Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I was about to give the facts, but I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.

I invite the right hon. Gentleman to give the philosophy behind the facts. If, as he claims, the Government's legislative programme is in good order, is not that because he applied guillotines to so many Bills, as he is now doing again? Are there any circumstances in which he thinks it inappropriate to put a timetable on a Bill from the beginning and without consultation?

I have already made it clear—and it is a personal view—that I believe it right to timetable Bills. I have said that the way in which that is done is still a matter for discussion. The principle of timetabling is good because it enables us to have effective consideration of legislation. No one could argue that the way in which we conducted our practices on some Bills in the past, where there has been filibustering, has been effective in ensuring proper scrutiny. I am glad that the Select Committee under my right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) has followed that through.

I think that my right hon. Friend is interrupting what I was about to ask him. He is very perceptive. Does he agree that whatever the result of the general election—and we are buoyant by the prospect of another Conservative victory—and whichever Government come to the House, the Asylum Bill will have to be one of the first measures to be reintroduced?

Mind reading is one of my hobbies, but my skill does not extend to interrupting something that my hon. Friend had not yet said. I agree with him about the importance of having the Asylum Bill on the statute book. If that cannot be by Monday, I trust that it will be done soon thereafter. I hope that at least 21 Government Bills and a number of private Members' Bills will be enacted by the close of business on Monday. The Government are full of new ideas, and our first programme in the new Parliament will include many measures to build on our achievements since 1979.

Four weeks today.

I hope that the whole country notes that—as I understand last night's vote and that which we expect today—the Opposition oppose the 20p reduced income tax band. That will be an important issue during the forthcoming election.

The Leader of the House must be disappointed with the public's reception of the Budget, as shown by opinion polls and City reaction.

Not at all. Like all good things, people will come to appreciate the Budget's provisions better the more that they study them.

I can give my hon. Friend some interesting information. In a by-election in my constituency yesterday, the Conservative candidate came top of the poll, 400 votes ahead of the runner up, and neither Labour nor the Liberals bothered to contest the seat.

The longer that we debate the Finance Bill and our tax and expenditure policies, the more support we will gain during the general election campaign.

If a 20p tax band is such a good idea, why did the right hon. and learrned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), as Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer, get rid of it in 1980? Is it not the case that the Government are reintroducing it as a bribe? The electorate understand that a 20p tax band is being reintroduced just prior to a general election to give the impression that the Tories are helping them out. If that tax band had been any good, we would have had it for the past 11 years.

At the beginning of this Government's first term, we faced a need to reduce a truly horrendous public sector borrowing requirement. I will make very clear later in my speech the relative position of the PSBR now. Today, the position is wholly different. The 20p band continues our policy of bringing down direct tax rates and of achieving the long-term target of a basic rate of income tax of 20p in the pound. The reference by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) to a bribe is very revealing of Labour's philosophy. The suggestion that one can bribe people by enabling them to keep more of their earnings demonstrates Labour's thinking, which is, "We can spend your money better than you." That is why Labour is a party of high taxation, and why it will never understand that the electorate do not believe that they can be bribed by being allowed to keep more of their own money.

Lancastrians have not forgotten that the last Labour Government cut all hospital and school building in the county. It has been catching up steadily under a Conservative Government, but Lancastrians will not forget in a hurry the policies of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey).

My hon. Friend is right. We plan for the country as a whole a programme of more than 600 new hospital buildings. Schools capital expenditure has risen by 35 per cent. in the last two years. It is nonsense for Labour to claim that the PSBR is being devoted to income tax cuts. One can split the expenditure programme whichever way one likes.

I shall illustrate the public's reaction to the Budget and in so doing take up some of my right hon. Friend's remarks. Yesterday, there was a by-election in my constituency, one ninth of which was involved. In the ward there is almost exactly a 50–50 split between what might be described as private property and the public sector property. We, the Conservative party, took 50 per cent. of the vote and won the seat comfortably. Councillor Tim Bowler will be a great addition to the city council. That was the public's verdict yesterday in my Nottingham constituency.

