House Of Commons
Wednesday 4 June 1997
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
Prayers
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
Dti Inquiries
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Betts.]
9.34 am
:I am grateful for the opportunity to draw the attention of the House to Department of Trade and Industry inspectors' inquiries. I have applied for this debate every week since the new year because I think that it is high time that something was done to ensure that DTI inquiries are conducted in a way that allows those being investigated the same protection they would be given in a court of law. That is not the situation now.
Inspectors appointed under the Companies Act 1985 can ignore the presumption of innocence. They are able to pursue their inquiries by means that are manifestly unfair, as successive Law Lords, learned review bodies and distinguished commentators have repeatedly warned. Changes are long overdue. I hope that the House will today press the Minister, whom I congratulate on his arrival at the Dispatch Box, to revise DTI inquiry procedures so that the potential for abuse and unfairness is eliminated. Too often in the past, Parliament has been left uninformed about the progress of such inquiries and, too often, the progress has been wayward. Nobody would dispute the importance of tackling and prosecuting commercial fraud. Regrettably, business crime is a fact of life. In multinational operations with increasingly complex technology, the need for sophisticated monitoring and effective regulation has never been more important. Small investors and major institutional shareholders alike need safeguards against corrupt or careless practitioners. In a competitive world, confidence in the City of London depends on a reputation for straight dealing and vigilant control. It is equally necessary that every part of the regulatory framework, including the conduct of DTI inquiries, should be handled with complete integrity. I should make it clear that I am not deterred from delving into the performance of the past Administration. Nobody could be prouder than I am of the Conservative record over the past 18 years, but I am aware that mistakes occur in the best-run organisations and they must be sorted out if progress is to be made. If I were content with fudge and self-deception, I would not have made a stand over the threat to our border controls in the previous Parliament. For the avoidance of doubt, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your arrival in the Chair and am delighted to see you there—I hope that the House will accept that nothing in what I say today about former Ministers should be construed as an attack on any colleague. In the context of this debate, I am not in the slightest interested in the present ambitions of some colleagues. My concern, first and last, is with unsatisfactory procedures in DTI inquiries. I shall not flinch from telling the facts as I know them. My object is to put right what I consider to be some obvious wrongs. I wish to make my position clear because persistent press inquiries in the past few days about this debate have related to the Conservative leadership contest. I have repeated time and again to journalists that I was seeking the debate months before the leadership contest was even contemplated, but the speculation has intensified to the point where it is in danger of trivialising the serious issue of DTI inquiries I wish to raise. I have also told those journalists loud and clear that there is something far more controversial in what I shall have to say than mere gossip about colleagues' leadership chances. That is because having looked back at the vitriolic and unscrupulous warfare between Tiny Rowland and Mohamed Al Fayed, I have come to the fairly dramatic conclusion that the Al Fayeds were stitched up by a DTI inquiry. I am only too well aware that the Al Fayeds fight with no holds barred and resort to mud-slinging at the drop of a hat. For two years, they made in the press totally false allegations about me concerning a nationality application. I do not doubt that they have often embellished the truth and made an art form of exaggeration. I can understand the general distaste for their unprincipled and unsavoury use of brown envelopes and other inducements as bait for greedy and corrupt minor public figures and hangers-on. Yet injustice is injustice, no matter how controversial the characters on the receiving end may be. I like to think that the House would agree that an abuse of DTI inquiry procedures cannot be condoned simply because the subject of the inquiry has behaved reprehensibly in other ways. Two inquiries launched a decade ago—Guinness and House of Fraser—involved people who still seek redress for the damage inflicted on them by the inquiries. When the House of Fraser report was published in 1990, in positively bizarre circumstances, my first reaction, like that of former right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, including Peter Shore, Sir David Steel, Sir Kenneth Warren and my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir P. Tapsell), whom I see in his place, was to criticise the subjects of the inquiry and question the takeover. When further information came to my attention some time later, I was prompted to revisit the report and question my earlier assumptions. I felt that the Trade and Industry Select Committee's deliberations in 1990 had not reached the heart of the matter and, as I dug deeper into the events of 1985 to 1987, I changed my mind about the earlier presumption of guilt. I was struck by numerous inconsistencies in the report and the reasons for launching the inquiry in the first place—all of which, in my opinion, amounted to an abuse of proper procedures. I wish to declare relevant past employment and acquaintance with people to whom I shall refer in the debate. Concerning the Guinness inquiry, I met Lord Spens in 1969–28 years ago—when we both worked in the corporate finance department of Morgan Grenfell. During the 1970s, when I ran a manufacturing group, Lord Spens advised me on a number of takeovers. He has recently briefed me on his claim against the Bank of England in the High Court. With regard to the House of Fraser inquiry, I worked from 1988 to 1992 as a consultant to KPMG, the accountants, one of whose corporate clients I had been for several years previously. KPMG accountants were auditors to both Lonrho and House of Fraser, as well as personal accountants to advisers to the Al Fayeds and the Sultan of Brunei. At no stage did KPMG divulge anything to me about Lonrho, House of Fraser or, for that matter, any other client. I have met Mohamed Al Fayed on one occasion, in the office of his solicitors last year, when I gave him the unedited version of a letter of mine that was published in The Daily Telegraph. He gave me a letter retracting a number of unfounded accusations that he had levelled against me in the press over the previous two years. There has been absolutely no input from Mohamed Al Fayed and his advisers in what I have to say and they have had no prior knowledge whatever of the content of this speech. I have been a Minister in the Home Office and the DTI. One sequence of events in the Home Office is relevant to the debate. In January 1994, while I was the Minister responsible for immigration and nationality, I was asked to find a way of reversing a decision by nationality division officials to reject the British citizenship application by Ali Fayed. I had already accepted the decision of officials. I explained that the provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981 require officials to carry out character checks on applicants. In doing so, they could not disregard highly adverse criticism in a report published by another Department. When I was instructed to pursue further references that might be favourable to Ali Fayed, I explained that, short of striking out the DTI report, it would still remain an insuperable obstacle for officials in the course of their statutory duties. Nevertheless, I conveyed the instructions to my private office and further inquiries were made. By the time they were completed, I had moved to another Department, but my successor, the late Sir Nicholas Baker, was left with no alternative but the one that I had originally accepted from officials. Subsequently, there was intensive briefing of the press about the incident, and I am indebted to officials from two Departments for keeping me informed about it. On one occasion, I had to summon the permanent secretary from the Home Office to correct factual inaccuracies in a press statement that was about to be released. There is nothing further that I wish to add about that chapter of events. Perhaps the intervention was due to an incomplete knowledge of British nationality legislation. I should like to make some general comments about the role of DTI inspectors—I hope that they will be of interest to the Minister—before I turn to two specific case study examples. In the debate on 16 February 1994 in another place, their lordships accepted that DTI guidelines for inspectors tried to strike a balance between public advantage and private rights, but expressed concern that, in practice, the inquiries were inquisitorial. What Lord Denning had said 30 years ago in the Profumo inquiry, when he described his own role asapplies equally to DTI inquiries today. The Solomon commission stated in 1966 that the inquisitorial procedure is alien to the concept of justice in the United Kingdom, but that has not deterred successive DTI inspectors. In September 1974, Lord Fletcher said that inquiries are"detective, inquisitor, advocate and judge … which must give rise to a serious risk of much unfairness"
In 1980, the law reform committee of the Senate of the Inns of Court of England and Wales said that inspectors were"not merely an unsatisfactory method of ascertaining truth … they can reflect adversely on the reputation of individuals and can be particularly damaging because they are promulgated by the government and assumed to the result of a judicial or semi-judicial investigation".
All too often, inspectors, whose duty is ostensibly to establish facts, attack individuals who have no means of answering back. The DTI's guidelines for inspectors quote Lord Justice Sachs, who said:"unable to resist passing judgements which they are not really qualified to make".
That advice has been disregarded. In DTI inquiries, the British presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty goes out the window. Inquiries are conducted in secret, without defence counsel, without one witness knowing which other witnesses have been called, without hearing what one has said of another and without the right to cross-examine other witnesses or question their motives. There is, as Lord Lester said to general acclaim in another place in February 1994, no safeguard of open justice, no presumed procedures, no rules on inadmissible evidence. Powers are vested in the Secretary of State to decide whether to publish reports, no matter how damaging they may be to individuals, who have no right of appeal or access to the courts to change inspectors' opinions and recover their reputation. That is another feature of concern. To illustrate that, I turn first to the Guinness inquiry, which was launched on 1 December 1986 following a hostile takeover bid for Distillers by Guinness and by Argyll between January and April that year and which gave rise to numerous media stories and allegations about concert parties, warehousing and other share dealings that contravened the City takeover code and the Companies Act. Inspectors were asked"The inspectors' function is in essence to conduct an investigation designed to discover whether there are facts which may result in others taking action; it is not part of their function to take a decision as to whether action be taken and a fortiori it is not for them finally to determine such issues as may emerge if some action is taken eventually".
The inspectors' final report has never been published, but in 1989, an unpublished interim report was extensively circulated to defendants in the Guinness trials and, more importantly, to the regulatory bodies. The inspectors' inquiries led to a number of prosecutions and two trials. In 1990, Guinness trial one resulted in four convictions. The trial has since been declared to be unfair in the European Court of Human Rights as a result of the use of DTI interviews in the trial. Guinness trial two collapsed, ostensibly because of the breakdown of one defendant's health, but more probably because another defendant, Lord Spens, was about to show the court that the inspectors had quickly departed from the terms of the inquiry and had concentrated instead on a highly selective assault on a limited number of City individuals named in the media. In doing so, the inspectors completely ignored a large number of highly suspect share sales by supporters of the Argyll bid. Lord Spens was about to claim, with supporting evidence, that the inspectors' early departure from a comprehensive inquiry into all the share dealings to a highly selective examination of certain individuals had been prompted by ministerial interference. The inspectors had been told to pursue selected City individuals rather than investigate all the share transactions, as their terms of reference implied. It was a political decision to go for named individuals from the outset, but no Minister was ever accountable to the House for that decision. The police were quite deliberately kept out of the investigation for at least four months in order to allow inspectors to take evidence from witnesses for later use in a criminal trial without the constraints of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 coming into play on the witnesses' behalf. Parliament was not told of those tactics either, but, in the preliminary hearing ahead of Guinness trial one, prosecuting counsel admitted as much when he said:"to investigate and report on the membership of the company and otherwise with respect to the company for the purpose of determining the true persons who are or have been beneficially interested in the success or failure of the company."
Lord Denning's good advice 30 years earlier had been totally ignored and nobody told Parliament. It is on Guinness two and Lord Spens that I shall concentrate here. In his response to the inspectors' interim report, Lord Spens showed that the inspectors failed to carry out anything like a full analysis of the 5,719 transactions in Guinness shares between the opening and closing of bids from January to April 1986. Discovered evidence from the police revealed that only those transactions relating to a few named and well-known City individuals, discussed and identified by Ministers, officials and the Director of Public Prosecutions early in the inspectors' inquiries, were analysed and considered. Minutes of a meeting between John Wood and Rosalind Wright, of the Crown Prosecution Service, and solicitors acting for Morgan Grenfell reveal that Mr. Wood said:"It will come as no surprise … when I say that if Mr. Parnes' transcripts of evidence were not admissible, the prosecution would have to think seriously whether to proceed against him at all".
So much for the official public version that the inspectors would examine the whole Guinness episode as their terms of reference implied. The hidden agenda was to nail the major offenders as understood by the media. An inquisition, prefaced by ministerial claims to the press ahead of the general election that handcuffs must be put on Guinness offenders, had picked out its prey. The inquiry was a sham of ill-informed questions about little-understood market dealings put to only some of the participants about only some of the share transactions. On 8 January 1987, the Bank of England's Board of Banking Supervision, which included among its members the Governor and the Deputy Governor, concluded that "at this stage" it was not appropriate for Lord Spens to be dismissed from his job. Within less than three weeks, however, the Governor and the Deputy Governor swung to the opposite point of view. Suddenly, they felt it was not merely appropriate but urgently necessary to dismiss Lord Spens. Why? Not, as his trial subsequently showed, because the inspectors had uncovered fresh evidence against him, but because the DTI let the Bank of England know that there was a political imperative that City heads should roll—and soon—at the merchant banks identified by the media as embroiled in the Guinness affair. There are records of a meeting in the second week of January 1987 between the inspectors and the DTI to discuss a letter from Gerald Ronson offering to repay some fees. At that meeting, other matters were discussed. At the beginning of the following week, a note from a senior DTI official was dispatched to the Governor of the Bank of England complaining about the Bank's failure to force the dismissal of any merchant bank directors. The next day, two of the most senior directors of Morgan Grenfell were dismissed on Bank of England instructions and, two days later, Lord Spens was sacked from his job at Ansbacher. Barely a few weeks into the inquiry and long before the inspectors had been able to conduct a full inquiry designed to discover all the facts as DTI guidelines required, it seems that the inspectors and the DTI were pressing on the Bank of England the need to collect some well-known scalps. The political pressure for scalps did not come just from the DTI. The Chancellor said publicly that the Government wanted decisive action over the Guinness affair. On 20 January, he told the House that the two resignations at Morgan Grenfell were consistent with the Government's call for positive steps. Between 21 and 24 January, the press reported that the Government were exerting pressure to obtain resignations. Thereafter, the inspectors occupied much of their time not fulfilling the terms of their inquiry, but seeking to justify the scalps for which Ministers had pressed. In Guinness two, it all came unstuck in court. No attempt was made by the inspectors to look through the rest of the transactions. During the DTI investigation, it came to the notice of the inspectors, as a result of powerful evidence supplied by the chief executive of Montagu Investment Management—an associate of Argyll and a major fund investment company—that it had sold 4.5 million Guinness shares short in the market in the last 10 days of the bid, driving down the Guinness share price. That was more than double the size of the Ansbacher purchase for which Lord Spens was arrested, charged, prosecuted and then acquitted, but the Montagu Investment Management short sale was dismissed by the inspectors in an eight-line footnote to their interim report, completely ignoring the fact that they had been made aware of allegations of an unlawful indemnity on that short sale. Montagu Investment Management even shared a computer with Samuel Montagu and must, by any definition that the City has ever entertained, have been acting in concert. Why was that short sale ignored? Lord Spens argues that it was because Montagu Investment Management was not on the hit list, whereas he was. The inspectors spoke to no other employee of Ansbacher besides Lord Spens, not even the securities clerk whom the inspectors had been told had been responsible for faxing a crucial letter from Lord Spens at a time when he was out of the bank. In summary, the inspectors failed to analyse all the Guinness share transactions; failed to include any mention of the Montagu Investment Management indemnity allegations in their interim report; failed to interview anyone else from Ansbacher, any market marker or jobber in the City or any representative of the City Takeover Panel; failed to analyse the problems caused by the stock exchange's own definition of a false market compiled by a jobber practising in the marketplace at the time of the bid; failed to take account of differing views on the disclosure provisions of the City takeover code; and failed to appreciate that core underwriters to the offer, such as Scottish Widows, were also in receipt of success fees and, by the inspectors' own definition, should have disclosed share sales. They also failed to involve the police and thus allow witnesses the protection of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 at a sufficiently early stage in their inquiries. If, as Lord Spens claims, the interim report was discussed extensively with Ministers, officials and the DPP, its shortcomings are all the more disturbing. The suspicion must remain that Lord Spens, a highly successful if, at times, unorthodox and aggressive City player, was to be made an example of during the run-up to a general election, but the case against him collapsed and he was acquitted. The loose ends of the Guinness inquiry should now be subjected to a rigorous examination by the Minister and a report should be made to Parliament. The Bank of England, or perhaps the regulatory arm that is to be hived off to the Securities and Investments Board, should now offer to settle Lord Spens's court action for wrongful dismissal from Ansbacher and his exclusion for more than a decade from his rightful employment as a merchant banker. I now turn to the House of Fraser inquiry which was astonishing for the manner in which it was commissioned in 1987; for the line of inquiry that the inspectors subsequently chose to pursue, which bore little relationship to the basis on which the bid had originally been cleared by the Secretary of State in 1985; and, not least, for the way in which the inspectors' report came to be published. New light has been thrown on the events leading to the appointment of the inspectors and the conduct of the inquiry by the publication of a biography of Tiny Rowland by Tom Bower, the investigative journalist. Bower contends that Rowland"If other MG involvements in other share ramping came to light the DPP would be criticised for not having prosecuted Morgan Grenfell and someone else might take out a private summons. But we want to target the principal offenders. We don't want rows and rows of defendants. We are looking at major offenders as understood by the media."
The conspiracy was that Mohamed Al Fayed, lying about his past, had used the Sultan of Brunei's fortune to buy the House of Fraser, with the collusion of senior Government Ministers. Bower also contends that Rowland's efforts led directly to the appointment of inspectors and provided much of the evidence, directly or indirectly, that they subsequently considered. On 11 March 1985, Mohamed Al Fayed and his two brothers had acquired a controlling interest in House of Fraser in the stock market and prepared to bid for the balance of the shares. On the same day, Mohamed Al Fayed had been interviewed at the Office of Fair Trading, and Sir Gordon Borrie had advised the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry that there were no grounds for a referral of the bid to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Sir Gordon's deputy at the OFT had listened to the Al Fayeds and their City advisers telling of their wealth and background, but Sir Gordon had advised the Secretary of State that their background was irrelevant. He said:"embarked upon a hunt which was frenetic, erratic, costly and occasionally illegal … to prove a conspiracy".
Nevertheless, the Secretary of State wished to speak to the Al Fayeds himself and he received similar assurances of substantial wealth at a meeting on 12 March, which he sought to verify by telephoning the chairman of Kleinwort Benson. Later, the Secretary of State was to respond exactly as the Director General of Fair Trading had done:"It's a cash bid and as long as the shareholders receive their money the OFT has no further interest".
He also said:"I didn't care who owned Harrods or House of Fraser. I was only interested in takeovers on competition grounds and there was no competition element involved".
The Al Fayeds were already known to the Government because they had made helpful representations that persuaded the Sultan of Brunei to retain large currency deposits in sterling that helped the strength of the pound. In January 1985, Mohamed Al Fayed had visited 10 Downing street with the Sultan and, just after he acquired control of House of Fraser, he lunched at No. 10 with the President of Egypt. The fact that, between March 1985 and the appointment of DTI inspectors in April 1987, the Al Fayeds' relationship with the Government slid from that of favoured investors to wanted suspects was due to just one man and his company—Tiny Rowland and Lonrho. It was Rowland who aspired to own House of Fraser and its star subsidiary, Harrods. It was Rowland who had warehoused his House of Fraser shares with the Al Fayeds, confident that they did not have the money to make a full bid. It was Rowland who was wrong-footed when the Al Fayeds did precisely what he never imagined was possible. It was Rowland, tainted permanently himself by an adverse DTI inspectors' report in the 1970s, who now sought to wreak the same vengeance on the Al Fayeds. Rumours in the media prompted by Rowland and his associates that the Al Fayeds were using the Sultan's money to buy assets in the UK have never been substantiated. Having falsely claimed that he had been prevented from making a counter-bid until it was too late—in fact, Lonrho had been cleared to bid the previous Friday—Rowland and various of his associates kept up a relentless barrage, to which the Al Fayeds replied in kind. The general view of the public—a view to which subscribe—was that Rowland and the Al Fayeds deserved each other. I shall not detain the House with a blow-by-blow account of the unprincipled and vicious propaganda war that followed. Three examples will do. A story linking Mark Thatcher, Al Fayed and the Sultan of Brunei was exposed as baseless. A self-styled holy man, the Swami, was paid $5 million by Rowland to give the appearance of authenticating accusations against the Fayeds that also proved false. An allegation of anti-semitism against the Fayeds came to nothing when it became clear that it had been planted in an American newspaper by an associate of Rowland's, without a shred of evidence in support. That allegation was repeated to a Department of Trade and Industry Minister in a telephone call from the Minister's cousin, Harry Landy—a man who had embezzled millions from the Israel British bank, and had then been employed by Rowland. The Minister has said that he dismissed his cousin's remarks as irrelevant. That is entirely understandable. It is not clear whether officials considered the telephone call a declarable conflict of interest. What is clear is that nobody, other than the Rowland faction, objected to the bid. There was no obvious reason for doing so. A cash bid had been cleared by the Secretary of State on advice from Sir Gordon Borrie that the sole basis for refusal would have been on competition grounds, and no such grounds existed. The cash to pay the selling shareholders materialised and more cash followed to fund the acquired company's requirements. Neither that Secretary of State nor his two successors in the job found reason to launch an inquiry. But Tom Bower argues in his book that, as a general election grew closer and Rowland's noisy vendetta against the Government intensified, the next Secretary of State gave way to Lonrho pressure. In April 1987, inspectors were appointed to"What does it matter who brings in the money providing it's brought in?"
No matter that the Al Fayeds had answered questions at the Office of Fair Trading on the very day in 1985 that they had acquired a controlling interest in the shares; no matter that the then Secretary of State had given the bid an unqualified clearance; no matter that nobody other than the discredited Rowland had objected. The Secretary of State now put the full force of the Government's authority behind an inquiry that quickly degenerated into a farcical and damaging witch hunt. There is speculation in chapter 12 of Tom Bower's book that the DTI succumbed to an inquiry only after Rowland had taken up Ernest Saunders, the sacked head of Guinness, in April 1987. Bower claims that Rowland then renewed pressure on the Secretary of State, who was a member of the Guinness family. Other sources suggest that the contingency of appointing inspectors in order to prevent Rowland from becoming a loose cannon in the run-up to the general election had been mooted earlier that year, and was nothing to do with Bower's theories. The whole truth may never be revealed, but the inspectors seem to have been appointed out of sheer expediency. I have never believed the defamatory stories that surfaced in the press about a Minister and a million pounds in a suitcase. There is no proof of any such wrongdoing, as Sir Gordon Downey confirmed in the fourth report of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges for 1996–97. A more plausible explanation is that Ministers and officials, confronted with Rowland's persistent pressure, were anxious to find a legitimate way of sidelining him. The appointment of inspectors was seen by those on the inside as satisfying ministerial ambitions to keep Rowland quiet for a while, at the same time as protecting civil servants from Rowland's threat of an awkward judicial review. Two things were patently wrong with that proposition. First, Rowland's application for leave to apply for judicial review had already been dismissed three weeks before the inspectors were appointed. Secondly, a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, as Rowland wanted, on the ground that Kleinwort Benson had changed its mind about the Fayeds' financial and business pedigree, was entirely spurious. When the bid was cleared in 1985, the then Secretary of State, advised by the Director General of Fair Trading, had acted on competition grounds. The Al Fayeds' financial status mattered only to the extent that they could pay the vendor shareholders, and that they had done. In April 1987, Ministers and officials should have told Rowland unequivocally to get lost. The fact that they did not do so has fuelled accusations of political expediency that bring discredit on a distinguished Administration. The inquiry and report that followed were a downright abuse of the very kind that the DTI's own guidelines for inspectors warn should be avoided. Because I do not accept that the shift in Kleinwort Benson's assessment of the Fayeds was germane to the principles on which the bid was cleared in the first place, I am not convinced that paragraphs 30 to 37 and 224 to 225, and part of paragraph 259, on the appointment of inspectors, in Sir Gordon Downey's otherwise excellently thorough report, paint the whole picture Kleinwort Benson's belated diligence concerning the Al Fayeds' background—which, by the way, appeared only after it had charged its clients a £3 million advisory fee—was due, like so much else in this murky saga, to Rowland's unrelenting hostility towards anyone who had sided with the Fayeds. Kleinwort Benson's second thoughts did not constitute grounds for a reference to the MMC, as Sir Gordon Borrie made clear in 1987; nor were they sufficient to trigger a section 423 inspection. Sir Gordon Downey's report does not clarify the genesis of the memorandum dated 27 March 1987 from a named official, Mr. Allen, which discussed options for responding to the Lonrho pressure. In my experience, officials tend to put up submissions in response to ministerial requests. Which Ministers prompted Mr. Allen, and to which Minister did he report within the DTI organisation? In all other respects, I accept Sir Gordon's findings, especially the rest of his conclusions, and am grateful for the time that he spared me after the publication of his report to discuss the views that I am conveying to the House today. Once launched, the House of Fraser inquiry became a travesty. The inspectors openly admitted that Rowland's pressure led to their appointment: it was, as they put it,"inquire into the circumstances of the Fayeds' purchase of shares in House of Fraser in 1984 and 1985".
However, they promptly contradicted themselves by saying that"a consequence of two years of unrelenting pressure by Lonrho".
Pull the other one. For the duration of the inquiry, the inspectors were led by the nose by Rowland and his stooges, and no one at the DTI shouted stop. Inexplicably, the inspectors chose not to interview Lord Tebbit, the Secretary of State who had cleared the bid in 1985. They said:"the direct part which Lonrho and Mr. Rowland played was a comparatively small one".
But they blatantly disputed Lord Tebbit's reasons for clearance on competition grounds, wrongly asserting that"We have not taken evidence from the then Secretary of State or from his junior minister".
Can we square that with the then Secretary of State's own words:"representations made by the Fayeds … had led the then Secretary of State to allow them to acquire control unimpeded by any inquiry".
or with those of Sir Gordon Borrie:"I didn't care who owned House of Fraser. I was only interested in takeovers on competition grounds"—
It was not the Fayeds' grossly exaggerated claims about their wealth and background that had won them the day in 1985 when the bid was cleared. It was the absence of any objection on competition grounds and the availability of some £615 million of their money. The inspectors, having set off like bloodhounds to find what clearly they, like Rowland, hoped would be incontrovertible proof that the takeover cash did not belong to the Fayeds, later had to admit grudgingly:"The Commission does not exist to punish people for lying. The shareholders got cash"?
So the inspectors never proved that the money did not belong to the Fayeds, but that did not deter them from taking a swipe in chapter 2 of their report:"We are not providing any independent confirmation of the ownership of any shareholding and … we were unable to establish how and when the Fayeds came into possession of the very large funds with which they were to buy House of Fraser".
Undismayed by those discrepancies, the inspectors ploughed on. They said that at the time of their appointment they had been told"The Fayeds dishonestly represented … their wealth … and their resources".
That was clearly a departure from the published terms of reference of their inquiry, but the inspectors failed to disclose who gave them that additional steer. We do not know whether it was a Minister or an official, but it enabled the inspectors, as in the Guinness inquiry, to leap clear of their original terms of reference in one bound, without disclosing their intentions to Parliament. Having failed to throw further light on the provenance of the takeover cash, the inspectors said:"that an area of particular concern was the validity of the assurances given by the Fayeds in 1985".
That was not what the then Secretary of State or Sir Gordon Borrie had said at the time of the bid. The inspectors embraced with uncritical enthusiasm an offer of help from an Egyptian—the late President Nasser's son-in-law, Dr. Ashraf Marwan, who, at the age of 27, had been Nasser's public relations chief. They approved of him because he had"We were not concerned with simple questions relating to the direct control of the purchase money used to buy House of Fraser. We were concerned by the statements the Fayeds made … English law has always frowned on those who obtain valuable benefits from others by dishonest representations".
The inspectors cast aside doubts arising from the fact that Dr. Marwan had a high regard for Rowland, had done business with him ever since 1971 in places such as Libya, and was in dispute with the Fayeds over an aircraft supplied to the Sultan of Brunei. They even disregarded the published report of an earlier DTI inspector, John Griffiths, dated March 1984, which plainly accused Marwan of lying. Mr. Griffiths said in 1984:"a clear understanding of civil administration in Egypt".
Yet the inspectors conducting the inquiry in question blithely asserted:"Dr. Marwan's evidence did not carry to me the ring of truth. I certainly felt I cannot rely upon it as the whole truth … he was not frank … I found two matters in Dr. Marwan's evidence impossible to believe … Dr. Marwan had a closer liaison with Mr. Rowland than he sought to convey to me."
It seems that much of Dr. Marwan's so-called evidence against the Al Fayeds came in fact from Adnan Kashoggi, the Al Fayeds' disaffected brother-in-law. What the inspectors undoubtedly did show was that the Al Fayeds had talked up their past business activities and their family background to the point of fantasy or, if one prefers it—and sometimes I do—deceit. But for all their unsavoury faults, they will not have been the first people in public life to have dressed up their origins. Hon. Members need look no further than Parliament itself for examples of politicians who employ a slightly cosmetic touch to their CV. There are many other examples of people in high places who feel sensitive about their beginnings. The Al Fayeds had at first been welcomed with open arms into the highest strata of British society, but had then been dumped unceremoniously purely because of pressure from Rowland. What should be remembered, however, is that they did come up with the cash for the takeover bid, and nobody—not even the inspectors—has proved that the money was not theirs to spend. If Lord Young, yet another Secretary of State at the DTI, had had his way, none of this confused and largely irrelevant report—wrongly conceived and clumsily produced—would have seen the light of day. But Rowland's men stole the report from the DTI, and Rowland published it. This meant, by a further irony, that the statutory requirements for character checks in the British Nationality Act 1981 would prevent civil servants from being able to process the Al Fayeds' citizenship applications without taking the report into account. Rowland's skulduggery, having already compromised the DTI in 1987, was therefore going to throw a road block in front of the nationality division of the Home Office when the Al Fayeds applied for British citizenship. There is only one solution. It is not the one recommended to me in 1994 at the Home Office—that officials might simply turn a blind eye to the report if more favourable references were to be found. Not only would that have been unlawful and have offended the high standards of civil servants at the nationality division of the Home Office, but it would have left the law open for all manner of future abuses of the British Nationality Act. It simply would not have done. The only way now is for the DTI to re-examine this flawed report, recognise that it was conceived from Rowland's malice out of short-term expedience and conclude that it ought to be struck off the record in the interests of natural justice and the DTI's good name. As to any future application by the Al Fayeds for British nationality, that is not my concern. I have no idea whether they would make such an application. I have no idea—the House may have its own view—whether their other actions, including offering inducements to individuals, would be regarded as sufficient objection by nationality officials. That is for the Home Office to decide if the case ever comes up. Throughout this murky saga, a string of mistakes have been made and the best thing to do is to get to the bottom of it and sort out the mistakes. In the best-run organisations, such mistakes occur. It is better to deal with them, rather than allow a string of further abuses to continue and for the truth never to surface."Mr. Marwan played an important role in uncovering the Fayeds".
10.12 am
I have to tell the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle) that I wish to make my remarks entirely about the Guinness affair in which, far from being over-zealous, DTI inspectors appear to have done very little. Certainly, little has been done after the initial burst of the interim report, to which he referred. By the way, the report is not readily available to Members of Parliament because it has never been published.
In case anyone believes that my actions are politically motivated, I should point out that my interest in the affair come from a constituent and friend—although not necessarily a voter for me—Robert Jack. A distinguished Glasgow lawyer until his retirement, he was a professor of mercantile law at Glasgow university and was used by the DTI in the early 1980s on the advisory panel on company law. Between 1987 and 1989, he chaired the review committee on banking services law. He knows a great deal about the world of company law and is a director of the Bank of Scotland. Mr. Jack's persistence in asking me to raise this matter meant that I asked the previous Government a series of questions and wrote a series of letters to Ministers about why the DTI inspectors never published a report on the Guinness affair. It may be that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle thinks that Ernest Saunders and his friends and cronies were all very clean in terms of that affair, but most Scottish Members of Parliament at the time felt that the Guinness bid to take over United Distillers—which was not initially considered hostile by United Distillers; it was the Argyll bid that was considered hostile—bore the hallmarks of Thatcherism and the way in which the economy and industry were being run in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. There was ruthlessness, and promises were made which were not kept. The bid was organised in such a way that shareholders were undermined and it was not to the benefit of the work force. In making the bid, Ernest Saunders made certain promises to the shareholders of United Distillers. He said that the existing chairman of United Distillers would remain. He did not. He promised in shareholder documents that Sir Thomas Risk would become chairman. He did not, and was elbowed aside by Saunders himself. Saunders said that the United Distillers board would remain the same. It did not, and six members had to resign. He said that Guinness would change its name and move its headquarters to Edinburgh. None of that happened. There were criminal cases and, eventually, Ernest Saunders—having found a cure for Alzheimer's disease that no one else in the world has managed to find—went to the European Court and received his judgment last December. But the real point that I would like my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to answer—unlike previous Ministers—is why on earth, more than 10 years later, the inspectors have never published a report. Lord Spens was the last to raise the matter, asking the previous GovernmentThe then Minister of State, Lord Fraser of Carmylie, replied:"whether the inspectors, appointed in December 1986, to investigate the affairs of Guinness plc have completed their report and, if not, what are the reasons for the delay; and when do the inspectors expect to be in a position to complete their Report."
The last criminal trial in this country on the matter has been completed for nearly six years. Why on earth have the inspectors still not published a report? In addition, the report should have been published following the European Court decision last December. More importantly, why were the inquiries suspended during the criminal trials? I can understand that it might not have been possible to publish a report while trials were taking place, but to suspend the inquiries is beyond belief. Will my hon. Friend the Minister tell us whether he has received a report on the matter? If so, will he publish it? The previous Government said that they had not received a report, but gave no promises that when they did, they would publish it. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will tell me whether he has received the report and will make it clear that he intends to publish it. I want to make a little point about the way in which Mr. Ernest Saunders operated at United Distillers. That company is the proud owner of the famous Landseer painting, "Monarch of the Glen", which stands in the stairwell of its headquarters in Edinburgh. When the incoming chairman, now Lord Macfarlane, took over at Guinness and United Distillers, he had some job persuading Sotheby's that the "Monarch of the Glen" was not for sale. That is how Mr. Ernest Saunders operated. I think that we are entitled to know exactly what happened in the bid."The inspectors appointed to investigate and report on the affairs of Guinness plc have not yet completed their enquiries which were suspended during the Guinness criminal trials. Following the conclusion of the last of those trials the inspectors are working towards completion of their final report."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 January 1997; Vol. 577, c. 88–89.]
10.19 am
The whole House must be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle). It will have been a difficult decision on his part to undertake the considerable work that he has obviously done in preparation for his speech today. I say that without making any presumption about the facts of the three matters that he has raised. But one of the two essential roles of the House—the first being our role as a legislature—is to act on behalf of the public as a watchdog over the whole apparatus of our administrative, including quasi-judicial, procedures to ensure that their integrity is safeguarded and that when questions need to be asked they are duly asked, and answers insisted upon, so that the public can have confidence in the openness and integrity of the procedures by which we are governed.
Everyone who knows my hon. Friend will agree that he has acted in the highest traditions of the House in deciding to draw public attention to the three matters that he has laid before us. The first is whether there was improper pressure on him when he was taking a decision as a Minister in a nationality case. I have absolutely no knowledge of any matters relating to that issue, and no comments to make on it. The second matter is whether the Department of Trade and Industry inspectors' inquiry into the House of Fraser was properly conducted. Again, I must make it absolutely plain that I have no personal knowledge of that matter, but there is one comment that I would like to make. Merely as a matter of personal interest, I read the report of the inquiry, and it made quite exciting bedside reading—rather more exciting than one is accustomed to receiving from the Department of Trade and Industry, or indeed any other Department of State. I was struck at the time, as a former merchant banker and corporate financier, by the disproportionate attention paid to the issue of the Al Fayeds' personal wealth. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the issue of the personal wealth of a bidder in a cash bid is relevant only in so far as there may be doubts as to whether he has the means to purchase the shares for which he has tendered. There was never any question about the Al Fayeds duly paying on time and at the price offered. The other great issue on which the inspectors spent, as I thought, a disproportionate time, was the Al Fayeds' family background. I have not had occasion to look at the document since I read it many years ago, but that still sticks in my mind, as it seemed so surprising. The issue concerned whether the Al Fayeds were the sons of some poor teacher in Alexandria or came from a wealthy Egyptian family. Again, it seems astonishing that anyone should be concerned with the family background of a bidder in a public bid, except in so far as it related to the ability to pay for any shares for which he was tendering. We have all agreed that there was no link there. The extraordinary implication was that there was some shame attached to being the son of a poor teacher. I have no knowledge of the Al Fayeds; I have had no business dealings with them, have never met them, and know absolutely nothing about them except what has been published in the media over the years—and we all know that some of that has been extremely lurid. The other fact that struck me, as a corporate financier, was that the representations in the offer document—the prospectus issued on behalf of the Al Fayeds in connection with the bid—were regarded as a matter that was germane to their reliability. One can have some understanding of why that was the case, but it must be emphasised—as was not done in the report—that responsibility for the accuracy of statements made in an offer document lies with the person who signs it, and that is the bidder's merchant bank adviser. I have signed prospectuses and listing particulars myself and I am well aware of the substantial responsibility that one has in such circumstances for the accuracy of every statement made, which is why I would always conduct verification meetings, sometimes over several days, with all the various advisers and parties concerned. If someone made a statement in the draft that he had, say, the highest market share for widgets in California, I would ask how he knew that and how the statement could be verified, and I would not accept that it should be included in the offer document unless I was persuaded that it had been properly justified. Therefore, if there is criticism about statements that were untrue—whether about the essential issues in the financial decision that would have to be made by shareholders or even about peripheral issues, such as the family background of the parties involved—it should be directed at the merchant bank concerned and in particular at the director who signed the relevant documents. As I recall the inspectors' report, responsibility was not laid where it should have been. The third matter is the Guinness bid for the Distillers company. I must say at once that I do have personal knowledge of the matter and of many, indeed all, of the principal players involved. At the relevant time, I was a director of Morgan Grenfell, the merchant banking adviser to the bidder, Guinness plc. Morgan Grenfell is now a subsidiary of the Deutsche bank, but was then an independent British bank. I had absolutely no personal involvement in the transaction, which was being handled by a colleague, but I remember that at our morning meetings throughout the spring of 1987 statements were made about how many Distillers shares we had purchased and what the Guinness share price was. Unlike the House of Fraser bid, this was an exchange offer rather than a cash bid, so the price of the bidder's shares was of the essence in determining whether it would succeed. The stock exchange was extremely buoyant at the time, but I remember thinking that we seemed to be extremely lucky in the support that we were receiving from around the world for our client's shares. Frankly, it never dawned on me or on any of my colleagues, who are people of the greatest professionalism and honesty, or indeed on anyone in the City, including the stock exchange and the regulators and others who monitor such matters, that that strong share price was not simply fortuitous or the result of objective assessments around the world of the potential attractions of Guinness, but was engineered by a co-ordinated share support operation. My main point of substance here is that it would probably never have dawned on anybody, other than those who were a party to the illegal share support operation, that anything untoward was going on, had it not been for the fact that in the United States the various regulatory authorities, the Justice Department, the Attorney-General's office in New York state and the Securities and Exchange Commission were conducting an investigation into insider dealing on Wall street, which resulted originally from the Levine affair. The United States authorities make much more imaginative and better use of plea bargaining than we ever have in Britain. Through the Levine affair, they succeeded in breaking into a much more important insider dealing ring run by Boesky; through plea bargaining with him, they succeeded in convicting the biggest insider dealer of all time, Milken. It was not until Boesky did his deal with the American regulatory and investigative authorities that anything came to light. As part of his plea bargain, he was committed to revealing all his insider deals. So far as I know, he did so, but who knows whether he finally made a comprehensive confession? One of the important deals in which he had been involved that he revealed was the Guinness insider dealing operation. It was at that point that our authorities were alerted and investigations began in Britain. I recall very well the first that I and my colleagues knew of the matter. At 9 am on 1 December 1986, DTI inspectors arrived at my firm, seized documents and began their investigations. A few weeks later, the director responsible for the Guinness transaction, Mr. Seelig, was required to resign at an emergency board meeting held that day. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle said, it was not until a month or so later, at the end of January, that to our great amazement, the chairman of our holdings board, Lord Catto, was summoned to the Bank of England and told that the chairman of the bank, Christopher Reeves, and Mr. Graham Walsh, the head of the corporate finance department, must immediately leave the firm or we would be deprived of our accepting house status. That, of course, led to another emergency board meeting where the head of our treasury operations said that we should suffer distinctly in the markets if we lost accepting house status. There was no practical alternative to agreeing to the demands made of us by the Bank of England.Given the hon. Gentleman's experience of the investment world and his story about how the Guinness affair came to light, will he comment on the difference between self-regulation in Britain and Government regulation in the United States?
No, because while that is an important subject, it cannot be properly fitted into the speech that I intend to make this morning, which will be limited to the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle. I have dealt with the matter that the hon. Gentleman has raised in many contexts, including that of the Treasury Committee.
We were all surprised in January 1987 when the Bank of England suddenly demanded the resignation of Mr. Reeves and Mr. Walsh. My understanding from the report put to us by Lord Catto was that there had been much concern in Government circles. The implication was that Whitehall may have had a role in the decision. But the impression we were given was that the Bank of England had not resisted any pressure that might have come from this end of town. In any case, we decided that we had no alternative but to accede to the demands made of us. During that day, Mr. Reeves and Mr. Walsh left the firm. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle said, elsewhere in the City over the next few days as a result of similar initiatives of which I have no direct knowledge, other people left their firms, including Lord Spens, whom I know personally. He had been a colleague when he was a director at Morgan Grenfell. I did one major transaction with him after he went to Ansbacher which was not related in any way to any of the matters under discussion this morning. I have not seen him for many years; I do not think that I have seen him since I have been in the House. I felt it necessary to make that personal statement to corroborate, so far as I can, in one small particular at least, part of the story that my hon. Friend set out. I want to draw one clear conclusion from what I have said, which I believe follows from the whole of this debate. We live in a democracy; we are proud of living in an open society. We live in a country that has always been well governed by international standards, and I trust that it will remain so. We must have confidence in the integrity, honesty and openness of all our procedures. It follows that I must disagree with my hon. Friend, who at one point appeared to regret that the DTI inspectors' report into the House of Fraser, which had had an impact on decisions taken in relation to that bid, had been published. When a decision is taken that impacts on the freedom of individuals—in this case the right of shareholders to accept a higher offer for their shares—or the freedom of any of our citizens to conduct his or her business in the way that he or she thinks fit, it is right that the grounds for such a decision should be made public. Irrespective of whether the procedures of the DTI inspectors investigating the House of Fraser matter were flawed—they may have been; I have no comment on the merits of the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle—the report should have been published. It should have been open and available so that we could question any flaws in the report or in the procedures of the inspectors who produced it and so that we could have seen the relation between the report and the decision subsequently taken by Ministers or others that affected the conduct of the bid or the rights and property of individuals. Equally, in the case of Guinness, it is wrong that after 10 years we still have not seen the report of the DTI inspectors. I have not seen it. As far as I know, none of my fellow directors at Morgan Grenfell has seen it; and nor has anyone else. Some of those involved in subsequent legal actions may have seen part of it. That is not satisfactory. In my days in the financial markets—this is still very much the case—we were trained to be suspicious of anything that looked like a false market, anything that looked like a market in which information was not openly available to everyone who was taking decisions and who was involved in that market. Similarly, in politics there are great dangers in decisions being taken on the basis of information that is available only to some of the parties or to those taking decisions. Others cannot then understand the basis of decisions, which may be arbitrary or unfair. We do not know whether they are unfair or arbitrary because we do not know the information on which they were taken. So far as I know, all the criminal investigations that arose from the conduct of the Guinness bid for Distillers have been concluded. It is time that the report and all relevant information was published. I know this is controversial, but I have always supported a freedom of information Act. The new Government promised one before they were elected, but have been remarkably silent since coming to power.It will be implemented.
I fear that it may not be the last promise made by the Labour Government that is likely to be buried. I leave that party political point aside. If we had a freedom of information Act, it would be possible for citizens to demand to see information where there was no explicit judicial or national security reason for withholding it.
The onus in the successful freedom of information Act in the United States is on the Administration to justify withholding information. They have to produce specific justifications in each case. That is not the case in Britain, but it should be. Even if the Labour party will not fulfil its electoral commitment to introduce such an Act—rose—
I am about to finish. I hope and trust that, even in that event, it will be possible at least to publish the Guinness report after what has been too long a delay. I hope that, in future, it will be a matter of good practice that any reports that form the basis of decisions that interfere in the markets and the freedom of individuals to conduct their business in the way that they choose should be made publicly and freely available.
10.39 am
Occasionally, debates in the House lift the various motions above the mundane. We are grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle) for launching such a one today and livening up our Wednesday morning activities. I am glad that he started by putting some distance between what he had to say and some leadership contest that I understand is currently taking place in the Conservative party. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) broadened the debate into the United States dimension. For a moment, I thought that we were about to be diverted into the advantages or disadvantages of self-regulation in the City. I am glad that he resisted the inducements of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) to take us down that path. Nevertheless, he corroborated part of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle and gave some substance to what he had to say.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle lifted a corner of the veil over certain Department of Trade and Industry inquiries. For me, it was a journey down memory lane. All of us who were Members of Parliament when the events to which he referred took place remember being deluged by highly expensive, glossy publications in which claim and counterclaim were made by Messrs Rowland and Al Fayed when they were having their lovers' tiff. Since then, they have kissed and made up and are once more good friends—or so they say. I kept and filed away all those publications. They will undoubtedly have some historic interest. For me, they are a marvellous example of the vanity and perhaps ruthlessness of wealthy men who are frustrated when what they want to achieve is no longer put in their hands. There is a great similarity with the behaviour of a child of four or five who has a toy taken away and drums his heels into the ground in frustration. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle made a number of points and focused on the Guinness and House of Fraser affairs. I do not intend to comment on those cases. Once or twice, he extrapolated a point or two, but that was up to him. It is his debate. The question for me is the worries that he expressed about the guidelines for DTI inquiries and the inquisitorial style that has been used by the inspectors. My hon. Friend gave examples to buttress his concerns about the impact on the individuals who have been touched in these affairs, so it is right that I should ask the Minister to examine the guidelines and the methods of investigation. The investigators have not always covered themselves in glory, not only in the affairs that have been mentioned, but in others. A fresh look would not go amiss.10.42 am
May I add my congratulations to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your elevation to office. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle) on securing the debate. I pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor), whom the House acknowledges to be a gentleman, and I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House who have been so helpful and supportive to me in my first weeks in office.
The debate is a serious one. I wish to cover as closely as possible the points that have been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) and various other hon. Members, but it is important in the short time available to me to give my first impressions as a Minister of dealing with the Department of Trade and Industry investigations and enforcement directorate. I have taken the opportunity to meet as many of the staff as possible, and I am impressed by the commitment that they have shown and the depth into which they go into matters. Some of the remarks that were made earlier should not be allowed to detract from the tremendous work which all hon. Members believe the directorate does. The staff of the directorate are charged with investigating allegations of wrongdoing in companies, and we all agree that they have a difficult job. The subject of today's debate is the inspectors' inquiries, which are more narrowly focused than the work of the investigations and enforcement directorate using its powers under section 447 of the Companies Act 1985. The DTI has appointed 20 sets of inspectors under the Financial Services Act 1986 to investigate suspected contraventions of insider dealing law. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle concentrated his attention on the Companies Acts powers today. The powers are wider than those granted to section 447 investigators. Inquiries are usually announced and there is an expectation that in most cases there will be a published report. It is inevitable that the wider inquiries take longer to complete and are much more expensive, as they rely mainly on the appointment of external inspectors. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle expressed a valid fear that the examination of witnesses under our system was unfair and oppressive. He quoted Lord Justice Sachs, and I should like to quote him back to the hon. Gentleman. He said:There can be little doubt among hon. Members that, without flexibility—although there must be proper safeguards, and I believe that there are—and the considerable powers that are available, it would be simply impossible to amass the evidence that is required to bring the perpetrators of some of the complex City frauds and insider dealing share transactions to justice."In the application of the concept of fair play, there must be real flexibility, so that very different situations may be met without producing procedures unsuitable to the object in hand … So many are the permutations and combinations that may arise in an investigation that it seems to me quite plain that it is impracticable and indeed ill-advised to attempt to lay down a set of rules applicable to all witnesses at all times."
My hon. Friend raised a valuable point when he asked that the guidelines be examined. The Minister mentions bringing the perpetrators to justice, but the Department has not covered itself in glory in past years. I earnestly ask the Minister not merely to read his brief but to re-examine the guidelines to see whether they are as effective and correct as they could be.
I am trying to keep party politics out of this. What we have really had is an assertion that, for 18 years, there has been some form of corruption at the heart of government in the investigations. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle shakes his head, but he used words which he may regret. He said that DTI inspectors led Ministers by the nose and he made more serious allegations. He referred to sinister motives and suggested that the Department was flawed and corrupted. He said that civil servants had taken sadly flawed judgments.
No.
The hon. Gentleman implied that. Let us be frank with each other. Those are the serious allegations on which I as a Minister now have to satisfy myself and answer.
I have looked into the matter in some detail. I know that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle has been in discussions with my office and I am grateful for the information that he gave us. As for sinister motives, let us consider what the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said when he published part of the fourth report in March this year:Hon. Members have asked whether the inspectors' reports were unfair. I do not see any evidence of that. For instance, Lord Denning concluded:"From my examination of the DTI papers, I think it likely that the Lonrho campaign was, indeed, one of the factors affecting the advice given to Ministers … It was not, however, the only consideration and, in the end, probably not the main one."
I believe that the inspectors have met that obligation. As the European Court said of the Al Fayed case:"Inspectors should be masters of their own procedure. They should be subject to no rules except this: they must be fair. This being done, they should make their report with courage and frankness, keeping nothing back. Public interest demands it."
At the heart of the debate is the question whether the DTI will review the House of Fraser report. I must tell the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle that the answer is no. The European Court of Human Rights was extremely complimentary about the procedures followed by the inspectors when it gave judgment on the Al Fayeds' claim that the publication of the report was damaging to their right to a fair hearing. The court stated:"Whilst inspectors are accorded broad freedom in reporting on the affairs of public companies, the performance of their investigation function is attended by not inconsiderable safeguards intended to ensure a fair procedure and the reliability of findings of fact."
I stress the word "not"—"Considerations of public interest dictate both the appointment of Inspectors and the publication or not"—
The court also quoted from an earlier European Commission of Human Rights hearing:"of their report."
"It is necessary in a democratic society that governments exercise statutory controls over large commercial activities in order to ensure good management practice and the transparency of honest dealings."
No one would disagree with that quotation, but as for publication, does the Minister appreciate that at the moment and for the foreseeable future he will bear the responsibility if the Guinness report is not published? He cannot lay that responsibility on to anyone else. After such a long delay, will he or will he not now publish the DTI inspectors' report into the Guinness bid for Distillers?
The hon. Gentleman has repeated a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart, which I was about to answer.
The inspectors have not yet completed the Guinness report, but it is expected shortly. That is not my fault. It should be noted that the inspectors have been constrained—I will not use the word hampered—by the judicial procedures. They were guided by the need to ensure that while court proceedings were in train they were not open to accusations of harassing witnesses and pursuing matters that were before the court. I am sure that that is a cause of frustration to DTI inspectors and former Ministers, as well as to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart, who has taken such a direct interest in the case for so many years. Everyone in Scotland and elsewhere who has taken an interest in the Guinness affair wants to see that report concluded as soon as possible. I am advised that it is expected shortly. When the report is received, it will be given due consideration. It is the usual practice to publish reports into public companies, but a decision on whether to publish this one or any other such inspection can be made only after careful scrutiny of the signed report. My hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart rightly asked why the Guinness inspection has taken so long. I gave him one reason. I am sure that he knows more about the chronology of events than most, but I shall go through them for the benefit of the House. I attach great importance to inspections being conducted as quickly as possible. As for the Guinness inspection, inspectors were appointed in November 1986. They submitted their interim report in November 1988. By that time, Ernest Saunders had been arrested. The first Guinness trial started in January 1990 and convictions were obtained in August 1990. In March 1991, the inspectors were directed to limit their work while the criminal proceedings against other defendants were in train. They resumed their work in March 1993. In March 1994, the inspectors went to court to certify Thomas Ward's failure to attend for interview. Ward was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for contempt. He is currently in the United States and contempt is not an extraditable offence. Following the evidence gathering part of the inspection, the inspectors have spent most of the remaining time writing their report and, significantly, applying the fairness procedures. That process is commonly referred to as Maxwellisation and involves inspectors' putting the substance of their criticisms to those whom they are minded to criticise in their final report. That important procedure was highlighted by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle. The process takes time and it is sometimes open to abuse. It involves trying to balance the need to produce a quick report as efficiently as possible against the need to apply fairness by offering those likely to be criticised an opportunity to seek to dissuade the inspectors from their critical opinions. I do not believe that any of the parties in the relevant cases have been denied that fairness. The delays in the publication of the report are, however, one reason why we want such powers to be used sparingly in the future. Hon. Members have expressed their concerns this morning. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle for being honest enough to admit that he has suffered a change of mind. In March 1990 he criticised the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Nicholas Ridley. He spoke of hon. Members' frustrationIn common with other hon. Members, I have looked at the evidence. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that I do not believe that there was any conspiracy or any incompetence on the part of DTI inspectors. It is a problem for all of us to ensure that public servants act in the best interests of the public. We in the House must safeguard that. I will of course consider any of the points raised that I have not so far answered and which the hon. Gentleman considers require further explanation. It is vital that the Companies Acts are operated effectively. None of us takes any satisfaction from the lengthy delays in the Guinness trial or the rather unsavoury activities of Al Fayed and Lonrho. As a young, new Member, I, too, was subjected to their glossy publications. I learnt to use the circular filing cabinet and I put "From Hero to Zero" in the bin. I gather that they are not collectors items. We cannot base what we do in government solely on the authority of investigative journalism. Any allegations must be considered. I assure hon. Members that officials at the DTI have given the case the closest consideration. That has been done not merely by one or two officials, but by a number who have cross-checked each other's work. They have advised Ministers accordingly. We want the Guinness report to be concluded quickly. I have given an undertaking to the House that I want that done. We are also a Labour Government who want a flourishing corporate sector. We want it to deal honestly and fairly with its customers, suppliers, shareholders and, most important, employees. Those objectives go hand in hand and we cannot have one without the other. The Government will use all the powers at their disposal to deter, detect and punish wrongdoing."that what the DTI inspectors described as the Fayeds' deceit and lies has not been met with their immediate disqualification as directors or, at the very least, with a bar from directorships of other United Kingdom companies".—[Official Report, 27 March 1990; Vol. 170, c. 250.]
Cyprus
10.59 am
I should like to add my congratulations to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment and welcome you to your new position. I also offer belated congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), both on his appointment as Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and on the prominent part that he has played in forging a new relationship with our neighbours in the European Union.
I hope that hon. Members will bear with me as I make my traditional introductory remarks. It is a great honour to represent the people of Edmonton and I thank them for electing me as their Member of Parliament. I should also like to thank all those across London, both hon. Members and supporters, who worked so hard to achieve victory. For the first time, I am joined in the House by two other new Labour Members for the London borough of Enfield: my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, North (Ms Ryan) and for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg). Not only is the borough now represented by three Labour Members of Parliament, but it has a Labour council which was newly elected in 1994 after 26 years of Tory rule. This phenomenal run of electoral success began with the election of the first Labour Member of the European Parliament, Pauline Green, who was elected eight years ago. Like Pauline, I stood for election as a Labour and Co-operative candidate and now have the privilege of representing the Co-operative movement in the House. With my colleagues, I hope to bring its principles, values and experience to bear on hon. Members' deliberations. Prior to the coming of the railways and the rapid expansion of London, Edmonton, like the surrounding villages of Enfield, Friern Barnet and Potters Bar, was represented in Parliament by a Middlesex county Member. Under the Reform Act of 1885 Edmonton became part of the Enfield parliamentary division. Local electors had to wait for the subsequent reform Act of 1918, which introduced the major innovation of a limited franchise for women, for the formation of the Edmonton constituency. My immediate predecessor, Dr. Ian Twinn, was the seventh Member of Parliament for the constituency. Although, since its formation, there have been four Labour and three Conservative Members of Parliament, more than 50 years separate Dr. Twinn's election from that of the previous Tory Member. It is a measure of the regard in which he was held that Dr. Twinn served for 14 years in the House. I pay tribute to the tenacity with which he held the seat during that time. Indeed, I learnt that to my cost at the general election in 1992. The House will not be surprised to hear that we disagreed on many things, but he was, by unanimous consent, a tireless representative of local people and local causes. He will be particularly remembered in the House for his advocacy on behalf of Cyprus—a cause about which I know he feels passionately and to which I shall return later. Among the distinguished list of my Labour predecessors, I wish to pay tribute to Ted Graham, now Lord Graham of Edmonton. Like me, he is not a native of Edmonton—he originally came from Tyneside. He came to work locally, stayed and formed a strong attachment to Edmonton and its people. In the nine years that he served in the House, he built up an unrivalled reputation as a campaigner on issues affecting the constituency. He was, and to some extent still is, known as the voice of Edmonton. I wish him well, in the knowledge that he will be playing an active part in this Parliament in another place. I have it on good authority from the Fees Office that Edmonton lies nine miles north of the House—[Interruption.] That struck a chord. Since local government reorganisation in the early 1960s, it has formed part of the London borough of Enfield, but it still maintains a distinct identity and character, of which its citizens are very proud. Depending on one's view, it is either blessed or cursed by being dissected by two of the busiest routes into and around the capital: the great Cambridge road and the north circular road, which are both currently being extended or strengthened. The work is causing significant disruption, noise and pollution. Business is being badly affected, as are local shopping patterns. Local people wonder whether the disruption will ever end. But when the work is complete, the improved road network should hold out hope of much-needed investment in that part of north London—to some extent, that hope will be fulfilled. However, little thought has been given to the overall impact of the road developments on either the wider transport infrastructure or on public and private investment patterns locally. That is because decisions are fragmented and taken by unelected and unaccountable bodies. London needs a directly elected strategic authority to provide an independent voice and to act as a powerful champion for promoting economic, transport and planning strategies to boost prosperity and job growth. I can also confirm that the local economy is in much need of a boost; it was undermined in the 1980s by two of the deepest recessions since the war and has not fully recovered. Much of the industry for which Edmonton was famous—furniture, electrical goods and electronics—has disappeared or moved to green-field sites. The replacement jobs have often been low skilled with low wages. Many people are insecure and it is not hard to find locals, particularly young people, who have been forced to change jobs two or three times in as many years. One in four of all our under-25s in Edmonton are unemployed. With few or no skills or qualifications, many of them have little prospect of gaining employment. For that reason, the people of Edmonton welcome the Chancellor's welfare-to-work initiative and the Government's commitment to provide meaningful employment and training that will lead to a qualification. For many people, the scheme will for the first time provide both the independence and self-respect that come with earning a wage. Edmonton is a community of many contrasts. Alongside increasing prosperity, many people suffer considerable hardship and deprivation. One way in which those problems are being challenged is through the Edmonton partnership initiative, an innovative scheme to regenerate the local town centre. It is an attempt to reverse the long-term decline of the shopping centre while, at the same time, radically improving local housing conditions and providing community facilities and much-needed jobs and training for local people. Based on a public-private consortium, the initiative will attract more than £100 million of investment into the constituency, with more than £80 million of that coming from the private sector. Over the next seven years that exciting partnership project will transform the centre of Edmonton, delivering tangible benefits and increasing prosperity to one of the most deprived parts of the constituency. Edmonton is also a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural community. At the latest count, 65 languages were spoken in local schools. In the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, it will be a great privilege and pleasure toin my constituency. By far the largest local ethnic minority is the Cypriot community—Greek and Turkish—many of whom have come here since the invasion and division of the island in 1974. The future of Cyprus is of more than academic interest to all of them. It is with that in mind that I have sought to initiate this first debate on Cyprus in the new Parliament. First, I offer the apologies of my hon. Friends the Members for Tooting (Mr. Cox) and for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara), who are great friends of Cyprus and regularly contribute to debates on this subject. Unfortunately, they are away on urgent business of the House and are unable to be with us today. I congratulate Her Majesty's Government on their commitment, stated in the Queen's Speech, to seek a settlement in Cyprus. I warmly welcome the mission statement by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. I am particularly pleased to see that, among its objectives, he includes:"represent all of the people"
We must also demand them for Cyprus and the Cypriot people. It is appropriate that this debate is taking place today, because I understand that the Cypriot Foreign Minister, Mr. Cassoulides, is at this very moment flying into Britain for talks with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. I am sure that the House will join me in wishing them well. This year has been dubbed the year of the "big push" in Cyprus. There has certainly been a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent months, which is not surprising, given the number of international representatives who are currently on the island. Apart from the ubiquitous United Nations representative, who has recently been sponsoring proximity talks between the two communities, there are also representatives from the United States and from the European Union and, of course, Britain's own representative, the recently reappointed former ambassador to the UN, Sir David Hannay. This has occasioned the President of Cyprus to comment that there are "too many cooks", and one can see his point. The critical issue facing the Government is to evaluate what role Britain can play in finding a just and lasting settlement for Cyprus. Before looking at that, I want to give a word of caution. Nearly 23 years have elapsed since the military invasion that divided the island and hopes of a settlement have risen in the past, only to be dashed. A flurry of diplomatic activity is no substitute for confidence-building measures and meaningful negotiations. The high-level agreements that form the starting point for direct negotiations and that set out the framework for a settlement were drawn up 18 years ago and it has to be admitted that there has been little real progress since. It is widely recognised that there is a great deal of work to be done before there is a realistic prospect of reaching an agreement, but a consensus is emerging that that work must be undertaken urgently and that the measures necessary for the effective promotion of a settlement must be put in place. Britain is uniquely placed to facilitate that process, because of its historic role on the island; because it is a guarantor power of the security of Cyprus; and because it is a member of both the UN Security Council and the EU. Most important, Britain can help to ensure that any final agreement is based on international law, UN resolutions and the objectives of the Government's own mission statement. Britain must make it clear that the continued division of Cyprus is unacceptable and can never form the basis of a settlement. Any solution must be based on the unity and integrity of the island. That is already set out in the high-level agreements and in the Gali set of ideas to create a bizonal, bicommunal federation comprising two politically equal communities. Over the years, many on both sides have cast doubt on that formulation, yet it describes the only framework that can provide both the unity and equality that are critical to a settlement. Division on the island creates instability, as the furore over the now delayed purchase of Russian S300 missiles shows. A shift in the balance on one side leads to a response from the other and the result is military build-up. It is little wonder that, over the past 23 years, Cyprus has become one of the most over-militarised areas of the world and consequently a potential flash point. Any solution must be based on the demilitarisation of the island and in that respect the House should welcome the statement by Mr. Clerides, proposing to demilitarise the whole island and reallocate spending to the economic development of a reunited Cyprus. It is, of course, security—or the lack of it—that has bedevilled all attempts to find a lasting solution. Both communities well remember the failures of the past—in 1963 and 1967—and the tragic events of 1974. No one underestimates the difficulty in achieving firm security guarantees. The people of Cyprus must have confidence that there will be no return to the communal violence or military interventions of the past. Working next door to my constituency offices is a Cypriot shopkeeper, who has not seen his parents for 25 years. They are elderly and he despairs that he will never see them again. They are Greek Cypriots, but live in the Karpas peninsula in the north of the island. They should be able to travel, but cannot leave as they would find it impossible to return. Their relatives cannot visit. Ending their isolation must be the first step in building confidence and moving towards a settlement. Both communities have suffered many grave injustices. If they are to be reconciled, each community is entitled to know what has happened to the loved ones who disappeared during the violence of the past. Like the truth commission in South Africa, justice demands that the terrible events of the past should be made public, so that the fate of the innocent victims can be known. In addition, the events of 1974 made hundreds of thousands of Cypriots on both sides refugees on their own island. Many would like to visit their villages, return to their homes and travel freely to other parts of the island, but they cannot do so. Any meaningful settlement must underpin the human rights of all Cypriots. Cyprus has had a relationship with the European Community since it first signed an association agreement in 1972. A customs union in 1987 was rapidly followed by an application for membership of the EC in 1990. A favourable opinion from the Commission on Cyprus's eligibility in 1993 led to agreement at the Cannes summit two years ago that negotiations for accession should begin six months after the conclusion of the intergovernmental conference in Amsterdam. That will coincide with Britain's presidency of the EU and provide a unique opportunity for Britain to give a lead in supporting Cyprus's application. Membership will benefit both communities. It will end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community and provide an impetus to the economy and a huge boost to living standards. The EU can help to guarantee the security of both communities. However, one question remains: will Cyprus be reunited, as we all hope, before those negotiations are completed? In November last year, the then Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, made it plain that it would be very difficult to admit a divided Cyprus to the EU. That view was subsequently echoed by the German Foreign Minister. The Government should continue to offer support to Cyprus's application for membership, on its merits and without conditions. Much of the answer to the question of accession and of a general settlement lies, not in northern Cyprus, but in Turkey. Turkey's own application for membership has been described as "premature". It was told recently by the Christian Democrat group in the European Parliament that, as a non-Christian country, it was an unsuitable applicant for membership. I disagree fundamentally with that view. However, there are continuing difficulties with the recently agreed customs union, and against that background it is unlikely that Turkey will be in a position in the near future to make a serious application for full membership. Many believe, as a result, that it is unlikely to encourage the Turkish Cypriot community to co-operate in the negotiations for Cyprus's entry to the EU. That would be regrettable, and I hope that the Government will make it clear that it can never be acceptable for a country that is not a member of the Community to exercise its veto on the application of another. Relations between Greece and Turkey remain tense, and complicate the finding of a solution in Cyprus. Disputes about uninhabited islands, the military build-up in the region and friction regarding Cyprus continue to sour relations between the two nations—both, supposedly, NATO allies. As yet, diplomatic efforts to resolve the various disputes have met with very limited success. As both are guarantor powers, it is hard to see how any permanent settlement in Cyprus can be achieved without an overall resolution of the disputes in that part of the eastern Mediterranean. The year 1997 will be crucial to Cyprus. The European Union and the United States appear to believe that there is a brief window of opportunity for a political settlement. Although proximity talks are not reported to have thrown up new initiatives or signs of greater flexibility, it is widely felt that, as Sir David Hannay was recently quoted as saying,"to work through international forums and bilateral relationships to spread the values of human rights, civil liberties and democracy which we demand for ourselves."
