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Category: Speeches

  • Michael Portillo – 2001 Speech to the Institute of Directors in Wales

    Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Portillo, the then Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the Institute of Directors conference in Wales on 20 April 2001.

    With economic uncertainty growing, with major companies issuing profit warnings and stock markets fluctuating across the world, Gordon Brown’s economic plans look imprudent. Events in the United States, the continuing chronic situation in Japan, and revised growth forecasts for ‘euroland’ emphasise that the economic future is uncertain.

    We Conservatives have been right to argue that Gordon Brown’s economic policies of higher tax, higher regulation and higher government spending are making Britain less competitive.

    Many of us have come to think of Britain as being a good place from which to do business. We increasingly trade on a reputation, especially relative to our continental neighbours, for low taxes, a flexible labour market, and a healthy climate for enterprise. But every day under Labour it becomes less true. Step by step Britain is becoming a less enterprising economy. The need for reform is constant.

    The world has not stood still during the last four years. One of the very marks of success of the British economy over the last two decades – the fact that our reforms have been taken up all over the world – has, ironically, eroded our advantage.

    Take tax. The 2001 Budget locked-in the higher tax burden – equivalent to 10p on the basic rate of income tax – that Gordon Brown has imposed in his first four years. Tax as a proportion of national income has risen three percentage points from 35.2 to 38.2 per cent or £30bn –under Labour. At this rate, if we have another four years of Labour the 40 per cent barrier will be broken.

    Governments across the world, and increasingly across the political spectrum, share the view that high and rising levels of taxation are fatal to enterprise. Most people accept that high taxes crowd out the private sector and reduce incentives for success. Our competitors – in America certainly, but also in France, Germany and Spain – are all giving tax cuts a priority as a key to prosperity. I`m not sure that we in Britain have fully woken up to the significance of the ground that we are losing. When will ‘Red Tape Tony’, as the US refers to our Prime Minister, begin genuinely to understand that the UK cannot afford to swim against the global tide of lower taxes and lighter regulations?

    PriceWaterhouseCoopers, in a recent study, showed that two-thirds of the tax advantage we enjoyed over our European competitors in the mid-1990s has now been eroded. And the gap between Britain and low-taxed United States is growing – by 2001/02 our tax burden will be around 8.5% above that of the US.

    Business has borne much of the brunt of the Chancellor’s stealth taxes. Despite the emerging global consensus for tax cuts, Mr Blair and Mr Brown have chosen to increase the tax burden by £5 billion a year on business. This has involved increasing the tax on dividends, changing Corporation Tax so that more money is paid out to the Treasury now, increasing fuel tax and the tax on property purchases, and introducing new taxes like IR35 which threaten to decimate the IT contracting sector, and the Climate Change Levy which will do nothing to improve the environment but will hit manufacturing extremely hard. This year’s Budget contains another new tax on business – a construction tax which could cost thousands of jobs and which we will be opposing when it is debated in Parliament next week.

    The Government has also massively increased red tape. There is always pressure on governments to address political concerns by imposing new regulations on firms. But this Government seems to have let out all the stops, introducing 3,865 new regulations last year. The overall bill for red tape, according to an IoD survey has gone up by £5bn a year under Labour.

    Equally, with the labour market the Government has, without great fanfare, started giving trades unions significant new powers – reversing the trend of the last 20 years.

    The Chancellor is not just dragging the tax and regulatory systems in the wrong direction. Mr Brown’s welfare reforms, far from reducing cost and complexity and making work pay, actually increase bureaucracy and make working harder pay less. New figures reveal that 40 per cent – almost one in two – people in this country will soon be recipients of Gordon Brown’s means-tested benefits. What a damning indictment of a government which promised radically to reform and reduce the welfare state. Mr Brown has no long-term strategy for reducing dependency and the size and the scope of the welfare state.

    This Government plans to increase government spending by 3.7% a year over the next three years, when the trend rate of growth of the economy assumed for the public finances is only 2.25%. The Chancellor’s path for public spending has been criticised by not just the IMF, but even by the EU. A high spend economy is not a high performance economy. His plans to grow the size of the government will crowd out private capital. Other countries are promoting real fiscal discipline to allow space for the private sector to flourish.

    Taken together, these misguided policies are already having a negative impact. Even in the relatively benign economic conditions of recent years, the UK is losing ground under Labour.

    Since 1997, our economy has grown at a slower rate than that of the US or euroland. Productivity growth has slowed to just 1.4 per cent a year over the last four years. It grew, on average, 50 per cent more quickly during the previous five. Our share of world exports has fallen from 5.1 per cent in 1997 to 4.5 per cent in 2000 and manufacturing employment has fallen by over 350,000. Indeed, our overall level of unemployment, a source of great self-satisfaction for the government is in fact worse than 14 other members of the OECD. And our position in the World Competitiveness League has fallen from 4th to 9th under Labour.

    However, the benign economic conditions of the global economy of recent years are changing. We all hope the economic uncertainty which has infected certain parts of the world does not spread to Britain. But if the global slowdown does have an impact on growth in Britain, and if we still had a Labour Government, the inherent weaknesses of Gordon Brown’s economic approach would be exacerbated.

    High taxes and regulations that are proving an impediment to growth now would have an even greater impact in those circumstances, when competition and the search for markets would be that much more intense. Government spending would be rising quicker than growth, (and indeed even quicker than currently planned because of the need for higher benefit spending when the economy slows). The economy – particularly the private sector – would need a boost. But Gordon Brown would be prevented from offering the tax cuts that could help to ease the problem because he’s committed to a path for government spending that outstrips trend growth.

    Labour would be under pressure to raise taxes faster than they had planned. The only alternative to that would be for Labour’s spending plans themselves to be ripped up and cut back. That would be an another ignominious defeat for the Chancellor and would lead to turmoil in the public services.

    Rather than plotting a course for stability, Gordon Brown is plotting an imprudent path in an uncertain world. This Labour Chancellor has no meaningful fiscal disciplines. The Treasury’s rules are so weak they offer no effective checks and balances on Gordon Brown’s old-style, socialist tax and spend instincts.

    In the event of a UK slowdown and second Labour term the fiscal rules that the Chancellor talks about so much would be shown to be a sham, as they offer absolutely no constraint on the amount that a Labour Government can tax and spend. The Chancellor could meet his bogus rules even if current public spending rose to 50 or 60 per cent of GDP, so long as taxes rose equally rapidly to cover the gap.

    We need a new approach if we are to keep Britain competitive. We need a better policy mix that will serve us in good times as well as bad. That approach needs to be based on discipline at the macroeconomic level, and freeing businesses from state interference.

    It means, keeping our own currency so that Britain can retain the flexibility of having its own an autonomous monetary policy suited to domestic conditions, like the United States.

    It means making room for tax cuts by restricting the growth of government spending to within the trend rate of growth of the economy and reforming the role of the state.

    It means cutting the burden of regulation on business year-on-year by setting regulatory budgets which departments have to cut.

    And it means increasing the incentives to work harder and get on, by floating people free of Labour’s means-tested benefits.

    In short, it means having an optimistic, outward-looking vision for a low taxed and lightly regulated Britain that can compete against the best economies in the world in the 21st Century.

  • Robert Hughes – 1986 Speech on the Channel Tunnel

    Below is the text of the speech made by Robert Hughes, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 10 February 1986.

    I beg to move, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:

    ‘whilst accepting that the Channel Tunnel Group-France Manche scheme may have the potential to encourage the development of modern British Rail network and bring benefit to some parts of the country, declines to approve the White Paper “The Channel Fixed Link”, Cmnd. 9735, without full knowledge of the terms of the Treaty and its Protocols, without any Government commitment to necessary financial assistance to British Rail, without any Government plans to maximise the opportunities for industry and communities away from the immediate location of the Fixed Link, and without the Government accepting responsibility for and safeguarding against the damaging employment implications of the scheme, or providing adequately for the rights of those affected by the decision to have their views ​ taken into account; and recognises that the proposals present a threat to consumer choice in crossing the Channel with the creation of a private monopoly with its implications for prices and charges, without the guaranteed continuation of port and ferry facilities’.

