reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address, as follows:

I have to inform the House, on behalf of the Prime Minister that the Address of Thursday 23 June 1983

"praying Her Majesty that she will be most graciously pleased to confer some signal mark of her Royal Favour upon the right hon. Thomas George Thomas for his eminent services during the period in which he presided with such distinguished ability and dignity in the Chair of this House"

has been presented to Her Majesty, and Her Majesty has been pleased to receive the same very graciously and has commanded me to acquaint this House that Her Majesty is desirous, in compliance with the request of her faithful Commons, to confer on the right hon. Thomas George Thomas some signal mark of her Royal Favour.

I have to acquaint the House that I have received from the Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea a unanimous resolution of that Assembly, together with a plaque engraved with the resolution. I shall direct that the text of the resolution be printed in the Votes and Proceedings and the Journal.

It is only right that there should be this opportunity early in the new Session for the House to debate issues affecting our capital city, and I am delighted in particular that new London Members on both sides will have this chance to express their views so soon on a wide range of subjects which vitally affect their constituents' interests.

At the risk of reopening old wounds, I would point out that with 56 seats this is the highest ever total of Greater London seats held by the Conservative party. Indeed, we won nine more seats than in 1970, although London now contains 18 fewer constituencies.

It would be invidious of me to single out any of the achievements of my many hon. Friends who were returned at the last election, many with substantial swings, but I wish to mention three in particular. According to my calculations, which are not infallible, the largest swing to win a seat took place in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks and I compliment him on a result which gave us great satisfaction.

Secondly, I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) for successfully seeing off a well publicised Liberal challenge. Unlace the rest of the country, both the Liberal party and the SDP lost seats in London and have only two representatives left.

Thirdly, I also compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), my parliamentary neighbour, on his decision to stay and fight a much more difficult seat than the one he won in 1979 and for being returned with a handsome majority. I was delighted to play a small part in his victory by giving large numbers of my supporters leave of absence to cross the river Brent and conduct commando raids on vulnerable parts of Ealing, North.

In a spirit of magnanimity which I think will not be repeated, I take this opportunity to welcome new Opposition Members. On many issues London Members of Parliament unite, usually against the Government, to fight for what they believe to be right for London, and I have no doubt that hon. Members on both sides will campaign vigorously for what they believe to be right for the capital.

The message from Londoners on 9 June was quite clear. The Labour party lost seats, the SDP lost seats and the Liberals lost a seat. Only the Conservative party emerged with gains, and no amount of statistical juggling and special pleading can alter that basic fact.

We last had a general debate on London in April 1981, shortly before the GLC elections in May of that year. Since then London has had to put up with two years of the Livingstone regime. Weighty issues such as nuclear disarmament, the problems of Northern Ireland and female circumcision have been discussed at length at County hall. These are issues which need serious consideration in the proper quarter but they are not the sort of problems that most Londoners elected their local government representatives to wrestle with.

Our money has been invested in such projects as Babies against the Bomb, the English Collective of Prostitutes, the London Gay Teenage Group and the provision of creches for the ladies of Greenham common.

The GLC has spent £500,000 to finance the Londoner, a Left-wing newspaper which the Labour party should have the decency to fund itself. The mayor of Moscow and the IRA have been invited to the capital while our own Labour GLC members pointedly refused to attend the royal wedding.

For some time there have been good practical reasons for abolishing the GLC — my right hon. Friend mentioned them in his speech on the Address on Thursday—but the antics of Ken Livingstone and his colleagues have ensured that a strong intellectual case now commands widespread support. If there was one clinching argument on the doorstep three weeks ago which persuaded many of the doubtfuls to come into the Conservative camp, it was our commitment to abolish the GLC. When Mr. Livingstone and his colleagues argue that they are defending Londoners in resisting abolition, I fear that few Londoners will believe them. The Labour GLC members are defending their own interests and the interests of those who have become dependent over the past two years on the GLC's largesse. Few others will mourn its passing and the majority will greet it with relief. For the past two years London has had not so much a county hall as a music hall. We shall rid London of this extravagant and irrelevant bureaucracy.

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and with the indulgence of the House—

Uriah strikes again.

—I wish to bring before the House the way in which the GLC is causing the standard of London life to deteriorate. It made a grant of £8,000 to the Marriage Guidance Council for 1981–82 but refused to make a grant for the following year and has so far refused to make a grant for the current year. It is putting systematic pressure upon the council to broaden its interests and to embrace, for example, lesbians and gays, and it is only on that basis that it is considering whether to make a grant. It is this sort of thing that is enraging Londoners.

Order. Long interventions delay the debate and keep other Members out of it.

I agree that the Marriage Guidance Council is a much worthier recipient of public funds than some of the other projects that are funded by the GLC.

I shall refer to three or four subjects of concern to Londoners. In doing so I shall be conscious that I am omitting many others. That is not because they are not important but because I do not want to abuse the House by speaking for too long. I begin with the all-important issue of the economy, which is crucial to London and the entire country.

There is no doubt that London's economy is responding to modern-day requirements. For example, the computer and related software industries have doubled their employment. Significant successes have been achieved by London firms and these are often ignored by the prophets of doom. For example, Ford announced in May that its Dagenham plant will supply all its United Kingdom and continental plants with the company's own diesel car engines. STC Ltd. of Greenwich has won a £100 million contract for subcontract work on Plessey Ptarmigan battlefield communications systems.

There are countless reports of London firms gaining major orders, often against stiff international competition, and undertaking significant investment to maintain and expand their London operations. The only effective way to tackle the general decline of manufacturing in London, as elsewhere in the United Kingdom, is to create a favourable economic climate in which industry can prosper and flourish. Our policies are designed to achieve this, and all the signs, including the CBI report this week, show that the policies are working.

The outlook for the construction industry, so vital to our economy in London, is looking considerably brighter. In part, this recovery has been helped by some major contracts in the public sector. For example, the contract for the fourth terminal at Heathrow is worth about £150 million. In the last year alone, contracts have been let for various sections of the M25 worth a total of £126 million. Our plans will help the recovery to continue. The latest public expenditure White Paper provided for a 10 per cent. overall increase, compared with estimated outturn last year, in public capital expenditure on new construction work in 1983–84.

I move on to our policies for the inner city and the help that London receives under the urban programme to rebuild its economy and to make the inner city a more attractive place in which to live and work. The total allocation for 1983–84 to London's partnership and programme authorities — Brent, Tower Hamlets and Wandsworth were three of the eight new programme authorities designated earlier this year— is about £53 million, with a further £19 million allocated to designated districts and through the traditional urban programme. That represents a substantial commitment of resources at the highest level ever. We made it clear in our manifesto that we should continue to give priority to the areas most in need and to encourage greater opportunity for all who live in our inner cities.

The hon. Gentleman has said that £53 million is to be provided under the urban programme for a variety of local authorities. He claimed that there has been an additional resource provided for inner city authorities. Is he aware that Brent has lost £35 million by the Government's withdrawal of rate support grant? The losses of all the other authorities amount to more in terms of public expenditure resource than the moneys that have been gained by the urban programme.

We have expected all local authorities to seek economies in their overall budgets. The right hon. Gentleman should show some gratitude because, unlike the previous Labour Government of which he was a member, we have given Brent programme status. That was a decision that he refused to take when he was a Minister at the Department of the Environment.

One prime example of our commitment is the London docklands development corporation, which the House decided to set up two years ago today. The LDDC has been allocated £40 million and any hon. Member who visits the Isle of Dogs or Beckton and sees the activity in site preparation, road construction, factory building and house building will appreciate that the corporation has made rapid progress in securing the regeneration of docklands, a job which the GLC and the London boroughs signally failed to tackle.

In the Isle of Dogs enterprise zone, for example, over 100 acres have been released on to the market for industrial and commercial users. A further 35 acres have recently been bought for preparation for new industry. New factory space of 250,000 sq ft is being built on 13 acres and 55 firms are providing over 200 jobs in existing corporation-owned buildings and the Cannon workshops development. Many more jobs are on the way.

Does the Minister agree that most of the infrastructure, including roads, drainage, planning, the development of new print works and the Billingsgate market development, were introduced by the joint committee of the London boroughs and the GLC before the introduction of the LDDC, and that much of what is on the ground is due to its planning? The boroughs and the GLC worked together and the fruits are now being seen.

It would have been remarkable if the local authorities had done nothing in that area over the past 20 years. At least there has been some progress. The LDDC has been a useful catalyst. As I have said, substantial development and employment are on the way. I maintain that that is due to the LDDC's work. We would not have seen such progress if we had continued with the old arrangements.

The corporation has arranged and provided the land for the first large-scale housing development for sale in London docklands since the war. Private builders have developed a 22-acre site in Beckton for 601 houses and flats, 450 of which have been completed and sold. Work has started on sites released by the LDDC for over 1,000 further homes in Beckton and the Surrey docks area. The emphasis in these developments is on housing in the lower price ranges for first-time buyers. When I attended a ceremony last November marking the completion of Wimpey's Beckton development, I was delighted to see the extent to which tenants of local authority housing were among those buying the new houses. This initiative is changing the face of east London.

I am happy to make a further announcement today about development proposals for the Hays wharf site in dockland. The London docklands development corporation has put forward development proposals for the Hays wharf site stretching along the south bank of the Thames between London bridge and Tower bridge. The corporation has submitted the proposals to my Department for approval under section 148 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980.

My right hon. Friend has now considered the submission and the representations made to him following consultations with the appropriate local authorities. He has decided to approve the submitted proposals for development — subject to certain minor amendments. Letters giving advance notice of the intended decision are now with the LDDC and the local authorities most concerned.

Does the Minister accept that what is proposed is 2·25 million sq ft of office space, when after a public inquiry in 1981 the inspector recommended the approval of only 750,000 sq ft of office space? It is clear that in London there is already a considerable excess of office space that is used purely for speculative development and has no advantage for the local community. Will the Minister confirm that there is to be no public inquiry into the development of a key site in the centre of London with a historic interest, that the decision has been taken away from the local authority, and that there has been no proper consultation or public debate?

The letter that we are sending out sets out the formal decision in detail. It will be sent to the hon. Gentleman. It will deal with some of his points. There is a substantial office development, but we are using powers given to us by Parliament to proceed with a planning decision for that site. The decision is right for this reason. The Hays wharf site, which covers about 24 acres, has unfortunately fallen into decay in recent years as the traditional uses have declined and users departed, yet the site has enormous potential because of its location, so close to the City of London. With the decision that we have announced — although I accept that some may resist it — a first but important step has been taken towards ending years of uncertainty and opening the way for substantial early investment in redeveloping one of the capital's last major central sites.

The proposals, as they are implemented, will bring new life and many jobs to an area that had been allowed to run down for so long. There will also be a considerable gain for the environment. Conservation has a proper place alongside new building in the proposals. Valuable listed buildings that remain on the site are to be refurbished and brought back into productive use. The most important of these is Hays dock itself.

In building a strong economic future for docklands, we have no intention of forgetting our heritage. Docklands has had a rich and vivid history, and its past is still evident — often strikingly so — in architectural terms. That varied heritage has a considerable part to play in making docklands an attractive and interesting environment, as well as a thriving economic community.

To ensure that the architectural heritage of the area is fully taken into account in future redevelopment plans, my Department is today issuing a full set of revisions to the statutory lists of historic buildings for docklands. The revisions — 115 additions in the relevant areas of Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Newham—will provide the London docklands development corporation with a fully updated, comprehensive list for its area, and an essential planning guide for the future.

This is an important step forward. It demonstrates our commitment to the view that development and conservation are not mutually exclusive, and that together they provide a richer variety than either can do alone. The new list for docklands will help to ensure that the best of the past continues to make a distinctive contribution to the docklands scene.

The Government are also supporting the proposed provision, for which parliamentary powers are being sought, of a light railway system by the LDDC and the GLC costing £77 million to link the Isle of Dogs to the City of London to the west and the rail and underground network to the north. The scheme will have a major impact on the development potential of docklands.

The new housing and industry, together with the extensive site preparation and infrastructure works, and the light railway proposal, are creating a new confidence in docklands. There are signs that with that confidence the regeneration of docklands is starting to gain its own momentum, with the private sector leading the way.

Another new and exciting initiative in the Government's strategy to reverse urban deprivation and decline is the urban development grant. We have consistently stressed the need for the public and private sectors to work in partnership in our towns and cities. The UDG scheme builds on that philosophy. It gives local authorities an incentive—in the form of a 75 per cent. Exchequer grant—to bring forward with private sector partners new and imaginative ideas for urban development projects that would not otherwise go ahead. Some £60 million has been set aside for the scheme this year.

It is too early to measure the success of the UDG scheme in terms of factories completed or new jobs filled. But there is no mistaking the enthusiasm with which the introduction of UDG has been welcomed by local authorities and developers alike. The first results are very encouraging. Nationally, we have so far approved 83 projects representing total investment of £175 million. Of this, £141 million of additional private investment will be secured by just £34 million of public money. That is a leverage ratio of more than 4:1.

We have received from local authorities in London 68 bids for UDG. So far we have approved 17 applications, representing a total investment of £44 million. Nearly £37 million of that will come from the private sector. Therefore, for every pound of public money spent on UDG projects in London, we shall generate over £5 more of private investment.

We put no restrictions on the type or size of projects that might be submitted for UDG. That approach has been borne out by the diverse and imaginative projects that have come forward. For example, we have approved industrial projects, ranging from the £1·5 million scheme in Greenwich to provide accommodation for "bad-neighbour" businesses to the £310,000 scheme in Lewisham to build 18 small industrial units. We have approved commercial projects, such as the £3·7 million proposal in Wandsworth to assist the development of a new headquarters and distribution centre for a laundry company. We have approved shopping developments such as Brent's £8·5 million scheme to redevelop a rundown site to provide a major new shopping centre in Harlesden.

In Southwark we have approved a £4·6 million project to construct a supermarket, shops, banking premises and car parking in Camberwell. Schemes in Tower Hamlets and Lambeth are now going ahead.

Those examples demonstrate the flexibility of the UDG scheme and the potential it offers for stimulating economic regeneration and raising the sights and confidence of our declining towns and cities.

I refer now to ethnic issues under the urban programme. Over 40 per cent. of members of the ethnic minorities resident in England are to be found in Greater London. My Department's main way of tackling the particular difficulties faced by these groups and developing their potential is through the urban programme, and I am pleased to say that in London, as elsewhere, the level of funds going to worthwhile projects run by, or for, ethnic minorities is steadily increasing.

I pay tribute to an initiative launched this week by Capital Radio entitled "London Project". With the broad object of promoting better relationships in London, the programmes are giving practical help to all voluntary groups by offering advice on how to gain access to funding, particularly through the urban programme. It will also enable such groups to advertise their needs— for example, equipment, voluntary help, professional expertise and so on—in the hope that people listening will come forward to help.

I refer now to housing. Without doubt, one of the most successful and welcome policies pursued during the last Parliament was the right to buy, a policy we plan to build on and expand in this Parliament. Between October 1980 and May 1983, over 77,000 council tenants in Greater London applied to buy their homes under the right-to-buy provisions of the Housing Act 1980. I am pleased to say that some 27,000 have now completed the purchase of their homes and have joined the growing band of people who are now home owners. Although some boroughs have now achieved substantial success, we believe that others can still do far better than they are doing.

We therefore intend to pursue vigorously our policy of urging councils to achieve better progress when there seems to be delay, and to bring to their attention the nature of complaints against them—such as failure to justify high levels of service charges, delays in dealing with technical difficulties in the purchase of flats, problems with restrictive covenants and so on—so that action can be taken. Some Labour-controlled authorities have exercised all conceivable ingenuity to seek to deny tenants the right that Parliament sought to give them. Ministers in my Department will take up the cudgels on their behalf.

The Housing and Building Control Bill, which has recently been republished, will enable tenants whose landlord does not own the freehold of their homes, but who otherwise qualify under the existing right-to-buy rules, to have the right to buy a long lease of their homes. The Bill also provides for an increase in the maximum discount available under the right to buy, from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. for tenants of 30 or more years. We also propose to bring in provisions to give a tenant the right to repair defects in his own property.

The success of our right-to-buy policy contrasts vividly with the failure of some local authorities to make proper use of the dwellings that they own. In April last year there were over 34,000 council houses and flats lying empty; that is 4·1 per cent. of the total stock. These figures mask large variations between London boroughs—many have less than 2 per cent. of their stock vacant, but there are some London boroughs where the figure is 7 or even, in two cases, over 8 per cent.

Name them.

Most of them are Labour-controlled authorities. I think that Hackney, Southwark and Tower Hamlets are the worst offenders. Most worrying of all is the fact that 9,000 dwellings in London have been vacant for more than a year; nearly half the national—

Does the Minister not agree that there are more empty properties in the private sector than there are in the public sector in London?

Statistically, I am sure that that is absolutely true. The Government have no mandate for the private sector. Those who are answerable for the public sector, where public money has been invested in the housing stock, have the duty to make the best use of it. I hope that hon. Members will support the high priority that the Government now attach to bringing these long-term vacant dwellings back into use.

We have asked authorities, when making their submissions for the 1984–85 HIP allocations, to indicate their specific proposals, with expenditure bids, for bringing any vacant dwellings which have been empty for more than one year back into housing use, and we shall take particular account of these proposals in determining the allocations.

Does the Minister not agree that there would be much less private accommodation empty if the Labour party would withdraw its scandalous proposition to repeal retrospectively the shorthold tenancy provisions?

Indeed. The Opposition's policy towards the private rented sector does not encourage anybody to put property out to rent. If they would abandon their vindictive policy against the private landlord, they might find that the private rented sector came back to life.

The past year has seen a significant rise in housebuilding activity throughout the country. London and the south-east are leading the way in this upsurge. In 1982 there was an increase of well over 50 per cent. in the number of new starts in Greater London compared with the previous year. The figures for the public sector were up by more than 75 per cent. on 1981, whilst private sector starts were the highest for nine years. The first provisional figures for 1983 show the trend continuing.

Nor has this dramatic increase been at the expense of the repair and renovation of the existing stock. On the contrary, the legislative changes that we have made and the resources that we have provided have led to a considerable rise in the number of home improvement grants paid. In last year's Budget the rate of intermediate and repairs grants was increased to 90 per cent. and this higher rate will continue for all applications received up to March 1984. Local housing authorities were allowed to spend on grants without limit in 1982–83, while for this financial year authorities are assured of additional allocations if their expenditure on grants meets certain criteria. In London 13,000 home improvement grants were paid in 1982 compared with 9,500 in 1981; that represents a 37 per cent. increase.

These initiatives are especially important in London where there is such a high proportion of older housing and where the problems of disrepair are, as a consequence, more serious than in many other areas in the country. It comes as no surprise to me, therefore, that provisional figures for the first quarter of 1983 show that, in London, twice as many grants were paid as in the same period last year — a massive impact that demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that the investment of past generations is not allowed to go to waste.

The Government are fully conscious of the need to help those who have been hardest hit by the present high levels of unemployment, and there is a considerable range of special employment and training measures, such as the community programme, the community industry scheme, the young workers scheme, the job release scheme and the DHSS scheme for older workers. I am aware of the tragic effect that unemployment can have on young people who come on to the labour market for the first time, and the new youth training scheme has been designed specifically for them. Good progress is being made towards achieving the youth training scheme targets in London, and there are few problems in getting sufficient Government-sponsored places. Equally, there are likely to be more than enough places sponsored by employers, although there is still a risk of some mismatch between the types of places available and the needs of youngsters in London. The commission's large companies unit, which is arranging nationally based programmes with major companies, is doing a great deal of work to overcome this problem.

With two exceptions, local authorities in London all support the scheme, and have plans to become sponsors, but it is a pity that some local authorities and some sections of the trade union movement in London have seen fit to refuse their support and to criticise the scheme before it started. The very people who continually express the greatest concern for the plight of our young people seem to be determined to undermine the scheme for their own political motives. There is no advantage to anybody in sacrificing our young people for the sake of some trade union dogma.

I believe that the youth training scheme in London will be a success, and that the scheme will remedy he lack of basic work skills and training which many young Londoners suffer from. It will provide school leavers with a full year of work-related training, both on and off the job, which will give then the basic skills needed to compete in the labour market as well as a firm base on which to build up the sort of skills our modern industry needs.

A substantial number of major health service improvements are either on the way or planned throughout the Greater London area. They reflect our awareness of the need for increased provision of primary health care and services for the mentally ill, the handicapped and the elderly.

Our strategy of concentrating the acute services in London on a reduced overall number of hospitals, based on the major centres of teaching, has enabled us to release resources to redistribute to the underfunded parts of the Thames regions, and also to reinvest within London, to bring about necessary improvements to services for the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped and the elderly. For example, many parts of London still rely on the old, large mental illness and mental handicap hospitals located in the surrounding counties. Local services need to be developed where none exists, and this development is now under way.

Will the Minister give way?

I wish to complete my speech.

The Government believe that, as the nation's capital and largest city, London's need for a significant share of transport resources is indisputable. Priority is currently being given to completion of the M25, which will bring big benefits to London. Another £800 million or so will be spent on trunk roads in London during the next 10 years.

In public transport, the Government will be contributing about £66 million to the docklands light rail project, which I mentioned a moment ago, and about £14 million to the Heathrow terminal 4 extension of the Piccadilly line; both have been designated as projects of regional and national importance. Almost 30 per cent. of PSO grant to British Rail—about £300 million—goes to the London and south-east sector. The 1983–84 transport supplementary grant settlement gave £200 million in grant to the GLC to assist it in the discharge of its transport responsibilities—an increase of 11 per cent. over the previous year and nearly 45 per cent. of the total national grant.

Substantial progress has been made in providing adequate resources for the transport needs of London. What has been lacking is the means to ensure that proper use is made of these resources. It is now clear that the organisation of transport in London is fundamentally flawed. The Select Committee on Transport, in its report last July "Transport in London" which was based on many months of taking detailed evidence, firmly recommended that responsibility should now be transferred away from the GLC.