In addition, with European Union accession negotiations, presidential elections in Cyprus and the distinct possibility of fresh elections in Turkey—all likely to happen in 1998—it is hard to avoid the conclusion that 1997 presents a better prospect than will exist for some time. I was therefore very pleased to read recent press reports of the possibility of direct UN-sponsored talks between President Clerides and Mr. Denktash, expected to begin in early July. As part of that announcement, the UN emphasised the importance of the talks developing on a positive note. I believe that we would all agree. I also welcome the note of realism in that statement, saying that the first round"the chances of getting a settlement are better than they have been for quite a long time".
and that they will be followed by further talks later in the month. No one underestimates the task confronting the participants, but I am sure that the House will join me in wishing them every success in their endeavours. However, Britain needs to do more. I hope that the debate will send a clear message that this House believes that the Government must do everything in their power to assist those negotiations, and that Ministers must use their influence with the international community to move the issue of Cyprus up the international agenda and to step up efforts to find a just and lasting settlement of the division of the island."may not yield any concrete results as such"
11.23 am
I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment to the Chair of the House, which I regard as a reflection of your long and very distinguished service in this place, and wish you success in your role.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) on his maiden speech. I thank him for the pretty compliment that he paid his predecessor, Dr. Ian Twinn, who was a friend of many hon. Members on both sides of the House and a very good friend of the Parliamentary Friends of Cyprus. I am sure that it will be of considerable comfort to his constituents, and the wider Cypriot community in the United Kingdom, to know that the Edmonton tradition is being continued, and that the support for the movement behind the Parliamentary Friends of Cyprus and the Cypriot Brotherhood will continue to be represented by him in the House. The hon. Member for Edmonton described the volatility of the constituency that he represents. However long or short his tenure of office in the House, I hope that he will enjoy it and that he will be successful in it. On this morning's showing, I am sure that he will be. The hon. Gentleman neatly managed to weave that magic dance that all of us are required to weave the first time that we speak in the House, knitting together the virtues and joys of one's constituency, as the second garden of Eden, with the need to concentrate on the debate. I commend him on the manner in which he did so. I am sure that his constituents will be pleased to read his remarks in local newspapers and in Hansard. I briefly turn to the subject of the debate—the future of the sadly divided island of Cyprus. Specifically, I shall mention the role that the Parliamentary Friends of Cyprus has played and will continue to play. I am sure that the hon. Member for Edmonton will quickly become a signed-up member of the organisation, and I hope that many of his new colleagues in the Government, and many of the colleagues who have joined us on the Opposition Benches, will take up that cause. I hope that they will understand that, as its title implies, the Parliamentary Friends of Cyprus means the friends of Cyprus and of all Cypriots worldwide, not—as, sadly, is sometimes said—merely the friends of Greek Cyprus. Members of the Parliamentary Friends of Cyprus, on both sides of both Houses of Parliament, have worked for far too many years to secure a settlement of the division of the island of Cyprus that is in the interests of all those who have a legitimate right to live on, and move freely around, the island. No settlement will ever be possible of what has become known as the Cyprus problem that is not based on the three freedoms: freedom of movement, freedom of domicile and freedom of employment. Unless and until all international politicians involved in these debates understand that, there will never be a settlement. However, I accept that the hon. Member for Edmonton is correct in believing that 1997, being the window of opportunity in the run-up to the Cypriot presidential elections and elections in Turkey, may offer an opportunity for a settlement that, if it is missed, may not come around again for some time. The year 1997 may be the year of Cyprus—the year of the "big push", as the hon. Gentleman described it—which some of us thought might have been 1996, 1995, 1994 or 1993. Such predictions have been made for far too long. The hon. Gentleman illustrated his concern through the eyes of the neighbour to his office, a Cypriot whose parents live in a peninsula in the north of the island and who has been unable to visit his parents. That illustration encapsulates the problem that confronts many hon. Members. We have constituents who find themselves in a similar position. I think of George Yerolemou, now an elderly man, who first came to me within days of my arrival in the House of Commons, 14 years ago, showing me a photograph of a simple dwelling in a village in the northern part of the island, which is his home. He has not seen that home now for well over 20 years. Sadly, his wife has died and will never see it again. For me, that is the Cyprus problem—the fact that there are people living in my constituency who are unable to go to their homeland, to move around it, to visit their Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot friends and drink coffee with them and to visit their family's graves. They can do none of those normal things. The Berlin wall has come down; Germany has been reunited; we have watched the Soviet empire crumble. Wars and conflicts are being settled throughout the world. The Gulf war—a major middle east conflict—has been and gone. In this day and age, outrageously, an army of occupation continues to sit with virtual impunity in half of a territory, where it has sat since an invasion in 1974, while the entire might of the western world stands by, arguing the toss in the United Nations and passing resolution after resolution, and the Council of Europe and the European Union discuss the issue, and nothing happens. It cannot be right that the situation is allowed to continue. It is time that the world community took the Cyprus issue as seriously as it has taken others. We must recognise that the instability of the Turkish economy and of some Turkish politicians makes it convenient to have a distraction just across the water, to focus Turkish attention on it and to distract the Turkish people from their problems at home. That may be convenient for Turkey, the power that works the strings of the regime in northern Cyprus, but it is no longer acceptable. I hope that the present Administration will take the same determined attitude in the House as have previous Administrations since the invasion. They must send a clear message that the illegal regime in the northern part of Cyprus will never be recognised; that we, with our European partners, will press for the admission of Cyprus as swiftly as possible to the European Union; and that we hope, believe and expect that the international community will bring its best endeavours to bear to ensure that, before the year is out, the island will be united and our constituents, be they Turkish Cypriots or Greek Cypriots, will be able to move freely around their homeland.11.30 am
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love), first, on being canny enough to secure the debate. He is a new Member, but he has already managed to find his way around the House of Commons. I have been trying for some time to get one of these Wednesday morning debates, but I have not yet succeeded.
Secondly, my hon. Friend is to be congratulated on having the courage to open a debate in his maiden speech. His performance this morning bodes well for the future. That is no surprise to me, as I have known my hon. Friend for many years. He was a councillor in Haringey and the chair of the housing committee when I was a councillor. We spent many years discussing issues, especially matters relating to Cyprus. My hon. Friend mentioned the ethnic diversity in his constituency, Edmonton, and said that Cypriots were the largest ethnic group. The reason for that is the fact that they left my constituency, Tottenham, and moved to Edmonton and further afield as they became more prosperous, having come mainly to Haringey in 1974 after the invasion of Cyprus. Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish, have made a great contribution to the economy of Haringey and of Tottenham in particular, and I believe that they will continue to play an important role in the local economy. I was fortunate enough to be invited by the executive members of one of the Cypriot organisations in London, DEKO—the Democratic Party of the Workers of Cyprus—to visit Cyprus in April this year. It was my third visit to Cyprus. I have been to the green line, to demonstrations in Morphou and to conferences in Cyprus. It was my first opportunity to see in detail the way in which the Cyprus problem has affected the lives of people there. At the Ledra Palace on the green line I met a woman who was there with her daughter. She was looking across at the Turkish side. She pointed out her house to me and said, "It is 100 metres from where I stand, yet I cannot go there." She told me that she had been coming there every day since 1974. There were huge pictures on display, showing the violence that occurred in Cyprus in August last year, when three Greek Cypriot men were killed. One was an old man who was collecting snails in the mountains. He did not know where the green line was and happened to wander over to the Turkish side. He was beaten and shot dead. Another picture depicted a young man who had climbed a flagpole to remove the Turkish flag. He was shot down like a dog by the Turkish authorities. A third person was beaten and killed. That brought home to me the grief of Cyprus and the problems that exist there. With my hon. Friends, I am determined to do something about the matter. One wonders how the previous British Government could sit in office for 18 years and do nothing to try to resolve the situation in Cyprus. The United Nations should deal with the matter, but as a guarantor power and one of the old colonial powers in Cyprus Britain has a clear responsibility to do as much as it can to bring the other guarantor powers together. I hope that the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), will give us an assurance that, in addition to what the United Nations is doing, the Labour Government will do everything in their power to bring together the other guarantor powers, Greece and Turkey, and to get things moving. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton raised various points with which I agree. He spoke about the missing persons. There are about 1,500 missing persons on the Greek Cypriot side and hundreds on the Turkish Cypriot side. Any settlement must deal with their fate. As a gesture of good will in the talks that are currently taking place, the rights of the people of the enclave, particularly in the north of Cyprus, must be taken into account. Those people are in serious difficulties and their rights must be guaranteed. I call on the Turkish Cypriot side in particular to ensure as a gesture of good will that the rights of the people of the enclave are respected. I am particularly concerned about the demilitarisation of Cyprus. As my hon. Friend stated, the Turkish soldiers in the northern part of Cyprus have been bolstered by Turkish settlers from Anatolia. When demilitarisation takes place and the soldiers leave, the majority of the settlers, if not all of them, should leave as well. The agreement must ensure that Cyprus becomes a bizonal and bicommunal community. That was the original agreement made between Mr. Denktash and Archbishop Makarios, and it must be honoured if there is to be a way forward. In relation to the European Union I believe, like my hon. Friend, that Cyprus should be admitted, regardless of the state of the country—whether it is divided or not. The Government of Cyprus, who are the legitimate Government recognised by the United Nations and by all countries except Turkey, have applied for membership of the European Union. I believe that Cyprus is entitled to become a member, and that that should happen as soon as possible. I hope that when Britain has the presidency of the European Union next year, we will ensure that Cyprus's membership application goes through. Meanwhile, I oppose Turkish membership of the EU for a number of reasons. First, its relationship with Cyprus rules it out; secondly, and more importantly, human rights in Turkey are a thorough disgrace. There must be no question of Turkey becoming a member so long as it continues to treat Kurdish people in the way it does—My hon. Friend has mentioned the abuse of human rights in Turkey and Turkey's continued illegal occupation of the north of Cyprus. Does he agree not just that it would be wholly wrong for Turkey to be considered for membership of the EU in those circumstances, but that it is wholly wrong that western nations should continue to supply economic aid and military weapons to Turkey while the illegal occupation continues?
I thank my hon. Friend. The difficulty is that Turkey is a member of NATO, and certain treaties need to be upheld. Britain, however, could adopt the stance that my hon. Friend has mentioned; I shall support him if he wants to push the matter further by means of a motion or some other procedural device.
I want to mention Mr. Asil Nadir before I close—that infamous person who jumped bail, absconded and was allowed to stay in northern Cyprus. He has now gone to Turkey, where he is flaunting his presence and trying to do deals with the British Government. I am pleased that our Government have refused to do deals with Mr. Nadir. I hope that Turkey will come to its senses and return him to Britain so that he can face justice here. When reaching any solution for Cyprus, we must take into account the deserts of both sides. The Turkish Cypriot side has had little championing in this House. Mr. Andrew Faulds, a former Member, was one of the few in this House who spoke up for the Turkish Cypriots. I believe that they have every right to have their safety guaranteed. The events of the early 1970s—Eoka and the coup—mean that Turkish Cypriots have good reason to believe that they would be under severe threat in a reunited Cyprus. It is therefore incumbent on all who are concerned about Cyprus and its reunification to ensure that the Turkish Cypriots are given absolute guarantees of their safety and their ability to purchase and maintain properties in Cyprus. They must be given a fair deal as an integral part of any united Cyprus. I look forward to further debates on Cyprus. I was extremely pleased that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister mentioned the country in the Queen's Speech, as he did in the Labour party manifesto. I look forward to the Labour Government working to ensure a free, democratic, demilitarised and united Cyprus.11.43 am
I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love), who was a sturdy fighter for Cyprus even before he entered the House. I know that the Cypriot community in Britain was overjoyed to hear of his election to this place. I commiserate, too, with his predecessor, Dr. Ian Twinn, who was also a magnificent fighter for Cyprus. I am sure that he will continue the fight outside this place.
I hope that the new Government will take the Cyprus issue more seriously than the previous one did. We have some responsibilities toward Cyprus, and in the past I believe that we have let the people of Cyprus down. The people of Cyprus are our allies. On the first day of the second world war, 40,000 out of an available 52,000 Cypriots volunteered for active service to fight fascism in Europe. During that conflict and in subsequent conflicts they have always been on our side, but unfortunately there have been times when they needed our help and we did not reciprocate. Cyprus has been a good member of the Commonwealth and has participated fully in it. Britain is a guarantor power, yet British Governments do not have a good record in the matter: 23 years after the illegal invasion and occupation we have yet to reach an agreement to sort the problem out. One reason for that is the fact that what is at stake is not the foreign policy of Cyprus but rather the foreign policy of the United States of America. Recently the President of the United States visited this country, and I know that our Prime Minister discussed Cyprus with him while he was here. America's attitude has little to do with missiles based in Turkey, which used to point toward the east of Europe but which now point elsewhere. It has more to do with the fact that 73 per cent. of the world's oil and gas reserves are to be found in the region. That is what interests the Americans and guides their policy. However, it is about time we started looking at the interests of the people of Cyprus, more than 400,000 of whom have been dispatched to live elsewhere in the world because of the partition. There is a window of opportunity at the moment. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton is sympathetic to the cause of finding a real solution to the Cyprus problem. Our presidency of the EU starts in January, and I know that the Foreign Secretary has put Cyprus's entry to the EU at the top of his agenda. That offers us and Cyprus a genuine opportunity. The EU would be foolhardy even to contemplate delaying Cyprus's entry to Europe. It is in Europe's interests that Cyprus should play a full part as a member country. Cyprus has excellent trade links with eastern European countries—better than those of any country in the EU. It also has good trading links with the middle east—better than ours. As an economist, I know that the western world's economy has been in recession—a point that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis) used to make when he was a Minister—and that the only way out is to trade our way out of that recession with the third world. All the African countries have sound trading relations with Cyprus, for instance. As for defence, we have two strategic bases in Cyprus which will continue to be important to the defence of Europe once Cyprus joins the EU. There is an ever increasing need in world trade for shipping, and the fleets of Cyprus and Greece combined would give the EU the second largest fleet in the world. So Cyprus's accession would boost the EU's trading possibilities. Cyprus is also very active in banking and has its own banking system. More than 1,800 offshore companies are registered there and over the past few years it has developed its own stock exchange. It could perhaps give Europe an opportunity for offshore banking that is not afforded to it at the present time. Geographically, Cyprus is important for telecommunications and Britain recognises this. Everybody knows that telecommunications will play a large part in the future of the world. As an offshore telecommunications bank, Cyprus is ideally situated, and Europe could benefit greatly from that. Last but not least, there is a programme, a structure, an agreement, for oil and gas pipelines to come down from eastern Europe, which will service most countries of the European Union, and also to have an oil and gas pipeline into Cyprus. That will make Cyprus—particularly with the shipping that it has in conjunction with Greece—the gas station of Europe. It would be foolhardy for Britain and Europe not to allow Cyprus to play a full part in the European Union when that opportunity arises. I see no reason why Cyprus should not be a full member of the European Union. If my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary push for a speedy solution to get Cyprus in as a full member of the European Union, that will benefit Britain and Europe in the future.11.50 am
It gives me great pleasure to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) on his maiden speech. As a joint vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Friends of Cyprus, I am particularly pleased that he was generous enough to pay tribute to his predecessor, Dr. Ian Twinn, who worked with us on that committee.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) said that the needs and views of the Turkish Cypriot community have not been properly attended to. As the hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) said earlier, the Parliamentary Friends of Cyprus has tried since 1974 to be friends of both Cypriot communities and to work with those in both communities—on the island and in London—who were willing to work with us, not for us to tell them what a solution should look like, but to try to create a climate in which that solution becomes more possible. There was an extremely significant development on the island while we were otherwise engaged in March this year. The all-Cyprus trade union forum, linking trade unions in both parts of the island, came together—something that it has not done for many years—to talk about the effects on the working people of Cyprus of the future accession of Cyprus to the European Union. There is no question but that the main beneficiaries of Cypriot membership of the European Union will be the members of the Turkish Cypriot community. That is indisputable. Without going back over history—much of it painful—I believe that the people who have paid the highest price for the continued division of Cyprus have been the ordinary working people of the north of Cyprus, who have been starved of the partnerships that have been on offer for many years from the southern part of the island. There was a hope—a distinct possibility—that Varosha could be handed back, and as part of that arrangement there would be joint ventures involving business people from both Cypriot communities. The all-Cyprus trade union forum met at the Ledra Palace hotel, which is a living example of the futility, the stupidity, the grief of disputes such as those which have torn Cyprus apart. I have nothing but praise for the painful efforts that the United Nations has made over the years, and for those who have made up the peacekeeping force on the island. For those of us with photographic memories of what that hotel was like before the cruel and barbarous invasion of the island in 1974, in many ways it is worse now than the Berlin wall ever was, because it is much nearer. If one looks from old Nicosia across the no man's land into the occupied part of the island, one sees that it is absolutely untouched by human beings, save for the odd United Nations patrol. We are three years from the end of the millennium. Is this really the best that men and women can deliver in an island as small as Cyprus? It is crazy, because there has not been a shared willingness by the leaders of both Cypriot communities to reach a solution. That is what makes so important the move by the all-Cyprus trade union forum to bring together representatives of working people from both Cypriot communities to discuss and debate the benefits that would flow to them, their families and to the island as a whole from the admission of Cyprus to the European Union. There is no question but that that would be beneficial. As ever, of course, politicians will get in the way of that. Over the years, many of us have valued our contact with Mr. Denktash as the representative of the other Cypriot community. He will understand, I am sure, when I say—perhaps he shares this feeling—that many of us have found the discussions in which we have engaged exceptionally frustrating. He may well have found the same with us. It must be understood—this was mentioned earlier—that the Turkish Cypriot community has an absolute right to have its security and human rights guaranteed. They are in no sense a second-class community on the island of Cyprus. They enjoy, and deserve to enjoy, equal political status. I am not interested in counting heads, as evidence from around the world, including parts of the United Kingdom, proves that counting heads and saying, "This is a majority community and that is a minority community," does not help to solve problems. It helps to make them worse and to keep them going. That is why I say—I hope that Mr. Denktash will accept this, and that it may encourage him in the contacts that are about to resume—that in no sense does anybody regard the Turkish Cypriot community as second class. They have equal political status. They are entitled to a full say, not just in a settlement to the Cyprus question but in the negotiations concerning Cyprus's admission to the European Union. Seats have been reserved by the Government of Cyprus for representatives from the Turkish Cypriot communities to take part in the negotiations. Given political willingness, ways can be found—and are found, by the representative in Nicosia—to consult and to try to involve them informally in the lead-up to the detailed negotiations. There is no substitute for their taking their proper place. I hope that Mr. Denktash will seize this new opportunity—heaven knows, as a number of hon. Members have been saying for long enough, it is a glorious opportunity, the best for years—for leaders of both communities to take part in the negotiations. They are getting on a bit, they have seen it all, they studied together and qualified in law in London, and no doubt sank a pint or two, donkey's years back. Now, as they look forward to their active careers in politics perhaps coming to an end, is it really beyond their wit, on behalf of the two Cypriot communities which they lead, to sit down, to put their differences on the table, but to come to the conclusion that they have more in common than not? There are large issues to be settled. I have mentioned security. There is the question of freedom of movement on the island and the vexed question of the settlers brought in from Turkey. Those questions are not easy, but if there is a willingness to find a solution, a solution can be found. As the hon. Member for North Thanet said earlier, despite all the stumbling blocks, potholes and other things that can go wrong, the opposing factions in South Africa and the middle east have found ways of sitting down, talking to each other and committing themselves to a process the end result of which is agreement. Both sides in those examples, and many others around the world, committed themselves to success. We have a right now to say to Mr. Denktash and President Klerides that we expect them to seize the opportunity later this month of the renewed contacts and to accept their solemn responsibility and duty to bring peace, stability and security to both Cypriot communities. That is to the benefit of both and in the interests of the whole.12.1 pm
I require only a couple of minutes, so I have allowed as many hon. Members to speak as possible. The House has heard me speak on this subject at four or five-weekly intervals during the past three years and I have nothing new to add.
I compliment the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) on his brave and excellent maiden speech. I add my thanks to a number of others for his compliments to his predecessor, Dr. Ian Twinn. He is a friend of mine of some 20 or 30 years, standing, so I am particularly grateful to him for that. Ian Twinn spent a great deal of time in what was my office and is now the Minister of State's office in the Foreign Office pursuing precisely this issue. The hon. Member for Edmonton has honourably maintained the tradition of adopting a high profile in representing his constituents on the issue. He took a balanced view, which was also reflected in the speech made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett). The hon. Member for Edmonton said that he wants Britain to restore the unity of Cyprus. I think that there is agreement on that throughout the House. This is not a partisan matter. This has been a largely non-partisan debate, with the exception of some ill-informed comments from the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale). I have obeyed a strict self-denying ordinance on the subject for three years, trying not to score party political points about something that affects the lives and futures of so many people in Cyprus. I wish that he would do the same. The hon. Member for Edmonton said that he wanted Cyprus to have a higher profile on the international agenda. The Conservative Government achieved just that. Malcolm Rifkind created a precedent by being the first Foreign Secretary to go there for some 30 years. We appointed our own special representative and fought hard in the EU and in the United Nations to have the issue resolved, often at some political cost. The Minister will find the same problems as he takes up the issue and I am sure that he, too, will find it hard. We are all committed to obtaining a peaceful and equitable solution to this tragic problem. There were a number of other cogent and valuable contributions today, most notably from my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), but from others as well, with which I found much to agree. This is my first opportunity to congratulate the Minister of State on his appointment. I look forward to his matching my grey hairs during the next few years, as a result of dealing with not just the Cyprus issue, but a number of others which will test him. I pledge all necessary personal support to the aim of obtaining a peaceful and equitable solution to this tragic problem in the next few years.12.4 pm
I begin by congratulating you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment. By reputation, you are an affable man, but I know the other side of you. You are a stern and firm man when necessary. We look forward to that latter quality when the Government are in trouble, as no doubt we will be on some occasions in the next five years. However, I know that you will retain the impartiality in your current responsibility that you showed in your past responsibilities.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) on his foresight in making an early application for this debate which the past hour has shown to be of considerable interest to hon. Members. It is a great credit to him that he has chosen to make his maiden speech on this subject. He said that Lord Graham had been the voice of Edmonton. After my hon. Friend's excellent contribution, there will be a new voice of Edmonton, which the House will look forward to hearing on a number of occasions in the future. He was generous to his predecessors, eloquent, knowledgeable about his constituency and committed to the subjects on which he feels strongly. It is a credit to him that he was able to make such a speech today. New hon. Members may not be aware that, for an Adjournment debate, this has been well attended. Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend on choosing a subject of such interest to so many hon. Members. There have been many good contributions. I thank the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis) for his kind remarks on my appointment and for his commitment that the Conservative party will do what it can to seek a settlement of the Cyprus issue. He referred to my pending grey hairs. One learns one or two secrets in opposition in that regard and I shall be happy to see him afterwards to give him some advice which he may wish to follow. I can assure him that being an Opposition spokesperson is a tiring business. There is a lot of campaigning to do which can result in more grey hairs than might be acquired even in government. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Clarke) says, Falkirk supporters are even more afflicted by that trouble than others. The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) asked whether the Government would have a determined attitude on Cyprus and I can assure him that they will. My hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant), with whom I have had a long association on foreign affairs and other matters, made a knowledgeable contribution. I was particularly impressed by his emphasis on the contributions of both the Greek and Turkish communities in his constituency and in neighbouring constituencies to the economic and social fabric of the communities in which they live. I can also give an assurance to my hon. Friend. He said that this Government, as the inheritors of a guarantor power, have a definite responsibility towards Cyprus. I assure him that that is certainly the case. I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) that, in looking forward to the British presidency, we have Cyprus very high up the list of our international obligations. We will consult widely on how best we can proceed to raise the issue and to persuade others to reach a settlement. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) emphasised that a settlement in Cyprus and accession to the European Union would be of benefit to both communities, but that one community might benefit more than the other. That point was well made, and well taken at the Dispatch Box. It is right that Cyprus should be among the first foreign affairs subjects to command the House's attention this Parliament. As hon. Members have made clear, the history of Cyprus is long and tragic. It has been recounted on many occasions in the House, and we have heard further contributions today recalling the suffering and loss that the Cypriot people have endured over many years. That strife has scarred the people of the island and has led to a culture of hostility and suspicion in both communities. That is intolerable for present and future generations of Cypriots, and unacceptable and intolerable for the international community. There can be no doubt that successive failures to address those divisions has left Europe with a dangerously unstable region in the eastern Mediterranean. That is why emphasis was laid in the debate on the Loyal Address on the Government's commitment to work actively in support of the UN for a lasting settlement of the Cyprus conflict. The question that citizens in this country and those in Cyprus will be asking is whether progress towards peace is realistic. I do not have to remind the House of the difficult start to 1997. Indeed, hon. Members who have contributed to the debate have already emphasised that point. The recent violence followed the violence that marked much of 1996. I hope that both sides of the House will agree on the need to work for a comprehensive, political settlement in Cyprus, establishing a bizonal, bicommunal federation comprising two politically equal communities. Despite the setbacks, the United Nations, supported by the international community, has been working hard with both parties since March to prepare the way for face-to-face negotiations. The preparatory process has been taken as far as it can; real progress, as the House knows, can be made only through direct talks. We therefore support the UN's aim of convening face-to-face negotiations within a few weeks. It is important that the ground we have gained this year is not lost. Of course, problems remain, but the prospects for getting both parties to talk to each other under UN mediation are now better than they have been for a long time. I therefore urge the leaders of both communities to respond positively to an invitation to negotiations from the UN Secretary-General. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will pursue that process in talks later today with the Foreign Minister of Cyprus. There is a heavy burden of responsibility on the shoulders of the leaders of both communities to negotiate a settlement. I know that they are aware of the responsibility and I urge them to exercise it wisely. There is an equal burden of responsibility on each and every Cypriot to make any settlement work. I noticed that many Cypriots across the divide were prepared to make the first, tentative steps—to gather at a bicommunal concert in Nicosia on 19 May. The success of that concert is encouraging and I hope that more Cypriots will take up future offers to attend similar bicommunal events. They are crucial in breaking that familiar stranglehold of suspicion which we all know exists. Of course, there will be those do not wish to see a peace process through reconciliation. Some tried, but failed, to disrupt the concert I referred to. I congratulate the authorities on both sides on the firm stance they took with the protesters. Those wreckers see peace coming not through reconciliation but only through the dominance of one side over the other. They aim to inspire fear and to deter those who want to take part and genuinely want to extend the hand of friendship. They will fail, however, for negotiation and reconciliation are the only paths to a lasting peace in Cyprus. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton reminded us of the tragedy of family life on the island of Cyprus and my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham made the same point. Families on one side of the line have not been to visit their relatives for 20 years or more. When the wreckers consider their tactics, they should think of the plight of those families and others. I have said that we hope that if face-to-face negotiations are convened, both leaders will work constructively with the UN Secretary-General's negotiator, Diego Cordovez, and his team. The parties must be ready to do business; there will be much to do and many issues need to be addressed, including security, territory, refugees, the provisions of a new constitution, the powers of the zones, the powers of the federation and voting mechanisms. Those are just some of the matters of important concern. The issues may appear impossibly complex to many of us, although many of the hon. Members in the House today have been acquainted with those problems and complexities for many years. Fortunately, the parties do not have to start from scratch. The useful work left over from previous attempts to negotiate a settlement provides a good starting point. The "Set of Ideas", for example, is a useful quarry. The parties themselves also have a depth of experience and knowledge of much of the detail. We look to them to apply that knowledge with the political will, the determination and the vision to make possible the compromises that will be inevitable to ensure success. Nobody, including the UN, can impose a settlement. Ultimately, it is for the Cypriots themselves to decide their future and they now have an historic opportunity to do so. Hon. Members and people in the country have asked about the role of the United Kingdom in the negotiations. We stand ready to help in any way. We recognise that we have a historical and moral duty to do so. As the House will know, we have reappointed Sir David Hannay as UK special representative for Cyprus. He will visit Cyprus, Greece and Turkey next week, and he will continue to help both sides with advice, encouragement and support. I have no doubt that our help and that of the international community will be more than ever needed in the months ahead. We must, however, be guided on some matters by the UN mediator, Diego Cordovez, on how best we and others can assist. I know from the contributions in the debate today that hon. Members on both sides will want us to do our utmost.I congratulate my hon. Friend on his new position. Is it the Government's position that they should reconvene a meeting of the guarantor powers? My hon. Friend mentioned Sir David Hannay, who would go as an ambassador to the various guarantor powers. Has my hon. Friend considered the British Government themselves calling a meeting of the guarantor powers to discuss the matter?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. I assure him that the British Government want to see the parties brought together. Our view is that it would be better for us to use our best endeavours to bring those parties together under the United Nations rather than to reconvene a meeting, as we believe that that would have more impact and would probably be easier to achieve.
I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his new position. I did not seek to intervene earlier because many hon. Members wished to contribute to the debate. I assure the hon. Gentleman that he will have the support of the whole House and certainly that of Liberal Democrat Members in pursuit of the policies he has outlined. If the British Government can play an active role in concert, of course, with the United Nations in seeking a lasting settlement in Cyprus, the Minister will certainly have the support of Liberal Democrat Members.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that commitment and his reassurance. I can give him a reciprocal assurance that when new issues and initiatives arise, we shall endeavour to keep every group of interests well briefed on developments. That would include hon. Members—and, indeed, the parties that they represent—who have shown an interest in seeking a settlement in Cyprus.
We know that negotiation will not resolve itself quickly, as has been said. We are not talking about one make-or-break negotiating session. Indeed, we do not necessarily expect to find a solution this year. Hon. Members will recognise that the process will need to take account of the impending presidential elections in the Republic of Cyprus in February 1998. That is not however an excuse for standing still, and we hope that progress will be made on a number of key issues. The negotiating process needs a basis to ensure that progress continues in early 1998. We are ready to help the United Nations manage any break in the negotiating process. As hon. Members know only too well, a settlement cannot be achieved easily, but the consequences of another failure would be grave. On the other hand, a settlement would mean an end to the tragedies that have been described in the debate, an end to the continuing spiral of arms purchases that has made Cyprus the tinder box it is today and an improvement in the climate of relations between Greece and Turkey. I turn to the European Union dimension. The prospect of Cyprus's accession to the EU brings a new opportunity to make progress towards a settlement. Accession negotiations are due to open six months after the end of the intergovernmental conference under our EU presidency. We expect that that important initiative will begin on time. We welcome the prospect of Cyprus's accession to the EU and hope that it will stimulate both sides to make progress towards a settlement through direct talks hosted by the UN. I should make it clear again that no third party can have any veto over that process. We believe that membership of the EU will benefit all Cypriots in terms of political and economic co-operation and the social benefits that EU citizens enjoy. As has been said, Cyprus itself can make a substantial contribution to EU activities. Above all, a settlement of the Cyprus problem will mean that that troubled island will start the new millennium with confidence, vigour and hope. I am pleased that hon. Members have been so committed to helping to find a settlement that can allow that to happen. The Government make the same commitment.Order. We move to the next debate, on arrangements for Prime Minister's Question Time.
Prime Minister's Question Time
12.22 pm
I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service on his appointment. I believe that it is some time since Liverpool has had a Minister in Her Majesty's Government. I am only sorry that he should have to answer and support a case of such weakness, but I have no doubt that he will plough through it.
Almost the first act of the new Government, which was announced by press release when the House had not fully convened, was to allow the Prime Minister to get away from having to answer to Parliament twice a week. That act, which was carried without consultation, is entirely contrary to the unanimous recommendation of the Procedure Committee. The recommendation was most carefully made, following the taking of much evidence—including, somewhat unusually, from three previous Prime Ministers. The recommendation in paragraph 41 of the Procedure Committee's report reads:The report was unanimously agreed by the Committee, which included four Labour Members, one of whom is now a Minister. They were the hon. Members for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley), for Burnley (Mr. Pike), for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), and for West Ham (Mr. Banks), who is now a Minister. The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) also voted in favour. The view taken by the Procedure Committee was given definite and specific backing. Such evidence may be enough—but, stop, is there something more? I remind the House that there is. On page 43 of the report, a letter reads:"We are not persuaded that a change, under the existing format for Prime Minister's Questions, to one 30 minute session a week is desirable."
mark the word "sessions""I can see a good case for a radical overhaul of Prime Minister's Questions to replace the existing pattern with a once weekly session of half an hour in which there is more of an opportunity to probe the Prime Minister in depth … I very much doubt that any Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition has ever actually looked forward to 3.15 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These sessions"—
That evidence was given not by a Conservative Minister but by the Prime Minister when he was Leader of the Opposition. During the election campaign, the Prime Minister repeated the phrase "Trust me" many times, but it is proving a fairly hollow entreaty as the Blair Government set about riding roughshod over the rights and duties of Parliament to hold the Executive to account. Let us consider the issue in a logical sequence and consider the arguments put by the Leader of the House, who I am sorry is not in her place to defend her action. I believe that the decision was forced on her and was not of her own choosing. The Prime Minister rejected absolutely the concept of the right of the Leader of the Opposition to have a go at the Prime Minister twice a week—which had been his right. He had made it nearly mandatory to ask three supplementary questions each session, totalling six questions a week—at least two being carefully prepared soundbites ensuring that some damaging comment was made about the Government. The President of the Council said that it was necessary to implement the decision immediately or it would never be implemented. She must understand that that is nonsense, given that there is a motion on today's Order Paper to set up a Committee to look into the matter. One presumes that that Committee's recommendations will be carried. Why, therefore, was there a need to rush the matter through without proper consultation, which previous Governments and Lord Presidents of the Council had always allowed whenever alterations to procedure were considered? The moment that he came to power, the Prime Minister ran away from the concept of having Prime Minister's questions twice a week. He claimed that Parliament was not served by them and that a session once a week would be more serious and would allow more questions to be asked. With the open-ended question still in operation, Prime Minister's questions will not become more constructive or more serious. Yes, we may get through one or two more questions in a single 30-minute session than with the Tuesday and Thursday routine, but why? Because the Prime Minister, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, used to take up between 25 per cent. to 40 per cent. of the 15-minute session with his questions and the answers to them. Anyone will realise that the major sufferer under the new regime will be the Leader of the Opposition. He will not be called six times by Madam Speaker in the 30-minute session. Of course we will get through one or two more Back-Bench questions, but at whose expense? It will be at the Leader of the Opposition's expense. I am certain that that will not displease the Prime Minister. He has now made six equal three. That is imaginative mathematics even for the new Labour Government. Of real concern, as hon. Members who have been here for some time will know, is the topical aspect to Prime Minister's Question Time. Subjects for questions to the Prime Minister on Thursday afternoons often arose from the Cabinet meeting on Thursday mornings. Now, the chance to ask those questions will not arise for six days. The Sunday papers will often have already presented the Government's view and the topicality will have gone six days later. A side issue is that the most popular time for the public to request orders for the Gallery was for the twice-weekly sessions of Prime Minister's Question Time. The orders for those sessions were like gold dust, but the public will now have only half the opportunities to see the Prime Minister at work. The public outside will see the Prime Minister under fire only once a week on television. The twice-weekly sessions used to be very popular. We will make Prime Minister's Question Time more constructive only when we limit the open-ended question, as I have said. That was resisted by Labour Members in opposition because, they argued, Prime Minister's questions would lose their topicality. That argument becomes even stronger if what is topical on Wednesday evening or Thursday cannot be dealt with until six days later. The change will reduce the chance of removing the limitation of the open-ended questions, which is the one way in which the Procedure Committee argued we could make Prime Minister's Question Time more serious and more constructive. The move by the Prime Minister amounts to limits on the Opposition that he absolutely refused to accept when he was in opposition. Nobody can tell me differently, because I argued personally with the Prime Minister's staff in his office on that point. When in opposition, he wanted no alteration to the existing pattern."are however a fundamental part of our parliamentary democracy, and a part that is now familiar to the public."
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I participated in the Procedure Committee's inquiry into the subject. Does he acknowledge that it would have been much better to have the debate as soon as possible after publication of the Procedure Committee's report? The debate could have been accommodated within the business of the House by the previous Government, but they never gave us the opportunity to debate it. We could have heard the arguments, including those from the then Leader of the Opposition, before the general election. We could have had a good debate using that experience and the report before us, instead of leaving the report hanging in the air without any conclusion, as unfortunately happened under the previous Government.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the previous Leader of the House, Mr. Tony Newton, proceeded with procedural changes only if there was general agreement between the usual channels. It was the specific refusal of the Opposition to agree to the Government's proposal to provide Government time that meant that the debate did not take place. I should know, because I negotiated with the Leader of the House to try to arrange the debate. It was specifically because the then Leader of the Opposition did not wish to change the existing practice—he did not want to incorporate the suggestions that we were making—that the report was not considered by the House.
Proper parliamentary reform must always be conducted with the mutual agreement of the majority of hon. Members. When reform has been thrust through by one party, it has usually failed. I know that better than most, having been the Chairman of the Procedure Committee for 14 years. The Prime Minister is refusing to allow himself to be questioned as every Prime Minister has been questioned for the past 35 years. Why? It must either be because he is willing to treat the House of Commons with disdain, or because he is afraid of being cross-questioned by his peers twice a week. He admitted in his letter to the Procedure Committee that he does not look forward to that.The right hon. Gentleman says that the Prime Minister is frightened to answer questions. If so, why has my right hon. Friend introduced changes that will lead to more questions, not fewer?
The hon. Gentleman cannot have been listening to me. What the Prime Minister has done is to turn six into three.
indicated dissent.
The hon. Member should not shake his head. When the Prime Minister was Leader of the Opposition, he asked six questions in the two sessions. If the Leader of the Opposition has the chance to ask only three questions once a week, Back Benchers will obviously have more time for questions.
As I was saying, either the Prime Minister is afraid of being cross-questioned by his peers or he wishes to limit the House's ability to hold the Executive to account. Whichever is true, it is ignoble and it shows an arrogance and disdain for Parliament. It shows a contempt more normally associated with some of the so-called democratic leaders of banana republics. What have we seen in the Session so far? No statement was made to the House on the alteration of the role of the Bank of England; no statement was made to the House on the defence review; and no statement was made to the House about the changes that will protect the Prime Minister from having to come to the House twice a week. The phrase "Trust me" has a hollow ring indeed, when it comes to protecting the rights of Parliament.12.37 pm
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) for allowing me a moment or two£
Order. Does the hon. Gentleman have the permission of the Minister to speak? In Adjournment debates such as this, it is not enough to have the permission of the initiator of the debate. He must have the permission of the Minister who is to reply. Does he have that permission?
I was not informed, but I do not object to the hon. Member speaking in the debate.
I am grateful to the Minister and I congratulate him on his new office. I am sure that this will be the first of many occasions on which he is here to answer Adjournment debates.
I fully endorse everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon said. He gave us a careful and accurate analysis of the factual and historical background to the discussions about the format for Prime Minister's questions. As he said, one of the consequences of the change has been to reduce by half the opportunity for the Leader of the Opposition to question the Prime Minister. I regret that, because that questioning has been an important part of exchanges in the House twice a week for many years. The change is not one for the better.Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that in any case, the arithmetic of the House has changed the status of the Leader of the Opposition, as there are now three major parties in the House? Do not the new arrangements rightly reflect that change, by recognising the fact that the leader of the third party should have more opportunities than he had in the past?
As the hon. Gentleman has raised the point, I can tell him that the third party now has about a quarter of the number of seats that the second party has, yet is being allowed two thirds of the opportunities to ask the Prime Minister questions. Had the previous arrangements remained in force, it would have had one third of the opportunities, so even that was disproportionately weighted in favour of the third party. The arrangements are now enormously weighted in its favour. Clearly that change is welcome to the third party, but it is in no way justified by the change in the parliamentary arithmetic.
My quarrel is not so much with the nature of the changes, which could have been the subject of a debate, as with the manner in which they were announced.The hon. Gentleman said that the change was in no way justified, but does he acknowledge that as the Leader of the Opposition now represents only half as many Members as he did before, it might be appropriate for him to have half the number of opportunities at Question Time?
The tradition in the House has been to allow the Leader of the Opposition, whoever he is, whichever party he represents, and almost regardless of the number of seats, to ask questions. I am thinking of the House in 1983, when the Labour party had only slightly more seats than the Conservative party has now. No one in any party in the House then suggested that because the Labour party had suffered a severe setback at the general election, its opportunities to ask the Prime Minister questions should be reduced.
However, all that is to some extent beside the point. The issue here is the way in which the decision was taken and announced, without consultation with any Back Bencher. I regret that, as, I think, do many Members on both sides of the House. When the Minister replies, he could be very brief, although I shall ensure that he gets his 15 minutes—I think that that is usually the length of speech prepared for a Minister replying to an Adjournment debate. The most useful thing that he could do would be to acknowledge that on this occasion an inexperienced Government and Prime Minister made a mistake. The matter could be largely put right by a forthright apology. It is nothing to be ashamed of if mistakes are made when there is a new boy in the job. Questions in the House, whether to the Prime Minister or to any other Minister, are important, especially for Back Benchers. In the present era, the Minister without Portfolio and his Government thought-police are hellbent on controlling every utterance of Labour Back Benchers. I do not know how long that control will be effective—I doubt whether it will last until 2002—but for the time being it remains, so it is Back Benchers from the various Opposition parties who are most affected by the change. It has already been agreed between the two sides of the House that the total number of questions asked by Back Benchers has not been reduced; I do not suggest that it has, although the immediacy of those questions is certainly reduced by the change from two sessions to one. However, given that, with their huge majority, it is clear that the Government ultimately have the power to force through any change in parliamentary procedure that they wish, it is an act of extraordinary arrogance for the Government and the Leader of the House to make such a change without consulting even one Back Bencher on either side of the House. Coupled with the way in which the Leader of the House has acted ruthlessly to prevent debate on large chunks of the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill, those actions do not bode well for the health of parliamentary debate or of democracy. They certainly do not sit easily with the Government's repeatedly proclaiming their commitment to openness and accountability, and their wish to be the servants, not the masters, of the people. I believe that the Minister's reply could be brief. He could simply say, "Yes, we were wrong. Yes, we are sorry—and now we shall engage in a belated process of consultation."12.43 pm
As I have not yet had the privilege of speaking from the Dispatch Box as a member of the Government, nor with you in the Chair, Mr. Martin, I first extend my congratulations to you. It gives me great pleasure to congratulate you formally.
I shall set out the Government's position unequivocally. Put simply, it is that the procedure report did not win general acceptance, that changing the rota for oral questions is an administrative matter, as I shall go on to substantiate, that the change needed to be introduced without delay—carrying out a widespread consultation, as the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) suggested, would have been virtually impossible—that the structure of Prime Minister's questions can be reviewed by the Select Committee on the modernisation of the House of Commons, and finally, that the new system is far better than the old. The House will be grateful to the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) for giving us the opportunity to debate one of our most important procedures. In previous Parliaments, the right hon. Gentleman played a distinguished part as Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure, as we all know. As he said, his total service in that role amounts to 14 years. His speech introducing the debate showed evidence of a wide knowledge and of long experience of all aspects of the procedure of the House. In recent years there has been considerable dissatisfaction with the way in which Prime Minister's questions were conducted. That was felt not only outside the House, where many people watch the event live on television, but inside the House. The former Prime Minister made it clear several years ago that he thought that the time could be used more productively. Responding to that desire for change, the Procedure Committee carried out its inquiry. Its report, and the evidence on which it was based, made a valuable contribution to the debate, and I am sure that the House is grateful to the right hon. Member for East Devon and his colleagues on the Committee for the work that they put into that report. The Committee's main recommendation was that instead of tabling open questions that gave no idea of the subject that the questioner wished to raise, the 10 Members successful in the ballot should have to table a substantive question the day before. The Committee made a respectable case for that proposal but, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pointed out at the time, doing away with open questions altogether would cause controversy. As the right hon. Member for East Devon will agree, there will always be controversy about suggested procedural changes in the House. The Conservative Government at the time did not accept the recommendation, which does not seem to have won the support of the House as a whole, either. As the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) reminded us, it was the Conservative Government who prevented proper and open debate on such matters. If he reads column 631 of Hansard for 11 July 1996, he will see that the Procedure Committee's report was tagged on to a debate at that stage in the parliamentary process. It was the Conservative Government who prevented debate, not a lack of willingness on the part of the then Labour Opposition. The previous Government were in no hurry to act on the recommendations of the Procedure Committee. The Committee's report was not debated for a year, and then only as part of an Adjournment debate on the subject of parliamentary procedure. In that debate the former Leader of the House, Tony Newton, made clear his reservations about the suggested change, pointing out that it would make it more difficult to put topical questions to the Prime Minister. The new Government took office on 1 May with a manifesto commitment to modernise the House of Commons, and in particular to make Prime Minister's questions more effective. As a first step in that direction, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House announced on 9 May that there would be one half-hour session of Prime Minister's questions every week, to provide further scope for covering more issues in depth. That did not require a change in Standing Orders, only a change in the rota for oral questions. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate the fact that the rota needs to be settled before the State Opening of Parliament, so that when the Table Office opens that morning, Members will know which Ministers will answer questions on which days. The sensible course was, therefore, to move to the new arrangements right from the start, rather than cause confusion by changing the rota half way through the Session. Members who say that they are not necessarily against the changes we have made but complain that they should have been consulted first—such as the hon. Member for South Suffolk—ought to recognise that, in the circumstances, that was impracticable. Governments of all political persuasions have changed the questions rota from time to time in response to changes in ministerial responsibility and other factors. This Session's rota would in any case have been different from last Session's to reflect the Prime Minister's decision to bring together the Departments of the Environment and of Transport under the Deputy Prime Minister, and to create the new Department of International Development. The Prime Minister's place on the rota has been changed several times before. Way back in Mr. Gladstone's time, questions to the Prime Minister were taken last; then at question No. 51; then at question No. 45; then at question No. 40 on Tuesdays and Thursdays; and then at 3.15 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The changes we are discussing mean that the Prime Minister still answers questions for 30 minutes each week—just as the Prime Minister did before.One of the criticisms from Opposition Members concerns the lack of consultation. Yet two years ago, the Prime Minister announced his intention to improve Prime Minister's Question Time. He consulted the electorate on this proposal, and my hon. Friend will agree that he is right to make the change.
The Prime Minister has made clear repeatedly his intention to make the House more in tune with the needs of the 21st, rather than the 19th, century. As a result, he received a ringing endorsement from the electorate on 1 May. That should be borne in mind by Opposition Members.
The Minister listed the historical changes made to Prime Minister's Question Time. The records show that those changes were all made following consultation with all parties. The present change was made without such consultation. Labour's manifesto—which, for greater accuracy, I looked up this morning—says:
Most people believe that that comes about by the open-ended question, and not necessarily by any alteration in timing."Prime Minister's Question Time will be made more effective".
If the right hon. Gentleman bears with me, I will show how increased effectiveness is offered by the new arrangements for Prime Minister's Question Time. I would argue that, far from being a diminution of the rights of Back Benchers, our changes will give Back Benchers greater opportunity to put questions to the Prime Minister and will therefore make them a far more effective mechanism within the House.
The other change, which was made with the agreement of Madam Speaker, is that the Prime Minister no longer refers back to the earlier question about his engagements. Instead, the hon. Member tabling the question goes straight to his or her supplementary question without any preliminaries, which were pointless, repetitive and difficult for members of the public to understand. This sensible reform was suggested by the Committee in its report, and I see that the Chairman of the Committee, the right hon. Member for East Devon, is nodding. The change will open up what happens in this House to a less esoteric audience than Members of Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has moved quickly to propose the creation of a new Select Committee to consider the modernisation of the House of Commons. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for East Devon for indicating his support for this idea when he spoke in the debate on the eve of the spring recess. I hope that the new Committee will review the changes introduced by the Government to Prime Minister's Question Time, and it may wish also to look at some of the other reforms that have been suggested, such as doing away with open questions altogether and reducing the period of notice required for specific questions. The House will then be able to look again at Prime Minister's Question Time, if it wishes, with the benefit of advice from the Select Committee and with greater experience of the new format. It is a little early to draw any conclusions, since Prime Minister's Question Time this afternoon will be only the second to be held under the new arrangements. None the less, I believe that it is instructive to compare Prime Minister's Question Time on 21 May with what happened on the last two such occasions in the last Parliament. On 18 and 20 March, a total of nine Back Benchers were able to put supplementary questions to the Prime Minister. On 21 May, 18 Back Benchers were called. On 18 March, the House reached only Question 3 on the Order Paper, while on 20 March we did not get past the first question. On 21 May, the House finished at Question 10. On 20 March—as has been pointed out—the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was called once. On 21 May, he was called twice, enabling him to go into his chosen topic in greater depth. That was one of the reasons for making the change to a half-hour session. Even more importantly—although this is not something which can be proved with numbers—I think that every hon. Member who was present would agree that the tone of Prime Minister's Question Time on 21 May was infinitely more positive and constructive than in the last Parliament. I am sure that it will do much to raise the standing of this House in the country at large if we can continue in this spirit throughout the Parliament. Unfortunately, the right hon. Member for East Devon could not resist some jibes at the expense of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. First, he said that when my right hon. Friend was the Leader of the Opposition, he took up a disproportionate time during Prime Minister's Question Time. I may be alone in my recollections, but I seem to remember that the orchestrated interruptions by the then Conservative majority prevented the proper conduct of Prime Minister's Question Time and, on occasion after occasion, prevented my right hon. Friend from presenting his case and asking questions in an orderly fashion. Thankfully, because of a new approach from the new Government, that will no longer obtain. Secondly, I find farcical the suggestion by the right hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister is afraid to come here to answer questions, given the mandate that he and the Government have been given. I reject that out of hand. We have to get away from such jibes, and members of this Government will try to do so in a responsible fashion. I was sad to hear the right hon. Member for East Devon state that we were conducting the government of this country like a banana republic. That was a gratuitously offensive remark about a new Government who have come in at a rate of knots to effect changes that we set out clearly in our manifesto, which, I repeat, gained a ringing endorsement on 1 May.Is the Minister suggesting that merely because a commitment has been contained in a manifesto, the need for subsequent parliamentary scrutiny and consultation about the details of implementing the proposal is removed? If that is the case, it is a very serious threat to this country.
I am not saying that at all. First, we are a responsible Government who want to bring the procedures of this House up to speed with the demands of the 21st century rather than the 19th. Secondly, it is self-evident that the Prime Minister and the Government were given solid support by the electorate on 1 May for making those necessary changes.
I assure the right hon. Member for East Devon that the Prime Minister is just as accountable to the House as he was before; that he answers questions for as long now as he did before; that a question which could have been put to the Prime Minister before can be put to the Prime Minister now; and that all the new arrangements can be reviewed by a Select Committee of this House. I am sure that the new format for Prime Minister's Question Time is a considerable improvement on the old. I believe that this view will be shared by right hon. and hon. Members of all parties in increasing numbers.
Gps (Sunderland)
12.59 pm
I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment. I have already done so privately, but I take the opportunity to do so formally, on the record, and I wish you all the best in the years ahead.
I am pleased to get the chance to have this debate today, because it is no exaggeration to say that the subject is the most important one that I have dealt with in my five years in the House. It is the cause of considerable concern to my constituents and to various people in the medical profession. I have a little difficulty, because I must praise both the British Medical Association, in the form of Dr. Patnaik, who has sent me quite a lot of information, and Clare Dodgson, the chief executive of Sunderland health authority, who has done likewise. The trouble is that their figures do not quite coincide. The one thing that is certain is that the average number of patients registered with a general practitioner in the country as a whole is about 1,800. In Sunderland, the worst figure suggested by the BMA is an average of 2,400 patients. That is a long way above the national average—one third or 33; per cent. extra. Even the lower figure suggested by Sunderland health authority, 2,200, is about 22 or 23 per cent. above the national average. The position is exacerbated by the fact that, according to the last survey that I read about the general health of the nation, Sunderland was in the bottom five health authorities for the state of the public's health. A GP in Sunderland has many more patients than he or she should have, and those patients are generally in a poorer condition. That term may sound impersonal, which I do not mean it to be, but that is the reality. The problem is not new. It has been known about since the early 1990s. Indeed, in 1994, when the health authority published its services review, the whole thrust was to take work away from the secondary sector and put it back into the primary sector. In other words, everyone seemed to think that it was a good idea to try to reduce the work load at hospitals and pass it back to GPs. At that time, many people warned the health authority that doctors could only just manage with the work load that they had then, let alone an increased load. At that time, the local medical committee, general practitioners, consultants, Sunderland community health council, local Members of Parliament—including my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), who has been vociferous on the issue—patients and many individuals expressed concerns and proposed alternative views but, unfortunately, as probably happened in many other areas, the health authority chose to ignore them. We warned at the time that crisis point would be reached in the service if something dramatic was not done to address the problem. Unfortunately, the resources that were supposed to be made available to augment and strengthen the primary sector relied on diverting money saved by a reduction in costs in the secondary sector. Three years on, we find that no resources have been moved from one sector to the other. Indeed, Sunderland health authority has stated publicly that the rundown in hospital facilities will, if necessary, be reduced until such time as the primary sector can deal with its problems. In their manifesto, the Government stated that there would be a Minister responsible for equalising the service that people can expect from the health service regardless of what part of the country they live in. It is not my intention to deliver a long tirade about what might or might not have been done. I am sure that everyone in the health sector recognises the problem, and endeavours have been made to improve the situation, but I am concerned when I hear about trying to take work away from GPs and give it to nurse practitioners, because I have not met a single member of the public who is in favour of that. If we want nurse practitioners to do doctors' work, they should be properly trained and paid as GPs. I must give credit to the GPs in Sunderland. The burden that they have and the disadvantages that they are working under are such that they must be really good people, or the service would have collapsed long ago. I know of no place in Britain where the GP:patient ratio is worse than in Sunderland. The health authority thinks that it has done all that it can. We might disagree at times about the best way forward—for example, I should like the career start scheme, allowing a young doctor to work in the area without the financial obligations of having to buy into a practice, which has been successful in Durham, to be tried in Sunderland. In addition to the current shortfall, there is not a single GP under 30 years of age working in Sunderland. The average age is almost 48, and the preponderance of people working in the service are in the 50 to 55, or 55 to 60 range. We even have four doctors who are between 65 and 70. With no disrespect to them, it should not be necessary for doctors to work after they are 65; there should be enough young doctors coming in to allow them to retire while they are still in reasonable health themselves. I want the Minister to contact the people on Sunderland health authority, try to come up with some new ideas, and perhaps appoint someone independent to consider the problem. No matter how hard the health authority is trying—and I give it its due—it is not having any effect and the situation is not improving. The citizens have a right to say that it is a Government responsibility to take the necessary action, to ensure that all areas have an equal health service. For me, the problem is the No. 1 priority in the health care sector in my constituency and in the Sunderland area as a whole. I get a little depressed when I find that the health authority intends to spend scarce resources on litigation to try to force Northumbrian Water to put fluoride in the water, when the vast majority of the public do not want that. It is even more depressing that the local hospital, which for many years—most of the century, as far as I am aware—was called Sunderland district general hospital, decided a few weeks ago to change its name to Sunderland Royal hospital, which will no doubt lead to extraordinary costs and will not result in one more patient receiving treatment or any improvement whatever for health service patients. I know that the Minister knows the Sunderland area well, and worked there at one time, and I wish him well in his new post. I hope that he will be able to see his way clear to trying to bring some relief to my fellow citizens in Sunderland, because the situation is extremely worrying; from being manageable, it could suddenly become completely unmanageable. When a couple of doctors retired in the middle of 1985, more than 1,000 of my constituents were struck off from the practice and had to find somewhere else. People have to travel all over the town. People are now only rarely able to go to surgeries within walking distance of where they live. So bad is the situation that the health authority employs someone full time to find places for citizens on doctors' panels. That cannot be a satisfactory situation. We need something doing, and urgently. Whatever measures are required to bring it about must be taken. It does not matter who takes them. I hope that the Minister will be more effective than his predecessors over the past four or five years. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South and I twice met Ministers in the previous Government. We have had numerous meetings with the local health authority; we have met the regional health authority. I do not doubt that there is plenty of good will, but we are not getting any movement. This is going to be a good test of our new Government in view of our commitment to improving the health service and reducing bureaucracy to get more patients treated.1.10 pm
I am glad to have the opportunity to reply to this debate, which I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) on securing and which is important to his constituents. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) also takes an active interest in the recruitment and retention of general practitioners in the city.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North rightly said, he and I have a great affinity for Sunderland, which is a great city. I spent two years working to keep the Sunderland shipyards open. I therefore have a great deal of sympathy with the points that he raised, and I thank him for raising them in such a considered way. I listened carefully to what he said about his and his constituents' concerns about the situation in Sunderland. Those concerns are shared by the Government. I especially realise that Sunderland has faced considerable challenges in relation to the high work load on existing GPs and the problems of recruiting new doctors. People in Sunderland deserve the best possible primary care services. Sunderland needs such services because of the situation that my hon. Friend described. There are high levels of mortality and morbidity, and real problems of social deprivation and poverty that have wholesale health implications. In that respect, I understand that Sunderland is engaged in a programme of urban regeneration and that the health authority is actively involved in a range of partnership initiatives with the city council and other organisations in an effort to promote healthier life styles, create job opportunities, improve housing and so on. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that those engaged in such activities are to be congratulated on their efforts; we wish them well. I hope that he also agrees that the new Government's approach on job creation, housing and public health will be of direct benefit to those local efforts. In addition to that general activity, Sunderland health authority, which is responsible for providing services in the area, is actively trying to redress the situation. It has taken several positive steps to promote recruitment and retention of GPs. I know that my hon. Friend recognises the commitment of the health authority chairman, the chief executive, to whom he paid tribute, and their colleagues on the ground to doing what they can. I was also pleased that Sunderland has at least made some efforts to listen to the views of the local community using the King's Fund citizens jury initiative, which highlighted several issues including making greater use of multidisciplinary teams working in primary care. I have read carefully the information that has been supplied to me about the progress that has been made in Sunderland, in trying to address some of the problems that my hon. Friend described. I was particularly struck by one initiative, the new out-of-hours emergency centre in the city, which is staffed by the deputising service and tries to relieve the out-of-hours work load on GPs. As my hon. Friend knows, that service became fully operational on 1 March last year. I understand that a recently completed evaluation by Sunderland's local medical committee showed it to be a great success. Patient satisfaction with the service was high, and a further survey of GPs in Sunderland has shown that a significant number of doctors would be willing to work sessions in a modern primary care centre. In the light of that progress, two further such centres are being opened in the city. I hope that those developments will make Sunderland more attractive to young doctors. My hon. Friend knows that there have been other initiatives, and highlighted one that he would like to be imported from a neighbouring area. I shall ask Sunderland health authority to explore that possibility. I want to build on those local efforts by pursuing policies nationally that I believe will help tackle Sunderland's GP recruitment problems. As my hon. Friend knows, Sunderland is an extreme case, but there are pockets of similar problems in other parts of the country. We intend to do what we can to take action to resolve them. I shall briefly describe some of the measures that are in hand. In the short time that we have been in government, I have, precisely because of the concerns that have been expressed by my hon. Friend and others, begun to consider in detail recruitment and retention issues in general practice. Family doctor services are the bedrock of the national health service. The Government believe that there is a need for overall work force policies that will attract high-calibre students into general practice. In the light of that view, I was concerned, as I said last week, by recently published figures that show that the number of GP trainees fell by more than one fifth over the decade between 1986 and 1996. While the falling number of GP trainees is a cause for concern, the issue cannot be seen in isolation. My hon. Friend made some important points about the relationship between the primary and secondary care sectors. We must ensure that we do not consider such issues in isolation, but take a holistic view of the national health service and the range of services that it provides. I intend to look carefully at how primary care is provided, how to get the balance right between secondary and primary care and how to encourage the work force to reflect that balance. We are aiming to integrate medical work force planning more closely across the primary and secondary sectors, so that in future the number of GPs and the number of hospital doctors will be considered together rather than in isolation. We shall talk to the medical profession about all those issues. We want to consider flexible working patterns to provide opportunities for change that address the needs of the work force while providing high-quality services for patients. We shall seek the views of the profession on what employment opportunities would better suit their needs and how any such needs could be addressed. We shall also consider opportunities under the National Health Service Primary Care Act 1997 for health authorities to improve the level and types of services that family doctors may provide. We shall also look at other options within the existing national contract, such as whether a salaried doctors scheme within the existing framework might provide some answers, particularly in areas with recruitment difficulties, such as Sunderland. I know that many health authorities have already explored that option, but have found several legal obstacles to its implementation. I shall consider ways in which we might move forward as soon as possible. We also realise the importance of retaining GPs and attracting back into practice qualified practitioners, especially the increasing proportion of female GPs. My view is extremely straightforward. The health service needs to develop much more family-friendly policies, if we are to recruit people into medical practice and retain them. The world has moved on and the medical profession is no longer a male bastion. With an increasing number of women GPs and doctors comes a need to consider flexibility so that their careers are no longer artificially moulded by outdated practices. I shall look carefully at that. I shall also examine how general practice retains its work force. We need policies that provide sufficient opportunities for doctors who wish to take career breaks but to retain skills so that they can re-enter general practice at a later date. In considering the needs of the work force, we shall also consider the effect on services. We need to ensure that we continue to build a strong family doctor service in which quality is the watchword. I believe that access to primary care services is a patient's fundamental right in the NHS. At the risk of repeating a point that was made by my hon. Friend, it may be worth giving just one statistic that will help to put the position in Sunderland into the national context. Average GP list sizes have been falling throughout the country, in some cases dramatically—by about 9 per cent. They stand now at an average of about 1,800 per doctor. The average list size in Sunderland is at least 2,200. I know that there are arguments about whether the health authority and the British Medical Association have got the figure right, but as my hon. Friend says, there is real anxiety that list sizes in Sunderland are much greater than in other parts of the country. Sunderland is working hard to improve that ratio while not compromising quality. I know that there have been discussions with the Medical Practices Committee of the BMA, which controls the distribution of GPs throughout England and Wales, to ensure that entry into general practice in Sunderland is planned to give the best services possible in the areas of greatest need. If my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North would like to submit evidence to me about the extent of the problem, if he thinks that the health authority has not quite got the measure of the problem, or if my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South would like to do so, I shall take a personal interest in what they have to say. I shall ask Sunderland health authority to identify the steps that it considers necessary to tackle the problems that my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North described. I shall take a personal interest in its response. I do not think that the problem persists for lack of trying to deal with it on the part of Sunderland health authority. It has embarked on a wide and impressive range of initiatives. My hon. Friend says that it has not cracked the problem. That may be true, but it has operated in a national environment that has not been conducive to attracting doctors into general practice or retaining them. It has become crystal clear to me in the past few weeks that there is real concern among GPs about their work load and the continual public pressures that they face. We shall have to deal with that. I know that there is particular stress and pressure in Sunderland, but it is fair to say that GP morale in the country as a whole is not what it was or should be.The fact that the number of patients per GP has dropped nationally at a time when the opposite has happened in Sunderland emphasises my point. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his offer to listen to representations from me and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). We shall certainly take advantage of that and arrange an early meeting with him to put our views to him privately.
