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Dennis Canavan – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

Below is the text of the speech made by Dennis Canavan, the then Labour MP for West Stirlingshire, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

Four years ago, almost to the day, I made my maiden speech. At that time, little did I or any other Member realise that this Parliament would last so long, yet here we are entering a fifth Session with a fifth Queen’s Speech. Even the Prime Minister’s worst enemy must admire his ability and will for self-survival. It is a pity that the ability and will for survival on the part of the Government are not backed up by the political will and ability of the House to pass Socialist legislation. There is not very much of that in the Queen’s Speech. However, we should be grateful for what few crumbs of comfort there are.

I begin at the end of the Queen’s Speech with a matter that I do not think anyone has mentioned so far in the debate, namely, a Scottish Bill to establish a system of registration of title of land. Those of us who believe in the public ownership of land realise that if we are to put a convincing case for that course in the House and to members of the public we must have adequate information about land ownership and land use in Scotland.

Many of us have previously put that argument to Ministers during Questions and debates. There has been a marked degree of reluctance on the part of Ministers to agree to the compilation of a land register in Scotland. I am glad that the Government have at last, though somewhat belatedly, been converted to my views on that matter.

A great deal of research has been done on this matter, not least by John McEwen, a member of the Labour Party in Scotland. He has done some work on some of the larger estates in Scotland, and it is of interest to look at the information that he has managed to compile. For example, in Scotland the Duke of Buccleuch, the former Tory Member for Edinburgh, North, has 277,000 acres; Lord Thorneycroft, the chairman of the Tory Party, has 44,000 acres and the Duke of Montrose, who forsook his native land to prop up the illegal racialist Smith regime, has, according to John McEwen, 8,800 acres in my constituency.

Those are just a few of the facts which will come out when the land register is published. I hope that the register will also contain information about the use to which these people put the land. Are they using it for good agricultural or forestry purposes or abusing it by making it into playgrounds and exclusive hunting retreats for the rich? So I look forward in this Session to a useful debate on land ownership and the use of land in Scotland.

Other measures in the Queen’s Speech which I applaud are those which give people more participation in the decisions which affect them. In the last Session we heard a great deal—some said we heard too much—about devolution. Devolution of power is not simply the setting up of national assemblies for Scotland, Wales or anywhere else.

Devolution of power means decentralisation of power. It means handing power to people at grass roots level and giving them more say by, for example, industrial democracy in decisions which affect them at their work places. It also gives them more say in the education of their children and in the tenure, improvement, redecoration and management of housing, and so on. Therefore, I welcome those measures in principle.

I can understand why Scotland is apparently excluded from the Education Bill for England and Wales. The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 already gives that degree of participation in decision-making to parents and teachers and in some instances to pupils’ representatives through the schools councils which were set up under that Act.

Therefore, I can see a reason for not including Scotland in the Education Bill for England and Wales. But I cannot see why Scotland should be excluded completely from the housing legislation proposals which will give council house tenants—about 50 per cent. of people in Scotland are council house tenants—a tenants’ charter giving security of tenure and more say in the management and repair of houses and their environment.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (West Lothian)

I think that my hon. Friend, like me and all Scottish Members, received a letter from the new director of Shelter. Ministers have pointed out that this is based on many false assumptions and is largely inaccurate.

Mr. Canavan

I am pleased to hear that from my hon. Friend. However, I should prefer to hear it from the Minister speaking on behalf of the Government in replying. I hope that similar legislation will be included for Scotland along the lines that Shelter and the great majority of council tenants would like to see. Many find that they are strangled by the bureaucracy and over-centralisation of council house management. Indeed, more than half the people who come to my Saturday morning consultation sessions are concerned about housing matters. They should not have to come to a Member of Parliament. I try to help them, but they should not have to come to me. If we had a good system of housing management, and if tenants felt that the bureaucrats were more in touch with matters which affect housing, they would not need to approach their Member of Parliament, except as a last resort.

I welcome the reference to “more open government”—

“Further proposals will be brought forward to achieve more open government.”

But I am a little disappointed about the wording in the next sentence:

“It remains My Government’s intention to replace Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 with a measure better suited to present day conditions.”

Why is there no firm commitment for the introduction of a Bill? It is merely a repetition of a declaration of intention on the part of the Government. We need a Freedom of Information Act to allow people to have more access to information and to establish open democracy in this country

The opponents, including some of the high-ranking civil servants at the Home Office—they are the people who often say what should or should not be a secret under the Official Secrets Act—argue that it would be too expensive. I think that in the lone run a freedom of information Act could save public money. The Crown Agents affair alone meant that £200 million went down the drain and the “phoney” sanctions blockade against Rhodesia has cost another £200 million in defence expenditure. If this House and people outside had had access to information about the Crown Agents affair and the Rhodesian sanction busting long before the storm blew up, that public money would not have been wasted.