Since the then Labour Government passed control to the GLC in 1969, London Transport has been buffeted by violent swings of political direction from county hall.

What about Bromley?

This has made the task of those responsible for planning and managing London Transport almost impossible. That is why the Government are committed to establishing a London regional transport authority.

The new arrangements will provide continuity of policy in planning London's public transport. They will also secure a system that offers much better value for money and that seriously tackles the integration of London's commuter railways and other modes of public transport. Our objective is to secure a better deal for the traveller.

I wish to remind the Minister that I was the only London Member of Parliament who sat on that Select Committee which brought about an excellent and intelligent report for London. Will the Minister confirm, however, that the Committee did not recommend the abolition of the GLC? We gave it a prime role in the new structure that is necessary for a capital city which receives massive support from the Government. When the Minister was a member of the GLC he never played much of a role in that sphere.

The hon. Gentleman put his name to a report which stated:

"In the light of the general objectives set out above we have concluded that a new body needs to be created which would seek to achieve the better co-ordination of transport decision-making in the London area. We therefore recommend the creation of a new Metropolitan Transport Authority."

That is exactly what I said.

Our debate today takes place three weeks after Londoners returned more Conservative Members than ever before. They did so because they believe that our policies were the most realistic and relevant for the capital.

Our commitment to streamline the administration of London, to curb the extravagance of a few London boroughs, to promote home ownership and to renovate our housing stock, to involve the private sector in the regeneration of the inner city, to improve both public and private transport in London and to tackle the problems facing the school leaver—all these strike a chord with the average Londoner, and that is why we secured their support. We owe it to the capital, and indeed to the country, to bring our policies to fruition.

I fear that the only item in the Minister's long speech with which I can agree is his welcome for this debate on London today. I was born in Chelsea. I do not remember much about that, but I believe that the property has since been removed as slum. The family moved to Kilburn. That property, too, has disappeared. The family was then rehoused in an LCC overspill estate in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson). When I married I moved to what is now the London borough of Havering, and I represent a constituency in Newham, next door to the area in which I went to school and in which many of my relatives lived. I also know Hammersmith and Fulham, so I am well acquainted with the city that I love, and I agree with the comment attributed to Dr. Johnson that

"when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life."

Nevertheless, superficial and misleading impressions are given of London in the country at large. Many people believe that the south-east, especially London, is an area of great prosperity, as parts of it are. People see the areas around Buckingham palace, Piccadilly, the west end and even Westminster, but there is another side to our city. Travelling to my constituency in the east end, one cannot help but be hit between the eyes by the contrast. Having passed through the City, a centre of enormous wealth and power, once past Aldgate Pump one sees cheek by jowl with that opulence some of the poorest, most disgusting and squalid housing in the country—derelict buildings and damp, dilapidated houses where families try to bring up children in a bare existence, of poverty and loveless privation. Tonight hundreds of people will sleep rough in our city and unemployment in the inner city areas is running at 30 per cent., 40 per cent. and sometimes even 50 per cent., with all the humiliation, degradation and vandalism that that brings.

The bitterness and frustration engendered by those inner city discontents boiled over riotously and frighteningly in the summer of 1981. One has only to look southwards across Chelsea bridge to see conditions similar to those that I have described. If the people there cross the bridge, they come to Sloane square and Kensington where they see in the shops a vast cornucopia of the good things of life. There is a great division in London and the causes and roots of the discontent that caused the riots remain untreated. Indeed, they are getting worse. The deprivation and racial disadvantage are increasing and the contrast between the deprivation of some areas and the opulence of others is a scandal and a disgrace to civilised society.

In the borough of Tower Hamlets, for example, there are 36 miles of corrugated iron. Britain is becoming more divided under the Tories, and so is London. In the areas represented by Labour Members, youngsters come from crummy housing, often tower blocks, they go to schools in which they underachieve and when they leave they are faced at best with intermittent unskilled work or, more likely, permanent unemployment. Not for them are the good things that they see flaunted in the television advertisements and the colour supplements. That is the evil that is pulling our society apart.

The Minister spoke of London's economy. I remind him that under the Government's regime unemployment in London has increased by 300 per cent. In May 1979, it was 122,900. It is now about 380,000. Unemployment has trebled. I hope that the Government will take some responsibility for that.

A letter from Jack Hart, MBE, leader of Newham council, who has devoted a lifetime to distinguished service in local government, states:

"The 1981 Census showed only one other Council in England and Wales with a higher percentage of dwellings lacking basic amenities. In all, 4 per cent. of public tenants, 13 per cent. of owner-occupiers and 50 per cent. of private tenants lack or share a bath and inside WC. This means"

—in our borough—

"11,000 households.

A massive 26,000 dwellings in the Borough are unsatisfactory in some way or other—either lacking amenities or unfit or in need of major repair. Again, the problems an. concentrated in the private sector. Three-quarters of all privately rented dwellings fall into this category."

He continues:

"One particularly worrying aspect of the problem … is that such a high proportion of elderly people are affected by poor housing conditions. As many as 4 in 10 single pensioner households (i.e. 7,000 old people) lack the basic amenities of a bath or inside W.C.…

Currently the waiting list stands at 5,300 and approximately 300 a month are joining the list. A further 134 homeless households sought the Council's help each month between April, 1982 and March, 1983. 4,500 of the Council's own tenants are registered as needing a transfer of accommodation to somewhere more suitable.

Because of the recent cutbacks in the amount the Government will allow the Council to spend on its housing programme, the number of new houses available for letting in 1982–83 was the lowest since the inception of Newham in 1965—one-sixth of the number ten years ago when well over 600 new homes were completed."

As the hon. Gentleman is reading out propaganda from the leader of Newham council, will he tell us whether the council leader also commented on the number of empty council properties currently available in Newham and what measures the council had taken to ensure that private landlords especially took up improvement grants?

I shall come to that. A parliamentary answer given to me by the Minister himself shows that the problem exists primarily in the private sector, not in the public sector. A league table produced by the Department of the Environment comparing local authorities in England under various heads shows that, out of 377 local authorities in England, Newham has the second highest percentage of households without their own bath or inside WC, the fourth highest percentage of overcrowed households and the 20th highest percentage of single parent households. It also shows that only Tower Hamlets has a level of social deprivation almost as high as that of Newham. Councillor Hart is explaining to me that the council has been doing its best—

How many empty properties are there?

If the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) would have the courtesy and common sense to listen, he might learn something. I am attempting to explain what the Labour council in Newham did during this period.

Having referred to the 1971 census, Mr. Hart goes on:

"Since then the Council has demolished 7,000 old substandard dwellings and built 7,500 new—and helped owners and landlords by giving over 6,000 improvement grants … London is becoming increasingly depressed by the interference with the freedom of locally elected councillors and now we have a threat to the GLC".

He told me:

"If this Government interference with local government continues it will become impossible to get men and women of calibre willing to serve on local authorities."

I listened with interest to what the hon. Gentleman said about housing spending in Tower Hamlets and Newham. Can he say why, after nine months of the last financial year, Tower Hamlets had spent only 34 per cent. and Newham only 32 per cent. of their housing investment programmes?

The first reason is that the HIP comes very late in the year. The second is that it comes for only one year at a time and does not give a council the opportunity to plan properly.

I remind the Minister of his reply to me on 24 January, when he said that about 23,000 dwellings in Newham were substandard, that in the private sector about 44 per cent. of the dwellings in Newham were substandard, and that this compared with the national average of 9·4 per cent. It is in the private sector primarily that this problem exists.

Looking at London's housing in general, we see that there are 239,000 families on waiting lists, 500,000 families awaiting transfer, 130,000 householders and their families living in overcrowded conditions, 200,000 families sharing accommodation, many of them involuntarily, 250,000 homes which are unfit, and 500,000 homes in serious disrepair.

Since 1979 this Government have cut the money available for public sector housing spending by 50 per cent. On their own figures, in 1985–86 they plan to spend 3 per cent. of public expenditure on housing, whereas in the 1970s the proportion was 10 per cent. A decade ago we were devoting 10 per cent. of public expenditure to housing. The Government propose to bring that down to 3 per cent. Is it surprising that there has been a collapse in public sector building?

In 1976 there were 24,000 new council starts in London. By 1982 that figure had gone down to only 5,500. That also has an effect on council house rents in London. In April 1979 the average council house rent was £7·93. In April 1983, after four years of Conservative Government, that had gone up to £16·81. Council house rents were increased by 112 per cent. The general price increase in that period was 52 per cent.

The Conservative Government are penalising and punishing council house tenants. The Minister spoke about underspending. I wonder whether he remembers the complete moratorium on all building which his Government introduced in the autumn of 1980?

I remind the House of the pledge in 1979 to revive the privately rented sector. A Government supporter told the House that this was to be done by introducing new forms of tenancy. Two that were mentioned were the shorthold tenancy and the assured tenancy. The Government cannot blame their failure on the Opposition, because they have an assured period in office, but I ask the Minister how many of these tenancies have materialised. If he does not know, I can tell him. In the first year there were only 377 shortholds, and there were just seven assured tenancies. We see what an appalling and abysmal flop the whole idea was, because those figures have to be set against the 193,000 privately rented homes considered to be in very poor condition.

With London's manifold problems in mind, the previous Labour Government directed resources into it, in common with the other metropolitan areas. The present Government have done the opposite. They have taken money away, robbing London to aid the shires. They appear to be motivated by a malign vendetta against London. With all the deprivations in London, it is criminally wrong to switch resources from the capital.

My researches show that over the past three years London local authorities have suffered a cumulative loss of grant of some £1 billion. It is for that that London has to thank the Government. It is an appalling record, and it is a sign of how much London has suffered from the Tory Government.

An important omission from the Minister's speech was any reference to law and order. He did not say a word about it, and I can understand why. In 1979 the Tories went to the country on a blatant law and order ticket. They have not been able to deliver. According to the report of Sir Kenneth Newman, the gross expenditure on the Metropolitan police last year was £734 million, of which Londoners paid £323 million in rates.

Like a number of other hon. Members, I have been obliged to move into different office accommodation, and in the recent past I have been clearing out my desk and throwing away or filing in the waste paper basket all sorts of valuable documents. I came across one which I decided at the last moment to save. It is a report from County hall, which I thought might be of some interest. It bears a picture of a radiant Prime Minister, and she is accompanied by a cheeky chappie resembling the late Max Miller. I discovered from the legend beneath the photograph that it was someone named Sir Horace Cutler. The House may remember him.

In the section dealing with law and order, I read:

"Uniquely in the country London's police are not the responsibility of the county authority … the Marshall report made reference to more involvement of the elected authority in the running of London's police."

The idea that the Greater London council should have some say in running the police is not new. It is not an idea of Left-wing extremists. It originated in the Marshall report and it was put to us by Sir Horace Cutler in the period between 1977 to 1979.

It is completely anomalous and quite unacceptable that the Metropolitan police should be responsible to just one man, the Home Secretary and, ostensibly through him, to Parliament. We all know that that is largely a fiction and that it must be reformed. The police should not be defensive or suspicious or resistant to reform. Page 3 of the Commissioner's report reads:

"The main debate centres on the issue of police accountability."

It is quite wrong that the police service is the only one in which discussion is thought by some people to be taboo. It is wrong for the police service to assume that any proposals for change are motivated only to undermine it. Each generation has to work out anew how to achieve a proper balance between law enforcement and the consent of the community. We should not fear this vigorous discussion which is now taking place. It is a necessary and healthy part of our democracy.

In 1979 the Conservative party said a lot about law and order, but it has not said a word about it today. The Government have failed hopelessly. There has been a huge increase in crime and there have been fewer convictions. I believe that the situation will get worse, because the Government are creating conditions that breed criminals and crime by creating extra millions of unemployed people and heaping up more deprivation and poverty.

During the debate on the Queen's Speech on 23 June I intervened in the Home Secretary's speech and said:

"The Home Secretary said recently that he intended to develop a strategy to fight crime. Would he anticipate that at the end of his period of office the crime rate would be lower than it is now?"

The Home Secretary replied:

"I said that I intended to develop a strategy for crime prevention, which is a quite specific aspect of the duties of the Home Secretary. It would be unwise for any Home Secretary to give the sort of undertaking or promise that the hon. Gentleman suggests."—[Official Report, 23 June 1983; Vol. 44, c. 184.]

Therefore, the Home Secretary does not claim that the crime rate will be less after he has implemented his new strategy or at the end of his period of office. The Government are creating the conditions that breed crime and it is the police who have the unenviable task of picking up the pieces. When we study conditions in London, we can see that the police will have an increasingly difficult job.

Crime statistics should always be treated with great caution. They are often misleading, but they provide some guide. We know that it costs much more to maintain each policeman in London than in Manchester, Merseyside or elsewhere. We also know from the Commissioner's report of 1982 that the clear-up rate in London dropped to 16 per cent. Although the figures must be treated with caution, they give an interesting comparison. For the same period, the clear-up rate in Manchester was 41 per cent., in Merseyside it was 34 per cent., the average for Metropolitan areas was 39 per cent. and the average for the shires was 45 per cent.

The hon. Gentleman must know that the method of recording crime in the Metropolitan police area is different from the way in which it is recorded elsewhere in England and Wales so no comparison can possibly be drawn between the clear-up rate in London and other great provincial cities.

I hope that next time we get crime figures, especially when they are broken down on the basis of colour, we shall remember what the hon. Gentleman said.

Is my hon. Friend aware that only 13 per cent. of the 158,000 burglaries in London were cleared up and that only 7 per cent. of the 220,000 thefts in London were cleared up? Does he agree that that is what the people of London are worried about?

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I prefaced what I said by saying that crime statistics must be treated with great caution. They are always misleading, for some of the reasons that the hon. Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler) mentioned, but they are a guide. What else do we have to go on?

The Commissioner's report informs us that recorded auto crime increased by 14 per cent. last year, burglaries by 9 per cent. and recorded robbery by 11 per cent. Therefore, under the Conservatives, crime increased and detection and conviction decreased lost year. The hon. Member for Westminster, North cannot pretend that all is well and that we can be satisfied. I am confident that we shall have to return to this issue.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the increase in crime is what the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym), who was sacked by the Prime Minister, meant when he referred to the high cost of youth unemployment?

I am sure that that is right.

I come to the GLC. The GLC was set up by the Conservatives after careful thought and consultation. That is in sharp contrast to the rush at the moment, which is based on what I can only describe as preconceived, doctrinaire, dogmatic, prejudices and rash arbitrary decisions. The London Government Act 1963 had its genesis in a White Paper, several ministerial statements, a Royal Commission that sat for three years and invited evidence from more than 400 bodies and several parliamentary debates. That is how the Conservative party set up the GLC. Now we simply get a bare announcement that it is to be abolished. In 1962 the Minister of Housing and Local Government, and Minister for Welsh Affairs, now the Secretary of State for Education and Science, said:

"In a masterly Report of clarity, humanity and vision, the Commission set out its reasons for its unanimous conclusion".

He said that the Act gave effect to the report's general policy and that one of the main conclusions was the creation of an overall authority to meet needs which, by their nature, are the needs of Greater London as a whole.

"But there is no single local authority responsible for overall planning of the Metropolis. There is no single local authority responsible for the traffic management of the Metropolis or for measuring and coping with the need to build houses and provide work outside for those who for lack of land cannot be decently housed inside. No one existing authority has any responsibility for considering the needs of Greater London as a whole. Yet Greater London is, in a very real sense, a single city … The Bill adopts the Royal Commission's recommendations that these great strategic tasks of planning, traffic, roads, overspill housing and all the other needs affecting the whole of Greater London should be made the responsibility of a directly elected Greater London Council."

The Conservative manifesto makes great play of what are called "joint boards".

Quangos.

Yes, but boards are mentioned. The Royal Commission considered them.

The Minister said that the solution of setting up ad hoc authorities for various possibilities was rejected. Another suggestion was

"the creation of some sort of joint board. The Government agree with the Royal Commission in rejecting this."

This is not a new idea, but an old idea that was rejected by the Royal Commission and the Government. The Minister continued:

"The Government believe, and they have the full authority of the Commission for believing, that London government is at the crossroads. If we cannot find ways within the local government system of coping with the overall London problems … responsible local self-government in the capital will wither." —[Official Report, 10 December 1962: Vol. 669, c. 52–66.]

The Government do not intend to allow it to wither now. The proposal before us is that we should cut its throat. They wish deliberately to destroy it.

The then Minister for Health, the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), said:

"The principle of the Bill recognises the two undeniable facts about London as it is today. First, that the continuous built up area, inhabited by 8 million people, calls for a single administration of the strategic and planning services … This Bill offers to the Metropolis the renewal of civic life in modern terms. To large parts of Greater London it offers for the first time the opportunity of government which is at once really local and really responsible."

He ended by saying:

"I ask the House not to deny these benefits to the capital city of the Empire."—[Official Report, 11 December 1962; Vol. 669, c. 338.]

On that note, the Conservative party, including the present Prime Minister, marched into the Lobby and voted to set up the GLC. That is how the Government of the day made and rested their case. But why this volte face? Except for a few cheap gibes at the beginning, we have seen no documentary evidence to make out their case. In 1962 there was much talk about gerrymandering, and the Conservative Government believed that the people who lived in the London county council area voted Labour incorrigibly. They believed that if they could expand the area they might bring in some Tory boroughs, which would be more to their liking. However, one cannot rely on those who live in the GLC area to vote Conservative, and because the electors have the temerity from time to time to vote Labour the Government's malice and hatred are being turned on the GLC. The implication is that local democracy is valid only if the Conservatives win.

Another reason why the Government might be unhappy about the present administration of the GLC, which, as the hon. Gentleman said, they created, is that it is a minority administration. With a different electoral system we might have a representative GLC.

In 1985 there will be an opportunity for local democracy to work, and there might be a different majority. To abolish lawfully elected authorities simply because they pursue policies which the Prime Minister does not like suggests that she is determined to eliminate any body of opinion that does not agree with her dictum that she knows best. It would savage Londoners' democratic rights and it would mean that unaccountable quangos would run London's services. It is a sop to the backwoodsmen who wish to do something about rates. But Government taxes have increased much more than rates, and the proposed abolition is simply for party political reasons. It will leave London as the only capital city in the world without its own voice. The GLC is democratically elected and gives Londoners a vote on London matters, and its abolition would eliminate accountability.

As my hon. Friends have said, we shall have instead a plethora of joint boards, ad hoc committees and appointed quangos, which will be a negation of democracy. It will be costly, and an invitation to inefficiency and confusion. London needs an extension of democracy in the Health Service, and water and sewerage services, rather than an end to it.

Perhaps when the Minister replies to the debate he can tell us what the proposals will cost, because Conservative experience of reorganisation must tell them that it does not save money. It will not bring cash benefits, because the services administered by the GLC must still be paid for. What will happen to the loan debts of the GLC? Who will take over the housing debt, which at present is £240 million? Are there any guarantees for the staff of the GLC? Will they be made redundant? Will there be golden handshakes? I hope that the Minister will give us clear answers before the end of the debate, because we are entitled to know.

I deal next with transport. Two million vehicles enter and leave the capital every day, and the transport density in London is 50 times the national average. The value of a strategic planning authority dealing with bus lanes, parking charges, fares, parking controls, and the role of road and rail is obvious. The GLC's Fares Fair policy of 4 October 1981 was a huge success. During the brief period of its operation, bus journeys increased by 13 per cent. and underground journeys by 7 per cent. There was a 6 per cent. decrease in car travel in the congested areas.

That trend was reversed by the unfortunate decision of the Law Lords, as a result of which there was a 16 per cent. reduction in bus journeys, a 13 per cent. reduction in underground journeys, 6 per cent. more cars came into the centre of the city and there were 20 per cent. more motor cycle journeys. The fare increases especially hit 16 to 24-year-olds, the retired, and 45 to 64-year-olds, and it is estimated that they caused an extra 3,700 road casualties. Fares have now come down again. But what do the Government propose? They propose another huge quango with powers as yet undefined. That could reverse the cheaper fares policy and lead to poorer services, with Londoners having no say in the matter.

Education in London was last debated on 4 February 1981, when the then Secretary of State for Education and Science said:

"The weight of educational opinion, including the voluntary bodies and the churches, is that the problems of inner London call for a single authority of adequate size and with adequate resources to administer its schools as well as further and higher education, and the careers service; and that responsibility for the schools should not be separated from the rest of education. The Government share that view."

He went on to talk about money, which is what it is all about, and said:

"The Government's public expenditure plans require local authority current expenditure on education in England to go down by about 7 per cent. in real terms between 1978–79 and 1981–82." — [Official Report, 4 February 1981; Vol. 998, c. 296.]

As locally elected representatives are unwilling to accept the dicta of central Government, the Government propose to do something about it and to dictate policy from the centre.

The then Minister of Education, who later became Lord Boyle, said:

"The Inner London Education Authority will decide how much money it needs and how much of this money should be raised by loan; and the Greater London Council will then precept for it on the inner London boroughs. In effect, therefore, the whole control of the education service in inner London is placed in the hands of the Inner London Education Authority, for all practical purposes exactly as it is entrusted elsewhere to a county or county borough council."—[Official Report, 11 December 1962; Vol. 669, c. 244.]

That was the policy of the then Minister of Education, and that is what the policy should be.

I remind the Government that parents fought on a previous occasion to save ILEA. The Government seem to have realised that they cannot abolish the substance of ILEA. Therefore, they want to neuter it by interfering with its powers over money. The parents in London will fight again.

London has suffered badly from this Tory Government. Now that they have won an election, the Tories are about to launch a further offensive on London. I serve notice, on behalf of the Labour party, that we shall fight them with all the means at our disposal.

rose—

Order. I think the House well knows that, as a London Member, I take a great interest in the debate. No fewer than 22 right hon. and hon. Members have indicated their wish to take part, and seven of them are new Members of Parliament. I propose to give preference to those hon. Members who have not yet spoken. I ask all hon. Members who are called to speak briefly, so that as many as possible—if not all those who wish to take part in the debate—may be called.