    Three hours to debate what has been described as a historic decision is far too short a time. I apologise to the House in advance if I do not give way to interventions as frequently as I might have done. There are a lot of issues to be covered, many of which were not covered by the Secretary of State.
    In the speeches and statements and in the White Paper, the Secretary of State repeats that the Channel tunnel is an imaginative and exciting project. He has waxed eloquent about the job creation factors of the scheme and the benefits that he hopes will accrue. When he has been asked pertinent and penetrating questions, he has replied, “All will be revealed in the White Paper.” We have the White Paper now and there is little in it, if anything, which could not have been put before us a fortnight ago. There is nothing in it which could have delayed its publication for a few days, as the right hon. Gentleman said, but which became a fortnight.

    We accept that the CTG-FM scheme is the best of the schemes that the Government examined. In our view, it suits our transport needs and provides opportunities for British Rail. We believe that it could allow the benefits for some parts of the country to be distributed more evenly. If we were starting afresh to consider job creation schemes, we might well not start from where we are now. However, we are starting with the Government’s decision, and we have a responsibility to ensure that the best outcome is achieved. We have tabled a positive amendment, and we are not defensive about it.

    The problem is that the Secretary of State, having made a decision—or having had it made for him—wishes to cut and run. He wishes to avoid responsibility for developments that are damaging to the economies of various parts of the country and for the necessary planning to maximise potential benefits. He has prepared his alibi well in advance. In page 2 of the White Paper there is an all-embracing disclaimer which appears as a footnote:

    “The Government expressly asserts that it makes no representation, either express or implied, as to the viability of the project with any intention or desire that such representation be relied upon by any investor. It should be noted that, in this White Paper, estimates of CTG-FM’s financing needs are their own, and the impacts of the CTG-FM scheme — on employment, the environment, the merchant fleet etc.—are all based upon the promoters’ estimates of traffic.”

    I cannot recall seeing such a massive cop-out in any other White Paper. We shall press the Secretary of State to accept the figures and to take the action appropriate to them.

    The treaty is due to be signed on Wednesday. It is unfortunate that the White Paper gives us only the broadest outline of what the treaty contains. We are merely told in paragraph 50 that the treaty

    “will also enshrine the private sector nature of the link and the concessionaire’s right to compensation in the event of political interference or cancellation by either Government.”

    Can we not be told, less than two days before the treaty is signed, what the financial penalties are that the Government have negotiated? Why are we being asked, in effect, to buy a pig in a poke? Surely the Prime Minister will not sign a blank piece of paper in Canterbury in less than 48 hours from now? ​ Paragraphs 53 to 60 tell us that negotiations will continue on the concession agreement and that the final package will contain the freedom to set tariffs, subject only to the European Community’s and the Government’s rules on competition. These and many other issues need to be clarified.

    I was disappointed when the Secretary of State told us that he would leave the consultation arrangements to be dealt with by his hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Transport when he replies to the debate. The White Paper suggests what will happen. The Secretary of State from the beginning ruled out a formal public inquiry. In earlier debates he has asserted that the hybrid Bill procedure gave better opportunities for those affected to canvas their concerns, and it is clear in the White Paper that he has conceded his failure to convince a wide section of opinion in the House. Equally, he has failed to satisfy the doubts of many interests in Kent, for example. In paragraphs 46 to 48 he attempts to present a more convincing case and to answer the many representations that have been made on consultation.

    I shall deal with paragraph 48 in some detail. It seems that an extra statutory authority of planning machinery is to be established between the Government, the Kent county council and the other local authorities concerned. We understand that the committee will be chaired by the Minister of State and that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mrs. Rumbold), will be involved in discussions. I note that the hon. Lady is in her place.

    We are told in paragraph 48 that there will be widespread consultations. It adds:

    “Among the subjects to be considered by the committee will be the adequacy of the road system in Kent to cope with the traffic flows expected to follow the building of the link, and specific local economic and environmental problems that may be caused by the development of the link. As one of its first tasks the committee is expected to commission a more detailed study of the potential impact on Kent of the CTG-FM scheme both during and after construction. This is to be carried out with the widest possible consultation of relevant interest groups in the county.”

    So far so good, but what will be the result of the consultation? Everyone knows that there will be economic dislocation of the local economy. That appears not to be in doubt.

    Paragraph 41 makes it clear that 7,000 jobs will go in the ports and ferries if the promoters’ forecasts are accurate. Several questions follow from paragraph 48. To whom will the consultative committee report? When will it report? Who will carry out the detailed study of the potential impact on Kent? A responsible Government would have carried out those studies before, not after, taking a decision in principle.

    Further questions will have to be posed. Will the consultation group make recommendations? There would seem to be no point in having such a formal machinery, nor in commissioning these studies, unless the schemes are drawn up and acted upon. Will the findings of the consultative group be finalised and incorporated into the drafting of the hybrid Bill? What will be the effect of the consultations on those who may wish to petition the Select Committees which are due to be set up under the hybrid Bill procedure? If any of those affected by the scheme take part in the consultations, will they be prevented from gaining access to the Select Committees?

    Paragraph 62 of the White Paper sets out the hybrid Bill procedure and attempts to define the term locus standi. In paragraph 62, the Minister, trying to assuage the feelings of his Back Benchers, says:

    “However, the Government, as sponsor of the Bill, will not seek to oppose the right of anyone to appear before the Committees on a petition to secure protection, either for their personal interests, or for the proper interests of any organisation or group which they may have been appointed to represent.”

    The use of the word “proper” seems to be a heavy qualification on who will go before the Select Committees. Will the Secretary of State give a categorical guarantee that appearance before the consultation group or submission of objections to it will neither prejudice the right of petitioners to appear before the Select Committees nor extinguish those rights? Unless these questions are answered fully, the consultative machinery will be seen as nothing more than a gigantic public relations exercise and a hoax on the public.

    At the heart of our concern is what will happen not just to the south-east, but to the rest of the country. If the economic benefit is to be distributed about the country, British Rail must be given the opportunity to develop its services and to have its infrastructure, its motive power and rolling stock ready for the opening of the tunnel. Therefore, I welcome the British Rail press statement, issued on 4 February, in which it explains how it intends to run through-trains from different parts of the country and hopes that there will be discussions with immigration and customs officials to have these facilities carried out on the train, although there seems to be some doubt as to whether those bodies will co-operate.

    British Rail, in its press statement, appears to be thinking ahead, even if the Secretary of State is not. If the required investment is made available, it will give a boost to British Rail’s estimates of both freight and passenger services; and if the money is spent in the United Kingdom, jobs will be created. However, I dispute the Secretary of State’s assessment of when the investment needs to be made available and whether his policy towards British Rail is adequate to match its requirements.

    At Question Time on Monday 3 February, in column 6, I asked the Minister to give an assurance that British Rail’s external financing limit would be expanded to accommodate Channel tunnel-related expenditure and that other BR expenditure would not suffer. It astonished me when I was given such an unequivocal “Yes” to that question. However, in a subsequent answer in the same column, he back-pedalled very fast and said that BR’s EFL would be smaller during the period 1990–93 in any event. If that means that the investment and infrastructure will be in place before that time, we might accept it. However, I suspect that the opposite is the case. I believe that investment in BR must be expanded, even if the Channel tunnel is not to go ahead. If passengers and freight traffic are to be encouraged back to the railways, then BR’s customer image needs to be enhanced throughout the entire network, and not just that part that is related to the Channel tunnel service.

    The Government must put money into BR. The White Paper concedes that there will be public spending associated with the tunnel. That much is evident from paragraphs 29, 30 and 31. There is a little hedging in paragraph 31, which says: ​

    “The Government will give sympathetic consideration to supporting with Transport Supplementary Grant proposals from the County Council arising directly as a result of the fixed link project.”