On the subject of Rhodesian sanctions, I hope that the Government will not allow the Bingham report to gather dust on the shelves with possibly one or two prosecutions of a minor nature. I hope that we shall have a full public inquiry, as demanded at the Labour Party conference last month.

I wrote to the Prime Minister on 14th September regarding the allegations in The Sunday Times that Shell and BP were still in some way involved in the supply of oil to Rhodesia. I received a reply dated 11th October from the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. In a brief reply, he said:

“After contact with their South African subsidiaries they”

—namely, Shell and BP—

“have given us certain assurances, which are being studied with great care.”

Am I not entitled to know what assurances Shell and BP have given to the Government? Why all this secrecy? Why are Members of Parliament and the public being denied information on important matters which affect not only their lives but the lives of people in Southern Africa and elsewhere?

Still on the subject of Rhodesia, I was disappointed, indeed angry, this morning to hear the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling), who used to be a Tory Cabinet Minister and a former spokesman on foreign affairs, say on the radio that he had sent out a circular to many Tory MPs urging them to vote against the continuation of sanctions against Rhodesia. That is a disgraceful way for anyone who pretends to believe in law and order to behave.

The right hon. Gentleman, by encouraging his colleagues to vote for the discontinuation of sanctions, is virtually asking them to continue to prop up an illegal regime and to vote against the United Nations resolution. That is the low state that the Tory Party has reached on law and order on the international scene.

We can see part of the wisdom for the Government’s continued refusal to give full recognition to the interim Government in Rhodesia from Smith’s announcement and threat earlier this week that he may postpone the elections after having promised to hold them towards the end of this year. Therefore, the Government have been right to continue sanctions against Rhodesia. I hope that they will stick firmly to this policy and that Tory and other Opposition Members, especially those who believe in law and order, will refuse to follow the bad leadership of the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet.

I now turn to matters which are nearer home. I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister naming a date for the referenda in Scotland and Wales. I am not sure whether it is a coincidence that they are to be held on St. David’s Day. St. David is the patron saint of Wales. Although the day is not a holiday or a feast day in Scotland, I hope that the whole of the Labour movement will be out campaigning for a “yes” vote. I hope that the Government give us full backing, including financial backing if that is possible, for the campaign.

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Robertson) took his seat today. That by-election completed a brilliant hat trick of victories for the Labour Party in Scotland this year. Despite the differences in the Labour Party’s fortunes north and south of the border in recent by-elections the by-elections in Glasgow, Garscadden, Hamilton, and Berwick and East Lothian had one thing in common: all the Labour candidates were in favour of setting up a Scottish Assembly. I am convinced that, although that was not the sole factor, it played a major contribution to the brilliant hat trick of successes in Scotland this year.

Mr. Dalyell

When I went canvassing in Duns, Foulden, Grantshouse, Ayton and Reston, whenever there was a whiff of nationalism the candidate did not say that what was on offer was a great Assembly in Edinburgh. The candidate, in couthy Berwickshire language, said “Do you want a frontier up the road in Cornhill-upon-Tweed, or is my wife to take her passport with her when she goes shopping in Berwick?”

Mr. Canavan

That is interesting. I was canvassing in Eyemouth, and the question of the Scottish Assembly was raised on the doorsteps. It was a talking point. The majority of Labour voters were in favour of a Scottish Assembly. They were against setting up a border down the road at Berwick-upon-Tweed. That is what the Scottish National Party wants. The Labour Party’s policy favours devolution and is against separation. That policy has been fully justified by the party’s increased majority and increased share of the vote at the Berwick and East Lothian by-election.

We have also learned something about the appeal of the Tories in Scotland. If they cannot win Berwick and East Lothian from us in a by-election, they are incapable of winning any seats from us in Scotland. That is not surprising when we look at the leadership of the Tories in Scotland. The Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor), is a Right-wing extremist who believes that he can solve every social difficulty in Scotland by reintroducing hanging and flogging and other extremist measures.

If I were the Leader of the Opposition, I would sack him. I understand that she might be reluctant to do that because of the shortage of talent elsewhere amongst the Scottish Tory Back Benchers. But it might be an idea for her to sack the hon. Member for Cathcart and make the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland. Even he is more in touch with the people of Scotland than the hon. Member for Cathcart, whom many people believe to be a political thug.

The Scottish National Party lost its deposit at Berwick and East Lothian. That speaks for itself. The party was utterly humiliated. The result shows that the people of Scotland want nothing to do with the creation of new barriers and the setting up of an absolutely separate Scottish State.