I am always happy to oblige. It might be useful for us to do that. I shall ask Sunderland health authority to report on and assess as quickly as possible the initiatives that it has taken. As public money is involved, it is important that when new initiatives are set in train, a full evaluation is made of the action that has been taken and whether it has been successful. I shall also ask the health authority to describe in more detail the steps that it considers should be taken in future. We want to help as much as possible.
I give my hon. Friend an assurance that I shall take a personal interest in the issue. I also give him a more general assurance that the Government are determined to ensure that patients in all parts of Britain receive the GP services that they deserve.
1.26 pm
I add my congratulations to those of others on your appointment, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Before I go further, I need to declare an interest that I shall record in the Register of Members' Interests. I still serve as a local authority councillor in the London borough of Sutton. I shall make some references to Sutton and some initiatives that the council is taking.
It is appropriate that we are talking today about youth crime, given the early disclosure last week of the 1996 international crime victimisation survey. Whatever the official figures reveal about increases or decreases in crime, there can be no doubt that 18 years of Conservative government have produced a high-crime society. No Home Secretary or Government can be proud of that fact. The House cannot be satisfied or, indeed, safe, until we have taken steps to reduce crime and the fear of crime. Crime and the fear of crime affect the vulnerable in our society—the elderly, ethnic minorities, disabled people and women. Fear imprisons victims as surely as prison bars imprison offenders. It is important to bear it in mind that the most likely victims of crime are young people between the ages of 19 and 25. I wish to draw attention to a soundbite that was used before the general election by the then Opposition, now the Government. "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime," was the cry of the present Home Secretary when he was in opposition. I shall seek some reassurances today that one part of that equation has not been lost. Some statements since the election have made me fear that it might have been; that the transition between opposition and government has led the Home Secretary to drop the reference to being tough on the causes of crime. I strongly believe that simply to deal with the effects of crime—with its aftermath—is not an adequate response. I have no doubt that the Home Secretary is sincere when he talks about being tough on crime, but I urge Ministers to do all that they can to move away from the rhetoric and soundbites of the previous Home Secretary. The rhetoric failed to deal with the causes of crime and was unlikely to do anything to change criminal behaviour. On the face of it, there is little to oppose in the Government's emphasis on the idea of zero tolerance. However, that strategy fails to address the reality and clutches at what appears to be just one solution to a complex set of problems. I stress that crime is not susceptible to soundbite solutions. We need to attack crime and the causes of crime from as many different directions as possible. When in opposition, the current Home Secretary paid a number of visits to the United States, in particular New York, to look at the initiatives taken there. Those visits certainly helped to reinforce the image of an iron Home Secretary in waiting. From the further evidence taken from other American cities that have tried the zero tolerance initiative, it is clear that they have not delivered as great a reduction in crime as that recorded in New York. Moreover, other American cities have achieved even bigger reductions in crime without deploying the zero tolerance tactics. I understand from professionals in this field that one plausible explanation for the reduction in crime in New York is the reduced use of crack cocaine. That drug dependency causes many people to commit crime to feed their habit and causes violent and dangerous behaviour. Many professionals, including many of our senior police officers, do not believe that zero tolerance alone is the solution to our crime problems. I believe that what is necessary for success is to focus not just on the consequences, but on the causes of crime. We need a sophisticated, well-researched and successfully implemented strategy to tackle crime. It should be backed up by practical action carried out in partnership. Partnership is a much used word, indeed, it is becoming one of the buzzwords of the 1990s, but for some of us it has been the foundation of practical action for many years. To that end, I should like to recommend a report published by James Morgan, entitled "Safer Communities". It was commissioned by the previous Government and published in 1991. There is no better case for the need for partnership in tackling youth crime than that presented in the report. Sadly, it has been left on the shelf to collect dust because of a lack of political will to see it implemented. That report includes the following two recommendations:"As the provider of a range of services which directly impact on the causes of crime (such as education, housing and recreation) the local authority is a natural focus for co-ordinating, in collaboration with the police, the broad range of activities directed at improving community safety …
I hope that when the Minister responds he will say that the Government intend to enact those recommendations in their crime and disorder Bill so that local authorities are given the statutory force to develop community safety strategies. My local authority, the London borough of Sutton, has already taken the Morgan report recommendations to heart. In 1993, it appointed a community safety officer and it established a formal partnership with our local police and probation service. In 1994, that group produced a community safety action plan with the clear objectives of reducing the level of crime, lessening the fear of crime and creating a safer environment for community life to flourish. That first community safety action plan contained 29 specific projects, which were all completed within the designated two-year period. It is important to note that it is not just statutory agencies that are involved in the plan. Our partnership stretches well beyond that to include the voluntary and business sectors, to ensure a genuine strategic approach in Sutton. The 1994 and 1996 community safety action plans related to youth crime. Those innovative and imaginative schemes, which have been implemented in partnership, have been successful and produced a real reduction in crime. Although one can cast some doubt on the recorded statistics on crime, I believe that the largest reductions in reported crime in Sutton are as a direct result of the council's initiatives. If the Government are serious about reducing crime committed by young people, we need to understand what drives them to become offenders in the first place. If young people are the problem, they must also be part of the solution. That means that young people should be included and consulted when identifying the issues, deciding the strategy and taking action. Sutton's concern about crime stems from a particular group of young people who committed a large number of burglaries, mostly from retail premises, in my constituency. Back in 1992, they had the effrontery to leave calling cards that read, "999". Unfortunately, their fame was increased out of all proportion due to my predecessor's predilection for generating newspaper headlines. The more that that group of young people breathed the oxygen of publicity, the more crime that they, and other young people who imitated them, started to commit. In June 1994, my council commissioned some research to find out young people's attitude to crime in order to establish why they committed such acts. That study was undertaken by young people who had been trained in counselling and research. They spent time out on the streets speaking to individuals and gangs of young people. That research showed that although the crimes were committed by a small number of young people, a large proportion of them used a range of drugs which contributed to their criminal behaviour. As a result of that research, the council funded and promoted the Sutton youth awareness programme—YAP. That organisation provides services such as one-to-one counselling and treatment and advice to young people using drugs as well as other substances such as solvents and alcohol. It also set up a programme of preventive workshops in schools and offers training and consultancy for staff who work with young people. An outreach programme was also established in 1996. It is training a large number of young people to work in outreach teams on the streets with the aim of reducing the level of substance abuse and engaging young people in purposeful activities in their local community.in the longer term local authorities, working in conjunction with the police, should have a clear statutory responsibility for the development and stimulation of community safety and crime prevention programmes, and for progressing at a local level a multi-agency approach to community safety".
I declare an interest as a recorder of the Crown court and a former acting metropolitan stipendiary magistrate. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on initiating this important debate and I agree whole-heartedly with him about the need to tackle the causes of crime. From my experience, I believe that a great proportion of youth crime is connected with drugs and alcohol. Does he agree that the more work that can be concentrated on that problem, the greater the prospect of improvements?
I agree with the hon. Gentleman's good point. I am keen to stress that we need to do more to deal with the problems of solvent abuse and other forms of drug abuse.
I should like to describe how the initiatives taken in my area have borne fruit. A local shopping centre, Stonecot Hill, suffered from a number of minor crimes, which caused a considerable amount of damage to the premises of local retailers. In the spring of 1996, the council called a meeting of those businesses, which was also attended by the local police and representatives of the probation service as well as youth workers and representatives of the Sutton youth awareness programme. As a result of that meeting, a strategy was agreed to increase the number of police officers patrolling the area. Outreach staff have also started to talk to young people hanging around the streets. A graffiti project has been successfully implemented to engage those young people in productive work. The probation service, through its community services programme, has cleared up the area and painted and made repairs where necessary. Local traders suggested where murals might be painted and the first was completed in March 1997. The outreach teams have spent time with the young people for the past six months. Drug information and advice services have also been offered to young people, and those with more acute drug dependency problems have been referred for more extensive counselling and support. The council is also supplementing that initiative with the introduction of a closed circuit television camera at the local shopping centre, which is connected to the local control centre. It is important to note that that strategy has focused on the causes of crime, and in recent months the crime level has fallen to zero. In addition, it has helped to upgrade the area. It has brought together the traders and statutory agencies, who have agreed a programme of action. It has also diverted a significant number of young people from drifting into a life of crime and has prevented the inevitable spiral that leads to more serious offences. So far, I have described initiatives for young people on the verge of crime, but it is vital to try to work with those young people who have already fallen over the edge. One scheme in which my local authority of Sutton has become involved in recent years is the youth at risk programme. It was the second local authority to engage the youth at risk team. The team works with some of the most difficult children in our society and it has now run three programmes targeting persistent young offenders in Sutton. They are intensive programmes: residential courses are followed by a nine-month programme of training and one-to-one support. The programme was described in The Observer asYoung people involved in the initiative are able to reveal their backgrounds and experiences—many for the first time. The initiative often reveals very damaged children who have been abused, sexually and physically. Many of them have been through the care system and many have never experienced normal family life and the love of parent or parents. I do not say that to seek the House's pity for the children and I do not wish to pretend that the youth at risk programme turns them into angels—it does not. But it makes a difference to their lives and, as a consequence, to the communities in which they live. In National Volunteers Week, I want to pay particular tribute to the dedicated partners who play a part in the youth at risk programme. The volunteers allow the programme to succeed. We should pay tribute to them for riding the incredible roller-coaster of emotions involved in the programme. The youth at risk scheme has delivered positive results. It has shown that a large number of children with such problems in Sutton and other parts of the country can be diverted from offending—it has substantially reduced the level of offending. Many young people move back to employment or return to school as a result of the programme. I do not believe that it is enough simply to address the problem of young offenders; we must also work with the victims of crime. In Sutton, the council has recently completed a survey of young people as victims of crime. It produced interesting findings which I have had the opportunity to study in the past few days. More than 1,000 young people responded to the survey; more than two thirds of them said that they had been the victim of crime. More than 20 per cent. of women had been subjected to sexual harassment. Some 33 per cent. of black respondents and 61 per cent. of Asian respondents said that they had been the victims of racial harassment. I wish the Home Secretary and his ministerial team the best of luck in tackling the legacy of the Home Office team in the previous Government. I hope that the Home Secretary and his team will not pander to the right-wing dogma that believes that prison works. A rising prison population is not a sign of success, but an admission of failure. Of course we need prison for serious and violent offenders, but the fact that 90 per cent. of young teenagers who are sent to prison are reconvicted within two years shows that that system is clearly not working. For every £50 that the Government spend today on catching, prosecuting and imprisoning a criminal, they spend just £1 on trying to prevent the crime in the first place. That is a bizarre sense of priorities. While the Home Secretary and his team are putting the finishing touches to their zero tolerance plans, I ask them to consider the many examples, some of which I have given today, of crime prevention and multi-agency projects where councils and voluntary organisations have worked with young people and delivered results. If the Home Secretary, Home Office Ministers or Home Office staff want to see for themselves the success in Sutton, I invite them to the borough to talk not just to those who run the projects, but to the young people themselves. In this debate I have tried to highlight the success of programmes that the Liberal Democrats have introduced in my local authority area. I have done so not to praise my colleagues in particular, but to persuade the Home Secretary and his Ministers that being tough on crime also requires action on the causes of crime and action to engage young people in positive activity rather than to lock them away. Prisons, while necessary, only seem to prepare young people better for a life of crime. This country needs to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime."the kick start of a radical, 9 month programme to turn their (the lives of some seriously dysfunctional children and young people) around…Like Michael Howard's Boot Camps this is a relatively new idea from the United States. But boot camps are about tough punishment. Youth at Risk is about tough love."
1.44 pm
I was delighted by the compliment paid to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), when he used the words that my right hon. Friend made famous when he was shadow Home Secretary. The words are considerably more than a soundbite: they stand the test of time, which is why they are being used now, several years later, just as the hon. Gentleman has done. They can be unpacked and tested for their meaning, which is basically what the hon. Gentleman has done in today's debate.
I welcome the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam to the House. I am having to say that more than once as many of us in the House became used to responding to his predecessor's contributions—contributions which were different in tone and nature from the speech that we have heard today. I welcome the constructive and positive way in which the hon. Gentleman has approached the topic. His manner invites positive engagement, which I am happy to undertake. In making his initial remarks, the hon. Gentleman said that he was drawing on his continuing experience as a local authority member in Sutton. It is right that he should do so—all of us bring our experiences to the House. For two years after I entered the House, I continued as a city councillor in Cardiff. I drew on that experience as well as the experience that I gained when I chaired the juvenile bench in Cardiff and when I worked with young people for many years before entering Parliament. All my experiences have informed my debates. As I worked in and represented local areas, I also saw crime at its worst and saw how it affects and damages the lives of individuals, families and communities. We must consider the problem of crime as a whole in order properly to understand and tackle it. The hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise the importance of tackling youth crime—as well as the importance of tackling crime generally and the fear of crime. I have also spent the past few years as the Labour representative on the board of Crime Concern, where I worked alongside the former Member of Parliament, Sir Ivan Lawrence. Between us we made some interesting contributions to those meetings. I was glad to hear the hon. Gentleman emphasise the balance to be struck between being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. I can assure him that I have no doubt about either side of that equation. I am glad that he accepts—everyone should—that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be tough on crime. My right hon. Friend is equally keen to be tough on the causes of crime. The hon. Gentleman will see that balance in everything that we do. The hon. Gentleman referred to zero tolerance. I think that that idea is sometimes misunderstood or subjected to an alternative interpretation. One interpretation of zero tolerance amounts to intolerance. Another interpretation means not allowing things to drift—one takes note of the first pane of glass that is broken instead of waiting for many panes to be broken, or one takes note of and does something about the first piece of graffiti instead of waiting until the town is covered with it. It is that sort of interpretation that is important. It was interesting when the chief constable of Thames Valley, Mr. Charles Pollard, expressed his reservations recently about zero tolerance which, he said, could end up with conflict on the streets, particularly in those communities that are most suspicious about police motives and actions. He went out of his way to stress that he agreed with the sort of zero tolerance argued for by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) shortly before the election. Many other senior police officers have supported that sort of approach. The evidence from the United States must be treated with caution. Many lessons can be learnt—indeed, last year I spent time looking at policing in Chicago, Washington and Baltimore. The example that impressed me most was Baltimore, where the city authorities, led by a vigorous, young, black mayor, thoroughly supported the chief of police's view that they should reclaim communities so that there would be no no-go areas, the recreation areas would not be taken over by drug pushers and a sense among young people of seeing the police in a positive role would be encouraged and developed.Does the Minister agree that the real problem with the policy of zero tolerance is that many people involved with tackling youth crime tend to feel that it leads to zero understanding of why young people become involved in crime in the first place? That, in turn, leads to zero respect and creates a vicious circle.
Yes, I do see that. Some people do not want to understand what is happening. They should listen to the detail of what is being said, which brings us back to the phrase, "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." One of the causes of crime is a general feeling that nobody cares very much—it does not matter what happens and slight misbehaviour does not matter—which runs on into worse behaviour and more serious offences. A proper understanding should lead people, whether they want a policy of punishment, one of prevention, or a proper balance between the two, to the message contained in the phrase, "zero tolerance", which is that we should not put up with increasing levels of crime and bad behaviour and a feeling of being unsafe in one's home or on the street. That is the message that needs to be got across and understood.
The Minister may have partially addressed the point I planned to raise, but I shall build on it nevertheless. In a sense, zero tolerance has already been defined in a way that does not coincide with what the Government say it means; it is open to misinterpretation or misunderstanding. In the past, it has been misunderstood and applied in a way that might even have led to riots in this country. Will the Minister consider other ways of describing the strategy and tactics involved, so that the Government do not risk being misunderstood when they talk about zero tolerance?
In the mother of Parliaments, it is right that we should look at the way in which we explain our policies and try to find better ways of expressing ourselves, but there is a definition of zero tolerance—the one that I have described—that is clearly understood and that has elicited a positive response from both the police and the public. That is the concept on which we need to work. We must get across the idea that one can do something about crime and disorder, that communities can be reclaimed and that the partnerships between the police and local authorities to which the hon. Gentleman referred can be built.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of the importance of the Morgan report, which was published by the previous Government and not so much left gathering dust on a shelf as buried deep under a large pile of earth. The previous Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), was unable to mention local government without becoming increasingly sibilant and looking rather frustrated. It is clear that it is not simply a matter of giving a duty or responsibility to local authorities, because, as in Sutton and in most parts of the country, local authorities have moved on and already accept that they have that duty and responsibility. That acceptance has been driven by the experience of crime among councillors and the people who have been to see them and by the fact that there is now a lot more crime around than there was even when the Morgan report was published. Current levels of crime are unacceptable. In Croydon, where one of my new colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies), was a leading member of the council when it became a local authority, a speedy move was made to put community safety and working with the police high up on the agenda. We have reached the stage at which local authorities and the police recognise that the issue is important to both of them and that a partnership approach has to be developed. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam was right to say that "partnership" is easy to say, but hard to put into effect. Personal partnerships have to be worked on—they do not just happen—and that is also true of partnerships between the police and local authorities. Such partnerships must involve both parties together identifying problems of crime in their area, together identifying the strategies needed to tackle those problems and together delivering that strategy. It is also important that the partnership is between the police, the local authority and the local community, which includes not only the resident community, but voluntary organisations and the business community. I join the hon. Gentleman in saying that it is appropriate that we are discussing this issue during volunteers week. Yesterday, I took the opportunity to join the Women's Royal Voluntary Service for a session of pouring tea—[Interruption.] I shall be happy to give the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) a demonstration later if he likes. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam referred to volunteers contributing to their local community, perhaps by recognising the need for a youth club in the area, or the need to confront local youths about their behaviour and find more positive activities for them and for younger children so that they do not start to get involved in the pattern of crime. I can reveal that the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border and I spent some time together this morning in a way of which even the Liberal Democrats would approve. We were going through the applications for the Prudential youth action awards, the result of which will be announced in July. I hope that they will engender a great deal of interest, because we saw improving standards in the entries and creative responses to the problems that were being tackled. Young people themselves were identifying problems such as bullying or drugs and coming up with solutions to those problems in their local area. When other young people talk to children about such problems, it is far more convincing than when those of us who are well over the hill are talking—almost from the beyond the grave—and telling them what to do. Young people have a power among those younger than them within their generation—say, a couple of years younger—that is extremely important. Without giving away any secrets regarding the results of the awards, I was particularly impressed by the way in which many of the applicants were looking forward to developing what they had learnt while doing this year's project. That is an excellent example of a widening pool of young people who understand, not only that there is a problem, but that they are part of the solution. We will be making progress if we as a society can encourage young people to be a part of the solution, as the Prudential youth action awards do, and encourage them to feel that they can do something about the nature and quality of the community in which they live. I have concentrated on responding to the points raised by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, but I came prepared to make some other remarks because it is important that the debate should be balanced. There are problems with crime that have simply not been tackled. We have proposed community safety orders, whereby we can tackle the problem of neighbourhoods being plagued by continual anti-social behaviour, perhaps by a family or a group of families. The persistent harassment of a community can devastate people's lives and that is why we have proposed that local authorities and the police should be able to seek this new order from the courts. The order will be addressed to a named individual or individuals and focus on behaviour that has caused distress or fear to neighbours. Those named in the orders will be told clearly what it is they must not do or where they must not go. The trigger for harassment and bad behaviour may well include racial antagonism and the order could help in such circumstances. That is an example of a problem that has not been addressed in recent years, yet as soon as we started to talk about it, hon. Members on both sides of the House said, "Yes, there is such a family on one of my estates," or, "I have heard complaints about this sort of thing." The police and local authorities have not had the equipment to tackle the problem and we hope to put that right in our crime and disorder Bill. Above all, we want to speed up the youth justice system. The scandal was identified by the Audit Commission last year, but those of us who have had any association with youth justice have known of the problems for far longer. It takes far too long for youngsters who have been caught to be brought before the courts and punished. That sends out all the wrong messages—it tells young offenders that nobody cares, that nothing much will happen if they misbehave. Repeat cautioning had the same effect. We have to tighten up the system so that, as with one's own children, young offenders are punished today—not tomorrow or in six months' time. We need to introduce that sense of urgency to the way in which we punish young people when they go wrong, as well as trying to prevent them from getting involved in crime in the first place or diverting them quickly if they do start down that path. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.
Committee Of Selection
Ordered,
That Ms Charlotte Atkins, Mr. Clive Betts, Mr. Ian Davidson, Mr. Fraser Kemp, Mr. Andrew MacKay, Mr. Patrick McLoughlin, Mr. John McWilliam, Mr. George Mudie and Mr. Paul Tyler be members of the Committee of Selection.
That the members of the Committee of Selection nominated this day shall continue to be members of the Committee for the remainder of this Parliament.
That this Order be a Standing Order of the House until the end of the present Parliament.—[Mr. Clelland.]
Oral Answers To Questions
Duchy Of Lancaster
Civil Service (Legislation)
1.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has for civil service legislation. [519]
As the House knows, this Government are firmly committed to a wide-ranging constitutional reform programme and, as part of that, I shall be working with colleagues to take forward our commitment to give legal force to the civil service code.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer and welcome him to his post. He will know that the need to protect the integrity and independence of the civil service under the previous Government led to the present civil service code, following a recommendation by the old Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee. He made an extremely welcome announcement just now that he will introduce an Act that will incorporate the code and give the civil service a new statutory footing.
I thank my hon. Friend for those kind words. I read with care the code, the debate and the fifth report of the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee. I feel that any legislation must reinforce and reiterate the essential values and features of the civil service, which of course include integrity and impartiality.
I add my congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment. Does he agree that a most distinguishing and distinguished feature of our civil service is its political impartiality? Will he ensure that, while he holds his present office, nothing will be done to compromise that in any way?
I can give the hon. Gentleman that categorical assurance.
Can the Minister assure the House that the mentality of the general election has entirely left the Labour party? Were the Government to be run on the basis on which the general election campaign was run by the Labour party—that internal dissent should be suppressed—it would certainly not be for the good of the country. It is therefore important that political advisers do not take over the traditional role of senior civil servants in protecting that impartiality.
The right hon. Gentleman makes a fair point when he talks about special advisers, and it is right and proper that I make the point from the Dispatch Box. The rules under which we are operating for special advisers are the same as those that have been applicable, basically, for the past 25 years. There is one small exception relating to three separate appointments which, by Order in Council, were given special powers. That was done because we felt that it was right and proper that we should be open and transparent with the House, because those were grey areas which had been areas of difficulty in the past.
The key point is that the whole process is intended to reinforce the political neutrality and integrity of the civil service.The right hon. Gentleman says that he intends to stick to the practice of 25 years. How does he square that statement with the suggestion that the Prime Minister's principal private secretary is to be an apparatchik from the Labour party—Mr. Jonathan Powell? Will he tell the House, in the interests of open government, that in the event of that appointment taking place, the views of Sir Robin Butler will be published and made available to the House?
I am afraid that, yet again, the right hon. Gentleman has got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The Prime Minister has made it clear that Mr. Jonathan Powell is his chief of staff—a position that existed previously in Mrs. Thatcher' s early years in office—and that Mr. Powell will not take on the position of principal private secretary. That post will remain in the mainstream of the civil service. The rules were laid down by the Prime Minister and he is sticking to them.
rose—
I call Mr. Radice.
I welcome my right hon. Friend to his post. Is it not the case that there are very few more special advisers under this Government than there were under the previous Government? Unlike the previous Government, however, we are making sure that political advisers are political appointments at No. 10, rather than suborning career civil servants and using them as political playthings, as Mrs. Thatcher did.
My hon. Friend, who has a great deal of knowledge on the matter, having chaired for several years the Select Committee that dealt with it, is right. In no way are we taking any action whatever to impugn the political integrity of the civil service—exactly the contrary. As regards numbers, we have never hidden the fact. We said clearly during the election that a strong independent source of advice was needed for strategic thinking in No. 10. At a departmental level, under the previous Government, there were about 38 special advisers; under this Government there will be about 44—not a great difference.
rose—
No.
Order. The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to two questions. This is his second question.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
Order. It is my choice whom I call. I have made it clear that the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to two questions. This is his second question.
I am sure, Madam Speaker, that the whole House will welcome the fact that the Government cannot silence you, no matter how much they try to silence everyone else.
Will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear that the principal private secretary to the Prime Minister—a civil servant—will in no way be answerable to Jonathan Powell?It is quite clear that the principal private secretary to the Prime Minister is a career civil servant and he is responsible to the permanent secretary of the civil service, who is head of the civil service in that professional capacity. There is a clear distinction of roles.
Civil Service (Management)
2.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what proposals he has to improve the management of the civil service. [520]
We are committed to a modernised, high-quality, efficient and customer-focused civil service, and we wish to mobilise the talents and creativity of civil servants at all levels to achieve that.
I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and congratulate him on his appointment. Does he agree with me, as one of the small band of ex-civil servant Members of Parliament, that during the previous Government, under the pressure of contractorisation, market testing and privatisation, many wrong macho management practices were imported from the private sector into the British civil service? Does he agree that the new Labour Government must do their best to continue the drive for efficiency through benchmarking and other means, but must restore the public service ethos to its rightful place in the civil service?
The watchwords of the new Government towards the civil service will be to make it accountable, accessible, responsive and more efficient. With regard to training and development, we have already reinforced the civil service commitment to Investors in People, the national standard for the effective training and development of all an organisation's staff. We are acutely conscious of what has happened to civil service morale, and we look forward to working with civil servants to improve morale.
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new post. Will he try to answer the question that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has already been asked twice? Will the principal private secretary have to report to the chief of staff; and will the latter control access to the Prime Minister? If that is supposed to represent better management of the civil service, we clearly disagree.
I endorse everything that my right hon. Friend has said. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman address his comments to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, if he gets the opportunity.
Intestacy
3.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will review the current practice in which the estates of those who die intestate in the County Palatine revert to the Crown. [521]
The Law Commission, in its 1989 report "Family Law: Distribution on Intestacy", recommended no change to current legislation. I have no plans to suggest a review of the law on intestacy.
Are not many aspects of the Duchy weird and wonderful throwbacks to the middle ages—none weirder than the fact that the estates of people who die intestate in the County Palatine revert to the Duke of Lancaster? Is there not a powerful case for opening up the Duke of Lancaster's benevolent fund to include people who are elected as councillors instead of just the lords lieutenant, the sheriffs and all the other appointees whom we are fed up with?
I am persuaded that my hon. Friend has made a very pertinent point. The Government have committed themselves to more transparency and openness; in that spirit I intend to look at the composition and openness of the board of trustees of the Duchy benevolent fund. As part of that process, I invite representations from right hon. and hon. Members whose constituencies fall within the County Palatine.
Citizens Charters
4.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement about the future of citizens charters. [522]
My hon. Friend, like my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Quinn), represents a city that was instrumental in pioneering charters. We will be relaunching the programme as part of our drive to modernise and improve government. It will be based on the needs of the people who really count—the users of public services.
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks about the city of York inventing the idea of citizens charters. Does he agree that the citizens charter was brought into disrepute by the former Government's refusal to report annually on whether targets had been met, and by their failure to give the public decent means of redress when services fell below the necessary quality? As part of his review, will my hon. Friend take the opportunity to consult local authorities with a good track record on customer contracts and quality of service, and the public—for whose benefit the charter was originally developed?
We shall of course consult all interested parties during the charter programme review. Special emphasis will be given to the people with the greatest interest in the matter: the users of public services. We intend to hold the fullest possible consultation, including organisations that have a particular interest in delivering the best possible services to the people of this country.
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a significant number of public services in Kent have achieved a charter mark for excellence and that, far from what the hon. Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley) said, the Conservative Government deserve the highest congratulations on having introduced this extremely efficient way of meeting consumer expectations? Will the Minister give a solemn undertaking that charters will be developed in a way that will enhance services, just as they have so effectively done hitherto?
We fully intend to reinforce and extend the use of the charter mark. There are at the moment 645 proud possessors of the charter mark—it is not easy to obtain—which shows that those organisations have achieved very high standards.
There is a great deal of suspicion that the previous Government were more concerned with subterfuge than this Government intend to be. We will be open, we will consult and we will develop the charter mark. I hope that many more organisations in the public domain will apply for a charter mark in future.Will my hon. Friend give an example of an improved service in local government?
There are many examples of improved services in local government, including some in the much maligned city of Liverpool—my home city. My hon. Friend will find that organisations as diverse as ambulance and hospital services have applied for—and successfully gained—a charter mark, reflecting the very high level of service they provide and their commitment to their customers.
I welcome the assurance that the charter mark will be kept. However, having seen it in operation in my constituency—I congratulate two of the hospitals in my constituency that achieved it—will there be a guarantee that standards will be maintained and that pressures of finance will not militate against them?
We will aggressively insist on maintaining the very highest standards. The charter mark, remember, is not for ever. Anybody who fails to meet the standards will have their charter mark taken away.
Parliamentary Commissioner For Administration
5.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what proposals his Department has to improve the civil service publicity relating to complaints procedures with particular reference to the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. [523]
The Government will seek ways to improve publicity in relation to complaints procedures generally, and in particular to the parliamentary ombudsman's role.
I am happy to welcome my hon. Friend to his ministerial post and to note that the new Government place importance on an open complaints procedure to give the public confidence in the performance of public sector departments. Will my hon. Friend give a specific example of what the Office of Public Service has done to make people aware of the role of the parliamentary ombudsman? Will he also consider changing the title to "parliamentary ombudsman", because no one knows what the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration does?
Being the party of open government, I can reassure my colleague that any suggestions to improve service are welcome. In terms of what we have done, the Office of Public Service booklet, "The Ombudsman in your Files", was recently reprinted and distributed in response to a recommendation from the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.
Freedom Of Information
6.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he expects to issue the White Paper on freedom of information. [524]
I hope to publish a White Paper on freedom of information before the summer recess.
I thank my right hon. Friend for achieving a Labour party manifesto objective so early in this Parliament, in producing the White Paper. Will he ensure that there is full consultation of all interested parties on this document, but ultimately that it leads to more open, more effective and more accountable government in the form of legislation at an early date?
The freedom of information Act will change profoundly the whole governance of Britain. It is important that we get it right because it will be a landmark Bill. There will be the fullest consultation possible at every level, not only on the White Paper, but on the draft Bill which we hope to publish early in the new year.
If the Labour party is indeed the party of open government, why is the Minister not sticking to his manifesto commitment to publish the Bill this Session?
It is very important that we get the Bill right, because, I repeat, it will change profoundly the whole of the political culture of this country. If we are to get it right, if we are to have an all-singing, all-dancing Bill, it is right and proper that we have the fullest possible consultation from all parts and from all opinions in the country. By following that process, I believe that we will get a very wise and sensible Act of Parliament.
I welcome my right hon. Friend to his post and welcome very much his robust statement about freedom of information. Does he agree that the Scott report revealed not just a few Ministers behaving badly but a culture of secrecy and dissembling endemic in the system, and that freedom of information legislation is absolutely essential to deal with that? Will he undertake to bring that forward in the next Queen's Speech?
I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind remarks and for the benefit of his considerable knowledge of this subject. We have a clear manifesto commitment to openness and transparency on arms exports and that will be reflected in our freedom of information Act.
Given the Government's commitment to comprehensive rights for disabled people, in drafting the White Paper will the Government give due regard to the needs of disabled people in terms of access to information?
Yes, I can give that commitment. One reason we wanted a decent period of consultation was so that we could hear the views of the widest cross-section of people.
Public Services (Value For Money)
7.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what measures he intends to take to ensure value for money from public services. [525]
The Government want to achieve high-quality public services which are efficient and focus on people's needs. We have already made a start by setting up the comprehensive spending review. That will examine ways to make better use of resources and root out inefficiency in public spending.
I am delighted to learn that the Government are trying to attack public spending on public services, but are they sending the right message to the public—that they will obtain the best public services—when, at the very top, the civil service, political appointments have increased from 38 to 53? Is not that a massive increase? Do we know whether it will stop at 53, or will there be yet more political appointments in the civil service? In the spirit of openness and transparency—in which the Government believe—will the Minister confirm that Sir Robin Butler has not said that he is "seriously unrelaxed" about the number of political appointments that have been made within government?
Not for the first time, the premise on which the hon. Gentleman bases his question is wrong. The message going out from the Government to the British people concerns accountability, accessibility, the responsiveness of government and a drive for greater efficiency. That is why, since 2 May, we have announced not only a comprehensive spending review, but a review of the private finance initiative and the public-private partnerships. We have also announced measures on the electronic delivery of Government services, the Department's efficiency plans and that we will reconsider the agency targets for Ministers. That is the message that is going out from a Government who are gearing up for the 21st century, unlike the previous Government who were geared to the 19th.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment. Will he make it a priority to ensure that quangos and training and enterprise councils, which were stacked with Tory nominees by the previous Government, are made more accountable and that they give value for money?
I can assure my hon. Friend that we shall reconsider the whole system of appointments to quangos, their necessity and the principles of accountability as part of a full-scale review which my right hon. Friend has already announced.
As the hon. Gentleman is concerned about open government and public spending, will he undertake to publish the salaries of all the new special advisers with whom the Government are stuffing the Whitehall machine?
We shall follow exactly the usual procedures in publishing the range within which those individuals are employed and paid.
Civil Service (Ethnic Monitoring)
8.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what steps he is taking to ensure ethnic monitoring in the civil service. [526]
All Departments and agencies are required to monitor the ethnic origin of their staff and applicants. My Department publishes an overview in the civil service data summary.
Monitoring data are used to identify where barriers exist and action is required. Information on resultant initiatives is published in the equal opportunities progress report.I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend on his appointment. He will know from the statistics that have been published by his Department during the past few weeks that there are no black and Asian people in senior positions in the civil service, and we are talking about hundreds of such posts. What does my hon. Friend intend to do to tackle that apparent cultural discrimination in the recruitment and selection procedure of the British civil service?
We are monitoring the civil service equal opportunities policy. Indeed, there is a requirement to monitor it. I have to make a comparison with the working population at large. Ethnic minority representation in the civil service, at 5.5 per cent., compares very favourably with that in the economically active population in Great Britain as a whole, which stands at 4.9 per cent.
Citizens Charter
10.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he expects to reply to the third report of the Public Service Committee on the citizens charter (HC 78 of Session 1996–97). [528]
As I told my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley), we will relaunch the charter programme. We will respond to the Committee at a time agreed with the new Chairman, after he or she has been appointed.
The Select Committee called for genuine dialogue between providers and users of public services in order to carry forward the charter process. May I be assured that my hon. Friend will include dialogue between providers and users for each charter that is developed further? Will he ensure that such dialogue will inform the award of charter marks so that they bear some relation to the experience of users of services?
I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that we will consult widely and properly with all interested stakeholders, including the users of services and those who offer advice, such as the National Consumer Council and citizens advice bureaux.
In the interests of accountability to the citizen, will the hon. Gentleman conduct a review of the number of policy reviews that are being undertaken by the Government? He will, I think, find that endless policy reviews are a recipe for governmental paralysis, not proper government of the country.
The number of reviews that are having to be undertaken by the new Government is a reflection of the inertia displayed by the previous Government, particularly towards public service.
Freedom Of Information
11.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he intends to publish a freedom of information Bill; and if he will make a statement. [529]
I intend to publish the White Paper on freedom of information before the summer recess.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer and I welcome him to his position on the Front Bench. Will he ensure that when he publishes the White Paper and produces the Bill, which will bring about tremendous change for the people of Britain, the legislation will be retrospective so that people can see what the previous Government did during the past 18 years? They will then never vote for the Conservatives again.
I thank my hon. Friend for his interesting comment. He can rest assured that there will be the widest consultation on the White Paper. That is not, however, all that we are doing in respect of openness. In their manifesto, the Government made clear their commitment to the regeneration of our democratic process. Central to that was the White Paper on new government I announced yesterday. It will set out how we shall deliver accountable, accessible, responsive and efficient government to the people of Britain. Those proposals, alongside our freedom of information Bill, will bring an agenda of openness to government which we have never seen before.
Will the agenda of openness extend to the publication of the contents of the Excalibur computer so that Labour Members can understand what information is held on it? In this spirit of openness, might it not also be an idea if the information was published in the press so that we could all read it?
All the information contained in that computer is published information and it is available under the Data Protection Act 1988.
Release Of Documents
12.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has to change the criteria determining the release of documents under the 30-year rule. [530]
We will publish shortly a White Paper on freedom of information. I hope that we shall see a considerable extension in the release of public records under the 30-year rule.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many people regard the operation of the 30-year rule as a farce? When documents are released at the beginning of each year, all we tend to find out is what kind of tea and biscuits the Prime Minister consumed 30 years ago. Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to ensure that far more documents are released, to release them before 30 years and to review all documents currently held to find out whether they can be released?
I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's view. As an historian, I know the frustrations involved. The emphasis under this Government will be on releasing, not withholding, information. We have just announced, as evidence of our good faith, that we hope to release a tranche of information relating to the security forces during the first world war.
As part of the review, will my right hon. Friend consider with the royal household whether documents held at Windsor and Buckingham palace should be subject to the same rules of disclosure as documents kept in the Public Record Office? Some very important historic public documents relating to public policy are kept in the royal household.
In the spirit of openness and transparency in historical records, I shall certainly look into that point.
Prime Minister
Earth Summit
Q1.
To ask the Prime Minister what are the Government's main objectives for the United Nations General Assembly special session—earth summit II—in New York in June. [547]
I shall be attending the earth summit in New York on 23 June, along with my right hon. Friends the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary and others. We shall be pressing for action across a range of issues at that summit, including a commitment by this country to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent. by the year 2010. That is based on 1990 levels. That is a challenging commitment and demonstrates the Government's commitment to a more green world.
May I suggest that the commitment shown by the Government at earth summit II will be a very important test of the seriousness with which they take the sustainable development issue? May I also suggest that success at the summit depends on the developed world setting an example on sustainable consumption and its willingness to transfer resources in terms of technology and funds to the developing world? Will the Prime Minister at least give a commitment that he will ensure the reversal of the decline in development aid given to third-world countries that, very ironically, has occurred since the earth summit in 1992?
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are committed as a Government to raising the levels of overseas aid, but it has to be done in a way that is compatible with the limits on public expenditure that we have set ourselves. I should say that we shall not simply be undertaking action on carbon dioxide emissions at the earth summit. We shall also be supporting the new convention on forests, which will do an immense amount to reduce the destruction of rain forests. We shall also be pressing for measures against pollution more generally and measures in respect of oceans as well.
I should say, too, that measures are already being announced by the Government in relation to domestic policy, which will have a dramatic impact on the environment in respect not just of an integrated transport strategy but of the new environmental task force, which will enlist the support of young people in cleaning up the environment in parts of the country.Four out of every 10 primary school children in my constituency started the school year in a class of more than 30—
Order. The substantive question is about the earth summit and supplementary questions must relate to it.
Engagements
Q2.
To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 4 June. [548]
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. Later this afternoon I shall be meeting the President of the European Commission.
In a written answer, the Treasury has just it made clear that, once the cost of living increase is calculated, pensioners will not benefit from the reduction in value added tax on fuel. Why does the Prime Minister continue to insist that pensioners will benefit?
Of course pensioners will benefit from the reduction in VAT on fuel. Of course they will: that is precisely why so many of them supported the policy of reducing VAT on fuel. There was probably no more unpopular policy pursued by the previous Government than that of raising VAT on fuel in direct breach of their election commitments. In contrast, this Government, having promised to reduce VAT on fuel, will do so.
Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating our sister party in France on the remarkable election victory on Sunday? In addition to working with President Chirac, will my right hon. Friend seize the opportunity of five consecutive years of government to forge a new political entente cordiale between our two countries and instruct Ministers and officials to seek out what unites our two great nations and to put to one side what may divide us? Finally, when my right hon. Friend meets Mr. Jospin tomorrow in Sweden, will he in the name of all English people ask Mr. Jospin to have a word with Eric Cantona and ask him to keep playing for Manchester United?
I think that that might be an entente too far. Of course I am delighted to congratulate Mr. Jospin on his victory and I want to work with all our partners in Europe to ensure that we have an agenda for Europe which focuses on the single biggest problem in Europe—jobs. That is precisely why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has today made an important initiative and said that all the European countries should come together to work out how we get the right labour market, the right education and skills and the right infrastructure in Europe to ensure not just that the single market works, but that we can reduce the appalling levels of unemployment throughout Europe.
Are not the first crucial decisions on monetary union now just weeks away and likely to turn on a choice between relaxation and delay? Which does the Government prefer?
What we prefer is the policy that we articulated before the election and continue to articulate now—to keep the options open for this country. We have made it clear that we believe that it is highly unlikely that Britain would want to join the first wave of monetary union. I have also made it clear, as we have always said, that the criteria for monetary union should not be fiddled, fudged or botched in any way. If they are, the answer is not to delay—the answer is not to proceed.
While I agree with the latter part of the Prime Minister's answer, does he agree that there is a very limited degree of flexibility allowed in the Maastricht criteria, not least on the timetable? Would it not be better if Britain were to accept that and lead the search for a pragmatic solution, and to show the way that that could be done through the leadership of his Government?
Of course we should exercise a leadership role, but it is important to have a consistent position and stick to it. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned some flexibility in the criteria. It is important that the criteria are not fiddled or botched in any way, because if that happens the process will not work. We will ensure that that is clear not only here but to our European partners, too.
Does the Prime Minister not find it astonishing that some 100,000 children do not attend their school in England and Wales each day? Will he tell the House what the Government intend to do about that?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is a severe problem. Part of the reason why we are committed to action on class sizes and on literacy and numeracy in our schools is to try to reduce the numbers of children who play truant. My hon. Friend may also like to know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment and other Education Ministers are considering better ways to deal with truancy. The great problem for many schools is that they are faced with the choice of keeping children who are unruly and undisciplined, which disrupts the education of other children, or throwing them out of the school, in which case they often end up as a problem for the police and other enforcement agencies in the local community. There has to be a better way to approach the problem. If not, we shall find that social costs mount up, including crime, and those 100,000 young people may also end up later incapable of finding work or working for any length of time.
Three weeks ago the Prime Minister promised the House that the devolution Bill would be published before the referendum. Can he confirm that that is still the case?
The proposals in the White Paper upon which the devolution Bill will be published will of course be published, because it is that upon which the referendum is to be held.
The right hon. Gentleman perhaps did not hear my question. I asked him whether the Bill would be published. I quote from what he said in answer to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) some time ago:
Why has the Prime Minister changed his mind? If he has changed his mind, why did he not have the courtesy to come and tell the House that he had done so? The distinction between the White Paper and the Bill will be well understood both to the House and to the right hon. Gentleman. Was it not a matter of trust that he should tell us?"Of course the Bill will be published in time for the referendum, because the referendum will take place on those proposals".
It is absolutely clear—it was made clear before the election and all the way through—that it is the White Paper proposals that will be put to a referendum of the Scottish people. That is entirely sensible, since it is only then, after the referendum has given an affirmative answer, that it is sensible to draw up the Bill, so that we then have the details of the Bill properly debated in the House. That is plainly the sensible way to proceed. As we have said all the way through before the election, and I repeat again now, the White Paper proposals will be there so that everybody in Scotland and Wales knows precisely what is being contemplated.
The Prime Minister is both wriggling and waffling. For ease of reference, I have the Hansard report in front of me and I quote the Prime Minister:
not the White Paper—"Of course the Bill"—
Is not the truth of the matter that the details of the policy are still in such a muddle that the right hon. Gentleman cannot yet give detailed instructions to the draftsmen?"will be published in time for the referendum, because the referendum will take place on those proposals"—[Official Report, 14 May 1997; Vol. 294, c.641
The proposals to which I referred are the proposals in the White Paper. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Bill."] The proposals in the White Paper. Those are the proposals that we said before the election that we would publish. It is plainly sensible and right, and in accordance with precisely what we said before the election, that we will publish those proposals. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland made clear in the debate yesterday, he will publish the proposals in the White Paper before Parliament rises so that Parliament will have the opportunity to debate them. That is plainly the most sensible way to proceed, and we shall proceed in that way.
Why does the Prime Minister not just admit that he made a mistake in the past and that the Bill is not ready? Why does he not admit that he has been caught with his fingers in the till oratorically? He promised the Bill and he cannot deliver the Bill. Devolution is a constitutional matter, but already the Government have guillotined the referendum Bill so that important parts of it cannot even be discussed and we suspect that they will not even follow the long-established convention of taking the Bill on the Floor of the House. The Prime Minister cannot answer any of the detailed questions that have repeatedly been put to him about that Bill. After one month of government, is that not a contemptible way for the Prime Minister to treat the House of Commons, and is it not becoming apparent that that is typical of the arrogant way in which the Government are beginning to behave?
rose—[Interruption.]
Order.
Perhaps I may deal with each of the right hon. Gentleman's points in turn. First—[Interruption.]
Order. The House must now come to order. We must not have this bawling and shouting.
The Conservatives have not taken long to slip into the ways of opposition. I can deal with each of the right hon. Gentleman's points. First, we need no lessons on fingers in the till from the Conservative party. Secondly, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland made clear yesterday—and as I repeat today—the proposals will be in the White Paper on which people will be able to vote in the referendum. As for the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill—
What about the devolution Bill?
The former chairman of the Conservative party must contain himself for a moment. He did not do so during the election campaign, and he is not doing so now. The Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill is simple, containing six clauses and two schedules. The Conservative party tabled 250 amendments, 21 new clauses and 12 new schedules—and it did so not to assist debate, but to scupper the Bill. I ask the people of this country this: which is undemocratic—a Government using their mandate to propose a referendum to allow the Scottish and Welsh people to have their say, or a Conservative party that wants to prevent the Government from carrying out that mandate?
As for the use of the guillotine—since the Leader of the Opposition raised that—I have done a little research. The last Conservative Government used the guillotine 59 times—six times in advance of Committee stage. [Interruption.] Conservative Members are saying that the previous Government never used the guillotine on constitutional Bills, but they did so on the Single European Act and, what is more, when they forced the poll tax on Scotland. As a Government, we are implementing the policies upon which we were elected. That is the real difference between us and the Conservative party.After all that waffle, I repeat my question to the Prime Minister: why did he promise the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan and the House that the Bill would be published, and why has he not now apologised for breaking that promise?
My promise was precisely that which we made at the election. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland said yesterday, the promise was to publish the proposals in a White Paper before Parliament rose, and that these would then be debated by the House. That is my right hon. Friend's position, and mine. Opposition Members—with all their shouting and braying—want to stop us carrying out the policies upon which we were elected. We will not let them stop us.
Will my right hon. Friend use this opportunity to join all decent people in Northern Ireland in utterly condemning the appalling murder of Constable Greg Taylor at the weekend? How many meetings should take place between Government officials and representatives of Sinn Fein before any decision is taken about when those meetings should stop? How many meetings will take place before a decision is taken that enough is enough?
As we made clear when we announced the process of officials of the Government talking to Sinn Fein, it was important that it was subject to events on the ground. That continues to be the case. The Government absolutely abhor—as, I am sure, does the whole House—the murder of the member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. It was appalling and totally unprovoked, and was a precise example of the type of random vicious violence that we want to stop. That is why it is so important that we give every impetus that we can to making sure that we carry the talks process forward, but in a way—as my hon. Friend rightly said—that is entirely consistent with the principles that we set out, and it will be.
Q3.
Will the Prime Minister confirm that at the time of the abolition of the Stormont Parliament in Northern Ireland, the number of Members of Parliament from the Province was increased to compensate for the loss of that body? Can he therefore explain to the House why he refuses to reduce the number of Scottish and Welsh Members of Parliament accordingly if Parliaments are established in Scotland and Wales? Does he not realise that unless changes to our constitution are equitable and fair to all parts of the United Kingdom, his proposals will strike at the very heart and unity of this United Kingdom, which I hope that all hon. Members hold dear? [549]
Of course they must be equitable and fair, but I must say to the hon. Gentleman that our proposals are very similar to those made for Northern Ireland by the previous Government—for a devolved Assembly with legislative powers, but no reduction in the number of Members of Parliament. If the proposals were equitable and fair then, similar arguments can be made in respect of others.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that 18 years of the Conservative Government's misguided policies have done great damage to city and town centres throughout the country? If so, will he ensure that all his colleagues with responsibility for such matters come together to put the towns and city centres of our country first and produce policies to bring them back to life?
I agree with the general objective that my hon. Friend sets out, and we are attempting to do a number of things in that connection. One is the action on crime in city centres, which is tremendously important, allowing people greater freedom both to live and to work there. That is one reason why we have supported so many Labour and other authorities introducing closed circuit television in city centres and other measures that have improved crime prevention there.
It is also important in all those town centres to get the right planning and environment measures and the right transport strategy, which is one reason why my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is so committed to ensuring that we have the right public transport strategy to give people the freedom to go into the town centre and back again. I would say to my hon. Friend, however, that there are certain elements—the development of out-of-town shopping centres, for example—that accord with what people want to do, so it is important that while doing everything that we can to redevelop town centres, we should recognise that certain patterns of behaviour will remain simply because people want them to remain.Q4.
The Prime Minister rightly said that unemployment was one of the major issues facing Europe. He argued in his election manifesto that using the windfall tax to fund the employer rebate would reduce labour costs and that reducing those costs would reduce unemployment. If he believes that, why does he not believe that increasing costs, with a minimum wage, will increase unemployment? [550]
I do not believe that a minimum wage will increase unemployment at all. [Interruption.] I know that Conservative Members are opposed to the minimum wage, but I say that it is wrong—simply wrong—that 800,000 people in this country are paid £2.50 an hour or less. I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman would like his wife or his children to work for that kind of sum. Of course it is important to tackle unemployment, but the whole purpose of the windfall tax, and its advantage, is that it enables us to take a range of different measures, including a subsidy to employers to take on young people who have been unemployed for some time, who can then be given training and skills, giving them the best chance of getting back into the labour market and doing something worth while.
Conservative Members shake their heads and ask how long those people will be employed. I visited a training centre in Southwark the other day.Well done.
I think that it is quite important to see what steps are being taken in local communities. A whole range of those young people, some of whom had been unemployed for long periods, had the chance for the first time to make something of their lives, as a result of the skills and training that they were getting, particularly in new technology.
We want to reduce the appalling levels of structural long-term unemployment, not just here but throughout Europe. If Conservative Members do not join us in that endeavour, it shows how out of touch they are.Q5.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the death toll from last year's E. coli outbreak in central Scotland has reached 20 with the tragic death of an elderly woman in my constituency at the weekend, making it the most severe outbreak of that strain in the world? Given the more recent outbreak at Falkirk district royal infirmary, which affected more than 30 people, and the fact that its source has not yet been identified, will my right hon. Friend order early implementation of the recommendations in Professor Pennington's report and order the highest form of public inquiry—not a fatal accident inquiry, but a fully fledged public inquiry presided over by a senior Scottish judge—to get to the root of the matter? That is what we demanded in opposition and that is what we expect now that we are in government. [551]
I entirely share and understand the concern about that issue. We shall, of course, consider the recommendations of Professor Pennington and then consider what further action needs to be taken. I assure my hon. Friend that everything that can be done will be done. It is sensible to do that in the light of whatever Professor Pennington has recommended. In addition to dealing with the particular outbreaks of E. coli in Scotland, we will set up an independent food standards agency, which will give us a far better chance of reducing such outbreaks in future.
Q6.
When President Clinton and a real first lady had dinner with the right hon. Gentleman last Thursday rather than at Buckingham palace, did the right hon. Gentleman take the opportunity to explain why members of Her Majesty's Government have taken to referring to the wife of the British Prime Minister as Britain's first lady? Will he take this opportunity to instruct his Ministers to stop this arrogant practice? [552]
All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that opposition has certainly not improved the Conservative party. I do not know anyone who is doing that. We are very content with the present position. In relation to insulting the wives of politicians, whether here or abroad, the more they are kept out of the whole thing, the better.
Q7.
Does the Prime Minister agree that the Eurofighter aircraft is vital to Britain's future defence needs, to the future success of Britain's defence manufacturing industry and to the 40,000 jobs directly and indirectly involved in its production? When he meets Chancellor Kohl in Germany on Friday, will he emphasise the importance of the Eurofighter project and urge him to ensure that Germany signs the production agreements without any further delay? [553]
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I shall certainly urge that we proceed with the Eurofighter project. As my hon. Friend knows, our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence is at this very time trying to do that with his German counterparts. The Eurofighter project is immensely important for Britain. It is important for defence reasons because it is the multi-role aircraft that we need for our future defence requirements, but it is also vitally important for jobs, technology and skills. Some of the most highly skilled employees in the country will be working on the project. It is ready to go into its production phase, and we will do all that we can to speed up the project.
Given what the Prime Minister said about the connection between jobs, unemployment and the fudged criteria under the European Union treaty, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the Maastricht criteria have already clearly failed on those matters? Will he go to Amsterdam, as I repeatedly asked our previous Prime Minister, to renegotiate the treaty and deal with the question of economic and monetary union in the interests of all the people of the whole of Europe, including the United Kingdom?
All that I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I hope that he does more good for me than he did for the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major). In respect of the hon. Gentleman's question on jobs, we shall simply be saying that we have to focus on how we improve the labour market, its flexibility and the employment of people within the labour market—as it is a different labour market today—and how we take the action necessary to improve the job situation not only for people here in Britain but for people throughout Europe. There are 18 million unemployed in Europe and some 9 million who have been unemployed for more than a year. That is precisely one of the reasons why we are taking action here. We want to put unemployment right at the top of the agenda for Europe as well. We shall be doing that, of course, at Amsterdam, but we shall be doing it beforehand as well in talks with other countries.
Q8.
I raised the Stephen Lawrence case in the previous Parliament. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is of interest that those who were named by the Daily Mail as responsible for the brutal killing of that 17-year-old youth have not taken any action to clear their names? When is justice and the rule of law going to prevail in this case? Is it not disgraceful that that youth was put to death, those responsible have been named and no action has yet been taken to ensure that the murderers of Stephen Lawrence are put in the dock? [554]
I of course understand—indeed, I deeply share—the concern that my hon. Friend has raised, as I believe that we all do. When he raised the matter previously in the House, it was made clear by the then Prime Minister and by all of us how much we wanted to see justice done in this case. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is to meet Mrs. Lawrence shortly. We shall do everything that we can—consistent, obviously, with the proper rule of law, because that is the way in which it must be done. I entirely understand the frustration that people feel. It was an appalling and brutal murder and no one has been brought to justice for it. There is a deep sense of injustice within the local community that that should be so. I hope that people understand that we shall do everything that we can within the rule of law to rectify that injustice. The meeting that my right hon. Friend is to have with Mrs. Lawrence is one step in doing that.
Points Of Order
3.31 pm
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Are you able to confirm that it is still the practice in the House that if an hon. Member on either side believes that he has been misreported in the Official Report, he is entitled to ask the Editor for a correction, and that if the Prime Minister believes that the Hansard reporter, in all innocence, heard the word "Bill" when he was meant to hear the words "White Paper", it is open to him to ask the Editor to correct the record?
I have to concern myself with the principle. If any hon. Member believes that he has been misreported, of course it is up to him to take it up with the Editor of Hansard.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. During Prime Minister's questions today, reference was made to the atrocious murder of a police officer in Northern Ireland at the weekend. It may not be within your knowledge that a number of persons have already been charged with that murder. Was it in order that that matter should be raised on the Floor of the House today?
Had it not been in order, I would have stopped the hon. Lady proceeding. I believe that the point that she made was perfectly in order.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. During questions today, the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asked two supplementary questions on a single question on the Order Paper. I have not seen that happen once in my 18 years in the House. It has happened in Prime Minister's questions, and perhaps even on one occasion in Deputy Prime Minister's questions under the previous Government. Did we see a procedural change introduced today?
The hon. Gentleman has not seen a procedural change. The right hon. Gentleman was entirely correct in putting two questions if he wished to do so. He decided to ask two supplementary questions under one question, and that was perfectly in order. He can ask two questions and no more. It is up to me as Speaker to determine whom I call and when.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will undoubtedly have seen on the tapes a report from the Foreign Secretary to the effect that international military intervention in Sierra Leone has not been ruled out. That is a clear implication that international military intervention may take place. May I ask you whether you have had any request for a statement on such a matter? If not, is it not right that the House should be informed before the Foreign Secretary makes such statements, which might involve British military forces?
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is perfectly accurate. Statements of such a nature should be made to the House in the first place. In answer to his first question, I was not aware of what he has obviously seen on the tapes. I was not informed that a statement would be forthcoming. Of course, there is always the opportunity to raise such an issue by private notice question and I would certainly consider any such request with all seriousness.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Will you confirm that when we are elected to the House our families are not elected with us? Will you condemn the deplorable trend now followed by the Opposition of mentioning hon. Members' families, insulting them and personalising the debate?