May I say to the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), whom I propose to call next, that if he has not finished his speech at 11 am I shall have to ask him to sit down for the statement.

I thank you sincerely, Mr. Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech in this historic place, and I thank the Minister for his kind remarks.

Richmond and Barnes is a new, enlarged constituency, containing the well-known communities of Barnes in the north-east, Mortlake, Palewell, East Sheen, Kew, Richmond, Petersham, Ham in the south and St. Margaret's and east Twickenham, north of the Thames. It is now the only London constituency which spans that great river, and a greater utilisation of it, coupled with the preservation of its beauty, will be one of my regular pleas in this House.

I pay tribute to my predecessor as the hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey, Sir Anthony Royle. He served his constituency for nearly 25 years and was also Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 1970 to 1974. His wisdom and guidance over the last two years were instrumental in my being here. Many things are said by many people—perhaps occasionally with a political axe to grind—but I must set the record straight concerning that gentleman.

During the last two years I have met literally hundreds of people to whom Sir Anthony had given help and they would willingly walk to the end of the earth for him. If people called on him and he believed they were genuinely in need, he would unstintingly seek a satisfactory solution, but, unlike certain cynical politicians, Sir Anthony would never parade his constituents' problems through the press. That, for him, would have been a breach of privacy and honour.

There were, of course, thousands of people who never needed to seek out Sir Anthony for help and therefore had no evidence of his care and concern, but there are nearly 100 new Conservative Members of this House who would vouch for his labours, because for the last four years he has been the vice-chairman of the Conservative party, with responsibility for candidates. During that time he has radically changed the selection and training system.

Perhaps only time will tell whether the new intake will be of particularly good vintage, but I believe that it will be, and that, far from some of the more spectacular and lurid speculations made by less well-researched journalists—and, indeed, the Opposition—the new Members, in my experience, are almost exclusively men and women of compassion, loyalty and dedication, possessing simple common sense and energy. That is Sir Anthony's doing.

I must also pay tribute, on behalf of those in east Twickenham and St. Margaret's, to their previous Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel). That he should lose, through redistribution, his east Twickenham ward, and the constituents for whom he cared for 13 years, was a great distress to him. His record as one of the very best constituency Members for exposing and fighting those matters that affect the peace and environment of those who are his responsibility is, quite literally, an inspiration to me. I hope that we may, as brother Members for the same borough, work together for the mutual benefit of the nearly 200,000 people whom we represent. I have much to learn from him, and I offer him my deep gratitude for his willingness to help me.

Tributes are deemed to be traditional, but I hope that I shall be permitted to pay a less conventional compliment. My opponents in the general election were men of the highest integrity and a credit to their respective parties. Their attitude throughout the last few months and years, their co-operation on matters of community interest, and their willingness to work with me rather than against, have constructively caused local wrongs to be put right wherever possible. Co-operation between political rivals — unfortunately by no means commonplace — can produce a combined weight against which it is hard to resist.

On the Richmond Royal hospital, on London Transport's bus policy, on Windham road nursery school, on aircraft noise and on Richmond's traffic blight, we have fought our battles together. That has meant that the campaign in Richmond was, if anything, more healing than divisive. It also helps that whoever won the battle could feel that he had the support of the whole community, not merely the party of his preference.

We candidates had many differences in political and social policies, some of them diametrically opposed, but it is pointless in politics to strike a pose, purely to propose some separate dogma, when co-operation can achieve so much. I hope that all my constituents will know that I am open and willing to hear their problems, as I intend to serve their constituency in the way that I believe it deserves.

We are fortunate in Richmond and Barnes that, in addition to being one of the most historic parts of London and Surrey, we have 21 miles of river frontage, 743 acres of urban parks and open spaces and, indeed, the highest number of conservation areas in London. That is in addition to the Royal parks and Kew gardens. The greatest pleasure to be derived from those enormous benefits is in quiet enjoyment of the facilities offered, but quiet enjoyment is what we sadly lack.

While it is a beautiful area in many ways, the immediate impression of Richmond and Barnes is scarred by the inordinate and constant noise from road traffic and from the air. The blight to the area caused by the south circular road, the constant landing of aircraft at Heathrow, flying directly down the line of the upper Richmond road west, and the ever-increasing helicopter noise, causes conversation in the street to be rendered impossible for more than a few moments at a time. A casual meeting of neighbours in Sheen or Palewell is more often accompanied by nods and waves than by words.

In my 10 years of political experience, I have met my various opponents on many platforms and experienced a wide range of opinions and views, often vociferously put, but since coming to Richmond I have never known an issue to unite people of different political persuasions so closely as that of aircraft and traffic noise. On Saturday 5 March 1983, the threat of a possible fifth terminal at Heathrow caused all three political parties to unite in a march to show our strength of feeling. I am not one to take to the streets with banners raised at every opportunity—and, indeed, believe that little good usually comes from such protest—but I was moved in that instance to give my active support, and that of my wife and family, to demonstrate that political barriers had been dropped and that the community as a whole was moved to join together. The suppport of those along the route was indeed heartening, and those who listened to our speeches later in the centre of Richmond gave us evidence that our complaint was shared by people who would not normally have been moved to protest. Incidentally, during our march of three miles, my younger son counted 32 aeroplanes of varying sizes flying directly overhead. That made the decision to take to the streets that much more rational. Hardly any of the Conservatives in our contingent had ever joined such an event before.

Quite apart from the countless letters that my predecessor Sir Anthony Royle received over the years on the subject, already in nearly two years I have had over 200 letters complaining about aircraft noise, and that must be the tip of the iceberg. Wherever I go in my constituency, whenever I speak to constituents, aircraft noise is second only to traffic noise and volume as a reason for complaint. That we are used to it, as British Airways seems to believe, I refute. We might accept our experience as being unavoidable, but we shall never become used to it and will always pray for its reduction. With summer here, during a hot and airless night it is impossible for almost half my constituents to open their windows, because 15 to 25 aeroplanes destroy the peace which we believe to be ours by right when trying to sleep.

It being Eleven o'clock, MR. SPEAKER interrupted the proceedings, pursuant to Standing Order No. 5 (Friday sittings).

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I did not raise this point of order with you before the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) spoke because I did not wish to discomfit him when he was about to address the House for the first time. Nor, I hope, will the Minister be nervous or put off.

I ask you to rule, Mr. Speaker, on the intervention by the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway). I am referring not to its rambling and diffuse nature but to its extreme length. In view of your request to the House that speeches should be brief, are you prepared to say that the hon. Gentleman crossed the line between an intervention and a speech and that should he rise to catch your eye later today he should be allowed to speak only with the leave of the House?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I did tell the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) that his intervention was somewhat longer than one would normally expect. I think that he has taken the message.

I am not sure whether there is a precedent for a statement to be made from the Dispatch Box in the middle of a maiden speech and I begin by apologising to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) and saying how much I enjoyed listening to him and how much I am looking forward to continuing to listen to him as early as possible.

Together with the Minister of State, Scottish Office, and my hon. Friend the Minister of State in my Department, I represented the United Kingdom at the Council of Fisheries Ministers on 30 June. Discussion concentrated on herring quotas.

After a long and, at times, difficult discussion, nine member states were prepared to agree to arrangements for interim quotas for herring in the northern and central North sea, equivalent to two thirds of the total quotas proposed by the Commission for each member state for 1983, in order to permit fishing to continue until the next Council meeting. This would also have permitted the Council to agree to the Norwegians continuing to fish on a similar basis. Unfortunately, the Danish delegation were unable to agree and when the matter was put to the vote they invoked the Luxembourg compromise. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]

That meant that no agreement on member states' quotas was possible. In those circumstances a number of member states, including the United Kingdom, felt that they could not agree to the Norwegians' continuing to fish if the member states' fishermen were prevented from doing so.

Therefore, fishermen from Norway and those member states who have used up their "interim" quotas will have to stop fishing. United Kingdom fishermen have not yet used up their quotas, though they are likely to do so soon. If so, continued opportunities to fish herring are likely to be available off the west of Scotland and we shall be in touch with the industry shortly about the possible opening dates.

The next Council meeting is scheduled for 11 July but it may be brought forward.

I am grateful to the Minister for coming to the House to make a statement but he must understand that the industry will treat it with grave dismay, if not surprise. Can anything be done to bring the Danish Government into a more reasonable frame of mind or are we to see the common fisheries policy falling apart yet further?

How much of the United Kingdom's quota of herring is left to be fished in the northern and central North sea? What evidence does the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have of gross over-fishing of their quotas by the Dutch and Danish fishermen? Can the right hon. Gentleman satisfy the House that we have adequate policing powers to ensure that the ban on herring fishing is put into operation? Finally, will he consult the industry as a matter of great urgency, not ask it to be in touch shortly?

First, on what can be done to obtain a more helpful attitude from the Danish Government, it is likely, as I said in my statement, that we shall be having another meeting of the Council of Fisheries Ministers earlier than 11 July. We must meet and use our best endeavours to persuade the Danish Government to be more helpful over this important matter.

The hon. Gentleman asked how much longer United Kingdom fishermen can continue to fish for herring in the northern and central part of the North Sea. They have some quotas left and should be able to fish for a further day or two. As I said, the next Council meeting should be held soon and, if necessary, in the long run we shall be giving urgent consideration to opening the western herring fisheries, which will give them an alternative source of herring exclusive to us.

The hon. Gentleman asked about consultation with the industry. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scottish Office is today meeting the Scottish fishermen who are principally concerned in this matter. We shall be taking steps to inform the other fishing interests in our country as soon as possible.

Is the Minister aware that it is adding insult to injury that the agreement should be held up by the Danes, who lave been regarded by United Kingdom fishermen as the main culprits of over-fishing in the past? Is he also aware that there will be the greatest objection if the stocks on the west of Scotland are to be offered as a consolation prize? Fishermen in that area will be opposed to the suggestion that their herring stocks will have to bear the brunt of the failure to reach agreement.

The right hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood the position of the west of Scotland fishery. There is general agreement over this matter. The fishery is on the point of being opened in any case and that will happen in the normal course of events.

Before putting a question to the Minister, may I respectfully submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that we should reconsider whether, when a statement is made at 11 o'clock, it should be made immediately after the hon. Member addressing the House at that hour has resumed his seat?

Have we not received a practical lesson in the consequences of relinquishing control over our sovereign fishing waters? What is the point of a common fisheries policy if we can neither fix satisfactory quotas nor enforce them when they have been fixed?

I think that the right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the fundamental distinctions about the North sea herring fisheries. The difficulty is that, when we reached agreement about common fisheries policy on 25 January, it was not possible to deal with the North sea herring fisheries because they had been closed for about six years and were reopened for the first time only a few weeks ago. Therefore, it was impossible to get agreement over total allowable catches, so we are having a repeat of the difficulties that we had at the turn of the year over the herring fisheries.

We have problems—I hope that they are only short-term problems—in setting up enforcement arrangements and settling the outstanding herring quotas. I hope that they will be dealt with, but the CFP as a whole lays the ground for a fisheries policy for the next 20 years and I am optimistic about the prospects.

It was helpful that during the night in Brussels agreement was reached among nine member states—Denmark was the only exception. That gives us grounds for cautious optimism.

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, if he did not resist the Danish attitude and pressures in the robust way in which he is doing, it could lead to an increase in the price of fish in shops in London and elsewhere, which would be unwelcome to our housewives?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. We have been standing up for the interests of the British fishing industry because, by doing so, we can in the long run look after the interests of the British housewife.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the House is grateful to him for coming in person to make the statement and will he answer two questions? First, will the Dutch herring fleet be allowed to continue to overfish for herring? Secondly, did the Council discuss the urgent need to provide adequate monitoring at Community level of landings in member states?

There is evidence that, in the northern part of the North sea, certain countries have reached their quotas. If any such nation fishes in waters that come under British jurisdiction, we shall impose the law. As the hon. Gentleman probably knows, we have extremely efficient facilities for detecting and prosecuting those who come into British waters. The industry normally complains only about waters that are not controlled by this country.

There are moves to set up an inspectorate, as agreed in January this year. I understand that inspectors are already being recruited and I hope that they will be in post soon. The hon. Gentleman can take it from me that when individual states have achieved their quotas continued fishing by them will be illegal. If it continues, which I hope that it will not, the appropriate enforcement measures will be taken.

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that part of the problem is that the Danish fishing industry is partly dependent on industrial fishing? Does that play a part in the herring fisheries?

Although the right hon. Gentleman and the House may deplore the action taken by the Danish Government under the Luxembourg compromise, will the Minister assure us that the British Government will seek to keep that compromise alive, because they may need to use it in other circumstances?

Danish industrial fishing was dealt with in an acceptable manner in the January agreement on the CFP. During the night, the Danish Government invoked the Luxembourg compromise; we followed our traditional line of recognising the right of any member state to determine its vital national interest, and we therefore refused to take part in the vote.

As my right hon. Friend has said that the CFP represents the initial stage of a 20-year policy, will he clarify the position on enforcement, which has been mentioned by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and the hon. Members for City of Durham (Mr. Hughes) and for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud)? While enforcement by national authorities of net size and the infringement of coastal fishery zones is easy, how are quotas to be enforced if we do not have an effective Commission inspectorate? Surely the efficacy of the whole regime rests on that. Will we soon have EC inspectors on our shores to monitor quotas?

We have made extremely useful progress in the Fisheries Council on changing conservation arrangements by increasing net mesh sizes. I am confident that if they can be agreed it will be relatively easy to police them.

As I said earlier, I hope that it will not be long before the Commission's inspectorate is in operation. I have raised the issue in the past two weeks and I pressed the Commissioner this week to establish the inspectorate as urgently as possible. I hope that we shall shortly be told when the inspectors will be in post. I am not worried about having inspectors looking at our enforcement measures in the waters that we control, which are a large part of the Community fisheries. I am anxious that, as soon as possible, inspectors should be at work in other countries whose standards of enforcement do not compare with our own.

Is the Minister aware that the issues raised by his statement, for which we are grateful, are so grave that they cannot be dealt with adequately in a 10 or 12-minute question and answer session on the Floor of the House on a Friday morning? Is he further aware that the position in the Community is such that it threatens the whole fabric of the common fisheries policy, as well as the future livelihood of the United Kingdom herring fishery?

In those circumstances, I give notice on behalf of the Opposition that we shall seek to raise the matter, probably under Standing Order No. 10, at the earliest opportunity.

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. Of course, it is his right to raise the issue under Standing Orders if he wishes; that is not a matter for me.

As I said, I expect that we shall have another Fisheries Council meeting soon. There are grounds for cautious optimism that we can get agreement on many parts of the package that the Commission has proposed for consideration by the Council. There has been no fishing in the North sea herring fishery for the past six years and that is the issue on which we are doing the basic negotiation. It is taking a little time, but I hope that we shall have another Council meeting soon. I shall not be surprised if it is arranged for the middle of next week.

One slight problem is that the Presidency changed during the night. The German President moved out of the chair and the Greek President moved in. It will take a little time for the Greek Presidency to establish itself, but I think that the need for an early meeting of the Council to resolve this difficult matter as soon as possible is well understood.

Outside the House half-time is traditionally 15 minutes. In no way have I been discomfited. I am surprised at how quickly I have reached agreement with the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) — I did not expect it so soon in this Parliament. I thank the House also for the maiden interruption during my maiden speech. It will get me used to interruptions in the further contributions that I hope to make.

Night flights destroy the peace which we believe to be our basic right when we are trying to sleep. Night flights, however quiet the modern aircraft is claimed to be, are very destructive of the chance to rest, since, when removed from the clamour of day time, their effects are exaggerated, particularly for those who sleep lightly, such as the elderly.

I admit that modern aircraft design—apart from that of the otherwise beautiful aeroplane, Concorde — has reduced the level of aircraft noise from the absolutely unacceptable to the merely unbearable. However, I believe that design improvements have now gone as far as they can and I have no confidence that to double the number of passengers using Heathrow will leave the current level of aircraft movements as they are. Greater efficiency of aeroplane use is greatly to be desired, but it has not been achieved by any airline to its satisfaction in the past and it is unlikely to be more than a dream in the future.

While I pay tribute to the excellent safety record of the British Airports Authority, to double the number of people crossing central London each day must increase the probability of a dreadful accident. I am not being alarmist, merely recognising the fact that any accident when approaching Heathrow would be catastrophic. I have a duty to point out our fears. What matters to the people who live under the flight path is not how many passengers are in each plane, but the number of occasions on which planes fly overhead. If this increases—even the British Airports Authority believes that it will—the risk must increase proportionately.

Richmond and Barnes has an even greater problem—the worst traffic record in the Greater London area. The south circular road, which sounds as though it has some similarity to the more efficiently constructed north circular road, is not at all the same structure. It is famous for its inappropriateness and inability to cope with existing volumes of traffic. It has 36 zebra crossings, 144 bus stops to block the traffic, 30 miles of single-lane road and 330 side roads. In the heart of my constituency it even makes a 90 degree turn from the upper Richmond road west into Clifford avenue. It is plagued by the heaviest traffic in Greater London, with international freight lorries thundering past narrow domestic avenues. It is admitted to be a major scandal, but no Government nor any GLC administration has been prepared to find a satisfactory solution to the waste of man-time and damage to the environment that the system causes.

The blockage caused by such chaos leads normally law-abiding citizens to throw away all moral decency and consideration and to resort to that anti-social habit of rat running. "Rat running" is when a car driver, or, even worse, a lorry driver, departs from the main route and dashes down domestic side roads to gain some small time advantage. The only occupants of those roads at those times of day are likely to be children with their mothers, the elderly and even the blind, believing that they walk in peace. No amount of road blocks and clever local traffic schemes can answer this peril; only a reduction of traffic volume on the main roads.

The recent map by the British Road Federation Ltd. of roads under construction or in the planning stage shows that the south circular road is part of a vacuum of ideas for the improvement of London's roads. It is not that there are no improvements under construction—they are not even being considered. In order to divert more of its money to the London Underground and bus system, the GLC recently scrapped any alternatives, such as the west London relief road. The north circular road, a genuine bypass for heavy traffic, is controlled by the Department of Transport and is constantly being improved.

The M25 will have some effect—estimated at less than 25 per cent. when finally constructed—in reducing cross-Channel lorry densities. However, it will have no effect on passenger movements by car 'or those travelling to Heathrow and the north from south of the Thames area, which must inexorably pass through Sheen and Kew. All this is before the completion of the fourth terminal at Heathrow.

The south circular road and its inability to cope with current traffic levels deserves urgent action. I will ask for the GLC's road responsibilities to be removed and handed over to the Department of Transport, where funds are more often available in the national interest.

I approve of the measures introduced in the last Parliament for making heavy lorries safer, quieter, of a maximum size and, by having an extra axle, cause less damage to the environment. However, I cannot express strongly enough my belief that any measures which increase lorry size will be resisted strongly by the people of Richmond, as the roads were not built for lorries of even half their current allowed size. I shall continue to oppose such orders until the heavy international freight lorries are taken off our residential tree-lined avenues and a proper alternative scheme for south and west London is proposed, such as making better use of railway lines and resuscitating the west cross route. We believe that our community has already suffered enough at the hands of aircraft noise and traffic densities. Any increase in noise or road use volume would be intolerable.

The south circular road and the way in which it is unable to cope with current traffic levels deserves urgent action, and further development at Heathrow would only make its problems far worse. During the election campaign my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for the Environment, the present Secretary of State for Transport, visited me at my office on upper Richmond road west. He, like two other Cabinet Ministers and, indeed, the Prime Minister before him, were seriously delayed by the volume of traffic. He even ditched his car and walked to our meeting, one hour late. It has been Government policy not to support the prospect of future development at Heathrow. Perhaps the experience of the Secretary of State for Transport will help him to agree that two of London's greatest problems—the south circular road and the development of Heathrow—deserve urgent solution.

I should not like it to be thought that I shall be obsessed merely with these two difficult problems. I give notice that I shall strive to the best of my ability for pensioners and will call on the Government to give them the increases which they richly deserve through a healthier economy.

I shall work for good race relations, as I believe that had race relations are far more likely than nuclear warfare—thanks to our effective deterrent—to cause blood to flow in the streets of London in the foreseeable future. The constructive attitude of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police and the new sensitivity and understanding of our police force, to whom I cannot pay greater tribute, can help to produce good race relations and a reduction in our epidemic crime figures.

I shall work for a reduction in man's cruelty to animals; I shall strive for rating reform, and, above all, I shall work to improve the quality of life of those who live in Richmond and Barnes. I thank them for giving me the great honour of being here to serve them for as many years as they choose.

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), and to congratulate him on the manner in which he made his remarks. I agreed with much of the content of his speech. I even found enjoyable the quotes from his election manifesto, which he made towards the end of his speech. Whether I would phrase my remarks in the same way is another matter.

I have some knowledge of what he said about London, Heathrow and the south circular road. It occurs to me that the problems mentioned by the hon. Gentleman pinpoint the need for a more effective strategic approach to the difficulties of London and the south-east. It is doubtful whether these problems are better dealt with by a quick decision, without proper study or research, to destroy a large part of London government because of a commitment in an election manifesto.

A great deal needs to be done about London and the south-east. The Government are offering not a solution, but some kind of political reflection that has no basis in consideration. I find that ironic, to say the least, although it is now 20 years since a Conservative Government, following three years of study by the Herbert commission, introduced legislation to create the GLC, against constant opposition by the Labour party with which I did not agree either privately or publicly.

Now a Conservative Government containing a number of Members who were in the House at that time propose to abolish the GLC without any real study or research into the implications of what they propose. We in the Labour party stand united in opposition to its abolition and in defence of its retention. It is the irony of history—the turning of the wheel. I am among those on this side who have been consistent; I supported the concept of the GLC then and I support it today. The Conservatives supported it then but are opposed to it today. The Labour party was opposed to it then but now supports it.