I am pleased to hear from reports that have come from Government circles that the Government have ruled out any possibility of a pact with the nationalists. We do not need a pact with them. We have them over a barrel. They will vote with us on the Queen’s Speech and on many of the other measures in the forthcoming Session of Parliament. If they do not vote with us, they will suffer the consequences at the polls and an even greater humiliation. They will rue the day that I converted Sir Hugh Fraser away from their party because they will be after his money to help them repay all the lost deposits at the next General Election.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

The way that the Scottish National Party will vote is not as easy to describe as my hon. Friend suggests. There are quite a number of odds and sods on the Opposition Benches who must ensure that the Government remain in power so that they can keep their seats. The various small parties will abstain or vote with the Government in order to secure a Government victory. However, different groups could abstain or vote with the Government at different times. I am not so positive about the SNP. The parties will try to work the system out and the end result will be as my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) has described.

Mr. Canavan

I agree with my hon. Friend’s sophisticated political analysis. Some Opposition parties, including the SNP, will be split. I can imagine those representing former Labour constituencies such as the hon. Members for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) and for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) being hesitant and abstaining when a group decision has been taken in favour of a Right-wing policy. I can imagine those who represent former Tory seats, such as the hon. Members for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Crawford), and for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson), abstaining or voting against the Government on a decision which is left of centre. There is no need for a pact with such people. Let them dare vote against us and take the consequences. I hope that the Government do not repeat the stupid mistake that they made with the Liberals. We could have done the same with the Liberals in 1976.

I am pleased that emphasis is put on

“overcoming the evils of inflation and unemployment.”

With 1½ million people unemployed and a 7·8 per cent. rate of inflation there is no room for complacency about economic strategy. The way to defeat inflation is not by way of a 5 per cent. wages limit. I hope that the Government will remember that the 5 per cent. policy was thrown out by the TUC and the Labour Party conference.

The rigid imposition of a 5 per cent. limit on wages would hurt most the working people whom we are supposed to represent and the ones to suffer most would be the low paid. Not only would such a policy fail to maintain living standards; it would lead to a decline in living standards. How can we threaten to use sanctions against employers who are accused of the so-called heinous crime of paying their workers too much? Let us not hear so much nonsense about a 5 per cent. policy.

If we are serious about tackling inflation let us examine prices. There is a Price Commission, despite the fact that the SNP and the Tory Party voted against its introduction. However, the commission is hampered by the profit safeguard loophole which was allowed to happen because of the pressure from the Confederation of British Industry, aided and abetted by the Tories and the SNP. Unfortunately, the Government bowed to that pressure.

Allied Breweries was recently given permission to introduce interim price increases of 7·5 per cent. Last year that company’s profits were £77 million. One might say that that involves only beer and that beer is not the most important thing in life. But what about Unilever, which sells soaps and detergents? Every housewife knows the importance of those items. That company was recently given permission to increase prices by 4·8 per cent. Its profits last year were £325 million.

Tate and Lyle has been given permission to raise the price of sugar and syrup by 2 per cent. Its profits in the last two years were over £100 million. If we are serious about fighting inflation, let us put the boot into these boys instead of using the working class as the scapegoat in the battle against inflation.

The Government should put more emphasis on increasing public expenditure, first of all, in order to increase the incomes of the most deserving people—the pensioners, the sick, the disabled and those who, through no fault of their own, are out of work and have families to keep. Let us nail the rotten propaganda that was put out during the recess by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) in his anti-scrounger campaign. The vast majority of people receiving benefits are those most in need. Let the Government speak out on behalf of the pensioners, the disabled and those who have to rely on unemployment benefit and supplementary benefit through no fault of their own. Let us give publicity, for example, to the recent report of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, which stated that more than £200 million of benefit goes unclaimed every year by people who do not know of their rights to it. Let some of that be put across instead of the rotten witch-hunt and propaganda that we have had from the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South.

My second reason for wanting to increase public expenditure is to improve services, especially essential social services such as education, health and housing. Take, for example, the school building programme. Nearly half the primary schools in Scotland are using buildings which are pre-war. I refer not to the Hitler war, but to the First World War. I can cite as examples the Dunipace primary school and the Kilsyth primary school in my constituency. It is about time more funds were released both to give jobs to construction workers and to provide better education facilities for the children.

The same applies to housing. Last year a complacent Green Paper was published which seemed to say that in terms of roofs over heads the housing problem was virtually solved. People in my constituency are living in prefabricated houses which were built just after the last war. Those houses were supposed to last for 10 years, but my constituents are still living in them. For example, prefab tenants in Kilsyth are petitioning the local council and the Government for more money with which to improve their houses. I hope that the Scottish Office will be generous in its approach to this matter.