I have always totally disapproved of Members' families being abused or cited across the Floor of the House. As long-standing Members know very well, we are elected; we take the brunt; we are answerable, and not any of our families.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I ask you to inquire whether it might be possible for the Prime Minister to make shorter responses to questions? Each one of his replies today turned into a mini-Adjournment Debate. That diminishes the opportunities available to those hon. Members on both sides of the House who wish to question the right hon. Gentleman more closely.
I am very pleased to inform the House that in this new Session I am watching closely all questions and answers. Every day, the questions are much too long, as are the answers. I keep records and I shall take firm action when I have a full account and all the relevant Departments have been able to answer.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Lest the House may have been misinformed during an exchange at Prime Minister's Question Time, will you advise the Prime Minister that when Northern Ireland's Parliament was set up, the number of Members returned to the House was reduced from some 30 to 12? That is pertinent to the ensuing debates.
It is barely a point of order, but it is a point of information.
Further to the point of order of my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon)—
Order. The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know that once a point of order has been responded to, there can be no further points of order on it. If the hon. Gentleman has a fresh point of order, I will listen to it. Perhaps he can think about that, and, if he has, I will come back to him.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Do you share my concern about reports that the new political appointees installed at Downing street have not had security clearance? Has the Prime Minister given any indication that he will make a statement to the House to say whether those people have had access to classified information before they were cleared for security purposes?
That is not a point of order for me. I have not been told that the Prime Minister or any other Minister is seeking to make a statement on that matter.
Now, Mr. Cohen, do you have a new point of order, fresh in your mind?On a point of order, Madam Speaker. On the exercise of your powers in relation to questions, should a question apparently contain an insult to a Member's spouse or partner, would you be prepared to intervene to stop that question being asked and reprimand the hon. Member who made such an insult?
I have done so on many occasions, but I regard it as important that hon. Members are adult. They should not abuse the family members of those who are elected to the House.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Will you study Hansard on the Loyal Address debate and compare what the Prime Minister said then with what he said in the Chamber today in answer to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition? If it is apparent to you that there are some glaring inconsistencies between promises made by the Prime Minister during the Loyal Address debate and what he said today, will you consider issuing an instruction to the Prime Minister from the Chair similar to the one issued to senior Ministers that Prime Ministers, as well, should not make policy on the hoof?
All right hon. and hon. Members who speak in the House are responsible for their own comments and, providing that they are within our parliamentary guidelines, they are not the responsibility of the Speaker.
Orders Of The Day
Referendums (Scotland And Wales) Bill
Considered in Committee [Progress, 3 June].
[MR. MICHAEL LORD in the Chair]
Clause 1
Referendum In Scotland
Amendment proposed [3 June]: No. 87, in page 1, line 6, to leave out the words
'and tax varying powers of a Scottish Parliament'
and to insert the words
`of a Scottish Parliament with tax-raising powers.'.—[Mr. Wallace.]
3.39 pm
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
I remind the Committee that we are also discussing the following amendments: No. 111, in page 1, line 6, leave out 'tax-varying'.
No. 145, in page 1, line 7, leave out 'varying' and insert 'raising'.
No. 112, in page 1, line 7, leave out 'Parliament' and insert 'Assembly'.
No. 88, in page 1, line 9, leave out 'papers' and insert `paper'.
No. 203, in page 1, line 10, leave out `1' and insert `(Referendum in Scotland (No. 2)).
No. 200, in page 1, line 22, leave out from 'certify' to second 'the'.
No. 89, in page 1, line 22, leave out
`for each of the two forms of ballot paper.'.
No. 90, in page 1, line 25, leave out
`for each of the two forms of ballot paper.'.
No. 92, in schedule 1, page 4, leave out lines 3 and 4 and insert
' FORM OF BALLOT PAPER'.
No. 95, in page 4, line 6, after 'Parliament', insert 'with tax-varying powers'.
No. 93, in page 4, line 9, at end insert
`WITH TAX-VARYING POWERS'.
No. 94, in page 4, line 12, at end insert
`WITH TAX-VARYING POWERS'.
No. 76, in page 4, leave out lines 13 to 22.
New schedule 8— Referendum in Scotland (No. 2)—
Part 1
FORM OF FIRST BALLOT PAPER
Parliament has decided to consult people in Scotland on the Government's proposals for a Scottish Parliament.
Put a cross (X) in the appropriate box:
I AGREE THAT THERE SHOULD BE A SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT WITH TAX-RAISING POWERS'.
OR
I DO NOT AGREE THAT THERE SHOULD BE A SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT WITH TAX-RAISING POWERS.'.
Last night, as we concluded our deliberations before the 10 o'clock Adjournment, I was discussing the questions that were being suggested by the hon. Members for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) and for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond).
The questions to be used in the referendum on Scotland have, as we all know, taken many forms in the past few months. The right hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Robertson) went through so many twists and turns in reaching a conclusion as to what to present to the Scottish people that one could be forgiven for thinking that he was sitting on a sharp object. Or had ground control finally got in touch with Major Tom and shown him the blade of Excalibur? Whatever it was that brought the right hon. Gentleman to the present arrangement of two questions on one referendum, he was in danger of making the grand old Duke of York look decidedly decisive. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland wants one consolidated question asking electors whether they want a tax-raising Parliament in Scotland. He said that the taxation powers were critical for a Scottish Parliament to give it flexibility and accountability. Certainly, if I were in favour of a separate Scottish Parliament, I would not be content with a Parliament that could not vote its own budget—that is to offer a hungry man a plate, but no food. But that is precisely what the Welsh are to be offered by the Government. If I were a Welsh elector, I should throw it back in the Government's face. The Welsh are being insulted by the Government, as we all are by the Bill and the proposals for a referendum in Scotland and Wales that are set out in it.Is not my hon. and learned Friend being unfair to the Government, in that they have made it clear that while they will ask in a referendum whether the Scottish people would like to have a tax-raising power in their Parliament, they also promised in the election campaign not to use that power and therefore to ignore whatever is said by the Scottish electors? Surely that is a strange thing for a Government who say that they want to be trusted by the people.
My hon. Friend is right, but then the Labour party is a strange thing.
There are only two sensible ways to deal with the referendum—I touched on one of them last night. The first is to tell the people what the Government propose—to present the public with the scheme that they recommend. Provided that it has been set out before Parliament, discussed in both Houses, discussed on television and radio and in the press—argued over in all its three-dimensional glory—the public will know precisely what they are being offered. The public should be asked, "Do you or do you not approve of the proposal for a Scottish/Welsh Parliament contained in the Scotland/Wales Act 1997 or 1998?" I call that the Linlithgow question.Given yesterday's debate and the persuasive case made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), would it not be more appropriate to refer to this as the Linlithgow solution?
It would be appropriate to call it the Linlithgow solution if I were the least bit confident that the Secretary of State for Scotland would accept his hon. Friend's solution, but he will not. The Government are not in listening mode.
To talk now of White Papers—or is it a Bill? We have yet to discover. Such talk is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. To talk of proposals for "a Scottish Parliament" means nothing. Given the timetable motion, we can expect little room for discussion from the Government. The people are entitled to know now—before the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill becomes law—the details of the proposals. Without knowing the details, they are neither informed nor in a position to make a rational judgment. The second way to deal with the referendum is to ask people whether they want independence. That is the solution preferred by the Scottish nationalists. If the people say that they want independence, it will be up to the people of Scotland to decide on their own Parliament, to set out their own plans for their taxation system and, possibly, if they want to move outside the ambit of foreign and defence affairs dealt with from Whitehall, to settle their own treaties and international affairs. However, the Government have neither the brains nor the bravery to produce anything other than a total mess. We now watch them with amazement that the reputation they were entitled to expect on election by a vast majority is rapidly sifting away. I urge all hon. Members to watch them like hawks.3.45 pm
There are many amendments in this group, but I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 111 and 112 in my name and the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).
Putting the phrase "tax-varying powers" on the face of the Bill as well as on the ballot paper perpetuates a deception that was skilfully cultivated during the run-up to the election. That deception is that the only powers that the new Scottish Parliament will have are tax-varying powers, or that the only powers that matter that the new Scottish Parliament will have are tax-varying powers. That, of course, is not true. We cannot know precisely the total number of other powers that the new Scottish Parliament is likely to have, because we do not yet have the White Paper before us; but, from the very choice of the word "parliament" for the proposed new body and from the previous attempts to establish such a Parliament, we can deduce that the range of powers to be given to the new Parliament is quite considerable. First, as one would expect of any parliament, there is the power to make law. It is inevitable that when the Government come to consider the detail of their proposals, they will attempt to transfer some law making of some sort from this House to the new Scottish Parliament. Perhaps Scottish private legislation, or those curious Scottish orders that are referred to special commissioners, or some types of Scottish legislation at the later stages of consideration will be transferred or delegated to the new Scottish Parliament. If so, they will be formidable powers, affecting every citizen of Scotland and it may well be that those voting in the referendum will prefer those powers not to be exercised by a new Scottish Parliament. After all, Scotland already has plenty of government: a Scottish Office, local authorities and a large number of Members of Parliament. Indeed, until we reduced the layer of regional government, it could be argued that Scotland had more government than almost any other country in western Europe.An existing layer of government is the Scottish Office. How do Conservative Members plan to hold the Scottish Office accountable to the people it is meant to serve—the people of Scotland?
That neatly takes me on to the second power of the Scottish Parliament, which is its power to hold Ministers, the Scottish Office and Scottish public bodies to account. At the moment, that power is exercised through this House, where Scottish Office Ministers are held to account by all Members of Parliament, whether or not they sit for Scottish constituencies. The Conservative Government strengthened that accountability by ensuring that the Scottish Grand Committee could hold to account Ministers other than those representing the Scottish Office—a welcome innovation. However, some of the people who will vote in the referendum may feel that that power should not be exercised by the new Scottish Parliament. It would all depend on whether the exercise of that power was proportionate to the cost of the new machinery by means of which it was exercised, or whether it simply duplicated the existing arrangements that prevail in the House.
Finally—These questions cannot be answered in any form until another question is answered: to whom will the civil service be responsible? Will civil servants be responsible to the United Kingdom Government, as they are at present? To whom will they owe their prime loyalty? I hate to use the word "masters", because I do not believe that that is the appropriate relationship, yet, in some senses, it is the old problem of serving two masters. Are civil servants to be responsible to the Ministers in a Scottish Parliament? Until that question has been resolved, the issues that the hon. Gentleman properly raises cannot be resolved.
That must be right. It was certainly the case under the previous Government—I know that it seems to have changed now—that civil servants were ultimately responsible to the Crown. It has yet to be established how they will be able to serve two different Parliaments. That reinforces the case for spelling out in more detail in the Bill, in legislation and, if necessary, on the ballot paper what powers those who vote in the referendum in Scotland will be voting for.
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I will, but I am conscious that others want to contribute.
I said yesterday that the role of the Secretary of State is also left in limbo. Does my hon. Friend accept not only that civil servants are servants of the Crown, but that, as the function of the Secretary of State is an indivisible function, that matter must be sorted out? As it is impossible for any one Secretary of State to be distinguished from others, the issue of the relationship between Ministers of the Crown and those who would be representatives in a Scottish Parliament, setting out their policy in that Parliament, will have to be sorted out.
It certainly needs to be sorted out. It would also lead us down the path of exploring the relationship between the Secretary of State, who is accountable to the House, and whoever is chosen to be first Minister in the new Scottish Parliament. However, that might be outside the scope of the amendments that we are debating, so I will not take that path.
The third power of Parliament is the power to grant or withhold supply. However legislation is framed, no system of parliamentary government is constructed without the prospect of granting supply to or withholding it from its Executive. Before any citizen, any resident of Scotland, comes to vote in a referendum this autumn, they will surely want to know exactly what type of supply may be controlled by the new Scottish Parliament and may be granted to or withheld from its Executive by that Parliament. That matter might affect the funding of every local authority, hospital, school, university and public service in Scotland. There may well be many people in remoter parts of Scotland who will not agree to the granting or withholding of that type of supply, exercised on the whim of a coalition in the new Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, that will, for example, dramatically reduce the moneys available to the councils of the Western Isles or the Shetland Islands. That is why the powers to be exercised by the new Scottish Parliament must be set out. If they are not to be set out in legislation before the referendum, we are entitled to say that they should be specifically set out on the face of the Bill, as proposed in the Government's narrow phrase "tax-varying powers" in clause 1, or on the ballot paper. If that is impossible, as a last resort it would be better than nothing that those powers be set out in some type of formal literature that is sent to every resident of Scotland before he or she votes in the referendum. That is a proposition which the Committee cannot discuss, because of the way in which the timetable motion has been drawn up. Unless the powers are specifically set out in legislation, and unless we can assure those who are voting that they know exactly what powers the new Scottish Parliament will have, we are driven back to the solution proposed by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), which we should put before the House again. How can those who vote in a referendum—this autumn, perhaps—be sure what they are voting for, unless they see in detail the powers that the new Parliament will exercise? When the Minister of State winds up the debate, he should re-examine the phrase "tax-varying powers", and consider the deletion of the adjective "tax-varying". He should at least come clean with the Committee and say that the vote this autumn should be on the establishment and powers in toto of the new Scottish Parliament.I want to reiterate the Liberal Democrat position on the Scottish referendum. The position is different in Wales, and our Welsh colleagues will make clear their position.
First, we are against a referendum on Scotland. We believe that the proposal for a referendum was born from panic. The Labour leadership was put in a panic by the former Secretary of State for Scotland. Fortunately, the Scottish voters have a great deal more—if I may use two Scottish expressions—spunk and smeddum than the Labour leadership. They have rejected the attempts of the previous Secretary of State to frighten them and turn them against the idea of a Scottish Parliament. The Scottish voters have shown better sense than the Labour leadership. There is no need for a referendum. Our position is diametrically opposed to that of the Conservatives, who are against any form of democracy anywhere, especially in Scotland. We believe that the views of the Scots are clear and a referendum would be a waste of time. Secondly, we are against the second question. We consider it politically inept. However it is written, it will be read by many voters as, "You do want to have higher taxes, don't you?" Those of us who learnt Latin learnt a form of question which called for the answer no. This is such a question. It is written in such a way that people will tend to vote no. It does not state, "If you vote for higher taxes, you will get better schools, better hospitals and so on," which our party put forward in the general election. It merely asks in the abstract, "Would you like to vote for higher taxes?" We believe that that is inept. Furthermore, as my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) made clear yesterday, the question puts on offer a proposition that no party is putting forward—that is, a Scottish Parliament without tax-raising powers. That is not on the political agenda, so it is wrong to offer it. It also demolishes any moral position that the Government may have for rejecting the nationalists' claim to have their question included in the referendum. Once one starts opening out the scope of the referendum, where does one stop? The second question is foolish and undermines the Government's position. I shall deal with some of the arguments that we have heard against a Parliament with tax-varying powers. The hon. Member for Linlithgow argued that the existence of borders created difficulties, but there is no problem if a citizen of Connecticut pays different taxes from a citizen of New York state, or if the citizens of two adjacent German Länder are taxed differently. The hon. Gentleman may say that America is a federal country—but that makes no difference to the principle. Denmark, a unitary country, has district, regional and national income taxes. The system works perfectly well; there is no rioting in the streets of Denmark of the kind we had here with the poll tax.Is the hon. Gentleman saying that we should not ask the Scottish people whether they want a taxation system different from the one they have at the moment, even though, on his own evidence, there are at least five or six ways in which that could be interpreted?
4 pm
We are saying that the tax-varying element of the Parliament is an integral part of the whole structure. Hence to ask a separate question about it is idiotic.
The hon. Gentleman proposes that a Scottish Parliament must, of necessity, control an entirely separate fiscal regime from the one applying to the rest of the UK. That seems to imply that a Scottish Parliament must, also of necessity, be economically independent from the United Kingdom Parliament.
I do not see why it should not be, but it is also possible to have a mixed system, which is what the Government seem to be proposing. We say that, without some control over the money, the Scottish Parliament proposal is fatally flawed.
For some time, it has been Liberal party policy—I do not know whether it still is—to advocate a local income tax, so I can well understand a Scottish Parliament having the power to raise a local income tax that varied from region to region or from county to county. Does the hon. Gentleman, however, agree that the second question is meaningless because the people of Scotland will be invited to answer it with no idea of the true definition of "tax-varying powers"? At the moment, it is just a nice-sounding phrase with no detail behind it.
By the time voting takes place, a White Paper will have been issued and debated at length. The citizens of Scotland are not all as stupid as English Conservative Members seem to think they are. It would be quite simple for them to say that they wanted a Parliament with some control over money. We are against asking a separate question at all; but if there is one, we shall campaign flat out for a double yes in the referendum, because tax-raising powers are essential.
Conservative Members have raised the chimera that because of a slightly higher income tax in Scotland, people and companies would indulge in a mass emigration to England. That is rubbish. There are already in Scotland at least three pairs of adjacent local authorities the gulf between whose council tax D bands—the standard rate band—is greater than the gulf that would ensue from the imposition of an extra 3p tax on the mythical average taxpayer. Yet there is no mass emigration or immigration—rose—
No, really, I have had enough. The whole argument, like almost everything else the Conservatives have said in this debate, is false.
Next, various Conservatives and the hon. Member for Linlithgow have argued that because Parliament might change a few commas and full stops between publication of the White Paper and the final passage of the Bill, the whole process will be null and void. That misses the point. The people of Scotland will not be swayed, when voting for or against a Scottish Parliament, merely because some power over railways or fisheries is or is not included. They will be voting on a gut feeling that they want a Scottish Parliament with control over its own affairs and its own money. Any minor changes made later by Parliament will in no way invalidate the decision of the people of Scotland. It is no wonder that many Scottish Conservatives want out. They want to run their own show. I invite Conservatives who have spoken repeatedly and prominently in these debates to come to Scotland to campaign for the no side in the referendum. Then all of us would be able to stay at home, and would romp home. Over 26 years, in four different councils, I have formed the view that in public life most of the people involved in the debate roughly understand the question, but they have different answers. The Conservative party has not begun to understand the question. It is on a different planet altogether. Many of us have used the well-known phrase about power corrupting. I have discovered in the past few days that the corruption of power is a lingering illness. The corruption carries on far longer than the power. The Conservatives must get their act together, because they are making a mockery of themselves, democracy and the House.I am pleased to reply to the debate on the amendments. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie) has it absolutely right.
It is my style to try to be as helpful as I can to the Conservative Opposition. They are recovering slowly from 1 May, but are obviously going through a period of recuperation.The Minister said that he agreed with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie), and that he was absolutely right. Does that mean that the Minister accepts the hon. Gentleman's amendment?
Obviously we are to have a continuation of the nit-picking exercise that was characteristic of the Opposition yesterday. If the right hon. Gentleman will just sit still for a few minutes more, I shall respond.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West is absolutely right that Conservative Members need to listen to what is happening in Scotland in relation to devolution and the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill. In my attempt to be continually helpful, I draw their attention to a poll in one of our national newspapers this morning. In fact there were two polls, but I shall deal first with the one on devolution. It appears that, in the most recent poll, the vote was 3:1 in support of a Scottish Parliament and 2:1 in support of it having tax-varying powers. Indeed, that poll is very encouraging. I remind the Conservative Opposition of another poll in the same national newspaper this morning, which suggested that, after popular support for the Conservatives reached the dizzy heights of 18 per cent. on 1 May, it has now plummeted to 9 per cent. I submit that the fundamental challenge for Conservative Members to get to grips with is that voters in Scotland want, by 3:1, to support a Scottish Parliament, but have given only 9 per cent. support to what used to be Her Majesty's Government's party in Scotland.Will the Minister give way?
In a moment.
It is also important to identify who is saying what in the Conservative party about the referendum. In an excellent article in the Evening News today, pro-home rule Tory campaigner Christine Richards, ex-leader of the Tories on Edinburgh council, said:That is in relation to the "I still won't budge on devolution" concept put forward in the House. I ask the Conservatives to think hard. It is becoming embarrassing for a Minister to try to help the Conservative party in Scotland to come to grips with its own reality."We cannot go on being arrogant and ignorant."
In addition to speaking to the lady to whom my hon. Friend referred, perhaps some Opposition Members should speak to the likes of Councillor Brian Meek, who is arguing a good case for an independent Conservative party in Scotland.
My hon. Friend is obviously trying to be as helpful as I am in relation to the recuperation of the Conservative party, but I fear that if I do not get on to the amendments, you, Mr. Lord, will bring me back into line.
rose—
rose—
I said that I would give way to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve).
I am grateful to the Minister, because, as I think he is aware, I have tried to attend these debates from the beginning precisely because I should like to be educated, especially on the views of Scottish and Welsh Members of Parliament. I confess that although I may go there frequently, I understand my own ignorance on many points.
There is no mention in anything that the Minister has said of the wider United Kingdom dimension. Can he not understand that one of the concerns that brings Conservative Members to address the House is the fact that unless the UK dimension is taken into account, simply going along because there may be wishes in Scotland or Wales will not produce a durable result that will both devolve government and preserve the Union?The hon. Gentleman's comment in relation to the franchise was dealt with yesterday. However, there will be ample opportunity to debate the matter when the White Paper is published, during the campaign before the referendum and, if it is successful, during the passage of the substantive Bill. I am sure that that will provide the education that the hon. Gentleman seeks as well as giving Conservative Members the opportunity to participate and to make the views of their constituents known, whichever part of the United Kingdom they represent.
My hon. Friend said that there would be ample opportunity to debate the matter. In the public print there has been some reference to the White Paper being published on 25 July. Can my hon. Friend confirm that it will be before the middle of July?
I can confirm that the Government want to publish the White Paper as soon as possible before the summer recess, and we have also confirmed that we want a debate on it when it is published.
rose—
I want to make some progress.
Amendment Nos. 76 and 87 to 95 would have the effect of consulting the electorate in Scotland only on a single proposal for a Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers. In effect, that would deny people in Scotland the opportunity to say whether they wanted their Parliament to have the power to vary tax. We, of course, firmly believe that a Scottish Parliament should have the power to vary tax. The Westminster Parliament and local authorities have such powers. We believe that the responsibility and discipline that come with having the power to vary tax are important. However, we believe that it is important that people in Scotland should be given the opportunity to express their views specifically on our tax-varying proposals. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) asked why we are consulting separately on our proposal for the Scottish Parliament to have tax-varying powers and not on any other aspects of our proposals—why taxation? Surely the hon. Gentleman will agree that taxation is significant. It is an issue on which most people have a view, and understandably so. It is only right that the views of the Scottish people on that issue are clear.When my hon. Friend refers to tax-raising powers, is he dealing with all kinds of taxes or just one kind of tax? Would VAT, corporation tax or capital gains tax be varied? Which tax is it?
The tax-varying power applicable to Scotland will be predicated on income tax.
If hon. Members are so sure that the Scottish people want a Parliament with tax-varying powers, what harm can there be in asking them? We made it clear in our manifesto that we intended to consult them on that, and I can see no reason for failing to deliver on that pledge. Popular endorsement on that specific point will put the views of the people of Scotland beyond doubt and speed the passage of the subsequent legislation. I do not expect that the people of Scotland will want anything less for a Scottish Parliament. Again, the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan sought reassurance that a second referendum would not be held once the main devolution legislation had received Royal Assent. I am happy to assure him that we have no such intention.Is it the Minister's position, as was reported, that if—I am sure that he and I would both expect and hope that it would not arise—there was a yes, no vote, a Labour Government would bring in legislation to introduce a Scottish Parliament without tax powers, despite his knowing that that is less than what he believes to be in the best interests of the Scottish people?
In the spirit of optimism pervading the Government, we believe that we shall have a yes, yes vote. To talk of any other would, in some respects, help what I was going to describe as the no, no campaign, but it is difficult to envisage a no, no campaign other than the one being generated from Westminster by the Conservative party.
The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan also raised the point, as did the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), that there would be an opportunity to vote in favour of a Scottish Parliament and against it having tax-varying powers—the so-called yes, no vote. I have no doubt that we shall receive resounding support for our proposals for a Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers. We fully expect a yes, yes result and we are planning on that basis. The heart of a Parliament lies in its powers to legislate. Our proposals will ensure that legislation on Scottish affairs will be passed in Scotland by people elected in Scotland who understand and represent Scottish interests.The point being made by me and by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) went slightly further. We were pointing out that a two-question referendum brings forward an option of a Parliament without tax-varying powers, which is not supported by any substantial party in the whole of Scotland. Why is that option being presented when other options, such as the independence option, are clearly not?
4.5 pm
The hon. Gentleman will obviously have an opportunity a bit later in the debate to discuss the multi-option referendum. Suffice it to say that we believe that the two questions are vital. We believe that tax-varying powers are an essential element of our proposals for devolution and we shall campaign vigorously to ensure that we have a yes, yes vote.
The issue of a no, yes result was raised by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. I have already explained why we are committed to consulting the people of Scotland separately on the tax-varying powers of a Scottish Parliament. There will be two ballot papers, one on the establishment of a Scottish Parliament and one on whether it should have the power to vary tax. We are using two separate ballot papers after having consulted electoral practitioners who advised that their use would reduce the risk of spoilt ballot papers and would ease the process of the count. We do not expect a no, yes result in the referendum and we are certainly not planning for that. If an individual wants to vote in that way, he or she will be perfectly entitled to do so.Who are these practitioners and what experience do they have of a two-ballot-paper referendum?
Officials have consulted widely on these issues. Indeed, there is an association—this was news to me—that brings together people who are experts in the field. I can reassure my hon. Friend that a great deal of thought has gone into the matter.
Amendment Nos.111 and 112 seek to amend the proposition on which the people in Scotland will be consulted—[Interruption.] It would be useful for Opposition Front-Bench Members to listen a bit, especially as the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), one of the leading contenders for the leadership, is here. It seems to be the practice of Conservatives to go to Scotland and to lecture, lecture and lecture the people there on devolution. Listening does not seem to have been one of their activities over the past 18 years. Amendment Nos. 111 and 112 seek to amend the proposition on which the people in Scotland will be consulted, to refer to a Scottish Assembly and to remove the reference to tax-varying powers. We have already made it perfectly clear that we intend to consult the people in Scotland on our proposals for a Scottish Parliament and not on any other options. A number of questions were asked about the specific powers of a Scottish Parliament and about details of our proposals—indeed, those questions have dominated most of the contributions from Conservative Members.I want to make a suggestion to the Minister of State which will, I hope, be helpful. Given the misunderstanding that has obviously arisen over the past three weeks over whether there will be a Bill before the referendum or a White Paper before the referendum, given that the Minister has told us that a White Paper will be produced before the House rises for the summer and that there will be a chance to debate it, and given that the referendum will not take place until September, will he consider producing a draft Bill before the referendum takes place, so that the people in Scotland and the people in Wales will know the detail of what they are being asked to vote on?
I say with the greatest respect and courtesy that I can muster that Government Members are sick and tired of the fact that after 50 questions have been posed and 50 answers have been received, Front-Bench Conservative Members' contributions are just nit-picking over what is very, very obvious. I shall spell the matter out to the right hon. Gentleman. We have said that we shall publish a White Paper as soon as possible. We shall then seek to have the legislation passed through the House. We shall then move to a referendum in the autumn—
Through both Houses?
I meant that the legislation would pass through this House and, of course, the Lords. That would mean that the legislation would receive Royal Assent by the time we rose for the summer recess. That has been made obvious and clear at every possible opportunity. I suggest again a helpful piece of advice. Unless the Conservative Opposition's comments become more relevant to the points that have been made, they are frankly not only doing themselves a disservice, but ignoring the Conservative party in Scotland, which is seeking a constructive way forward.
The Minister of State has said something and I want to be clear about it. Clarity is important. He said first that there would be a White Paper, then he said that legislation would go through the House. I looked surprised because I did not know whether he was referring to the Bill or legislation following the White Paper. We need to get the order clear. Which comes first?
In a sense, I should not dignify the questions that have been asked. I shall spell it out. We are moving to the publication of a White Paper, which will be published before the House rises for the summer recess. [Interruption.] I wish that the right hon. Gentleman would sit and listen instead of talking and talking. He asked a question, and he should let me answer it. We shall be seeking to get Royal Assent for the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill before the House rises for the summer recess. We shall then proceed to a referendum in the autumn. A successful completion of the referendum will mean a substantial Bill being prepared later this year.
rose—
I am not giving way. A number of hon. Members want to speak. I have clarified the point, as my right hon. and hon. Friends have on numerous occasions.
Dictatorship.
Again, the Conservatives seem to learn absolutely nothing. They shout from sedentary positions, "Dictatorship, dictatorship, dictatorship."
rose—
I am not giving way.
A number of questions were asked about the specific powers of a Scottish Parliament and particular details of the proposals. If hon. Members wish to engage in debate on the extent of a Scottish Parliament's powers, they should do so in the debate on the White Paper and during scrutiny of the main legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) raised a specific point on the Barnett formula. That is obviously an important issue and one that will be addressed in the White Paper. Amendment No. 145 would provide for a referendum to be held in Scotland on the establishment and tax-raising rather than tax-varying powers of a Scottish Parliament. That assumes that a Scottish Parliament would never want to lower its taxation and suggests an ever-increasing spiral of taxation. It would be an absolute nonsense to tie the Parliament's hands in that way. A power to raise tax must be accompanied by a power to lower it. I invite hon. Members not to press their amendments.I listened with interest to the Minister's response. The debate has been useful and interesting because it has not simply highlighted a number of questions on the referendum, but allowed comments on the whole question of taxation powers of a Scottish Parliament.
It is interesting to note that the Liberal Democrats' amendments have attracted a degree of all-party consensus, which hitherto has not been achieved in this Parliament. The hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) has indicated some support. The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor)—for different reasons, perhaps—found merits in the amendments. Indeed, so has the Scottish National party. I am sure that, when the House divides in a few minutes, such a grand coalition will be welcome. Some points have been raised about the powers that a Scottish Parliament would have. I wonder whether those taking part in the debate, especially Conservative Members who purport to speak with such knowledge, have read the report of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, "Scotland's Parliament: Scotland's Right", which was published on St. Andrew's day in 1995 and answers many of the questions raised. With more civil service input and jargon, it will no doubt be reflected in greater detail in the White Paper when it duly finds the light of day.Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I shall give way in a moment.
The Government are not about to launch on the people of Scotland or the United Kingdom a complete bolt from the blue that that has not been previously trailed.How do we know?
The right hon. Gentleman asks how we know. It was made perfectly clear in the election manifestos of both the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats that proposals for a Scottish Parliament would be firmly rooted in and based on the workings of the Scottish Constitutional Convention which, let it be remembered, was not a creature of either the Labour party or the Scottish Liberal Democrats. It reflected a very broad consensus in Scotland, including local authorities, Churches, trade unions, ethnic groups and Scottish language groups—perhaps the broadest-based civic representation in Scotland this century.
Does the hon. Gentleman believe that, as a result of the convention, the logical consequence of a Scottish Parliament is the reduction in Scottish representation here at Westminster? That is something that the Government deny because it is not convenient for their party representation in the House. Their proposals amount to the gerrymandering of the British constitution in their favour. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his honesty.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations, but what he said proves that he has not read the proposals of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. The convention specifically did not address the issue of the number of seats at Westminster, because that is a matter for Westminster and not for the Scottish Parliament. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Liberal Democrats endorse what the Kilbrandon commission said in 1970 or 1971 about the reduction in the number of Scottish Members of Parliament. The Labour party does not agree with that position, but there we differ. The Scottish Constitutional Convention made no recommendation one way or the other.
The hon. Gentleman said that the issue was a matter for Westminster. How can it be a matter only for Westminster unless we also sort out who at Westminster will decide it—the United Kingdom Members or the English Members?
It is self-evident that the composition of the House must be a matter for the House and all its Members. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the wider UK dimension and asked how English Members would have a chance to take part in that wider dimension. That is self-evident, too, if he gives it one moment's thought. When the Bill for a Scottish Parliament or a Welsh Assembly comes before the House, hon. Members from all parts of the United Kingdom—Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland—will all have an opportunity to take part.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is constituted—albeit that my party believes that it is constituted unfairly because of the electoral system, but that is the system that we operate—on the arguments that were put before the electorate and determined on 1 May. The overwhelming majority of the British people from Scotland, England and Wales voted on 1 May for parties that were committed to substantial constitutional reform, including Parliaments for Scotland and Wales within the United Kingdom. The representatives of the people will make the decisions and scrutinise the Bill when it comes before the House.The Bill mentions the Government's proposals for a Scottish Parliament, and the hon. Gentleman mentioned the Scottish Constitutional Convention paper. Would it not have been helpful for the public if a version or précis of the paper had been attached to the Bill as a schedule, so that in our debate on the referendum this week all those who do not have the hon. Gentleman's learning could understand what he was on about?
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. Not only has he clearly not read the Scottish Constitutional Convention proposals, but he has clearly not read the Bill. The fact that he is only now coming alive to the issue shows that he has not examined the proposals. If the referendum happens, the ballot paper to be put before the electorate will say:
Those proposals, as has been made clear, will be published in a White Paper. That issue was raised earlier at Prime Minister's questions. I recall the Prime Minister saying that the Bill would be published and I realised at the time that he was making a mistake. I do not know why he did not own up to the mistake. At an early stage in his premiership, he has forgotten the basic rule—when one is in a hole, stop digging and start climbing. Nevertheless, all of us who have followed the debate knew that he meant that a White Paper would be the basis for the referendum. The Minister has not answered the question about what could happen if there was a yes, no vote. I accept that we should approach the issue in a spirit of optimism, to use the Minister's words. He has been assured that my party will campaign, if amendment No. 87 is not successful, for a yes, yes outcome. The Herald vote today was a 2:1 yes—but only 53 per cent. were in favour of the tax-varying powers. For me, that is not a sufficient cushion of comfort. It puts us on notice that we shall have to argue for those powers. There is a good argument for those powers, but I believe that the Government are entering dangerous territory and taking a gamble. It would be better if the two questions were consolidated into one. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie) and the hon. Member for Falkirk, West pointed out, there is no party in Scotland, and no body within the home rule movement in Scotland, that argues for the yes, no option that will appear on the ballot paper—a Scottish Parliament without tax-varying powers. A Government who believe sincerely that the best solution for the government of Scotland is a Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers are taking a gamble in allowing the possibility—let us put it no higher than that for the time being—of an outcome involving a Scottish Parliament without taxation powers, for which the Government will say they are prepared to legislate—"Parliament has decided to consult people in Scotland on the Government's proposals for a Scottish Parliament".
It being half-past Four o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN put the Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that hour.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 70, Noes 344.
Division No. 10]
| [4.30 pm
|
AYES
| |
| Allan, Richard (Shef'ld Hallam) | Harris, Dr Evan |
| Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy | Harvey, Nick |
| Baker, Norman | Hayes, John |
| Ballard, Mrs Jackie | Heath, David (Somerton) |
| Beith, Rt Hon A J | Hughes, Simon (Southwark N) |
| Brand, Dr Peter | Hunter, Andrew |
| Brazier, Julian | Jenkin, Bernard (N Essex) |
| Breed, Colin | Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Môn) |
| Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon) | Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham) |
| Burstow, Paul | Keetch, Paul |
| Cable, Dr Vincent | Kennedy, Charles |
| Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife) | (Ross Skye & Inverness W)
|
| Chidgey, David | Kirkwood, Archy |
| Chope, Christopher | Livsey, Richard |
| Cotter, Brian | McIntosh, Miss Anne |
| Cunningham, Ms Roseanna | Maclennan, Robert |
(Perth)
| Mates, Michael |
| Dafis, Cynog | Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute) |
| Davey, Edward (Kingston) | Moore, Michael |
| Duncan Smith, Iain | Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway) |
| Evans, Nigel | Moss, Malcolm |
| Ewing, Mrs Margaret | Oaten, Mark |
| Fabricant, Michael | Öpik, Lembit |
| Fearn, Ronnie | Rendel, David |
| Forth, Eric | Russell, Bob (Colchester) |
| Foster, Don (Bath) | Salmond, Alex |
| Garnier, Edward | Sanders, Adrian |
| Gill, Christopher | Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge) |
| Gorman, Mrs Teresa | Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns) |
| Grieve, Dominic | Swinney, John |
| Hancock, Mike | Taylor, Matthew |
(Truro & St Austell)
| Webb, Steven |
| Taylor, Sir Teddy | Welsh, Andrew |
| Tonge, Dr Jenny | Wigley, Dafydd |
| Tyler, Paul | Willis, Phil |
| Viggers, Peter | Tellers for the Ayes:
|
| Wallace, James | Mr. Andrew Stunell and
|
| Waterson, Nigel | Mr. Donald Gorrie.
|
NOES
| |
| Abbott, Ms Diane | Coffey, Ms Ann |
| Ainger, Nick | Cohen, Harry |
| Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE) | Coleman, Iain |
| Allen, Graham (Nottingham N) | (Hammersmith & Fulham)
|
| Anderson, Donald (Swansea E) | Connarty, Michael |
| Anderson, Janet (Ros'dale) | Cook, Frank (Stockton N) |
| Ashton, Joe | Cooper, Ms Yvette |
| Atherton, Ms Candy | Corbett, Robin |
| Atkins, Ms Charlotte | Corbyn, Jeremy |
| Austin, John | Corston, Ms Jean |
| Banks, Tony | Cranston, Ross |
| Barnes, Harry | Crausby, David |
| Barron, Kevin | Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley) |
| Battle, John | Cryer, John (Hornchurch) |
| Bayley, Hugh | Cummings, John |
| Beard, Nigel | Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S) |
| Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret | Curtis-Thomas, Ms Clare |
| Begg, Miss Anne (Aberd'n S) | Dalyell, Tam |
| Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough) | Darling, Rt Hon Alistair |
| Benn, Rt Hon Tony | Darvill, Keith |
| Benton, Joe | Davey, Valerie (Bristol W) |
| Berry, Roger | Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli) |
| Best, Harold | Davies, Geraint (Croydon C) |
| Betts, Clive | Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly) |
| Blackman, Mrs Liz | Dawson, Hilton |
| Blears, Ms Hazel | Dean, Ms Janet |
| Blizzard, Robert | Denham, John |
| Bradley, Keith (Withington) | Dewar, Rt Hon Donald |
| Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin) | Dismore, Andrew |
| Brake, Thomas | Dobbin, Jim |
| Brinton, Mrs Helen | Dobson, Rt Hon Frank |
| Brown, Rt Hon Gordon | Donohoe, Brian H |
(Dunfermline E)
| Doran, Frank |
| Brown, Rt Hon Nick | Dowd, Jim |
(Newcastle E & Wallsend)
| Drew, David |
| Brown, Russell (Dumfries) | Drown, Ms Julia |
| Browne, Desmond (Kilmarnock) | Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth |
| Buck, Ms Karen | Eagle, Angela (Wallasey) |
| Burden, Richard | Eagle, Ms Maria (L'pool Garston) |
| Burgon, Colin | Edwards, Huw |
| Butler, Christine | Efford, Clive |
| Byers, Stephen | Ellman, Ms Louise |
| Caborn, Richard | Ennis, Jeff |
| Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth) | Fatchett, Derek |
| Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge) | Field, Rt Hon Frank |
| Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V) | Fisher, Mark |
| Campbell-Savours, Dale | Fitzpatrick, Jim |
| Cann, Jamie | Fitzsimons, Ms Lorna |
| Caplin, Ivor | Flint, Ms Caroline |
| Casale, Roger | Flynn, Paul |
| Caton, Martin | Follett, Ms Barbara |
| Cawsey, Ian | Foster, Rt Hon Derek |
| Chapman, Ben (Wirral S) | Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings) |
| Chaytor, David | Foster, Michael John (Worcester) |
| Chisholm, Malcolm | Galbraith, Sam |
| Clapham, Michael | Gapes, Mike |
| Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields) | George, Andrew (St Ives) |
| Clark, Dr Lynda | George, Bruce (Walsall S) |
(Edinburgh Pentlands)
| Gerard, Neil |
| Clark, Paul (Gillingham) | Gibson, Dr Ian |
| Clarke, Charles (Norwich S) | Godman, Dr Norman A |
| Clarke, Eric (Midlothian) | Godsiff, Roger |
| Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge) | Goggins, Paul |
| Clelland, David | Golding, Mrs Llin |
| Clwyd, Mrs Ann | Gordon, Mrs Eileen |
| Coaker, Vernon | Graham, Thomas |
| Grant, Berie | McAllion, John |
| Griffiths, Ms Jane (Reading E) | McAvoy, Thomas |
| Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S) | McCafferty, Ms Chris |
| Griffiths, Win (Bridgend) | McDonagh, Ms Siobhain |
| Grocott, Bruce | Macdonald, Calum |
| Grogan, John | McDonnell, John |
| Gunnell, John | McGuire, Mrs Anne |
| Hain, Peter | McIsaac, Ms Shona |
| Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale) | McKenna, Ms Rosemary |
| Hall, Patrick (Bedford) | Mackinlay, Andrew |
| Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE) | McLeish, Henry |
| Hanson, David | McNulty, Tony |
| Heal, Mrs Sylvia | MacShane, Denis |
| Healey, John | Mactaggart, Fiona |
| Henderson, Ivan (Harwich) | McWalter, Tony |
| Hepburn, Stephen | McWilliam, John |
| Heppell, John | Mahon, Mrs Alice |
| Hesford, Stephen | Mallaber, Ms Judy |
| Hill, Keith | Marek, Dr John |
| Hinchliffe, David | Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S) |
| Hodge, Ms Margaret | Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury) |
| Hoey, Kate | Marshall, David (Shettleston) |
| Home Robertson, John | Martlew, Eric |
| Hood, Jimmy | Maxton, John |
| Hoon, Geoffrey | Meacher, Rt Hon Michael |
| Hope, Philip | Meale, Alan |
| Hopkins, Kelvin | Merchant, Piers |
| Howarth, George (Knowsley N) | Merron, Ms Gillian |
| Howells, Dr Kim | Michael, Alun |
| Hoyle, Lindsay | Milburn, Alan |
| Hughes, Ms Beverley | Miller, Andrew |
(Stretford & Urmston)
| Mitchell, Austin |
| Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N) | Moffatt, Laura |
| Humble, Mrs Joan | Moonie, Dr Lewis |
| Hurst, Alan | Moran, Ms Margaret |
| Hutton, John | Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N) |
| Iddon, Brian | Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W) |
| Illsley, Eric | Morley, Elliot |
| Ingram, Adam | Mountford, Ms Kali |
| Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampst'd) | Mudie, George |
| Jackson, Mrs Helen (Hillsborough) | Mullin, Chris |
| Jamieson, David | Murphy, Dennis (Wansbeck) |
| Jenkins, Brian (Tamworth) | Murphy, Jim (Eastwood) |
| Johnson, Ms Melanie | Norris, Dan |
(Welwyn Hatfield)
| O'Brien, Mike (N Warks) |
| Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside) | O'Brien, William (Normanton) |
| Jones, Helen (Warrington N) | Olner, Bill |
| Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C) | O'Neill, Martin |
| Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S) | Organ, Mrs Diana |
| Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald | Osborne, Mrs Sandra |
| Keeble, Ms Sally | Palmer, Dr Nick |
| Keen, Alan (Feltham) | Pendry, Tom |
| Keen, Mrs Ann (Brentford) | Perham, Ms Linda |
| Kemp, Fraser | Pickthall, Colin |
| Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree) | Pike, Peter L |
| Khabra, Piara S | Plaskitt, James |
| Kidney, David | Pollard, Kerry |
| Kilfoyle, Peter | Pond, Chris |
| King, Andy (Rugby) | Pound, Stephen |
| King, Miss Oona (Bethnal Green) | Powell, Sir Raymond |
| Kingham, Tessa | Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E) |
| Kumar, Dr Ashok | Prentice, Gordon (Pendle) |
| Ladyman, Dr Stephen | Prosser, Gwyn |
| Lawrence, Ms Jackie | Purchase, Ken |
| Laxton, Bob | Quin, Ms Joyce |
| Lepper, David | Quinn, Lawrie |
| Leslie, Christopher | Radice, Giles |
| Levitt, Tom | Rammell, Bill |
| Lewis, Ivan (Bury S) | Raynsford, Nick |
| Lewis, Terry (Worsley) | Reed, Andrew (Loughborough) |
| Liddell, Mrs Helen | Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N) |
| Linton, Martin | Rogers, Allan |
| Livingstone, Ken | Rooney, Terry |
| Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C) | Ross, Ernie (Dundee W) |
| Lock, David | Rowlands, Ted |
| Love, Andy | Roy, Frank |
| Ruane, Chris | Taylor, David (NW Leics) |
| Russell, Ms Christine (Chester) | Taylor, Rt Hon John D (Strangford) |
| Salter, Martin | Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W) |
| Savidge, Malcolm | Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W) |
| Sawford, Phil | Thompson, William |
| Sedgemore, Brian | Tipping, Paddy |
| Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert | Todd, Mark |
| Shipley, Ms Debra | Touhig, Don |
| Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S) | Truswell, Paul |
| Singh, Marsha | Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE) |
| Skinner, Dennis | Turner, Desmond (Kemptown) |
| Smith, Ms Angela (Basildon) | Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk) |
| Smith, Miss Geraldine | Twigg, Derek (Halton) |
(Morecambe & Lunesdale)
| Vaz, Keith |
| Smith, Ms Jacqui (Redditch) | Vis, Dr Rudi |
| Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent) | Ward, Ms Claire |
| Snape, Peter | Wareing, Robert N |
| Soley, Clive | Watts, David |
| Southworth, Ms Helen | White, Brian |
| Spellar, John | Whitehead, Alan |
| Squire, Ms Rachel | Wicks, Malcolm |
| Starkey, Dr Phyllis | Williams, Rt Hon Alan |
| Steinberg, Gerry | (Swansea W)
|
| Stevenson, George | Williams, Dr Alan W |
(E Carmarthen)
| |
| Stewart, David (Inverness E) | |
| Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy) | |
| Stewart, Ian (Eccles) | Wills, Michael |
| Stinchcombe, Paul | Winnick, David |
| Stoate, Dr Howard | Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C) |
| Stott, Roger | Wood, Mike |
| Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin | Woolas, Phil |
| Straw, Rt Hon Jack | Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock) |
| Stringer, Graham | Wright, Tony (Gt Yarmouth) |
| Stuart, Mrs Gisela (Edgbaston) | Wyatt, Derek |
| Sutcliffe, Gerry | |
| Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann | Tellers for the Noes:
|
(Dewsbury)
| Mr. Greg Pope and Mr. John McFall.
|
| Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S) |
Question accordingly negatived.
4.45 pm
I beg to move amendment No. 71, in page 1, line 6, leave out 'tax-varying powers' and insert `constitutional status'.
With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 97, in page 1, line 7, at end insert
'and on the status of Scotland within the United Kingdom'.
No. 204, in page 1, line 10, leave out '1' and insert
'(Referendum in Scotland (No. 3)).
No. 72, in schedule 1, page 4, line 5, at end insert `and alternative'.
No. 73, in page 4, leave out line 7 and insert
`Note your preferred options in order of preference by marking 1, 2 or 3 by each option. You need not use every option.'.
No. 74, in page 4, line 8, after 'A', insert `DEVOLVED'.
No. 75, in page 4, line 9, at end insert
`OR
I AGREE THAT THERE SHOULD BE AN INDEPENDENT SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT'.
No. 231, in page 4, line 9, at end insert
`AS PROPOSED BY THE GOVERNMENT WHITE PAPER.'.
No. 232, in page 4, line 12, at end insert
`AS PROPOSED BY THE GOVERNMENT WHITE PAPER'.
No. 76, in page 4, leave out lines 13 to 22.
No. 99, in page 4, line 22, at end add— 'Part III—
Parliament has decided to consult people in Scotland on the status of Scotland within the United Kingdom.
Put a cross (X) in the appropriate box
I AGREE THAT SCOTLAND SHOULD REMAIN AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
I DO NOT AGREE THAT SCOTLAND SHOULD REMAIN AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE UNITED KINGDOM'.
New schedule 9— Referendum in Scotland (No. 3)—
Part 1
FORM OF FIRST BALLOT PAPER
Parliament has decided to consult people in Scotland on the Government's proposals for a Scottish Parliament or independence for Scotland.
Put a cross (X) in the appropriate box:
I AGREE THAT THERE SHOULD BE NO CHANGE TO THE GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND
Or
I AGREE THAT THERE SHOULD BE A SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT
or
I AGREE THAT SCOTLAND SHOULD LEAVE THE UNITED KINGDOM.'.
Amendment No. 77, in title, line 2, leave out 'tax-varying powers' and insert 'constitutional status'.
The amendment should be considered with amendments Nos. 72 to 77. Their effect is to provide for a multi-option referendum in Scotland, to give people the choice between independence, devolution and the status quo on a preferential voting system to allow people to vote 1, 2, 3. The bottom option would be knocked out, resulting in a clear winner.
My contention is that this is the real referendum, if one is to be held at all. I must make it clear at the outset that if the Government had said that they had a mandate from the general election and therefore intended to proceed with their proposals for a devolved Scottish Parliament, they would have had no argument from me about a multi-option referendum. It is legitimate to say that the general election is a mandate to move ahead with devolution proposals. That, however, is not what the Government have done. Instead, they have taken the position, as was made clear by the Secretary of State two weeks ago, that the general election did not provide a test of the constitutional options. It was not a sufficient test because other issues prevailed during the campaign. The issue on which the general election campaign in Scotland focused was the substantial urge to remove the Conservative party from every available seat, which the Scottish people were successful in doing in different ways in different constituencies. We all know that that was the key issue of the general election campaign in Scotland. If the Government believe that the general election did not decide the constitutional position and that therefore there must be a test of opinion, it is my position that that test of opinion must be fair and must make available to all the people the real options before the Scottish nation. I want to discuss three arguments. First, members of all parties in the House have at one time or another supported the concept of a multi-option referendum. Secondly, I shall point to the various international precedents, and the one United Kingdom precedent, for my position. Thirdly, I shall argue that it is such a referendum that has genuine popular assent and is supported by the people of Scotland. First, there is the argument that members of all parties have supported my position. It was certainly supported by the Secretary of State for Scotland on 23 April 1992, when he said not only that he supported the concept of a multi-option referendum but told the Scottish Trades Union Congress annual congress in Dundee that it should be "shouted from the rooftops". The Secretary of State has been having some fun with his Tory opposite number—at least, I think that that is what the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) may become, although he is denying it; time will tell—about the various changes he has made in his position. The Secretary of State owes us an explanation of why the concept was to be "shouted from the rooftops" in 1992 but not even to be whispered in the Lobbies in 1997.We won.
That is one of the hon. Gentleman's more telling contributions to debates of late. If he had been listening, he would realise that I argued that if the Secretary of State had wanted to take the Labour party's election victory as a mandate to proceed with a devolution plan without further consultation, I would have accepted that as a legitimate position. But that is not the position of the Labour party. Its position is that there has to be a test of opinion. The amendment proposes a democratic and real test of opinion.
Will the hon. Gentleman give a guarantee that if there was a multi-option referendum in which people could vote for independence, but the people of Scotland rejected that, the Scottish National party would disband and join the other political parties?
Like the Labour party did after the general elections in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992? All democratic parties accept the result of a referendum or election. If they lose, they do not disband. They try to win another referendum in the future. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Of course. Democratic parties submit their position to the people and if they are defeated they try to find a better method of putting their arguments so that they can be successful in the future. What on earth is wrong with that? What is more interesting is why, in opposition, the Labour party supported the concept of putting independence on the ballot paper, yet in government finds that prospect too frightening.
Is the hon. Gentleman now telling the Committee that if he is not satisfied with the result of the referendum or the legislation that follows it he will campaign immediately for a further referendum?
No. The Scottish National party will campaign to win a general election, a referendum or an election to a Scottish Assembly at some point in the future. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, having returned to the House, fully expects the Conservative party to return to power at the next general election. His may be a minority opinion, but I am sure that he holds it dear and clutches hope to his bosom.
A multi-option referendum was supported by the late John Smith. As leader of the Labour party, he made it clear that the Labour party as a whole was campaigning in support of the concept. So in the past there has been substantial Labour party support for the idea. The organisation Scotland United was formed and predicated on the basis of a multi-option referendum, which it recognised as the one concept that in recent years had united the forces of constitutional change in Scotland. In its policy document, "What Price Democracy", published in 1992, it argued for a multi-option referendum, noting thatMany members of that organisation are on the Government Benches today. Not only is the concept supported by Labour Members but it was originally a Liberal party idea. In the late 1960s, Lord Steel introduced a Bill proposing a multi-option referendum. Liberal Members are fond of telling us that they have most of the good ideas and that other parties adopt them some time later. I see the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) nodding her assent. What they tell us less often is that by the time they have convinced the rest of us that they are a good idea, they have deserted the cause and no longer espouse their original policies. I hope that, given the Liberal antecedents of the case, Liberal Members will support the amendment. I have to accept that Tory support for our proposal is somewhat more recent. It was not evident when the Tories were in government, but at least one of the Tory leadership candidates, the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), announced in Scotland at the weekend that he was in favour of a multi-option referendum. To be fair, some Back-Bench Tory Members have argued over a longer period that independence should appear on the ballot paper in a constitutional referendum in Scotland. Broad support for the concept has been expressed by hon. Members of all parties in the House. If we evaluate the amendment's chances of success, I comfort myself with the notion that the Secretary of State has held five positions on referendums on Scotland in the past five years. In 1992, when I debated with him as—"one of the big problems with the 1979 referendum was the absence from the ballot paper of the independence option, which meant that a significant section of the Scottish population was denied the opportunity to vote for their preferred option."
Five?
I am coming to all five.
In the 1992 general election, when we debated as the two party leaders in Scotland, the right hon. Gentleman was against any referendum. After the election, he moved, as I have already said, to support a multi-option referendum. Last year, when he was the Labour party Chief Whip, the proposal for a two-question referendum was first put forward and he adopted joint authorship of it. Some of us think that he was just covering fire for the right hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Robertson); none the less, he was willing to accept responsibility for that notion. When the Labour party's Scottish executive decided to have two referendums with three questions, that was described by the Labour party hierarchy as a mature and sensible decision. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman, as the then Chief Whip, also shared that opinion. That takes us to the fifth change of heart—the two-question referendum proposed in the Bill. All I am saying is that, having taken five positions in the past five years, surely it is not too much to expect the right hon. Gentleman to move back to his 1992 position by accepting our amendment. I am sure that he will when he replies.Wait breathlessly.
I shall do so. I am hoping for a sixth change of position because I know that, in his heart, the right hon. Gentleman knows that the amendment represents the right course to take.
There are a number of international examples of referendums that have been put before people in a range of countries where three or more clear constitutional positions have been offered. However, perhaps the example that is of most interest to the Committee is the decision of the Attlee Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1946. There was to be a ballot in Newfoundland on its democratic status. Originally, a constitutional convention suggested that only two options should be allowed, but the Attlee Privy Council decided otherwise. Preecing's Contemporary Archive for 6 to 13 November 1946 states:The Attlee Privy Council—a Labour Government with a landslide majority—had the democratic common sense to see that it would be unfair to exclude from a referendum ballot paper an option that was supported by many people in Newfoundland. As we know, it was that option that eventually, albeit narrowly, carried the day in Newfoundland. That is why it entered the Canadian Confederation. That example is both international and pertaining to the United Kingdom. I suggest that a multi-option referendum—a fair referendum—is the one that carries public support in Scotland. One opinion poll, which tested whether people wanted the option of independence to be included on the ballot paper of any referendum in Scotland, was published in The Sunday Times on 11 August 1996. It showed not only overwhelming support from the Scottish people—73 per cent.—for that idea, but majority support in every party for all the options of independence, devolution and the status quo to be included on the ballot paper. Of Labour supporters in Scotland, 81 per cent. suggested that that was the right thing to do. So there is public support for a fair ballot, but another factor should be recognised by the Committee and it is an argument that is not often put clearly. According to my memory and experience, there has not been a single recent public opinion poll that presented the three options of independence, devolution or the status quo and showed a majority in favour of devolution. In the vast majority of polls, devolution has been the preferred option, but, as far as I am aware, not a single opinion poll citing those three options has shown 50 per cent. or more in favour of devolution. One opinion poll during the general election campaign suggested that independence and devolution were tied with 35 per cent. support, with support for the status quo at 24 per cent. The ICM poll in The Scotsman suggested that there was substantial support for the status quo—that was more than the other polls suggested."Her Majesty's Government have come to the conclusion that it would not be right that the people of Newfoundland should be deprived of an opportunity of considering the issue and they have therefore decided that confederation with Canada should be included as a third choice on the referendum paper."
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I apologise for indulging my curiosity, but is the logic of the hon. Gentleman's position that any multi-choice referendum would be invalid unless one of the options received 50 per cent. support? Does it follow that the hon. Gentleman is Suggesting a transferable vote multi-choice option?
As I said in my introduction, and as the amendments state, people would mark 1, 2 or 3 in a preferential system. The option receiving the lowest number of votes in the first count would be knocked out and the votes redistributed, giving a winner with a substantial majority.
It is often said by Labour Members that devolution is supported by the overwhelming majority of the Scottish people. As today's opinion poll showed, that claim would be justified only if the independence option were not offered. As far as I know, of recent polls that have offered independence, devolution and the preservation of the status quo, not one has shown a majority in favour of devolution. I think that The Sunday Times poll that I mentioned has the figures about right—it is a close thing between devolution and independence. The Conservative party would no doubt like to hang on to the ICM poll that showed substantial support—almost 30 per cent.—for the status quo. The truth is, we do not know what the result would be and the only way to find out is by putting the options fairly and squarely before the people of Scotland and allowing them to decide.We have discussed this before. Will the hon. Gentleman explain why he would not choose to have a referendum with three options in which people could answer yes or no? One option could be: "Do you wish Scotland to remain a part of the Union or the United Kingdom?" Is he afraid that because the question is so clear, people may choose to say yes?
I do not think that anything could be clearer than the options that we propose in the amendments—whether people want no change to the constitutional arrangements, whether they want an independent Scottish Parliament or whether they want a devolved Scottish Parliament. Each option is given parity on the ballot paper and people are asked to judge. I would argue that that is a fair way to put the questions. But if the amendments are carried, if the Government want to address the issue of a multi-option referendum and if we want to reach agreement on a fair representation on the ballot paper, I am sure that that can be negotiated and arranged. The hon. Gentleman should look at what we have suggested and tell me why that is not a fair representation of the positions.
Having taught modern studies in schools for a long time and having seen the problems faced by people at all levels—right up to those learning about government and political systems at A-level—in understanding a system where the votes are ranked between the first, second and third choices, with the consequential results of the single transferable vote, I think that the complexity involved is more likely to confuse than clarify.
Australia and southern Ireland managed to cope with the complex system of voting. Most people would argue that over the years they have managed to produce reasonable results in terms of forming Governments. To argue against a system of preferential voting that is used in many countries and say that people in Scotland would be unable to cope shows me that when the hon. Gentleman was a modern studies teacher he should have had more faith in his pupils and that he should now have more faith in the people of Scotland.
Has the hon. Gentleman addressed the question of the threshold majority that should be required? Does he agree that in 1978 the number of people who voted amounted to only, I think, 32 per cent.? Does he agree that that showed such a low interest that some threshold is required in relation to the present arrangements?
Not only have I addressed that issue, but I managed to devote a large part of my speech on the guillotine motion yesterday to that point. I told the hon. Gentleman's colleagues—he was not in the Chamber at the time—that I did not think it was a very powerful argument to advance when, on the basis of the total number of the electorate, the Conservative party received 12.5 per cent. of the votes at the election. On the basis of today's opinion poll, the Conservative party's percentage of the total electorate likely to vote in Scotland would be more like 6 per cent. The threshold argument is weak when advanced from the dizzy heights of 6 or 12.5 per cent. of the total electorate. The argument for a threshold—for a fancy franchise and a rigged ballot—is a poor one. It would be far better to allow, if I may use the Scottish parlance, a square go between the various constitutional options—far, far better to put them on the ballot paper in an honest and fair manner and let the people of Scotland decide. The people of Scotland should have the right to decide this matter.
I have shared the irritation of many hon. Members at the nature of some of the contributions to this debate from Conservative Members, especially the argument that the people of England are going have to pay for this constitutional exercise in Scotland. If those hon. Members had been involved in the general election campaign in Scotland, perhaps they would have been surprised that one of the matters on which all the parties were agreed was the figures showing a substantial fiscal surplus in Scotland between 1979 and 1995. Those figures were first revealed in a Treasury answer on 13 January this year and all the political parties confirmed them, including the then Secretary of State for Scotland at a press conference.Rubbish—absolute rubbish.
I hear his former parliamentary private secretary telling me that that is absolute rubbish. On 8 April 1997, The Herald ran the headline:
Given that, earlier today, Conservative Members suggested to the Prime Minister that if he was misquoted he should have corrected the record, perhaps the then Secretary of State for Scotland should have corrected the record if he felt that he was misquoted during the election campaign. My point is that it is deeply insulting to people in Scotland to conduct the argument on that basis."Forsyth accepts that calculations show a net cash flow of £27,000 million to England."
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
He does not dare.
If the hon. Gentleman checks the record, he will find that I am more than generous in giving way to a range of hon. Members. I am not giving way because I want to refer to the nature and quality of the arguments.
It is demeaning to argue for a threshold, for a fancy franchise, for a 40 per cent. rule or for a 50 per cent. rule—that is an assault on the democratic process. It is also demeaning and inaccurate of Conservative Members to show their contempt for Scotland and for Wales by the way in which they have addressed some of those arguments over the past 24 hours. All of us have a responsibility to find a method of reaching agreement and of holding a referendum. If we are to consult the people, if we are to offer them a fair chance to express their view and if it is a referendum that is required and not a general election, as has been argued, then surely the case for putting all the options clearly, fairly and squarely before the people on a ballot is unanswerable. Whatever the voting configurations are in the Lobbies later this evening, I know that, in their hearts, most hon. Members know that that is the right thing to do.I shall be brief, because I have personal reservations about referendums in general.