    We know with certainty that public money will be going into roads development. Why, then, will the Government not do the same for British Rail? Paragraph 27 makes it clear beyond any doubt:

    “It will be for BR to raise the money for this”—

    that is all the investment about which we have spoken—

    “as for all its investment programmes, out of its own resources or borrowing, and not by way of Government grant.”

    Nothing can be more clear that the Government will not put any money in.
    In paragraph 66, the Minister expresses his hopes in this way:

    “The Government has high hopes of seeing the link built and of it becoming a valuable national asset serving the interests of the nation for many years to come.”

    I should like to see those high hopes come to fruition, but they will remain just pious hopes unless there is positive Government intervention.

    I commend to the House the latest issue of Town and Country Planning. In an article called “Where have all the planners gone?”, Andrew Thorburn says:

    “So far, no one has sketched out the consequences for Britain of the funnelling of traffic through this small corner, and the extra traffic likely to be stimulated … Never has the need for proper regional planning been more apparent.

    Some have felt that we can get by without this in times of recession when little is changing, but the construction of the largest infrastructure provision in Britain’s history will require the rethinking of many development and investment policies, and rural conserveration policies, as well as a review of the transportation services throughout the south east. Where is our machinery for this?”

    I concede that that was written about the south-east of England, but it is of equal relevance to the country as a whole. The Secretary of State will have nothing to do with this. His view is that if everything goes well, the scheme will be a success; and, if it does not, he is simply abrogating his responsibility in advance. He is like an old lag in a Scottish court pleading the special defence of “incrimination” or “impeachment”. He is saying, “It wasn’t me who did it; it was someone else. It was market forces that did it.”

    Without proper planning, investment and regional development, the nation will come to regret the decision and wonder what went wrong. The Opposition have a duty and a responsibility to the nation to seek to remedy the failings of the Minister and of the Government. We shall press the Government for as long as we are in opposition, and we shall discharge our responsibilities and duties to the nation when we become the Government. I commend our amendment to the House and invite right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the House to join us in the Lobby tonight.

  • Nicholas Ridley – 1986 Statement on the Channel Tunnel

    Below is the text of the statement made by Nicholas Ridley, the then Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 10 February 1986.

    I beg to move,

    That this House approves the Government’s White Paper on the Channel Fixed Link (Cmnd. 9735).

    I am delighted, but surprised, that the Opposition want this debate on the Channel tunnel. I am delighted because many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have important points to raise, and surprised because I do not understand what the Opposition seek to gain. Perhaps they want to embarrass the Liberals, as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) is in favour of our decision, but the Liberal candidates in east Kent are all against it. That is strange. The Liberal manifesto for the 1984 Euro-elections advocated
    “Community Investment in major transport links, including a Channel Tunnel”.
    I wonder whether the Kent Liberal candidates dissociated themselves from the manifesto at the time of the campaign.

    Mr. Stephen Ross (Isle of Wight)

    I continue to support our manifesto, and the Secretary of State congratulated me on that recently during Question Time. I suspect that some Conservative Back-Bench Members are not keen on the scheme.

    Mr. Ridley

    I am not criticising the hon. Gentleman. I was merely wondering whether he could have a word with some of his candidates.

    The Labour party also has its problems. Some Labour Members are in favour of our decision, and some are against it. So why choose to debate it? It puts the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) in a terribly embarrassing position. He must steer between the Scylla of the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) who represents the National Union of Railwaymen, and the Charybdis of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), who represents the National Union of Seamen. It is beastly of the Labour party to make him run the gauntlet again between those two political rocks. Surely he found it unpleasant enough the first time.

    But the Labour party has a worse failure to answer for. Labour Members keep demanding more infrastructure spending. They have debate after debate about the need for spending, and more jobs. Indeed, there is another one this week. Yet here is a massive infrastructure project, which will create a great number of jobs—we estimate about 40,000 man-years of employment. The jobs will by no means all be in the south-east. There could be orders of £700 million to £800 million for railway equipment alone which can be fulfilled only by midlands and northern firms. There are also great opportunities for more employment on railway operations. The tunnel will bring benefits to all regions of the kingdom by providing quicker, cheaper, more reliable means of transport to the Continent, thus helping employment. But what does the ​ Labour party do? It voted against the tunnel before Christmas, and it has a three-line whip to vote for its amendment tonight. Does it want jobs, and infrastructure, and investment, or not?

    When I announced the invitation to promoters last year the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who was then Labour’s transport spokesman, said:

    “We welcome any suggestion of considerable investment in the infrastructure. Indeed, we have been asking the Government for many years for precisely this sort of infrastructure development, with its impact on jobs and industry.”—[Official Report, 2 April 1985; Vol. 76 c. 1078-79.].

    How can the Opposition say that with one transport spokesman, and with another ask the House to vote against the project that they welcomed? The Labour party’s inconsistency is extraordinary, although some individual hon. Members hold different views.

    Mr. Robert Sheldon (Ashton-under-Lyne)

    The main point is that the infrastructure development will assist the south-east. Many of us are worried that the White Paper pays no regard to transport links with the north. The bottlenecks around London will become more constricted, not less, as a result of the link. Expenditure is needed on the road network to the north, but that will be even harder as a result of the Channel link. The right hon. Gentleman should be providing better links to the north, not to London.

    Mr. Ridley

    I know that the right hon. Gentleman is in favour of the link and sees the importance of connecting it to all areas, and I entirely agree. For that reason we are building the M40 as a relief to the Ml. It is as quick to go from London to Birmingham up the M6 via Oxford as it is via the Ml. There is massive infrastructure development taking traffic from the south-east to all quarters. There is a huge road programme to the south-west. Wherever we can, we are investing in roads to improve the position. Moreover, there are great opportunities for the railways to run through services from the north to the Continent. The right hon. Gentleman must welcome our decision and encourage all concerned to grasp the opportunities.

    Mr. Teddy Taylor (Southend, East)

    What evidence prompted my right hon. Friend to make the statement that the Channel tunnel could offer a “cheaper” means of transport across the Channel? Does he accept that the more British people hear about the tunnel, the less they like it? That is clear from a recent opinion poll which shows that more than half the population do not want the tunnel, and that only one third are in favour of it.

    Mr. Ridley

    First, the magic has worked even quicker than I believed because the ferries are now saying that they will cut the cost of the journey by 30 per cent. That is even before the tunnel is built. Therefore, my hon. Friend must concede that the tunnel route is cheaper. That shows what a little competition can do. Secondly, if my hon. Friend intends to steer a course according to every favourable opinion poll, I do not know what he will do when they are unfavourable. That is not a sound basis for forming opinions.

    There is another dilemma. The Labour party complains that all the benefits of the tunnel will go to east Kent, and not to the north of England. But my right hon. and hon. ​ Friends from Kent have expressed the opposite concern, that the tunnel will have unfortunate employment effects on the county. Let me tell the House my view of the truth, which is also contained in the White Paper.

    For the next eight years, during the construction period, there will be growing employment in Kent, both because of the increasing ferry business, and the construction work on the tunnel, roads, railways and so on. There could even be a shortage of labour during that period. In the long term, after the tunnel is open, a great deal depends upon the extent to which it attracts traffic which would otherwise be carried by the ferries, and also upon the extent to which local authorities in Kent can use, imaginatively, the opportunities created by the link to generate new employment in the county. When the link opens, employment on the ferries will certainly fall. On the basis of the promoters’ estimates of traffic, the Government judge that the total direct employment on cross-Channel transport operations will be some 1,500 less than it is now. But thereafter, employment will rise again, both on the link and the ferries. Moreover, there will be jobs from associated developments, so I suggest that the truth is that the long-term employment effects are fairly neutral.

    Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent)

    My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is anxiety in the Medway towns that the very considerable infrastructure improvements to cope with the direct effects of the fixed link may militate against the essential project which the Medway towns are proposing to improve what is almost the blackest unemployment spot in Kent. Will my right hon. Friend reassure the Medway towns that he will look with considerable sympathy upon their proposals for a third Medway crossing?