My hon. Friend's return to the House will be of great benefit to his constituents, as his presence has been in the past.

Order. There is a disturbance coming from the Opposition Front Bench, but the debate has hardly been about the guillotine motion since it began; it has been wider than that. I have been rather tolerant this morning.

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. To judge from the interventions in my speech, the House wants to debate the motion.

The right hon. Gentleman has made a rather important point. He said that 75 per cent. of the benefit will go to people on below average earnings. Is that now the Government's definition of the lower paid?

No, because I was talking about skilful targeting to those on lower incomes. I was simply making a point about what the impact of the measure would be.

Does my right hon. Friend think that the casual disregard of £100 is because it would not even pay for the first course of the gala dinner in Park lane?

My hon. Friend makes his point.

"There may be a way we can accept this tax band because we believe the lower paid pay too much tax already."

I hope that I do not embarrass you, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I say that we think we heard a note of irony in your voice when you reminded us what the debate is about. I shall return to that point in a moment, but I begin by saying genuinely to the Leader of the House that, in so far as he has been involved in work on House of Commons affairs, he has been a good Leader. I thank him for his courtesy to me personally in the way that we have tried to work together to improve matters in the House of Commons—but there, I am afraid, the felicitations must end.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

In a moment.

If the Labour party is voting against the lower band of income tax, will it consider most carefully the fact that the main reason for it is to give every possible incentive to the unemployed to get into work? Due to the poverty trap, there has been no incentive for them to take low-paid jobs. Is this not the best way to bring about a fall in unemployment?

The hon. Gentleman must be absolutely confused about the position of people who are out of work. They are out of work as a result of the Government's policies. If he thinks that 19p per week is all that is stopping people who are out of work from getting jobs, he is fundamentally mistaken. I can tell him from my experience throughout the country, and in particular from my experience in my own constituency of Copeland, that what he says is incorrect. There are 3,000 people out of work in Copeland. If I include the unemployment in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), there are between 6,000 and 7,000 people out of work in west Cumbria. An extra 19p a week will do nothing to create additional employment in west Cumbria. Indeed, a further unemployment calamity is coming to west Cumbria due to the running down of the nuclear industry's construction programme and a further 3,000 people will lose their jobs in my constituency. The hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) knows the building and construction industry. He knows that it is in a calamitous state across the country. Nothing in the Budget—certainly not the 19p reduction for an employed person earning £70 per week—will resolve the problems. The hon. Gentleman knows that.

rose—

I have not given way, but as the hon. Gentleman has been so courteous, I will do so now.

Will the hon. Gentleman assure the poor people of Cumbria that a future Labour Government would take a positive attitude to the nuclear industry and the construction thereof?

Yes. I did not want to be diverted to the subject of nuclear power, but, as the hon. Gentleman has mentioned it, I can say that it is important in my constituency, where it employs 14,000 people directly. The Government took office 13 years ago, full of bold, brave things to say about nuclear power, but what is their record? They started but did not finish even one nuclear power station in 13 years.

Thank goodness.

The hon. Gentleman says, "Thank goodness." He is entitled to his point of view, but for the Government to talk as though they are the saviours of the nuclear industry is one of the long-running myths of this and previous Parliaments. If we take into account the privatisation of the electricity industry—

Order. We are straying too far by talking about privatisation measures. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is about to return to the motion on the allocation of time.

That shows that I should not have been tempted to allow an intervention by the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor). However, to conclude the point, the privatisation of the electricity industry above all wrecked the prospects of the industry to which the hon. Gentleman referred. That was another of the Government's terrible mistakes.

I thought that we had come to hear about the guillotine.

The hon. Gentleman did not come here for that purpose—he knows that and so do we.

rose—

I will give way in a moment.