Thirdly, increased public expenditure is needed for investment in industry. I am glad that this matter is mentioned in the Gracious Speech in relation to the Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies and the NEB. But we are kidding ourselves if we think that increased investment in industry will by itself solve unemployment. It will not. Often increased investment brings about technological change which makes an industry less labour intensive. We therefore need more work sharing exercises.

The Queen’s Speech refers to some form of compensation for short-time working. From reading elsewhere I believe that the proposed scheme is that if a worker is put on short time he or she will be entitled to 75 per cent. of the normal wage for each day he or she is put on short time. Therefore, if a man works four days a week instead of five, he will be entitled to 95 per cent. of his normal weekly wage. If he is forced to work a three-day week he will get 90 per cent. of his wage. Maybe that is better than the dole, but why should these people have to suffer any reduction in living standards?

I would much prefer the Government to take firmer measures to move towards the universal adoption of the 35-hour week with an adjustment of the hourly wage rate so that there will be no corresponding decrease in the wage packet at the end of the week. Such a move would be in line with TUC and Labour Party policy.

My fourth reason for seeking increased public expenditure, therefore, is to increase employment opportunities.

Previously I mentioned the construction industry. It has been suggested recently that since the economy is getting better we should reflate by way of taxation concessions. Recent research, however, has shown that £1,000 million of tax cuts would create only an estimated 39,000 jobs. However, £1,000 million of increased public expenditure would create 235,000 jobs. Surely the case rests there in favour of public expenditure to create jobs, and I mean real lobs, not “phoney” jobs.

Let me illustrate what I mean by “real jobs” by referring to an experience I had earlier this week in my constituency. I met a young lady constituent, a former pupil of mine, who had worked hard at school for some 13 years. Afterwards she had gone on to a college of further education and had worked very hard for another three years and qualified for what she thought was to become her life’s vocation as a teacher.

She left the college, however, to find that there were no jobs for teachers because of the cuts in education expendi- ture. She was unemployed for a while and was eventually given a start on a job creation exercise. Her case underlines the distinction that I made between real jobs and “phoney” jobs. Her employer is the regional council, which is the education authority responsible for the employment of teachers in the schools. The girl is involved with a small team in the preparation of educational material, and so on. She is allowed to go into the schools and to communicate with teachers and, possibly, the pupils too. She is not, however, allowed to teach. She is being denied the right to work in the job for which she is best qualified and trained. She is intelligent enough and educated enough to see the stupidity and anomalies of the system. The children that she should be teaching are perhaps too young at this stage to appreciate them. One day, however, they will. One day, when they have grown up, they will perhaps look back at some of the debates and decisions of this House during the lifetime of this Parliament. Maybe they will judge us. My guess is that they will conclude that we did not respond generously enough to the great challenges and problems of our time.

April 20, 2020
Emlyn Hooson – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

Below is the text of the speech made by Emlyn Hooson, the then Liberal MP for Montgomery, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

Although he is not in his place at present, I wish to add my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes), who is an old friend of mine both in and out of the House, for the way in which he moved the Loyal Address. It bore the combination of that humour and charm which is characteristic of the man, allied to his great parliamentary experience.

I wish now to deal with the content of the Gracious Speech. The Speech reminds me of nothing more than a large sedative. The first part of the Prime Minister’s remarks recommended the Speech in his best bedside manner. However, the first part contrasted a great deal with the second part. I thought that the sedative he offered was appropriate for a large, well-fed, healthy patient who needed reassurance. One would have thought that it was intended for a highly prosperous nation with nothing more than a few ripples which needed to be smoothed out here and there, and not a nation, as the Prime Minister described it, which was at the crossroads in its history and which could go to boom or bust depending on which direction its affairs took.

I thought that the second part of the Prime Minister’s speech was in marked contrast. I was most impressed by the way in which he put forward his views on the dangers of inflation. I entirely agree with him. It is foolish for people to pretend that there is one simple remedy in the fight against inflation. If we had a total monetary policy, presumably that would bring down inflation to nil but would bring the country to its knees at the same time. There must be a balance in all these factors.

The issue on which I should like enlightenment from the Government relates to the question whether the Labour Party is backing the Prime Minister. It is all very well for the Prime Minister to say what he did today, and it was extremely reassuring to hear him, but I must emphasise that the Government have offered no reassurance to the British people on how to control inflation. The Prime Minister has expressed his views, but we must remember that his party is totally opposed to those views. The Labour Party conference did not support the Prime Minister on those views. There is no statutory backing for the 5 per cent. policy. The Prime Minister would agree that at best it is a rough and ready policy.