I wish to make it clear that when the London Government Act 1963 was going through Parliament—I was not then a Member; I was active in my local authority, which was then a Middlesex borough just outside the inner London area—I took the view, as I still do, that radical major changes were required at national and local level in the way that we ran our affairs in London.

We need more radical effort and public enterprise—I use the term broadly—in London. There is urgent need for major internal reorganisation in Government Departments, in County hall and among some of the London boroughs to tackle the more pressing problems—social, economic and environmental—from which we suffer, particularly in the inner London area. For the past 20 years there has been inadequate effort in those respects under successive Governments.

The case for establishing the GLC was set out fully and clearly in the report of the Herbert commission. I wonder how many Conservatives have looked at that report and read the debates that took place in Parliament in the 1960s before committing themselves to the abolition of the GLC. For example, that report clearly pointed to the need for more effective organisation at all levels to tackle the problems of planning, development, traffic management, highways, transport, intelligence services and the application of intelligence and research.

At that time a careful study was made of transferring those functions to central Government; of establishing consultative machinery to deal with all issues affecting London; and of having joint and ad hoc boards to deal with different functions. The commission rejected them all and argued the case accordingly. It did not simply say, "We reject them all." It set out the case fully, unlike the Conservatives today who simply propose abolition. In the event, having examined all the possibilities, the commission decided on the creation of an elected Greater London council.

One can argue at length, and with justification, that local government in London should be more effective. Equally, one can argue that under successive Administrations, city problems have not been dealt with effectively enough by Government Departments. But that is not an argument for the abolition for the GLC. One might argue—it was mentioned in the Herbert report all those years ago and it has been discussed since—that we should extend the boundaries to the GLC to make it a more regional authority. Indeed, by their transport proposals, the Government are implying that. There is logic for that argument in respect of planning matters, intelligence, the problems of London airport and the problems raised by the M25.

Such arguments are worth pursuing now, as they were then. The fact that we did something 20 years ago does not mean that it must go on for ever. Nor is that an argument for abolishing the GLC. Instead, we should examine the way in which it has been operating, the way in which central Governmnt have been operating in relation to it and what those relationships should be in future to tackle the essential problems of London.

The GLC—or an enlarged authority, if that time ever comes, and there is a good case for it—should be more effective on matters such as land assembly and development. The GLC should integrate its departments more closely to tackle the problems of urban renewal. The Government should also be taking that type of action. That is an argument for improving, not abolishing, the operations of the GLC.

The right hon. Gentleman made a point which will be of interest to residents in outer London constituencies such as mine. He thinks it beneficial that a GLC with augmented powers should be able to assemble land for development. Is he aware that even the local authority of Hillingdon, when it was Socialist controlled, used compulsory purchase powers to assemble land for development? That was highly unpopular locally. To suggest that such powers should be used centrally by County hall must strike terror into the residents of many outer London constituencies.

In making his constituency or borough points, the hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that powers of compulsory purchase, to which I did not refer, exist already. They have existed for many years, so what I am suggesting is not new in that respect. Land assembly is by no means simply a question of compulsory purchase. Indeed, if only people would get rid of their obsession with shibboleths, they would recognise that about 90 per cent. of land and property bought by local authorities is obtained by voluntary negotiation. That always has been, and continues to be, the case. I am simply saying that a more effective policy should be adopted by the GLC—and by local authorities at other levels—to tackle certain key problems of urban renewal and strategic development.

Local government, the GLC and administrations elsewhere — though this morning we are talking essentially about County hall—have been moving in the opposite direction, and extremist policies have not been pursued. In respect of development, nobody can say that an over-radical policy has been pursued by the GLC. On the contrary, land is being disposed of and many properties which would be better held by the public sector, modernised and converted into decent flats, are being sold. I have in mind properties that are held by ILEA on sites that are now redundant because they are no longer required for schools. The policy has not been implemented as effectively as it should have been.

The case for abolishing the GLC has not been made. It is laughable to suggest that a few references to it in the Queen's Speech debate is an adequate basis for a major change in local government. Today the Minister chose to make a few flippant remarks about certain marginal matters concerning the GLC. He said nothing about the GLC's functions, its future and the role of local or county government. These are clearly serious matters.

The problem of urban renewal in London—socially and educationally as well as environmentally — is too serious to be treated in such a way. If we want to see it tackled more seriously, we should consider how the machinery of government can be used more effectively at County hall, with the support of Parliament and the Government, to achieve better housing provision, more land assembly, better road systems, more effective traffic management and much more co-ordination between traffic management and the operation of transport services. The Minister failed even to touch upon the need for such co-ordination.

I do not say that since the passing of London Transport to the GLC in 1969 we have seen a marvellous era of coordination between traffic managment schemes, road planning and the development and operation of transport services. It is my regret that that has not occurred. However, once the transport service was transferred to County hall, there was the opportunity—it still remains—to achieve organisational change within County hall and between County hall and London Transport. It was then possible to achieve effective co-ordination. However, we shall not achieve that co-ordination for the benefit of London's citizens by removing a huge chunk of the machinery—the responsibility of the GLC—and creating a separate agency. Still less is that achieved by abolishing the organisation that would be able, if it were so organised, to achieve the necessary co-ordination.

I plead with the Government and with Conservative Members to view more seriously the management of London. I am glad that the Queen's Speech referred merely to "proposals" for the abolition of the GLC and "proposals" for the abolition of the metropolitan counties. That will give us time to think more seriously about what should be done. In the previous Parliament better sense prevailed over the Government's rates pledge. May better sense prevail in respect of the GLC and the metropolitan counties.

The GLC should remain. We must examine seriously the problems to which I have referred. There must be more co-ordination inside Government and within County hall. There must be more co-operation and resources effectively applied by central Government, as well as by local government, to urban renewal, better traffic managment and services, more effective housing renewal and land assembly and more strategic action than we have seen so far to solve London's problems. This will not be achieved by creating a series of ad hoc boards, which have remained unspecified so far, or an overall board for London.

What would the boards, or board, do in place of the GLC? They, or it, would destroy elected responsibility. By making an overall board a creature of London, it would be even more difficult to achieve the social, economic and physical renewal of those areas that suffer the greatest deprivation in London. It would not achieve a renewal of London life and it would not reduce costs. All past evidence shows that such an approach increases costs. Dare I mention the reorganisation of the Health Service under a previous Tory Government?

Under the same Minister.

We all remember what had to happen a few years later. Let us turn our attention to the real problems. Let us get off the hook of the one or two sentences that were pushed into the Conservative party's manifesto at the last moment. Let us have a proper examination of what needs to be done in London and get on with the job of serving the people of London without any more political gimmicks.

Last Friday morning I opened my post, including an envelope similar to the ones that I think Members of all parties receive from the different Whips' Offices, that told me what the business would be for this week. Suddenly I realised that for the first time for more than eight years I genuinely did not know what the business would be. I noted that on Friday there was to be a debate on London. I thought, "That would have been my first Friday off for four years but I must be in my place for that debate."

Whips' luck!

One reason I am pleased to be participating in the debate is to compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) on a remarkable maiden speech. Those who have known my hon. Friend for some years as I have will not be surprised by his maiden speech. Some of us came to know him well during the Lambeth, Central by-election, which he fought so outstandingly a few years ago on behalf of the Conservative party. It is one of the odd quirks of fate of political life that John Tilley, who beat my hon. Friend and became the hon. Member for Lambeth, Central, lost his seat, having done good service for the Labour party, while my hon. Friend is here representing his new constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes rightly paid tribute to his predecessor, Sir Anthony Royle. I join him in paying a tribute to Sir Anthony. He was a most distinguised Member of the House. We should not forget the part that he played in establishing new relations with China. He was the first Minister to go to China in the Conservative Government led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). He paved the way for the good relations that we now have with that great country.

Although I was not in the higher echelons to which my hon. Friend referred, I had plenty of opportunity during the election campaign to visit his constituency and to savour the beauties of upper Richmond road west as I moved on shop by shop for about three quarters of an hour. I warmly support his wish for road improvements. He rightly paid tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel), who has frequently reminded us over the years of the problem of aircraft noise in his constituency. No doubt we shall hear even more about it. We look forward to welcoming my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes to our debates on many occasions. I believe that his constituents will soon find that, in making him their Member in place of Sir Anthony, they made an extremely good choice.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State reminded us that we now have 56 Conservative Members in London, more than twice the number of Members of the other parties representing London put together. A reference was made during the election campaign to the possible size of a Conservative Government's majority in the new Parliament. As I was only the deputy Chief Whip, I was not a special person, so I can say that I welcome the size of our majority. I have in mind especialy my constituency and the borough of Enfield. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar), having won the seat from Labour in 1979, now has a five-figure majority. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Dr. Twinn) won his seat deservedly, in what had been a Labour stronghold for 50 or 100 years. I welcome him warmly to the House.

We like it when our party wins seats, but this involves losing friends, even on the Labour Benches. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton will remain in this place representing Edmonton for as long as he wishes to be a Member. However, I must regret the absence of a real friend, Ted Graham. He was a neighbour for many years. He did great service on behalf of the community. I suppose that as elections take place, some London constituencies will be misguided enough to continue to elect Labour Members. I should very much like to see Ted Graham return to represent a constituency other than Edmonton and to become a colleague again.

Ted Graham and I were Whips together, although in different parties, for some years. I remember a London debate in about 1977. It was rather like this debate. There came a time when we both realised that there was no possible chance for every Member to participate in the debate if speeches continued at the length which was then prevailing.

It is the same today.

Times do not change. We had one of those conversations that do not take place and we decided to restrict our colleagues to 10 minutes each. That is easier said than done. We received an enthusiastic response. Members said, "Oh yes, I shall certainly speak for 10 minutes." Having spoken for 22 minutes, one hon. Member said, "I was one minute long, wasn't I?" Ted and I did everything possible. We wrote on a card, "Sit down". Every time one of our colleagues completed his 10 minutes, we sat in front of him with the card, so he could do little else than sit down. At the end of the debate every hon. Member who wished to speak had taken part in it.

Ted Graham succeeded me as the Friday Whip. I was pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman's sincere tribute to Ted. I regret that the hon. Gentleman is now no longer a Whip because when he and I were both Whips we were able to keep our Members quieter than they are these days.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He did me a good turn a few months ago when he spoke for a whole hour. It was just what I wanted.

I should like to pay one other tribute to a former colleague, who left the Labour party, so was not entirely popular with it. Ron Brown served it well over many years and took a leading part in our London debates. I was sorry to see him go.

The right hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Freeson) understandably referred to our commitment to do away with the Greater London council. I strongly support that. Some of my colleagues think that I have been in the House for many years, but it is only a few and I was not here when the Conservative Government decided to set up the GLC. The decision seemed right at the time—the right hon. Gentleman referred to the documents and so on—but that does not mean that one cannot make changes later in the light of experience. Experience has shown that the GLC is not the right way to run London's affairs. The change that we envisage is right. I am sure that many of my constituents who live in the postal area of Middlesex are glad to do so. Middlesex is a distinguished county, although in only one or two important ways now. I discovered during the election that Mike Gatting is one of my constituents. He spends a lot of time there now because Middlesex always wins its matches in two days.

Many of the responsibilities of the GLC have already been moved. Housing has largely gone to the boroughs and sewerage has gone to the Thames water authority. Ambulances have gone to the regional health authorities and there is a new plan for transport. The new system as envisaged will be very much to the benefit of London. It is right that there should be a great deal of consultation. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State made that clear in his speech and the Minister did so in the Queen's Speech debate. There will be many consultations during the coming months before the final decision is taken on how the changes should be made.

I strongly welcome the decision to set up the new transport authority. The present system is wrong. Party politics have played too big a part in what has happened. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!] Opposition Members may think that I am wrong, but the fact remains that my constituents were upset in many ways by the Fares Fair policy which Mr. Livingstone instituted. The pensioners had to pay extra rates until, fortunately, the policy was done away with, although they obtained no benefit from the reduced fares because they already had free transport. Many of my constituents living on the edge of the green belt found that the residential streets were being blocked by many commuters who parked their cars there and then took advantage of the reduced fares, yet were not even paying the increased rates. That is an example of the confusion that arose. It is right to make the change and set up a new authority—

Does the hon. Gentleman not detect a note of inconsistency on his own Benches? The hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) was worried about traffic congestion, yet the Conservatives are likely to make it worse by cutting down on much-needed transport and abolishing the GLC, putting an end to the possibility of having a fully integrated transport system that would link the tube and bus system with the rail system and cut down traffic congestion problems.

I shall not follow the hon. Lady on that course. She is wrong, and does not understand the problem, certainly not in my constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes referred to the M25, as others have. I am delighted that the Government are pressing ahead with that. He referred to the north circular as though it were the opposite to the south circular. I agree that it is better than the south circular, but it is not perfect. There is more widening to do. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I both have problems in our constituencies. I understand that the Government are going ahead with improvements to that road in my area. I look forward to that happening soon.

One of the real issues in the election and one of the reasons why my party did so well was the sale of council houses. There is no doubt that when there was a switch from Labour to Conservative it was particularly done by those who had bought their council houses and saw what it meant to own their own homes. One has only to drive round and see the new doors on the houses and so on to realise the effect that our policy has had. I urge particularly the Conservative London boroughs to press ahead as quickly as they can with extending that system.

It is right that we should debate London in the week when the report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has come out. I warmly pay tribute to the way in which Sir Kenneth Newman has carried out his work in the months since he took over. He is doing so in a quiet but firm way. Londoners will be grateful to him.

I welcome the meetings between the police and local communities in all parts of London. That is an important step forward. I hope that still more policemen will come back on the beat. About 400 more policemen have come back on the beat over the past two or three years. So far, that is mainly in central London, but I hope that before long it will be extended to outer London, including my own area.

In spite of my earlier remarks, I believe that it is right that we should debate London in the first full week of the new session. Our capital city is worthy of frequent discussion. At this time we have the maximum number of visitors in our midst. It is nice to think that, when they come to Westminster, they can see the lovely effect of the cleaning of the buildings, which is making such good progress.

This is my first speech in the House for four and a half years — and almost for eight years. I wonder what category I come into. This week there have been references to virgins and retreads. I do not think that I come into either of those categories. I turn instead to a description of my more distinguished namesake, and quote the words of Cleopatra:

"Give me to drink …

That I might sleep out this great gap of time

My Antony is away."

This Anthony is back, but he does not promise to be here every Friday.

I declare an interest in that I have the honour of representing Newham, North-West. I am an elected member of the GLC, which has been mentioned often in the debate. I have been an elected member for about 13 years. I still remain in the chair of the arts and recreation committee. Therefore, I can speak with feeling about the Tory party manifesto undertaking to abolish the GLC and the six metropolitan authorities. I am not prepared simply to defend the GLC because at the moment it is controlled by my party, nor am I prepared to defend the GLC in all that it does or does not do, because many improvements could be made. Of what institution could one not say that? My argument in defence of the GLC is democratic.

When we eventually see the White Paper, I hope that it will be somewhat longer than the two paragraphs in the Tory manifesto, and that it will put forward some real arguments as to why changes are required. I hope that the Opposition will then argue not for the abolition of the GLC but for a more extensive rationalisation of the powers that it should exercise on behalf of London. A great case can be made for a democratically elected and accountable authority to take over health, police powers and extended housing powers in London.

The Tory manifesto mentioned in two short paragraphs the abolition of the GLC. Hon. Members have been reminded that the GLC was set up by a Tory Government in 1964 following the Herbert report, which was a very extensive document. It is unacceptable that such thought and weight of debate and discussion which took place in the past should be set aside—set at naught—by two short paragraphs in the manifesto. The whole essence of the London Government Act 1963 and the setting up of the GLC was an attempt by the Tory Government of that day to do away with the London county council. That, arguably, was the most effective local authority that this country has ever seen. It had been Labour-controlled since 1934.

Since the Tories knew that they would never gain control of the LCC, they set about trying to dismantle it with the London Government Act 1963. Unfortunately for them, they were not able to get away with it as they wished. The intention was to drag into the GLC area certain parts of London, but those areas decided that they did not want to come into London. Therefore, the inbuilt Tory majority that they were aiming for did not occur. Since 1964, control of the GLC has fluctuated between the two major political parties. Conservative Members might dislike the policies of the Greater London council —although I cannot for the life of me see why—and they might even dislike the people who lead the council. However, the Government can be sure that in 1985 Londoners will have the opportunity to express their views. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]

If Londoners decide that they do not like what the GLC has done under the leadership of Ken Livingstone, they can remove the party in control of the GLC. That is the most important argument of all. Londoners are facing a proposal not just to abolish the GLC, but to abolish an element of democracy. The pledge in the Tory manifesto to abolish the GLC has been attacked not only by the Opposition or by my colleagues at County hall, but also by a large number of Conservatives, both in the House and at County hall. One of the most memorable party attacks was that made by Mr. Bernard Brook-Partridge, the present GLC member for Havering, a former chairman of the council and a noted Right-wing member of the Tory party. Mr. Brook-Partridge publicly described his party's commitment to the abolition of the GLC as

"fraudulent, ignorant and deeply insulting".

That statement was made by a well-respected member of the Conservative party. On this occasion, I do not wish to disagree with Mr. Brook-Partridge.

The Labour GLC has dared to oppose the Prime Minister; therefore, the council must go. A characteristic of the right hon. Lady seems to be that if she does not like something or someone, it has to go. A few Conservative Members have felt the force of that expression. It is a great pity that the right hon. Lady does not take a similar dislike to unemployment, poverty and homelessness. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] If she did, she alight do something about them, rather than exacerbating the position.

Local government, like public expenditure and the trade unions, has been made the subject of common abuse. I believe that the Government have been very skilful in their orchestrated propaganda campaigns, well aided and abetted by the Tory press, especially those extreme Right-wing newspapers, The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. Hardly a day goes by without virulent attacks on the GLC, the style and content of which would not have been out of place in Nazi Germany, in those newspapers. Leading County hall politicians—I especially refer to Ken Livingstone—are regularly subjected to vulgar abuse and character assassinations in those newspapers. Snooping journalists spy on GLC Labour members outside their homes, and those same journalists harass councillors' children, family and neighbours. That is the truth and the reality and something that hon. Members must be told about.

The Daily Mail has an editorial policy of "doing the dirt" on the GLC. That is a quote that I got from a Daily Mail journalist, a man whose caution will probably lead him to having a rather shortened employment record with that newspaper. I wish to illustrate this point with regard to those newspapers. The GLC has just taken receipt of an interim report by Mr. Andrew Arden on the affairs of the Strongbridge, Crouch Hall and Omnium housing associations. In that report, Mr. Arden named three Tory GLC members—Mr. Seaton, Mr. Mote and Mr. Black—against whom serious charges have been laid. Mr. Seaton has in fact now resigned. I have no personal acrimony or feelings against those three people. Mr. Arden, in his report, says:

"a group of individuals—at the centre of which was Mr. Mote, far more than Mr. Seaton, for the core of the Strongbridge committee were the Harrow builders and professionals—have so conducted their affairs as to create out of public funds a source of private income for themselves, an estate of flats with such defects that more than the original cost must now be expended to put them into proper condition, with correspondingly miserable living conditions for tenants, and a substantial debt to public funds.

In the course of this exercise, those responsible have brought into disrepute a movement into which many people voluntarily pour their energies for the improvement of others' living conditions. In the cases of the GLC councillors, they have cost their own authority substantial monies, on the part of the two of them following wilful abuse of their authority within that council. It seems to me that the features mentioned in this paragraph, coupled to the results mentioned in the last, speak for themselves and render idle any further analysis of why they represent a gross failure to strike the correct balance."

As I have quoted directly from the report, I shall make it freely available to those hon. Members who wish to read it. One would have thought that this was a matter of some public interest, as several newspapers have referred to it, but not a word has appeared in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express or The Sun. I suggest that if the politicians in this series of scandals had been from the Labour party, it would have been front page news. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] As Tory members were involved and that does not meet with the editorial policy of the Daily Mail, the Daily Express or The Sun, not a word appeared. This appalling double standard is an indictment of the journalists who work on those newspapers.

Frankly, if British democracy is really based on the right of semi-Fascist comics such as The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express to lie and distort, British democracy is shallowly based, very sick and unlikely to survive. Why has the Director of Public Prosecutions decided to take no action on this matter? I shall pursue that matter elsewhere in the House at a suitable opportunity. I am quite sure that if the politicians named in the report had been Mr. Livingstone, Mr. Scargill or Mr. Benn, not a moment's hesitation would have been wasted in prosecuting them.

Newham, North-West desperately needs the GLC as it suffers from appalling housing needs, a desperate shortage of jobs and many grave social problems. A borough such as Newham cannot possibly solve those problems by itself. It needs something such as the GLC to redistribute the wealth of London so that the poorer boroughs can attempt to solve their grave social problems. In the past three years, London local authorities have lost about £1,000 million in central Government grants.

It is often said that problems are not solved by throwing money at them, but they are certainly not solved by taking money away. Newham needs those resources. That is the only way in which we can begin to solve our problems. To do so, we need and must have the GLC. I hope that we shall be able to develop the argument in substance in the debate on the White Paper. So far, hon. Members who have said that they agree with the abolition of the GLC have given no decent reasons for doing so and have suggested nothing remotely acceptable to replace it.

If the GLC went, London would be the only capital city in the world without its own government. That must be unacceptable to all of us. If the Government intend to push ahead with their proposals for abolition, I promise the Prime Minister a real fight. I believe that the insertion of that proposal in the Tory manifesto was merely a diversion to draw attention away from the real social problems that the Government have clearly failed to meet.

Finally, I tell the House this. The GLC is not to be seen as some kind of south bank equivalent of the Belgrano, to be destroyed merely to satisfy the Prime Minister's power lust. We are made of much sterner stuff and we shall not prove so easy to sink.

This has been a memorable debate. Certainly the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) will linger long in the memories of many of us. We had heard of him before he came here as it was he, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Maples) reminds me, who abolished the champagne bar in the Royal Festival Hall. I hope that he will not follow that precedent if he ever joins the Refreshment Department or the Catering Sub-Committee of the Services Committee here.