The hon. Gentleman is attacking the Government for their imprudent level of borrowing. Will he let us into the secret of the shadow Budget to be published tomorrow? Will the level of borrowing under a Labour Government be lower or higher than that which we propose?

I cannot let the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) in on the secret of my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget to be revealed tomorrow because it will be revealed next week. All will be revealed. My right hon. and learned Friend made it clear in the Chamber that we shall have to work within the circumstances that we inherit. [Interruption] Hon. Members say that we shall have to stay with it. Of course, an incoming Labour Government—and that is what we shall have—will have to work within the circumstances that they inherit. I suspect that, as in the past, the mess of the nation's finances will be even worse when we open the books and take a thorough look, but we shall have to deal with that. The hon. Member for Chichester must contain himself for a few days more. He will discover that my right hon. and learned Friend's alternative proposals are better not only for individuals but for Britain as a whole.

The hon. Gentleman has just talked about capital spending in the national health service, with the implication that somehow or other Labour would do better. During the forthcoming election campaign, will he keep reminding the electorate that the Government have increased capital spending on hospitals by 76 per cent., compared with the 30 per cent. cut made by the Labour Government in that same capital spending?

Indeed, I am more than happy to respond to the right hon. Gentleman's challenge that we should debate the circumstances of the national health service during the election campaign. We know that people are deeply unhappy about the Government's policies and, notwithstanding what the right hon. Gentleman says about expenditure, he and his right hon. Friends must explain why wards are continuing to close, why emergency beds are not available and why desperately ill children are turned away from hospitals. Why is that happening, if the Government's record on health is so wonderful? Why is the number of beds available for private patients who need urgent treatment increasing while the number of beds available to NHS patients is declining? Why is that happening if the Government have made such a good job of their health service reforms?

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that we have substantially increased spending on the health service in real terms, by about 55 per cent. overall. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not enough."] Labour Members, say that that is not enough. How, then, do they explain what the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) is clearly saying to the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook)—that the Labour party would not be able to spend more on the health service and that, because of its policies on a national minimum wage, on pay beds and on prescription charges, it would substantially reduce the amount actually spent on patients within the health service?

We are right at the nub of the dispute between us. This is the choice which people face. They must choose whether the money that is still available, even in these desperately difficult financial circumstances—the mess that the Tory Government are leaving—should be spent on tax cuts or on investments. That is the clear choice which we shall put to the people and we are happy to put it in those clear terms. I am quietly confident that people will see the difference and make the choice—and that choice will be for Labour. The evidence emerges again and again from the debate.

Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House how much the Labour party, in a quite revolting fashion, has spent on advertising which exploits the death of a child?

The tragedy of Georgina Norris, who was twice taken to hospital to have an operation and twice sent home, is appalling. It is a stain on a civilised society that that child should have died in those circumstances.

The hon. Gentleman does not know what the circumstances were.

I know very well what the circumstances were, and we stand by what we have said —the child's parents wanted the nation's attention drawn to what happened to their little girl as a result of the Government's mismanagement of the national health service. For the hon. Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) to suggest otherwise is a deliberate attempt to mislead the House and the country. I have all the correspondence here and he is welcome to see it all if he wishes.

Order. I shall not allow further discussion on an individual case. We are discussing principles.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker —I might have known that that was the kind of intervention that the hon. Member for Thanet, North would make.

The debate has ranged rather widely, but its subject is rather narrow— whether it is wiser for us to carry on discussing the Finance Bill in detail for a week or to rush on with the election now. The evidence so far suggests that it would have been better for us to go on for another week on the Finance Bill, because the signs for the election campaign appear rather depressing. There are a few exceptions—the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), who has just spoken, is an obvious exception. I asked him a straight question and he gave me a straight answer. I hope that that will be a sign of what will happen in the campaign.

I have some sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says about local decision making. However, we have had 13 years of a Tory Government who have continually undermined local democracy, local accountability and local decision making. I should have liked to hear the hon. Gentleman's voice raised more sternly when local accountability was effectively being removed by the House.