The right hon. Gentleman has exploited it most skilfully, and he has done so to a large extent against great pressure from his own party. But it does not have statutory backing, and already there are major settlements which breach the 5 per cent. limit. I refer to the hospital supervisors as one example. That settlement refers to the public sector, not to the private sector, and the settlement in that case appears to me to be 15 per cent.

Is the Cabinet itself backing the Prime Minister? Clearly, the Prime Minister’s determination, adumbrated in his remarks today, has not been matched so far by the determination of either his Cabinet or his party. Obviously there are great deficiencies in the nature of the policy. Nevertheless, along with the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), we consider it a better policy, so far as it goes, than the policy which the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition is offering in its place.

It was noticeable today that the right hon. Lady did not once use the term “free collective bargaining”, as though it was a term to be used by her only at the Tory Party conference. Free collective bargaining within recent experience is a recipe for expensive collective unemployment, and nothing more. Everybody can see that. We do not want the economy of the jungle in which the fittest survive, the strongest receive the largest increases, and the weakest go on the dole. Let us make no mistake about it: free collective bargaining is nature red in tooth and claw let loose in the workplace. It is a recipe for disaster.

Many people have learned a good deal from experience. The Conservative Government in 1970—Selsdon man—put forward free collective bargaining as one of the two great recipes that would lead to the prosperity of this country. That policy ended in disaster. In 1974 the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), backed by the present Prime Minister, virtually said that we must return to free collective bargaining. That, too, was a disaster.

There is no point in playing political games and pretending that nobody has learned from our experience in these matters. That policy clearly has not worked. Therefore, it was astonishing to hear the Leader of the Opposition again putting that policy forward. However, today she displayed definite signs of trying to resile from it. She appeared to me as though she was standing on a skateboard in a skate park trying to execute a difficult balancing act in an effort to regain the balance which she so obviously lost at the Conservative Party conference.

Yet not only do the right hon. Lady and the Conservative Party want such a policy, but the Labour Party wants it as well. Despite the brave words of the Prime Minister this afternoon, one wonders whether he will be able to carry out his policy. Small businesses will be particularly badly hit by free collective bargaining since they find it hardest to compete in a free-for-all wage climate. Unemployment will rise and monopoly wage interests will see themselves getting richer and richer, while the rest of us will suffer.

In her speech today, the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition said that there was a deep division of principle between her views and those expressed by the Labour Party. I did not gather that from her speech. She said that the Labour Party was now a party of great battalions, as though her own party was not. Of course, they are great battalions. The one generates the other and it is a matter of action and reaction.

The truth is that the right hon. Lady now finds herself in accord with the view on incomes held by the leader of the Transport and General Workers Union. These are the circumstances in which the country now finds itself. The most senior of the American trade union leaders, reacting this morning to President Carter’s programme, said that the American workers would prefer a statutory prices and incomes policy. He thought that the measures put forward in a rough and ready way by President Carter—emulating to a considerable degree the views of the right hon. Member for Sidcup and the actions taken by our own Prime Minister—were not going down well with the American workers.

I also think that a statutory incomes policy which applies to everybody, so that ordinary people do not have to go on supporting the inflationary excesses of the Ford car workers, or British Oxygen workers holding the country to ransom, is fairer in the long run. Such a policy should make provision for genuine productivity deals, instead of many of the sham deals which we have seen to date.

This also applies to profit sharing. Surely the best way for a worker to take a share in prosperity is to participate in profit sharing. There is a good deal to be said in non-capital-intensive companies for having a rough and ready rule that the first 10 per cent. of profits should be distributed to shareholders and that the remaining profits to be distributed should be split fifty-fifty between the work force and the shareholders. If we are to have rough and ready rules, that seems to be a more sensible way of proceeding.

If the Government’s stated commitment to industrial democracy is genuine, it is to be welcomed as at least a step towards the ending of confrontation politics which we have seen in this House and which is expressed in that ghastly phrase “both sides of industry”.

I am sure that we are all aware that many people who listen to our debates think that the differences between parties are often synthetic. People of good sense who have good will towards the country generally agree on the need for certain basic requirements of policies, whether we have a Labour or a Conservative Government. For example, I am sure that the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Sidcup more truly represent the views of the vast majority of people in this country than did the Labour Party in its expression of view on incomes policy at its conference or does the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), representing the Tory Party. The large vested interests of the two parties of the great battalions prevent this breaking through as general support throughout the country.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk (Ormskirk)

Given what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said about the views of the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) representing best what the country wants and what he said earlier about the difficulties he envisages the Prime Minister having in getting the 5 per cent. policy accepted in the country, may we take it that the hon. and learned Gentleman and his colleagues will be supporting the Government in that policy?