    Mr. Ridley

    The M20 is the main road to the Channel ports and will be the main road to the Channel tunnel. That road will be developed to three lane motorway standard irrespective of whether there is a Channel link. Traffic going to the Channel ports will be so great that it will demand that upgrading in any case. Building the link does not add to the road programme in respect of that road as that road is already allowed for in the programme. In no sense is money being taken from other parts of the road programme because of the decision on the fixed link.

    I have already said that we shall look extremely sympathetically at any other roads needs which arise in Kent because of the link, and the discussions are already planned to start such an investigation.

    Mr. Jonathan Aitken (Thanet, South)

    Before my right hon. Friend leaves the employment consequences which he said would amount to a loss of only 1,500 jobs at the ferry ports, I draw his attention to the fact that that figure is based on what, by the White Paper’s own admission, is a most misleading basis. The White Paper bases that calculation on two ferry ports only, Dover and Folkestone. My right hon. Friend must know that there are well founded fears in at least 15 ports up and down the country, including the second largest Channel port, Ramsgate, which is not mentioned in the White Paper. One would not base a calculation on test cricket on the basis of what happened at Lords or the Oval and make no mention of Old Trafford, Headingley, Trent Bridge, and so on.​

    Mr. Ridley

    I was a little confused about the last part of my hon. Friend’s intervention and I confess I do not see the relevance of that, but the figure I gave was based on the estimates of tunnel traffic made by the Channel Tunnel Group. That includes the whole of the ferry industry, not just the two ports that my hon. Friend mentioned. We believe that some ferry ports will increase employment as the link opens rather than reduce their employment. I cannot give my hon. Friend detailed figures for every port. I would have to have the wisdom of Solomon to say what will happen, but my hon. Friend knows my views about the future of Ramsgate.

    Mrs. Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley)

    I recently wrote to the right hon. Gentleman to ask if his Department had estimated the effect which the Channel tunnel would have on the container ports. He replied that that information was confidential. How is it possible for container ports to plan for the future if they do not know what the tunnel’s effect will be on their trade?

    Mr. Ridley

    That is true of all industrial enterprises at all times. When the west coast ports lost business to the east coast, nobody was able to warn them or provide any precise estimates. That is normal business risk. It is quite impossible to make a detailed forecast of the effect on every port.

    The White Paper sets out the reasons for our choice of the Channel Tunnel Group’s scheme. This was the joint choice of the British and French Governments. Both Governments would have liked to see a drive-through scheme, but the uncertainties and risks of all three drive-through alternatives led us to believe that there was a risk that they might prove too expensive to finance. I repeat that no Government funds or guarantees will be available. The CTG scheme appeared to the Governments to offer the best prospect of proceeding to completion. It has other advantages as well and these are set out in detail in annexe B of the White Paper.

    The main purpose of the White Paper is to look forward. It is not the job of the Government to set out the virtues of the CTG scheme and its potential attractiveness to customers and therefore to investors. That is for the promoters to do over the next few months as they set about raising the capital. We believe the Channel tunnel will greatly enhance the choice for travellers between Britain and France by adding to the existing air and ferry options a shuttle service for road vehicles and an efficient city-centre to city-centre rail link. For road travellers, the shuttle link will reduce the crossing time, with all stops included, by well over half compared with the ferries.

    The rail link from London to Paris and Brussels will be very competitive with air transport. These are great benefits. Already, there is talk of reducing fares in order to compete. That, too, is excellent news. The Government’s task is solely to consider the impacts of the scheme upon the transport network, and the environment.

    Mr. Roland Boyes (Houghton and Washington)

    Surely the Government’s task is to consider the impact on employment. Paragraph 39 of the White Paper states:

    “Firms in the East and West Midlands will be well placed to compete for contracts to build the shuttle trains, and there are firms in Scotland and the North-East able to supply construction materials.”

    As the Minister knows full well, I believe that the Channel tunnel will have a negative effect on jobs in the north-east. We shall lose jobs as a consequence. It might ​help the situation if the Minister can give me a guarantee that the construction materials that firms in the north-east are able to supply will be the ones which the tunnel builders will order or will the Minister say that it is a free for all where the construction firms can shop around the Continent and the world and get their goods at the cheapest price?

    Mr. Ridley

    I have already dealt with the employment aspects. If the hon. Gentleman did not hear what I said, he can read it in Hansard. I made it clear what the employment consequences are likely to be. I said that in my opinion the jobs which will go to the midlands, the north and Scotland were considerable as there were £700 million to £800 million worth of railway orders alone to go, as well as the building material orders to which the hon. Gentleman referred. He knows full well that I cannot promise that those orders would go to any particular firm. His constituents have the opportunity to gain employment if they can win these contracts. I am certain that they have a very good chance of doing so.

    I was about to describe the effects on the transport network. British Rail is to invest between £290 million and £390 million in rolling stock, the Waterloo terminal and certain other limited improvements between Folkestone and London. The impact upon the roads programme in the foreseeable future is not large. The Government’s proposals for the M20 from London to Folkestone are already in the programme and would be necessary whether a fixed link were built or not. We shall also press ahead as fast as possible with the replacement of the A20 between Folkestone and Dover. We shall also consider with Kent county council what improvements to local roads may be necessary.

    The environmental impacts of the Channel Tunnel Group’s scheme are set out in some detail in the appraisal by Land Use Consultants and their associates of the promoters’ environmental impact assessments. That is a valuable independent report. It does not necessarily represent the Government’s views on all points, but it forms the basis of the Government’s assessment of the environmental aspects of the further work that needs to be done. It quite deliberately looks far into the future.

    It is not surprising that if one looks 30, 40 or 50 years ahead, the M20 may need to be widened to four lanes in each direction. It will not, by any means, be the only motorway requiring such treatment by then. It would be for our successors to deal with these problems. In the short term, however, our concern is to make the scheme environmentally as acceptable as possible, in matters such as the arrangements for the disposal of spoil, the workings at the foot of the Shakespeare cliff, the landscaping of the Cheriton site, and the arrangements for the construction of the tunnels under Holywell Coombe.

    Mr. David Howell (Guildford)

    Does my right hon. Friend accept that one of the important impacts could be the attraction of freight away from the roads and back to rail when the Continental freight network is linked with the British network and substantial savings are achieved? Has he received any more recent estimates of the impact of that change, and does he recall that an earlier estimate was that only about 250,000 tonnes of road freight would go to rail? Will he comment on whether that is rather an underestimate? Does he agree that it might be considerably ​ more than that, with great benefit for the environment generally and a reduction in the number of heavy lorries rolling through villages?

    Mr. Ridley

    My right hon. Friend is entirely right. I speak without having a figure before me, but I think that the latest estimate is that there may be a fivefold increase in the amount of freight that the railways carry across the Channel as a result of the project. If I have misremembered the figure, I shall correct myself in writing to my right hon. Friend. There will be a considerable increase.

    We have retained the right to require the promoters to investigate and then implement the most acceptable arrangements, and the promoters accept this. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and I intend to work closely together on this and my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Transport will be consulting locally in Kent about it. If he is fortunate enough to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will describe the plans for consultation.

    With the tunnel becoming nearer to a reality, the natural conservatism of the British people is coming to the fore. Will rabies come? Will the Russians invade along the tunnel? Should Britain not remain an island? I sympathise with these emotional arguments, but I do not believe that they are rational. I shall conclude by answering the most frequently asked question, which is “Do we really need a tunnel?” Those who do not want to use it need not do so. Nor will they be asked to pay for it. But if millions want to use it and pay for using it, whether they be tourists, businessmen, importers or exporters, what right have we to stop them? It is for the Channel Tunnel Group to persuade the investors that we need a tunnel. If it considers that it should be built and is ready to pay for it, I do not think that the House would want to stop it.

    Mr. Jim Craigen (Glasgow, Maryhill) rose—

    Mr. Ridley

    I shall not give way. I must bring my remarks to an end.

