames valley. We have been awarded additional funding from the crime fighting fund for an extra 325 new police recruits, and nearly 200 of them are now in place. Notwithstanding the very real problems of recruitment and retention that we have in the Thames valley, as of today we still have more than 100 more police officers than we had in March 1997 when the Tories left office.
An additional £2,000 pay supplement has been awarded to police officers in parts of the Thames valley. Why was that necessary? Yes, it was in part to compensate for the haemorrhage of officers to the Metropolitan police force as a result of officers in the Met receiving a £6,000 pay supplement, but let us make no mistake: the rot set in under the previous Conservative Government with the implementation of the Sheehy recommendations. Those hon. Members who do not know about Sheehy need to cast their minds back to 1994, when Sheehy recommended the abolition of the police housing allowance. According to the Police Federation—and to me—that is when the rot set in. That is why, when we find two police officers on the streets of my town and of Slough, one of whom was recruited before 1994 and one after that date, there will be a £4,000 pay differential between them. What an absurd situation! That is something that my party is putting right.
I shall move to a conclusion now, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the Whips are twitching and other Members want to speak, but I cannot let this contribution finish without some discussion of electoral tactics. We are all grown-up politicians in this place, and we recognise that these occasions are little more than bits of political knockabout in advance of the May elections. However, there are issues that are far more serious than political point scoring. I am talking about the use of the race card. Appealing to the worst instincts of the human race is an easy way to grub around for a few votes, but in the long term, those who give in to that temptation are playing a dangerous game.
I refer in particular to the Conservative party in Harwich, and I pay tribute to the stance taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Henderson) in challenging the use of race to gain political advantage and to stir up community hatred. Frankly, the leaflet being distributed through the letterboxes in the borough of Tendring—part of the constituency of Harwich—is more extreme than anything that I have seen from the British National party. It states:
- "The Conservative Party will scrap asylum completely."
One of the most nauseating aspects of these elections is the fielding of 219 candidates—a record number—from the neo-Nazi British National party, and, believe me, this is only a warm-up for the 2004 election. There are many decent people on the Conservative Benches, and I say this to them. You have all heard the speech about being the nasty party. I have spent a lot of time looking at the cross-voting between one party and another. Your vote is collapsing in working-class areas, and it is collapsing in favour of the BNP. You will rue the day—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot talk about my votes at all.
Mr. Salter: I take your rebuke, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The fact is that many Conservative votes are collapsing to the BNP. Since the election of five BNP councillors, we are starting to see changes in the political map of Britain. The performance of those councillors has been absolutely pitiful. In Burnley, they fail to turn up to budget meetings. They do not understand the process of government. They might be very good at getting elected by playing on people's fears and damaging race relations. They might also be very good, as they were the other week, at mobilising support for a bunch of football hooligans to go rampaging round the streets of Halifax ripping leaflets out of the hands of members of opposition parties. They might also be very good at mobilising thugs to cause the violence that we saw at the England versus Turkey game, but they are a cancer at the heart of British politics.
I hope that we can have civilised elections on Thursday about public services. Yes, the national situation will impact on them, but I hope that we can treat each other and people from different races, creeds and cultures with respect, and not grub around for a few sordid votes in the ballot box by seeking to demonise any part of this country. This is a squalid motion before the House today, tabled by a squalid party that has nothing to offer the people of this country, either locally or nationally. My canvass returns for Labour in Reading are good. They are solid, and if they are replicated throughout the country, it will be a bad night for the Conservative party on Thursday, which, delightfully, will trigger a leadership challenge that we shall all enjoy.
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