Mr. Hooson

Not at all. We shall deal with all these matters as they come up. There is no agreement between the Liberal Party and the Government. I said that I applaud the attitude taken by the Prime Minister in the second part of his speech. It remains to be seen whether that attitude is matched by the determination of the Cabinet and his own party to support him or whether he will be pushed off course by his party.

The Gracious Speech is also deficient on the question of Europe. The Government have once again failed to define their position on Europe, except for the blandest of statements about continuing to work within the EEC. We shall challenge the Government and the Conservative Party to make clear their attitudes on the future development of a united Europe. In the opinion of my party, this will be one of the great issues of this Parliament. In many ways, the European elections are more important in the long term than are any elections to this House or to an Assembly.

The Government have said nothing about the European monetary system and it looks as though we shall again be standing on the sidelines as the only member of the Community not to join. It is said that the Prime Minister has been greatly influenced by the Chancellor of West Germany in his attitude to this matter, but again he will find great difficulty in carrying his party with him.

When we look back at our relationship with Europe, we see that the shortsightedness of the two main parties meant that we joined a Community in the design of which we took no part. The Conservative Government withdrew from the Messina Conference after we had been invited to it and we have since suffered the consequences. We joined the Common Market at the time it had come to the end of its first great cycle of prosperity, and this caused many difficulties for this country. No one can doubt that if Britain had been a founder member of the Community we would have enjoyed many more of the advantages of membership and suffered far fewer of the disadvantages.

Yet are we not hell bent on doing the same thing again? Of course there are technical difficulties about creating a common European currency. There are always difficulties in brave and radical measures. The EMS is not a European monetary system; it is a step in the direction of a system. Unless we take part in meaningful negotiations on this matter, we shall be forced, sooner or later, to accept a system which we shall have had no part in shaping. Make no mistake about it: if there is eventually a system, or even if the ECS goes part of the way towards it, we shall be forced to join it—and probably in the same way as we eventually joined the Common Market. We could have been there from the start shaping it, but we went in as the poor relation.

Once again, the Prime Minister is not supported by his own party. He was criticised a great deal when he was on the Continent discussing this matter.

Mr. John Lee (Birmingham, Handsworth)

Is not the hon. and learned Gentleman suffering from amnesia? My recollection is that he was the only anti-Marketeer in his party. All credit to him, but what has happened since then?

Mr. Hooson

That shows how wrong the hon. Gentleman can be. If he had been here longer, he would know that I was always in favour of joining the Common Market on the ground floor, but that I believed that when the right hon. Member for Sidcup took us in it was at a time which was extremely disadvantageous to this country. I said at that time that the Common Market had reached the end of a cycle of prosperity.

A united Europe is not just about economic and monetary self-interest, however important that may be. My colleagues and I look to the Queen’s Speech to see what steps are to be taken to strengthen the European pillar of NATO. We look forward to that pillar playing an increasing role in defence against possible Soviet aggression and, even more, against Soviet influence arising from the steady growth in Russian military power, backed by economic power. Europe will have to learn to be less dependent upon the American pillar which dominates NATO at present, and this can come about only if we have a united states of Europe.

It is interesting that what is missing from the Queen’s Speech is in many ways more important than what is in it. It is obvious that there has been a dredging of the Whitehall Departments to find out what measures are available to which no one can take great exception. Anything really controversial has been hurled out.

There is no mention in the Queen’s Speech of the prison service, which is surely facing a catastrophic breakdown. The report of the prison department published on 27th July this year shows the highest average prison population recorded during this century. The total of 41,570 includes a record 1,358 women. I do not think that it is generally appreciated that more than 15,400 men share single cells and that, of these, more than 5,000 live three to a cell.

Anyone who visits prisons knows that conditions are, in many cases, appalling and insanitary. Some institutions provide only 20 bathing places for 1,000 inmates. In some places, chamber pots have to be slopped out in rotation because if they were not the nineteenth century drains would block up.

But prisoners’ living conditions are the prison officers’ working conditions, and they have had enough. They are threatening industrial action on 5th November. It is astonishing that there is nothing in the Queen’s Speech that deals with this matter. It is said that the Home Secretary would be making a statement this week about the immediacy of the problem, but surely we need more basic reform than can be indicated in a simple statement. There has been a serious riot at Gartree over the alleged misuse of drugs and the prison governors told the Home Secretary:

“If the present trend continues, there will be a serious loss of control which has to be quelled by armed intervention by another service. In such circumstances there is a probability of both staff and prisoners being killed.”