I am trying terribly hard not to be political. Even if the hon. Gentleman were absolutely accurate, even if the Conservative party were a crowd of rascals who wanted to interfere with everything—I do not think that they are, because some of them are very nice blokes—surely we should not go further.

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman oblige me by relating what he says far more to the motion? He is now straying quite far away from it.

You are quite right, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am trying to speak briefly.

rose—

rose—

Mr. Dennis Skinner.

The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has had his chance already, because he was on television last night. He is a bit upset because I have got in before the Liberal Democrats. It is a great day and I am all in favour of it. The hon. Gentleman talked a bit about the guillotine a bit last night on television and he made it plain that the 20p band was going down like a lead balloon.

About 650.

I am not so sure about mine. It is important that, after the initial bout of enthusiasm, the markets and the stock exchange took a completely different view. The problem that the Government must face in their dying days is not only the level of the public sector borrowing requirement at £28 billion, but the dramatic increase over 12 months.

The hon. Gentleman is right that the £2 billion could have been well used in ways that would have helped low-paid people more than the £100 tax cut, which many of them will not get. But he has spent it several times. If he is to tackle education, investment and overseas aid and kick-start the economy, he will either have to borrow more or raise more revenue—and on that, those on the Labour Front Bench seem a little hesitant.

I am merely giving examples of the way in the which the money could have been used. There are many options. I am not saying that we would need all the £2 billion to kick-start the housing economy. I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that. We could start to do that by using some of the capital receipts that are held by the local authorities. Then we would not even need to start on the £2 billion. But as the hon. Gentleman is an economist, he has probably missed that point. It is early in the morning and I understand his problem. He is probably having to prop up Paddy Backdown or Captain Mainwaring or whatever they call him now. I understand his difficulties.

The House has just heard a vintage performance from one of its favourite performers. I remember the day when I had to congratulate the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) on his maiden speech, and I did so with great sincerity. I forecast then that the House might hear from him occasionally in the future.[Laughter.] That prediction was absolutely right and I am sure that many Treasury forecasters would like to be able to emulate its accuracy.

Unfortunately, that belief will not be shared by the electorate.

It has not always been the case—the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) is right.—but I am delighted that it now is.

We probably could have finished our business a couple of hours earlier if we had not had this timetable motion. We could have got on with dealing with the Finance Bill instead of spending several hours discussing whether we should discuss it and, if so, at what length. The fact that we have it illustrates the attitude which the otherwise genial and affable Leader of the House displays to the conduct of parliamentary business. One of his phrases should chill any support of democracy to the bone. He said to his hon. Friends, "If we do not have the Asylum Bill here today and do not have it on Monday, it is because Opposition parties are opposing some parts of the Bill." I thought that that was what we were here for—to find out what features of Bills will not work very well or were wrong in principle, and oppose them, make it difficult for the Government to get them through, and subject them to the most careful scrutiny. The fact that somebody has thought of engaging in that act—in some cases the people involved, horror of horrors, are actually Conservatives: in this case, Conservatives in another place—has caused the Government such apoplexy that they produce a reason not to proceed with the Bill.

"shall he brought to a conclusion four hours after the commencement of the proceedings on this Order."

Get on with it.

The Government Whip, the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight) says, "Get on with it." The Government Whip is responsible for the timetable motion which ensures that, if any hon. Member actually wants to debate the details of the Bill, there is no provision to enable him to do so. Coming from the cesspit of the Government Whips office—[Interruption.] I am almost quoting the Prime Minister's words from the Dispatch Box yesterday. He said that Mr. Speaker seemed remarkably untainted by the years he spent in that evil institution. That is only the slightest of paraphrases. When hon. Members get into the Whips Office and into the office of the Leader of the House, they spend their lives devising ways of making sure that matters are not discussed and that there is no trouble. It is like a fire brigade equipped with a foam that is blown over the proceedings of Parliament with the sole objective of ensuring that the Government get their business through with as little proper consideration as possible.