    It is remarkable that the two Governments were in the invidious position of having to choose between four schemes. All were well prepared and those behind them were prepared to raise the money and to take the risks. What a transformation this is from the drab, centrally planned, Socialist concept of soak the taxpayers and ram it down their throats because the gentleman in Whitehall knows best. It is a sign of the virility of our entrepreneurs, our economy and our engineers that we can give the Channel tunnel the green light.

  • Barney Heyhoe – 1986 Speech on Normans Riding Hospital in Gateshead

    Below is the text of the speech made by Barney Heyhoe, the then Minister for Health, in the House of Commons on 7 February 1986.

    As I would expect, the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) has deployed his case with both case and concern on behalf of his constituents in raising again the decision to close Normans Riding hospital. I have listened with great interest to all that he has said and I will certainly write to him if there are points which, on reflection, I think deserve a further response from me other than that which I can give in this brief debate. I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments about my ministerial colleague the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney) with regard to the way in which the deputation led by the Member for Blaydon was received and the manner in which the matter was dealt with.

    To set the closure of Normans Riding in its proper context, I should perhaps begin by referring to the important developments taking place at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Gateshead. As the hon. Gentleman knows, schemes 1 and 2 of that hospital were commissioned in 1967 and 1972 respectively. Those two schemes provide a full range of radiological diagnostic support services, out-patients’ department, and so on, to support the 263 acute and maternity beds. As the hon. Gentleman also knows, scheme 3, built at a cost of some £9 million, will add a further 200 acute beds, six operating ​ theatre suites, six intensive therapy unit beds and further supporting services. Scheme 3 is due to come into use in the next few months and various groups of patients will be transferred to the new facilities. One result will be that facilities at Dunston Hill hospital will become vacant. Patients currently at Normans Riding hospital will be transferred to the vacant facilities at Dunston Hill.

    In addition to scheme 3 of the Queen Elizabeth hospital, there are other exciting developments taking place in Gateshead. For example, there is the recently opened community unit for those with mental handicap. There are priority service developments for the elderly who are severely mentally ill.

    The hon. Gentleman referred to beds for the elderly and the general provision in his area, and I understand that with the completion of the schemes to which I have referred a number of beds for the elderly will become available. If further beds for the elderly are required, these could be provided at Bensham or at Dunston in a rather more economic fashion than would be achieved by retaining the facilities at Normans Riding.

    Mr. McWilliam

    Does the right hon. Gentleman have any idea of the distance or the transport difficulties that are involved in getting from Ryton, Blaydon or Winlaton to Bensham or Dunston?

    Mr. Hayhoe

    I would not claim any knowledge that meets even remotely that which the hon. Gentleman has of the area which he represents. I intended to say something about transport facilities but, as he will understand, I must rely upon advice that I am given.

    Within the general area there is increased provision for patients flowing from the increased resources that have been provided for the NHS. That does not mean — I accept what the hon. Gentleman says on this score — that there is not real pressure on the available resources. As he has said, the district is achieving only 92 per cent. of its target under the RAWP arrangements, though it is moving up steadily as a result of the overall policies that are being implemented. I hope that 100 per cent. of the RAWP target will be achieved over the course of the next decade. This means that health authorities must examine carefully the way in which services are organised to ensure that they are provided in a sensible and efficient manner. If money is tied up in a hospital which is not required, other developments cannot take place.

    It was against that background, and with the desire to concentrate services for the elderly at the Dunston Hill hospital site, that the Gateshead health authority considered carefully the need to retain the Normans Riding hospital.
    The hon. Gentleman will know much better than I do that the Normans Riding hospital is sited in a relatively remote part of the district away from any real back-up medical facilities. I have read past correspondence and I have found that much has been made of the pleasant site of the hospital. I accept fully that that is so. At the same time, I cannot ignore the high cost of upgrading — estimated at £500,000 — that would be required if the hospital were to be retained. The relative isolation of the hospital causes difficulties for patients and staff alike. I am advised that the only public transport to the site is the twice-weekly special bus service that is laid on to coincide ​ with visiting times. On other days, relatives without their own transport must use taxis or make other special arrangements.

    Mr. McWilliam

    The hospital is within three quarters of a mile of one bus terminus, from which there is at least one bus an hour. It is within 500 yd of a bus stop at which buses stop less frequently but fairly regularly.

    Mr. Hayhoe

    I do not think that that detracts from what I have said. The hon. Gentleman has put the matter in a local context, which local people will know.

    Patients who require investigative treatment must usually be taken by ambulance to the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Gateshead. Day-to-day medical cover at the Normans Riding hospital is provided by local GPs. Any condition requiring a specialist opinion currently requires a special trip by the consultant.

    That overall situation will be greatly eased when the patients are transferred to Dunston Hill hospital where patients and staff will have easier access to important diagnostic and other services. The medical aspects of these matters must loom large in all the attention which is given to them.

    I understand that Dunston Hill hospital is served by about 10 bus services, making visiting by most relatives and friends much easier. It is important not to expect old folk to have to walk, perhaps in inclement weather such as that that we have experienced recently, and there is a great advantage in having the public transport going close to the hospital.

    Inevitably, much has also been made of what is seen as the loss of a good hospital. I fully appreciate the local anxieties and loyalties that are always amplified when an issue of this kind comes before the public’s attention, but perhaps those aspects have been somewhat exaggerated. In practice, only a quarter of the patients currently at the Normans Riding hospital come from the immediate area and the move to Dunston Hill hospital will bring the majority of patients nearer to their homes and families. That is my advice, and I presume that people have looked carefully at where the families and friends of the current patients of Normans Riding live.

    Mr. McWilliam

    I do not want to take up much more of the Minister’s time because he has been more than fair to me in giving way, but patients from the immediate area of Normans Riding hospital are being transferred miles across the borough deliberately and patients from miles across the borough are being transferred into Normans Riding hospital to prove the point. It is being done deliberately.

    Mr. Hayhoe

    I am not in a position to confirm or deny that. I have not examined the records myself. As I say, I am advised that the position is as I have given it to the House today.

    Two of the four wards at Dunston Hill hospital which will be used for existing patients from Normans Riding have already been upgraded. There has been talk of the standard of accommodation. Plans are in hand to upgrade the other two wards. I should stress that that upgrading is for real; I have seen some suggestions that it is merely a cosmetic operation.

    I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have seen for himself on his visit to Dunston Hill hospital earlier this week, to which he referred, the efforts that the authority ​ is making to provide attractive, homely surroundings for the patients. The two wards yet to be upgraded will be upgraded to a high standard and over the next few years attention will be given to landscaping the hospital site and to a number of other significant improvements to parts of the site.

    It has been suggested that the developing expertise in the care of terminally ill patients at Normans Riding hospital will be lost as a result of the move. The hon. Gentleman referred to that aspect. The Gateshead health authority is aware of that concern and will be seeking to ensure that that expertise will continue when patients transfer to Dunston Hill hospital. As the hon. Gentleman may know, all the permanent staff at Normans Riding hospital are being offered similar appointments at Dunston Hill hospital. It is hoped that a majority will be able to transfer with their patients, thus providing a high measure of continuity of care.

    The hon. Member referred to the health advisory service report which was broadly welcomed by the Gateshead health authority because it contained many helpful recommendations. The authority established a small group of members to look at its specific points. One can quote from a report a sentence or paragraph or two to sustain one position or another. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will therefore appreciate it if I quote one paragraph to buttress my case, just as I would expect him equally fairly to quote another paragraph that was more in tune with his point. Paragraph 100 states:

    “The policy of integrating geriatric medicine with general medicine on the Queen Elizabeth site following scheme 3 and concentrating facilities for the elderly on fewer sites is commendable and should secure the medical care of the elderly in the mainstream of clinical medicine. This will give all ​ patients, irrespective of age, immediate access to the diagnostic and therapeutic resources of the district general hospital which will improve morale and recruitment of staff to the speciality of geriatrics and last, but by no means least, create the means of introducing the multidisciplinary patient-oriented approach to illness at all ages into the acute sector wards.”