As many hon. Members will know, the referendum device was introduced into our constitution at the end of the 19th century by a man called A. V. Dicey, who openly admitted that he did so with the purpose of blocking home rule for Ireland. In parliamentary terms, he was successful because he did block home rule for Ireland at that time, but that success had grave consequences for the people of that island and for the people of this island with which we have been living ever since. Referendums in general are a conservative measure and are usually introduced by those who want to preserve the constitutional status quo and prevent change of any sort from being introduced by radical reformers. Indeed, promoters of referendums since Mr. Dicey have followed his example. Hon. Members will recall that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) claims credit for having secured the 1975 referendum, but he did not do it because he wanted Britain to go into the Common Market; rather he did it for the opposite purpose. Again, in 1979 the referendum on Scottish devolution was promoted by those who wanted to stop devolution—it was the last throw of the dice for those who wanted to stop a Scottish Parliament being set up. By use of the threshold argument, to which Conservative Members have referred, they were successful in stopping devolution at that time and Scotland has paid the price ever since. In general, therefore, I am not a natural supporter of referendums and I do not see the need to hold them, except in certain circumstances where they can be justified. I believe that referendums would have been justified in the circumstances that obtained in Scotland in the aftermath of the 1992 general election, when Scotland clearly voted for parties that had proposed a Scottish Parliament. Three out of four voters in Scotland voted for parties that were offering a Scottish Parliament, but all the voters got was five more years of the Tories, who refused to change the status quo. In those circumstances, it was important to unite the forces for change in Scotland around the one issue that could unite them—the holding of a multi-option referendum, to give the Scottish people the chance to say whether they wanted independence, devolution or the status quo. That campaign was unsuccessful. I am as sorry as anyone else that it was, but the fact that people supported it at that time is not necessarily a reason to expect them to support the holding of a referendum at this point in our history, because there are inherent weaknesses in the multi-option referendum. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) did not discuss the main weakness. It is argued that the majority of people in Scotland support devolution, but that is not necessarily the case. The 9 per cent. of the electorate in Scotland who support the Tories are not the only ones who support the status quo. Some members of the Labour party support the status quo. Some supporters of the Labour party support the status quo.Name them.
I would be here all night. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is a joke. [Laughter.] The likelihood is that there would be a three-way split in any such vote. We do not know what the terms of that split would be—perhaps 40 per cent. for devolution, 30 per cent. for independence and 25 per cent. for the status quo. The idea that we should settle the issue by second choices does not encourage me much.
If I had to vote in a multi-option referendum, I would put devolution first and independence second, but I would not want independence to be established in Scotland on the basis of my second choice or those of other people. People should positively vote for independence; and if independence is established, it should be established on the basis of a majority, not of second choices. Anything else is a weak position. I have great sympathy with the idea that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan expressed—that we have a mandate to establish a Scottish Parliament and we should get on with doing it. In fact, if I, not my right hon. Friend, were Secretary of State for Scotland, that is what we would be doing.If the hon. Member cares to look at the results of The Herald poll on the second question published this morning, he will see that the proposed second question in the referendum can be carried with a majority only on the second choices of people who want independence for Scotland. Why is it all right to carry devolution on the second choices of those who want independence, but not to carry independence on the second choices of those who want devolution?
The Government were given a mandate. The manifesto that the Labour party submitted to the Scottish people at the last general election said that, if elected, Labour would introduce a two-question referendum. The Government are honouring that mandate, and it is a bit much to say that we are being dishonourable by implementing the proposals that we submitted to the Scottish people in a general election, for which they then voted. It is a very honourable position for the Government to take.
I accept that a yes, yes vote will depend on the support of Scottish National party supporters. I hope that they will understand that if they vote yes, yes we shall get, for the first time in nearly 300 years, a Parliament in Scotland, and that can be only to their advantage. I make no pretence that it will be otherwise. It will be to the advantage of the SNP to have a Parliament in Scotland because, obviously, they will receive far better representation in that Government, under a proportional system, than they possibly could in this Parliament under a first-past-the-post system, and I entirely welcome that. It would be open to a Scottish Parliament to decide to hold a referendum on whatever subject it wished. I accept that and I have no problem with it. However, at this stage in the fight for a Scottish Parliament, it is important to maximise the yes, yes vote. I am sure that the SNP will help.I am interested in what the hon. Member has to say, and we are all heartened when a Government honour their manifesto pledges, but is he seriously suggesting that the people of Scotland would rise up and object if the current Government decided to go even further than their manifesto pledge and offer that third option? Does he think that, having been promised 250,000 jobs, people will object if, by chance, 255,000 jobs are created? That is effectively what he is saying. Is he really arguing that people will object if the Government exceed their manifesto commitment?
The hon. Lady is asking me to agree that the Labour Government should implement the SNP manifesto now that the Labour Government have been elected. Of course that makes no sense.
In fact, the SNP manifesto does not propose a multi-option referendum. During the general election, Charter 88 called a democracy day debate, in which all the candidates had to answer questions on democracy. The question came up about Labour's proposals for a two-question referendum, and the SNP candidate who stood against me gave an assurance from the platform during the election that, if elected, the SNP would hold a multi-option referendum and stand by the result. I took that to be SNP policy until today, when I examined the SNP general election manifesto. It shows a picture of Fergus Ewing—described as the "Cabinet Chief Secretary". [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] I do not know where he is, but the manifesto said what would happen if the SNP had won the last general election in Scotland:and with the European Parliament."After the election of a majority of SNP MPs, the SNP will immediately initiate negotiations for independence with the UK Government"—
5.15 pm So the commitment in the SNP manifesto was"At the conclusion of this period (which is likely to take between six and twelve months) the people of Scotland will be asked to approve the 'independence settlement' in a simple one question referendum."
and SNP Members should not say tonight that a two-question referendum is unfair and undemocratic when they have just fought a general election on the platform of a one-question referendum."a simple one question referendum",
There is an exact parallel—that of a Labour Government receiving a mandate to pass devolution legislation and putting that, after parliamentary agreement, to the people in a post-legislative referendum. However, the Labour Government have not done that. They have said that the general election did not decide these issues, and Ministers argue that the people must be consulted. If the people are to be consulted, why not on independence?
The hon. Gentleman argued earlier that if the Labour Government had simply set up a Scottish Parliament, he would have accepted that. He also said that if there is any test of opinion, it must be a fair test of opinion and it must be a multi-option referendum, yet he intended to test the opinion of the Scottish people in a one-question referendum if the SNP had won the last general election. It is very unfair of the hon. Gentleman to accuse my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State of changing his position on the referendum issue when the SNP has changed its in the space of a month, since the general election.
Is my hon. Friend aware that nearly every member of the Labour party in Scotland supported devolution but did not support separatism? We told the people of Scotland that we wanted a Scottish Parliament along the lines of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. We did not hoodwink or kid the folk that we would lead them down the road of separatism. Why should we listen when the SNP tell us to follow its separatism policies, which we did not fight the general election on?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is about a general election mandate, and part of the Labour Government's mandate was that they should go ahead with the two-question referendum. It was in the manifesto and was spoken about at all the public meetings in all the constituencies in Scotland by all the candidates. In fact, they were fiercely attacked by the SNP and by others for adopting such a position.
In the event, the voters voted for us, and it should not be regarded as dishonourable or objectionable for the Labour Government to honour their manifesto commitment to introduce a referendum with two questions. I realised the dangers of the second question more than anything during the brief period that I spent on the Labour Front Bench. I believe that it is a very weak position to put the second question to the people in a referendum. If this Parliament were to hold a referendum throughout the United Kingdom seeking the right to vary taxation throughout the UK, I doubt that a majority of UK taxpayers would give Parliament the power to vary taxation in the way in which the Tories did in the last Parliament. We must overcome that difficulty. We have a fight on our hands to win two yes votes in the referendum in September. I do not mean this insultingly, but the Tory party in Parliament is irrelevant to the contest in September. We need to unite behind a Scottish Parliament with tax-raising powers, and then the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan and the SNP will be even better placed to argue the case than they are at the moment.It is a great honour for me to address the House for the first time, as the first elected Member for Vale of York. I hope that hon. Members will consider this a good opportunity for me to pay tribute to my predecessors, one of whom is the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). Another is the shadow Minister for local government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), the third is my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) and the fourth is the former Member for Harrogate, Mr. Robert Banks. I hope that colleagues will not feel that I am insisting that it takes one woman to do the work of four men. My predecessors have paved the way for me to take over in a smooth transition as the first Member for Vale of York.
In addition to his work as the former Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks did great work in north Yorkshire, especially among the farming community, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon in his previous capacity at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Hon. Members will recall that the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale has largely been in connection with racecourses throughout Great Britain, including Scotland and Wales, and not least in my own constituency of Thirsk. Sadly, the former hon. Member for Harrogate retired at the last election. He will be remembered for the sterling work that he did for his constituency, and for the work that he did as a man of great integrity in our relations with Sudan. I am a Scot by birth and a Scottish advocate by profession, albeit non-practising at present. I am proud to have had the benefit of a Yorkshire education. It may not be that of, say, Fettes college, but I am proud to have been educated at Harrogate college in north Yorkshire and subsequently at the university of Edinburgh. I am exceedingly attached to my Scottish roots, which I consider to be firmly established in the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I shall say a few words about my constituency. The Vale of York is a special place with special people in it. I have referred to four of our number. My predecessors also include the present European Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan. Other well-known residents of my home town, Thirsk, were Thomas Lord who, as hon. Members will recall, was the founding member of Lord's cricket ground, and Alf Wight—another Scot—perhaps better known for his contribution to animals as James Herriot. All those honourable people have made special contributions to the life of the Vale of York, as I hope to do in my capacity as the first elected Member. The geographic heart of my constituency is Helperby, but the population is based on the very pretty market towns of Bedale, Boroughbridge, Thirsk and Easingwold, as well as north York. I turn to the business in question. On amendment No. 71, I have great difficulty in understanding the need for such an amendment and in supporting it. I query the relevance of drawing on the experience of Newfoundland and Australia, unless the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) is suggesting that the Scots who live there made a contribution there from which those of us now living in England can learn. I have a letter from a constituent who is extremely concerned that those of us Scots who are now resident in England will not have a vote in the referendum. He writes:I hope that hon. Members will consider that no less relevant than the amendment. I have great difficulty in sharing the philosophy of the Government and other Opposition Members with whom I share a Bench. They conclude from the result of the general election that we have a mandate from the Scottish people and the Welsh people—albeit those who happen to live within the borders of Scotland and Wales—on the question of a referendum. In my humble experience in my first parliamentary term, we fight general elections not on constitutional issues, of which the Bill forms a part, but on domestic issues such as education—for example, assisted places such as those that were enjoyed by hon. Members at Fettes college—health and law and order. I shall look forward with great anticipation to the referendum campaign, to see whether there is a sufficient majority of the Scottish and Welsh people in favour of the referendum, before we proceed further. On clause 1, I am treading on new ground as a new Member, but I have serious reservations about substantive procedural points in the Bill being dealt with by Order in Council. Perhaps the Government could put me out of my misery by enlightening me. One of the reasons why I sought to be the first Member of Parliament for Vale of York was that I believe that there should be proper scrutiny in the House through primary legislation. As secondary legislation, an Order in Council is not an appropriate instrument for the consideration of issues of a constitutional nature. They should be dealt with on the Floor of the House, not in Committee, in the form of a primary Bill enabling us to scrutinise draft legislation. We can draw parallels with the European legislation that appears before the House as secondary legislation. I seek an explanation as to why the Government consider it appropriate to proceed by way of Order in Council, which I do not consider to be an appropriate instrument to use on this occasion. I believe that it infringes the heart of parliamentary sovereignty, which the Opposition hold dear. Returning to the Vale of York, I invite the Government to consider one point. Perhaps we could have a future referendum on how Scottish Power will transfer electricity. The Government will have to reach a view on whether a new line of pylons should be built in the Vale of York. It would be more appropriate to use any so-called windfall tax to put electricity wires underground, rather than carrying them in pylon form. Would the Government consider a referendum on the matter? Finally, if the outcome of a referendum in Scotland was clearly in favour of devolution, would the post of Secretary of State for Scotland disappear? Who in Parliament would take subsequent decisions?"I and tens of thousands of expatriate Scots, if not more, will not be enfranchised, nor would the expatriate Welsh."
It has been the tradition in the House to welcome maiden speeches, but I do so now out of more than perfunctory politeness. I do not think that I have ever met the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), but I warmly congratulate her on using her maiden speech to make pertinent observations on the topic in hand.
When I came into the House, it was the tradition that every maiden speech was devoted to the subject being discussed on the Floor of the House. That, alas, has rather ceased to be the tradition. It is an old tradition to which the hon. Lady returned with something pertinent and worthwhile to say. It is not for me to judge the content of her contribution to the debate, but she should be applauded by all of us for having thought about the subject under discussion and for making a highly relevant contribution. Maiden speeches are not always welcome on guillotine motions, but no one can accuse her of not treating the guillotine properly or of abusing the time of the House. She also has a locus in this matter, in that she is a graduate of the university of Edinburgh. I am sure I speak for the whole House when I say that we look forward to hearing her speak on many future occasions. I am tempted to break the habit of a lifetime and to vote for an SNP amendment, because it has the benefit of seeming transparency. Some of us believe that once an Assembly or Parliament is established, we shall be on a motorway with no exit to something that is indistinguishable either from federalism or from an independent Scottish state. For us, then, transparency has many attractions. It will however perhaps come as a relief to the leader of the SNP, my constituent, to discover that I will not be voting with his party this evening. I strongly believe that referendums should be about only concrete, definite proposals. It is wrong to have a general referendum on independence without knowing the exact terms of that independence. Independence involves divorce, and divorces can be messy. We are entitled to know the terms of the divorce settlement in the case of England and Scotland before we have a referendum on independence.
5.30 pm
The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed this on a number of occasions. It is why, under my party's proposals, the referendum would be held after a negotiated settlement once the exact terms of the proposals were available. The hon. Gentleman will understand that our amendment today cannot follow that line because it deals with a referendum that the Government want to hold in September. So the fault of holding the referendum before the legislation is the Government's, not mine.
It would be silly of me to say that I did not understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, given what I have said before. I just thought I would explain why I will not be in the Lobby with him, greatly tempted though I was.
I begin by echoing the words of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) on her excellent maiden speech. I hope that she will forgive me if I do not say more than that, much as I would like to expand on my compliments. The time left for this debate goes to show the absurdity of the straitjacket in which the Government have placed us. We have to vote at 6 o'clock on the most important single issue to be debated on this Bill. Many of the Back Benchers who would have liked to take part will not have had the chance to do so by then.
Time is so limited that we are having to vote only on an amendment which is rather confusing and which would produce a confused result. I shall confine my brief remarks to amendments Nos. 97 and 99, the latter being the substantive one. It details a third question to put before the people of Scotland, taking up the wording that the Government have deployed for the other two questions: "I AGREE THAT SCOTLAND SHOULD REMAIN AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE UNITED KINGDOM I DO NOT AGREE THAT SCOTLAND SHOULD REMAIN AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE UNITED KINGDOM". The great virtue of the amendment and the question is that there is nothing incompatible about a voter saying that he or she wants a Scottish Parliament and that he or she wants to affirm the unity of the United Kingdom. I have always made the preservation of the United Kingdom my greatest aim. That is why I took an active part in the devolution debates of the 1970s. I would argue from a rather different position this evening if Parliament were finely balanced and if it were likely that the Government could be defeated. But I accept that the Government's majority will not be overturned; I also accept that we are in a weak position following the general election, there being no Scottish Conservative Members. I therefore want to test the Government's resolve. The Secretary of State has often proclaimed his personal belief in the integrity of the United Kingdom. I must therefore ask him how the amendment can fail to strengthen his cause and the cause of others who believe in the United Kingdom. It merely gives those who go to the polls in September the opportunity to put a cross in a third box. Some people may say that they want a Parliament but not with tax-raising powers. They may also want to remain part of the United Kingdom. If 78 or 80 per cent. want to remain a part of it, as the recent general election seemed to show, such a vote would represent a massive positive affirmation. If, on the other hand, people voted in favour of Scotland not remaining part of the United Kingdom, I would deplore and regret that—but at least we would know where we were going. It is after all important to know that. That is why, on this one specific issue, I have always made common cause with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) and his colleagues, who wish to test support for independence. That is precisely what the amendment would do. I shall want to campaign vigorously on the issue. Indeed, any Member of the UK Parliament has the right to campaign in Scotland on the referendum and to support the idea of Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom. If we are successful, perhaps many of the dangers that we have forecast will be lessened—but setting up a Scottish Parliament on the basis of the referendum questions proposed in the Bill would leave the whole issue wide open. Many of those who vote for a Scottish Parliament in a two-question referendum will be those who support the SNP line, but there will be no way, as things stand, of knowing whether they support that line or the Government line. As the Secretary of State knows, I accept that there will be a Scottish Parliament—but I want it to succeed and not to lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. I therefore beg the Secretary of State even at this late stage to accept the logic of what I am saying and to introduce an amendment similar to mine in another place. We will not have the chance to vote on this question here tonight, a fact which I regret, but it is certainly right that the other place should examine the Bill in minute detail. It should not filibuster or hold up the Bill—it will not do so—and I hope that no accusations will be levelled at their lordships if they do examine the Bill in detail. I am not one to suggest that the Salisbury convention should be flouted or overturned; I do not think that it would be if, in another place, an amendment along these lines were accepted. The Commons would then have the opportunity to agree or disagree with the Lords in the said amendment. I ask the Secretary of State to take the initiative and to table an amendment along these lines in another place. That will give him the satisfaction of knowing that his devotion to the United Kingdom can be supported by a large majority of those who go to the polls in September.I welcome the speech made by the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh). It is always a pleasure to see another part of the Scottish diaspora appearing in the House. I do not know the hon. Lady personally, but I do know that she is the Member of the European Parliament for the constituency of Essex North and Suffolk South. It seems that her appetite for politics is insatiable. She certainly has a remarkable geographical range, and I congratulate her on her ambition. She made a good speech—there is no doubt about that. It was not made in a particularly distinctive Scottish accent, but that was possibly the impact of Harrogate in earlier and better years.
The hon. Lady showed a very lively style and made many pertinent points, but I will take some slight revenge on her, because she made the mistake of asking a fairly technical question about Orders in Council. I can assure her that they will have to be considered by the affirmative resolution procedure in both Houses, and she will have every opportunity to take part in that debate. I must also tell the hon. Lady—here I visibly preen myself on behalf of the Government—that we have, of course, produced the Orders in Council in draft form, and they are in the Library now. Perhaps she will want to rush down there in just a few minutes to prepare her various recommendations and pleas about possible alterations, but I am sure that she will not—she is far too sensible. The Orders in Council are important, even though they might be described as crossing the t's and dotting the i's, as they deal with the small change to the mechanics of the referendum process. The hon. Lady is extremely welcome in the House. I suspect that I shall hear her on many occasions, particularly if she is pressed into service as a kind of bearer or bag carrier for whoever is unfortunate enough to be shadow Secretary of State for Scotland. She is obviously well qualified by her Scottish antecedents.My right hon. Friend mentioned the referendum process. As this will be the last opportunity to raise the issue on this clause, and possibly on clause 2, will he confirm that the results of the local counts will be publicly announced in Wales and Scotland as they were in 1979?
My understanding is that the global result will be announced publicly, and that is the one that counts, as it is the ultimate decision-making total. We hope to be able to announce the Scottish count—I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that I cannot speak about the detail for Wales—on the night, which is a change from what happened in 1979.
What about locally?
We also expect the local government area counts to become available. That is right. I hope that that is of some help.
rose—
I recognise that the hon. Lady will want to talk to me about the problems of Argyll and Bute. We shall consult her constituents. Perhaps the modern miracle of a helicopter will have to be brought into play in order to achieve this, but it will not amount to "Apocalypse Now".
It is a big problem. We shall not be able to afford to have helicopters flying at night unless the Secretary of State comes up with the funding.
I did say that it is an ambition. I am very well aware of the dangers of making of-the-cuff gifts, even to someone as charming as the hon. Lady—and that really was sucking up rather horribly. It is an ambition, but it depends on the practicalities. The House would see it as an advantage if it were possible to get the results as early as possible.
Will the Secretary of State give way?
No, I must press on, and I have some respect for hon. Members who may want to get in. The hon. and learned Gentleman is a persistent recidivist on questions of this matter.
5.45 pm I have some things in common with the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack). I sometimes find it a little puzzling to recognise that he is a reasonable man, but I do so quite often. I believe very firmly that we should retain our connections with the rest of the United Kingdom—I speak here from a Scottish point of view—but I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's suggestion is a helpful way to achieve that. The hon. Gentleman invites us to put another question on the ballot paper about Scotland remaining an integral part of the United Kingdom. The word "integral" is open to many interpretations and might lead to some confusion. Anyway, it seems to me that his view is based to some extent on a misunderstanding: that in some way the devolution settlement would remove Scotland from being an integral part. I recognise what the hon. Gentleman says, but inevitably the question would be seen as an alternative and not a buttressing question. It confuses the situation and it is not one that I would be prepared to endorse. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that my position—his may be different—is that if we have the good health of the United Kingdom in mind, we have to establish that the framework of government is responsive enough to adapt to changing conditions, and to give more direct access to government, not just in Scotland but in other parts of the United Kingdom. We do not see this as an isolated move on the part of the Government. Rather it is an important part of a package.rose—
No, I am sorry, but I shall not give way. I recognise that it looks rude, and I hope that hon. Members will recognise that I am not given to refusing information, but I must push on.
This group of amendments would have the effect of providing a multi-option referendum of the kind described by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond). This is a serious issue, and I do not underestimate the importance of the debate. The hon. Gentleman made his case in his usual compact style very fairly. I particularly appreciate his recognition that the preferred option, from the vast majority of tests of public opinion, has been a devolution option rather than an independence option. I hasten to say that I do not believe that that means that he cannot continue to ply his trade and push his wares, although I have a rather less optimistic view than he has of his likely success. My essential objection to a multi-option referendum is that it is using the referendum as a way to canvass a range of options. It is a snap poll. It is, in a sense—if one is being a little pejorative, although I do not mean to be—a beauty contest. That is not the stage that we are at, and I do not think that that should be the aim of the referendum. I will give an example, which I hope that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan will find persuasive. It is one that he gave me, but I did not recognise it until I heard the exchange between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion). Although the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan is in favour of a multi-option referendum as a general principle, when it comes—if it ever does—to the point where he wishes to implement a specific constitutional scheme, he should put that to the people of Scotland in a single-question referendum to get it endorsed. My view is that we are at that stage now. We are trying to establish consent to a specific scheme and not merely to canvass competing options. If that scheme is rejected in the referendum—rose—
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment—I will make one exception—as I am attacking his party. [Interruption.] Well, disputing with his party, perfectly fairly.
If we had a rejection in that referendum, obviously we might well be back to the canvassing of options, many of us in a somewhat puzzled and disappointed state. At this stage we have a plan. We have been challenged to establish consent and we are in the business of establishing consent. It seems to me, therefore, that the single-question option is indeed the right one.The kernel of this point seems to be the publication of the White Paper so that we know in specific detail the contents of the Government's proposal. That is why the multi-option referendum is relevant now, and why a post-legislative referendum—post-independence—would be relevant at that stage. The kernel is the publication of the White Paper, and that is not evident from the debate today.
There were some spirited exchanges on that subject earlier today and I seem to have been talking about it for some time—some might say interminably. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that a referendum without a White Paper setting out the scheme would be a very odd exercise indeed. We have already made it clear that we intend to publish the White Paper before the House gets up for the summer recess. I hope that that would give plenty of opportunity for people to study it. The hon. Gentleman is well aware of the essential differences between his position and mine—as, I believe, is Scotland at the end of the day.
There is a misconception about the stage that we are at and what we are trying to achieve. It is the distinction, the endorsement of a specific proposal, that conditions and dictates the subject matter of the referendum. I recognise that that is a matter about which we will disagree, but it seems to be a sensible approach. With all respect to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan, I was not desperately impressed by some of his arguments, although he put them neatly, as I said. I well remember 28 April 1992: it was probably from the top of an open-top bus in George square in the driving rain, I suspect—at any event, I remember that period, but it was in the very different context of a Government who had been badly defeated in Scotland, who were clearly not listening to the opinion of the Scottish people and who, collectively, were as deaf as a post. In those circumstances, we thought that a test of public opinion of a more general sort had some merit, although we could not persuade the then Government of that. We are now in the very different circumstances that I have outlined, so my position is consistent and justified. I do not intend to follow the hon. Gentleman into international comparisons, although I am always intrigued by the hard work put in by the Scottish National party, looking at the most obscure—[Interruption.] I think that the hon. Gentleman accepted that.Australia.
I know that the hon. Lady comes from Australia. She is so proud of her Australian roots that it is almost a pity that she left them. However, that is not a point that I would push because she entertains us greatly now that she is here. However, I was merely referring to Newfoundland. I remember two interesting passages in Greenland's constitution being illuminated recently by the hon. Gentleman. I should plead guilty because I can remember boring the House on one occasion with some interesting information about poll tax referendums in various obscure parts of Canada. We all do it on occasion, but it is not relevant.
I have made the main points that I want to make about the context and the aim, and in the interests of the House I shall leave the matter there. The referendum is directly linked to delivery. I spent 20 years of my political life—perhaps more than that—arguing the pros and cons, the difficulties, advantages and opportunities of the matter. We have now got to the point where we can make progress. However, we need to settle the issue of content. The referendum is a good way to do that. I never quarrel with my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East, but can I say to him gently that we are cracking on at some speed with these matters. He may just have caught a note of dissent from the Conservative Benches on the timetable that we have adopted and the speed at which we are moving. That is because we are determined to maintain momentum and progress. It is very much a matter of action this day. If the Bill completes its progress successfully today and goes on to another place and, I hope, safely to the statute book, we will allow the people of Scotland to have their say and to endorse or not endorse—I cannot be blindly confident about the outcome. Clearly, the opinion polls in today's press are immensely encouraging. I agree that we have to work, but above all we must trust the people to reach the decision that they want. I very much hope that they will give us the momentum and moral authority to bring forward and complete one of the most exciting reforms in British constitutional history this century.I understand the urgency with which the Secretary of State will bring forward the White Paper. It might be helpful if he were to consider attaching a draft Bill to it so that we could see all the details. I understand that that is something that the Government are considering doing in relation to certain White Papers and it might be useful on this occasion.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) on an excellent maiden speech. I am delighted that even if the Conservative party has no Scottish Members of Parliament we now have as many Scottish advocates as the Labour party and more than any other party. It was an excellent speech and we look forward to hearing many more from her. The Conservative party is in a difficult position because we agree with the principle that there should be a multi-option question, where three relevant questions should be posed. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) said, however, we have an amendment which goes much further than that and suggests that an order of preference should be built into that multi-option question. I do not often find myself agreeing with the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion), but I do agree that to decide such constitutional matters on second or third preference is fairly dangerous. We support the principle because at present the Bill contains two questions—whether there should be a Scottish Parliament or not. Those who vote for a Scottish Parliament could do so for two very different reasons. The Government will campaign and vote for it because, as they have often said, they believe that it will buttress the Union. Nationalists in Scotland have made it clear that they will vote for it because they think that it will lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. There are thus two completely different and opposite reasons for voting for the same option. That is a dangerous basis on which to say that there is a mandate to take this matter forward and then to take legislation forward. I clearly remember that after the last referendum we had arguments which lasted for a long time, which were rehearsed yesterday in the House, about non-voters and whether they should be taken as yes voters or no voters and what that meant in terms of the outcome. The idea that there could be a yes vote for a Scottish Parliament which could be based on the views of those who wish to maintain a United Kingdom and those who wish to break it up is a dangerous precedent. It is for that reason that I say that we would have supported the amendments tabled in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for South Staffordshire and for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin). Both had amendments which clearly would have enabled the Scottish people to decide between three options—independence, a devolved Parliament in Scotland, or the status quo. Those are the real questions that should be asked, but as they are not available to us in the amendment on which we are about to vote, the Opposition spokesmen will abstain.We have had an interesting debate, constrained by the time available, but none the less a number of important points have been made. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) on her maiden speech. She said that we must not think that she would replace all four of her predecessors. Having known her four predecessors and having listened to her excellent maiden speech, I am sure that she has a good chance of effectively replacing all four of her predecessors and we look forward to more contributions from her.
I was interested to hear the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) announce to the House that in principle Conservatives are in favour of the amendments and a multi-option referendum. That comes as a surprise to some of us. We have been waiting for the past 18 years to see some sign of that. None the less, we must accept that this is something of a breakthrough. It is the first indication during the past four weeks that Conservative Front-Bench Members have listened to the Scottish electorate's verdict. We now have it on the record that, in principle, the Conservative party is in favour of a multi-option referendum. It is rather weak to say that things should have been done differently. Preferential voting is widely used internationally. It is not confusing or difficult. There are, if necessary, other ways to do it. Newfoundland had two referendums in successive weeks. The French managed to find their way through a similar arrangement and elect a Government. If there are at least three positions, it is only fair to put them on the ballot paper. I welcome the Conservative party's conversion in principle, but I regret that that principle does not seem to want to take Conservative Members into the Lobby in a few minutes' time. The Secretary of State for Scotland criticises me for using international examples. He also criticised my hon. Friend the Member for Perth (Ms Cunningham). Given that he once told me that he did not obtain a passport until the age of 50, I regard my international examples as important and relevant to the debate. The Secretary of State said that we spoke on open-deck buses. I do not remember speaking with the Secretary of State on open-deck buses, but I do remember speaking with the Minister of State on an open-deck bus in front of 25,000 people in the Meadows in 1992, articulating the case for this sort of referendum in Scotland. I see the Minister nodding assent. The Secretary of State has given a number of reasons why what might have been relevant in 1992 is not relevant in 1997. The basic change is that in 1992 the Labour party was in opposition and in 1997 it is in government. The right hon. Member for Devizes is in a similar position. If our proposal is right in principle—if it is right to put forward all the constitutional options to the people of Scotland—surely the amendments, which are clear, are worth supporting in the Lobby. I share many of the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack). If he examines amendments Nos. 72 to 77—all six are necessary in order to rearrange the ballot paper—I think that he will then find that the options are being put forward in a perfectly fair and reasonable way. I see as the crux of the debate the fact that the Government do not seem to have realised that they are offering a multi-option referendum. In their two questions, they are offering a multi-option referendum between the status quo, a Parliament with tax-varying powers and a Parliament without tax-varying powers. The difficulty with their multi-option referendum is that they offer the wrong options—the status quo has been widely discredited and a Parliament with no tax-varying powers is not supported by any substantial body of opinion. Would it not be fairer, more democratic and infinitely more satisfactory if the House were to find within itself the wisdom, just for once, to give Scots a genuine right of self-determination—the right to determine our future by making available to us all the constitutional options facing the nation? It cannot be said by any hon. Member that there is not significant support in Scotland for the concept and the objective of an independent country. That option, therefore, should be on the ballot paper, along with all the other constitutional options.It being Six o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN put the Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that hour.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 45, Noes 405.
Division No. 11]
| [6 pm
|
AYES
| |
| Bercow, John | Loughton, Tim |
| Blunt, Crispin | Mates, Michael |
| Chope, Christopher | Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway) |
| Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington) | Nicholls, Patrick |
| Cormack, Sir Patrick | Norman, Archie |
| Cunningham, Ms Roseanna | Paice, James |
(Perth)
| Paterson, Owen |
| Dafis, Cynog | Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne) |
| Day, Stephen | Salmond, Alex |
| Duncan Smith, Iain | Sayeed, Jonathan |
| Ewing, Mrs Margaret | Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge) |
| Fabricant, Michael | Spring, Richard |
| Fallon, Michael | Swayne, Desmond |
| Forth, Eric | Swinney, John |
| Gale, Roger | Taylor, Sir Teddy |
| Garnier, Edward | Tredinnick, David |
| Gibb, Nick | Waterson, Nigel |
| Gill, Christopher | Whittingdale, John |
| Gorman, Mrs Teresa | Wigley, Dafydd |
| Greenway, John | Wilkinson, John |
| Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David | Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield) |
| Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot) | |
| Jenkin, Bernard (N Essex) | Tellers for the Ayes:
|
| Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Môn) | Mr. Elfyn Llwyd and Mr. Andrew Welsh.
|
| Laing, Mrs Eleanor | |
NOES
| |
| Abbott, Ms Diane | Breed, Colin |
| Ainger, Nick | Brinton, Mrs Helen |
| Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE) | Brown, Rt Hon Gordon |
| Allan, Richard (Shef'ld Hallam) | (Dunfermline E)
|
| Allen, Graham (Nottingham N) | Brown, Rt Hon Nick |
| Anderson, Donald (Swansea E) | (Newcastle E & Wallsend)
|
| Anderson, Janet (Ros'dale) | Brown, Russell (Dumfries) |
| Armstrong, Ms Hilary | Browne, Desmond (Kilmarnock) |
| Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy | Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon) |
| Ashton, Joe | Buck, Ms Karen |
| Atherton, Ms Candy | Burden, Richard |
| Atkins, Ms Charlotte | Burgon, Colin |
| Austin, John | Burstow, Paul |
| Baker, Norman | Butler, Christine |
| Ballard, Mrs Jackie | Byers, Stephen |
| Banks, Tony | Cable, Dr Vincent |
| Barnes, Harry | Caborn, Richard |
| Barron, Kevin | Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth) |
| Battle, John | Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge) |
| Bayley, Hugh | Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife) |
| Beard, Nigel | Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V) |
| Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret | Campbell-Savours, Dale |
| Begg, Miss Anne (Aberd'n S) | Canavan, Dennis |
| Berth, Rt Hon A J | Cann, Jamie |
| Benn, Rt Hon Tony | Caplin, Ivor |
| Benton, Joe | Casale, Roger |
| Berry, Roger | Caton, Martin |
| Best, Harold | Cawsey, Ian |
| Betts, Clive | Chapman, Ben (Wirral S) |
| Blackman, Mrs Liz | Chaytor, David |
| Blears, Ms Hazel | Chidgey, David |
| Blizzard, Robert | Chisholm, Malcolm |
| Bradley, Keith (Withington) | Clapham, Michael |
| Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin) | Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields) |
| Brake, Thomas | Clark, Dr Lynda |
| Brand, Dr Peter | (Edinburgh Pentlands)
|
| Clark, Paul (Gillingham) | Gibson, Dr Ian |
| Clarke, Charles (Norwich S) | Gilroy, Mrs Linda |
| Clarke, Eric (Midlothian) | Godman, Dr Norman A |
| Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge) | Godsiff, Roger |
| Clarke, Tony (Northampton S) | Goggins, Paul |
| Clelland, David | Golding, Mrs Llin |
| Clwyd, Mrs Ann | Gordon, Mrs Eileen |
| Coaker, Vernon | Graham, Thomas |
| Coffey, Ms Ann | Grant, Bernie |
| Cohen, Harry | Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S) |
| Coleman, Iain | Griffiths, Win (Bridgend) |
(Hammersmith & Fulham)
| Grocott, Bruce |
| Colman, Anthony (Putney) | Grogan, John |
| Connarty, Michael | Gunnell, John |
| Cook, Frank (Stockton N) | Hain, Peter |
| Cooper, Ms Yvette | Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale) |
| Corbett, Robin | Hall, Patrick (Bedford) |
| Corston, Ms Jean | Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE) |
| Cotter, Brian | Hancock, Mike |
| Cousins, Jim | Hanson, David |
| Cranston, Ross | Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet |
| Crausby, David | Harvey, Nick |
| Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley) | Heal, Mrs Sylvia |
| Cryer, John (Hornchurch) | Healey, John |
| Cummings, John | Heath, David (Somerton) |
| Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S) | Henderson, Ivan (Harwich) |
| Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John | Hepburn, Stephen |
(Copeland)
| Heppell, John |
| Curtis-Thomas, Ms Clare | Hesford, Stephen |
| Dalyell, Tam | Hill, Keith |
| Darling, Rt Hon Alistair | Hinchliffe, David |
| Darvill, Keith | Hoey, Kate |
| Davey, Edward (Kingston) | Home Robertson, John |
| Davey, Valerie (Bristol W) | Hood, Jimmy |
| Davidson, Ian | Hoon, Geoffrey |
| Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli) | Hope, Philip |
| Davies, Geraint (Croydon C) | Hopkins, Kelvin |
| Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly) | Howarth, George (Knowsley N) |
| Dawson, Hilton | Howells, Dr Kim |
| Dean, Ms Janet | Hoyle, Lindsay |
| Denham, John | Hughes, Ms Beverley |
| Dewar, Rt Hon Donald | (Stretford & Urmston)
|
| Dismore, Andrew | Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N) |
| Dobbin, Jim | Hughes, Simon (Southwark N) |
| Dobson, Rt Hon Frank | Humble, Mrs Joan |
| Donohoe, Brian H | Hurst, Alan |
| Doran, Frank | Hutton, John |
| Dowd, Jim | Iddon, Brian |
| Drew, David | Illsley, Eric |
| Drown, Ms Julia | Ingram, Adam |
| Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth | Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampst'd) |
| Eagle, Angela (Wallasey) | Jackson, Mrs Helen (Hillsborough) |
| Eagle, Ms Maria (L'pool Garston) | Jamieson, David |
| Edwards, Huw | Jenkins, Brian (Tamworth) |
| Efford, Clive | Johnson, Ms Melanie |
| Ellman, Ms Louise | (Welwyn Hatfield)
|
| Ennis, Jeff | Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside) |
| Fearn, Ronnie | Jones, Ms Fiona (Newark) |
| Field, Rt Hon Frank | Jones, Helen (Warrington N) |
| Fisher, Mark | Jones, Ms Jenny |
| Fitzpatrick, Jim | (Wolverh'ton SW)
|
| Fitzsimons, Ms Lorna | Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S) |
| Flint, Ms Caroline | Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham) |
| Flynn, Paul | Keeble, Ms Sally |
| Follett, Ms Barbara | Keen, Alan (Feltham) |
| Foster, Rt Hon Derek | Keen, Mrs Ann (Brentford) |
| Foster, Don (Bath) | Keetch, Paul |
| Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings) | Kemp, Fraser |
| Foster, Michael John (Worcester) | Kennedy, Charles |
| Galbraith, Sam | (Ross Skye & Inverness W)
|
| Galloway, George | Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree) |
| Gapes, Mike | Khabra, Piara S |
| Gardiner, Barry | Kidney, David |
| George, Andrew (St Ives) | Kilfoyle, Peter |
| George, Bruce (Walsall S) | King, Andy (Rugby) |
| Gerrard, Neil | King, Miss Oona (Bethnal Green) |
| Kingham, Tessa | Organ, Mrs Diana |
| Kirkwood, Archy | Osborne, Mrs Sandra |
| Kumar, Dr Ashok | Palmer, Dr Nick |
| Ladyman, Dr Stephen | Pendry, Tom |
| Lawrence, Ms Jackie | Perham, Ms Linda |
| Laxton, Bob | Pickthall, Colin |
| Lepper, David | Pike, Peter L |
| Leslie, Christopher | Plaskitt, James |
| Levitt, Tom | Pollard, Kerry |
| Lewis, Ivan (Bury S) | Pond, Chris |
| Lewis, Terry (Worsley) | Pope, Greg |
| Liddell, Mrs Helen | Pound, Stephen |
| Linton, Martin | Powell, Sir Raymond |
| Livingstone, Ken | Prentice, Gordon (Pendle) |
| Livsey, Richard | Primarolo, Dawn |
| Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C) | Prosser, Gwyn |
| Lock, David | Purchase, Ken |
| Love, Andy | Quin, Ms Joyce |
| McAllion, John | Quinn, Lawrie |
| McAvoy, Thomas | Radice, Giles |
| McCabe, Stephen | Rammell, Bill |
| McCafferty, Ms Chris | Rapson, Syd |
| McCartney, Ian (Makerfield) | Raynsford, Nick |
| McDonagh, Ms Siobhain | Reed, Andrew (Loughborough) |
| Macdonald, Calum | Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N) |
| McDonnell, John | Rendel, David |
| McFall, John | Robertson, Rt Hon George |
| McGuire, Mrs Anne | (Hamilton S)
|
| McIsaac, Ms Shona | Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry) |
| McKenna, Ms Rosemary | Rogers, Allan |
| Mackinlay, Andrew | Rooker, Jeff |
| McLeish, Henry | Rooney, Terry |
| Maclennan, Robert | Ross, Ernie (Dundee W) |
| McMaster, Gordon | Rowlands, Ted |
| McNulty, Tony | Roy, Frank |
| MacShane, Denis | Ruane, Chris |
| Mactaggart, Fiona | Russell, Bob (Colchester) |
| McWalter, Tony | Russell, Ms Christine (Chester) |
| McWilliam, John | Salter, Martin |
| Mahon, Mrs Alice | Sanders, Adrian |
| Mallaber, Ms Judy | Savidge, Malcolm |
| Marek, Dr John | Sawford, Phil |
| Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S) | Sedgemore, Brian |
| Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury) | Sheerman, Barry |
| Marshall, David (Shettleston) | Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert |
| Marshall-Andrews, Robert | Shipley, Ms Debra |
| Martlew, Eric | Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S) |
| Maxton, John | Singh, Marsha |
| Meacher, Rt Hon Michael | Skinner, Dennis |
| Meale, Alan | Smith, Ms Angela (Basildon) |
| Merchant, Piers | Smith, Miss Geraldine |
| Merron, Ms Gillian | (Morecambe & Lunesdale)
|
| Milburn, Alan | Smith, Ms Jacqui (Redditch) |
| Miller, Andrew | Smith, John (Glamorgan) |
| Mitchell, Austin | Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent) |
| Moffatt, Laura | Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns) |
| Moonie, Dr Lewis | Snape, Peter |
| Moore, Michael | Soley, Clive |
| Moran, Ms Margaret | Southworth, Ms Helen |
| Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N) | Spellar, John |
| Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W) | Squire, Ms Rachel |
| Morley, Elliot | Starkey, Dr Phyllis |
| Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley) | Stevenson, George |
| Mountford, Ms Kali | Stewart, David (Inverness E) |
| Mudie, George | Stewart, Ian (Eccles) |
| Mullin, Chris | Stinchcombe, Paul |
| Murphy, Dennis (Wansbeck) | Stoate, Dr Howard |
| Murphy, Jim (Eastwood) | Stott, Roger |
| Naysmith, Dr Doug | Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin |
| Norris, Dan | Straw, Rt Hon Jack |
| Oaten, Mark | Stringer, Graham |
| O'Brien, Mike (N Warks) | Stuart, Mrs Gisela (Edgbaston) |
| O'Brien, William (Normanton) | Stunell, Andrew |
| Olner, Bill | Sutcliffe, Gerry |
| O'Neill, Martin | Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann |
| Öpik, Lembit | (Dewsbury)
|
| Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S) | Watts, David |
| Taylor, David (NW Leics) | Webb, Steven |
| Taylor, Matthew | White, Brian |
(Truro & St Austell)
| Whitehead, Alan |
| Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W) | Wicks, Malcolm |
| Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W) | Williams, Rt Hon Alan |
| Timms, Stephen | (Swansea W)
|
| Tipping, Paddy | Williams, Dr Alan W |
| Todd, Mark | (E Carmarthen)
|
| Tonge, Dr Jenny | Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy) |
| Touhig, Don | Willis, Phil |
| Truswell, Paul | Wills, Michael |
| Winnick, David | |
| Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE) | Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C) |
| Turner, Desmond (Kemptown) | Wise, Audrey |
| Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk) | Wood, Mike |
| Twigg, Derek (Halton) | Woolas, Phil |
| Tyler, Paul | Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock) |
| Vaz, Keith | Wright, Tony (Gt Yarmouth) |
| Vis, Dr Rudi | Wyatt, Derek |
| Wallace, James | |
| Walley, Ms Joan | Tellers for the Noes:
|
| Ward, Ms Claire | Mr. Jon Owen Jones and Ms Bridget Prentice.
|
| Wareing, Robert N |
Question accordingly negatived.
It being quarter past Six o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN put the Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that hour.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 360, Noes 66.
Division No. 12]
| [6.18 pm
|
AYES
| |
| Abbott, Ms Diane | Byers, Stephen |
| Ainger, Nick | Caborn, Richard |
| Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE) | Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth) |
| Allen, Graham (Nottingham N) | Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge) |
| Anderson, Donald (Swansea E) | Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V) |
| Anderson, Janet (Ros'dale) | Campbell-Savours, Dale |
| Armstrong, Ms Hilary | Canavan, Dennis |
| Ashton, Joe | Cann, Jamie |
| Atherton, Ms Candy | Caplin, Ivor |
| Atkins, Ms Charlotte | Casale, Roger |
| Austin, John | Caton, Martin |
| Banks, Tony | Cawsey, Ian |
| Barnes, Harry | Chapman, Ben (Wirral S) |
| Barron, Kevin | Chaytor, David |
| Battle, John | Chisholm, Malcolm |
| Bayley, Hugh | Clapham, Michael |
| Beard, Nigel | Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields) |
| Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret | Clark, Dr Lynda |
| Begg, Miss Anne (Aberd'n S) | (Edinburgh Pentlands)
|
| Benn, Rt Hon Tony | Clark, Paul (Gillingham) |
| Benton, Joe | Clarke, Charles (Norwich S) |
| Bermingham, Gerald | Clarke, Eric (Midlothian) |
| Berry, Roger | Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge) |
| Best, Harold | Clarke, Tony (Northampton S) |
| Betts, Clive | Clelland, David |
| Blackman, Mrs Liz | Clwyd, Mrs Ann |
| Blears, Ms Hazel | Coaker, Vernon |
| Blizzard, Robert | Coffey, Ms Ann |
| Bradley, Keith (Withington) | Cohen, Harry |
| Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin) | Coleman, Iain |
| Brinton, Mrs Helen | (Hammersmith & Fulham)
|
| Brown, Rt Hon Nick | Colman, Anthony (Putney) |
(Newcastle E & Wallsend)
| Connarty, Michael |
| Brown, Russell (Dumfries) | Cook, Frank (Stockton N) |
| Browne, Desmond (Kilmarnock) | Cooper, Ms Yvette |
| Buck, Ms Karen | Corbett, Robin |
| Burden, Richard | Corston, Ms Jean |
| Burgon, Colin | Cousins, Jim |
| Butler, Christine | Cranston, Ross |
| Crausby, David | Hesford, Stephen |
| Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley) | Hill, Keith |
| Cryer, John (Hornchurch) | Hinchliffe, David |
| Cummings, John | Hoey, Kate |
| Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S) | Home Robertson, John |
| Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John | Hood, Jimmy |
(Copeland)
| Hoon, Geoffrey |
| Curtis-Thomas, Ms Clare | Hope, Philip |
| Dalyell, Tam | Hopkins, Kelvin |
| Darling, Rt Hon Alistair | Howarth, George (Knowsley N) |
| Darvill, Keith | Howells, Dr Kim |
| Davey, Valerie (Bristol W) | Hoyle, Lindsay |
| Davidson, Ian | Hughes, Ms Beverley |
| Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli) | (Stretford & Urmston)
|
| Davies, Geraint (Croydon C) | Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N) |
| Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly) | Humble, Mrs Joan |
| Dawson, Hilton | Hurst, Alan |
| Dean, Ms Janet | Hutton, John |
| Denham, John | Iddon, Brian |
| Dewar, Rt Hon Donald | Illsley, Eric |
| Dismore, Andrew | Ingram, Adam |
| Dobbin, Jim | Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampst'd) |
| Dobson, Rt Hon Frank | Jackson, Mrs Helen (Hillsborough) |
| Donohoe, Brian H | Jamieson, David |
| Doran, Frank | Jenkins, Brian (Tamworth) |
| Dowd, Jim | Johnson, Ms Melanie |
| Drew, David | (Welwyn Hatfield)
|
| Drown, Ms Julia | Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside) |
| Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth | Jones, Ms Fiona (Newark) |
| Eagle, Angela (Wallasey) | Jones, Helen (Warrington N) |
| Eagle, Ms Maria (L'pool Garston) | Jones, Ms Jenny |
| Edwards, Huw | (Wolverh'ton SW)
|
| Efford, Clive | Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S) |
| Ellman, Ms Louise | Keeble, Ms Sally |
| Ennis, Jeff | Keen, Alan (Feltham) |
| Field, Rt Hon Frank | Keen, Mrs Ann (Brentford) |
| Fisher, Mark | Kemp, Fraser |
| Fitzpatrick, Jim | Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree) |
| Fitzsimons, Ms Lorna | Khabra, Piara S |
| Flint, Ms Caroline | Kidney, David |
| Flynn, Paul | Kilfoyle, Peter |
| Follett, Ms Barbara | King, Andy (Rugby) |
| Foster, Rt Hon Derek | King, Miss Oona (Bethnal Green) |
| Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings) | Kingham, Tessa |
| Foster, Michael John (Worcester) | Kumar, Dr Ashok |
| Galbraith, Sam | Ladyman, Dr Stephen |
| Galloway, George | Lawrence, Ms Jackie |
| Gapes, Mike | Laxton, Bob |
| Gardiner, Barry | Lepper, David |
| George, Bruce (Walsall S) | Leslie, Christopher |
| Gerrard, Neil | Levitt, Tom |
| Gibson, Dr Ian | Lewis, Ivan (Bury S) |
| Gilroy, Mrs Linda | Lewis, Terry (Worsley) |
| Godman, Dr Norman A | Liddell, Mrs Helen |
| Godsiff, Roger | Linton, Martin |
| Goggins, Paul | Livingstone, Ken |
| Golding, Mrs Llin | Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C) |
| Gordon, Mrs Eileen | Lock, David |
| Graham, Thomas | Love, Andy |
| Grant, Bernie | McAllion, John |
| Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S) | McAvoy, Thomas |
| Griffiths, Win (Bridgend) | McCabe, Stephen |
| Grocott, Bruce | McCafferty, Ms Chris |
| Grogan, John | McCartney, Ian (Makerfield) |
| Gunnell, John | McDonagh, Ms Siobhain |
| Hain, Peter | Macdonald, Calum |
| Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale) | McDonnell, John |
| Hall, Patrick (Bedford) | McFall, John |
| Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE) | McGuire, Mrs Anne |
| Hanson, David | McIsaac, Ms Shona |
| Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet | McKenna, Ms Rosemary |
| Heal, Mrs Sylvia | Mackinlay, Andrew |
| Healey, John | McLeish, Henry |
| Henderson, Ivan (Harwich) | McMaster, Gordon |
| Hepburn, Stephen | McNulty, Tony |
| Heppell, John | MacShane, Denis |
| Mactaggart, Fiona | Sawford, Phil |
| McWalter, Tony | Sedgemore, Brian |
| McWilliam, John | Sheerman, Barry |
| Mahon, Mrs Alice | Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert |
| Mallaber, Ms Judy | Shipley, Ms Debra |
| Marek, Dr John | Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S) |
| Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S) | Singh, Marsha |
| Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury) | Skinner, Dennis |
| Marshall, David (Shettleston) | Smith, Ms Angela (Basildon) |
| Marshall-Andrews, Robert | Smith, Miss Geraldine |
| Martlew, Eric | (Morecambe & Lunesdale)
|
| Maxton, John | Smith, Ms Jacqui (Redditch) |
| Meacher, Rt Hon Michael | Smith, John (Glamorgan) |
| Meale, Alan | Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent) |
| Merron, Ms Gillian | Snape, Peter |
| Milburn, Alan | Soley, Clive |
| Miller, Andrew | Southworth, Ms Helen |
| Mitchell, Austin | Spellar, John |
| Moffatt, Laura | Squire, Ms Rachel |
| Moonie, Dr Lewis | Starkey, Dr Phyllis |
| Moran, Ms Margaret | Stevenson, George |
| Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N) | Stewart, David (Inverness E) |
| Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W) | Stewart, Ian (Eccles) |
| Morley, Elliot | Stinchcombe, Paul |
| Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley) | Stoate, Dr Howard |
| Mountford, Ms Kali | Stott, Roger |
| Mudie, George | Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin |
| Mullin, Chris | Straw, Rt Hon Jack |
| Murphy, Dennis (Wansbeck) | Stringer, Graham |
| Murphy, Jim (Eastwood) | Stuart, Mrs Gisela (Edgbaston) |
| Naysmith, Dr Doug | Sutcliffe, Gerry |
| Norris, Dan | Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann |
| O'Brien, Mike (N Warks) | (Dewsbury)
|
| O'Brien, William (Normanton) | Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S) |
| Olner, Bill | Taylor, David (NW Leics) |
| O'Neill, Martin | Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W) |
| Organ, Mrs Diana | Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W) |
| Osborne, Mrs Sandra | Timms, Stephen |
| Palmer, Dr Nick | Tipping, Paddy |
| Pendry, Tom | Todd, Mark |
| Perham, Ms Linda | Touhig, Don |
| Pickthall, Colin | Truswell, Paul |
| Pike, Peter L | Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE) |
| Plaskitt, James | Turner, Desmond (Kemptown) |
| Pollard, Kerry | Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk) |
| Pond, Chris | Twigg, Derek (Halton) |
| Pope, Greg | Vaz, Keith |
| Pound, Stephen | Vis, Dr Rudi |
| Powell, Sir Raymond | Walley, Ms Joan |
| Prentice, Gordon (Pendle) | Ward, Ms Claire |
| Primarolo, Dawn | Wareing, Robert N |
| Prosser, Gwyn | Watts, David |
| Purchase, Ken | White, Brian |
| Quin, Ms Joyce | Whitehead, Alan |
| Quinn, Lawrie | Wicks, Malcolm |
| Radice, Giles | Wlliams, Rt Hon Alan |
| Rammell, Bill | (Swansea W)
|
| Rapson, Syd | Williams, Dr Alan W |
| Raynsford, Nick | (E Carmarthen)
|
| Reed, Andrew (Loughborough) | Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy) |
| Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N) | Wills, Michael |
| Robertson, Rt Hon George | Winnick, David |
(Hamilton S)
| Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C) |
| Rogers, Allan | Wise, Audrey |
| Rooker, Jeff | Wood, Mike |
| Rooney, Terry | Woolas, Phil |
| Ross, Ernie (Dundee W) | Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock) |
| Rowlands, Ted | Wright, Tony (Gt Yarmouth) |
| Roy, Frank | Wyatt, Derek |
| Ruane, Chris | |
| Russell, Ms Christine (Chester) | Tellers for the Ayes:
|
| Salter, Martin | Ms Bridget Prentice and Mr. Jon Owen Jones.
|
| Savidge, Malcolm |
NOES
| |
| Allan, Richard (Shef'ld Hallam) | Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham) |
| Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy | Keetch, Paul |
| Baker, Norman | Kennedy, Charles |
| Ballard, Mrs Jackie | (Ross Skye & Inverness W)
|
| Beith, Rt Hon A J | Kirkwood, Archy |
| Brake, Thomas | Laing, Mrs Eleanor |
| Brand, Dr Peter | Livsey, Richard |
| Breed, Colin | Maclennan, Robert |
| Bruce, Ian (S Dorset) | Mates, Michael |
| Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon) | Merchant, Piers |
| Burnett, John | Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll Bute) |
| Burstow, Paul | Moore, Michael |
| Cable, Dr Vincent | Oaten, Mark |
| Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife) | Öpik, Lembit |
| Chidgey, David | Rendel, David |
| Chope, Christopher | Robathan, Andrew |
| Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh) | Rowe, Andrew (Faversham) |
| Colvin, Michael | Russell, Bob (Colchester) |
| Cotter, Brian | Sanders, Adrian |
| Davey, Edward (Kingston) | Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge) |
| Duncan Smith, Iain | Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns) |
| Fallon, Michael | Taylor, Matthew |
| Fearn, Ronnie | (Truro & St Austell)
|
| Forth, Eric | Taylor, Sir Teddy |
| Foster, Don (Bath) | Tonge, Dr Jenny |
| Gale, Roger | Tyler, Paul |
| George, Andrew (St Ives) | Wallace, James |
| Greenway, John | Webb, Steven |
| Hancock, Mike | Wilkinson, John |
| Harris, Dr Evan | Willis, Phil |
| Harvey, Nick | Wilshire, David |
| Heath, David (Somerton) | Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield) |
| Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot) | |
| Hughes, Simon (Southwark N) | Tellers for the Noes:
|
| Jackson, Robert (Wantage) | Mr. Andrew Stunell and Mr. Donald Gorrie.
|
| Jenkin, Bernard (N Essex) | |
Question accordingly agreed to.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
On a point of order, Sir Alan. It arises out of the previous Division, and the conduct of Divisions in the House in the entirely unprecedented situation in which we find ourselves. According to "Erskine May",
That provision allows votes to be taken without the ritual of going through the Division Lobbies. Although it has been used rarely in the past, in the present situation, when the results of Divisions are entirely predictable—the result of one was 400 to 45, and another looks likely to be similar—for the sake of efficient running of the House and use of Members' time, it would be reasonable for us to consider using that provision on certain occasions."Under Standing Order No. 39, if the Speaker or the Chairman considers that a division is unnecessarily claimed, he may, after the lapse of two minutes, take the vote of the House or committee by calling upon the Members who support and those who challenge his decision successively to rise in their places; and he thereupon, as he may think fit, either declares the determination of the House or the committee or names tellers for a division."
6.30 pm
Further to that point of order, Sir Alan. Thank you for exercising your duties in the Chair so as to recognise the fact that the Division was not unnecessarily claimed, and was a very proper expression of opinion by hon. Members in the Committee. The procedure described should not be invoked as an alternative to a proper review of the voting system in the House, in the light of the new circumstances.
Further to that point of order, Sir Alan. If Labour Members are concerned about the time that we have to debate the measures before us, perhaps they should have thought twice about applying such a draconian guillotine.
Further to that point of order, Sir Alan. As someone who has been in the House for many years, I have the impression that the excellent procedure described by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) was introduced to stop time being wasted when Members call vote after vote. That is certainly not the case today. Will you also bear in mind the fact that on an issue as vital as devolution, it is desperately important that the people of Scotland and Wales should be able to see for themselves how each Member voted? That would not be possible if the other procedure were used. Do you therefore agree that although it is an excellent procedure, which has to be used on occasion, it should happen only when there is deliberate time wasting?
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) for giving me notice, albeit short notice, that he intended to raise the matter. I think that Standing Order No. 40 was conceived with different circumstances in mind, and I respectfully suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if he would like to pursue his point, that might be better done through the Procedure Committee. Now, if the Committee is willing, we shall proceed to the next amendment.
| A | DIM NEWID | |
| NO CHANGE | ||
| B | CYNULLIAD ETHOLEDIG fel a gynigir ym Mhapur Gwyn y Llywodraeth | |
| AN ELECTED ASSEMBLY as proposed by the Government's White Paper | ||
| C | SENEDD GYDA PHWERAU I DDEDDFU AC | |
| AMRYWIO TRETHI | ||
| A PARLIAMENT WITH LAW-MAKING AND | ||
| TAX-VARYING POWERS | ||
| D | HUNAN-LYWODRAETH O FEWN YR UNDEB | |
| EWROPEAIDD | ||
| SELF-GOVERNMENT WITHIN THE EUROPEAN | ||
| UNION |
New schedule 10—' Referendum in Wales (No. 2B)—
Part 1
FORM OF BALLOT PAPER
Parliament has decided to consult people in Wales on the Government's proposals for a Walsh Assembly or independence for Wales.
Put a cross (X) in the appropriate box:
Clause 2
Referendum In Wales
I beg to move amendment No. 68, in page 2, line 7, leave out `propositions' and insert 'options'.
With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 70, in page 2, line 9, leave out '2' and insert
`(Referendum in Wales: Form of Ballot Paper (No. 2)).'.
No. 207, in page 2, line 9, leave out '2' and insert
`(Referendum in Wales (No. 2B))'.
No. 69, in page 2, line 17, leave out from 'shall' to the end of line 26 and insert
`under prescribed arrangements determine the order of preference of those voting in the referendum as between the options to be voted upon.
(7) "Prescribed" means prescribed in regulations made by the Secretary of State by statutory instrument.'.
New schedule 1—' REFERENDUM IN WALES: FORM OF BALLOT PAPER (NO.2)—
Parliament has decided to consult people in Wales on the Government's proposals for a Welsh Assembly and the policies of other parties. All four options are explained in the Government's White Paper
Mae'r Senedd wedi penderfynu ymgynghori â phobl yng Nghymru ar gynigon ar gyfer Cynulliad i Gymru a pholisiau'r pleidiau eraill. Esbonnir pob un o'r pedwar opsiwn ym Mhapur Gwyn y Llywodraeth.
Note your preferred options in order or preference by marking "1", "2", "3" or "4" by each option. You need not use every option.
Nodwch yr opsiynau sydd orau gennych yn nhrefn eich dewis drwy ysgrifennu "1", "2", "3" neu "4" gyferbyn a phob opsiwn. Nid oes raid i chi ddefnyddio pob opsiwn.
I AGREE THAT THERE SHOULD BE NO CHANGE TO THE GOVERNMENT OF WALES
or
I AGREE THAT THERE SHOULD BE A WELSH ASSEMBLY
or
I AGREE THAT WALES SHOULD LEAVE THE UNITED KINGDOM.'.
Amendment No. 123, in title, line 4, after 'Assembly', insert
`and other constitutional proposals for Wales'.
This bank of amendments allows us to shift the axis of the debate in Wales away from the rather sterile arguments about the status quo and whether we should have constitutional change, to a more intelligent and less confrontational level. Indeed, it would allow us to consult the people of Wales not only on whether they want change but on what kind of change they want.