The hon. Gentleman made a most interesting speech. He spoke authoritatively and from the heart and he made an impassioned defence of the local authority on which he sits. I am sure that the House was glad to hear him and it was right to listen attentively. I fear that his tone was somewhat embittered. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West also reminds me, Winston Churchill once described a maiden speech as not so much a maiden as a brazen hussy of a speech. The speech of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West did not go that far, but it was a somewhat embittered contribution — very different in tone from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley).

I have never gone so gladly to vote as I did on election day for my now hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes. We have been friends for a long time. Indeed, I do not think that I went with such a glad heart even when my wife and I used to go to vote for me at 7 o'clock in the morning in Bradford. My hon. Friend combines many admirable qualities—good humour, diligence and bigheartedness. He is a big man in every sense of the term. Those of us who fought beside him in the two memorable elections in Lambeth learned something of his quality. It is typical of him that he has spoken so generously of his predecessor, Sir Anthony Royle, who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Berry) reminded us, was one of the most effective Foreign Office Ministers ever known.

While we are naming names and mentioning people—not in the manner of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West, which I thought inappropriate—I mention also with great pride my other fellow constituent, my hon. Friend the new Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) who, as the Minister said, achieved an outstanding result in winning that seat for the Conservative party. I am sure that he will make a forthright, well-informed and admirable contribution to the House. I should mention, too, the man whom he defeated—Neville Sandelson, a man of originality and charm, alongside whom I was always pleased to serve. I am even more delighted, however, that we now have a Conservative Member for that constituency.

I wish to speak briefly on a subject of great importance to my constituents—London Transport. It is appropriate that the debate takes place today on the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of London Transport by Herbert Morrison. The Government are introducing legislation to reform the organisation of public transport in London which, to be candid, was never entirely satisfactory even in the early days from 1933 onwards.

London Transport was created as a public corporation and remained such until the Transport Act 1947 brought it under the umbrella of the British Transport Commission. That experiment did not work well and in 1962 the commission was abolished. Between 1962 and 1969 we had what I regard as the most effective system for the direction of London Transport, when it came directly under the Ministry of Transport. I believe that that is the right way to deal with the matter.

Since 1969, London Transport has been under the political direction of the GLC. The conflict between the political directions given by the GLC and the commercial imperatives to which the London Transport board has sought to work has always been an inherent and serious difficulty—never more so than last year, which was an election year for the London boroughs, when the GLC brought in its Fares Fair policy.

The fares policy is now much better and a more appropriate balance has been struck. I welcome the 25 per cent. reduction from 22 May. Before then, my constituents had to pay almost £1,000 for annual season tickets to the City. Taken from after-tax income, that is an appalling burden. For this reason, it is essential that transport should be run commercially, effectively and well. To do so, as the Select Committee made clear, it is important that transport in the south-east should be considered in its totality.

I am somewhat sceptical about the idea of a metropolitan transport authority. I fear that it may be yet another quango. I am very much open to persuasion about it. I believe that it would be best to appoint a very tough and effective London Transport board under resolute leadership and with the maximum autonomy, probably including British Rail's commuter services. The Department of Transport would then set financial guidelines for the enlarged London Transport, as for any other nationalised industry. I would hope that the London Transport board would, by means not of profit sharing but of rewarding performance, ensure high standards of service, good commercial operation and cost-effective services, the benefits of which would be shared by the employees of London Transport as much as by the people of London and south-east England as a whole.

Substantial subsidy would, of course, be needed. In my judgment, however, as London Transport is such a national asset—there is no undertaking of comparable size and scope in even the biggest capital cities elsewhere —subsidy should be from the national Exchequer rather than from the overburdened ratepayers of the metropolis. I say so especially because three quarters of rate income comes from business, which is overtaxed and overburdened, and London has been losing jobs.

For these reasons, I advocate a very simple relationship between the Department of Transport and London Transport. I do not think that a metropolitan transport authority is necessarily the best idea. I am glad that the Government are instituting radical proposals, but I trust that they will also make sure that there is a proper consultative process, with a White Paper being published before we move to legislation. That will be the right way forward. In this way the opinions of Londoners and other interested bodies and parties up and down the country can be represented. I hope that this Session of Parliament will see dramatic progress towards improving transport in London in this half-centenary year of London Transport.

I hope that the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) will forgive me if I refer back briefly to the speech of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Berry). I welcomed his gracious comments about our previous London colleagues, Ron Brown and Ted Graham. I have happy memories of serving on Committees and taking part in debates which the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate and Ted Graham jointly whipped. They were efficiently and effectively conducted, and I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman's part in that operation. I am sorry that he has been returned to the Back Benches somewhat precipitately, but there will be compensations for him and one is the opportunity to take part in London debates. Given his great interest in London matters, I am sure that he will seize those opportunities.

Like other hon. Members, I thought that the glaring omission from the Minister's speech about the abolition of the Greater London council was any mention of what was to be put in the place of the GLC. Like the right hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Freeson), I think that we are in a rather odd situation when the Conservative party, which created the GLC, is now hell-bent on destroying it and the Labour party, which opposed its introduction, is now apparently fighting to the last ditch to retain it. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had remained consistent all the way through as being in favour of the GLC. I have been equally consistent, but, on the other side, never persuaded that there was a case for that sort of two-tier government in Greater London.

I have always believed that the best sort of local government is the one-tier all-purpose authority. It may not be possible in all cases, but there is a tremendous amount to be said for it. In London we ought to be aiming at a one-tier local government system with a movement towards an elected regional system bringing under democratic control the tier of regional government already existing. One of the problems of the GLC has been that as powers have gone back to the boroughs in my view, rightly—there has not been a proper role left for the GLC. It has been neither a genuine piece of local government nor an effective piece of regional government.

The question will be what sort of machinery the Government propose, especially to pick up those problems which are wider than the existing GLC area. The problems of strategic planning, of transport and so on which do not stop at the GLC boundary will need some effective answer. We shall watch with interest and care the Government's proposals in that regard.

The difficulty for any London Member coming to this debate is the multiplicity of topics from which to choose. There is the desperately serious problem of unemployment in London, especially in inner London. There is the serious and growing problem of housing. There is the difficulty of transport. The latter is an appealing subject for a south-east London Member who represents the forgotten corner of the city. It is especially appealing to me since my constituency is threatened by the destruction of the east London river crossing.

Despite those competing attractions, I want briefly to concentrate on one or two bread-and-butter issues affecting my constituents and typical of the problems faced by Londoners. The first is the National Health Service. In recent years London has suffered from the so-called RAWP formula — the Resource Allocation Working Party. It is an approach aimed at equalising standards of Health Service provision in all parts of the country.

The problem in inner London is that we have been RAWP-ed twice. The Greater London regional health authorities have their allocations reduced because they cover London. When they allocate that reduced allocation, usually they reduce what is available for inner London and concentrate resources on the well-known deprived areas such as Hastings and Tunbridge Wells. We now face, not just a standstill in health care provision in Greater London, but real cuts. Ten inner London health authorities face cuts in the current year in real terms of more than £1 million. Currently, 25 hospitals face closure. In London there is a £27 million cut in Health Service investment.

It is argued sometimes that falling populations make reductions of that kind acceptable. I do not take that view. Inner London, especially, suffers from a growing elderly population, and we know that there is a growing demand for health care. All of us who have had the sad experience of trying to explain to constituents why they cannot get an elderly parent into a geriatric bed understand the need for a greater provision of such services in inner London.

We see the phasing out of small local hospitals to which people relate and which they understand and like. They are being replaced by large hospitals which often are badly sited and inaccessible and where there are long waits for attention. I cite two examples from my own constituency. St. Nicholas hospital in Plumstead was threatened with closure in 1975. It was reprieved, following a major public campaign, by the then Secretary of State in May 1978. He decided that St. Nicholas hospital should be turned into a community hospital providing a range of bread-and-butter services for the people of the district. I said to him at the time that trusting that hospital to a health authority that had always wanted to close it was like trusting Red Riding Hood to the wolf. But that is what he did, and my prophecy turned out to be correct. St. Nicholas hospital has been starved of resources ever since and is now again on the closure list.

The second example is the British hospital for mothers and babies, a maternity hospital. The previous Secretary of State accepted the closure case in May 1978—once, he said, alternative facilities were available. The alternative facilities are being provided at Greenwich district hospital and Queen Mary's hospital, Sidcup. They are inaccessible to people in my constituency. But even after that extra provision is made available there is still a shortfall of maternity beds in the London borough of Greenwich. Despite an all-party approach to the Minister, he declines to reopen the issue. Again, we have a well-respected, well-supported and popular maternity hospital in the centre of the area being closed, with people forced to seek their maternity arrangements wherever they can find them in other less accessible positions.

The employment aspect of Health Service cuts should not be overlooked. Taking the three closures currently proposed in my borough, they will mean the loss of 812 jobs. Redeployment opportunities come to only 150, and most of those are for nurses. Over London as a whole, hospital closures could account for about 4,000 lost jobs. In my view, that is a major problem.

I accept the need to use resources sensibly. My criticism of the RAWP approach is that it is being used in an unthinking, scientific way, not looking at the situation on the ground and not recognising that many of our communities in inner London are already deprived and will suffer greatly if there are further hospital closures. The policy must be applied much more flexibly, especially in inner London.

My second point concerns the problem of caravan dwellers, sometimes called gipsies, who are more appropriately called travellers. They are a major problem in parts of inner London, as Greater London has a large proportion of travellers. There is a long history of difficulty with them in many parts of London, especially in my area at Plumstead, Abbey Wood and Thamesmead. Their caravan sites are set up on private sites, and road verges. They cause major problems for local residents as a result of dirt, noise pollution, metal breaking, dogs, horses and many other environmental problems which that type of unauthorised caravan site produces.

The normal problem is the legal one of getting the caravan dwellers to move on. It is a slow process, but it usually works, and they are moved on, often only a few hundred yards down the road. In my constituency, they are simply moved across the boundary into the borough of Bexley and the procedure starts all over again.

We now have an extra problem, in that the GLC has changed its policy. We are now told that the GLC regards travellers as an ethnic minority and that they will therefore be moved on only when they are proved to be causing a nuisance. I have never known a case when they have not been proved to be causing a nuisance, but we now have the problem of the GLC having to consult all of its committees on each case before it is persuaded that a nuisance exists and the caravans should be moved on. That is extremely unfair to council tenants, who are usually those who suffer such problems in my area. They pay substantial rents and rates and often have to put up with that type of nuisance for months on end. Greenwich council has done its bit under the Caravan Sites Act 1968 by providing a site for 54 caravans. There is a good case for much stronger powers to enable councils to move travellers on from areas which have already met their needs.

The Department of the Environment produced a consultation paper on the needs of long-distance and regional travellers as long ago as February 1982. Comments had to be received by June 1982, but, as far as I can discover, since then the Department has simply analysed and considered the comments. There is no evidence of action. I strongly urge the Minister to tackle the problem, as it is necessary to provide more sites in Greater London. That might entail the provision of Government resources to provide such sites. It would also entail giving stronger powers to councils to move on unauthorised travellers when they cause difficulties. I do not accept that we can continue to blunder on, wasting large sums of money on legal actions and clearing up the mess that travellers have left behind and accepting the impact that they have on our constituents' quality of life.

My third point concerns petty crime and break-ins. They are a major problem in many inner London constituencies, especially mine. There is now a major problem with break-ins on council estates. Especially at risk are the elderly, who find a break-in particularly traumatic. Even if no violence is involved, they fear it. I was attracted by the campaign which the Home Office and the police mounted earlier this year in an attempt to persuade people that simple precautions such as installing window locks could prevent many break-ins. The Home Office tells me that the simple step of installing window locks might cost only £25 per house. The problem is that the people who are most at risk are elderly pensioners, for example, who receive supplementary benefit and cannot get any help for the cost of the type of security that the Government recommend.

I took this issue up with the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security who, in April, told me:

"I am sorry to say that security locks are not an item for which single payments can be made and it is not our intention to include them in our provisions in the future … we will only make single payments for items which are necessary for day-to-day living."

I contend that for many people who are at risk of break-ins, sensible security in their homes constitutes an elementary part of day-to-day living. Anyone who has tried to live on supplementary benefit knows only too well that it covers only the bare essentials and that there is no surplus to buy such things as security locks.

The Government appear to be saying that those who are most at risk are to be left without even basic protection such as is recommended by the Home Office and the police for other people. That is utterly unacceptable and I strongly urge the Minister to consider that problem and to be more sensible and understanding of those on supplementary benefit who need that elementary protection.

I echo what the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) said about the attitude that successive Governments have tended to take towards the GLC. There is a tendency to regard London as having every street paved with gold. That arises from examining overall London statistics. All hon. Members who represent inner London constituencies know that we have areas of deprivation that are as bad as anything else in the country. The quality of life of many of our constituents in inner London is declining. If we are to tackle the problems, London Members must be extremely vigorous in raising these matters and in fighting on behalf of their constituents. I hope that this is only the first of many debates on London in this Parliament.

It is a special pleasure to make my maiden speech during a debate on London. My constituency is in one of the inner London boroughs, and my constituents identify much more with London than they do with Lewisham. I do not know why my constituency is called Lewisham, West, because it does not contain any of Lewisham but is made up of Forest Hill, Sydenham and Catford. They are suburban areas on the border of inner and outer London, consisting largely of pleasant, tree-lined streets with a mixture of owner-occupied housing and newer council estates. It has little industry and is almost entirely residential. From the top of Forest Hill, my constituents look down on almost all of London, but I am happy to say that they still look up to Westminster.

Lewisham, West has been represented in the House by Henry Brooke, Henry Price, Jimmy Dickens and, more recently, by my hon. Friends the present Members for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson) and Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). Until a few weeks ago it was ably represented by Christopher Price, who is well-known and liked in the constituency where he worked extremely hard and gained considerable respect from his political opponents. He also made a great contribution to the House both as a private Member and as Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts. Although I gained much respect for him before and during the election campaign, we differ on almost every political subject—even on his recent crusade to have the Elgin marbles returned to Greece and/or to Miss Mercouri. My view on the Elgin marbles is like that of the California senator who, when asked his opinion of American sovereignty over the Panama canal, said, "I think we stole it fair and square and we ought to keep it." Christopher Price will be genuinely missed in the constituency and by many people here. I hope that the Welsh succession in the Labour party will be maintained and that it will reward the good Welsh name of Price with a safe Welsh seat so that I need not fight him again.

My constituency shares most of the common problems of London. It experiences some problems, such as housing, transport, unemployment and crime, directly. It experiences others indirectly by being part of a borough that contains areas of real urban decay and social deprivation.

One problem that is shared by almost every London constituency is rates. Rates in Lewisham have trebled since 1979 from £250 for a typical small house to about £800 this year. The rates in my constituency are 50 per cent. higher than in the neighbouring borough. Business rates have been similarly affected, with the result of driving out businesses and jobs to neighbouring areas. The current level of rates, and the enormous and regular annual increases, are unacceptable to my constituents and should be unacceptable to the House. We must bring about the changes necessary to stop, and perhaps even to reverse, the trend.

The whole subject of rate reform is complex, and the alternatives present problems that may be far greater than in the present system. I am an advocate not of a local income tax or a local sales tax, but of extensive reform of local government finance and of the rating system. Local government must be made more efficient in its use of resources, because there are massive inefficiencies in many areas of local administration. For example, in Lewisham it costs £250 a week to keep a child in care. It cannot be beyond the bounds of human ingenuity to devise a way of doing it for less.

Too often public services are administered, not managed. Executive effort is devoted to making and following rules and to keeping the wheels turning, but we need active and imaginative management. My local council employs 7,000 people and has a budget of about £100 million a year. That is big business, and it deserves to be managed as such. Management education and training would help, as far more would the setting of proper objectives and performance criteria. We should, when necessary, bring in managers from outside local administration, but, however we do it, the quality and the approach of management have to be improved.

In pursuit of a more efficient use of resources, ceilings must be placed on councils' expenditure, particularly councils, such as my own, which have deliberately set out to defy spending targets. Lewisham council has increased its spending — the part for which it is directly responsible—by 10 per cent. in real terms this year. That is 10 per cent. after inflation. It has resulted directly in a 25 per cent. rate rise. It is simply not justified, and a straightforward reform could make it illegal.

Further, a stop should be put immediately to the arrogant milking of ratepayers that seems to go on in an orchestrated effort at political posturing by other local authorities. Why should London's ratepayers finance that junior people's republic on the other side of Westminster bridge? Why should they have to pay for gay art alliances, celebrating Karl Marx, undermining the police, and for giving so-called free food and accommodation to political demonstrators? Fortunately for Britain, it does not have too many such councils, but, unfortunately for my constituents, they suffer from two of them.

The argument that local democracy gives such councils a mandate is nonsense. The few people who know what the GLC is in this city would welcome its demise, and those who do not know what it is would welcome the reduction in their rates bills. Local authorities' areas of competence should be clearly defined, and spending outside those areas of competence should be made illegal.

We all know the history of rates, how they came to be imposed, and the ease and cheapness of their collection, but their unfairness is well known, as is the fact that their incidence bears no relation whatever to the ability to pay. In my constituency the typical rates bill of £800 on a fairly small house could fall on a family consisting of one wage earner with three or four dependants, or it could go to a household with three wage earners and no dependants. That is manifestly unfair.

I should like to suggest two simple changes in the system. The first is the introduction of a poll tax of about £25 per year on everybody over 18 who was neither unemployed nor living on supplementary benefit. The second relates to the way in which rates are collected. It should be fairly simple to arrange that the size of a rates bill is directly related to the number of adults living in a household, so that the anomaly of one person paying the same as five or six is removed. Those are two fairly simple reforms that would have the effect of giving much greater fairness to the rating system.

Recognition must be given, in the way that the block grant system is operated, to the special problems of London. The Inner London Education Authority may, as I think, be inefficient, but London faces special educational problems which are not encountered in rural areas and shire counties. Lewisham council may, as I have argued, be inefficient, but there are calls on its social services which are particular to certain inner London boroughs and which again do not occur in areas such as Sussex or Hampshire.

The Government are pledged to reforms. I hope that they will follow some of the lines that I have suggested —restrictions on the legality of certain types of spending, curbs on real increases in spending, reform of the rating system, and a sympathetic use of the block grant. The incidence and level of rates in my constituency are grossly unfair. It is extremely important that our pledges to do something about the rating system should be redeemed in a manner which will lead directly to lower rates bills for Londoners.

I want to deal with one subject only—the problem of policing in London. The police are supposed to be accountable to the House through the Home Secretary. What I have shows that the police are not making themselves accountable to the democratically elected representatives of the people. The Commissioner, in his report, which has been dealt with in the press, referred to a campaign of denigration and our enemies on the Left. That provided headlines in The Standard. Is he complaining, as he appears to be, about criticism from elected representatives, such as Members of Parliament, members of the GLC and local councils, all of whom have made criticisms of police activity in London?

I have had occasion to write to the Home Secretary over the past six months about several cases, one of which was the Colin Roach case. The Minister promised to reply to some of my questions after the Colin Roach inquest. Instead, he took the opportunity to reply to a planted parliamentary question from a Conservative Member and say that the Commissioner was to set up an inquiry into the criticisms made by the jury and others about the way in which the police at Stoke Newington police station had dealt with the Colin Roach case.

The problem was again raised in the House by myself and about 60 other Members under a motion headed

"Police-Public relations in Hackney-Stoke Newington"

which urged

"the Home Secretary to make an investigation into the policing practices in Hackney-Stoke Newington."

We are still awaiting an answer.

The Home Secretary has received a copy of the comments of the jury which tried the case of Colin Roach, a copy of which I have obtained from the Library. The jury say that they were

"deeply distressed at the handling of the case by the police regarding the Roach family. We feel that the bereaved family were kept in the dark over the death of their son and that the police were not sympathetic to the situation".

Police activities in north Hackney have caused the public to demonstrate on the streets, as a result of which about 100 people have been arrested. That is not the way to deal with the public criticisms that are now being made about police activities in a particular case. However, the purpose of my remarks here today is to point out that the Colin Roach case is only the tip of the iceberg. Several other cases have been brought to the attention of the Home Secretary, the Commissioner of police and the area commander. I have here a file of those cases which have been placed before the Home Secretary for investigation and upon which I have demanded an inquiry into the activities of the police at the Stoke Newington police station as well as into the Colin Roach affair. I am still waiting, months later, for a reply.

There is the case of Mrs. Knight, whose flat was visited by police vans, dogs and cars. Three policemen entered the flat and dragged out the family, leaving behind a six-year-old daughter to care for herself. Charges were made against members of the Knight family, but two juries failed to agree and the defendants were acquitted. They are taking civil proceedings against the police. That case provides another reason for an investigation into policing at Stoke Newington.

The White case has been going on since 1976. The police were ordered to pay compensation of £51,000 because of their actions against the White family. Complaints were made against 17 policemen, but no known action has been taken against any of those officers at Stoke Newington police station.

Mrs. Whitmarsh reported her son, Colin Barnard, missing. He was later found drowned in the Thames, but, despite the fact that Mrs. Whitmarsh had reported him missing to the police and had issued public advertisements, she was not told until six months later that he had been found and cremated. I took up the matter, but all that we have received so far is a letter of apology from the local commander, who said:

"A further response will be made to you but I wanted to make it quite clear in this initial reply that the case caused the Police great concern and our deepest sympathy and apology goes to the family as I appreciate that their grief was prolonged by our error."

That is another case which needs investigation.

The Kanadu family complained to me about police harassment. They wrote to me on 14 January when they discovered that their mother, whom they had reported to the Stoke Newington police as missing, had been gaoled by the police. I took up the case with the police. The mother went before Old street magistrates' court, but no charges were made against her and she was released. That mother, a black woman, Mrs. Osie, was here legally and had not contravened any law. That is another case which needs investigation.