    There is a real bonus in medical terms to be gained from the proposition which I have agreed. Revenue savings will be achieved by closing Normans Riding hospital and transferring the services to Dunston Hill hospital. The savings are estimated at £178,000 in a full year, all from non-direct patient care services — administration, domestic, catering, portering and estate managing services. Those savings are to be deployed elsewhere to improve services to patients.

    I have accepted the assurance from Gateshead health authority that the transfer of the facilities from Normans Riding hospital to Dunston Hill hospital will enable the authority to provide the same level of service more efficiently and will release much needed money to improve existing services across the district to the overall benefit of the community who look to the authority for health care.

    For these reasons, and after careful consideration, I concluded that I should support the decision of the Northern regional health authority and the Gateshead district health authority by approving the closure of the hospital. Although I have listened with great care and interest to the hon. Member for Blaydon, I am not persuaded by what he said that the closure decision I made was wrong.

  • John McWilliam – 1986 Speech on Normans Riding Hospital in Gateshead

    Below is the text of the speech made by John McWilliam, the then Labour MP for Blaydon, in the House of Commons on 7 February 1986.

    First, may I thank the Minister for Health for the fair and interesting hearing that the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney) gave to the deputation from Gateshead that came to discuss the closure of the Normans Riding hospital. The Under-Secretary of State took on board several points. Unfortunately, he did not take on board all the points of concern. The Minister for Health wrote to me on 22 January informing me that the hospital was to close. He said that he had concluded

    “that the interests of patients were best served by allowing the proposed closure to proceed. I am satisfied that by closing the hospital, significant financial savings will be achieved with no reduction in the services provided.”

    That is the point on which I take issue.

    In September 1985 the National Health Service health advisory service and the DHSS social services inspectorate reported on services for the elderly provided by the Gateshead health authority and the social services department of the borough of Gateshead. The report raises several problems and difficulties that do not confirm the Minister’s view that he kindly set out in his letter to me. Although not directly related to the closure, but related to the cause of the closure, paragraph 5 states:

    “Despite the fact that Gateshead is a deprived District the Regional Health Authority’s budgetary distribution does not, in the short term, improve the situation in that the 1985–86 allocation leaves the District even further from target.”

    Gateshead spends only 92 per cent. of what, even by the Government’s standards, should be spent on health. Gateshead was specifically mentioned in the Black report. We have severe problems of social deprivation and unemployment and the general difficulties of an area without major teaching hospitals. However, my constituency has a further problem, because it has a large number of former coal miners who worked in one of the dustiest coalfields in Britain. Consequently, the number of those with bronchial and other complaints associated with working with coal is markedly higher than it is in other areas. The fact that we have only 92 per cent. of the resources that we should have can only exacerbate the problems, because people are not getting the health care that they require.

    Normans Riding hospital is largely a geriatric hospital. There are 10 general practitioner beds that deliberately have never been used as such. In the report, the general practitioners’ view on the provision of geriatric services is as follows:

    “All but one of the general practitioners met expressed concern about difficulties in achieving admission to hospital of elderly people with sub-acute illness compounded by sociological and psychological overtones that precluded continued care at home. In such cases, a domiciliary consultation was virtually a precondition of direct admission to a geriatric bed and then usually via a waiting list.”

    It is still via a waiting list.

    The community health councils view of the proposed closure of Normans Riding hospital is,

    “that there was considerable under-provision for the elderly in Gateshead with a fear that the needs upon which the Health Authority plans were based did not match the needs in the community: there was deep concern about the closure of Normans Riding hospital.”

    That is true. Those needs do not match the needs in the community.

    The decision of the district health authority is based on an assumption about the local authority provision, especially part III provision, that can be made. I have consulted the leader of Gateshead authority, the chairman of social work and the deputy chairman of social work. Their problem is that if the local authority increased expenditure to provide the part III provision that is needed to alleviate the problem, although it would not solve it completely, the local authority would inevitably incur penalty under the rate support grant scheme. The DHSS has not taken sufficiently into account the restraints which the Department of the Environment has placed on that local authority.

    If we are to do something effective about care for the elderly in Gateshead, the two Departments must come together, and one of them—presumably the Department of the Environment—must admit that the allocation of rate support grant to Gateshead and the grant-related expenditure assessment for social work in Gateshead will have to be increased to meet what the district health authority expects the local authority to provide, because it clearly cannot be provided now.

    The Minister’s officials also stated:

    “The hospital service relies heavily on the practice of ‘swapping’ to gain admission to Part III beds. The present allocation system, with no health service input, reinforces this practice which medical have used to gain what they see as a fair proportion of beds for their patients. Between 4 January and 17 May 1985, 35 beds were allocated to the hospitals … of which 20 were ‘swapped’ with existing hospital patients.”

    It is clear from cases that I have taken up in my constituency that, even in semi-acute cases, people cannot obtain geriatric beds unless something else is seriously wrong with them or unless arrangements can be made with the local authority.

    The report continues:

    “The Health Authority have proposals for the closure of the Normans Riding Hospital. In this situation it is inappropriate to dwell on the structural problems observed. However, the toilets and sluices on most wards are most unsatisfactory for elderly patients.”

    They are, but it would be fairly inexpensive to bring those toilets and sluices up to standard. What is more, it would be a fairly inexpensive. job to sort out the structural problems in Normans Riding hospital, because they are not fundamental problems, but problems of construction begun at a time when people were working in a hurry because a war was about to break out. There would not appear to be too great a difficulty. The advice given by the Minister’s officials is:

    “If patients are to be accommodated at the Normans Riding Hospital for any length of time, it is imperative that”

    the sluices be brought up to date.

    The suggestion is that those patients should be transferred to Dunston Hill hospital, which is also in my constituency and which I visited on Monday. I have every regard for the dedication and skill of the people who work an that hospital and for what they are trying to do in difficult conditions, but the advice of the Minister’s officials is this:

    “The Health Authority should not transfer patients from Whinney House, Normans Riding and St. Mary’s Hospitals to Dunston Hill Hospital until accommodation of a satisfactory standard is available for each group of patients. Application to the Regional Health Authority for special funding to ensure this work is carried out should be considered.”

    Within the last month, the northern group of Labour Members met the chairman of the regional health authority. Although helpful, he could not give the kind of commitment that we want. It will cost £400,000 to bring the wards at Dunston Hill to the standards suggested. If Normans Riding is left in place that expenditure will not be needed.

    Two aspects of this annoy me particularly. First, the decision to close Normans Riding was taken on the casting vote of the chairman of the district health authority who is appointed and paid by the Minister. Secondly, I believe that we need both Normans Riding and the upgraded Dunston Hill to meet the needs of our elderly. The assumptions being made about the ability of the local authority to cope appropriately with the problems faced by elderly people in my constituency and in the rest of Gateshead will not be fulfilled unless that provision is made.

    The decision to close Normans Riding was a mistake. It is an excellent hospital with special expertise nationally in the care of the terminally ill. I am very upset indeed that the Minister has decided to close that hospital on the casting vote of his paid chairman and against the wishes of the community and the GPs when all the evidence shows that insufficient provision has been made and when it is perfectly clear that £400,000 will have to be spent to provide an alternative.

    Finally, Normans Riding is the only purpose-built isolation hospital on Tyneside. It is not connected to the main sewerage system, it has its own kitchens, and so on. I should not like to think of a situation arising in which we would need those isolation facilities, but if we get rid of Normans Riding we shall never again have a facility which — God help us — may at some time be needed. The alternative — the Queen Elizabeth hospital — is in the most densely populated part of the borough and is clearly not appropriate for the provision of isolation facilities in an emergency.

  • Paul Channon – 1986 Statement on British Leyland

    Below is the text of the statement made by Paul Channon, the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, in the House of Commons on 6 February 1986.