It is interesting to note that the governors referred to that being a probability rather than a possibility, yet the Government have proposed nothing to alleviate the situation.

There is clearly a need not only for a full public inquiry into the problems of the prison service—my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross), who has a number of important prisoners in his constituency, has written to the Home Secretary asking for such an inquiry—but there is an urgent need to reduce the prison population.

The Government’s review of criminal justice policy has pointed out the inconsistency between the publicly avowed policy of using custody only as a last resort for serious offences or dangerous offenders and the practice of the courts.

There are many people in prison who should not be there. One of the great complaints of prison officers is that many of those suffering from psychiatric disabilities are sent to prison. They cause enormous problems. It is only too easy to imagine the problems caused by somebody with a psychiatric disability sharing a cell with two other prisoners who do not.

I shall say a few words about the national scandal of secure accommodation. I begin with the issue of provision for psychiatric offenders. Such offenders should not be in ordinary prisons that cannot cope with them. However, nearly all of them are sent to ordinary prisons.

The Government allocated moneys for secure accommodation with psychiatric facilities. I shall quote some figures that I obtained from Questions asked during the previous Session. In 1976–77 the Trent regional health authority received £510,000 as a special allocation for the provision of secure facilities. Not a penny of that sum was spent for that purpose. Instead, the money was distributed as general revenue.

The South-East Thames health authority received £403,000 for the same purpose. It spent £4,000—a miserable 1 per cent.—and the rest was distributed as general revenue. The South-West Thames health authority received £325,000 and used almost all of it to offset overspending of overall revenue.

That is a national scandal. There has been a clear misappropriation of public funds by public bodies.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk

There was an allocation of £5 million.

Mr. Hooson

I know that the hon. Gentleman has taken a great interest in these matters. It is true that over £5 million has been allocated. It is also true that not one-tenth of it has been spent on the purpose for which it was allocated. That means that, instead of having secure accommodation to which psychiatric offenders may be sent, the courts have no option other than to let these people free to go where they will or to send them to prison. That is one of the deficiencies about which prison officers are rightly complaining.

The Government must announce whether they have abandoned their aim of providing secure accommodation for psychiatric offenders. If they do not, when is the money to be spent for the purpose for which it was provided, as well as a great deal more? I appreciate that this is a relatively small matter for the Prime Minister to concern himself with, but it is of the greatest concern to the country as a whole.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk

I apologise for intervening again in the hon. and learned Gentleman’s speech. However, as he says, this is an important subject and one in which I take a great deal of interest. It is fair to observe that the Government have done their part. The £5 million special allocation was provided by the Government to ensure that we do not have the offenders to whom he refers cluttering our special hospitals, our psychiatric hospitals or our prisons when they should be in the interim secure units that were recommended as long ago as 1974. Responsibility lies with the area health auhorities that have refused to provide what they see as locally unpopular projects in their areas, desperately necessary though they are.

Mr. Hooson

The Government appoint those bodies. I think that the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) will agree that the £5 million was only a first instalment. In itself it is completely inadequate to deal with the problem. Almost all of it has been spent for other purposes. That is a scandal.

Last year 2,500 people were sent to prison for offences of drunkenness. These are normally social inadequates who pose no threat to society. It is lunatic to put them in prison at a cost of about £90 a week.

Seven years ago, a Home Office working party recommended detoxification centres for habitual drunken offenders. Such centres are provided in many other countries. Seven years later, what is the position? Only two small units have been established. There is one in Leeds with 45 places and one in Manchester with 15 places. However, we have 2,500 people sent to prison for offences of drunkenness, thereby adding enormously to the burden of prison offices and to the problems of the prison population.

Similar criticism may be made of the imprisonment of fine defaulters. No fewer than 16,000 were sent to prison last year. What is solved by sending these people to prison? How is society served by taking that course? Why not force people who do not pay their fines to perform community service? They should be subject to community service orders as an alternative to imprisonment. That would take the pressure off the prison system and off the prison staff. It would mean that something positive was being contributed to society by those who did not pay fines.

The same may be said for maintenance defaulters. Last year no fewer than 2,500 maintenance defaulters went to prison. How is that supposed to help their families or those they are bound to maintain? The alternative of the community service order would appear to be appropriate.

Britain has one of the largest prison populations in Western Europe. It has a crime rate that is no better than that of other European countries. It is time for a radical rethink. The truth is that it is unpopular to spend money on prisons and on the probation service. That is not vote-getting expenditure. Almost all parties are hypocritical about these issues.