I shall be brief. There is a procedural point, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), on which we must have an assurance from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. We must have an assurance that this guillotine motion does not set a precedent. Following the report of my right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Sittings of the House, there is a strong body of opinion in the House that we should move towards allocation of time for all legislation.

It could easily happen that a Government legitimately believe that an Opposition party intend to frustrate the proceedings on a Bill—say, the Finance Bill. The Government could therefore table a timetable motion such as this one. Government Back Benchers who did not want the Bill to be discussed could then deliberately occupy the whole of the time allocated by the timetable motion, thereby preventing discussion on the Bill.

In theory, that is right; but the opposite case is that so long as the Chair does not call successive Members from one side, the opportunity is given, even with this allocation of time, for Opposition Members to raise any matter on the Finance Bill that they wish. Although in theory what the hon. Gentleman says is true reductio ad absurdum it is not correct in practice.

The hon. Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) need have no fears. The Government have had their time—13 years—and it is up. That is why they come to the House today as a Government on their uppers—buffetted, battered and bewildered. We can see that by the state that the Financial Secretary is in. They are bewildered by the reception that their Budget has received throughout the land, and especially within the square mile.

Useless scribblers.

We shall let them know about that. Mr. Bill Martin, a well-known supporter of many of the Government's policies in the past, gives the score "1 out of 10". He said:

"The budget will not act as a significant stimulus to the economy. The budget deficit is almost certainly out of control."

"The chancellor was neither bold nor coherent. It was rather a mismash."

"It falls between every conceivable stool. It does not put Labour on the spot and it does not transform the Conservatives' electoral position."

You are not going to read it, are you?

I shall not embarrass my hon. Friend by reading it, out, save to say that it is well worth reading. Conservative Members made a number of contributions —a number are voices from the past. Two former Chancellors spoke during that debate. The right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) was among them, as was his predecessor. They spoke against the use of a guillotine on Finance Bills. They produced a variety of constitutional arguments why it was totally improper and absolutely wrong ever to use such a guillotine. They are figures of the past. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover said, to some extent they can be put to one side, because that is precisely what their party has done to them.

The right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit).

The right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) is another figure from the past. We can discount him. This person is still hanging around. That is surprising, bearing in mind the muddle and confusion that he has created in every Department of state that he has ever sought. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] My hon. Friends recognise the person, and I suspect that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will also recognise the person. In those days, that person was going under the guise of the hon. Member for St. Marylebone. Since then, he has been translated into the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker). Yes, I speak of no less a person than he.

"I end very much as I started"—

"by regretting the need for guillotine motions in general: but the particular character of this guillotine motion makes it unique. Since the war only one Finance Bill, that in 1968, has been guillotined. I believe that that was a very regrettable precedent because the unique power that we have"—

"It is because we have the right to deny the executive of the day, whether Tory, Liberal or Conservative, Supply before there has been adequate debate or redress of grievance."

"If we surrender that right we are surrendering one of the very reasons that have brought us into being as a legislative House. For these reasons I very much oppose this guillotine measure."—[Official Report, 4 March 1975; Vol. 887, c. 1331.]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Not at the moment.

I thank the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and my hon. Friends the Members for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) and for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) for their kind remarks about me in my role as Leader of the House. I am glad to have this opportunity to thank the hon. Member for Copeland for the courteous and constructive way in which he has made it possible for us to work together on the affairs of the House. We have made considerable progress in several directions, and I pay tribute to him for the part that he has played in that.

The point I wanted to make to the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) was that the debate in March 1975 was followed by an election. The Labour party lost its first by-election when it was in government, and virtually every other by-election until 1979. Labour Members should therefore be rather more careful about their approach to finance and taxation.

As I must be brief, I shall not respond to my hon. Friend's point.