Such an approach is well within the spirit of inclusive politics that has been trumpeted by Welsh Office Ministers since the election, so their response to the debate will be an early sign of whether that new spirit of inclusive politics is meaningful. Once we lift the debate to a different level and concentrate on the powers that any Welsh body will have, we can have a mature discussion on the way ahead. Let me make it clear at this early stage in the debate that this is not simply a party political issue in Wales. There is a range of opinions within parties in Wales about the powers that an elected Welsh body should have. In the last Session of Parliament, the Government of Wales Bill—which called for an elected body with legislative and tax-varying powers—was given a First Reading and received support from all parties. The Bill was proposed by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) and sponsored by his Labour colleagues the hon. Members for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) and for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd). The Bill was also sponsored by the former hon. Member for Montgomery, Alex Carlile, and the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. The Conservative former hon. Member for South-East Cornwall, Sir Robert Hicks, was a sponsor, as were my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and I on behalf of Plaid Cymru. That clearly showed that there was cross-party support for an elected body with legislative and tax-varying powers. From the opinion polls published in Wales in the run-up to the general election, it is clear to me that of those who favour constitutional change, a substantial majority favour legislative powers and a clear majority favour tax-varying powers. One of the features of this debate that is in marked contrast to the debates of the late 1970s is that sections of the Conservative party in Wales and in Scotland are rethinking their approach to the topic. There was a tradition in the Conservative party of having an open mind on this issue, but that was stifled during the Thatcher years. One can well understand the Conservatives' need for change in the aftermath of the Tory wipe-out in Wales and in Scotland, and it has been refreshing to read the comments from Sir Wyn Roberts in Wales and Malcolm Rifkind in Scotland. How different their approach is from the flat-earthers now occupying much of the Tory Benches.Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it was not in the interests of the people of Wales for the Government to have fixed the timetable motion so that the group of amendments starting with amendment No. 48—one of which was tabled in my name—has no chance of being debated?
One of those amendments would have given the Welsh people the opportunity to vote for exactly the same tax-raising powers as the people of Scotland. It is a great pity that the Government felt that they could not explain why they will not give the Welsh people that option. Does the hon. Member agree that we should appeal to the Government to come out of their shell, be honest and tell the Welsh people why the powers to be offered to Scotland are not to be offered to Wales?I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has strong views on the matter, for raising it in that way. I agree with him, and a number of the amendments grouped with his were tabled by me and some of my hon. Friends. I invite him to look at the wording of amendment No. 68—to which I shall refer later—which may allow him to develop his argument in that context, even if his amendment has not been selected.
All the amendments seek to do is to give the people of Wales an opportunity to be consulted on the real choices that face them and to enable the debate to be much more positive. We understand that the Labour party in Wales will want to campaign on its own proposals for an executive Assembly, but widening the options—as the amendments propose—would give the electors an opportunity to listen to all the arguments on constitutional change. 6.45 pm Within this group of amendments, there is the opportunity to support a multi-option referendum. That would be fair, because it would give the people of Wales an opportunity to vote for the programmes put forward by the four political parties in Wales at the last election. Why should the only choice facing the people of Wales be between the status quo and the Labour party's proposals? Why should the Conservative party's programme—which was so decisively rejected by the people of Wales at the general election—have priority on the ballot paper? Its position is preserved, and the people of Wales will yet again have an opportunity to reject the Conservative status quo option. In the circumstances, and given that hon. Members representing seats in Wales come from the Labour party, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats, why should not the option favoured by the Liberal Democrats and my party be on the ballot paper? In the spirit of inclusive politics, the Government should surely take that on board. The group of amendments gives us the opportunity to vote for a multi-option referendum. The hon. Member for Wrexham has stated that had there been sufficient time, there would have been an opportunity to consider other options, including legislative and tax-varying powers. We would have liked an opportunity to have such a debate because we could then have looked at all the available options. There are people in Wales who are asking why Wales should be treated differently from Scotland. Why are the Scots deemed to be mature enough to be allowed to vote for a Parliament with legislative and tax-varying powers, but, for some reason, the people of Wales are not? What difficulties might be created if a Welsh Assembly was established with only secondary, not primary, legislative powers? What would happen if the framework of legislation was set up here in Westminster by a Government of a different political complexion from that running the Assembly? There will be a straitjacket. Members of the Assembly could pass only secondary legislation on the back of primary legislation, which could have been imposed by a Conservative Government in Westminster. If the Assembly wanted to change primary legislation and invited Westminster to do so, what priority would be given in the administrative and legislative logjam at Westminster to legislation sought by a Welsh Assembly? These are questions which could have been answered if we had had an opportunity to widen the referendum question. The group of amendments does not allow us to have a vote specifically on legislative and tax-varying powers as a discrete option, but we may want to divide the Committee on the amendment that would allow Members to vote on the principle of widening the questions. I invite hon. Members to look at amendment No. 68, which proposes to remove the word "propositions" from clause 2(2) and replace it with the word "options". If the Committee supports that amendment, we will be content to leave it at that. In other words, the Committee would have voted for the principle of widening the options. In the spirit of inclusive politics, we would leave it to the Government to decide what second question they would want to add later—perhaps in another place. If the amendment is passed, the Government will need to look at the mood of the debate and the views coming from different parties to see whether there is a general demand for more questions to be included, and what kind of questions they should be. In the spirit of inclusive politics, the Secretary of State would want to consult other parties about the nature of those second or third questions. I hope that those hon. Members present who favour further questions—but who may not want to go all the way and support a multi-option referendum—will feel happy about supporting an amendment that simply looks at the principle. I think that the Secretary of State will realise that there is a strong argument in Wales on the issue of parity with Scotland. It is strong at not only an emotional but a rational level. People simply cannot see the difference between Wales and Scotland on the issue. I ask the Secretary of State to reflect on the strength of opinion on the matter, and I know that he and his colleagues will want to carry support across the parties that have a positive attitude to the subject. This is the Government's opportunity to reach out to all shades of opinion in Wales and bring them into the debate in a positive and constructive way. We make this offer to the Government: if they accept the amendment and consult on the second and third question, they will have an opportunity for all shades of opinion to be reflected. I think that that is a reasonable offer.Thank you, Mr. Lord, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this important debate on a referendum that will decide how Wales is to be governed in the new millennium. I continue a long and proud tradition of Labour representation in the Gower constituency that goes back to 1906 when John Williams was elected as Gower's first Labour Member of Parliament. He was followed by D. R. Grenfell, supported by the South Wales Miners Federation, and then by Ifor Davies. I never knew either D. R. Grenfell or Ifor Davies, but there are a number of people still living in the constituency who remember them both with enormous respect and affection.
I did, and do, know my immediate predecessor, Gareth Wardell. He was my Member of Parliament for 13 of the 15 years that he represented Gower in the House. Many of the hon. Members who served alongside Gareth during that time will know much better than I do the contribution that he made in this legislature. From speaking to his colleagues, in particular his fellow Welsh Members, I find that there is clearly enormous respect here for the work that he did, and especially for his willingness and ability to master detailed subjects. Alongside those parliamentary colleagues, people all over Wales have recognised and valued the tremendous job that Gareth did as Chairman of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, undauntedly leading investigations into all sorts of aspects of public life in Wales over the years. I know and will remember Gareth best as a superb constituency Member. As a local councillor, I would take constituents to his surgery when I felt that any case needed his involvement. I honestly cannot believe that the concern that he showed for those people or the attention that he gave to seeking solutions to their problems have been surpassed by any hon. Member. I know that Gareth's friends here will join the people of Gower in wishing him all the very best in his return to higher education as head of geography at Trinity college, Carmarthen. I know, partly because I was told it on the doorsteps so many times during April, that I have a very tough act to follow. I intend to do my very best. It is probably not common knowledge this far east, but in south-west Wales the residents of the city of Swansea are nicknamed Jacks, and people who live in Llanelli are called Turks. Most of my constituency lies between those two population centres, which has led some bar-room wits to describe us as half Jack and half Turk—or Jerks, for short. People who talk in that way make a big mistake, first, because such terminology can seriously damage the health in the area that I represent, but, more importantly, because the people of Gower may be many things—indeed, they are many, many things—but a bunch of Jerks they are not. It is a huge privilege to have been elected to represent so beautiful and diverse a constituency as Gower. I am acutely aware of the responsibility that I now carry as its Member of Parliament and I am conscious of the problems that I may well face in the years ahead because of that very diversity. The Gower constituency cannot be described by any stretch of the imagination as a single homogeneous entity. It snuggles around the south-west and north of Dylan Thomas's "ugly, lovely town" of Swansea, and provides the new unitary authority, the city and county of Swansea, with virtually all its rural population. On the face of it, being non-urban seems to be all that the various communities that make up Gower have in common. Starting in the south, Mumbles, where I live, is an old fishing village that developed into a seaside resort and has expanded to become part of Swansea suburbia. Mumbles is currently struggling to revitalise and renew itself, always seeking to conserve and treasure the best of what we have inherited from the past. To the west is the Gower peninsula, which most people think of when the Gower constituency is mentioned. It was the first designated area of outstanding natural beauty in the country, and a wonderfully fascinating combination of coast, countryside and estuary for palaeontologists, archaeologists, historians, zoologists, botanists, oceanographers or holidaymakers. Even the peninsula itself can be divided at least into two. South Gower, with its glorious cliffs, caves and sandy beaches, is much more anglicised, even in place names and pronunciations. North Gower, on the Loughor estuary, is equally beautiful in its own way and still holds on to the Welsh language in villages such as Crofty, Llanmorlais and Penclawdd. Penclawdd is, of course, the home of Gower cockle gathering, with the only commercial cockle beds in the country where people can harvest all year, every year, because they refuse to use mechanical drags; they still hand-rake and gather, thereby ensuring a sustainable shell fishery that provides an environmental example for the whole of Europe. South Gower also provides a fine example for sustainable living and community action. Holtsfield is a remarkable collection of wooden chalets in a wonderful woodland setting, just outside the village of Bishopston, where more than 20 families are trying to live in harmony with their beautiful surroundings and the wider community. Unfortunately, a property development company has different ideas. It has bought the land and is seeking to evict those chalet dwellers, who are resisting with enormous resolve and imagination and who have the support of the vast majority of the rest of the population of Bishopston, which was wrongly thought of previously by many people as merely a dormitory village for Swansea commuters. Coming off the peninsula on the North Gower road, one enters Gowerton and begins to meet the community whose recent history is the history of coal, steel and tin. Like the rest of south Wales, it has suffered terribly from the economic decline of, especially, the past two decades. Villages such as Loughor, Pontybrenin, Penllergaer, Penyrheol, Garden Village and Grovesend have over the years melded together around the central village of Gorseinon, but their sense of identity as separate communities remains strong, as I found out during the election campaign when I accused someone from Loughor of living in Gorseinon. She gave me the strong impression that she would much rather have been described as a "Jerk" than as a resident of her neighbouring village. Those communities have learnt, often the hard way, the importance of solidarity to achieve common objectives and to enable fulfilment of individuals. They are strong, Welsh, socialist-minded villages where people and families look out for one another and are prepared fiercely to combat what they perceive as injustice. That is probably even more true of the separate settlements of Pontardulais, Garnswllt, Craig Cefn Parc, Pontlliw, Felindre and Clydach, all directly to the north of Swansea. The tragedy of those communities is that so much of the tremendous talent and quality that exist there has been undervalued and wasted for so long. Very few jobs have come in to replace those lost in mining and steel. Even the small number of manufacturing employers based in the constituency have been shedding jobs in recent years. The decline is reflected in the commercial centres of the larger villages. One has only to walk the main streets of Clydach, Gorseinon or Pontardulais and see the number of empty shops and charity shops to understand why the posters declaring "Britain is booming" that sprouted this spring seemed like a sick joke to people who live there. 7 pm The different parts of Gower vary enormously because of geology, geography, history and relative wealth, yet there is much that unites us wherever we live in Gower, as became clear to me during the general election campaign. First, in every part of the constituency there is still a sense of community, an acceptance that we are responsible one for another; a belief that there is such thing as society. Secondly, many of the concerns are the same in the different communities. In every part of Gower, there is equal concern for improving our schools and colleges, rebuilding our national health service, protecting our environment and providing jobs for our young people and the long-term unemployed. When we come to ask the people of Gower, and of the rest of Wales, to vote for the creation of a Welsh Assembly, those same concerns will still be at the top of those people's minds. I believe that there are enormously powerful constitutional and democratic arguments for making the Welsh Office accountable at last to the people of Wales. Those arguments are even stronger when we consider the might of the quangocracy that has grown up in Wales over the past decade and a half. However, I do not believe that it will be those arguments in the main that will win us the referendum in my constituency or across Wales. People will vote yes if they are persuaded that a democratic Welsh Assembly will provide a vehicle for creating a first-class education system for all our children; if they believe that our Assembly will play a central role in developing a national health service in Wales that can and will deliver quality treatment and care whenever they need it; if they are convinced that a Welsh Assembly can ensure that environmental protection will be at the heart of all policy-making in Wales in the new millennium; if we can show them that our Welsh Assembly—their Welsh Assembly—will be an engine for harnessing the skills and talents of the population of our country, to regenerate our economy and create decent jobs for our people. We must prove that democracy in the form of a Welsh Assembly is not merely a nice idea if we can afford it, but an essential, practical mechanism for improving the quality of life of the people of Wales. I am sure that we will. Tempting as is the amendment so eloquently moved by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones), it is time for the Labour Government to carry out their pledge to offer the people of Wales the chance to vote to create the sort of Assembly described in our manifesto. It is time for the democratic debate to move on, to engage with the people of Wales. It is time for all of us who believe that extending democratic accountability in Wales can and will help deliver the goods on education, health, the environment and jobs to prepare ourselves for the task of campaigning to secure a massive yes vote in the autumn.I heartily congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) on his excellent maiden speech. It is a test of a maiden speech as to whether one can mention all the villages and communities in one's constituency. I know his constituency well, and he had a jolly good go. My paternal grandmother, a redoubtable Welsh speaker who hailed from Alltwen, took me to Penclawdd when I was three or four to pick cockles. That has been etched on my mind ever since. People still do that in almost the same way, but one no longer sees donkeys there. He has a wonderful constituency to which he paid good tribute, as he did to his redoubtable predecessor, Gareth Wardell, who did a superb job as Chairman of the Welsh Affairs Committee.
Amendment No. 68 deals with multi-options. In theory, it is very attractive. If Wales had a multi-option referendum, there would be four choices. First, there would be the Government's proposals. Secondly, we would have the Liberal Democrat proposals for legislative and tax-varying powers, and a more thorough system of proportional representation, although we hope that that may be proposed in the Government's White Paper. Certainly, we favour a federal solution for Wales, which is an entirely logical way of proceeding towards the unity of the United Kingdom and a successful legislature. Thirdly, there are Plaid Cymru's proposals for an independent Wales in Europe. The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) moved his amendment well, and that option would appear on a multi-choice ballot paper. Finally, there is the status quo, which was wiped off the map in the general election. That view has been defeated. As we have heard, some members of the Conservative party in Wales are having a rapid rethink, going back to the drawing board and saying that perhaps, after all, there is a possibility of meaningful government in Wales with devolution. I believe that more still will do so before the referendum is put to the Welsh people. Clearly, this is a complex situation. We are trying to maximise support for a Welsh Assembly. Perhaps the choices should include a question asking people whether they favour a Welsh Assembly, and if so, what option they favour. It might be more logical to go about it that way. We did not have a constitutional convention in Wales, which I regret. I approached the Labour party five years ago on two occasions to ask whether it was possible. I know that the former Member for Montgomery, Alex Carlile, did the same. We did not have the benefit of what they had in Scotland to have a proper debate. It would have been helpful, because the debates on the Scottish referendum have shown that there is perhaps a greater unanimity of purpose. It is certainly not the Liberal Democrats' purpose in Wales to frustrate the Government's efforts to create a Welsh Assembly. Polls before the general election showed that the Liberal Democrat federal proposals for tax-varying and legislative powers were the most popular options among people who favour a Welsh Assembly.The hon. Gentleman has more than once spoken of a federal situation. Will he spell out his idea of a federation? We know that Plaid Cymru's patriotism is based on resentment of the English. That is why it put forward the proposition of a Wales in Europe. It does not want a Wales in Britain. What is the Liberal Democrat policy on the federal idea?
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's intervention is helpful. As 20 to 25 per cent. of the population of Wales originates from the other side of Offa's dyke, if we are to win the referendum, we must get everyone, of whatever origin, to support a yes vote. We should not go down the path that he offers. He asked what a true federal situation was. I can spell that out simply.
In a federal Britain, the functions of the Welsh Office should reside with the people of Wales. That means that primary legislation that could affect those functions should be possible. Other functions in a federal Britain should be operated from a United Kingdom Parliament in Westminster. Those functions could be defence, macro-economic policy, foreign policy and other matters of wider impact. Other functions could operate on a European scale—for example, the environment, where problems of environmental degradation know no boundaries. All those scenarios are entirely logical. There are plenty of examples around the world, including Canada, Australia and the United States, of countries that operate successfully under a federal system.The hon. Gentleman said that one of the responsibilities of this Parliament would be macro-economic policy. Surely the Liberal Democrat party supports a federal Europe and a single currency. If that is the case, does he recognise that macro-economic policy in a federal Europe would be in the hands not of the United Kingdom Government but of the European central bank?
I shall leave those questions for the contenders in the Tory party leadership contest. The hon. Gentleman opens up a big debate, and I shall not be led down that path.
In a multi-choice referendum, we could end up with just two questions such as, "Do you favour the status quo?" and, "Do you favour independence?" We hear Conservatives debating that situation ad infinitum, as if those were the only two choices that existed. Of course, there is a coalition of view elsewhere that we need a Welsh Assembly in order to achieve devolution. Such an Assembly is a much more constructive way of going forward and of achieving meaningful and effective government within Wales. I have some sympathy with the multi-option referendum. It has been referred to as a preferendum. It is inclusive. People could vote for their own options and still produce an overall majority in favour of a Welsh Assembly. However, people in Wales must be united, especially at this time. They require leadership. I and my party are determined not to let slip this opportunity. We must combine across party boundaries to secure a yes vote in the referendum. That referendum is coming soon—in September. We do not have time to consider the possibilities of a multi-option referendum. That would delay a straightforward vote on whether Wales needs an Assembly and whether people in general want it. We have to remember that, although many of us fervently back the creation of a Welsh Assembly, many aspects of constitutional reform do not interest all the people of Wales. People look on it as an academic exercise. They just know that they are in favour of devolution. The individual powers of such an assembly, which are important, have to be debated and defined within a Wales Bill. Those of us who have been waiting a long time for a Welsh senedd believe that it is better to proceed with one question. Although we have sympathy with a multi-option referendum, we must achieve a coalition of views in Wales if we are to win the referendum. Now is certainly not the time to hesitate, so we shall not impede the progress of the Bill. The people will decide. The options can be considered later when the Wales Bill goes through the House.I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) on a wonderful and excellent maiden speech. He reminded us not only of the constituency with which many of us are familiar in both campaigning and personal terms, but of the remarkable representation that he follows in the form of Gareth Wardell. I also knew Ifor Davies as a Member of Parliament and a Minister in the Welsh Office in the 1960s. My hon. Friend said that he had a hard act to follow. I think we all agree that he has made an excellent start.
The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) moved the amendment. I recently read some internal memos and documents from the late 1950s on the development of Welsh administration and on Welsh constitutional change. In minute after minute by Mr. Henry Brook, the then Minister for Welsh Affairs, derisory, insulting references were made to the Joneses wanting to keep up with the Macs. I find offensive the notion that we have to follow the Macs; that we cannot devise a set of constitutional arrangements that suit our requirements and meet the needs and aspirations of Welsh people; the carping belief that we must follow some other model, which may or may not be suitable to another part of the country. The hon. Member for Ynys Môn argued that because the Scots seek to do one thing, we have to follow them. That shows a curious inferiority complex. We should devise our own means and methods of constitutional change. The hon. Gentleman also observed that all the votes except the Tory votes added up to a vote for constitutional change. I would like to believe it, because it would mean that 78 per cent. of the electorate in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney voted for devolution. I do not believe that that is the case. So one should not invoke the argument that the result of the general election was a massive mandate for a Welsh Assembly. That is why we decided to hold a referendum, to test public opinion separately.7.15 pm
Given that the general election did not reflect the attitude of the people of Merthyr or elsewhere to the constitutional proposals that the Government may make in a White Paper in due course, how can the Government or the hon. Gentleman say that only one constitutional proposal, rather than the full range supported by the various parties at the election, can be put to the people of Wales?
The vast majority of people in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney voted for a Labour Government. They did not vote for an option promoted by the nationalists, who polled only about 2,300 votes. So the notion that the nationalist option should be included on the ballot paper is not supported by the experience in my constituency or in the rest of Wales.
I put it to the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) that I sense a degree of ambivalence even towards a Welsh Assembly within Welsh communities. While opinion has changed, my own political instinct—I speak only for my own communities, not for anyone else's—is that if the prospect of a tax-raising, legislative Parliament is actively promoted during the referendum campaign or in any other discussion, the anti vote will grow. There will be alienation and a feeling that the Assembly will not be a measure of devolution such as we have promised during the past X years. The prospect of a tax-raising Parliament would lead not to a stronger vote for devolution, but to a stronger no vote. In terms of practical politics, it would increase the scepticism, if not the opposition to the principle of devolution. I do not support the amendment. Two things have changed public opinion in the past 18 years. First, people have seen for 18 years an unrepresentative Government determining Welsh affairs. We have had Secretaries of State who did not understand, feel or appreciate Wales. They all made an effort, but most of them did not have a feeling for Wales and did not have the democratic mandate of the Welsh people to implement their policies. The second contributory factor that has shifted public opinion in favour of our devolution proposals is the growing revulsion for the quango state, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gower so eloquently described. That state offends the instinctive democratic instincts of the Welsh people. They have found the huge number of political appointments increasingly offensive. Because of that, it is far more important than any option about tax-raising or legislative powers that our White Paper and our subsequent devolution Bill should include the power to bring to an end decisively the quango state. I hope that my colleagues on the Front Bench heed those remarks. I am concerned that we appear to be fudging the issue when we say that a Welsh Assembly may at some future date deal with the quango state. It was created by primary legislation passed by the House and it is the job of the Westminster Parliament to dismantle it. If we address that need directly in our White Paper and the devolution Bill, we shall appeal powerfully to the Welsh people. If they vote yes on that basis, they will know that they are voting for the dismantling of the quango state rather than for that possibility to be referred to a future Welsh Assembly. I stress again to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench that it is vital that the White Paper states our intention to do that and that our Bill contains the necessary power to do so. Our rhetoric about the quango state must be matched by our legislative action in the autumn.Would my hon. Friend care to carry his argument a little further? Many of the quangos were set up by a Labour Government. However, because the Conservatives could never win seats in local government, they distrusted it—they even went to the extent of abolishing the Greater London council—and they side-stepped Welsh local authorities and gave their powers to quangos. If those quangos were not dismantled prior to the establishment of a Welsh Assembly, I am extremely fearful about whether the powers that would normally have gone to local authorities would ever be given back to them. We would then get not devolution, but evolution upwards from local authorities.
My hon. Friend has raised an important point. As the basis of our appeal during the referendum campaign, our devolution Bill must guarantee not only the dismantling of the quango state but, wherever possible, the return of powers to local authorities, particularly from housing quangos. We must demonstrate that we shall legislate to dismantle the quango state, because I believe that the growing revulsion towards it has been a major factor in increasing the mood in favour of devolution. I sense that that feeling has grown in the past 18 years.
Again, I stress to my colleagues on the Front Bench and elsewhere that we must make the right case for devolution. We must not make exaggerated claims about the Welsh Assembly. We must not talk about the huge number of jobs that may be created as a result of its creation, or those that may be lost if that Assembly is not established. The proper case for our devolution Bill is a fundamental democratic one, based on the need for appropriate Welsh administration. I accept that, in the past, we wanted such Welsh administration and that we set it up deliberately. When one looks at the minutes from the 1950s, there was little Welsh administration, but we built it up with the development of the Welsh Office and the increasing powers of the Secretary of State for Wales. Despite our belief that the Welsh Office should be better scrutinised by a Welsh Assembly, it is accountable, through the Secretary of State, to the House. The quango state is not similarly directly and effectively accountable. We have witnessed growth of a new administration at the Welsh Office and a host of non-departmental bodies, which constitute the quango state. It is their democratic control which will be vital to our campaign for devolution, and not any of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn about the tax-raising and legislative powers of our Parliament.Yesterday, our colleagues on the Front Bench stated that if we did not have a Welsh Assembly, thousands of our people would find themselves thrown on the dole. What evidence has my hon. Friend found to substantiate that claim?
I do not have to take responsibility for the speeches of my colleagues, but I am sure that they will justify that claim.
It is extremely important that we make the proper case for the Assembly which can be justified and which will not be received sceptically. The Assembly must not be seen just as another political creation. It must address the instinctive feelings and wishes of the Welsh people, who are against the growth of the quango state. We should appeal to the Welsh people on the need for a directly elected Assembly, which will oversee the dismantling of that state and scrutinise and deliberate on the key issues of the Welsh administration that has developed since the 1960s. We should not campaign on the options that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn wants to include on the ballot paper.I am grateful to follow the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) because I want to address some of his arguments in due course.
First, I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) on his maiden speech. Members from all parts of the Committee were warmed by his comments about Gareth Wardell, who was an excellent Chairman of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs. I am sure that we all look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman speak on many future occasions. One theme that the hon. Gentleman stressed in his speech is important to the debate on a multi-option referendum. He is right to say that if we have an elected Assembly or Parliament for Wales, it must be relevant to the people of Wales in their ordinary circumstances. As he said, it must be relevant to education policy, economic policy, jobs and the health service. It must be relevant to those policies, which have been at the heart of Welsh politics down the years. It is those services which, to some extent, have been undermined by the growth of the quango state to which the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney referred. Therefore, the question that arises in the context of the comments from the hon. Members for Gower and for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney is how we can make a difference to the prospects of the ordinary people of Wales, whether they live in Merthyr Tydfil, Gower or Caernarfon. It is our belief that, unless the Assembly or Parliament has adequate powers, it will not be possible to tackle the problems that arise. An example is education policy. We know that the Conservative party tried to privatise education in Wales. We know that from the way in which the Tories introduced nursery vouchers. If there were another Conservative Government, particularly led by one of the right-wing contenders—Order. I dislike interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but we are discussing the amendments. The hon. Gentleman is talking in general terms about devolution, but we are talking about a referendum and the amendments related to it.
I shall show you, Mr. Martin, how my remarks are relevant.
If we have an Assembly that has nominal responsibility for education, but no legislative power for it in Wales, the reality is that our educational framework will be determined in this Chamber. Unless we have the power in Wales to pass legislation, we may find that in five or 10 years, or whenever we have the misfortune to have a right-wing Tory Government again, we shall be in danger of seeing our legislative framework being determined here. The Assembly in Cardiff will be unable to make a difference, by protecting the people from the privatisation of primary or secondary education. That will be determined by legislative capability.rose—
No, I will not give way. I know that the hon. Gentleman is busy going around the Welsh local authorities advocating the policies of his colleagues on the Labour Front Bench. He is persuading those representatives that Labour's proposal is important and will help those authorities. I am sure that his time will be well cut out for him. During his rounds, he can tell the people in the various local authorities in Cardiff, Rhondda and elsewhere how the educational framework may well veer again to the right unless the Assembly or Parliament has primary law-making powers. I believe that the hon. Gentleman has some sympathy with the model of a Parliament with primary law-making powers, as it would be a body relevant to the problems.
7.30 pm Our multi-option amendment deals with the central question of what the people of Wales want. A year ago, there was not to be a referendum; then, the leader of the Labour party decided, for whatever reason, that there would be one. It was meant to be an inclusive referendum to find out exactly what the people of Wales wanted. Apparently, that is something that cannot be determined at a general election—many other matters can be determined, but apparently not this issue. That being so, we must look at the four options being proposed by the various parties: the status quo, advocated by the Conservatives—or, at least, some Conservatives, as many Welsh Conservatives are thinking again about their party's position; the Assembly, without primary law-making powers, advocated by the Labour party; the federal model, advocated by the Liberal Democrats; and full self-government within Europe, advocated by Plaid Cymru. Apparently, the proportion of support for each of those four models cannot be judged from a general election result. That is the basis on which the Government are putting forward their proposals. What is the support, as far as can be told, for the various models? Based on the NOP and Beaufort polls in Wales last year, it appears that of those who are in favour of, or not against, the concept of an elected Assembly, 71 per cent. are in favour of legislative powers and 69 per cent. in favour of tax-varying powers. If that is true and the people of Wales want an Assembly that has those powers, why are the opportunities to vote for those models being denied in the referendum? If it is a consultative referendum to find out what the people of Wales want, why will they not be allowed a full range of choice? Through our amendment, which allows for a I, 2, 3, 4 vote on the four options, we could find out exactly what the people of Wales want. On that basis, it would then be possible to introduce relevant legislation.The central question is how to maximise support for a yes vote in the referendum. As a representative of a party that rather grandiosely and incorrectly describes itself as the party of Wales, the hon. Gentleman should accept that that is the central question. Does he accept that a multi-option referendum would engender confusion and deny that central goal?
As was explained in a previous debate, multi-option referendums have been run successfully in other countries. I do not think that the people of Wales have greater difficulty than the people of other countries in comprehending these matters. If it causes the hon. Gentleman a problem—and from what he said it clearly does—we could attack the issue from a different angle. We could have two questions: first, whether people want an Assembly, and secondly, whether people want legislative powers. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) tabled an amendment along those lines. It is another way of reaching the same determination. If the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Thomas) has difficulty with a 1, 2, 3 transferable vote, it could be overcome in that way.
The people of Scotland are being allowed a second question, but the people of Wales are being denied that second question on the legislative powers that we believe to be essential if the Assembly is to be successful.The hon. Gentleman may find my remarks more friendly that he anticipates. Does he find it insulting that not only are the Scots to have two questions and the Welsh only one, but the Scots are to be allowed to vote a whole week or more before the Welsh? I understand that it is an attempt to use the Scottish vote to influence the Welsh.
Until we see the White Paper, we do not know the details of what will happen. However, one aspect of the Government's case is that it is necessary to differentiate between the arguments relevant to Scotland and those relevant to Wales. To that extent, it is a wise precaution to hold the vote on different days, so that there can be a focusing on the issue in the media—given that most of the mass media come from London and are seen in Wales and Scotland alike.
If the people of Scotland are being offered a Parliament with law-making and tax-varying powers, which can develop considerable clout within the European Union, it is absolutely essential that Wales has the opportunity to develop those powers as well. The clout of Wales in the EU will be that much stronger if we have a Parliament that can have a credible voice in Brussels. Catalonia and the Lander governments in Germany have successfully developed their prospects within Europe and it is essential that Wales likewise has that opportunity. It is important that when the White Paper is published, we are able to understand exactly what the powers will be, because at the moment it is difficult to reach a decision. However, we know that there are various themes. The Secretary of State has said in the past that the status quo is no option.indicated assent.
I note the right hon. Gentleman's agreement.
In the referendum proposed for Wales, the status quo is an option. It is the only option being offered other than the Government's policy. The options of Liberal Democrat policy and Plaid Cymru policy will not be offered. The option of a law-making Parliament, which is supported by many members of the Labour party, is not to be put to the people of Wales. Between now and the completion of the Bill's passage through the other place, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look for a vehicle to allow the people of Wales to be genuinely included in a decision-taking mechanism in the referendum. If that is not to be the case and if there is a yes vote, the right hon. Gentleman will have his Assembly and he can build on that. I respect that. But if there is a no vote, it will not be worth the paper it is written on, because the reason for it will be unclear. Was it because people did not want that much power, or was it because they wanted law-making powers and a strong Parliament? The former Welsh Minister, Sir Wyn Roberts, has said that he would vote yes if there was the option of tax-varying powers. Without that second question, a no result would be absolutely meaningless. The Secretary of State must address that aspect. This is a vital debate and it is important that we get it right.I congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) on his eloquent maiden speech. He was particularly eloquent in his tribute to his predecessor and in his attachment to his new constituency. We look forward to hearing further speeches from him.
I listened to the debate with a certain amount of ambivalence as I heard the arguments in the Scottish debate being put slightly differently in this Welsh debate. It is interesting that in this debate, as in the other, I find myself sympathetic to the proposal to have more than two questions in the referendum. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley). He, like me, finds it difficult to be precise in his reaction because without the White Paper we are not certain of the nature of the proposals that will be put to a referendum. I again make the plea that the White Paper is produced in good time. I make the same suggestion to the Secretary of State for Wales that I made to the Secretary of State for Scotland—that in accordance with declarations about future White Papers, he might consider attaching a draft of the Bill to his White Paper so that by the time of the referendum the people of Wales will have a full and clear idea of the detail of the issues. The referendum, as currently set out, contains two questions: whether there should be a Welsh Assembly and whether there should not be a Welsh Assembly. Having listened to this and previous debates, it is clear that various people will vote for a Welsh Assembly for very different reasons. The hon. Member for Caernarfon said that a no vote would be complex; I think that a yes vote would be even more complex. I suspect that some people, such as the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones), will support an Assembly because they believe that ultimately it will lead to an independent Wales. After all, that is the purpose of their party. They will see it as part of that process and will therefore vote for it. On the other hand, others will vote for a Welsh Assembly—I include the Secretary of State in their number, because I have listened closely to what he said in previous debates—because they believe that it will retain and, indeed, buttress the United Kingdom. Therefore, the so-called maximisation of the vote for an Assembly, referred to by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey), will be constructed on two totally contrary purposes. To claim that that is an endorsement on which an Assembly can be built would be dangerous ground on which to build.
Surely the right hon. Gentleman grasps the point that the issue of an independent Wales has been put in front of the electorate of Wales time after time after time by the Welsh nationalist party and the nationalists have never got more than or even as much as 10 per cent. of the vote. In the last general election, the people of Wales completely rejected the one policy on which the nationalist party stands, so what is the point of putting it in as an option in the referendum?
Doing so would at least underline whether people were voting for an Assembly because they wished it to lead to an independent Wales, or because they wished it not to lead to an independent Wales. That is a relevant question and the only way it can be answered is by having a multi-option question that sets out the issues fairly and firmly.
Having said all that, however, I have to point out that because of the guillotine and the way in which it has affected the debate on the amendments, the amendment on which our vote is being sought this evening is not one that fulfils those criteria—it goes further and looks for order of preference to be part of the process. I repeat what I said in the previous debate: the idea that constitutional issues should be decided by second or third preferences would be a novel concept indeed and one that I certainly could not support. On that basis, I say that although I support the principle of the amendment and the reasons why it was tabled, neither I nor my Front-Bench colleagues can vote for the amendment and I cannot ask my Back-Bench colleagues to do so. Nevertheless, a relevant issue has been raised and the Government have to address it. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will answer the questions raised. If he does, it will be a first because none of his colleagues from either Wales or Scotland has done so in previous debates.I begin my reply to this good debate by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) on his excellent speech. It was a model maiden speech—confident, articulate and witty—and I was especially delighted to hear him because we are neighbours in the Swansea valley. We share a road in the socialist village of Trebanos and I was delighted to hear him use that term. I welcome him to the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) made several telling points and I share his desire to deal with the quango state. The White Paper will address that matter. However, we must not pre-empt the Welsh Assembly and its own obligations to deal with the matter.I was reading the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales on 16 May. He said that the Assembly
But having powers to reform the quangos is not the same as the devolution Bill reforming the quangos. Will the Minister give an assurance that the devolution Bill will itself reform many of the quangos and subsume them into the Assembly?"will have powers to reform the quangos". —[Official Report, 16 May 1997; Vol. 294, c. 350.]
My right hon. Friend makes a similar point to that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. The point is an important one, and it will be addressed by the White Paper. When the White Paper is published, they will see what the detailed proposals are.
The issue of jobs was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith). I say frankly that, yes, I do believe that if we do not have a Welsh Assembly, jobs in Wales will be threatened, investment will be threatened and the strength of the Welsh economy will be threatened. Let me explain why. The Scots will get a Scottish Parliament; next year London will get the opportunity to vote for an elected authority; and the regions of England will follow within a matter of years thereafter—the north-east is already pressing hard for an elected authority. Is my hon. Friend really saying that Wales should be the only part of the United Kingdom that does not have a devolved form of government? In those circumstances—especially with the English getting regional economic development agencies—I believe that job prospects in Wales will be threatened if we do not have an Assembly. A Welsh Assembly will give us the power and the authority to reorganise the Welsh economy to protect jobs and, indeed, to increase employment and tackle unemployment.My hon. Friend the Minister just said that if we do not have a Welsh Assembly, thousands of jobs will be threatened. First, in yesterday's press release from the Welsh Office, he was talking not about jobs being threatened, but about jobs being lost. Secondly, if we take his argument to its logical conclusion, is he also saying that we have LG investment because LG recognises the possibility of a Welsh Assembly in the near future?
We got LG investment because the company knew that there was a Labour Government coming and knew that it wanted to be in a Wales ruled by that Labour Government. In a modern economy, inward investors will be attracted to Wales if there is an Assembly to assist with the development of our economic strategy.
7.45 pm
The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) made the point that the LG jobs might not have come to Wales if it had had a Welsh Assembly. He was entirely wrong. As someone who was involved in the decision to bring the LG jobs to Wales and who discussed at great length with LG executives their decision to bring the jobs to my constituency, I know that they knew, as did everyone else, that a Labour Government were almost certainly coming and that a Labour Government would bring a Welsh Assembly. They are entirely comfortable with the idea of being in Wales under a Welsh Assembly. The links between Korean investment in Wales, which stretch from Caernarfon to Merthyr to Cardiff and to Newport, are very strong and will be greatly strengthened when we have our own Assembly in Cardiff.
I take my hon. Friend's point. This is not simply an erudite constitutional matter, and these interventions have focused our attention on the fact that this debate is about jobs, health, schools and housing. If we get a measure of self-government in Wales, we will better be able to deal with all those issues.
Let me now directly address the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones). He effectively advanced the proposition that there should be what is called a preferendum and I respect his right to argue that case—indeed, given his party's policy, he has a duty to argue it. He did so constructively and in an inclusive spirit, which I acknowledge. However, I have to say that his policy at the general election was roundly defeated and that our policy won overwhelmingly. We are putting that policy in a confidence vote in the referendum, which will take place later this year. People in Wales do not want separatism; they do not want Wales to break away from the United Kingdom. We do not want more taxes; under the Tories, ordinary people in Wales have paid more taxes than ever before.Will my hon. Friend the Minister give way on that specific point?
On that point, yes.
It is an important point, so I ask my hon. Friend to give a concise and intellectual defence of the reasons why the people of Wales are not being offered the same choice that is being offered to the people of Scotland.
The defence is clear: we did not give in our election manifesto a commitment to give tax-raising powers to the Welsh Assembly. [Laughter.] It is no laughing matter. That commitment was given in the election manifesto to the people of Scotland. We are honouring our election manifesto in Wales, just as we are honouring it in Scotland. As my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said, Scotland is different from Wales, which is why there are different propositions for Scotland and Wales.
People in Wales want the enormously powerful functions of the Welsh Office to be exercised by democratically elected people from Wales; that is our policy. The new Welsh Assembly will be a very powerful institution. No doubt it will evolve over the years. When, in 1964, James Griffiths was established as the first Secretary of State for Wales, it was not nearly as powerful a position as it is now, and no doubt there will be opportunity for it to evolve in future, but we need a Welsh Assembly to make it possible. I want to address the points made in the amendments tabled by, among others, the hon. Members for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and for Ynys Môn. There is great potential for confusion in what one might regard as a complex multiple choice examination paper, the "preferendum" that is suggested. It is quite possible that no single majority view will be expressed for any of the options. Where will that leave us, given the arguments and the momentum for devolution and decentralisation in Wales? It might leave us where the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and other Members want to leave us—with the devolution process delayed or abandoned. I urge hon. Members not to fall into that trap. Several technical questions have not been answered by the hon. Member for Caernarfon and his colleagues. Would the multiple choice referendum be conducted on a first-past-the-post basis, as they have suggested, or by single transferable vote? If it was conducted by single transferable vote, which would allow a majority view to be expressed after preferences had been transferred, it would be the first time ever that that electoral procedure or form of preference had been used in any referendum or election in Britain. The referendum in Wales on this vital principle should not get bogged down in a complicated voting arrangement tried out for the first time. We want the people of Wales to have a simple, straightforward and clear choice—yes or no: "Do you support the Government's policy, which we advocated in our manifesto, on which we received an overwhelming mandate to establish a Welsh Assembly, or do you not?" The greater the yes vote, the more authority the Welsh Assembly will have, and the bigger will be the mandate from the people to make progress in the House in the months to come. In those months, the negative, destructive, filibustering tactics that have been attempted by the Tories in the past few days will be used. We do not want to give them an opportunity to pursue them. On one of the ballot options that the hon. Member for Caernarfon has proposed—envisaging self-government within the European Union—it is not clear whether Wales would be a sovereign state or something different. If he proposes a full sovereign state of Wales in the European Union, that would require a treaty amendment, because it would enlarge the European Union. A unanimous vote by European Union members and a new intergovernmental conference would be needed. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman seriously wants us to go down that route simply to create a Welsh Assembly. We made a contract with the people on 1 May for a referendum in Wales to enable the people of Wales to express their precise view on this question. We spelt out exactly the terms of the question when we said that it would be on a Welsh Assembly, and we are now implementing that commitment, as we did our commitment regarding Scotland. We are keeping our promises. It may be novel, given the Governments of the past 18 years, for an incoming Government to keep their promises, but we are doing so and deserve credit for it. We are inviting the electorate to endorse a clear principle that they will support our policy for an elected Welsh Assembly.How can my hon. Friend reconcile his argument that we are putting a specific proposal to the people of Wales with his argument that the Assembly might subsequently evolve? If he believes that it may evolve, why does not he give the Welsh public the option of choosing an evolved form?
I believe that my right hon. Friend, whom I respect as a colleague in the West Glamorgan area and for his role in Parliament in the Welsh group, is confusing two points. We shall outline in the White Paper our policy for a Welsh Assembly; that is what will be voted on. That is what will be legislated for in Parliament thereafter. I am simply making the obvious point that one cannot bind future Parliaments and that a future Welsh Assembly may be able to evolve in future. There is nothing contradictory in inviting the people of Wales to vote on the policy set out in the White Paper.
I see that the shadow Secretary of State for Wales has finally turned up to the debate, very late in the day.He is canvassing.
He is canvassing, is he, for extra votes? That displays the typical arrogance that the Tories have shown in the past few days for the mandate that we have received from the people of Wales, and which they definitely have not received. Indeed, the real opposition in Wales to the Government is sitting on the Liberal Democrat and nationalist Benches, because there is no opposition in Wales on the Tory Benches.
I pay tribute to the Liberal Democrat and Plaid Cymru Members who have spoken. I especially appreciate the constructive spirit in which the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) made his contribution, especially bearing it in mind that his grandmother is from Alltwen. She comes from very good stock, as it is in the Neath constituency. I hope that we can move forward together to get a massive yes vote in Wales for an elected Assembly in Wales, because Wales must not be left behind in a movement for democracy that is being unleashed throughout Britain. We have this historic opportunity to modernise our system of government, to bring power to the people of Wales and to decentralise decision making. The referendum and the Bill—in defeating the amendment, we shall carry through the Bill—will give us the opportunity to take forward the battle for democracy and get rid of 18 years of degenerate, corrupt Tory rule in Wales and strike forward on a new path of democratic devolution in Wales.I join the congratulations to the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) on his excellent maiden speech. I was proud of the fact that he mentioned the village of Garnswllt, where I was brought up and educated, so I am sure that he will be looking after the residents of Garnswllt very well, like his predecessor, Gareth Wardell.
The Minister made heavy weather of technical arguments against more than one question. I find it rather strange—I put it no higher than that—that the people of Scotland are mature and grown up enough to consider that they might have to vote on two questions, but somehow the people of Wales are not that mature—that it would be too complicated for the people of Wales to have more than one question, but not too complicated for the people of Scotland. I also find it strange that the Minister should say that the people of Wales cannot be bothered with tax-raising Parliament, yet the people of Scotland can be. What is the difference? He seems to me to be making very heavy weather of it. I understand that he wants to advance the proposals made by the Labour party, and he is entitled to do so; the Government have a mandate on that. The Minister told the Committee—a point that I did not fully appreciate—that the people of Wales decisively rejected Plaid Cymru at the general election. They rejected the Conservatives decisively, yet the Conservative position is maintained on the ballot paper. The status quo is there. The Conservative option is being voted on. What is the problem in putting the option suggested by the Liberal Democrat party or Plaid Cymru? I find it strange that the Government cannot make the connection there, in the spirit of inclusive politics, to bring people together. The amendment does not tie the Government's hands by committing them to a multi-option referendum but enshrines the principle of options. The Government can consider what options might be appropriate, after consulting the people. There is no hard and fast reason why the referendum should be multi-option. The Minister said that a multi-option referendum would be different from the kind of question to be put to the people of Scotland. There was an opportunity, which the Government did not take, to debate questions similar to those being put to Scotland. The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) provided that opportunity, but it was denied because of the guillotine. I ask the Government to recognise that there are strong feelings across all parties in Wales that we should consider all options. In order to gauge the strength of feeling in the Committee, we shall divide the Committee on the amendment.Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 20, Noes 330.
Division No. 13]
| [7.59 pm
|
AYES
| |
| Brand, Dr Peter | Lidington, David |
| Brazier, Julian | Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway) |
| Chope, Christopher | Paterson, Owen |
| Cormack, Sir Patrick | St Aubyn, Nick |
| Cunningham, Ms Roseanna | Salmond, Alex |
(Perth)
| Swinney, John |
| Taylor, Sir Teddy | |
| Dafis, Cynog | Tyrie, Andrew |
| Duncan Smith, Iain | Welsh, Andrew |
| Ewing, Mrs Margaret | |
| George, Andrew (St Ives) | Tellers for the Ayes:
|
| Hancock, Mike | Mr. Elfyn Llwyd and Mr. Dafydd Wigley.
|
| Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn) | |
NOES
| |
| Abbott, Ms Diane | Brinton, Mrs Helen |
| Ainger, Nick | Brown, Rt Hon Nick |
| Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE) | (Newcastle E & Wallsend)
|
| Anderson, Donald (Swansea E) | Brown, Russell (Dumfries) |
| Anderson, Janet (Ros'dale) | Browne, Desmond (Kilmarnock) |
| Ashton, Joe | Burden, Richard |
| Atherton, Ms Candy | Burgon, Colin |
| Atkins, Ms Charlotte | Butler, Christine |
| Austin, John | Byers, Stephen |
| Barnes, Harry | Caborn, Richard |
| Barron, Kevin | Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth) |
| Battle, John | Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge) |
| Bayley, Hugh | Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V) |
| Beard, Nigel | Campbell-Savours, Dale |
| Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret | Canavan, Dennis |
| Begg, Miss Anne (Aberd'n S) | Cann, Jamie |
| Benn, Rt Hon Tony | Caplin, Ivor |
| Benton, Joe | Caton, Martin |
| Bermingham, Gerald | Cawsey, Ian |
| Berry, Roger | Chapman, Ben (Wirral S) |
| Best, Harold | Chaytor, David |
| Betts, Clive | Chisholm, Malcolm |
| Blackman, Mrs Liz | Church, Ms Judith |
| Blears, Ms Hazel | Clapham, Michael |
| Blizzard, Robert | Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields) |
| Blunkett, Rt Hon David | Clark, Dr Lynda |
| Bradley, Keith (Withington) | (Edinburgh Pentlands)
|
| Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin) | Clark, Paul (Gillingham) |
| Bradshaw, Ben | Clarke, Charles (Norwich S) |
| Clarke, Eric (Midlothian) | Heal, Mrs Sylvia |
| Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge) | Healey, John |
| Clarke, Tony (Northampton S) | Henderson, Ivan (Harwich) |
| Clelland, David | Hepburn, Stephen |
| Clwyd, Mrs Ann | Heppell, John |
| Coaker, Vernon | Hesford, Stephen |
| Coffey, Ms Ann | Hewitt, Ms Patricia |
| Connarty, Michael | Hinchliffe, David |
| Cook, Frank (Stockton N) | Home Robertson, John |
| Cooper, Ms Yvette | Hood, Jimmy |
| Corbett, Robin | Hoon, Geoffrey |
| Corston, Ms Jean | Hope, Philip |
| Cousins, Jim | Hopkins, Kelvin |
| Cranston, Ross | Howarth, George (Knowsley N) |
| Crausby, David | Howells, Dr Kim |
| Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley) | Hoyle, Lindsay |
| Cryer, John (Hornchurch) | Hughes, Ms Beverley |
| Cummings, John | (Stretford & Urmston)
|
| Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S) | Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N) |
| Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John | Humble, Mrs Joan |
(Copeland)
| Hurst, Alan |
| Curtis-Thomas, Ms Clare | Hutton, John |
| Dalyell, Tam | Iddon, Brian |
| Darling, Rt Hon Alistair | Illsley, Eric |
| Darvill, Keith | Ingram, Adam |
| Davey, Valerie (Bristol W) | Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampst'd) |
| Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli) | Jamieson, David |
| Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly) | Jenkins, Brian (Tamworth) |
| Dawson, Hilton | Johnson, Ms Melanie |
| Dean, Ms Janet | (Welwyn Hatfield)
|
| Denham, John | Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside) |
| Dewar, Rt Hon Donald | Jones, Ms Fiona (Newark) |
| Dobbin, Jim | Jones, Helen (Warrington N) |
| Dobson, Rt Hon Frank | Jones, Ms Jenny |
| Donohoe, Brian H | (Wolverh'ton SW)
|
| Doran, Frank | Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C) |
| Drew, David | Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S) |
| Drown, Ms Julia | Keeble, Ms Sally |
| Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth | Keen, Alan (Feltham) |
| Eagle, Angela (Wallasey) | Kemp, Fraser |
| Eagle, Ms Maria (L'pool Garston) | Khabra, Piara S |
| Edwards, Huw | Kidney, David |
| Ellman, Ms Louise | Kilfoyle, Peter |
| Ennis, Jeff | King, Andy (Rugby) |
| Field, Rt Hon Frank | King, Miss Oona (Bethnal Green) |
| Fitzsimons, Ms Lorna | Kingham, Tessa |
| Flynn, Paul | Kumar, Dr Ashok |
| Follett, Ms Barbara | Ladyman, Dr Stephen |
| Foster, Rt Hon Derek | Lawrence, Ms Jackie |
| Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings) | Laxton, Bob |
| Foster, Michael John (Worcester) | Lepper, David |
| Galbraith, Sam | Leslie, Christopher |
| Galloway, George | Levitt, Tom |
| Gapes, Mike | Lewis, Ivan (Bury S) |
| Gardiner, Barry | Lewis, Terry (Worsley) |
| George, Bruce (Walsall S) | Liddell, Mrs Helen |
| Gerrard, Neil | Livingstone, Ken |
| Gibson, Dr Ian | Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C) |
| Gilroy, Mrs Linda | Lock, David |
| Godman, Dr Norman A | McAllion, John |
| Godsiff, Roger | McAvoy, Thomas |
| Goggins, Paul | McCabe, Stephen |
| Golding, Mrs Llin | McCafferty, Ms Chris |
| Gordon, Mrs Eileen | McCartney, Ian (Makerfield) |
| Graham, Thomas | Macdonald, Calum |
| Grant, Bernie | McDonnell, John |
| Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S) | McFall, John |
| Griffiths, Win (Bridgend) | McGuire, Mrs Anne |
| Grocott, Bruce | McIsaac, Ms Shona |
| Grogan, John | McKenna, Ms Rosemary |
| Gunnell, John | Mackinlay, Andrew |
| Hain, Peter | McLeish, Henry |
| Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale) | McMaster, Gordon |
| Hall, Patrick (Bedford) | MacShane, Denis |
| Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE) | Mactaggart, Fiona |
| Hanson, David | McWalter, Tony |
| McWilliam, John | Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert |
| Mahon, Mrs Alice | Shipley, Ms Debra |
| Mallaber, Ms Judy | Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S) |
| Marek, Dr John | Singh, Marsha |
| Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S) | Skinner, Dennis |
| Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury) | Smith, Ms Angela (Basildon) |
| Martlew, Eric | Smith, Miss Geraldine |
| Maxton, John | (Morecambe & Lunesdale)
|
| Meale, Alan | Smith, Ms Jacqui (Redditch) |
| Merron, Ms Gillian | Smith, John (Glamorgan) |
| Milburn, Alan | Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent) |
| Miller, Andrew | Snape, Peter |
| Moffatt, Laura | Soley, Clive |
| Moonie, Dr Lewis | Southworth, Ms Helen |
| Moran, Ms Margaret | Spellar, John |
| Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N) | Squire, Ms Rachel |
| Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W) | Starkey, Dr Phyllis |
| Morley, Elliot | Stevenson, George |
| Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley) | Stewart, David (Inverness E) |
| Mountford, Ms Kali | Stewart, Ian (Eccles) |
| Mudie, George | Stinchcombe, Paul |
| Mullin, Chris | Stoate, Dr Howard |
| Murphy, Dennis (Wansbeck) | Stott, Roger |
| Murphy, Jim (Eastwood) | Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin |
| Naysmith, Dr Doug | Straw, Rt Hon Jack |
| Norris, Dan | Stringer, Graham |
| O'Brien, Mike (N Warks) | Stuart, Mrs Gisela (Edgbaston) |
| O'Brien, William (Normanton) | Sutcliffe, Gerry |
| Olner, Bill | Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann |
| O'Neill, Martin | (Dewsbury)
|
| Organ, Mrs Diana | Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S) |
| Osborne, Mrs Sandra | Taylor, David (NW Leics) |
| Palmer, Dr Nick | Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W) |
| Pendry, Tom | Tipping, Paddy |
| Pickthall, Colin | Todd, Mark |
| Pike, Peter L | Touhig, Don |
| Plaskitt, James | Truswell, Paul |
| Pollard, Kerry Pond, Chris | Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE) |
| Turner, Desmond (Kemptown) | |
| Pope, Greg | Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk) |
| Powell, Sir Raymond | Twigg, Derek (Halton) |
| Prentice, Gordon | Vaz, Keith |
| Primarolo, Dawn | Vis, Dr Rudi |
| Prosser, Gwyn | Walley, Ms Joan |
| Wareing, Robert N | |
| Purchase, Ken | Watts, David |
| Quin, Ms Joyce | White, Brian |
| Quinn, Lawrie | Whitehead, Alan |
| Radice, Giles | Wicks, Malcolm |
| Rammell, Bill | Williams, Rt Hon Alan |
| Rapson, Syd | (Swansea W)
|
| Reed, Andrew (Loughborough) | Williams, Dr Alan W |
| Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N) | (E Carmarthen)
|
| Robertson, Rt Hon George | Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy) |
(Hamilton S)
| Wills, Michael |
| Rogers, Allan | Winnick, David |
| Rooker, Jeff | Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C) |
| Rooney, Terry | Wise, Audrey |
| Ross, Ernie (Dundee W) | Wood, Mike |
| Rowlands, Ted | Woolas, Phil |
| Roy, Frank | Worthington, Tony |
| Ruane, Chris | Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock) |
| Russell, Ms Christine (Chester) | Wright, Tony (Gt Yarmouth) |
| Salter, Martin | Wyatt, Derek |
| Savidge, Malcolm | |
| Sawford, Phil | Tellers for the Noes:
|
| Sedgemore, Brian | Mr. Graham Allen and Jane Kennedy.
|
| Sheerman, Barry |
Question accordingly negatived.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2 commits the Government to holding a referendum in Wales on the Government's proposals. Many people have talked about a referendum in the past, but the clause actually commits the Government to providing one.
Before going any further, I want to pay tribute to the new Member for Gower (Mr. Caton)—[Interruption.]Order. I appeal to hon. Members for quiet while an hon. Member is addressing the House.
I am grateful to you, Mr. Martin, for your protection. I was just going to say how good the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower was. I have a special interest in this because of my family history. My hon. Friend is my mother's and brother's Member of Parliament, as was Gareth Wardell before him. I knew from my hon. Friend's delivery of his speech that he is going to be a superb representative of the whole constituency of Gower—including my ancestral home of Cwmcile in the northern part of the constituency. It was there that my great-great-grandfather, Morgan Morgan, at the height of the Rebecca riots, shot—I am not sure whether he killed—Colonel Napier, the head of the Glamorgan yeomanry; aided by his mother, who struck with a frying pan one of the sergeants who had been sent to arrest him.
The relevance of all this to proceedings on the clause is that it took place in the 1840s, when the people of Wales, in Gower and across west Wales—including the area from which the former Home Secretary comes—were rioting because of the way Wales was being run. At the time, Wales was run by the squires and their friends by means of a system of quangos, very much as it was, increasingly, during the past 18 years. The squires appointed the justices of the peace, the poor law guardians, and the turnpike trusts. It was against these trusts that the Rebecca rioters rebelled. Finally, there were the school boards. It was very much the squire and his pals—a squirearchy—and there was widespread rebellion. The Chartists were active in some of the industrial areas, such as Newport, and in the rural parts of west Wales including Cwmcile and the Gower area. The rebellions were specifically against the turnpike trusts and the imposition of taxes. What the rebels wanted was democracy. At that time, because Wales did not have a proper democratic franchise, it was run very much in the interests of the squires and the landowners, and, by and large, only the squires and their friends could vote. That is one of the reasons why, when the secret ballot was introduced, the tenants lost their fear of being evicted if they did not vote for the squire or his nominees to come to this place and represent them. Ever since then, Wales has voted against the Tory party. It has never forgotten the lesson that it was taught by people like my great-great-grandfather Morgan Morgan in the Gower constituency, and the spirit that they represented. My great-great-grandfather may have gone too far on that occasion, but the lesson of that period of rebellion in the 1830s and 1840s—of the Chartists and the Rebecca rioters—is very relevant to tonight's debate. During the past 18 years, the Tories have tried to turn the clock back and reproduce a Victorian society in which the squire and his pals—or, in this instance, the Tories and their pals, by means of quangos—took Wales away from what its people thought that they had gained by securing the secret ballot and the universal franchise. My hon. Friend the Member for Gower may not want to assault the captain of the Glamorgan yeomanry—indeed, the Glamorgan yeomanry no longer exists—but I know that he has done a very good job for all the people of Gower. I also know that, by supporting clause 2, we can do the job for which the Welsh people were looking in the 1840s. How do we achieve some form of democracy in Wales, and how do we ensure that the people of Wales can secure what they want by means of a democratic system? That does not mean shooting the Glamorgan yeomanry, and it does not mean riot, but it does mean using the ballot box and democratic procedures, and that can be done only if people respect the fact that there is a deep-rooted dislike of the Tory party in Welsh history. In that respect, there is a difference even between Wales and Scotland. Members of Parliament—perhaps they include you, Mr. Martin—may be old enough to remember a time when Scotland actually produced a Tory majority. That happened at the 1955 election. We have never done that in Wales: we have a very different history. We have not voted for the Tory party since the secret ballot was introduced, and, given the spirit of Wales, even if the ordinary people had been able to vote back in the 1830s and 1840s they would undoubtedly not have voted Tory then. It was only because of the phoney, funny franchise that operated at the time that occasionally the squire's pals would get in. Clause 2 is a way of putting right all the injustices that Wales has suffered because of its inability to secure a form of democracy that would give it some control over its domestic affairs. The clause will give Wales a chance to have its own Welsh Assembly. It does not commit the Government to establishing such an Assembly; it does something even better, because the Government are committed to two forms of direct democracy. The manifesto for which everyone in Wales voted so overwhelmingly on 1 May said that people could vote for the party that would bring them—among other things—a Welsh Assembly, subject to having the direct democratic right to veto that Assembly. After all, some people in Wales might be in favour of a Labour Government but against a Welsh Assembly. The manifesto said that those people could vote for Labour on 1 May, but could vote against the Government, given the right to veto a Labour proposal, in a direct referendum that would be held in the autumn. That is a very democratic action. That is what the Tories denied Wales back in the 1840s, and what they took away from Wales when they reduced local government powers by appointing all their pals to quangos during the 18 years which, thankfully, came to an end on 1 May. That is why I think that clause 2 is so important to the history of Wales, and to the relationship between Wales and this Parliament. It could be said that we have a unitary state, and that we should worry about all the anomalies that will be created if Wales and Scotland have separate Assemblies or Parliaments. We hear people express worries about the so-called West Lothian question, as though it were a reason for doing nothing to modernise the constitution. We have heard Opposition Members express, by implication, the view expressed by the Prime Minister when he referred to a thousand years of British history, suggesting that in some way the constitution of this country was immutable; but it has never been immutable, particularly when it comes to the relationship between England and the Celtic fringe. Over the centuries, there has always been a need for change in regard to the way in which we deal with relationships with the small Celtic countries—Ireland in the 19th century, and Scotland and Wales later in that century and, indeed, in the 20th. In our Parliament, we have always found it necessary to adjust the relationship between England and the other countries. England is, in that context, a very big country, comprising 82 per cent. of the United Kingdom population. As for the three small countries, or provinces, Scotland has 9 per cent. of the population, Wales 5 per cent. and Northern Ireland 3.5 per cent.Could not the problem be solved by the establishment of three Grand Committees composed of Welsh, English and Scottish Members who would pass their own domestic legislation? Would that not avoid the extra expense, the constitutional problems and the West Lothian question?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive contribution, and for his acceptance of the principle of what I am saying.