Another case connected with Stoke Newington police station involves Mrs. Ettie Cohen, an epileptic who had an attack in a shop. Not understanding, the shopkeeper sent for the police, who took her away in a van and imprisoned her without food. As her husband said in his letter to me, she should have been taken to hospital. In fact, she was charged with causing a disturbance, but the case was dismissed by Old street magistrates. That is another complaint against the actions of the police at Stoke Newington.

There have been many complaints about stop-and-search actions, which are quite common in my area, particularly against young black people. In one case a youth was stopped and searched in October 1981, in April 1982 and, at Stamford hill, in November 1982. He was told to put his hands against a wall and to keep his legs apart. He was searched, nothing was found and he was sent on his way by police, who insisted that he should carry his passport with him as identification. That is one of a number of stop-and-search cases that are causing considerable anxiety in the area.

The Commission for Racial Equality sent me and the Home Secretary a dossier of 40 complaints. It demanded an inquiry into policing in Hackney. Community relations are so bad that the Hackney teachers association does not allow the police into schools to talk to pupils. The National Union of Teachers takes the same attitude. That, too, is a good sign of a need for an inquiry.

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. How will relationships be improved if the police are not allowed to meet pupils and teachers in school? Surely that is the opposite of what should be desired.

I shall come to that in a moment. I am dealing with what could lead to a solution to these problems.

I met three police commanders, the deputy assistant commissioner, representatives of Islington, Haringey and Hackney councils and several community representatives to discuss the problems in Finsbury Park. A number of unemployed black youths had been arrested. Their club had been closed. They were stopped, searched and charged with obstruction. Unemployed people do stand talking on the pavement. What else is there to do? They would not have to do that if they were given jobs. Bad relationships between young people and the police are created when such people are charged with obstruction.

The conference was called because of the bad feelings, and a report was made. There were complaints about the special patrol group and the instant response units. It was said that they should be cut out and that there should be more policemen on the beat to deal with the problems. A "Starsky and Hutch" approach, with motor vehicles, should not be used.

The Hackney borough council is worried. Last July it set up a consultative committee of representatives from the three political parties on the council, and from community organisations. The council has written continuously asking for police representation on that committee. The police, supported by the Home Secretary, have refused to take part. There is no question that the committee will take over control from the police. There will only be discussions between the groups about the problems in the area. The law does not provide for a borough council to take over control. It will be a genuine consultative committee.

The letter of 7 January from the Home Office stated:

"It was not of course the Home Secretary's intention in issuing the guidelines to seek to impose a particular model or pattern of consultative arrangements. We recognise that local needs and circumstances vary widely from one area to another and that consultative arrangements need to be tailored to suit them."

The Hackney borough council and those who took the matter up with the Home Office wanted the pace on the committee. They are still waiting for that co-operation. The Hackney borough council has given the Home Secretary and the police until July—a year since it first raised the matter—to give a definite answer about the proposed co-operation.

The police have set up what they call a consultative panel. It is chaired by the chamber of commerce, the two local Members of Parliament have been invited to attend and it contains various representatives, but I am afraid that it will not be satisfactory. We need a body like Hackney borough council, which is extremely representative of the people of the area. Community representatives must be on the body so that all concerned can discuss the problems of policing.

I urge the Home Secretary to conduct an inquiry into the cases which I have mentioned, and others. He must inquire into the activities of Stoke Newington police and conduct an inquiry into the Roach case in view of the complaints made by the jury and others, and he should, at the earliest opportunity, receive a deputation from the Roach family, who wish to raise certain serious matters with him.

I have an interest to declare. Until 5 July I am a paid employee of the GLC. From 6 July onwards I shall be an unpaid employee of the GLC. I wish at the outset to pay tribute to my predecessor in Hayes and Harlington, Mr. Neville Sandelson, a man of much personal charm, courteous and with a ready wit. In recent years he has been under great pressure in his political life and throughout that time has shown a great deal of courage. I shall do all I can to emulate his service to the community so as to ensure for myself a long stay in this House.

My constituency is situated in west London and contains within its boundaries the world's busiest airport, Heathrow. At present an inquiry is gathering evidence among other things on the merits of developing a fifth terminal there. Many of my constituents would welcome such a development because it would bring much-needed additional employment to the area. I share those sentiments. However, I want a clear Government commitment to provide the capital resources necessary to ensure that the infrastructure is provided for the area. Without that Government assurance I could not support the fifth terminal.

In and around the Hayes town centre, especially at peak times, the traffic congestion is acute and the urgent need to get the Hayes by-pass completed is evident. I am aware that some oppose the by-pass proposals, but I believe that the overall advantages far outweigh any parochial considerations, however genuinely held. The GLC has delayed the provision of a by-pass for too long and with the demise of that authority—and as a GLC employee, paid or otherwise, I shall be speaking in favour of its abolition at every opportunity — I hope that the Government will involve themselves in that development to ensure that my constituents get relief without delay from the severe and unnecessary traffic problems.

My major reason for speaking today is to talk about the scandal of system building and the Bison wall frame system in particular. It is a national and a London issue, and I know from first-hand experience, both as a former tenant of a Bison dwelling and as the current chairman of Hillingdon borough's housing committee, that it is a local issue affecting my constituents.

"Scandal" is not too strong a word to describe what has happened to the dwellings built by Bison and, more important, what has happened to the tenants who found themselves having to live in such dwellings. It all started with central Government pressure on local authorities to build cheaply, quickly and at high-rise level. Subsidy arrangements were adjusted to encourage such building, and architects, never slow to experiment at someone else's expense, were soon persuading local councillors, come hell or high water, to use system building methods.

My authority built more than 1,400 homes under the Bison wall frame system during the late 1960s and early 1970s and has come to regret the day it ever made contact with that company. These dwellings are largely factory built and assembled like a child's Lego set on site. It is our experience that the dwellings were badly constructed at the factory and badly assembled on site. The quality of the materials that were used left much to be desired. Since 1978 Hillingdon council has spent £5 million on refurbishing four tower blocks so that about 300 tenants can live in decent accommodation. This has followed the spending of almost £500,000 on investigative work to try to solve the problems. The remaining 1,175 low-rise dwellings built by the wall frame method will be demolished. We have come to this decision because the cost of patching them up has been estimated at more than £25 million. The cost of refurbishment has been placed at £38 million.

It was beyond the ability of Hillingdon ratepayers to meet those costs. We hope that the cost of demolition will be met from the income derived from the sale of sites. Despite the involvement of central Government, my authority has had precious little help from that quarter. It has had sympathy by the bucket load but no help. The Department of the Environment has refused to act as the central point for gathering and sharing information between local authorities and in general has not been very helpful. Whatever Ministers may say to the contrary, that has been Hillingdon's experience.

The story is the same in respect of financial aid. There have been murmurs of understanding, but no financial assistance. It has been said by the Department of the Environment that the HIP allocation contained an element for Bison repairs, but it would have been difficult to find even with a magnifying glass. If the Minister says that Hillingdon has overspent on its capital programme—I apologise in advance for my absence when my hon. Friend replies to the debate—let me remind him that we asked for an allocation of up to £19 million and were allowed £8 million. The housing investment programme allocation is not Government money but merely the authority to borrow. They gave us the authority to borrow £8·8 million. We have spent all of that and some of our capital receipts. If the Minister says that Hillingdon has overspent on its capital programme, let him remember that we have spent money that we raised ourselves by selling land and houses. We spent in excess of the allocation and there was no element in the allocation for Bison repairs.

The national consequences are enormous, and I can well understand the reluctance of any Government to embark upon a course that could eventually end up with their facing a bill of between £2 billion and £5 billion. But if they do not want to face such a demand, how on earth do they expect local authorities to cope with it with their limited resources? It is a problem for which Government must share much of the blame, because of their attitude in the 1960s. They cannot and must not be allowed to run away from their obligations. Before anyone tells me that I am talking about my own Government, I stress that I am talking about Governments of both political persuasions, who were aided and abetted by civil servants. Even if technically Governments were not parties to the original contract between local authority and builder, they have a responsibility.

It must be said that Bison has acted recklessly and irresponsibly throughout. The recent "World in Action" programme on television gave evidence of its attitude. I am reluctant to be controversial in my maiden speech, but as I watched the programme I saw the ex-chairman of the company enjoying himself in the sun in Berkshire while tenants of Bison properties were having a dreadful life. However, Bison has to face the shame and the disgrace.

I call upon the Government to recognise the problem and to do what they can by way of financial allocation. For everyone's sake, they should have a public inquiry so we may know what happened in the past. We should know what went on and who was responsible. We must be sure that the public interest is served and protected.

I should have thought that in four years' time the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) will be an unpaid, unemployed employee of a non-existent local authority, if he follows the logic of his own arguments.

This is the first time that I have spoken to the House. It seems a million miles away from the constituency that I represent and the problems that the people there face. Islington, North is only a few miles from the House by tube or bus. We are suffering massive unemployment and massive cuts imposed by the Government on the local authorites. There are cuts in the Health Service. In common with the rest of inner London, we have lost all grant funding for education. That is a measure of the contempt with which the Government have treated Islington, North — indeed, the whole borough of Islington.

The borough has suffered an unprecedented media attack in exactly the same way as the GLC suffered because it was singled out as fair game for editorials in the Daily Mail, The Sun and other newspapers. The previous Member for Islington, South and Finsbury used an Adjournment debate in the House to raise complaints about the borough council on a number of matters.

It is significant that just this week the Minister received a letter from Islington borough council about objections made to the district auditor about the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Islington News Co-operative and the council's newspaper, Focus. The district auditor replied on detailed terms. He said that he felt that there was no case for the borough council to answer in the light of the allegations made by the previous Member. It is unfortunate that little publicity is likely to be given to the district auditor's reply compared to the publicity that was given to the allegations made against the borough council in the run-up to, and during, the election campaign by Conservative and Social Democratic party members.

The borough which I have the honour to represent has suffered a stupendous loss in rate support grant since 1979. In 1979 £55 million a year was paid to Islington borough council. That was the Government contribution to the needs of that rundown inner city area. It is indicative of the Government's determination to create massive unemployment in inner city areas and demonstrates their ignorance of the problems that people face in such boroughs that the Government grant is now down to £32 million and is destined to go down further. That is a massive indictment of the Government. The hon. Members who now represent Islington will speak up continuously on that problem and will speak up for a borough that has been maligned by the Government and the press mercilessly over the past two years.

Unemployment in Islington is as bad as anywhere else in London. If one takes the rate together with those of the neighbouring boroughs of Hackney, parts of Waltham Forest and Enfield, there is a horrific picture. There is 20 per cent. registered unemployment. Far more people are unemployed than that. About one third of those who are out of work at the moment in Islington have been out of work for more than a year. Within a few minutes of the House are areas in Finsbury Park where there are black people of 20 and older, both women and men, who have never worked since leaving school at the age of 16. They have little but a great deal of contempt for the Government and for proceedings that are adopted by the Government in attacking such boroughs. They have little regard for a system that seems destined to force them to stay permanently on the dole. I shall convey that spirit to the House as often as I can. The people in my constituency are bitter and angry.

The number of jobs that we have lost in the past few years give the lie to the argument that, if workers demand high wages, somehow or other they are pricing themselves out of a job. Conservative Members have often lectured us about that. In fact, the average wages in the borough of Islington are well below the national average. At the same time, thousands of jobs have been lost in the past two years. Very few vacancies are notified to the Holloway employment office and there is a feeling of hopelessness that is perhaps paralleled in other parts of the country. That is serious.

Another factor makes people suffer. Islington is an inner city borough where less than 40 per cent. of the population can purchase a car. Presumably many hon. Members drive through it on the way to their constituencies. Day in, day out a vast amount of commuter traffic also thunders through, as well as heavy goods vehicles and dangerous overweight juggernauts. Hon. Members may have seen reports last week of a serious road accident that occurred in St. Paul's road which is a route for heavy lorries trundling through my constituency, bringing death and danger in their wake.

I hope that the call for a London-wide lorry ban is taken in a debate on London as such a danger cannot be allowed to continue on our roads. There never was a justification for allowing the size and weight of lorries that exist on our roads, and there is even less justification with the completion of the M25 for any opposition to a heavy goods vehicle ban throughout London. The argument that such vehicles serve London's industry and businesses is fallacious and wrong. At least two thirds of the vehicles that thunder down the Archway road, along the Holloway road, St. Paul's road and into Graham road in Hackney are travelling straight through London and using the city as a short cut to the Channel ports.

As the Government have taken so much money from Islington borough council and the neighbouring borough councils of Haringey, Hackney, and to a lesser extent Enfield because the Government have friends there, it is incredible that they should countenance spending more than £30 million on the building of a new stretch of motorway — the Archway motorway project — leading more traffic into inner London. That is another matter that I hope to bring often before the House.

The plight of the Health Service in my borough is serious. I am sponsored by the National Union of Public Employees and until yesterday I was employed as an organiser for that union. I am well aware of the cant and hypocrisy that is spoken about the Health Service. The Health Service in London has suffered more than almost any other service in the past few years. Cuts are made day in and day out. At this moment, 53 London hospitals are under threat of partial closure, ward closure or complete closure. Further, the jobs of about 4,000 health workers are at risk under the lunatic policy of continuing to cut health spending in every sense in inner London.

The effects of health cuts are very significant. If a hospital is closed, it might suit Health Service planners and the DHSS, as they might consider it to be an efficiency factor. What happens in reality is that people who were used to going to a convenient local hospital cannot do so, the waiting list for major operations gets longer and longer and the care of the sick is forced more and more into the home and on to women.

Yet the Government had the temerity to issue a press statement before the election about the value to society of private medicine, the development of private hospitals and encouraging people to spend their money on private health care. That freedom of choice does not exist for the constituents of Islington, North. They cannot afford private medicine. They do not wish to see private medicine develop or the obscenity of a private health service and pay beds continuing to exist in National Health Service hospitals. My colleagues and I at the National Union of Public Employees wish that topic, which is a crying scandal, to be brought before the House.

Greater scandals are also taking place in the Health Service. I could list, time permitting, all 53 hospitals in London which are under some form of immediate risk. I will not go through them all but I will draw some to the attention of the House. The south London hospital for women, which is most in the news, is due to be closed. Apparently, as a result of a decision made last night, the ball is now in the Government's court. If the Government do not provide the money for the running of that hospital, it will close. That hospital was founded because women wished to have a health service in which they felt confidence and trust. It was founded for women, run by women and continues to provide a valuable service for women in south London. It will be a scandal if that hospital is allowed to close.

I hope that the Minister will give an assurance that the closure will not go ahead and that Government money will be provided to keep that vital facility open. Women suffer more than anyone else from Health Service cuts. They suffer through having to wait for operations and it is usually they who end up caring for the sick who cannot be cared for by the Health Service.

On the arguments about spending in the Health Service and the setting of cash limits, I have some useful information—all gleaned from DHSS sources and put together by the London Health Service campaign. The cash limit revenue allocations are compared with the surplus or shortfall, allowing for 5·6 per cent. inflation. There is some argument about the applicability of that figure to the Health Service, but that is the figure used. Only two health authorities in London—Croydon and Hounslow and Spelthorne—had a surplus of cash limit allocation compared with their expenditure. Every other authority was seriously overspending. As anyone who has served on a health authority will know, overspending means cuts, longer queues for major operations and beds deliberately left vacant not because they are not needed by the sick but because the Government are not prepared to provide the money to care for the sick. That is the reality of the situation.

As I have said, north Islington has suffered Health Service cuts perhaps as bad as those in any other area. The borough as a whole has recently lost Liverpool road hospital, the City of London maternity home and the casualty facility at the Royal Northern hospital, placing frightening and devastating pressure on the remaining facilities at the Whittington hospital which itself is now threatened with the closure of one wing. Disasters of that kind occur daily in the inner city areas. That is why people are so angry and it is incredible that only 13 Conservative Members can be bothered to attend today's debate on these matters.

The DHSS has mounted a privatisation campaign in which it has consistently tried to lecture local health authorities about how efficient it would be if private enterprise played a part in running the Health Service, stressing the efficiency of laundry, catering, portering and gardening services. The private sector is already making a fortune out of drug sales to the health authorities. When Conservative Members lecture health workers who demand decent wages, they never criticise the massive profits made out of the Health Service by the drug companies.

Moreover, the lectures about the need for privatisation in the Health Service are not matched by the experience of health authorities which have brought in private enterprise laundry, portering, catering and cleaning services. In all cases they have said that the services are not only inefficient but difficult to control because one is constantly dealing with third parties whose interest is not the care of patients and the efficient running of a National Health Service that is free at the point of use but only the profit that they can make out of it.

With all the problems that London now faces —massive unemployment, problems of public transport and traffic management, and the rest—it is extraordinary that the Government should choose this moment to mount a fantastic media campaign against the GLC and, in a couple of lines in a badly written and ill-thought-out manifesto, to say that they intend to abolish the GLC. The real reason why they wish to abolish it is because they could not gain control of it at the last election. If the GLC were abolished, London would be the only capital in the world, so far as I can discover, without some central democratic and unitary local authority to administer its business.

It is amazing that the House should spend time debating the abolition of the GLC when it should be debating the lack of democracy in so many other areas of London life. I have dealt at some length with the problems of the Health Service. Greater democracy is needed in the Health Service. It would be advantageous to have a London health authority to discuss the problems of the Health Service in London rather than continuing the balancing act between expenditure in inner London and the needs of counties such as Essex, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and so on, as the regional health authorities consistently do, with the result that London suffers from an even worse Health Service.

We hear a great deal about democracy and freedom of choice. I find it incredible that at the same time as the Government propose to abolish the Greater London council and to take away the democratic powers of the Inner London Education Authority they allow London's undemocratic police force to continue its operations and they allow Sir Kenneth Newman to make monstrous attacks on people who merely demand some form of democratic representation in the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds on London's police force.

I hope that the House will return again and again to the debate on the democratic running of London. It is clear that the Government are determined to take away all democratic rights of local government in London. They tried to destroy our borough councils. Now they seek to destroy the GLC and the ILEA.

I represent an area of London that has suffered as much as any other from the policies of this Government, and I shall be telling the House repeatedly that we do not intend to take these issues lying down. We shall not allow unemployment to go through the roof. We shall not allow our youth to have no chance and no hope for the future. We shall not allow our borough councils to be attacked mercilessly in the way that they have been by the Government and by the press in the past year. We shall return to these issues because justice has to be done for those who are worst off and unemployed in areas such as the constituency that I represent.

It is customary on these occasions to pay tribute to maiden speakers. I follow the convention of the House and congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) on his election and on his first speech to the House. It is clear that he has strong views about politics and the way in which London and the country should be organised. He is fortunate to have the privilege of being a Member of a democratic Parliament that enables him to express those views freely on behalf of his constituents and the party that he represents.

London is fortunate to have so early in this new Parliament an opportunity to consider the many important matters that concern the 84 London Members of Parliament, of whom 57 sit on the Government Benches. I am especially glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) remains in office as Under-Secretary of State for the Environment and is taking a close interest in the affairs of London, as is right and proper for an hon. Member who serves a London constituency. London Members can also be glad that the Secretary of State for the Environment is our right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin). In future London debates I hope that we shall be privileged to have his attendance, playing his part in considering the many important affairs of London.

I welcome the commitment in the Gracious Speech to the abolition of the Greater London council. As many hon. Members know, I have pressed for its abolition for a good many years and published a Bill to that effect in July 1981.

The reason for disposing of this middle tier of government is simply that it has not worked. Since its creation in 1963, many of the functions given to it have been removed progressively. The National Health Service assumed responsibility for ambulances in 1973. In the same year, responsibility for water was transferred to the Thames water authority. More recently, housing responsibility has been transferred to the 32 London boroughs.

When one examines the subject in detail, it is difficult to see what role the GLC now fulfils. It was intended to be a strategic authority for the whole of what was called London. However, central Government takes the major strategic decisions that affect London. It was not the GLC that was given responsibility for deciding whether a third London airport was required and, if so, where it should be sited. The Government took that decision. Nor was the GLC directly involved in so relatively minor a matter as the removal of the Covent garden market from the city of Westminster to the south bank. Responsibility for that essentially London matter was retained by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

At the other end of the scale, especially in planning and traffic management, the GLC exercises parallel and often overlapping power with the 32 London borough councils. That makes for a great deal of duplication of effort and administration and provides much discontent among the people who live in London. For a variety of well-founded reasons, therefore, all of which are to do with the better administration of London, it is right that the middle tier authority be removed. I shall definitely support the Government in their proposals to transfer responsibilities to the London borough councils.

What single strategic responsibility has been taken by the Government for housing in London? Most hon. Members know that it is impossible for hard-pressed boroughs, such as Lambeth and Southwark, to sort out their housing problems alone. Where is the Government's strategic initiative on housing?

I shall deal with housing later. The GLC has never had a strategic role in the provision of housing. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that, as one goes round one's constituency and visits council estates, one notices that some of the worst housing in London was built in the decades during which the GLC has been responsible for housing. Some GLC housing estates are a scandal in terms of design, the quality of buildings and the misery that is inflicted on the wretched people who are obliged to live in them. Much must be done to put matters right.

rose—

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mind if I do not give way, as time is short and others wish to speak. It is important that I press on.

My primary concern is for the inner London area. The establishment of the GLC demonstrates how difficult it is to define the London area. London is really the inner London area under the jurisdiction of the inner London boroughs. One of the outer London boroughs—Croydon — is the seventh largest English city by population. Why should the Croydon area be included in the GLC district? That is nonsense. There is no common interest between the needs of Croydon and the needs of central London as represented by Westminster city council.

Although I advocate the removal of the middle tier of government in London—the GLC—it is essential for this Parliament to resolve several key issues that affect the better administration of London, of which housing strategy is one. Each year Westminister city council submits a housing strategy and budget for approval by the Department of the Environment. It then needs separate approval for every project in that strategy despite the fact that the council is responsible for obtaining the finance. The result is delays and bureaucratic duplication. I cannot help but think that if we get the administration of London right by removing the GLC, we must also get the administration of the Department of the Environment right in terms of its relationship with the 32 London borough councils.