    Yesterday, I informed the House that talks were at an advanced stage on the proposal for a merger between Land Rover —Leyland and the Bedford Commercial Vehicle subsidiary of General Motors. It is the Government’s intention that, subject to satisfactory terms and conditions, and the receipt of firm undertakings from GM on its manufacturing and sourcing intentions, these negotiations should be brought to an early and successful conclusion.

    I also confirmed that, following an approach by the Ford Motor Company, wide-ranging but, at this stage, exploratory discussions with the Austin Rover Group were in progress which might lead to a proposal for the merging of those businesses. I wish to inform the House at the earliest opportunity of the most recent developments affecting these discussions, in particular as regards Austin Rover.

    The Government would have preferred to have waited until the exploratory talks had clarified the difficulties and opportunities a merger might have created and then taken a decision in principle, on the basis of a considered analysis, whether to pursue the possibility further. Speculation surrounding these exploratory talks has itself given rise to very great public concern and uncertainty. If that were to continue for an extended period, it could have seriously damaged the prospects for Austin Rover’s business, its employees, its suppliers and its dealers. Nor would such a period of uncertainty have been helpful to many people associated in comparable ways with Ford’s business in this country. Concern about these developments was expressed very clearly on both sides of the House in yesterday’s debate. The Government have given full and immediate consideration to the situation so created. We have decided that the right way to end the uncertainty is to make it clear that the possibility of the sale of Austin Rover to Ford will not be pursued.

    It is the Government’s intention, with the agreement of the BL board, that negotiations should be pursued for the separate privatisation of Unipart by the early placement of shares with United Kingdom institutions.

    Collaborative arrangements in the motor industry will become increasingly necessary and important. Austin Rover Group’s successful relationship with Honda is an example of that. I hope that Ford and Austin Rover will also consider positively other opportunities for collaboration. I should like to pay tribute to Ford’s contribution to the British economy through research and development, manufacturing and employment.

    I hope that the Government’s decision and the ending of uncertainty will leave Austin Rover free to devote its efforts to the further development and growth of its volume car business, building on creditable progress which has already been achieved.

  • Ken Clarke – 1986 Statement on the Inner Cities

    Below is the text of the statement made by Ken Clarke, the then Paymaster General and Minister for Employment, in the House of Commons on 6 February 1986.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on Government help to people living in inner city areas.

    We are all only too well aware that people who live in many inner areas of our cities suffer from a wide range of long standing problems. The Government have increased the amount of central Government money spent on employment and training programmes, urban regeneration and industrial assistance in these areas. We have taken a number of measures, including setting up last year city action teams to co-ordinate and target Government effort in the seven inner city partnership areas.

    In order to complement and build on that existing work, we have now decided to try out a new approach to the task by intensifying and bringing together the efforts of Government Departments, local government, the private sector and the local community in eight small inner city areas.

    This initiative is a further step to improve the targeting and enhance the benefit to local people of the money channelled through existing central Government programmes. They include the employment and training programmes of the MSC, the Department of Trade and Industry’s programme of regional and industrial assistance, the Department of the Environment’s urban programme, and the Home Office programmes of black business support and grants to support staffing of services to ethnic minority populations.

    Within the chosen areas we shall try out new approaches, particularly on training provision, and employment or self-employment opportunities for local residents. That will be tackled through projects and activities of wider but direct benefit to the residents of the areas concerned and their environment. We shall seek to stimulate enterprise and provide a stronger base for the local economy. We shall give special attention to the problems of young people from ethnic minorities where they are particularly disadvantaged.

    To test our approach we have selected eight areas which are diverse in their character but whose residents all share problems of deprivation and lack of opportunities. They are not necessarily the eight most deprived areas in our cities, but the people who live in them need more employment opportunities, support for their local business economy, and a better physical environment. We shall introduce our new initiatives in Notting Hill and north Peckham in London, the Chapeltown area of Leeds, north central Middlesbrough, the Highfields area of Leicester, Moss Side in Manchester, St. Paul’s in Bristol and Handsworth in Birmingham.

    We shall be establishing small task forces in each of those areas. They will work with the local authorities and local community and voluntary organisations. They will quickly seek to attract private sector participation.
    We shall seek early discussions with the local authorities concerned about the details of this initiative. We hope to persuade the local authorities to join us and use their own programmes alongside our own in a concentrated and targeted effort to improve work prospects and the quality of life in those areas.

    Large sums are already available to the chosen areas under existing Government programmes, but, in order to help the initiative get off the ground, the Government will be supplementing the sums with £8 million of additional money of which £3 million will be found from within my Department’s existing provision and £5 million will be found from the reserve.

    The initiative will be led by a team of Ministers drawn from the Departments of Employment, Education and Science, Trade and Industry, Environment and the Home Office. My right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Employment will have overall responsibility for the co-ordination of the initiative. I shall have responsibility for its day-to-day management and supervision with the support of a small central unit. This inner cities initiative will complement and not replace existing Government programmes.

    I hope that the House will welcome a bold experiment in concentrating all available efforts and resources in a joint way on the improvement of job expectations and the quality of life of the residents of those small inner city areas.

  • Alistair Goodlad – 1986 Statement on Sellafield

    Below is the text of the statement made by Alistair Goodlad, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy, in the House of Commons on 6 February 1986.

    British Nuclear Fuels plc has reported that during maintenance operations yesterday there was a small release of plutonium radioactivity within the main reprocessing building at Sellafield. The incident arose during maintenance operations on a pump, during which air was accidentally blown across a flow of liquid with plutonium in it. This caused a mist with a small amount of plutonium in suspense. Monitoring equipment in the building, which is extremely sensitive, gave an alarm. The staff quickly traced the sources of the escape, shut off the flow of air and instituted procedures for evacuating all non-essential staff.

    Tests on staff contamination have so far shown no cause for concern. BNFL will carry out further tests on staff over the next few days. On present evidence, there was no risk to the public.

    A member of the nuclear installations inspectorate was on site and was notified at the time. My Department and other interested Government Departments were notified shortly afterwards. The company has estimated that a very small radiation release from the building of 50 micro-curies may have occurred, but no release was, in fact, discernible from its monitoring equipment outside the building.

    The nuclear installations inspectorate has already initiated an investigation in co-operation with the radio-chemicals inspectorate, and will make a statement about the incident within the next few days. The company is also conducting its own inquiries into the incident.

  • Kenneth Baker – 1986 Statement on Water Privatisation

    Below is the text of the speech made by Kenneth Baker, the then Secretary of State for the Environment, in the House of Commons on 5 February 1986.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about the future of the water authorities in England and Wales.

    On 7 February 1985, the then Minister for Housing and Construction, my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), announced that the Government would examine the prospects for privatisation in the water industry. A discussion paper followed in April. In the light of the responses, and of professional advice on the financial issues, the Government have now decided to transfer the 10 water authorities in England and Wales to private ownership; already, 25 per cent. of water is supplied by private sector water companies.

    With my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Wales and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, I have today presented to Parliament a White Paper setting out our proposals. Legislation will be necessary, and we shall put the water authorities on the market as soon as possible thereafter.

    Transferring water to the private sector will offer unique opportunities and challenges. The water authorities are not merely suppliers of goods and services. They are managers of natural resources. They safeguard the quality of our rivers. They control water pollution. They have important responsibilities for fisheries, conservation, recreation and navigation. These functions are inter-dependent and inseparable.

    We will maintain the principle of integrated river basin management and we will maintain existing boundaries. The water authorities will be privatised with all their existing responsibilities but for the one exception of land drainage and flood protection. Financing and co-ordination of that function will remain a public sector responsibility.

    The authorities are largely natural monopolies. The public will, rightly, expect us to set up a firm regulatory framework. We will appoint a director general of water services. He will control the authorities through an operating licence. This will lay down strict conditions on pricing and on service standards. The system of promoting the interests of consumers will take into account a report which I am publishing today from Professor Littlechild of Birmingham university. Under the director general, there will also be strong machinery for representing consumer interests and investigating complaints.