England is a big and a dominant country, containing well over three quarters of the UK population and of its Members of Parliament. It is a case of the elephant and the three Celtic fleas. Obviously, when people have fleas they scratch from time to time, and there is currently a desire to readjust the relationship between, in this instance, England and Scotland and Wales. Under the last Government, an attempt was made to readjust the relationship between England and Northern Ireland. That does not mean that the British constitution will collapse; if it did, the British constitution would have collapsed every time we readjusted the way in which we dealt with the affairs of Scotland, Wales, Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. I was very pleased by what the Prime Minister said about the Irish potato famine. He apologised to the people of Ireland for the part that the British Government had played in it, and that is very relevant to clause 2. Before the famine, everything was about expanding the United Kingdom constitution to take in first Wales, then Scotland, then the Republic of Ireland. The potato famine, however, was such a devastating experience for one particular Celtic country that its people never forgot it, and it eventually left this Parliament altogether. After the famine, the issue was no longer expanding to take over the rest of the British Isles—Wales, then Scotland and Ireland—but establishing new rights for the Celtic countries, with Secretaries of State for Scotland, then Ireland, the setting up of the Stormont Parliament in 1922 and the Republic of Ireland becoming an independent free state in the same year before leaving the Commonwealth and the Crown altogether in 1949. Since the famine, the readjustment has gone the other way. In general, it has worked to allow the Celtic countries of the United Kingdom to have more say in their own affairs, and clause 2, in two ways, gives more say to two of the Celtic countries for which this Parliament is responsible. It establishes the prospect of a Welsh Assembly and a Scottish Parliament, but establishes it via an additional hurdle that the legislation will have to cross by way of a direct vote by the people of Wales and Scotland in the autumn. This Parliament should not be frightened of that. During the past 150 years, every 30 or 40 years, there has been a major change in the relationship between England and the three Celtic countries, or, putting it another way, between this Parliament as a whole and the amount of respect that is given to the diversity of those three Celtic fleas. England is in the middle, with well over 80 per cent. of the total population, wealth and representation in the House of Commons. The Government have committed themselves to a very democratic measure, which I welcome. One could say that, in adjusting the relationship, the Celtic fringe countries are asking for more recognition of their diversity and tradition. For instance, there is the tradition that we in Wales do not vote Tory, and our commitment to helping to bring about the welfare state. Looking at it from a Welsh perspective, one could say that we are looking for a boyo-diversity treaty; a readjustment of the relationship between Wales, England and Scotland. In the spirit of asking for that boyo-diversity treaty, I hope that the House will give warm approval to clause 2.Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
It being half-past Eight o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN put the Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that hour.
Clauses 3 to 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.
Bill reported, without amendment.
Order for Third Reading read.
8.30 pm
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
The Bill is short and simple and my contribution can be similarly brief. During the debate on the Scottish amendment my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) took up a point with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland about the provision of local information in Wales. We are discussing with the chief counting officers at county borough level the provision of information and our intention is that it will be released. But, if possible, we want the result to be declared nationally first. We are discussing how both those objectives can be accommodated and we shall announce our conclusions in due course. The Bill authorises the holding of referendums in Scotland and Wales as the first step in the Government's programme of radical constitutional reform. A mood for constitutional change is abroad in Scotland and Wales and the referendums will give people in each country the opportunity to express their views on the Government's devolution proposals. We promised them that opportunity and we now intend to deliver on that promise. We do not have to do this. Our election victory gave us a clear mandate for our policy to decentralise power to the people of Scotland and Wales. We could simply have proceeded with the necessary legislation, but we want to secure popular support for those policies, as our manifesto promised.The hon. Gentleman is just doing as he is told because the referendum policy was decided in London, not by Wales.
When we have a serious contribution from a Welsh Conservative Member of Parliament, he might have a serious answer to such a question.
We did not have to do this, but we decided that we wanted the authority of the people to support our legislation. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who is waiting for the Tory party leadership election result, will recognise that if and when we have a yes vote in Scotland and Wales, Parliament must respect that yes vote. Last time, some 30 days were spent on the devolution question—nearly 15 weeks of parliamentary time during which the then Conservative Opposition behaved in a typically destructive and negative fashion, filibustering through the night as best they could. We intend that Parliament will respect the mandate given by the people of Scotland and Wales in order to support the legislation that we will introduce.I was there and my hon. Friend was not. There was serious discussion. People such as Enoch Powell on the one side and others of us on the other did not filibuster. I saw it at first hand.
The last thing that I would accuse my hon. Friend of doing is filibustering. I was talking about the Conservative Opposition. They would have done the same this time had they had the opportunity.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I shall give way in a minute.
What we are proposing is sensible and the Government have chosen to introduce the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill first. That way there will be an efficient use of parliamentary time. There is a clear mandate from the people for the introduction of legislation and that is a sensible use of parliamentary procedure and time.Will the hon. Gentleman, please, apologise to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). The hon. Gentleman was not here when we debated devolution. I was, as was the hon. Member for Linlithgow. The debates were serious. They showed true division on both sides of the House. Many Labour Members were deeply unhappy about devolution in Scotland and in Wales. The Labour Government of the day did not attempt to drive the Bill through like a steam roller. The hon. Gentleman should be thoroughly ashamed of himself for what he said.
My hon. Friend does not need any assistance from the Tory Benches to make his case. He is probably the most effective and admired Back Bencher in the House. I made no criticism of his role in that devolution debate.
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his position. He referred to the outcome of the referendum. If, as he hopes, it is a success and he comes back to the House with a detailed devolution Bill, he has said that we should not thwart the will of the people of Wales and Scotland. To that extent, does he also accept that the detail of those Bills is important to the success of what comes about? Therefore, will he undertake not to try to do what the Government have done this time, which is to ram some tight guillotines through from day one?
Of course the detail of the Bill is important and it will be considered with due care and attention by the House. It is a matter for the Procedure Committee to determine how that will be done. Our proposals for devolution for Scotland and Wales are different because they reflect the different historical circumstances and the modern-day realities of each country. But in each case they will allow diversity to flourish and the implementation of policies reflecting local circumstances and traditions and national needs. We must get away from the idea that London decides everything, regardless of local people's wishes, especially in the context of the nations of Scotland and Wales.
We also intend to get rid of the unelected Tory quango state which, during 18 years, the Tory Government ruthlessly packed with their own people who could not get elected through the ballot box. One English Secretary of State for Wales has been bad enough without him reproducing himself on virtually every quango in Wales. The Tories have developed a new meaning to the word "cloning" in Wales by their use of the power of the quango exercised through an English Tory Secretary of State. What a rabble the Tories have represented in the debates on the Bill. They have made no constructive contributions. The only constructive, serious and intelligent contributions have come from Liberal Democrat and Scottish National party Members on the Opposition Benches.Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I will take no more Tory interventions.
The reason why the Liberal Democrats and the nationalists have made constructive contributions is that they represent constituencies in Wales, unlike Tory Members. It is good to see that the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, has graced us with his presence at this late hour in the debate. Neither he nor his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) seriously addressed themselves to the issue of giving people an historic opportunity to vote for increased democracy in Wales and in Scotland. The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe indulged himself in his usual barrack-room lawyer style, picking up a brief and indulging in all sorts of tit-for-tat debating points, but he never addressed the substantive democratic issues. Similarly, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks employed his best Oxford Union style in taking up a series of detailed debating points without seriously addressing the democratic issues. That is no surprise because the Tories have forgotten how to address democratic issues. In 18 years, they flouted every democratic tradition in Britain and imposed a centralised, elitist form of government on both Scotland and Wales. When I dealt with the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks as Secretary of State for Wales, I respected the way in which he conducted his duties. I remember, however, that when he first took office, he walked into rooms all over Wales and was given a standing ovation. He thought that that was because he was popular; it was simply because he was not the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). It is important that we move forward in a spirit of unity in the House—Will the Minister give way?
No, I will not take any more interventions. I want to give as much opportunity as possible to Back-Bench Members to contribute to the Third Reading debate. I have taken plenty of interventions from Conservative Members.
rose—
No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman can make a speech in the time left to him before 10 o'clock.
The questions set out in the Bill invite the people of Scotland and Wales to express support for our devolution proposals. We will set them out in detail in the White Papers which are to be published before the House rises in the summer. I look forward to a constructive and informed public debate on those plans in each country. I hope that representatives of the Conservative party will make their contributions in a positive and constructive spirit. That will be the Government's intention.On that point, will the Minister now do what the Prime Minister conspicuously failed to do earlier today, which is to apologise for the misleading information the Prime Minister gave to the House on 14 May? He said:
"Of course the Bill will be published in time for the referendum".
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is intervening in the way for which he has become well known in the House, taking up a misleading point rather than addressing the central issue. I say to him and his Conservative colleagues who represent English constituencies that England voted for devolution as well. The Conservatives received only 34 per cent. of the vote in England—a minority vote in England. The then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), made the break-up of the United Kingdom, as he misleadingly put it, a central issue in the election campaign. He and his fellow Conservatives lost the argument.
Will the hon. Gentleman now answer the question that I put to him a minute ago? Will he apologise for the misleading information given by the Prime Minister to the House on 14 May? He said:
May we please have an answer to that question?"Of course the Bill will be published in time for the referendum".—[Official Report, 14 May 1997; Vol. 294, c. 64.1
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is the person who should apologise for attempting to divert the debate from the central issues of democracy and devolution which we have been discussing. He has hardly been here to listen to the arguments. The Prime Minister made the position absolutely clear this afternoon.
Conservative Front-Bench Members might consider why they did not ask that question on 14 May, but we will leave that to one side. Would it not have been better if the Prime Minister had simply told the House today that he was sorry and that he had made a mistake?
The Prime Minister made the position absolutely clear. I will speak to the hon. Gentleman in a constructive spirit; I welcomed the constructive spirit in which he and his colleagues contributed to the debate. What is important, once we have the White Paper which will be published later this summer before the House rises so there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss it and consider it in the weeks that run up to the referendum, to those of us—the vast majority of Members—who support democracy and decentralising decisions to local people, on a national basis in Scotland and in Wales, is that we unite for a yes vote. That is absolutely vital. We must not allow the Tories to divert the people of Scotland and the people of Wales from our historic mission to get democracy brought back to our people and to get decisions brought down close to the individual. That is our mandate; that is our historic obligation. We were given the mandate by the people in the massive landslide victory on 1 May, and all of us—Government Members, Liberal Democrats and nationalists—have a duty to unite, grasp the opportunity, move forward and create a democracy in Britain of which we can be proud.
8.44 pm
We have reached Third Reading, and in my view and that of my hon. Friends we have done so extremely prematurely. The debates have not done justice to the importance of the Bill or to its detail. We have just witnessed four clauses and two schedules of a constitutional measure being agreed to without any debate at all, which is a disgrace to the procedures of the House. That is what we have come to with the Government's arrogant behaviour. They have been unbelievably arrogant to treat the House in such a way.
There is no finer example of such arrogance than the speech of the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain). Despite the fact that holding referendums was a manifesto commitment, the hon. Gentleman proudly and magnanimously announced that the Government did not need to do so. The Government have a responsibility to implement what was in their election manifesto.The point that I was making was that we did not have to put the commitment in our manifesto but that we wanted to do so because we have confidence in our policies engaging popular opinion and receiving support.
The hon. Gentleman knows full well that the Labour party felt that it had to include the commitment in its manifesto in case it lost a large number of votes in Wales and Scotland at the election. It wanted to be able to say to the people, "Don't worry, you can have a referendum about it later."
The Under-Secretary of State not only derided people who spoke on the matter in the 1970s; he criticised Opposition Members for raising detailed points when that is exactly what debates on Bills are for. He criticised me for receiving standing ovations around Wales. If he continues to make such speeches, he will never enjoy that experience for himself. The Secretary of State for Scotland referred to the Bill a couple of days ago as a modest measure. It is not a modest measure: it is a measure of great importance, which is how he described it a couple of weeks ago.Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
I will not give way for the moment. Many of my hon. Friends want to speak. Debate on a measure of such great importance has either been severely limited or denied. We do not dispute that the Government have a mandate to hold referendums. We believe that it is right for them to hold referendums on the subject. Indeed, we welcome the Labour party's belated conversion to the idea of holding referendums on devolution. The Scottish Labour party had five policy positions on the matter in five years—indeed, it had three in two weeks. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) reminded the House a few minutes ago, it was decided in London that Labour party policy would change.
Although the Secretary of State for Wales has just left the Chamber, I make no apology for reminding the House of his famous remark on 24 June 1996, when he said:Three days later, it was his policy to hold a pre-legislative referendum. How true it has become that the trouble with a pre-legislative referendum is that there are so many questions that one cannot answer, since there have been so many questions that Government Front Benchers could not or have been unwilling to answer in the debates. The Secretary of State for Wales was right—he is not often right and it was a pity that he changed his mind—on one of the rare occasions when he came out with a perceptive and perspicacious remark about the folly of holding pre-legislative referendums."The trouble with a pre-legislative referendum is that there are so many questions that you cannot answer."
On the subject of parties changing their minds on this issue, on what date did the Conservative party decide that in principle it was in favour of a multi-option referendum in Scotland, as we were told this afternoon?
The Conservative party is entitled to set out its policies without having to report to the Scottish National party on what date it developed its policy. We have stated in the House today that the multi-option referendum policy is one with which we would have sympathy. If the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends on a multi-option referendum had been selected, we would have voted for them. It has been a side effect of the guillotine motion, which has denied debate on large parts of the Bill, that my hon. Friends have not been able to vote on or argue for the amendments that they had tabled.
The right hon. Gentleman would not have noticed, because he was absent himself, but for the major part of the debate no Tory Whip has been present and only one or two Tory Back Benchers have been in their places. On the subject of losing votes, does he not take responsibility for making devolution his one priority in the election? He went prancing around with balloons and told everyone that we had 72 hours to save the Union. He is personally responsible for the worst election result the Conservatives have had in Wales. If he had been standing for a Welsh seat, he would not be here now. Will he introduce a note of humility and apologise to his colleagues who used to represent Welsh seats, because his leadership destroyed their position?
The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that the final opinion polls of the general election campaign—which, as it turned out, accurately forecast the result of the general election—showed that opinion on a Welsh Assembly had moved to 34 per cent. in favour and 37 per cent. against by the end of the campaign. The hon. Gentleman should make no presumption yet about who has won the arguments or about the result of the referendum in Wales when it is held. Labour Members made assumptions about the result of the referendums in 1979 and they regretted it. I advise the hon. Gentleman not to make such assumptions on this occasion.
The Government have ignored in their handling of the Bill the truth spoken by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) on Second Reading when he said that the devil is in the detail. They will hold referendums without being able to give the public the detailed implications of what they propose. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) has just reminded us, the Prime Minister told us on 14 May that the Bill would be published before the referendums were held, but he was too mealy-mouthed today to recognise either that he had made a mistake or that he was backtracking on the commitment that he had given. The Prime Minister should have had the courage and the confidence to admit that his statement was a mistake or that he had backtracked on his commitment. As it is, we are promised a White Paper. We do not know whether the White Paper will answer the questions to which the electorate need answers before voting in the referendum. We do not know whether the White Paper will be able to explain the relationship between a Welsh Assembly and non-departmental public bodies in Wales, or between an Assembly and local government in Wales. We do not know whether the White Paper will explain the Assembly's power to call for persons and papers, its relationship with the Committee of the Regions, the role of the civil service, the resources that the Assembly will have at its disposal, the running costs and the remuneration of its members, its impact on inward investment, or how its electoral arrangements could be changed in the future. We do not know whether a White Paper will cover those subjects. The Government do not know whether the commitments that they will make in a White Paper will still be intact after the referendum has been held or after the legislation has passed through the House. If the Government are asking the electorate to vote on specific proposals in a White Paper, can they now say that the provisions of the White Paper will not be changed after the referendum has been held? They can give no such commitment. They are asking the electorate to vote for a pig in a poke; that is no way to hold a referendum in a parliamentary democracy. It should be a basic principle of referendums that the electorate should be as well informed as possible about the proposition on which they are voting. That principle could be satisfied only by holding the referendum after the legislation had passed through Parliament, not before. It should be a basic principle of referendums that people should know exactly what they are voting on. They cannot know exactly what they are voting on when a pre-legislative referendum is held. Our second objection to a pre-legislative referendum—after the fact that it leaves the electorate in the dark—is that the Government clearly intend to use the holding of a referendum as a substitute for the parliamentary process rather than as an addition to it. The Government clearly intend to use the result to say that the electorate have now voted on the general proposition and that nobody else should dare to argue with the details of the legislation. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales said that the House would decide how the eventual legislation would be handled, but that is not the reality. The House will not decide, because Labour Members would vote for any proposition put forward by the Government even if it meant dealing with the whole Bill in a Committee lasting five or 10 minutes. Most Labour Members would be prepared to vote even for that proposition if the Government Whips said that they should. The Government have to decide. It is the Government's responsibility to say that constitutional legislation should be dealt with on the Floor of the House. It is their responsibility to give us the guarantee that we have asked for—that that Bill will not be guillotined in the disgraceful way that we have seen happen to the one before us. They must guarantee that the abuse of the rights of the House will not continue. As we come to the end of proceedings on the Bill, they are not prepared to give those guarantees. What confidence can the Opposition and people outside the House have that debates on the legislation which may follow the referendums will be treated fairly and properly when the Prime Minister has described the prospect of debates on such legislation as "game playing", when the Secretary of State for Wales has said that he will brook no interference with his plans, and when we have seen the cavalier use of the guillotine over the past two days?Is it not arrogant in the extreme to confine the principles of what the eventual Bill will contain to a White Paper while putting no detail whatever in the referendum? Members of Parliament do not know what the Bill will contain, and the voters at large do not know either: the final Bill could be totally different from what they expect when they vote in the referendum.
My hon. Friend is right. The effect of a pre-legislation referendum will be that the electorate can be kept in the dark and that Parliament can be told afterwards, "You had better pass this legislation in the detail in which it was presented in the White Paper because the electorate have already approved it."
We favour the holding of referendums on the proposals. Indeed, we believe that that is essential, given the rejection of such proposals in 1979. None the less, we shall vote against Third Reading, for two reasons. First, to hold a referendum now means that the electorate will not be properly informed: no provision has been made for the fairest possible debate and people are being asked to decide without a specific question and without the specific information that they need to come to a reasonable conclusion. The Government are asking for a referendum just so that they can get away with asking for general approval of vague proposals before the implications can be fully understood by the electorate. The Government intend to use that device to get around proper scrutiny rather than to facilitate it, and to escape full debate rather than to encourage it. The second reason why we shall vote against Third Reading is that the opportunity to debate the full implications of what is proposed has been denied, even in Committee. There has been no opportunity to debate the procedures to be used in the referendums or the financing and conduct of the campaigns. We have not been able to discuss whether people should be asked about the tax-raising powers of a Welsh Assembly, nor the introduction of a threshold. Ministers have derided, as frivolous or esoteric, amendments tabled in good faith. The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon), concerning the voting rights of service men, was protested about yesterday. Yet that is a subject that should have been discussed in the House. When we consider such amendments, we can see how the denial of debate has obstructed the proper consideration of the legislation. The Government have done that without need and without justification. They have relied on the argument that they have a mandate, and ignored the fact that the House as a whole has a mandate to give proper scrutiny to legislation, and that all Members of Parliament, from all parts of the United Kingdom, should have the right to propose amendments. The Government have been utterly blind to the case for any amendment to their legislation. A pre-legislation referendum was conceived by Labour party spin doctors last June, and now the Government's attitude is, "This is the law; we say this is the law." Law is permitted only if it was made in Hartlepool last June, when the decision about a referendum was made. The Government have been unwilling to consider the case for any amendment, and unable or unwilling to answer most of the questions that have been put to them. They have conducted the debates on the proposals in a way which can lead only to bad law. For that reason, the official Opposition will vote against Third Reading.8.59 pm
A certain humility might have been expected from the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) in the light of his party's record and the position that he and others adopted during the election. They made devolution—or the fragmentation of the United Kingdom, as they saw it—and a little Englander view on the continent the centre points of their election strategy. The public decisively rejected the Tories' little Englandism abroad and their wrapping themselves in the flag in respect of the future of the United Kingdom.
One is bound to ask what claim to authority or legitimacy the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks has to make his points, since his party was so decisively rejected at the general election. He referred to the guillotine, and I think that most people of common sense—having seen the way in which the amendment paper has been swamped by often flimsy and irrelevant amendments—would say that the Opposition's clear intention was not to have a proper debate, but to prolong the debate for as long as possible. I would hope that when we come to the devolution Bill itself, the Opposition—rather than seeking to swamp the amendment paper with the aim of having excessive debates—can reach a reasonably agreed timetable. I am aware of the precedents in relation to constitutional Bills, but key elements of the Finance Bill, for example, may be discussed here in the Chamber, while matters of less importance may be debated in Committee. I hope that that system will be adopted in respect of the devolution Bill. Otherwise—as the Conservative party wishes—other matters will be pushed off the table altogether. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks referred to the public wanting to know the details before pronouncing in a referendum. That is clearly absurd. Will the ordinary Welshman or Welshwoman—or Scotsman or Scotswoman—make up his or her mind on the broad package or on details which may or may not be included? Of course there will be a gut response: do people broadly want devolution or not? They will not be moved either way by the minutiae of details. It is therefore absurd to suggest that everything should be cut and dried in advance. There were many excellent speeches in the debate, but I wish to refer to the remarkable maiden speech by my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Gower (Mr. Caton), who followed proudly and extraordinarily well in the footsteps of our esteemed former colleague Gareth Wardell. I also commend the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), who made the key point that we should not try to oversell devolution by suggesting that it will be a great engine for job creation. We must get through to the people of Wales and Scotland the fact that the Tories have shamelessly bypassed local government and democratic structures for 18 years by creating quangos from which they largely excluded representatives of the majority—from whichever party—by putting in their own people, who often had no credible claim to be Welsh or to represent Wales. One can understand the way in which opinion in Wales has changed only by the strong reaction to the quangocracy created, used and manipulated shamelessly by the Conservative party in Wales. It is on the basis of democracy that the best argument will be made, rather than by trying to oversell the point in relation to job creation. There is a key point, and it is on that basis that we should put the case to the people of Wales. I would reject a multi-option clause because the key point is whether we want an Assembly. All progressive forces in Wales—all parties with the exception of the Conservative party—accept the case for devolution, and to argue for a multi-option referendum has the danger that it would be a distraction from that key point; if, for instance, we put before the people of Wales an option in relation to taxation, that could have an extremely negative effect on the referendum result. We face a choice which arises once in a generation and I do not believe that what we have so far is a coherent package. I think that it should and will alter, because no institution is static. Every institution will have its own dynamic, according to the public opinion at the time. We should listen to the people. Options relating to federalism, taxation and primary legislation can all be debated at the appropriate time. I shall cite a precedent in conclusion. When the Welsh Office was created by the Labour party, against Conservative opposition, some people argued that it was a puny creature; some were absolutist and said that they rejected that silly little Welsh Office. In fact, it developed incrementally, so that the Welsh Office today is a wholly different creature from what it was in 1966. In the same way, by the dynamic of public opinion operating on representatives here and in Wales, the Welsh Assembly can be modified and changed and can adapt to new circumstances. That is the essential point. Let us have the Assembly—it will be dynamic, not static—and let all forces of good will and progress ensure that we vote in the same way on this key issue.9.6 pm
May I first say how much I appreciate being called to give my maiden speech so early in the new Parliament and in particular being able to contribute to this important debate?
I consider it a real privilege to be elected as the Member of Parliament for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale, following 32 years of distinguished service by my predecessor, Sir David Steel. Sir David made a conscious decision at the start of his parliamentary career to commit himself to the Borders and to be very much a member of the local community. I believe that his close involvement with issues directly affecting his constituents—whatever his other responsibilities, especially as leader of the Liberal party—was the key to his achievements as a Borders Member of Parliament. As I look forward to my first summer as a Member of Parliament, attending the many festivals throughout the Borders, I consider it a great honour to take over responsibility from Sir David as one of the standard bearers for the Borders in Parliament. The boundaries of the constituency changed over time—indeed, they were changed for the general election-and it now stretches from the Eildon hills in the south, near the towns of Selkirk, Melrose and Galashiels, along the River Tweed, through my home town of Innerleithen, past Peebles and up to the new part of the constituency in Penicuik at the foot of the Pentlands. It is a beautiful part of the world and its landscape has shaped the industries, culture and people of the area over many generations. Many hon. Members will be familiar with the fierce rivalry between the Borders towns. It shows most clearly on the rugby pitch, but it is evident in many different ways. As an incomer to the Borders—twice over—I am very conscious of the traditions in each of the communities, which give them all great strength. As well as paying proper respect to traditions, people in the Borders have shown themselves to be adaptable, responding time after time to new challenges and demands. The challenges are significant. My area is heavily dependent on traditional economic sectors such as agriculture and textiles. Those sectors have responded to many different challenges over the years, and continue to do so. Agriculture has been a mainstay of the constituency, but now has to cope with the continuing BSE disaster and the prospect of reform of the common agricultural policy. The textile industry has constantly had to reinvent itself, responding to changing market conditions across the world. More recently, we have developed a highly successful electronics industry and are taking the lead in new businesses focused on sustainable development. The economic future of the Borders will depend hugely on a new approach from the Government. We desperately need investment in our infrastructure. We have trunk roads, such as the A7, which have lost their status. Others, such as the A701, desperately need further investment. It is a long time since there has been a railway station in the Borders; it is time that stations reopened. We also need a level playing field. Under previous Governments, Galashiels and Penicuik companies which sought assistance to expand their businesses were told that they should relocate to the central belt of Scotland if they wanted help. That cannot be right, and I shall campaign on that issue in years to come. We also require equal access to grants, not least for investment, training and machinery. Too many young people in the Borders, when they leave school also leave the area—as I did when I left Jedburgh grammar school—and do not return, except in unusual circumstances. Education is vital in the current situation. Industry is more challenging, but parents and teachers are forced to raise money for essential equipment and books in schools. School buildings intended to last 10 or 20 years have been forced to last much longer. In the health service, a crisis faces local hospitals as trusts debate whether they will have to close wards because of the internal market and the bureaucracy that is choking them and starving them of decent resources. There has been a new mood in the country since 2 May, but the many commitments made by the Government must be backed up by proper resources. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) in an earlier debate complimented the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) on keeping to the subject, and I appreciate that it is appropriate for me to refer to it. Each of the issues that I have mentioned is at the heart of debate on the Scottish Parliament. For too long, especially over the past 18 years, the Government have been remote and unaccountable to the people of Scotland. A Scottish Parliament must tackle each of those issues, but ultimately its success will be judged on whether it better delivers on issues such as health, education and jobs. However, people must be persuaded of that. I am very conscious that in the past, and at the last referendum, the people of the Borders gave a less than whole-hearted response to the proposals for what was then the Scottish Assembly. The proposals in the White Paper will be crucial in that respect, especially the proportional representation aspects of the Scottish Constitutional Convention scheme, which must be the best defence against swapping overbearing London rule for overbearing central belt domination. The Scottish Liberal Democrats have argued throughout the passage of the Bill that there is no need for a referendum in Scotland. Our voting has followed that logic. Now, however, we recognise the reality of the juggernaut arithmetic that favours the Government. Our priority is a Scottish Parliament. We wish to ensure that it happens sooner rather than later. For that reason, we do not wish to hinder the Bill's progress any further.9.13 pm
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore), who made a fine speech outlining the aspects of his constituency that he regards as virtues. I am pleased that he did not go on too much about rugby, because his area gave the world the game of sevens. For many years, they beat everyone at it, but now neither Scottish, Welsh, English nor Irish teams can compete with those from the other side of the globe. Perhaps through his area's membership of the British Lions we can put it over the South Africans in the 15-a-side game very shortly. I wish him a long and distinguished career in the House, in the same way as his illustrious predecessor, who not only served his party with great distinction but was a valuable and respected Member for many years.
I come to this debate like an old threepenny bit—with many sides. In 1979, in the Ystrad Mynach Labour club, I and other hon. Members whom I will not mention to save their embarrassment organised the vote no campaign. We had a 4:1 victory in Wales against the same sort of line that we get today—a Labour Government, the chattering classes, the archbishops, the moderators, the head of this and that Church, university professors, bureaucrats and everyone else who has a vested interest in extending the number of bodies that govern the poor people of the Rhondda among other places. Times have moved since 1979. I certainly recognise that. We had 18 years of Conservative rule. Without any doubt—this is accepted within the Welsh community—the Tories had no mandate whatever. When the injustices heaped on the people of England were also heaped on the people of Wales, it was an easy way out to blame the problems of Wales on the lack of a body to look after the interests of the Welsh people. We are now hearing the same silly arguments that we heard previously. A university professor wrote a letter to the Western Mail, in which he said that if the people of Wales had had the courage to vote yes in 1979, we would not have had the poll tax, we would not have had poor health and we would have had jobs and—the most stupid claptrap of all—we would not have had the miners' strike. I was sorely moved, but I resisted, to write and remind him that the miners' strike started in Nottingham. I doubt whether a Welsh Assembly, even one with powers much greater than what is proposed, could have stopped that. It could not have prevented the high unemployment or the harsh economic realities of the outside world that visited my constituency among others in the valley communities in Wales. I am not one of those who believe that a Welsh Assembly will resolve the problems of south Wales or my community just like that. The Labour Government have to work a lot harder than that to rectify the problems that we have inherited both from the bad Government of the past 18 years and from the harsh economic realities of the world outside. I am pleased that a referendum is taking place because it provides an opportunity for the arguments to be put. I am sorry that my Front-Bench colleagues from Wales are not here. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), said—I took the phrase down—that he wanted a constructive, well-informed public debate. So do I. I want democracy to be brought to all our institutions. If people say that we must have a Welsh Assembly in order to have democracy in Wales, are they saying that we do not have it now? I would then ask what is the Secretary of State. Is he an unelected dictator? What are Welsh Members of Parliament? Are they unelected? What are the Welsh Grand Committee and the Welsh Select Committee about? Where is the thread of accountability and democracy? On those grounds, I do not think that a proper argument has been put forward. I am not yet convinced. I am convinced about another matter, however, which is why I go along with the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is present. There is too much centralisation of government in this country and there is a profound argument for devolving power from here to institutions closer to the people. Whether we have to set up new institutions to do that is another matter. I believe there might very well be existing institutions to which those powers could be given. We have heard the argument that the quangocracy was set up because the Conservatives could not win seats at local government elections. They therefore bypassed local government and transferred their functions to others, for example, Tai Cymru, Housing for Wales. If we opt for devolution, the first thing that must be done, as some other colleagues have already said, is to take those powers from the quangos and return them to where they belong—in many cases, with local government. When that is done, we must then consider the role of other institutions. We have heard so much about the principle of subsidiarity. This country is being torn apart constitutionally by people who want to set up new structures, so-called devolved structures. We are being torn apart because powers and functions are being given to Europe and Brussels. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Somewhere in between, someone must stop and start to think about the form of government that we should have. Conservative Members think that I am on their side, but I am not. I am on the side of the Labour party because at least it is tackling the problem positively. Once we start breaking up the quangos and returning their functions to local government, we can start looking at the structures that we want. That is why I appeal to my colleagues on the Front Bench to consider the future of the quangos at the earliest possible moment. In fairness to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, some time ago he asked me, knowing my great reservations on the matter, "Why don't you do something?" I have, and I hope to present my findings to him tomorrow. The main thrust of my case will be that we should consider such matters prior to the development of any relevant legislation because some of the fears that have been expressed are justified. To be honest, I do not think that the referendum will go through. The last time the vote was lost by 4:1, and my bet, if I were a betting man, would be that next time the vote might go the same way. As for the Labour party mandate for devolution, with all due respect, I was returned to Parliament by 35,000 voters in the Rhondda, but I do not think that any of them voted for me because they wanted a Welsh Assembly. I certainly did not mention that in my manifesto leaflet. Everyone I canvassed there said, "Get rid of that dirty, corrupt, sleazy Government." That is what it was all about. It was not about giving a mandate to anyone, but about getting rid of the Tories. I am glad that that sentiment is recognised. I will support the Government on this issue because, even with all my reservations, they are positively tackling the problem. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has already said, a referendum based on a constructive, well-informed public debate is what is needed for Wales. We might eventually be able to get the right solution, but I will not support the creation of another level of government which will take functions away from existing local authorities. That is another issue which must be settled. I will not support a Welsh Assembly that has the power to decide its own remit, because, by the nature of any elected organisation, it would want to acquire power for itself. I do not believe that the principle of subsidiarity and proper devolution would be served by that. I will vote with the Government tonight, but I hope that, when the Bill is finally published, my fears, which I will continue to express, will be taken on board and treated constructively.9.24 pm
I was greatly interested in the observations of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers). In particular, I sympathised with what he said about the relationship between central and local government. As a Conservative Back Bencher, I freely admit that since the war this country has failed to get the balance right—especially the financial balance—between central and local government. If we had made a better job of that, much of the demand for alternative forms of devolution would dissolve.
I shall be genuinely brief, in deference to other hon. Members who want to speak. I shall confine myself to one point, which follows on from what the hon. Member for Rhondda was saying. Over the past day and a half of debate, it has become clear that there are many confused and contradictory expectations of what the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly will be like. The reason why the Opposition have taken such a close interest in the wording on the ballot papers is that Parliament must be clear about what questions are being asked. They must be unambiguous and they must be able to deliver a clear result and effect. We have found it alarming that, for example, the Scottish National party clearly believes that the entire process is aimed at breaking up the United Kingdom, whereas the Government believe that it is a way of cementing and reinforcing the United Kingdom. The SNP believes that, at the end of the process, the Scottish Parliament will be a sovereign Parliament—or will rapidly become such. The Liberal Democrats believe, in general terms, in home rule and a degree of sovereignty for the Scottish Parliament. The Government, I think—although it is not clear—intend that the Scottish Parliament will be subservient to the Westminster Parliament. I should be grateful if the Minister could make it clear beyond dispute that this Parliament, in which we sit, will be legally superior to the Scottish Parliament. We must be completely clear about the constitutional arrangements. All the other parties are coming together to urge a yes vote, but all the parties cannot be satisfied by the outcome. The contradictory expectations will become clear only when it may be all too late. The Government say that everything will be revealed in a White Paper, but this House has no control over that White Paper. The other Opposition parties would be most unwise to rely on any White Paper to sort out matters that should be made clear in legislation before a referendum. Whatever the imagination put into the White Paper, we will be left with an in-built contradiction between the aspirations of a Scottish Parliament to control matters such as health, education and the environment, on the one hand, and expenditure powers on the other. This Parliament will continue to write the cheques; the Scottish Parliament, even with a tax-varying power, will remain almost entirely dependent on the financial decisions being made in London. Therefore, the imbalance that we see in local government—the subject with which I began my speech—will be magnified in the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Scottish Parliament. The best way of solving the problem of confusion and contradictory expectations would be to have a referendum after the main Bill had been passed; then, the question would be clear, simple, unambiguous and enforceable. I ask the Government, even at this late stage, to show a little less arrogance and to use the Bill to reverse the order, so that at least the people of Scotland and Wales will be asked to vote on something that is clear.9.29 pm
It was 38 and 39 years ago that I was the Labour candidate in Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, as the constituency of Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale then was, and I endorse what the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore) said about the welcome that the people there give to incomers. He represents some very nice, hospitable people, even though they may not be of his political persuasion or mine. They are welcoming people and he is very lucky to represent that seat.
The hon. Member is sitting in the seat that, for so long, was occupied with charm and distinction by Lord Steel, as he now is, whom we knew as David Steel. When David Steel had announced his retirement and we asked about his successor, he described the hon. Gentleman, saying, "He's very nice and he's a better prop forward than I am." We wish him well. When I say that I have sat here for every single speech in the past two days, it is not to claim virtue but to make a judgment. I say as gently as possible to my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that, in all this, they have to take into account a point that has been so often missing in our discussions and that is that there is an English dimension. There are consequences of the English dimension to whatever action is taken. I hope that I will be forgiven, but, in the light of the subject raised by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, it is worth making a correction—or at least saying what actually happened in 1978–79, because it is relevant. The then Bill was produced by two very able Ministers: the late John Smith QC and Bruce Milian, later to be a European Commissioner. They were very clever men and so was Joel Barnett at the Treasury. They were helped by some extremely clever and able civil servants: Sir Michael Quinlan, Sir John Garlick and Sir Brian Cubbon, who were some of the most imaginative civil servants. The fact is that there honestly was not any time wasting in the House of Commons. The Conservative Members who participated in the debate were Leon Brittan—whatever one thinks about him, he is an extremely clever lawyer—and Enoch Powell, who speaks for himself. Incidentally, it was Enoch Powell who christened the West Lothian question—it was not named by me. The truth is that I had gone on reciting, although not at unwarranted length, the dilemma of Scottish Members of Parliament being able to vote on English matters, but English Members being unable to vote on matters that pertained to Scottish constituencies. It was Enoch who said, with that marvellous overtone of irony, "In order to save time, we are finally seized of the problem. I have grasped the issue." For Enoch Powell to have any difficulty in grasping an issue really stretches the imagination, but that is how it began. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack), who knows Enoch Powell well, will know exactly what I am getting at. However, the devil is in the detail and, as the various issues came up, it was like stones being turned: all sorts of creepy-crawly things, in the form of real difficulties, emerged from under the stones. At the end, very many people reached the conclusion that there were two solutions: the status quo, or something indistinguishable from that favoured in general terms by the Scottish National party. It was not a waste of time; it was the House of Commons educating itself. My fear is that in the learning curve we may be back, not at 1979, but at 1977. Others wish to speak, so I leave this Third Reading by saying to the Ministers that they must soon come to grips with the problems that surround the Barnett formula. There must be a statement on that because, as the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) said, someone is writing the cheques, and the question is, will they continue for ever writing the cheques in conditions that have fundamentally changed? Secondly, to save time, I say that Ministers must consider the problem that is encapsulated in the Bury, North question. Finally, a statement must soon be made about the responsibilities and accountability of the civil service. That is a very real problem because, if we are to have a Scottish Parliament, there is a strong suggestion that there must be a separate civil service. If there is not to be a separate civil service, we must be told what that solution is, and soon. I make a last plea to Ministers. It is not good enough in terms of Parliament for Ministers to present a White Paper, let alone the Bill—which I thought that we were promised—on 25 July, or 27 or 28 July, in the last two days before the recess. In honour bound, the Government really must produce that White Paper by, say, 10 July at the latest, because there must be some parliamentary scrutiny from everyone's point of view. It really would be disreputable suddenly to produce it at the fag end of the Session, when people's to minds were wholly on going away. There must be a serious opportunity for Parliament to discuss what is to be the subject of the referendum.9.37 pm
I feel somewhat awed to follow the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), who made yet another distinguished contribution to the debate. His speech is evidence of the fact that, as a result of the guillotine, we have had a mere smattering of the arguments that we should have had. I add, with the utmost respect to the hon. Gentleman, that he has criticised some of the amendments that have been tabled, and from him I take that criticism very much to heart; I say no more than that.
I ask Ministers to consider a single question about the Scottish Parliament. From where will the authority of that Scottish Parliament derive? The question in the referendum is very general. The referendum question, and no doubt the White Paper—indeed, the Government's entire position—is about avoiding that issue. Legally, there is no doubt that the power is devolved from the United Kingdom Parliament, which is sovereign, but the Parliament that is being offered in the referendum has been founded on a claim of right of self-government of the Scottish people. This is not just a theoretical debate. The strains and stresses of real politics will excite the real expectations of the various parties involved in the struggle for power that will result from the establishment of a Scottish Parliament. Power does not have the quality of an object that can be picked up and transferred. Power is a fluid commodity which flows in an unpredictable way. When the United Kingdom Parliament is in negotiation with the Scottish Parliament about the issues that affect the livelihoods, health, education and well-being of the people of Scotland and of the United Kingdom, how will those issues be settled without the Scottish Parliament reverting to its legitimacy directly from the Scottish people, as opposed to the powers technically delegated to it by the United Kingdom Parliament? The Bill is designed to obscure an unstable proposition. What is wrong with extending the arrangements of the Scottish Grand Committee, which could decide everything and anything that the British Parliament wanted it to decide, within the framework of a sovereign United Kingdom Parliament? With a Labour Government and a Labour majority on the Scottish Grand Committee, there is nothing that it could not do—and without passing any legislation—except raise the tartan tax. It deals with the famous West Lothian question, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) says. We Conservative Members of Parliament have been criticised throughout the debate, as though we have no legitimacy to speak on these issues. We speak for the sake of the arguments that we advance. We do not pretend to speak for the Scottish people or the Welsh people. Ultimately, the Scottish people and the Welsh people are sovereign. They have it in their power to decide their own future. If they were to vote for independence or for a majority of nationalist Members of Parliament, there would be little to argue about in terms of their future, but that is not the choice being offered in the referendum. This is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it referendum. It panders to the expectations and prejudices that have been aroused by whatever political tensions have existed in the United Kingdom for the past 20 or 30 years. There is no honesty in it. There is nothing intrinsically democratic in announcing that there is to be a referendum. Clement Attlee described referendums as potentially a device of demagogues and dictators. Old Labour may have had some respect for the niceties of the political arguments that new Labour prefers to ignore. Clearly, there are circumstances in which referendums are appropriate, but we have only to observe how, in our lifetime, people such as Pinochet and Ceausescu have used referendums to assert their own views. All too often we become aware that a referendum has been called by the people who think that it will help to assert their side of the argument. The proposed referendum is clearly an abuse of the procedure for referendums. It asks the Scottish and Welsh peoples to vote blind, without knowing the full consequences of their decision. Our opposition to the Bill involves no disrespect to the Scottish people or the Welsh people. We will have to respect the result of the referendum, although that will take some degree of interpretation, in view of the way in which the Government have attempted to fix the result in advance.I call Mr. Howard.
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you confirm that the Chair has responsibilities to the minority parties in the House? The Chair recognises the political situation in Scotland and Wales. Is it not extraordinary that, even in a guillotined Third Reading, no speaker from the Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru has been called in the debate? Might that just make the case for the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments that we are discussing?
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I point out that the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties voted for the guillotine, so they have got their come-uppance?
I shall deal with the first point of order. The selection of speakers is entirely a matter for the Chair. It is not to be criticised in that way.
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Am I correct in believing that the Chair takes into account the position of the minority parties in this House? Furthermore, does not the Chair take cognisance of the political situation in Scotland and Wales? The Scots and the Welsh returned no Member from the Conservative party—the Chair must be aware of these things.
The Chair recognises all the points that the hon. Gentleman has made and always adopts a balanced view of these matters.
9.44 pm
The debate that we have just had has been marked by a number of distinguished speeches, however brief the time available for it has been. We heard another speech from the uniquely authoritative standpoint of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), and a distinguished maiden speech by the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore), who rightly paid a glowing tribute to his predecessor, who is missed by all in the House. The hon. Gentleman gave us an extremely interesting insight into the economy of the Borders constituency that he represents. We look forward to hearing many more such distinguished contributions from him.
The House is now nearing the end of its consideration of the first Bill of this Parliament. It has been a melancholy experience, a chastening example of the tyranny of the large majority, laced with contempt for this House. The time allowed for discussion has been ludicrously inadequate. Debate after debate has been curtailed before the real issues at stake have even begun to be expounded. In a newspaper article this morning, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) wrote:It is clear that the central question at the heart of the legislation remains unanswered. The fundamental criticism that we have made remains as valid now as when we offered it at the outset. There is no justification for holding these referendums before the relevant legislation has been passed by the House. As the hon. Member for Linlithgow has pointed out, the only valid question to be posed in a referendum would be: "Do you approve of the Scotland Act and Wales Act of 1998?" We make it absolutely clear that we are not against a referendum on this issue. We would not be opposed to a referendum on the question posed by the hon. Member for Linlithgow. We have no objection in principle to a referendum. But we do object to a referendum that is intended as a pre-emptive strike against proper parliamentary debate. That is the effect of holding a referendum before the legislation has been passed. Earlier this evening, the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) put a simple question to the Welsh Office Minister. He asked for a concise answer. His question concerned whether the people of Wales should be allowed to express an opinion on whether the Welsh Assembly should have tax-raising powers. All he got from the Minister was prevarication. Later on, I put another simple question to the same Minister. I asked him whether he would now do what the Prime Minister so conspicuously failed to do earlier this afternoon—apologise for the misleading information that he gave the House in answer to a question put to him on 14 May by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond). The Prime Minister said then:"In all my 47 years in the House of Commons I have never encountered a Government so determined to ride roughshod over its political opponents, its internal critics and the traditions of Parliament. On its very first parliamentary Bill it resorts immediately to the parliamentary bludgeon in a way which flouts every tried and tested convention, every tradition, every principle of parliamentary life. This is not the act of an efficient administration; it is the act of an elective dictatorship."
We now know that that was quite wrong, yet the Prime Minister was today incapable of saying, "I'm sorry: I got it wrong." We fear that the Bill is the first legislative step towards the break-up of the United Kingdom, and we fear that the last two days' proceedings in the House will be looked back on as melancholy staging posts on the way to that destination."Of course the Bill will be published in time for the referendum, because the referendum will take place on those proposals".— [Official Report, 14 May 1997; Vol. 294, c. 64]
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
I am afraid that I have very little time.
If that indeed proves to be the case, the blame that will be attached to the Government on the basis of their responsibility for this measure will be compounded by the shame that will be attributed to them in view of the way in which they have railroaded it through the House. Later in the current Parliament, we shall see these days as having established a pattern of arrogance and contempt of Parliament, as a hallmark of the new Government. They are days that the Government will come to regret; they are days that the nation will come to regret. That is why we shall vote against the Bill when the debate concludes in 10 minutes' time.On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you draw Madam Speaker's attention to the fact that we shall have had precisely one and a half hours' debate on Third Reading of a major Bill, and that more than half that time has been taken up by Front Benchers? Will you ask Madam Speaker to discuss, in the appropriate quarters, what can be done to try to redress the balance?
Madam Speaker is always well aware of everything that goes on in the House, and I am sure that she will note what the hon. Gentleman has said.
9.51 pm
The debate can, I think, be summed up in three ways, especially in respect of the Conservative Opposition. First, their performance over the past three days has confirmed the wisdom of the electorate in doing the decent thing for the country on 1 May. Secondly, we have seen a remarkable example of the posturing that is going on in connection with the leadership of the Conservative party. Opposition Members have picked up briefs and arrived on the Front Bench, then disappeared just as quickly. Thirdly, we have seen no humility in regard to what happened on 1 May.
Let me ask the Conservative party in opposition to consider the plight of Scotland and Wales in relation to that party. The Scots and the Welsh simply rejected the notion of being represented by any Conservative Members of Parliament. If we needed just one example on which a bit of humility could be hung, that would clearly be it.Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No. I have not much time, and I want to reply to the points that have been made.
In the final speech from the Opposition Front Bench, many points were made relating to the detailed White Paper and to the debate and discussions that will ensue before the referendum. On Third Reading, many hon. Members—my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) and my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)—have made points that are germane to discussion of that detailed White Paper, and to the subsequent process leading up to the referendum. Let me tell them that we shall not make progress unless we produce a detailed White Paper that addresses the issues that have been raised. In the context of tonight's debate, the Bill is a straightforward piece of legislation. It is important in that it paves the way for referendums in Scotland and Wales, but it does not change the constitution. It follows well-established precedent, and applies common sense. That is not a quality that we have observed in abundance on the Opposition Benches today or yesterday. The Bill provides for people in Scotland and Wales to be asked whether they support our proposals for a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly. It enables provision to be made by Orders in Council for the conduct of the referendums, and provides for the conduct of the votes. It also includes a prudent measure enabling expenditure to be incurred in preparation for the establishment of a Scottish Parliament or a Welsh Assembly. As I have said, the Bill is simple and to the point, but at the same time it is important, particularly for the people in Scotland and Wales. When the Bill is enacted, it will set us well on our way down the path, taking, as I said in my concluding remarks on Second Reading, the next step in the unfinished business of establishing a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly. The Bill will give the people of Scotland and Wales the opportunity to put beyond all doubt their views on our proposals for devolution in those countries. Its passage through the House is an important milestone on the way to modernising government in the United Kingdom. I have no doubt that the Government will receive resounding support. That will lend our proposals moral authority. It will provide a helpful backdrop against which Parliament will be able to scrutinise the main devolution legislation. That has been a recurrent theme in the two days of debate. The Opposition should have some patience and then we shall have a full and long-term debate on the details of the White Paper. The Bill has been debated on Second Reading and in Committee. For such a short Bill, of six clauses, it attracted a remarkably large number of amendments—more than 250 in total. Had they all been accepted, we would have had before us a Bill which, among other things, would have provided for a referendum to be held in Scotland only on a Sunday, on St. Andrew's day, in daylight hours, during a two-day period and—something of a Catch-22—on any day other than a Sunday. The point about the frivolous nature of some of the amendments has already been well made by other hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) and for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace). However, it is fair to say that many other amendments rightly sought to promote debate on important issues, including in particular the provisions dealing with the franchise and the propositions on which the people in Scotland and Wales are to be consulted. We made every effort to ensure that, despite the attempts to disrupt and delay consideration of the Bill, those issues were given a fair wind, and we have had a constructive debate on the issues that we have discussed. The House has had ample opportunity to consider the Bill. There is no reason why we should delay giving the people in Scotland and Wales the opportunity to vote on the Government's devolution proposals. The Bill will give them that opportunity. However, I repeat our categorical assurance that the devolution proposals will be set out in White Papers well in advance of the referendums and before the House rises for the summer recess.One of the justifications for the referendum has been that the people of Scotland and Wales would not have voted in a general election solely on the referendum issue. Will the knock-on effects of the legislation on the people of England be put to them by referendum?
The answer quite simply is no. [HON MEMBERS: "Why?"] First, the measure primarily affects Scotland and Wales. However, as we have repeated throughout our various debates, hon. Members from every part of the United Kingdom will be able to debate the issues in the House and reflect any concerns that their constituents might have on the matter. We shall provide the detailed White Paper.
The Opposition simply cannot listen. They seek to lecture people in Scotland and Wales, who have decided to have nothing whatever to do with Conservative representation in those countries for the next five years. Surely that should elicit some humility from Conservative Members. It is sad that the first time they oppose a Bill, they fail the first test. If they want to be taken seriously in England, Scotland or Wales, they will have to address the serious issues before the House instead of, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, indulging in game playing. The future of Scotland and Wales, the future of the United Kingdom and the future of the Union are very important. No service has been done by the behaviour of the Conservative Opposition in relation to such important items. The Bill, which is the first to get to this stage in the parliamentary process under the new Government, will be good for the people of Scotland and Wales, and good for the people in the rest of the United Kingdom. I commend it to the House.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:—
The House divided: Ayes 339, Noes 148.
Division No. 14]
| [9.59 pm
|
AYES
| |
| Abbott, Ms Diane | Cranston, Ross |
| Ainger, Nick | Crausby, David |
| Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE) | Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley) |
| Anderson, Donald (Swansea E) | Cryer, John (Hornchurch) |
| Anderson, Janet (Ros'dale) | Cummings, John |
| Ashton, Joe | Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S) |
| Atkins, Ms Charlotte | Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John(Copeland) |
| Austin, John | |
| Barnes, Harry | Curtis-Thomas, Ms Clare |
| Barron, Kevin | Dalyell, Tarn |
| Battle, John | Darling, Rt Hon Alistair |
| Bayley, Hugh | Darvill, Keith |
| Beard, Nigel | Davey, Valerie (Bristol W) |
| Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret | Davidson, Ian |
| Begg, Miss Anne (Aberd'n S) | Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli) |
| Benn, Rt Hon Tony | Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly) |
| Benton, Joe | Dawson, Hilton |
| Bermingham, Gerald | Dean, Ms Janet |
| Berry, Roger | Denham, John |
| Best, Harold | Dewar, Rt Hon Donald |
| Blackman, Mrs Liz | Dobbin, Jim |
| Blears, Ms Hazel | Donohoe, Brian H |
| Blizzard, Robert | Doran, Frank |
| Blunkett, Rt Hon David | Drew, David |
| Bradley, Keith (Withington) | Drown, Ms Julia |
| Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin) | Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth |
| Bradshaw, Ben | Eagle, Angela (Wallasey) |
| Brinton, Mrs Helen | Eagle, Ms Maria (L'pool Garston) |
| Brown, Rt Hon Nick(Newcastle E & Wallsend) | Edwards, Huw |
| Ellman, Ms Louise | |
| Brown, Russell (Dumfries) | Ennis, Jeff |
| Browne, Desmond (Kilmarnock) | Field, Rt Hon Frank |
| Burden, Richard | Fisher, Mark |
| Burgon, Colin | Fitzsimons, Ms Lorna |
| Butler, Christine | Flint, Ms Caroline |
| Byers, Stephen | Flynn, Paul |
| Cabom, Richard | Follett, Ms Barbara |
| Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth) | Foster, Rt Hon Derek |
| Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge) | Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings) |
| Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V) | Foster, Michael John (Worcester) |
| Campbell-Savours, Dale | Galbraith, Sam |
| Canavan, Dennis | Galloway, George |
| Caplin, Ivor | Gapes, Mike |
| Caton, Martin | Gardiner, Barry |
| Cawsey, Ian | George, Bruce (Walsall S) |
| Chapman, Ben (Wirral S) | Gerrard, Neil |
| Chaytor, David | Gibson, Dr Ian |
| Chisholm, Malcolm | Gilroy, Mrs Linda |
| Church, Ms Judith | Godman, Dr Norman A |
| Clapham, Michael | Godsiff, Roger |
| Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields) | Goggins, Paul |
| Clark, Dr Lynda(Edinburgh Pentlands) | Golding, Mrs Llin |
| Gordon, Mrs Eileen | |
| Clark, Paul (Gillingham) | Graham, Thomas |
| Clarke, Charles (Norwich S) | Grant, Bernie |
| Clarke, Eric (Midlothian) | Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S) |
| Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge) | Griffiths, Win (Bridgend) |
| Clarke, Tony (Northampton S) | Grocott, Bruce |
| Clelland, David | Grogan, John |
| Clwyd, Mrs Ann | Gunnell, John |
| Coaker, Vernon | Hain, Peter |
| Coffey, Ms Ann | Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale) |
| Connarty, Michael | Hall, Patrick (Bedford) |
| Cook, Frank (Stockton N) | Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE) |
| Cooper, Ms Yvette | Hanson, David |
| Corbyn, Jeremy | Heal, Mrs Sylvia |
| Corston, Ms Jean | Healey, John |
| Cousins, Jim | Henderson, Ivan (Harwich) |
| Hepburn, Stephen | Mahon, Mrs Alice |
| Heppell, John | Mallaber, Ms Judy |
| Hesford, Stephen | Marek, Dr John |
| Hewitt, Ms Patricia | Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S) |
| Hinchliffe, David | Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury) |
| Home Robertson, John | Martlew, Eric |
| Hood, Jimmy | Maxton, John |
| Hoon, Geoffrey | Meale, Alan |
| Hope, Philip | Merron, Ms Gillian |
| Hopkins, Kelvin | Michael, Alun |
| Howarth, George (Knowsley N) | Milbum, Alan |
| Howells, Dr Kim | Miller, Andrew |
| Hoyle, Lindsay | Mitchell, Austin |
| Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford & Urmston) | Moffatt, Laura |
| Moonie, Dr Lewis | |
| Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N) | Moran, Ms Margaret |
| Humble, Mrs Joan | Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N) |
| Hurst, Alan | Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W) |
| Hutton, John | Morley, Elliot |
| Iddon, Brian | Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley) |
| Illsley, Eric | Mountford, Ms Kali |
| Ingram, Adam | Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie |
| Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampst'd) | Mudie, George |
| Jackson, Mrs Helen (Hillsborough) | Mullin, Chris |
| Jamieson, David | Murphy, Dennis (Wansbeck) |
| Jenkins, Brian (Tamworth) | Murphy, Jim (Eastwood) |
| Johnson, Ms Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield) | Murphy, Paul (Torfaen) |
| Naysmith, Dr Doug | |
| Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside) | Norris, Dan |
| Jones, Ms Fiona (Newark) | O'Brien, Mike (N Warks) |
| Jones, Helen (Warrington N) | O'Brien, William (Normanton) |
| Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW) | Olner, Bill |
| O'Neill, Martin | |
| Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C) | Organ, Mrs Diana |
| Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham) | Osborne, Mrs Sandra |
| Keeble, Ms Sally | Palmer, Dr Nick |
| Keen, Alan (Feltham) | Pendry, Tom |
| Kemp, Fraser | Pickthall, Colin |
| Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree) | Pike, Peter L |
| Khabra, Piara S | Plaskitt, James |
| Kidney, David | Pollard, Kerry |
| Kilfoyle, Peter | Pond, Chris |
| King, Andy (Rugby) | Pope, Greg |
| King, Miss Oona (Bethnal Green) | Powell, Sir Raymond |
| Kingham, Tessa | Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E) |
| Kumar, Dr Ashok | Prentice, Gordon (Pendle) |
| Ladyman, Dr Stephen | Primarolo, Dawn |
| Lawrence, Ms Jackie | Prosser, Gwyn |
| Laxton, Bob | Purchase, Ken |
| Lepper, David | Quin, Ms Joyce |
| Leslie, Christopher | Quinn, Lawrie |
| Levitt, Tom | Radice, Giles |
| Lewis, Ivan (Bury S) | Rammell, Bill |
| Lewis, Terry (Worsley) | Rapson, Syd |
| Liddell, Mrs Helen | Raynsford, Nick |
| Livingstone, Ken | Reed, Andrew (Loughborough) |
| Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C) | Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N) |
| Lock, David | Robertson, Rt Hon George (Hamilton S) |
| McAllion, John | |
| McAvoy, Thomas | Rogers, Allan |
| McCabe, Stephen | Rooker, Jeff |
| McCafferty, Ms Chris | Rooney, Terry |
| McCartney, Ian (Makerfield) | Ross, Ernie (Dundee W) |
| Macdonald, Calum | Rowlands, Ted |
| McDonnell, John | Roy, Frank |
| McFall, John | Ruane, Chris |
| McGuire, Mrs Anne | Russell, Ms Christine (Chester) |
| Mclsaac, Ms Shona | Salter, Martin |
| McKenna, Ms Rosemary | Savidge, Malcolm |
| Mackinlay, Andrew | Sawford, Phil |
| McLeish, Henry | Sedgemore, Brian |
| McMaster, Gordon | Sheerman, Barry |
| MacShane, Denis | Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert |
| Mactaggart, Fiona | Shipley, Ms Debra |
| McWalter, Tony | Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S) |
| McWilliam, John | Singh, Marsha |
| Skinner, Dennis | Touhig, Don |
| Smith, Ms Angela (Basildon) | Truswell, Paul |
| Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale) | Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE) |
| Turner, Desmond (Kemptown) | |
| Smith, Ms Jacqui (Redditch) | Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk) |
| Smith, John (Glamorgan) | Twigg, Derek (Halton) |
| Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent) | Vaz, Keith |
| Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S) | Vis, Dr Rudi |
| Snape, Peter | Walley, Ms Joan |
| Soley, Clive | Wareing, Robert N |
| Southworth, Ms Helen | Watts, David |
| Spellar, John | White, Brian |
| Squire, Ms Rachel | Whitehead, Alan |
| Starkey, Dr Phyllis | Wicks, Malcolm |
| Stevenson, George | Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W) |
| Stewart, David (Inverness E) | |
| Stewart, Ian (Eccles) | Williams, Dr Alan W (E Carmarthen) |
| Stinchcombe, Paul | |
| Stoate, Dr Howard | Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy) |
| Stott, Roger | Wills, Michael |
| Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin | Winnick, David |
| Straw, Rt Hon Jack | Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C) |
| Stringer, Graham | Wise, Audrey |
| Stuart, Mrs Gisela (Edgbaston) | Wood, Mike |
| Sutcliffe, Gerry | Woolas, Phil |
| Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury) | Worthington, Tony |
| Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock) | |
| Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S) | Wright, Tony (Gt Yarmouth) |
| Taylor, David (NW Leics) | Wyatt, Derek |
| Taylor, Rt Hon John D (Strangford) | |
| Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W) | Tellers for the Ayes:
|
| Tipping, Paddy | Mr. Graham Allen and Mr. Clive Betts.
|
| Todd, Mark |
NOES
| |
| Amess, David | Forth, Eric |
| Ancram, Rt Hon Michael | Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman |
| Arbuthnot, James | Fox, Dr Liam |
| Atkinson, Peter (Hexham) | Fraser, Christopher |
| Baldry, Tony | Gale, Roger |
| Bercow, John | Garnier, Edward |
| Beresford, Sir Paul | Gibb, Nick |
| Blunt, Crispin | Gill, Christopher |
| Boswell, Tim | Gillan, Mrs Cheryl |
| Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia | Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair |
| Brady, Graham | Gorman, Mrs Teresa |
| Brazier, Julian | Gray, James |
| Browning, Mrs Angela | Green, Damian |
| Bruce, Ian (S Dorset) | Greenway, John |
| Bums, Simon | Grieve, Dominic |
| Butterfill, John | Gummer, Rt Hon John |
| Cash, William | Hague, Rt Hon William |
| Chope, Christopher | Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie |
| Clappison, James | Hammond, Philip |
| Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington) | Hawkins, Nick |
| Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh) | Hayes, John |
| Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe) | Heald, Oliver |
| Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David | |
| Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey | Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael |
| Collins, Tim | Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas |
| Colvin, Michael | Horam, John |
| Cormack, Sir Patrick | Howard, Rt Hon Michael |
| Cran, James | Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot) |
| Curry, Rt Hon David | Hunter, Andrew |
| Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice) | Jack, Rt Hon Michael |
| Davies, Quentin (Grantham & Stamford) | Jackson, Robert (Wantage) |
| Jenkin, Bernard (N Essex) | |
| Day, Stephen | Key, Robert |
| Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen | King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater) |
| Duncan, Alan | Kirkbride, Miss Julie |
| Duncan Smith, Iain | Laing, Mrs Eleanor |
| Evans, Nigel | Lansley, Andrew |
| Faber, David | Leigh, Edward |
| Fabricant, Michael | Letwin, Oliver |
| Fallon, Michael | Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E) |
| Flight, Howard | Lidington, David |
| Lilley, Rt Hon Peter | Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk) |
| Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham) | Soames, Nicholas |
| Loughton, Tim | Spelman, Mrs Caroline |
| Luff, Peter | Spicer, Sir Michael |
| Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas | Spring, Richard |
| MacGregor, Rt Hon John | Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John |
| Mcintosh, Miss Anne | Steen, Anthony |
| MacKay, Andrew | Streeter, Gary |
| Maclean, Rt Hon David | Swayne, Desmond |
| Major, Rt Hon John | Syms, Robert |
| Malins, Humfrey | Tapsell, Sir Peter |
| Maples, John | Taylor, John M (Solihull) |
| Mates, Michael | Temple-Morris, Peter |
| Maude, Rt Hon Francis | Tredinnick, David |
| Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian | Trend, Michael |
| May, Mrs Theresa | Tyrie, Andrew |
| Merchant, Piers | Viggers, Peter |
| Moss, Malcolm | Walter, Robert |
| Nicholls, Patrick | Wardle, Charles |
| Norman, Archie | Waterson, Nigel |
| Ottaway, Richard | Wells, Bowen |
| Whitney, Sir Raymond | |
| Page, Richard | Whittinqdale, John |
| Paice, James | Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann |
| Paterson, Owen | Wilkinson, John |
| Pickles, Eric | Willetts, David |
| Prior, David | Wilshire, David |
| Redwood, Rt Hon John | Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton) |
| Robathan, Andrew | Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield) |
| Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry) | Woodward, Shaun |
| Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne) | Yeo, Tim |
| Rowe, Andrew (Faversham) | Young, Rt Hon Sir George |
| Ruffley, David | |
| St Aubyn, Nick | Tellers for the Noes:
|
| Sayeed, Jonathan | Mr. Patrick McLoughlin and Mr. Peter Ainsworth.
|
| Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian | |
| Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge) |
Question accordingly agreed to.