Recently the Department obstructed proposals for the repair of properties owned by the Monmouth road housing co-operative in my constituency because the cost would be 7 per cent. above the total indicative costs. The Department totally ignores the housing corporation's system of local variations to total indicative costs to take into account the average costs and values of rehabilitated property in the city of Westminster. It also ignores the fact that the properties are mostly grade 2 listed historic buildings, with extensive restoration features. The Department appears to have no scruples about obstructing such home ownership, which is supported by the Conservative party, and has caused the obstruction for five years. The co-operative itself was opposed by the Left-wing Socialists on the GLC. If the position continues, the people in the co-operative will face another winter without work being done on their property, which could be disastrous for the fabric of the buildings and the morale of the residents.

As we consider the administration of inner London, we must develop policies for what I call the big clean-up in the way that we administer ourselves and in the way that people live, especially in connection with housing and the environment. In that context I draw to my hon. Friend's attention the sensible recommendations that have been widely agreed by those who have considered the report of a working party set up by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors on the management and control of mansion block flats.

One recommendation is that legislation should be introduced requiring foreign landlords to provide an office within the jurisdiction on which notices of proceedings can be served. I even question whether it is right for foreign residents to own residential, tenanted property in inner London, because of the great problems that can arise from it. Some of my constituents who live in Inverness terrace in Paddington have been exposed to the most appalling duress by a landlord who has escaped responsibility by being registered abroad. Living in that landlord's property has been made almost impossible. Gas and electricity are shut off intermittently, hot water was unavailable for four months, repairs are overdue and water is coming into the basement fiat. By being registered abroad, the landlord has managed to escape identification. He is not registered at the Registry of Business Names at Companies house, and all that his tenants know is that he has an office somewhere in Liechtenstein.

The working party recommended that schedule 19 to the Housing Act 1980 should be amended to allow a tenant to challenge the appointment of managing agents. At present, tenants can do little about an inefficient managing agent who is foisted on them except to refuse to pay the service charges, which are often in dispute. However, that does not do much good if the necessary repairs are simply not being done. It is reasonable that residents should have some choice in the appointment of managing agents so that those appointees can demonstrate their efficiency not only to the property company that employs them but to the residents of the property. There are many other very reasonable recommendations made on mansion properties in the report and I hope that the Minister will give them early attention.

As the years have passed, inner London's interests have been sadlly neglected, regardless of who have been the Government in Whitehall. Certainly those interests have not been protected or advanced by the GLC under the existing local government structure in London.

With further reference to home ownership in inner London, there is a need to extend the Leasehold Reform Act 1967. It is essential that people who live in blocks of flats or properties that are divided should have the same right to enfranchise themselves as those who live in ordinary dwelling houses. If my party is to continue to extol the virtues of home ownership, as it does, and which I support, we must also bring within the fold of home ownership those who are subject to the difficulties of living in mansion properties.

I know that the Law Commission, under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Ralph Gibson, would be perfectly willing to create a form of structure in the law for a right to buy applicable to a wider range of dwellings such as flats, maisonettes and divided houses, but the Law Commission awaits the triggering of such an inquiry from the Government. I urge upon the Minister and his right hon. Friend the need to invite the Law Commission to begin that examination as soon as possible.

I should like to refer briefly to the operation of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 in inner London. It is a very well-intended Act. The trouble with it is that, in the inner London area, because of the natural pressures that arise in any great capital city, many people tend to flood in, and under that Act they have to be housed, with the result that in inner London we are creating ghetto estates of poor and deprived people. It is socially and morally wrong that that should be so. It is wrong, too, that the children of people who were born in inner London should cease to have the opportunity to be housed by their local inner London borough council because of the operation of the Act.

I will give briefly the example of the experience of the city of Westminster, which serves the very heart of the capital. Last year the council offered 605 people permanent homes under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, using its own housing stock—485 compared with 359 in 1981.

It is clear that if a council is having to use all its available stock under the Act, something is wrong. There should be some balance in respect of the inner London borough councils. It is not unreasonable to say that in the heart of the capital the inner London borough councils, regardless of whether they are Socialist controlled or Conservative controlled, should have the right to ensure some balance in the way that the Act operates.

I should like to conclude by mentioning one or two points which need to be explored in the course of this Parliament, and again I put the case for an examination of the way in which the London rate equalisation scheme works. It is unacceptable that the ratepayers living within the city of Westminster, not all of whom are wealthy and a large number of whom are pensioners living on fixed incomes, on retirement pensions and on invested income, should pay such high rates while the city council has to distribute a substantial sum of money under the equalisation scheme to other London boroughs.

Hear, hear.

It is basically unfair that people of ordinary or average means should have to contribute in that way. I understand that the rate equalisation scheme will increase from nearly £23 million in 1982–83 to nearly £24 million in 1983–84. The scheme is damaging the interests of central London in a big way.

The business community is voting with its feet and moving its headquarters and offices out of the city of Westminster. We are increasingly blighted by that. In addition, domestic residents are unable to keep up with the ever increasing cost of the rates and have to move out. Those are issues which cannot be ignored for much longer. They require a sensible and balanced examination so that we can put the administration of London right again.

People who live in the heart of London have many extra pressures to suffer. For example, some live in streets where the estate agents have a permanent array of signs. That may seem a small point, but such signs blight the streets and destroy the business communities there. That issue must also be looked at and is one of the many important environmental issues which I hope inner London and other hon. Members who represent London constituencies will be able to return to in future debates.

Those are the issues that concern ordinary people and on which we look to the Government for support, interest and concern. I hope that during the years ahead in this Parliament we shall find solutions to those issues on behalf of the people who live in London.

rose—

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that many hon. Members still want to speak, two of whom are new hon. Members who want to make their maiden speeches if there is time. Therefore, I again appeal for brevity.

There have been several changes in the arrangements for the Metropolitan police over the past few months. Even at the general election we had one change which might be regarded as a change for the better in that the police authority for London is no longer the Member who was elected for Penrith and The Border. The constituency has moved about 90 miles nearer and he is now the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan). We look forward to the day when a Member of Parliament for London will become the police authority for London, but I suppose that we shall have to wait for that.

In October last year we had a change of police Commissioner. In view of the previous police Commissioner's record, we could scarcely have expected a change for the worse. At the invitation of Sir Kenneth Newman, London Labour Members went to see him shortly after he was appointed. We welcomed that meeting. It was useful, because it gave us the opportunity to explain to him that we and the people we represent are sick to death of soaring crime in London and the shortcomings of the Metropolitan police in doing something about it. We made it clear that we and our constituents were sick to death of the increasing violence and rape and the massive number of burglaries in our capital city.

Following our discussions with the Commissioner, we did not expect that we would soon be accusing him of complacency. He seemed to be a committed, intelligent man who was determined to do something. It is therefore disappointing that the only way of describing his report to the Home Secretary, which was published yesterday, is to say that it is very complacent indeed. I can only presume that, as the man between the upper and nether millstones, he is accustoming himself to the low standards of performance of the Metropolitan police below him and, above that, the complacency of the Home Office.

The Commissioner tries to explain away the poor clear-up rate of crime in London by saying that the statistics do not show exactly what is happening, that they are capable of being misinterpreted and that it is not fair to say that the clear-up rate is important. The fact is that the Metropolitan police's clear-up rate is twice as bad as that of the next worse police force in Britain. That is unacceptable.

It was even more distressing to read in the Commissioner's report:

"The overall clear up rate also obscures the fact that our performance in relation to serious crimes is quite impressive. For example, the clear up rate for murder is 75 per cent., for kidnapping 65 per cent.

Sir Kenneth Newman may be impressed by a clear-up rate in which no one is tracked down for one quarter of the murders and 35 per cent. of the kidnappings carried out in London, but Labour Members and their constituents are singularly unimpressed with that performance. Sir Kenneth's view may be influenced by his background in Northern Ireland. The latest figures show that the clear-up rate for murders in Northern Ireland is 44 per cent. That is understandable there, but it is unacceptable for the Commissioner to tell the people of London, and for The Standard apparently to endorse his view, that the fact that one quarter of all murderers get away with their crime is an impressive record.

There is amazing complacency in the Home Office. For example, a murder was committed in King's Cross in 1980 and the trial started at the Old Bailey in June 1982. It was abandoned because the Crown ran out of living witnesses, and the man accused of the murder is walking free in my constituency. I wrote to the Home Secretary in August last year and sent him a reminder in September. On 30 November, Lord Elton, on behalf of the Home Secretary, finally replied to the questions that I had raised about the disappearance of the witnesses. He said:

"You mention in your letter a recent case where a man charged with the murder of a person involved in prostitution in Kings Cross was released because the prosecution witnesses were missing. I think you may be referring to the case of Mr. John Docherty"—

Lord Elton is obviously a very acute fellow—

"who was shot dead on 18th November 1980, and the trial of the man accused of his murder which began on 8th June 1982. I will now deal in turn with your detailed points about missing prosecution witnesses: No potential witness was shot dead while under police protection."

That is a relief to us all. Lord Elton went on:

"Although it was likely that Patricia McClellan would have been called as a witness in the case had she not been murdered, no evidence was found that her death had any connection with persons suspected of being connected with Mr. Docherty's murder. It is true that a man was stabbed to death outside the house where Mr. Docherty was shot but there is no evidence to connect this murder with that of Mr. Docherty … It is correct that a woman, who associated with Mr. Docherty and the man accused of his murder, was found dead in bed from a heroin overdose. There were, however, no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death.

The Commissioner has no knowledge of a person connected with this case who died of alcoholism.

As to witnesses disappearing there was one witness who did fail to appear at the trial. Police protection had been offered to him but he declined to accept it."

I have made further inquiries of the Home Office about what happened to the man who went to Leicester and disappeared. The Home Office and the Metropolitan police assure me that he is alive. However, there is a warrant for his arrest for failing to appear at the Old Bailey as a witness. If the Home Office and the Metropolitan police are convinced that he is alive, I want to know why he has not been arrested and taken to the Old Bailey to explain his disappearance. I suspect that the poor man now forms part of the motorway system. That is an illustration of the total complacency of the Home Office.

The basis of our legal, judicial and policing system is at risk if witnesses in murder trials can be murdered or spirited away. It is serious when the Home Office and, apparently, the new Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis are so complacent that they do nothing about the incidents to which I have referred. Something needs to be done.

Although the new Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis managed to make a few offhand attacks on people he called activists—I do not know what sort of activists — who are undermining the policing of the metropolis, he did not, in his apolitical way, suggest that there may be a number of other factors leading to an increase in crime. There are a number of factors to which he might have drawn attention, even if it embarrassed his political masters. He might have drawn attention to the fact that in May 30,000 school leavers in London were out of work. It would be foolish and abusive to suggest that every young person in our capital who is out of work is automatically a criminal. I am mindful of the old saying that the devil finds work for idle hands. No fewer than 20,000 of those young unemployed are 18 years old and have never had jobs. For every school leaver in London out of work in 1979, there are now five out of work. The problem is becoming worse.

The Secretary of State for Employment—Chingford's answer to the "Fiddler on the Roor—changed the basis of the unemployment figures in October last year. That resulted in a 7 per cent. reduction in the national unemployment figure. Because of peculiar circumstances in London, it had the effect of reducing the figure by no less than 15 per cent. Therefore, one can add 15 per cent. to any of the figures about which we are talking.

The unemployment figures given by the Secretary of State for Employment show a fall of 2·2 per cent. nationally, an increase of 2·1 per cent. in Greater London and an increase of 5·1 per cent. in inner London compared with those for October last year.

The Commissioner in his report — I do not think anyone would disagree—rightly stated:

"crime statistics are as much a reflection of the performance of other social agencies as they are of police performance."

He said that he would like to see an improvement in the overall situation with the help of the other agencies.

The Commissioner must remember that, while his resources have been increased, all the other agencies in London about which he is talking have had their resources decreased. The Inner London Education Authority, which should be making a big contribution to keeping down the level of crime, has had its funding from central Government stopped.

If we consider what has happened to central Government funding of local authorities in inner London, in 1979–80 they received £695 million by way of rate support grant, whereas this year they are estimated to receive £407 million— a 41 per cent. reduction. Yet social service and other departments of local authorities will be expected to make their contribution to the general effort which the Commissioner is looking for from all social agencies in London. They will be grossly inhibited in their capacity to do that by the cuts that have been made.

Faced with everything that is going wrong in London, the Government come up with a few trivial by-plays to distract attention. The Prime Minister has a new motto —not, "If you can't beat it, join it", but, "If you can't beat it, abolish it." She cannot beat the GLC, so she wants to abolish it, and, because she cannot beat the ILEA, she wants to abolish that, too.

Throughout the rest of the country — in Norfolk, Hampshire and elsewhere—people are trusted with the capacity to choose a local council or county council which will carry out the functions given to those authorities by Parliament. No Labour Government ever suggested the abolition, for example, of Hampshire county council simply because it was always a Tory authority. The Conservatives are proposing the abolition of the GLC because it is intermittently Labour, and the abolition of the ILEA because it is usually Labour.

It is ironic that a woman Prime Minister should propose that the people of inner London, for the first time in 110 years, should not have the opportunity directly to elect the people who run inner London's education service, because the old London board of education 110 years ago was the first public body on which women were allowed to sit.

I am glad of this opportunity to make my maiden speech in a debate about London. I have lived most of my life in London, much of it in inner London, and since 10 June I have had the privilege of representing Feltham and Heston, an outer London constituency.

I do not think that there is need for me to give the House great details about my area because it is the same constituency that was for nearly 10 years represented by Mr. Russell Kerr, and before that he represented Feltham for seven years. Both of us share the circumstance that we were elected to Parliament on our fourth attempt. I am sure, even from what I knew of him as a candidate, that he made a valuable contribution in this House, with his knowledge of the nationalised industries, and he was a congenial companion. Whatever our differences politically, we had no personal disagreement and in defeat he behaved with a generosity and magnanimity which I hope in such circumstances I would emulate.

I have an interest in the subject under debate in that since 11 January I have been representing the Greater London council at the terminal five inquiry at Heathrow. Having been told that maiden speeches should be non-controverial, I shall not enter the debate about the GLC, expect to comment that I shall need to be persuaded that the strategic planning and road functions and overall position concerning regional planning are in good hands after any changes are made.

I have a general point to make about London which is of fundamental importance and which was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Freeson) and the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright), and that concerns the relationship of London with the south-east region. The present relationship is based upon plans which were made as long ago as 1967, which were last reviewed in 1978, and which assume a growing population in the south-east, a static population for London and growth to be accommodated in a number of defined growth areas outside London. It was assumed that there would be growth of population for the south-east of no less than 2 million. Instead, there has been a static population in the south-east, a sharply falling population for London—it has fallen by 13 per cent. — and a notable increase in population in some of the growth areas notably to the west of London in Berkshire. Growth in the growth areas has been no less than 13 per cent. This has all happened without any growth of population overall.

The growth areas can be seen to be attracting population out of London. That may be because Londoners, like other members of the population, want to occupy more space. The level of occupation of houses in London is certainly still higher than that in the south-east generally. To a Government who are committed to control of the borrowing requirement, there could well be attractions in the idea of reconsidering the strategy for the growth areas, which are extremely expensive in terms of new infrastructure. I suggest that in the near future the Government should review their strategy for the southeast, particularly for the growth areas, in view of the uncertainty of government in London.

I shall refer briefly to three matters that concern the quality of life in west London. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) in only one respect. I contend that a Boeing 747 makes as much noise on take-off as a Trident. I do not accept that the new and larger planes are any less noisy than their predecessors.

At Heathrow only a handful of passenger flights leave or land between 11 pm and 11.30 pm and there would be no serious disadvantage to the air transport industry in bringing the ban forward from 11.30 pm to 11 pm. I suggest that that would be of great benefit to the people of west London. The time may soon arrive when a total night ban will be considered. That is already the position in many countries in which our air transport industry competes.

There is considerable pressure on open space and parks in west London. A regional park very near to my constituency has been said to suffer from

"the almost overwhelming use of space for formal and informal recreation and problems of over-use."

There is great pressure on open space in west London and temptations to develop it. Since the law was changed in 1980, local authorities have been under pressure to allow development of public open space.

Finally, I refer briefly to the standard of development in Feltham, which is in my constituency. I should welcome the intervention of the Greater London council and the Secretary of State in the decision on the station development at Feltham, where it was found that there were too many offices and that the standard of design was too low. Continued attention to the number of offices in new development and the standard of design will be greatly welcomed by my constituents.

All those features are of some importance when London government is going through a period of uncertainty. I urge that, in the next two or three years, the Government should take a particular interest in those matters in view of the uncertainty that is created by the constitutional debate on the GLC.

It is a privilege to speak after any maiden speaker. I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Ground), although he may not expect us to welcome his presence. We are grateful for the tribute that he paid to our former colleague, Russell Kerr, who made a formidable contribution to the affairs of the House, particularly in respect of nationalised industries. For many years he was chairman of the Select committee on Nationalised Industries, looking at many of our publicly owned enterprises. I am sure that many people regret that his chairmanship did not continue. We look forward to another such chairmen in the not too distant future, as we look forward to the hon. and learned Gentleman's intellectual observations, particularly because of his planning expertise, on the White Paper on the future of London government.

All Conservative Members, including the Minister, stood on these words at the election. I quote from the hard-to-find and hard-to-detect Conservative manifesto:

"The Metropolitan Councils and the Greater London Council have been shown to be a wasteful and unnecessary tier of Government. We shall abolish them and return most of their functions to the boroughs and districts."

In London the districts did not originally have those functions anyway. The manifesto continues:

"Services which need to be administered over a wider area —such as police, and fire, and education in inner London—will be run by joint boards of borough or district representatives."

There is a need for a wealth of intellectual support. Reference has been made today to the Herbert commission, a great tome of 500 pages that preceded the establishment of the GLC. After all, it was not the establishment of the GLC but the enlargement of the great municipal tradition of the London county council, started in 1888. As my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) reminded us, it was founded partly on the pioneer work of the London school board, which was founded in 1870. London's education has been in unity ever since.

The measure that is advocated by the Conservative party is much bigger than the establishment of the GLC. It is the destruction of a system of directly elected representatives to the service of central London since 1870 and 1888. I do not know what documentary evidence that statement in the manifesto is based on. Perhaps the Minister will tell us. What proves that the GLC has been wasteful and unnecessary? Hon. Members may have their views about any one administration, as we would. They may have views about the administration of Sir Horace Cutler or his predecessor. However, the word is "unnecessary". Unnecessary to whom? The Prime Minister? Unnecessary to the hon. Members who served with me on GLC committees, such as the hon. Members for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) and Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne)? Did they think that the GLC was unnecessary when they served on that body? If so, can they tell the House why, or why it has since become unnecessary?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He, like others, has referred to the Herbert report. Is he not aware that when the Herbert report was written, shortly after which the Greater London council was set up, it was intended that the Greater London council should administer many services which have since been removed from it, such as the bulk of the housing to the 32 London boroughs, the ambulances to the National Health Service, sewerage to the Thames water authority? The Thames barrier, too, is now virtually completed. There is also vast duplication in such spheres as traffic management which the London boroughs are big enough and responsible enough to run. Is not the waste and lack of necessity to keep the GLC going bound up with all that?

I am glad that the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) intervened. He is right up to a point. The Conservative Government took away the water authority functions from the local authorities. That was unnecessary. It could have been done differently. A Conservative Government took away the strategic housing function, for which there is a dire need. The same Government who stripped away some of the GLC's functions now wish to destroy it. I wonder if they had in mind doing that all along. That may have been one of the reasons.

Strategic planning is an important function which has received mention, but not a great deal of attention. The hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) and the hon. and learned Member for Feltham and Heston referred to the need for recreation and open spaces. Strategic planning is a very important function for London and nobody, not even the Prime Minister, could deny that it must be done on a unitary basis. It is not possible to do it in any other way. Who must make the decisions? Strategic planning by the GLC, which may not cost very much in the GLC's billion pound expenditure, is vital. Many of our difficulties in urban areas are due to conflicting interests. The GLC must decide who should be the referee.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes does not want the new south circular to go through Richmond park, but motorways have been known to go through comparable areas. Who is to decide whether the green belt is to be nibbled at and given over to speculative builders? There is money in planning decisions, in planning permits, in loans to housing associations and in relaxing the green belt restrictions. The only body that can take such decisions must be directly elected and publicly accountable to the electors who put it there, and make its decisions openly and in a thoroughly democratic fashion. Certain interests in this country would like to dismantle the planning laws established after the war on the basis of Abercrombie and the Greater London plan. I do not believe that a joint body elected by the councils — a quango of some type—could ever do that job.

Time is short, so I shall not discuss the problems of the Health Service in Newham. If the Government wish to displace the strategic function of the Greater London council, and its relationships to transport, housing and office permits—one wonders why such a vast amount of office accommodation is empty in London—and if they wish to destroy the overall financial arrangements whereby some of the richer areas help some of the poorer areas in respect of education and public services, they had better come up with some very good solutions. Some people do not want the GLC to exist because it would be to their financial advantage if it did not. It is to the advantage of everyone in London that it should continue to fulfil the civic, central functions of democratic government that we have had for more than a century in London.

With the leave of the House, I shall reply to what has been a generally well-informed debate adorned with a number of maiden speeches. The Prime Minister will not have to look far for new ministerial talent from London Members, which should be an incentive for those of us already in the Administration to work even harder.

I commend the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) for his maiden speech from the Dispatch Box, although I must chide him in one respect. Having criticised me for making a long speech, he made an even longer one himself.

The hon. Gentleman and a number of hon. Members mentioned the police. As the House will know, it has been the policy of successive Commissioners, supported by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and his predecessors, to increase the number of police officers available for street duties. As a result of the review of force structure, almost 1,000 officers have been redeployed to such duties in recent years. The Commissioner has also said that, through savings in other areas of operation, he proposes to make available a further 650 officers for the same purpose.