    Water authorities are responsible in England and Wales for the implementation of national policy for the water environment. Necessary existing safeguards—including appeals against water authority decisions on discharges and Government controls on the authorities’ own discharges—will continue. And we shall strengthen the system of pollution control in two main ways: first, we shall legislate to make their river quality objectives subject to ministerial approval; secondly, we shall provide for any new requirements to be laid down through a parliamentary procedure. In this way we shall use the opportunity of privatisation to improve environmental standards on a continuing basis.

    Over the last seven years considerable progress has been made in improving the management efficiency of ​ water authorities. Their operating costs have been reduced in real terms, even while the demand for their services has been growing. Manpower has been reduced by 20 per cent. The number of board appointments has been reduced even more dramatically — from 313 to 123. In 1979 their investment was falling; in real terms it is now above its 1979 level and it is rising. In the last six years we have made the water authorities fit and ready to join the private sector; and, as reported to the Public Accounts Committee, the quality of water services has been improving in almost all regions.

    Privatisation is the next logical step. It will bring benefits to customers, to the industry itself and to the nation as a whole in improved quality, more efficient service, greater commitment of the staff to the work they are doing, and greater awareness of customer preference.

    With the disciplines and freedoms of the private sector, I expect the industry to move from strength to strength. I know that these proposals will be welcomed.

  • Ray Whitney – 1986 Speech on Horton Hospital in Banbury

    Below is the text of the speech made by Ray Whitney, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, in the House of Commons on 4 February 1986.

    I am very grateful for the opportunity to respond to this Adjournment debate. It is well known to the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) takes a very close interest in all the affairs of his constituency but particularly in the medical cover that is provided for his constituents—appropriate indeed for the son of a medical family.

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for placing his entirely fair points in the context of the increasing and expanding medical care that is being provided by this Government. I do not wish to enter into a statistical knock-about, but it cannot be said too often that significantly and steadily, in real terms, this Government have increased the proportion of resources that are devoted to the National Health Service both nationally and regionally, including the Oxfordshire district and the Horton general hospital.

    The real terms increase in expenditure since 1979 will be over 20 per cent. this year. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has announced that during the next three years we shall continue to give the same degree of priority to the NHS. Expenditure in Great Britain on the NHS is set to rise by nearly £2·8 billion to well over £20 billion in 1988–89. That represents a real terms increase in each year.

    I shall now refer briefly to the Oxford region. I represent an Oxfordshire constituency and therefore take a particular interest in the region. It reinforces my ministerial responsibilities. My hon. Friend referred to the resource allocation working party. Pressures continue upon the Oxford region. They spring largely from its rapid growth in population. The pressures on the Oxford region have been taken into account in the allocations. For example, the allocation to the region in 1986–87 represents an increase of 7·3 per cent. over 1985–86. That compares with increases in other regions that range from 5·7 per cent. to 8 per cent.

    This is a slightly lower allocation, in cash terms, than that which the region had hoped for or expected, but an increase of 7·3 per cent. is significant when there are heavy pressures upon expenditure generally. That allocation will put the region back on the course from which it was deflected. It will move towards its target of receiving a fair share of resources and it will correct the drift away from that target which has been a feature of recent years. The region, we estimate, is now within 2 per cent. of its target. The planning guidelines which we are now issuing to the regions, predict growth for Oxford of 1·7 per cent. in 1987–88 and 1·8 per cent. in 1988–89, and are designed to continue this process. I therefore submit that Oxford is feeling the benefit of the change in the RAWP formula in 1985–86 from past population figures to population projections for the year of allocation, a change specifically aimed to reflect more fully the needs of regions with rapidly growing populations. Coming from the region, as I have said, I well recognise that factor.

    My hon. Friend referred to the impact of RAWP formula. The regional health authority has put a paper on RAWP to Ministers, and it will have an opportunity to put to Ministers its arguments on this issue in a regional review which will be chaired by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health. We have also asked the National Health Service management board to undertake a review of the ​ RAWP formula, keeping the guidelines which aim at a general equalisation of health provision throughout the country. While the terms of reference of the review have not yet been finalised, the objective is to ensure that the RAWP formula is applied with common sense and sensitivity. This will provide an opportunity for the region to put to the department its particular concerns about the application of the RAWP formula to the Oxford region.
    I therefore hope that my hon. Friend recognises in the application of these figures that substantial funds are available. I hope that they have been applied flexibly, recognising the changing pressures in the regions, and specifically in the Oxford region and district.

    I deal now with other points which my hon. Friend made about the general pressures on the health authority to meet the pay awards. That is recognised, and it must inevitably be part of any arrangements of the funding of the Health Service. We have provided increases which are above the rate of inflation. It is important to understand that the cost improvement programmes are making available additional funds to authorities which go back into the kitty to cover not only the pay awards but improvement in the services. Resources released in this way through increased efficiency and cost improvements added something like 1·5 per cent. nationally to the money available for services and pay awards. Authorities are expected to improve on that next year. Oxfordshire has a cost improvement programme in 1986–87 of 1·8 per cent. In fact, in 1985 authorities have been able both to fund the 1985 pay awards and to develop services.

    Health authorities cannot expect, any more than employers in other industries and services, to be insulated from uncertainties about the level of pay settlements. It would be wholly unrealistic to expect the taxpayer to pick up whatever costs arise. We have no plans to increase health authorities’ cash limits to fund pay awards. As we have made clear, there is an inevitable trade-off between expenditure on pay and on services, and the precise balance will vary from year to year. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that that is the way that we must conduct our services.

    Mr. Baldry

    The difficulty is that district health authorities and others fix their budgets at the beginning of the year in anticipation of a pay award and halfway through the year they find themselves with percentage increases that they did not and could not have anticipated, because of review body decisions.

    Mr. Whitney

    No one pretends that it is an easy problem. The pay awards must be contained within the steadily increasing percentage of the national wealth that is devoted to health. I hope that with cost improvements authorities will accept that and find sufficient flexibility. The awards are phased and that helps health authorities solve the problem which, I accept, is difficult.

    It may not be possible for me to cover all the points mentioned by my hon. Friend. Nationally, there has been an increase of about 50,000 nurses and midwives. My hon. Friend said that the shortening of their working week is a factor in that. We have significantly—perhaps not as much as we should have wished—increased the rates of nurses’ pay in real terms. That produces pressures.

    I understand that there are problems at the Horton hospital in Banbury and with the Oxfordshire health authority. The authority has set a review committee to ​ work. I am not sure whether it has reported, but when it does we shall consider how the health authority can cope. It is a problem that must be solved locally, because the national picture shows a steady increase in the number of people employed in nursing since we took office.

    My hon. Friend mentioned those elderly people who would be better off in a nursing home. He referred to the level of supplementary benefit. From November, the allowance for an elderly person in a private nursing home was increased to £170 per week. That is subject to examination and review. Management consultants are studying the level and its feasibility. We have set in train studies on the assessment of old people to ensure that the service is being provided for those who genuinely need it. At £170 per week, the provision is not ungenerous.

    As a Minister with responsibility for social security I had the privilege of going around the country looking at nursing and residential care homes. It struck me as entirely possible to provide a good level of care in nursing homes with such funding. I hope that will continue to be the case.

    It is regrettable if facilities are not used. Because of the way in which we run our Health Service, many decisions ​ at local level must be taken by the district health authority. My hon. Friend was kind enough to accept that the resources made available to the Oxfordshire health authority and the Horton hospital were not ungenerous. The Oxfordshire health authority has gained substantially and expenditure on Oxford district between 1978–79 and 1984–85 has more than doubled, representing an increase of 13 per cent. above inflation.

    During the past six years £2·1 million has been spent on capital developments at the Horton hospital, and in 1983 four new operating theatres were completed. Next year a new phase will begin which will provide 100 beds for elderly people and a new day hospital at a cost of £5·2 million. There are plans to replace the accident and emergency unit. The upgrading scheme will be assisted by local fund-raising, which, as my hon. Friend says, demonstrates the support for the hospital.

    This is a good story. I understand the problems, but with the support that the health authority is receiving at national level, I hope that it can cope with them.