Bill read the Third time, and passed.
Business Of The House
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business),
That, at this day's sitting, the Motion relating to Modernisation of the House of Commons may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.— [Jane Kennedy.]
Question agreed to.
Modernisation Of The House Of Commons
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Select Committee of fifteen Members be appointed to consider how the practices and procedures of the House should be modernised, and to make recommendations thereon;
That the Committee shall seek to make a first report to the House before the summer adjournment with its initial conclusions on ways in which the procedure for examining legislative proposals could be improved;
That five be the Quorum of the Committee;
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records; to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House; to report from time to time; and to appoint specialist advisers;
That Mr. Joe Ashton, Sir Patrick Cormack, Mr. Huw Edwards, Sir Peter Emery, Mr. Alastair Goodlad, Mr. Mike Hall, Helen Jackson, Mr. Peter L. Pike, Mr. Clive Soley, Rachel Squire, Dr. Phyllis Starkey, Mr. Andrew Stunell, Mrs. Ann Taylor, Mr. Paul Tyler and Mr. Nicholas Winterton be members of the Committee;
That this Order be a Standing Order of the House until the end of the present Parliament.—[Mrs. Ann Taylor.]
10.16 pm
Madam Speaker—[Laughter.] I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When you played in the back row of the Cambridge university scrum, you looked rather different. I did not recognise you with your rugger jersey off.
When the House discussed the subject of the motion, I made it clear that the Opposition welcomed the Government's decision to give priority to discussions on parliamentary procedure. The Leader of the House will remember from our debate two weeks ago that we undertook to offer constructive comment on the Government's proposals in that area. I begin with the Government's suggestion that the first responsibility of the new Committee should be to produce a report on improving procedures for examining legislative proposals. Clearly that is a helpful subject for the Committee to address, and I hope that we can agree that all Members should seek to improve the quality of legislation—[Interruption.]—even those who seek to conduct their discussions in the House from a sedentary position. The wording of the motion, however, is somewhat imprecise, implying that the new Committee will need to report on every aspect of the content, drafting and debating of legislation. If that is indeed what the right hon. Lady has in mind, I fear that the Committee might be in danger of becoming bogged down in consideration of aspects of the legislative process in which the House would think that there was no need for change. In dischargingits responsibilities, it is important that the new Committee should have the benefit of proper evidence and specialist advice, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) will be in his place. The new Committee should have the powers listed in the motion. I am glad that we are making speedy progress in establishing this Committee, not least because the House will be aware that the context for our discussions on the new Committee has changed rather since our amicable debate two weeks ago. It has become clear that to the Government, modernisation may mean changes to the House's procedures in the interests of government. I know that the hon. Member for Bolsover does not regard the interests of government as being his.Do not go so fast.
Am I going too fast for the hon. Gentleman?
It has become clear that to the Government, modernisation may mean changes to the House's procedures in the interests of government and the small, secretive and unelected group of political appointees at their heart, rather than the interests of this House and our constituents. [Interruption.] Our constituents are far from the mind of the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is growling from a sedentary position. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Perhaps he was not growling—perhaps his tummy was rumbling. I would almost prefer not to think about it, and I hope we shall not be hearing it again. I remind the Leader of the House of her words in our debate two weeks ago. She said:I could not have put it better myself. Those words have additional resonance given her decision earlier this week to guillotine the debate before the commencement of the Committee stage of a major constitutional Bill, leaving grossly inadequate time for debate while the usual channels were excluded from the normal negotiations. The Leader of the House also will be aware that the House has been concerned at the lack of consultation on important changes to the format of Prime Minister's Question Time and at the habit of Ministers of making policy announcements outside this House. The number of political appointments made by the new Government—clearly a surprise to the Lobby fodder—also has direct implications for the work of this House, but has not been debated by this House. The Lobby fodder perhaps do not wish to participate in debates in this House. They will not be allowed to, and one wonders why they came here. Despite their reluctance to engage in debate, they will, no doubt, be accepting the remuneration due to them. I hope that the Leader of the House will not succumb to any temptation or further pressure from her ministerial colleagues to use the new Committee as a means for the Government to entrench the abuses of their large majority. She has got off to a start in her relationships with this House which varies in the perceptions of hon. Members and outside observers between indifferent, disastrous and catastrophic. Her behaviour and that of the Government over the deliberations before us will be carefully studied."We need to consider what alternatives there might be to the guillotine imposed by the Government with a majority and the voluntary understandings that have been tried in the past. Sometimes they have worked, sometimes not, but there is scope to see what other mechanisms could be available to achieve better planning of legislation."—[Official Report, 22 May 1997; Vol. 294, c. 907.]
10.24 pm
I welcome the setting up of the Select Committee and I hope that it will consider not only minor adjustments to our procedures but the whole way in which we operate. Our Prime Minister has promised to have a radical Government. He can start by being radical in the way in which he decides to change the House itself. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is determined that that is the route that she will take.
We are overburdened with business here and do things in terms of legislation that we simply should not be doing; they should be done at another level of government altogether and in the most appropriate area in terms of where they impinge on the public. We have started that process with devolution. Everyone thinks about devolution for Scotland and Wales in terms of what it will do for those countries, but in fact it will benefit Parliament, because we will free up time that is currently taken up with legislating on Scottish and Welsh matters and we will be able to devote that time to giving proper scrutiny to other matters. That is a good start, but it is only a start: we must also look at how we devolve power elsewhere in our society so that we begin to ensure that we free this place to give proper scrutiny to government. The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) made an interesting speech a fortnight ago, but he suggested that, when we modernise, changing the forms and the style will not much matter, and I disagree with that. If we are to have a modern, efficient Parliament that works democratically, we must get rid of many of the symbols of an 18th-century Parliament that are well out of date and make us look quaint and so old-fashioned that it is almost unbelievable. Many of the electorate think that much of what we do is absurd, and we must consider that. I am sorry to say it with the Serjeant at Arms sitting here, but we must get rid of the uniforms, the swords and the wigs, and change the way in which we appear to the public, our electorate. I have heard people say that our strange customs make us a good tourist attraction, but that is not what I was elected for, however attractive I might be; I was elected to represent my constituents and do the best possible job for them, scrutinising the Government of the day—of whichever party they are formed—and ensuring that we do so efficiently. We cannot do that in a Parliament with the current style, and that is the first thing that we must change. The very large majority at present has made the way in which we vote seem even more absurd than it did in the past, when numbers were fairly equal on either side. Going through the Lobby these days is a long-drawn-out and unnecessary process. We should devise a system of electronic voting to ensure that we can vote quickly and efficiently, with the votes and the outcome seen straight away, and we do not take half an hour of our time doing it. We should consider proxy voting. I hope that we never return to the days of ambulances parked outside in New Palace yard with people lying in them while someone nods them through to vote. Their votes should be recorded without their having to be present. Most of my new hon. Friends are accustomed to working in an environment with an office, secretaries and computers that are connected to the Internet. Here, some of them are still waiting to get an office. It is absurd. I live in Hamilton, which has a population of 60,000. It was cabled in six months by a company that dug up the roads and laid the cables. People who want cable can have it their homes. It will take 10 years to complete the cabling of this building and its outbuildings and ensure that every Member who wishes it has access to the increasing number of electronic devices that should be available to a Member who wishes to do his job efficiently. We have a Government who want us to think the unthinkable. It is time that we thought the unthinkable about this place; it is time that we moved somewhere else. It is time that we built a modern, efficient, new Parliament outside London altogether so that we can operate, and represent our constituents, properly in a modern democratic manner.10.30 pm
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) for his reference to my previous speech, but he may have slightly misunderstood. I did not say that there was not a good case for removing some of the antiquity of this place that gets in the way of making it a businesslike assembly. However, that should not be our main, or only, objective. Many things that need to be done to this place are nothing to do with wigs and swords. He instanced the way in which we vote, which is antique to an extreme. There is no reason why we could not still go through Division Lobbies, but with swipe cards to make the operation much speedier. As a Government Back Bencher, he will agree that having the opportunity to pin a Minister against the wall regularly, in a place where there are no civil servants to protect him, is very useful.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the obsession with wigs and swords might become a distraction? Doing away with such things might become a compensation for the lack of real radicalism. It might be better to stay with the wigs and swords, and make some radical changes to the way in which we work.
I have some sympathy with that view. If the new Committee is merely going to modernise the dress of the servants of the House, it will be a terrible wasted opportunity. I am sure that that will not be the case. The Leader of the House and other members of the Government have shown that they have much more serious matters in hand.
It is equally important that we move by evolution and consultation, with special attention to Parliament's role as the scrutineer of the Executive. I think that Labour Members will agree that if all that we are asked to do is to speed Government business, we will fail in the real duty of Parliament, which is to ensure that the Government's business is handled better than it would have been if Parliament had not been sitting. It is a question not only of the speed of the operation but of the quality of the product. I shall not again cover all the issues that were raised in the debate a fortnight ago, but we have not yet addressed sufficiently the anxieties of Back Benchers of all parties, especially on initiation of debates in respect of motions and private Members' Bills. Under all Governments in recent years, the Executive have had far too much influence over timing and over the extent to which such business has been taken seriously. My principal concern is to make sure that the very proper priority that has been given to the Committee of dealing with legislation does not lead to neglect of the fact that Parliament has other important concerns. With the help of the Library—it took about five minutes; it is amazing what it can produce—I compared the figures for the general election of 1951 with those for 1 May this year. In 1951, 96.8 per cent. of those who voted, voted for the duopoly. They voted either Conservative or Labour. A vast majority—79.2 per cent.—of the total electorate, voted for one or other of those parties. There was a legitimate two-party system in operation in the country, and it was represented here by the opposing banks of Members who sat on either side of the House. On 1 May 1997, 73.9 per cent. of the electorate voted for the two-party system duopoly.Of those who voted.
My hon. Friend is right; it was 73.9 per cent. of those who voted. Only 52.8 per cent. of those who were entitled to vote voted for a two-party system. In that sense, this place is now an anachronism. It institutes a duopoly of Government and Opposition, which is not the reality out in the real world.
Many hon. Members from all parties have come to this place with considerable and long experience in local government. No local government would operate on the basis of automatic confrontation. We have seen in the past 48 hours what absurdity automatic opposition leads us into. We spent almost four and a half hours debating a motion on whether we could find more time to debate the substance of the issue. The statement and vote on the timetable motion took up so much time that four and a half hours was taken out of the real business of scrutinising the Government's legislation. All hon. Members should be concerned about that.The hon. Gentleman will know that in most local authorities there is provision for voting by show of hands and that only important votes are recorded. Is he aware that Standing Order No. 40 makes provision for us to vote by standing in our places? Does he agree with the early-day motion that will appear on the Order Paper tomorrow, which urges the greater use of that provision, especially when there is a series of votes in one evening, and that we should record the important votes, which would be the first ones?
There are two major problems with that. First, if all Labour Members were to attempt to stand in their places, it would be self-evidently impossible to find such places. So the hon. Gentleman can recognise that there are difficulties. Secondly, our constituents are entitled to know how we have voted. It is patently obvious that we could not record our vote in person if we voted by standing in our places. Nevertheless, I accept the hon. Gentleman's point that there may be ways in which, in certain circumstances, we could speed up the voting procedure and enable more issues to be put to the vote.
rose—
I will not give way again because other hon. Members want to speak.
There are other ways in which the voting procedure could be considerably accelerated. The Procedure Committee considered them. It is absurd that when we have a sequence of votes we have to wait each time for Tellers to be appointed, Clerks to get to their places and so on. There must be ways of speeding that up. It is clear that we shall have to reform radically the way in which the House operates. It is not necessary to move our whole Assembly to Glasgow, but if we do not modernise the way in which it operates, if we do not make it a true reflection of what is happening in the country, the centre of gravity in the body politic will move, in terms of devolution, to other parts of the United Kingdom and perhaps to the European Parliament. We will become increasingly irrelevant if we do not make our procedures more relevant to the real life of the wider public. One issue is of real concern. This House, in contrast to the other place, does not recognise the fact that we no longer have a two-party system. The other place automatically recognises that there are three major parties, in terms of speeches, time, the selection of reasoned amendments and so on. The other place recognises that the third party is the third of three major parties, not simply a larger minority party. We have only one or perhaps two references in our Standing Orders to that. We shall have to look again at the Standing Orders. It is urgent. Hon. Members old and new, especially those who have had extensive experience of local government, are surprised at the way in which we operate this place—the confrontational jousting match, which we saw again, I am sorry to say, in Prime Minister's questions this afternoon. I accept that improvements have been made, but we are still seeing absurd confrontation, often where confrontation does not exist. It is largely a bit of play-acting. It is the Punch and Judy show. That may be of great interest to the Dutch and American television audiences, although they may get rather bored with half an hour—it is long for any cabaret—but it does not do justice to the real function of Parliament. Those who have come here from local government will also recognise that the potential true value of Committees in this place is not met. I hope that we will also be able to consider that. In particular, I hope that the Select Committees will be given a greater role in the pre-legislative development of ideas. I know that many hon. Members on both sides of the House have done detailed work on that. I know that the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice) is particularly anxious that that should happen. All too often we display to the public a confrontational duopoly, but they are looking for true pluralism in their politics. The Prime Minister has given a lead in this respect, but soon we will want to see actions rather than words to ensure that that commitment was not just one given for the benefit of the general election. It must be put into practice after that election success.
10.39 pm
I followed with great interest the remarks by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), but, once again, he is making a push for his party. Confrontation and careerism bedevil the House.
Let us be honest. Things get bogged down in Committee because that is the place to make a reputation by tabling 1,000 amendments. I have spent nearly 30 long weary years in the House at night, so I will not detain it for too long now. We have all been through this before. Individual ambition and careerism will demand that certain hon. Members will table 50 amendments. The Government Whips will say to their boys, "Stay quiet. Fill the crossword in, do your mail or whatever you like." After two or three weeks, everyone gets fed up and the word goes round the Whips, "They'll let us have the Bill a week on Tuesday morning if you don't say anything and just nod it through." The Opposition educate the Government. One can see the civil servants' ears prick up when an Opposition Member moves a probing amendment and asks whether something means X or Y. That Member reveals a dual meaning behind a phrase in a Bill and argues that it would not stand up in court. The civil servants then tell Ministers that the Opposition are right, and they then table about 125 Government amendments on Report to correct mistakes that should have been sorted out when the Bill was read the First time. Surely we could get together and sort out such problems well before a Bill begins its proceedings. That is just not done because of the careerist ambitions of younger Members in particular. There is nothing wrong with that. It is the ladder or the limelight. One can become an instant media star on television by showing off, being sent off or acting the goat. Alternatively, Members can climb the ladder like Mrs. Thatcher—no one had ever heard of her until she got into the Cabinet—and hope to get a Cabinet job. That is the nature of politics. Surely with our majority we could avoid such confrontation for the next four years. The hon. Member for North Cornwall spoke about voting. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I were in the Whips Office when the Labour party started off with a majority of one in 1974 and finished up with a minority of 17. The Whips Office killed six people—I say that with deep sympathy. Some of them had to have their operations at 10 o'clock in the morning and come in here to vote at 10 o'clock at night. Others had to postpone their operations until the recess. Alex Wilson, Millie Miller and Frank Hatton all died because of that. Alex Lyon, the husband of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), died years afterwards as a result of the traumas that went on then. It was a wonderful macho time. We actually enjoyed not knowing what the vote would be until 10 o'clock at night. It was better than any cliff-hanger football match or whatever. It certainly did not represent government. For all we talked about getting rid of those procedures, we never did. Helene Hayman had a baby and came in, and I remember the headline in the Daily Mail, which ran, "Government hangs by a nappy pin". That was absolutely true. Perhaps people would like the House to stagger along like that, but it is certainly not government. I wrote a play about it, but no one believed it because it was such black farce. We used to have a bog trotter. When the Division bell rang, we had a top and bottom bog trotter whose job it was to run around all the toilets to see if anyone was locked in. We had to look under the door for feet and, if seen, we looked over the top. If that person was one of theirs we left him, if it was one of ours, we got him out—if necessary with a screwdriver to unlock the door from the outside. That was the sort of nonsense that occurred when the House divided. I remember the famous case of Leslie Spriggs, the then Member for St. Helens. We had a tied vote and he was brought to the House in an ambulance having suffered a severe heart attack. The two Whips went out to look in the ambulance and there was Leslie Spriggs laid there as though he was dead. I believe that John Stradling Thomas said to Joe Harper, "How do we know that he is alive?" So he leaned forward, turned the knob on the heart machine, the green light went around, and he said, "There, you've lost—it's 311." That is an absolutely true story. It is the sort of nonsense that used to happen. No one believes it, but it is true. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) regularly used to have a row with the Speaker at about 3.30 pm. I used to hold his shoulders down, saying, "Don't get expelled, you're the majority." It was unbelievable, especially compared with the huge majority that we have in this Parliament. My hon. Friend made the best suggestion when he said that there should be three counters at the end of the Chamber so that we could get through the vote 50 per cent. faster. That could be done simply, without involving major changes. The Order Paper is a disgrace. If it were the programme for a football match or even an amateur dramatic production, it would say, "The leading players at 3.30 pm will be Mr. Blair, answering questions, with Mr. Howard replying for the Opposition. There will then be a ten-minute Bill", and so on. It would explain what was happening. People in the Public Gallery are bewildered by the Order Paper. They do not have a clue what is going on. There is not even a commentator on television like Freddie Truman or Brian Johnston at a cricket match, who could explain what is happening—for example, "This man has been called by the Speaker because he is chairman of the Anglo-Middle East group." He could give the background. When Parliament was first broadcast, for the first three days the BBC broadcast everything that came through the loudspeakers. It was libellous, it was unbelievably crude, but it was hilarious. The BBC panicked and said, "Somebody will sue us for libel. If it is in Hansard it is okay, but if it is not in Hansard we will be done for libel." So the BBC stopped broadcasting everything; now, it jams the broadcast so all people hear is, "Hear, hear, hear." It is terrified of being sued for libel. The Chamber sounds like animals in a zoo, but for the people in the arena who can hear, it is often witty and sometimes caustic and destructive of careers—but that is politics. It is a rough old trade. We have to find some way of getting that across so that the public can get a taste of what is happening without it denigrating Parliament. The system for Gallery tickets is a farce—hon. Members get two every 18 days. It is a farce to have to go into a ballot for Prime Minister's questions. We could spend a year entering the ballot in the hope of coming within the first six questions, but in fact getting nowhere near the top. Constituents want to know why we do not ask the Prime Minister about such and such a hospital, a factory, a bypass, and so on. We cannot, and we get frustrated. Everybody is bobbing up and down. People want to know why we are jumping up and down, but they are not given any explanation about the Speaker trying to be impartial. Our constituency parties do not understand why we have not been able to ask our questions. It would be better to have a rota for Prime Minister's questions, like the rota for tickets for the Public Gallery. I could then say that, for example, on 27 June it is my turn for the Prime Minister and try and get my constituents tickets for the Gallery. At least the constituency would have the opportunity for one of its problems to be put to the Prime Minister, whereas under the present ballot system we could go on trying for ever. This place was set up 100 years ago for people who lived in London and never went to their constituencies—except when the stink from the River Thames became so bad in August that they went to their country houses and waited for the harvest. They never bothered about their constituencies. Most of them worked in the City or were lawyers who earned a guinea a word at the Old Bailey. They came in at 4.30 with a red bag on their backs which they hung up in the cloakroom. They came to have a drink and relax. Everything was fitted around their day. It cannot go on. Everybody in the world thinks that we are crazy. They ask, why can we not start at 9 o'clock like they do at the town hall, or at some reasonable time; and why can we not finish at a reasonable time? I feel tremendously sorry for the women who have come into this Parliament. Even we men know the problems of bringing up families. The divorce rate in the House is horrendous, because of the breakdowns in marriages. I can remember when, 20-odd years ago, my wife had a youngster at 20 minutes to 9 and I was here voting on a three-line Whip. I told the Chief Whip and he said, "Good lad—get through the Lobby and don't forget the three-liner tomorrow at half-past 3." It was two days before I got up north to see my youngster. It is crazy. People do not give us medals for doing that—they think that we are absolutely stupid. There is no reason why we could not work normal hours. With modern trains, people could get down here for half-past 10, go home after a vote to see their kids at 10 o'clock at night and then come down again the next day. Let us face it, the most important thing in politics now is the pressure from our constituents. The members of the parent-teacher association really believe that their Member of Parliament meeting them is more important than his speaking on an amendment to the Budget. Whether we like it or not, that is what they think. The public and the voters will call the tune and, if we do not respond to them, we shall see other elections in which the turnout goes down to 65 per cent., 60 per cent., or 58 per cent. as it was in the American elections when Bill Clinton was elected. At the end of the century, we have to grasp the nettle: change is going to come and we had better make a start on it.10.50 pm
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to make my maiden speech in this debate on the reform of the House of Commons. It is important that as a new Member I have been given this chance to express some of the views shared by many new Members coming into the Chamber.
Many of us are quite astounded by some of the things that we have discovered since coming here and we are now learning to get to grips with them. Although it may appear arrogant for a new Member, so early in his parliamentary career, to want to make suggestions about reform, it is important that new Members should have a say in some of the procedures to be considered by the Committee. It is important that new people, seeing all this afresh, can express their views. Of course, we must also respect those individuals who have been in this place for many years and who are aware of the traditions and know far more than I do about the need for reform in certain areas. One of those traditions is that in a maiden speech it is normal for the new Member to praise his or her predecessor. Some hon. Members on both sides might recognise that, as the new Member of Parliament for Winchester, that tradition presents me with a slight dilemma. To praise my predecessor might be perceived as insulting him, because it is clear that he has yet to admit that he is my predecessor. What should a new Member do in these circumstances? I can certainly say that the former Member of Parliament for Winchester is an individual who never gives up. In his time as a Health Minister, he brought a great deal of intellectual debate to the Conservative party; and he should be credited for having helped the Conservative Government to stabilise their health policy during the past couple of years. When elected, as I was, by a majority of only two, one starts to realise the importance of democracy and of the tradition of voting. I am amazed by the number of people who have come up to me in the past month and laid claim to those two votes. Many of the police in the House have told me of a relative of theirs living in Winchester, someone who organised a postal vote, or someone who dashed to the polling station just before 10 o'clock. I go to great lengths to inform them that I know where those two votes came from: they are obviously the votes of myself and my wife, so we are responsible for my election. The message for hon. Members in that tale is the importance of living in one's constituency. I am delighted to be able to live in the constituency of Winchester. It is a constituency with a great history; unfortunately, that history has recently been added to by the longest count ever and the smallest majority in 80 years, but it is nevertheless a most beautiful area in which to live. It stretches to the north to the borders of Basingstoke and vastly to the south, so that one can look out to sea from the outskirts of Portsmouth. Winchester is a very rural constituency, with a proud tradition, which goes back a long way. I am pleased that I have been called in tonight's debate about the House of Commons because, very many years ago, the Commons did sit in the capital of Wessex, at a time when it was a tradition for Parliament to move around the regions. That would be a radical choice for the Committee to consider, but there may be merit in looking at ways in which we can move some of our debates around the country, to engage the public in what we are doing and to allow them to see our procedures and debates at first hand in their region. The constituency's history of democracy is strong. That is demonstrated by the fact that in two years' time we shall elect the 700th mayor of Winchester. Most recently, the city has become established as a centre of excellence in education, not only with the college of Winchester but with King Alfred's college, the art college, Peter Symmonds sixth-form college and the agricultural college at Sparsholt, which helps serve the very rural and agricultural tradition of the constituency that I am proud to live in. Because I love living in Winchester and am proud to live there, I want to spend more time there and less time in the House in the evenings. I do not want to spend my time—as many new Members have had to—voting at 10 o'clock and realising that a 10 o'clock vote means that we end up leaving the House at 11.30, have a mad scramble to catch a cab and must spend the night in a hotel, when I realise, and must explain to my wife, that I could have pressed a button at 10 o'clock and at least got home to see her at the end of the evening. I believe that many new Members I have spoken to feel very strongly about that issue, and I hope that they have a chance to express those views later. I also hope that new Members will not succumb to this place and in a year's time start saying "Oh well, that is how it works. Let's not move on." Let us remember how we feel now about being obliged to vote late at night and not forget that when—perhaps in a year's time—we have a chance to vote positively to change that. I ask the Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), please to look very hard at moving the Committee reports through as soon as she possibly can, while the impetus for change is there, and to be radical about it. While preserving the best traditions of this building, let us be radical about the shape and size of the Chamber and the way in which the Lobbies work, and let us be radical and consider as far as we can reforming this building. I would also ask the Committee, where possible, to look beyond the reform of the Chamber, because part of the public's perception of the Chamber is not only how we work in it and the procedures that we work by, but the role of Members, and the way in which they operate in the Chamber. Radical reform is needed. We need to consider ways to improve our accountability as individuals to the people who elected us, linking ourselves to them. Members should have much more responsibility for reporting back on their appearance in and representation of constituents' views in the Chamber. To some extent we can achieve that aim by improving the hours that we work and the voting mechanisms, but more radical solutions may be needed. In the run-up to the general election, I gave a clear commitment to the residents of Winchester that I would abide by several principles. One principle was that I would report back much more fully than many of my predecessors in that constituency had done. In nearly all forms of public life, Parliament has imposed citizens charters on organisations, and it has required companies and public bodies to produce annual reports. However, when it comes to our own role, which is very much in the public eye, our only form of accountability is to appear at general elections every four or five years. We need to strengthen that accountability. There should be a principle that hon. Members be obliged to produce an annual report to their constituency. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) may laugh, because he would not like what would be in it. The report would list the way in which the Member voted and the type of meetings that he or she had attended, and it would publicly list the Member's earnings. I believe that that would be a proper form of accountability, much more accessible than constituents having to collect together a year's worth of Hansard. The principle of an annual report from Members is very hard for anyone to argue against. If hon. Members wanted to be much more radical, we would set down standards for the time within which we answer letters. We require many Government Departments to do that, so why should we be different? If we wanted to be radical, we would set down standards for the number of surgeries that hon. Members must hold and for the number of times that they should be seen in their constituencies. Why should hon. Members object to that suggestion? If they want to be good Members of Parliament, they should sign up to it. Is it not interesting that Conservative Members choose to ridicule such ideas? Perhaps they should note the result of the general election and realise that if they had introduced such policies, they may not have lost so many seats. I ask the Leader of the House to consider these broader principles, to examine the role of Members and to try to improve accountability. There is a further way in which we could improve the Chamber and our debates. I refer to the length at which hon. Members speak. We must have shorter speeches. I shall take my own advice and draw to a close, but I call on hon. Members to be as radical as they can, while preserving the best traditions of the Chamber.11 pm
It is a great pleasure to congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) on a fine and lucid maiden speech. In a debate such as this, which challenges the way in which Parliament usually conducts its business, it was interesting to hear him break with the parliamentary tradition that maiden speeches are non-controversial.
I was particularly interested to hear a Liberal Democrat Member singing the praises of the first-past-the-post electoral system, but I understand why, with a two-vote majority, the hon. Gentleman does that. I hope that he will come over to my way of thinking and back electoral reform when the House gets round to discussing that subject. The hon. Gentleman dealt skilfully with the tricky matter of paying tribute to Gerry Malone, his predecessor, to whom many hon. Members on both sides of the House would wish to pay tribute. I have one piece of advice for the hon. Gentleman. He indeed secured a two-vote majority in Winchester, but those were not his vote and his wife's. Those were the votes of two Tory party members who decided that Winchester was so safe for the Tory party that they used their votes in their holiday home constituency in Scotland to try to retain a Scottish seat for the Conservatives. I would not go so far as to describe the House as a house of ill repute, but it has a low reputation in the minds of many members of the public. There is an onus on us in a new Parliament to reorganise our affairs in a way that gives the House greater respect among those who vote for us and send us here to represent them. We could do a great deal to make the House and the Palace more welcoming to the public. I once had a party of disabled visitors coming to see me in the House. I wanted to know how they could get access to the Central Lobby, and the Serjeant at Arms suggested a route that involved using the lift round the back of the post office and passages that led through to the Central Lobby. The passages that I was advised to use were too narrow for an electric wheelchair to go through. It is intolerable that the House should exclude people with disabilities from seeing what goes on and from lobbying Members of Parliament. There are no refreshment facilities for the public who come to the House. We need an overflow Gallery. Naturally, the Strangers Gallery is not full at this time of night, but during Question Time it is, and with the television link, there could easily be a small cinema or theatre so that people who do not get into Gallery but who come to London to find out what happens in the House of Commons could listen to debates. It could be used in the morning to put on educational shows for schoolchildren and other visitors to the House to explain how Parliament works. When I was first elected, I told myself that I would never get involved in debates about parliamentary procedure. My constituents ask me to do something about the local hospital, about unemployment, about the school that their child goes to and so on, but no one has come up to me and said, "And another thing, Mr. Bayley—there is a little parliamentary procedure that you ought to change." However, having been here for a short time—five years—I think that it is imperative for us to modernise the House so that we can more effectively do the job that we should be doing for our constituents. Page 115 of "Erskine May" deals with contempts, one of which is long overdue for abolition:This came to my attention because one of my constituents was told to stop taking notes. He was sitting in the Strangers Gallery during an esoteric debate on a Friday morning about the Medicines Information Bill, brought in by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Radice). There was virtually no one in the Chamber or the Gallery at the time, and because my constituent had a particular interest in the pharmaceutical industry he was following the debate and taking notes of what was said. He was told to put his pen and notepad away because that was a contempt of the House. What an idiotic way to carry on. If we want to restore our reputation in the eyes of the public, we should encourage them to come in and understand what we are doing. That naturally involves following our debates. Nowadays it is possible, after all, to switch on cable television and take notes of our debates from the comfort of one's own home. Why, then, do we regard note-taking as a contempt of Parliament? It is indicative of the sort of barriers that this place builds between the institution and the public whom we should be serving. I hope that the new Committee, as well as looking at procedures of the House and its Committees, will look at how we relate to the public. This House must do more in future to set a good example. I had to make a special request that the stationery cupboard in Norman Shaw North be stocked with recycled notepaper. I find it extraordinary that we still print stationery on unrecycled notepaper. Why do we? Today the Government launched a good initiative to encourage people to cycle to work. As it happens, I cycle from my flat to the House of Commons every day. Because I come down Millbank I used to cut in through Chancellor's Gate. It has now been closed, so I cut in through the new entrance, the gates at the House of Lords end of the Palace. It is a wonderful new entrance which has been beautifully cobbled. It is very convenient for cars, but it is very bumpy for those riding bicycles. No one thought of putting through a small path with a smooth surface to encourage people to come here on bikes. Achieving change of any sort in this place is enormously difficult—"Strangers have been punished for contempt for disorderly conduct … for refusing to stop taking notes of proceedings when requested to do so by an officer of the House."
I cycle as well, but the hon. Gentleman cannot expect everything to be organised for his own convenience. If he cannot take one or two bumps, he should not be in the job.
The hon. Gentleman may enjoy the feeling of a bumpy saddle beneath him when he cycles in. [HON. MEMBERS: "He is a public school boy."] He is indeed. My point is simply that when the House spends money on its own infrastructure, it costs no more to get it right than to get it wrong. It costs no more to serve the needs of pedestrians and cyclists as well as those of motorists. It simply involves thinking through the problem.
What this House desperately needs is a chief executive to manage the place efficiently, so that we do not need to spend months bringing about minor changes such as cycle paths. It took me, as a new Member, three months to find out which Committee was responsible for the note-taking in the Gallery problem, and a further three months for the House to decide that, for an experimental period, it would see whether our parliamentary democracy was robust enough to allow the public to take notes in the Gallery. That is not good enough. If we want change, we need a mechanism that allows the House to achieve it quickly.11.9 pm
I am pleased to be able to make a brief contribution, and I have been interested to hear the observations that have been made about how the House should be reformed.
I start from the premise that the House is here to represent democracy, and that any modernisation should lead to better legislation. I do not start from the premise that the House is here for the convenience of Members of Parliament, and I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree with me on that point. I say that because I am—I hope—privileged to have been appointed to the Select Committee as one of four representatives of the Conservative party. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), as always, made an entertaining speech and he mentioned certain matters that he considered important. I believe he said that he had been in opposition for 18 years. There are some who say to me, "Mr. Winterton, you have been in the House for nearly 26 years and you have been in opposition for all that time." I think that the precedents and procedures of the House have been established over the years for a good purpose, and on the basis of experience. Although I want our procedures to be improved and our structures modernised, I want that to happen so that we can achieve more for our constituents, improve democratic accountability and ensure that the legislation that is put on the statute book is better considered by Members of all parties. I appreciate the concern expressed by the hon. Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley) for his constituents. His constituency is probably as far from London as my constituency of Macclesfield, but I encourage my constituents to visit the House and I encourage schools and other organisations in my constituency to send parties here. Over nearly 26 years, many thousands of my constituents have come here, and apart from one or two criticisms of the way in which we behave at Prime Minister's Question Time there has been very little criticism of the House; it is held in great respect, and the reasons for our structures are appreciated. I believe, however, that much of the legislation that comes before the House should be considered by a specialist Standing Committee or, when that is inappropriate, by a Select Committee. I have been privileged to serve on Select Committees for nearly 18 years, and for a limited time—until my own party prevented my being reappointed—I chaired the Health Committee. Perhaps I did too good a job on behalf of the people of this country and the House in doing the job that Select Committees are there to do: holding the Government of the day—the Executive of the day—to account. Once the House appoints a Member in that way, whether Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour, that Member is there as a servant of the House, not of his or her political party. I believe fervently in that tradition. In my view, the Select Committees of the House represent the most effective way of holding the Executive of the day—now the Labour party, and until a little while ago, the Conservative party—to account. Much of the legislation that comes before the House—often hastily drafted and often, sadly, as we have experienced in recent hours, considered under a guillotine—would be much easier to consider if it had been considered either by a Select Committee, if it concerned a particular Department of State, or by a Special Standing Committee, which could take evidence and produce papers which could then be published. One of the unsatisfactory features of Standing Committees is that many organisations, many interest groups in Britain, send members of Standing Committees important documents that are referred to but which cannot be published as part of the Committee's report. That is wrong. That is one of the areas in which we can do a great deal to help the House pass well considered, well detailed and well thought out legislation. We need the greater use of Special Standing Committees. In addition, Select Committees should consider legislation that falls within the remit of a particular Department of State. The House has an exciting opportunity to modernise without revolutionising itself—to provide the House with the necessary facilities and structures to do a better job in the interests of democracy. As—I hope—a member of the Committee, I shall seek to do my best to bring that about.11.15 pm
There are a huge number of issues that I should like to raise and many anecdotes that I should like to recount—such as how it took three years as a member of the Finance and Services Committee to get water in the Committee Rooms—but time is short, so I shall be brief.
The most important thing that I want to say is that the Committee has before it the most wonderful opportunity to modernise the way in which we do our work—how we go about our business here in the mother of all democracies. When the Committee considers ways of reforming the procedures of the House, I hope that it will particularly consider the timetabling of business and the hours that we work here. If we are truly to be a Parliament for all the people, where Members of Parliament are in touch with those whom we represent, we must spend time in our constituencies. That has nothing to do with working a shorter week; it is about being in touch, being able to make visits to organisations, community groups and people so that when we do come here we know what matters to those who elected us. Above all else, I hope that the President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), who I know will do an excellent job in chairing the Committee, will consider the working week. I hope that the Committee will consider other European Parliaments and how we can so organise our business here that we can encapsulate what we do, perhaps with two, three or four issues going on at the same time, so that in the middle of the week we can concentrate our work in the House and have, say, a fixture list for a full year ahead so that we know when we can be in our constituencies and when we can make commitments to attend meetings. That would be to the benefit of the House. If we can meet that challenge, we shall see the benefits of a Parliament for all the British people.11.18 pm
This has been an interesting and worthwhile debate. We have heard enough from both sides of the House to justify the establishment of a Committee on modernisation of our procedures and the working of the House of Commons. We have had positive contributions from both sides which should be welcomed because they will stand us in good stead when the Committee meets.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), who made his maiden speech this evening. He mentioned that he had a majority of two—I doubt whether he can go anywhere without mentioning that fact—and that he had had the longest count ever. I thought that he would get an offer from my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) to write another play, this time called "A Majority of Two". I can certainly recommend the first contribution that my hon. Friend made: his play about the workings of the Whips Office was, I am afraid, incredibly accurate, as were most of the stories he told this evening. There is scope for change—everyone can agree on that. When we had the debate on modernisation a couple of weeks ago, I came into the Chamber hoping that we would get a greater attendance than usual for a debate on procedure. I was hoping that instead of the normal five, six, seven or eight attenders, we might have got into the teens. I was absolutely staggered and incredibly pleased to see that at 7.30 pm there were 78 Labour Members in the Chamber when there was no vote and the next day was a recess. Many Opposition Members were also present. That showed just how much interest there is in the changes that need to take place. It was important that we should move quickly to establish the Committee. I express my gratitude to the right hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. Goodlad), the shadow Leader of House, and also to the minority parties, for their co-operation in getting the names selected and getting the Committee up and running quickly. We have suggested that the Committee should have wide terms of reference. All the points that have been raised this evening can be considered by the Committee because of the way in which we have suggested the terms of reference. However, we must look at the priorities for the Committee; that is why I agreed very much with what the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) said about making sure that we got our priorities right and did not think that by one or two superficial or cosmetic changes we could make any radical reforms to the workings of the House. We have suggested that the priority should be how we deal with our legislative procedures. I am glad to say that that proposal has been agreed to by Opposition Members. We have had constructive suggestions. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) mentioned Special Standing Committees, which we suggested on several occasions in opposition. I hope that we can suggest such Committees again in government. The whole framework in which we examine legislation must be looked at and I hope that we can come up with some initial conclusions relatively quickly in these vital areas because it is important that the House should change as quickly as possible. The Government want to help, perhaps by having piloting of different procedures if that seems appropriate. We should all work together to achieve that. The motion gives the Select Committee the usual powers to have a special adviser and things of that kind. I hope that the right hon. Member for Eddisbury, who was somewhat worried about the remit, will acknowledge that given the range of issues that have been raised this evening, we are right to make sure that it is as wide as possible. We should indicate some priorities to the Committee, but I think that the Committee may wish to ask Members of the House for evidence or ideas and at that stage, we shall have to decide what the priorities are.I did not speak earlier in the debate so that we could get to the end of these proceedings. I have two or three suggestions which should be dealt with. The Committee should look at the possibility, at long last, of providing more time for private Members' Bills. It should also deal with the Order Paper. Many suggestions have been made over many years about changing our antediluvian Order Paper.
There is also the question of voting, which is pretty chronic. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) made a point on my behalf about deaths. The two minutes that we lose at the beginning of Divisions should also be considered. If there is any attempt to go to a 9 to 5 parliamentary day, the House should bear this point in mind. What we need is to cut out all the moonlighting. One Member of Parliament should do one job, which means that we can do the thing at a stroke.I am not quite so optimistic as my hon. Friend about modernising at a stroke. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) said, we can at this stage only make a start, but make a start we must.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has come up with some suggestions. Although I would not agree with all of them, it is right that the Committee should consider all such things—certainly private Members' Bills and the Order Paper. As has been said, anybody—especially a new Member or a visitor—is extremely puzzled by the Order Paper. I am sure that more can be done in that area. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover has suggested having three desks in the Lobby. He made that suggestion two weeks ago. I understand that it has been tried in the past, but that does not mean that it should not be considered again. When he talks about the House sitting from 9 to 5, in a sense I return to what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) said. I agree with her that we need a sort of concentrated week so that hon. Members with non-London constituencies can spend guaranteed time outside Westminster being in touch with and representing their constituents. We must ensure that we get the balance right so that we can protect interests there. I hope that the new Committee will meet as soon as possible, work quickly and look at the four areas that I indicated were our priorities: legislation, accountability of Ministers, best use of Ministers' time and customs and practices. The Government have already announced that they intend to publish a record number of draft Bills. That presents us with extra opportunities to explore possibilities and see how the Bills would work in practice.I think that the Leader of the House made a slip of the tongue just now, which is very important to correct. I think that she referred to the best use of Ministers' time, but she probably meant the best use of hon. Members' time. That is a very important distinction. Since we are very concerned in this debate not simply to expedite Government business but to improve it, perhaps she would like to correct that impression.
If I said "Ministers' time" I certainly did not mean it. Ministers have to spend more time in London, so getting to their constituencies is an extra problem. If we concentrate the parliamentary week, we shall allow Ministers—those who are also hon. Members—to do their constituency work as well. However, I was thinking primarily of hon. Members and not Ministers in that context.
There seems to be a great deal of good will towards the whole idea of modernising our procedures. We have a different type of opportunity from any ever before—certainly in all the years that I have been in the House. I therefore hope that the Committee will undertake its task as speedily as possible and ensure that we make this Parliament as efficient and as effective as we possibly can. I am sure—at least, I hope—that the Committee will meet the expectations of the House since there is now more interest in change than ever before. We all have a responsibility to ensure that the change that we adopt is practical, workable and will improve our parliamentary democracy.Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That a Select Committee of fifteen Members be appointed to consider how the practices and procedures of the House should be modernised, and to make recommendations thereon;
That the Committee shall seek to make a first report to the House before the summer adjournment with its initial conclusions on ways in which the procedure for examining legislative proposals could be improved;
That five be the Quorum of the Committee;
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records; to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House; to report from time to time; and to appoint specialist advisers;
That Mr. Joe Ashton, Sir Patrick Cormack, Mr. Huw Edwards, Sir Peter Emery, Mr. Alastair Goodlad, Mr. Mike Hall, Helen Jackson, Mr. Peter L. Pike, Mr. Clive Soley, Rachel Squire, Dr. Phyllis Starkey, Mr. Andrew Stunell, Mrs. Ann Taylor, Mr. Paul Tyler and Mr. Nicholas Winterton be members of the Committee;
That this Order be a Standing Order of the House until the end of the present Parliament.
Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee)
Ordered,
That Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Mr. Colin Burgon, Mr. Dominic Grieve, Ms Rosemary McKenna, Ms Diana Organ, Mr. William Ross and Mr. David Tredinnick be members of the Select Committee appointed to join with a Committee of the Lords as the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Janet Anderson.]
Local Government Finance(Oxfordshire)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Janet Anderson.]
11.28 pm
I am grateful for being granted this debate. It seems appropriate that, as I have just witnessed a debate on the modernisation of the House, my first speech following my maiden speech should take place at this hour. However, as a former hospital junior doctor, I am well used to working at such nocturnal times. I hope to ensure in what follows that the House is not the victim, as the national health service sometimes is, of slowness and errors caused by overtired people working under too much pressure.
It may be argued that the difference between then and now is that, during the long nights in hospitals, I had direct influence over people's welfare, their care and their lives. However, I would argue that in our treatment of the revenue support grant, budget and capping of Oxfordshire county council, we in the House also have the lives and welfare of the people of Oxfordshire in our hands. They rely on the services, especially education and social services, provided by Oxfordshire county council for their care and well-being. I shall not attempt to parade all the arguments that the county council would use to seek to persuade the Government to redetermine the capping level at the budget already fixed by the county council. Those arguments will be put clearly if—and, I believe, when—the county council decides to appeal against the initial designation by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. With other hon. Members for the county of Oxfordshire, some of whom are in their places tonight, I will support that appeal at the appropriate moment. I will not seek to make a party political or partisan speech, because the issue does not divide people along party lines in Oxfordshire, since the above-cap budget has all-party support there. Oxfordshire is not the sort of place where politicians are usually shy about disagreeing with opposing politicians. I think especially of the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), of the right hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), who is the Minister for Employment and Disability Rights, and, of course, of my predecessor, John Patten. I will seek instead to outline why Oxfordshire has an excellent case for its appeal and why there is no reason, with such cross-party consensus locally and in the House tonight to some degree, why the Government—committed as they are to listening and dispensing with blunt instruments—should not agree, on close examination of the detailed case, that the budget set by the county council is right and proper. In the spirit of constructive opposition that saw the Liberal Democrats vote for the Queen's Speech, I shall quote from the Labour manifesto, although one of the most appealing aspects of the Gracious Speech was that it contained items to be found only in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. The section in the Labour manifesto headed "Good local government" stated:That is the first point that I shall address tonight. The manifesto continued:"Local decision-making should be less constrained by central government, and also more accountable to local people."
I will address that point second. The manifesto also stated:"Although crude and universal council tax capping should go, we will retain reserve powers to control excessive council tax rises."
I will conclude briefly on that point. On the first point about local democracy and accountability, there is a strong argument, put ably by the Labour party in last year's debate:"Labour is committed to a fair distribution of government grant."
in redetermining the budget at the capping level—"The Government are acting against the wishes of the people of Oxfordshire"—
The speaker, appropriately enough, was the hon. Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong), who is now the Minister of State, Departments of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The right hon. Member for Oxford, East strongly supported his colleague, and said:"The people want the opportunity to fund their schools and their social services properly, but they know that the Government will manipulate the figures to ensure that they cannot do that. That is not good enough."
At the time, the right hon. Gentleman was shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury and charged with showing that his party could be responsible with the public finances, which is a task that I believe he performed well then and which the Labour party seems to have performed well in the election campaign—perhaps too well on occasions for Liberal Democrats. When the right hon. Gentleman was pressed on that subject, later in the debate, he said:"As my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong) said, except in the most exceptional circumstances, it should be up to local people to make that decision, and councillors should be accountable through the local electoral process."
I could not have put it better myself. The fly in the ointment last year was that the above-cap budget was not fully supported by the local Conservative group so it could have been argued that, had there been county council elections, the people would have swept to power a pro-capping local Conservative group. However, that argument was tested this year, and not only did the Conservative group support the budget—indeed, with the Labour group, the Conservatives actually made the above-cap budget—but the council has just been completely re-elected on a huge turnout, and the new council, meeting after that election, unanimously supported that budget. The Labour party scored well in those elections, and its election platform, as stated in its local manifesto, was:"we intend to review the system for local government support … to enable local democratic preferences properly to be expressed and reflected in local budgets, so that local people have the say in determining the level of resources for local services, which are there to meet local needs."—[Official Report, 22 May 1996; Vol. 278, c. 359–73.]
Liberal Democrats support those sentiments. The manifesto continued:"Labour believes in quality public services financed by fair local taxation. We also believe that power should be exercised at the lowest relevant level and that local people should be free to decide through the ballot box on the level of local service and taxes".
It is just possible that Oxfordshire county council's Labour group, in its reforming zeal, may be slightly ahead of the Government, but I believe that the redetermination decision will present the Government—a Government who hit the ground running, and may merely have stumbled over designating our budget for capping—with the opportunity to pick themselves up and sprint forward towards the land of local democracy and accountability, and towards that new constitutional settlement. Those may be grand words—"We deplore the years of successive cuts which Tory Governments have imposed on Oxfordshire services. We welcome the reversal of that trend which will follow the election of a Labour Government, as part of a new constitutional settlement which will change the relationship between local communities, their public services and their elected representatives."
rose—
I give way to the hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown), who was an active member of the Labour group on Oxfordshire county council in former years.
I thank the hon. Member for allowing me to take part in the debate. I wanted to do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because my constituency borders on Oxfordshire, and some of my constituents work in, and many are affected by, services in Oxfordshire.
My constituents have raised with me—Order. In such debates it is customary not to give way unless there has been some prior agreement. I understood that the hon. Lady was simply making a brief intervention. If she is making a speech, that is rather a different matter. Was there a prior agreement?
I was warned that the hon. Member for South Swindon might intervene, and I am happy to give way so that she can briefly make the points that she wishes to make, in an intervention.
The hon. Lady may complete a brief intervention. Then the debate can continue.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have three brief points to make.
First, my constituents, too, are affected by what the hon. Member is describing. Secondly, all parties on Oxfordshire county council agree on the need to point out that the county's budget has been slashed by £52 million over the past six years. That may have produced some efficiencies in the past, but it is now causing great pain. Thirdly, I shall give an example of the sort of thing that is happening in Oxfordshire. The 400 children on the child protection register are not being properly supervised. The spending level that the county proposes represents a very modest increase. All parties on the council are asking for that degree of flexibility. I support what the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) is saying, and urge the Minister to do all that he can to give Oxfordshire the modest flexibility that it requests.I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making those points, which I shall not repeat.
To continue from where I left off, the words that I used may have seemed grand words to describe such a small sum. The difference between the budget that in the view of all groups in Oxfordshire is needed to preserve essential services, and the capped level, amounts to 54p per week on the council tax for a band D property. Indeed, the council tax rise at the capped level—2.4 per cent—will be the lowest rise of all the shire counties. The £6 million that we are talking about amounts to less than 0.03 per cent. of the public sector borrowing requirement, and a mere 0.008 per cent. of total local authority spending. It is salutary to note that as a percentage of total public spending, the figure amounts to 0.000023 per cent.—approximately one fifth of a millionth of total public spending. Another point in Labour's manifesto—which swept the Government to power with such a large majority—concerned the need to get rid of crude universal council tax capping and to retain only measures needed to prevent excessive council tax rises. I would agree that Oxfordshire is extreme—it is extreme in that it is the lowest spender per head of all county councils. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt), who is in the Chamber, is a former leader of the Labour group on Oxfordshire county council. No one could describe him as an extremist. Labour's manifesto also said that the party was committed to a fair distribution of Government grants. Clearly that complex subject has been mastered only by a few distinguished intellectuals with patience and insight, and I include the Minister in that description. That is why the Liberal Democrat group on Oxfordshire county council has chosen a mathematics don to lead its arguments. That will take a lot of time to review, and I urge the Government to listen in the meantime to the views of the local Labour party and the people of Oxfordshire as expressed at the ballot box. Oxfordshire has been through a lot. The revenue support grant and capping levels have led to more than £51 million of cuts in the past six years, and the capped budget itself followed a decision to cut funding and services needed in Oxfordshire by £12 million—mainly, I am afraid, from social services. That cut is not the action of an irresponsible or extreme, high-spending council. The council has used all its reserves and balances, as the Government would request. The standard spending assessment takes no account of rurality or of the sparsity of population which, in Oxfordshire, is the worst in the south-east in financial terms—although it is the best for those of us who live there. I stress also that the cap is particularly rigorous in the case of Oxfordshire because it is only 1.3 per cent. above the SSA. It is a fierce cap, as the average for shire counties is 2.4 per cent. I conclude by quoting the present Minister of State, Departments of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for North-West Durham, who, in the debate last year, referred to the exasperation at the cap imposed on Oxfordshire following a cap that had been imposed the previous year. She said:She added that the then Secretary of State for the Environment had learnt nothing from the previous year. All we are now asking is that Labour Members do not forget what they said—and, I think, believed—last year."Once again, I have found that the words used one year are not followed up in succeeding years".—[Official Report, 22 May 1996; Vol. 278, c. 355.]
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I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) on winning the ballot for this debate in which he spoke for our county of Oxfordshire, and I thank him for inviting me to take part briefly in it. I am pleased that he recognises the consistent support that I have given to the county's efforts to spend on locally provided services what local people judge to be both prudent and necessary.
In replying to the debate, the Minister will doubtless tell us that Oxfordshire has to prove that it is different. That is what his civil servants will advise him to say, just as it was their advice to his predecessors. This brief debate is not the occasion for that demonstration, which will have to come when he meets representatives of the county and local Members of Parliament in due course. I want to make two political points. First, I recognise that the Labour party won the general election in part because it responded to people's quite reasonable resentment at what had become an over-centralised system of Treasury control of local government and its services—particularly education. Everywhere in Oxfordshire and throughout the country, Labour candidates campaigned on the basis that centralised local authority expenditure capping would be abolished and replaced by an efficiency audit to ensure that money raised locally was being properly spent. The Audit Commission studies show that Oxfordshire is undoubtedly one of the more efficient counties, and the message that our constituents want to be allowed to spend more of their money on local services has come over loud and clear in Oxfordshire. During the general election campaign, the Labour party tapped into a widespread sense of grievance about those matters. I trust that those of my constituents who succumbed to its blandishments will not find that they have voted simply to exchange grievance for disappointment. I had hoped that the matter might have been settled in favour of the county before the election. To that end, I took part in various conversations and private meetings with Conservative Ministers, before the shutters came down when the election was announced. It was always my clear impression that Ministers at the time were sympathetic to Oxfordshire's case. The House, the new Government and the Minister might like to know that I am authorised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), the former Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration, to say that it was his intention, after hearing Oxfordshire's detailed case, to recommend to his colleagues in the previous Government that Oxfordshire be permitted to levy a council tax at a rate above the capping limit. I hope that in his reply the Minister will be able to speak at least as fairly as that.11.45 pm
I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) on his good fortune in securing this debate and on articulating in a forthright way the concerns of his local county council and his constituents. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) on her brief intervention expressing similar concerns. We have heard, too, a short but useful contribution from the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson), who spoke in the equivalent debate a year ago, although I note that he voted in favour of the cap on that occasion.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recall that that was on the basis that the Government were allowing Oxfordshire to make some supplementary borrowing—not an increase in the cap, but some additional borrowing.
As the hon. Gentleman has acknowledged, the Government did not adjust the cap, and he voted in favour of that cap. Clearly, he has had a further think in the meantime and is advocating a different course. He has told us that the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), said that he would have taken a different view this year. That may be; it is interesting how people can change their point of view after the event, and not least after an election defeat. We as a Government, however, must consider the position that we have inherited, and that is not an easy position.
I want to make some general points about the new relationship between central and local government, to which the Government are committed. The Government have a new agenda for Britain's future, and a vision for local government's place in that future. We want to reinvigorate local government, in ways that encourage increased democracy, with local people having the chance of more of a say in the affairs of their council. We want local government to have increased autonomy, with more freedom for authorities to take their own decisions; increased accountability, with elected representatives being more visibly accountable for their actions; and increased partnership between central and local government and between local authorities and people, businesses and groups in their area. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon alluded to a number of those aspirations and quoted from our election manifesto, to which we are committed. Within that framework, local authorities have important roles as both commissioners and deliverers of a wide range of local services. Authorities are responsible for assessing service needs for groups and individuals; for balancing priorities; for setting objectives; for procuring delivery and/or providing services directly; and for monitoring quality and standards, reviewing performance and acting on complaints. Those are all important tasks. We have been busy in the month since the general election. In the Queen's Speech, we announced a major programme of legislation for the first Session, including many Bills affecting local government, on the release of capital receipts, the establishment of a new strategic authority for London and the establishment of regional development agencies throughout England, as well as Bills on education and on crime and disorder and one setting up the welfare-to-work programme. Only this week we have signed the Council of Europe's charter of local self-government and set out our proposed approach on replacing compulsory competitive tendering with a duty on local authorities to secure best value. That pace will continue. We shall examine with local government the scope for pilot studies on a range of issues, such as best value, a new approach to regeneration, community planning and partnerships with other agencies, and democratic innovations. We shall also work on the scope of the new duty to promote economic, social and environmental well-being that we intend to place on local authorities, to strengthen their community leadership role and encourage innovation and local partnerships in the delivery of services and development and regeneration projects. That volume of local government business reflects the importance that we attach to local government. The local government agenda will keep us all very busy over the length of this Parliament and, I hope, beyond it, but we shall also make prompt progress. Our agenda is positive. Our Government want to be judged on our success in improving the quality of life for all people and on the extent to which we have made a difference. On local government funding, all public expenditure programmes have to be examined rigorously each year, and local government spending, which accounts for a quarter of all public expenditure, is no exception. Decisions on local government spending must take into account not only the pressures on local authorities, but the scope for greater efficiency and effectiveness in local authorities. We have, of course, inherited this year's local government spending plans, and have given a clear commitment to retain them. Although we are committed to reviewing the local government finance system in future years, for this year at least we must work within the current spending plans. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon mentioned standard spending assessments, as did the hon. Member for Wantage. SSAs are the basis for the distribution of revenue support grant. They are based on measures of spending need that apply to all local authorities, and are discussed with representatives of local government. The SSAs for 1997–98 have been announced. As with total local government spending plans, we have said that they will not be revisited and we do not propose to do so now. Having said that, we are committed to a fairer distribution of Government grant among authorities, and believe that there is scope for improvement in the arrangements in future years. My colleagues and I will look closely at the SSA system with that aim in mind. We shall listen to local government views on how SSAs might be improved, both for 1998–99 and in the longer term. If the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon feels that the SSA system does not treat Oxfordshire fairly, I should be happy to examine any proposals that he has for different methods of calculation or other appropriate changes. However, any system of this nature must be universal and any changes would need to apply to all local authorities equally. In making any changes, we will, of course, want to be sure that they will produce a sounder assessment of needs. I should welcome any specific proposals that he may have. The local government finance settlement for 1997–98 saw the total standard spending assessment for all local authorities increase by £1.1 billion or 2.5 per cent. on 1996–97. Oxfordshire county council's SSA increased by more than £8.7 million, or 2.7 per cent. That is above the average increase for counties, which was 2.1 per cent., and is well above the overall increase for English authorities of 1.5 per cent. Two important areas—one was mentioned tonight, and the other featured in a recent publication by Oxfordshire county council—are education and fire services. Oxfordshire's education SSA increased by the shire county average of 3.5 per cent., while the fire SSA went up by 6.4 per cent., compared with an average of only 5.5 per cent. The county also did well with a 4.4 per cent. increase in its highways maintenance SSA—while the shire county average showed a fall—and with a 3.9 per cent. increase in the other services SSA, compared with an average increase of only 2.1 per cent. Those figures do not suggest that Oxfordshire has suffered unfairly in relation to other counties in this year's SSA; quite the contrary, if anything.rose—
I have only five minutes in which to complete my reply. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that in a time-limited debate, I cannot give way. If he wishes to make observations, I should be happy to accept them in writing. RSG distribution for the 1997–98 settlement is a closed matter, following approval of the local government finance settlement by the House in February, and it will not be reopened. We must look to the future and build a successful partnership, with local government playing its part.
With regard to capping, we gave clear signals that while we proposed to replace in due course the crude capping system that currently operated, that would have to wait for future years. We said that in the meantime we proposed to follow the intentions of the previous Government for 1997–98—a financial year which, as everyone knows, began almost a month before the general election that returned the Labour Government. All authorities, including Oxfordshire county council, knew that when setting their budgets. Only three out of the 436 authorities in the country set budgets significantly over their provisional capping limits. Our decision to designate those authorities demonstrates that we are taking our commitments on spending seriously. Indeed, we have also made it clear that under our plans for replacing the current capping system in future years, we shall retain reserve powers to deal with exceptional cases where unreasonable budgets are set. The hon. Gentleman also alluded to that. So this year all three authorities will be required to reduce their budgets unless they can convince us that they should not. Under the capping legislation, capping principles apply to classes of authority, and we can consider an individual authority's circumstances only if it budgets over cap. Oxfordshire was permitted to increase its budget by 2.2 per cent., which was the average permitted increase for shire counties. Certainly on the basis of the information that we have seen so far, there is nothing to suggest that Oxfordshire is in a tougher position than other counties that have budgeted within cap. Our proposed cap would still allow the county to increase its budget by £7.35 million compared with 1996–97. We consider that to be reasonable and achievable. Decisions on priorities in services is a matter for the authority itself. It is not for me to suggest that the authority should make reductions, or where those reductions might be made if the cap is confirmed. Local authorities would understandably object if we sought to dictate exactly how each pound was spent. At this stage in the capping process, authorities can accept the caps that we have proposed. When that happens, the cap limit is then set by notice and the authority can immediately set a revised lower budget and recalculate its council tax. Sending out new bills will obviously impose an extra administrative burden, and that expense will have to be met from within the authority's revised budget. However, that is a direct result of the authority's decision to breach the provisional cap, and all authorities are aware of the implications of doing so. When a county council is required to recalculate its council tax, the burden of rebilling will fall on the district councils in the area. However, those billing authorities can recover the costs from the county. In terms of the effect on services, it will be for the authority itself to decide spending priorities within the resources available to it. Should Oxfordshire wish to challenge its cap—from what the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon said, I suspect that we shall receive representations from the authority and hon. Members who have connections with the county—it has 28 days from the date of designation, that is, until 18 June, to propose an alternative amount, together with its reasons for doing so. As well as submitting its written case, the authority will have an opportunity to meet me or one of my colleagues to put its case directly to us. We shall be open to such representations and we shall consider them carefully, as we shall the points that have been made in tonight's debate. We shall then consider all the relevant points before reaching our decision. Final caps will be set out in—The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at two minutes to Twelve midnight.