The hon. Member for Newham, North-East said that some local authorities were starved of resources in their HIP allocations, but he could not answer the fact that, having bid for allocations, a number of authorities—I mentioned two — failed to spend them. He tried to defend them by saying that they did not have adequate notice, but they received notice at the same time as all the other London boroughs, which managed to achieve far better spending levels with the allocations made available to them.

The first real maiden speech was from my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) who coped like an old hand with a nautical intervention from the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. His constituents have a forceful advocate on the many environmental issues affecting them and we look forward to hearing from him on many future occasions.

The right hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Freeson) opposed our plans for the GLC. I should have thought that if one person in the House wished to see Ken Livingstone's power base removed, it would be the right hon. Gentleman. He must recognise that the GLC's functions have changed since it was set up in 1964. Indeed, he conceded that there was a need for reform, although he did not go as far as we did.

A number of hon. Members asked for proposals from the Government and a reasoned case for the abolition of the GLC. The White Paper will appear in the autumn and will contain a fully reasoned statement of why we think that that is the best decision for London. It will also set out the options for replacement. The Opposition ought perhaps to wait and see the proposals before criticising them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Berry) handled me with patience and courtesy when he was my Whip. As his speech showed, his enforced silence for more than four years has been a great loss to the House. We welcome his voice again in our debates on London.

The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) also made a maiden speech. I recall his speeches from our days together at County hall, and I have to say that age has not mellowed him. Indeed, his was one of the few maiden speeches which did not mention the Member's predecessor. Whatever one thought of Arthur Lewis, he certainly added an extra dimension to life in the House.

The convention that maiden speeches are uncontroversial has clearly been abandoned. Some day, no doubt, the convention that Ministers always say that maiden speeches are excellent whether they think so or not will also be abandoned, but not today. The hon. Member for Newham, North-West made a good speech. Perhaps I may say this, however, that the hon. Gentleman use3 the privilege of the House and of his maiden speech to do to three individuals exactly what he accused the press of doing to him and his colleagues—to attack them when they did not have the right to reply.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) made a well-informed contribution, concentrating on our proposals for London Transport. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will shortly be bringing forward proposals in a White Paper for a London regional transport authority, and it would not be right for me to go into detail in advance of that. I think, however, that my hon. Friend will find much in those proposals to give him satisfaction. The new arrangements will for the first time seriously tackle the integration of London's commuter railways and the services for which London Transport is responsible, as well as providing London Transport with the stability and policy that it needs and securing much better value for money.

The hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) made a number of references to the National Health Service. I take up just one topic concerning the replacement of facilities for the mentally handicapped now that Darenth park is being run down. I understand that a 30-place hostel, the Gables, is now open in Greenwich and that another 32-place hostel at Shooters hill is due to be completed in 1984–85.

I have much sympathy with what he hon. Gentleman said about gipsies. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State who, happily, looks after gipsies, rather than me, will be writing to him. I shall take up with the Department of Health and Social Security his plea for the provision of security locks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Maples) made an excellent maiden speech. He spoke with confidence and understanding and mentioned rates — a subject which Opposition Members carefully avoided. He made a number of positive suggestions for reducing expenditure without reducing essential services. Again, we very much welcome him to our London debates.

The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Roberts) spoke about the police and the Colin Roach case. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, in answer to a question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Murphy) on 28 June, outlined our strategy on the follow-up to the Colin Roach case. I shall pass on to my right hon. and learned Friend the hon. Gentleman's other remarks about the police.

I am afraid that I missed the next two speeches, but I understand that there was an excellent one from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks), who spoke with feeling about Heathrow and the need for Government aid to improve the infrastructure for the fifth terminal. He also mentioned the Hayes bypass. He, too, welcomed the proposed abolition of the GLC, and touched on the topical matter of the problems facing many local authorities which went in for system building in the 1960s and 1970s. The Government are giving urgent consideration to the matter, and I very much welcome the knowledge that my hon. Friend brings to it.

I also missed the maiden speech by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn), who is a mild man, provided a few notes for me suggesting that the Government were attacked by the hon. Gentleman for their contemptuous treatment of Islington. I understand that almost every institution in London was attacked by the hon. Gentleman, apart from Islington and County hall. However, Islington council does not help Islington with some of its policies and expenditures. If the hon. Gentleman could direct some of his criticism and attack to Islington council, that might be in the interests of some of his constituents. We welcomed his contribution, and I shall write to him on the question that he posed about the future of the South London hospital for women.

rose—

In fairness to other hon. Members, I must try to reply to them. If I have time nearer the end of my remarks, I shall give way to the hon. Member for Islington, North.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler) supported the proposed abolition of the GLC. He should have received a letter from me dealing with the specific case that he mentioned about the Monmouth road housing co-operative. As he knows, it is not just the cost of the scheme but the absence of a proper survey which is the reason for our reservations. I hope that those can be overcome. I shall look at my hon. Friend's positive suggestion about the leasehold enfranchisement of flats.

My hon. Friend also championed, as he always does, the cause of inner London. He made it clear that there were problems in inner London different from those of the rest of the capital. We shall follow up the proposals in the report of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors which we have under active consideration.

In view of the Minister's comments about Islington borough council, will he now reconsider the penalty clauses which have been imposed on that council for last year's rate decision, which was forced on the council by the needs of and poverty in the borough?

No.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Ground) made an excellent speech. It is obvious that he is already deeply involved in issues that affect his constituency. He asked me some extremely up-market questions that I shall write to him about. I especially welcomed his interest in strategic planning, as I have grappled with the Greater London development plan for some time. The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) also mentioned that.

There has been broad agreement on the problems that Londoners face and wide recognition of the energy and potential of Londoners but there is clear disagreement on the solutions. Opposition Members look to an increase in public expenditure, whereas my right hon. and hon. Friends recognise that higher rates, taxes and inflation would simply end the economic recovery that is now under way. The people who have most to gain from the economic recovery are those about whom many hon. Members have spoken today—the homeless, the unemployed and the ill. Their problems must be solved, but first we must create the wealth with which to solve them.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

It is as great a pleasure for me to have the Adjournment debate in the daylight as it must be for you, Mr. Speaker, to see the end of long Adjournment debates, of which you have had many more than I have in the past few years. It is a great privilege and pleasure to see you in the Chair now, knowing your long and attentive listening to my long and possibly tedious speeches about constituency matters. I make no excuse for continuing in that vein. It is not just an honour but a positive pleasure to be the Member of Parliament for Devon, North.

If I say north Devon, Mr. Speaker, you might think of cattle, sheep, farms, Exmoor, Lorna Doone, the rivers Taw and Yeo, Henry Williamson and "Tarka the Otter", surfing at Croyde, sailing at Instow and shopping in the pannier markets of Barnstaple and South Molton. You would be quite right to think of all those things, Mr. Speaker, but perhaps you would not know that we have six manufacturing or processing firms supplying Marks and Spencer—three with textiles, one with meat, one with woodware and one with bath salts! Specialist doors from Shaplands in Barnstaple go to Ascension island and the middle east, Time magazine in Arabic is printed in Barnstaple and air freighted to the middle east each week. I believe that it takes longer to get from Barnstaple to London airport than it does from the airport to the middle east. Haversacks for middle eastern armies, sleeping bags for the Dutch and parachute webbing for the French are all made in north Devon. Engine parts for the Tornado strike aircraft are made in South Molton, as are perfumes for California.

North Devon has many excellent, smaller, high-technology industries, but road transport is our first problem. Our county capital at Exeter is more than 40 miles away along a winding road—little better than a lane in parts—that is known jokingly but accurately as the A377. That vital artery is the busiest major road year round and it is probably the worst of its sort in England.

Almost every major firm has a supply depot or regional office in Exeter 40 miles away. From us they can supply Plymouth to the west along 40 miles of dual carriageway, Taunton to the east along 30 miles of the M5 and Torbay to the south on dual carriageway. It is only to the north towards Barnstaple and Ilfracombe that the roads are utterly inadequate. We are promised the north Devon link road from Tiverton and the M5 to Barnstaple during 1986–88 and the Barnstaple urban relief road, a Devon county council project, by about 1987.

To survive and prosper I must ask the Government to confirm that our road programme will be maintained or, better still, expedited. Of course, there might have to be a public inquiry or inquiries based on conservation objections, but with minor adjustments to the preferred route it might be possible to avoid them. Our local paper, the North Devon Journal Herald, is full of the argument between environmentalists who fear for the natural habitat of Hares down or Crooked Oak valley and are often anti any road, versus the industrialist who accepts the need for conservation measures but demands the road to hold existing industry in north Devon and, I hope, to attract more into the area. My support goes entirely to Mr. Arthur Sparks on the business side and to Mr. Brian Peace of the link road action group, who accept that the roads must and will be built, while accepting also that there is room for common sense and compromise on the line of the road. I do not wish everything, including existing negotiations to purchase land, to be delayed. People's livelihoods depend upon the jobs that the link road will bring or preserve, and farmers affected by the road deserve full compensation and no delays in the completion of purchase so that they in turn can purchase or exchange land.

We are not seeking just the sympathy that we have always received. We want rather more than sympathy in this case, because we have the example a few miles south of us of the Okehampton bypass, where the years pass but a decision is still awaited. That is the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir P. Mills). Inquiries have been conducted, but no decision has been made because no one can or will make up his mind. The need for better roads is a major problem that we have had for 25 years, but thanks to this Government alone progress looks like being made and a solution is now within reach.

We have other interests, inevitably in a part of the world that is as beautiful as ours, such as tourism. Tourism is an industry, but no Government have ever treated it as such. That is not unique to north Devon, because tourism as a whole suffers from the neglect that comes from being treated as a form of shopkeeping, so that none of the capital allowances or other industrial assistance that is granted to even the smallest workshop or factory is available to the hotelier or the restaurateur, although he may employ many more staff than even the busiest of workshops in these automated days. It is not the responsibility of my hon. Friend the Minister of State, but I hope that the forthcoming Finance Bill will provide capital allowances, because service industries such as tourism will take up the employment slack in areas such as north Devon and in many other parts of Britain.

I wish to draw the attention of the House to one area that has interests in both tourism and more conventional industry. Along the beautiful north Devon coast is the spectacular scenery of Ilfracombe with, in the near neighbourhood, everything that is lovely in the British countryside, from Exmoor, Lynton and Lynmouth, Combe Martin and Ilfracombe on to the sands of Woolacombe, Putsborough and Instow. From almost any of those places we can see the south Wales coast, the Mumbles and Swansea. We can almost see the Welsh tourists who will be so welcome in north Devon when the water bridge to Ilfracombe is reopened and the ships ply back and forth once more across the Bristol channel. With EC and other aid, private enterprise funds will be available to reopen the harbour of Ilfracombe and to redevelop and upgrade this tourist and water-based amenity industry. The Severn barrage a few miles upstream might well be built from a safe base at Ilfracombe. Ilfracombe is a development area. The industrial and commercial spin off from, for example, a roll-on, roll-off ferry service with Swansea would be vast, while the effects on the tourist industry on both sides of the Bristol channel would be dramatic.

We need not just sympathy but sympathetic treatment of applications for grant-aid and loans as north Devon helps itself and develops its special industry of hospitality and tourism, tied in with the appropriate industrial development for such an area. However, industrial development must not mean the destruction of beautiful towns and villages or the countryside, which is why we must ask the Government to work with our excellent Devon county council and with North Devon district council to provide the infrastructure needed so that we have the opportunities already available to many other coastal resorts in perhaps less beautiful, but also less remote, parts of Britain.

I thank the Government for their work during the last Parliament to help to maintain our major industry of agriculture. I shall not dwell on agriculture today because, during the past four years, the improvement has been great, for which credit is due to the Government. Today I ask for three things and I summarise the points that I have made. The first is that we keep to the proposed timetable for the roads that are needed to get produce out and tourists in and out. The second is that we encourage our modern high-flying and efficient industries to expand and, last but not least, that we accept that tourism is a major industry and treat it accordingly—as an industry high in labour content and in need of capital investment. We would get more British jobs, provide more British goods and earn good money from sources at home and abroad.

Those are the very simple aims of the essentially simple Member of Parliament for Devon, North, who seeks to plead his case not because the Government have not worked well— indeed, they have— but because, over many years, we have been starved in north Devon of the funds and services that we need. Now I seek not just our fair share but to make up ground for the less than fair share that we have had in the past.

I have previously had the pleasure of replying to Adjournment debates initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller). It is always enjoyable to listen to him because he speaks of his constituency with such enthusiasm and feeling, in graphic terms, and demonstrates such enormously detailed knowledge. Today he emphasised once again the critical importance of road development to the future of north Devon. He stressed the importance of keeping to proposed timetables for roads—a point that I shall certainly pass on, emphasise and stress to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

I assure my hon. Friend that the Government retain a strong commitment to both the north Devon link road and the Barnstaple bypass. The initial stage of the link road is under construction from the M5 to Tiverton and is scheduled for completion in April 1984, but there are good hopes for the achievement of an earlier date. The period for objections to the draft orders for stage 2A from Tiverton to Newtown ended on 23 June 1983. The need for a public inquiry on that stage is now under urgent consideration by the Department of Transport.

It is expected that the draft orders for stage 2B from Newtown to Barnstaple will be published later in the year. That is the position also with the Barnstaple bypass. The completion of the bypass is particularly significant for the development of the Roundswell industrial estate, Barnstaple.

Some will argue that progress should be faster, but statutory procedures, as I know my hon. Friend recognises, have to be followed to ensure a fair hearing for all those concerned. There is also criticism that stage 2 of the north Devon link road is to be built as a single carriageway. However, the road is designed to make possible upgrading to a dual carriageway if that is justified by the volume of traffic.

It is necessary to weigh carefully major items of public expenditure against the economic benefits which are meant to arise from such projects. I believe that critics of the proposed road will be more than satisfied by the final product. It should provide good service both to existing companies and to new developments attracted by the improved communications to the area. Not least, it will serve the needs of tourism, to which I shall return, and on which my hon. Friend rightly laid great stress.

The second assurance sought by my hon. Friend was that the Government should encourage the modern highflying industries, the high technology industries, of north Devon to expand. We shall, of course, do just that. We have, as my hon. Friend knows, various departmental schemes designed to do just that. The regional offices of my Departmant are available for advice and we are always willing to give support to new firms and existing firms in the area.

My hon. Friend provided a graphic account of the variety of manufacturing products from his constituency which sell successfully, both at home and overseas. The overwhelming impression is one of vigorous and enterprising management working in harmony with adaptable and hard-working employees. There is certainly no lack of evidence that the entrepreneurial drive and working spirit flourishes within the present boundaries of my hon. Friend's constituency.

IBL Ballscrews, Barnstaple, has reached an agreement with Siemens and Fafnir Bearings to market in Europe a combined package of ballscrews, associated bearings and drive systems. That represents a considerable opportunity for the company. Companies like those elsewhere are beginning to report increased profits. One such company is Aaronson Bros which manufactures laminated and veneered chipboard. It reports that it is operating very efficiently and almost at full capacity.

A further development is the decision by the General Guarantee Corporation, part of the Great Universal Stores group, to base its west country activities in north Devon. The corporation has allocated £2 million for business investment in the south-west, and north Devon should be well placed to take advantage of this initiative.

The important contribution which small firm growth can make in an area is dramatically illustrated by a business which my hon. Friend has drawn to the attention of my Department. In 1979 the Carpenter's Workshop, Barnstaple, employed nine people. It now employs nearly 100 and is a real acorn to oak tree story. It is a splendid example of what can be achieved by energetic management and co-operative staff.

Such success reflects in part the Government's policies for regional and industrial development. The previous Conservative Government achieved a concentration of regional assistance on those areas in greatest need. The Ilfracombe travel-to-work area retained development area status. The Barnstaple area, although down-graded, has benefited from intermediate area advantages. The much reduced spread of the assisted areas nationally has focused attention on incentives available for development in remaining areas, including Barnstaple and Ilfracombe. The Department's south-west industrial development office at Plymouth is always ready to assist firms to obtain full advantage from the various schemes available.

In the Barnstaple and Ilfracombe areas during the period from 1 May 1979 to 31 March 1983, 11 offers of assistance were made under section 7 of the Industry Act 1982 to a total value of £1£3 million with associated project outlays exceeding £20 million. Arising from this expenditure, it was estimated that 650 new jobs would be provided and 25 existing jobs safeguarded. In addition, there were seven offers of assistance made under section 8 of the Industry Act, worth £200,000. That is for projects with costs approaching £1 million.

In addition, English Industrial Estates is pursuing an active policy of advance factory construction in north Devon. On the Mullacott Cross industrial estate, work was completed on 11 units in March 1983, of which two have been let and two are under offer. In Barnstaple 19 units are scheduled for completion in November 1983. A feature of these schemes is the concentration upon small units. That at Barnstaple includes eight units, each of 650 sq. ft., while the largest unit is 2,000 sq. ft.

The Department's small firms service is also playing a part stimulating small firm development in north Devon. There are area counselling offices and clinics offering advice to individuals considering setting up their own business as well as to established firms.

Proposals by other bodies to aid small firms include those by the Dartington North Devon trust and by the North Devon Manufacturers Association to set up local employment agencies. Devon county council has offered to support both initiatives which are expected to contribute in different ways to the encouragement of small businesses.

I was pleased that my hon. Friend mentioned the excellent work of the Devon county council, which I have had the pleasure of visiting in the past, and the north Devon district council. Devon county council's support for the provision of improved water services and other infrastructure at the Mullacott Cross and Roundswell industrial estates is particularly worth highlighting.

It is vital that Government Departments, local authorities and local representative bodies should co-operate fully to provide the development necessary for the area. I draw my hon. Friend's attention to two recent examples involving the Manpower Services Commission. The first involves the youth training scheme, for which the Commission estimated a need for 740 places in north Devon. Already, more than this number—840—have been made available from a wide range of sources. Those include 350 places on a broad-based scheme put together by the North Devon Manufacturers Association. That reflects the association's recognition of the importance of attracting young people into manufacturing and confidence in the future of the employment that it can offer.

My hon. Friend may be interested to know that, since he received that information, we have found that we have more than three places available for every young person seeking a place under the youth training scheme in the coming year. That proves the excellence of the county, industry and commerce working together.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for providing that further information.

Another project involves community programme project support for the Ilfracombe and district industrial development committee. Work will be provided there for the long-term unemployed on such schemes as the conservation of Torrington commons to increase their attractiveness to the public.

I am aware that there have been employment setbacks in north Devon during the past year, including the closure of some small firms. Ilfracombe continues to pose employment problems for much of the year. Even in June, with the summer season having started, the unemployment rate of 18·5 per cent. was very high compared with the national rate of 12·3 per cent. Barnstaple is less affected by seasonal employment patterns and the rate is much better at 10 per cent., well below the national average.

The employment needs of Ilfracombe, although not large in absolute terms, call for imaginative proposals, such as the one mentioned by my hon. Friend for the development of Ilfracombe harbour. The project has attracted much interest and support including that of the West Country tourist board. I am glad that private commercial interest has emerged. If the project is to succeed, it will be essential to obtain firm support from such sources. The central role remains that of the North Devon district council, which is the harbour authority. I look forward to hearing of further developments on the project. If a definite proposal emerges from closer examination it would be appropriate to consider funding from European sources.

There is the possibility of aid—up to 50 per cent.—for a feasibility study under article 12 of the European regional development fund regulation. Such aid is seen as a prelude to a programme of assistance from the fund. If a sound proposal for the project can be developed, there will be good prospects of Government support for aid to be given from the fund. That aspect is primarily one for those concerned with the proposal to pursue with the Department of the Environment.

I assure my hon. Friend, therefore, that not only will the Government seek to encourage the well-being of the best of existing industries in north Devon, but we are ready to look at the promotion of viable new activities.

My hon. Friend asked the Government to treat tourism as a major industry. He said that previous Governments had not done that. He may not know that I have just taken on responsibility for tourism. My other responsibilities in the Department are nationalised industries — steel, shipbuilding and so on. I was thinking of altering my notepaper and describing myself as Minister for Heavy Industry and Tourism. That might sound an unlikely title, but perhaps it would convince my hon. Friend that tourism is being treated as an industry.

Tourism is an important industry, because it has a tremendous capacity to create some of the jobs that we need for the future. Last year, the total turnover of tourism in this country was about £8·5 billion and the industry employed more than I million people. It contributed about £4 billion to the balance of payments and was responsible for 13 per cent. of invisible earnings. It is of great importance to the local economies of major holiday areas, such as north Devon.

We have demonstrated that we take seriously the need to encourage the tourist industry. This year assistance available for tourism projects under section 4 of the Development of Tourism Act 1969 has been increased from £5 million to just over £8 million, and is available right across the country, not just in assisted areas.

I am pleased to note that tourism projects in north Devon are among those which have benefited from this assistance. In the past two years, 12 projects in north Devon have been assisted by the English tourist board with section 4 grants totalling £138,000. This has helped to stimulate at least £500,000 of investment.

Capital allowances for hotels and other aspects of tourism are, as my hon. Friend recognises, matters for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This is a point on which many representations have been made. It is one of the points that was made in the review of tourism that was being undertaken by Iain Sproat, the former Under-Secretary of State for Trade. There is a great deal of feeling in the tourist industry about this.

I assure my hon. Friend that I am studying the issues raised in the review urgently. I hope to announce conclusions in the near future. I am confident that those conclusions will be welcomed by my hon. Friend and all who are active in this important industry. I emphasise to my hon. Friend that tourism is viewed extremely seriously as a major economic activity and one which will become more important.

Although not wishing to minimise the continuing problems in north Devon, the overall impression, as my hon. Friend spelt out, is of an area of improving infrastructure and of a preponderance of good news emerging from local manufacturers. The right spirit and energy are clearly present. The various representative bodies are contributing to a better understanding of the difficulties and possible solutions, and, above all, my hon. Friend plays an active part. North Devon could easily become a forgotten peripheral corner of Great Britain. It is in no small measure due to his efforts that its strengths and needs retain the Government's attention.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at three minutes to Three o' clock.