When it is close to an election, the Conservative Party raises the issue of law and order. Its spokesmen say that we must spend more on the prison service and on the police. However, very often that is not done when the Conservative Party is in government. In the past decade the only period when prison staff numbers fell was in 1972–73. That was during one of the financial squeezes of the Conservative Government.

There is an enormous problem, and the answer is for the House to determine. We are still lumbered with enormous Victorian prisons. We send to them far greater numbers than they were ever intended to hold. The House has to make up its mind and do something about it. It is one of the top priorities for expenditure. Our expenditure on criminal justice services, including prisons, accounts for a mere 2 per cent. of total public expenditure. If we want an economically effective and humane system, we should be putting our money where our mouths are.

I have referred to what must be one of the most glaring omissions from the Gracious Speech. I am sure that the British people are well aware of what would happen if there were a serious riot in our prisons. The prison governors think that another service—namely, the Army—would have to be called in, and that it is a “probability” that prisoners and prison staff would be killed. Surely it is time that the Government shook themselves up and did something about it. It is one of the worst deficiencies that could be found in a Gracious Speech. It amazes me that this Gracious Speech makes no reference to it.

I hope that the Prime Minister, who has been kind enough to listen to what I have had to say, will consider the matter with a view to the Government making a strong statement of intention very shortly.

April 20, 2020
Jim Callaghan – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

Below is the text of the speech made by Jim Callaghan, the then Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

I should like to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition on that very gallant performance on the afternoon on which the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Robertson) was introduced. I should also like to support what she had to say about the mover and seconder of the Address to Her Majesty.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) has represented the constituency for many years. I had the privilege of speaking for him when he was an aspiring young candidate and I am very happy to pay tribute to the outstanding services he has given to Anglesey, to Wales and to the United Kingdom as a whole.

My right hon. Friend has given great service to the language of Wales. He himself is equally eloquent in both English and Welsh. We had a taste this afternoon of what he is like in one language. His eloquence and his humour have commended themselves to all his colleagues in the House over many years. This afternoon, we saw why he is a most successful chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

My right hon. Friend has given great service to education in Wales in his capacity as president of the University College of Aberystwyth and has served in a number of important capacities in the Government—in Agriculture, to which he referred, in the Commonwealth Office and elsewhere. I am glad that my right hon. Friend had this unexpected opportunity to make a most distinguished speech this afternoon.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth), one of the new younger Members of the House, represents both the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party, so he represents both parts of the movement in the House. He was very prominent in promoting the co-operative Development Agency Act so successfully last Session, from which I believe a great deal of benefit will come.

My hon. Friend’s point about the need for single status for blue collar and white collar workers is gaining a good deal of attention. It is a valuable idea which will grow, and I believe that the faster it comes in this country the better will be our prospects for getting the levels of productivity we need and decreasing the tension in industry to which the Leader of the Opposition referred.

As regards the days of debate on the Gracious Speech, by convention the Opposition take the lead in choosing the principal subject on certain days. As regards next Tuesday and Wednesday, perhaps I should explain the Government’s position. We felt that the House would want an early opportunity to discuss both the Bingham report and Rhodesia.

That was the way in which we approached it and we could think of no earlier way of doing it than to suggest to the Opposition that we should have two days on those subjects. After discussion, I understood that that was agreed, and it is for the Opposition to say how they wish to divide up this time.

Mr. John Pardoe (Cornwall, North)

You bet it was. It would be, would it not?

The Prime Minister

If only the hon. Member had carried the day last June, he and I would have been talking about this, too. What a shame. Never mind—the hon. Gentleman is temporarily excluded from heaven.

After discussion with the Opposition, we extended the Queen’s Speech debate by a day so that we might have a full debate on Bingham and a full debate on Rhodesia. At the end of that two-day debate—it is for the House to decide how it goes, but I hope that there can be an orderly debate on both those important matters in the two days—we shall ask the House to renew the sanctions order on a separate motion which will come at the end of the second day.

When the Government received the Bingham report, we decided at once that the first step was to publish it, and we did. We decided at the same time to refer it to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Government’s purpose over this debate, which is clear and above board—although I know that some hon. Members have such suspicious minds that they cannot believe anything—was to give hon. Members the opportunity of expressing their views on questions such as the need for a further inquiry and the form that any such inquiry might take.

These are complex issues. They involve Government policy over many years. They involve administration. They also involve possible criminal practices. It seemed to us that the best way to proceed in this instance at first was to give the House the opportunity of discussing these matters. The Government would reserve their view and their position until they had heard the House and its views expressed in the form of debate. Then we would come forward with further proposals to the House. I believe that that is a perfectly sensible way of proceeding and I recommend it to the House in that spirit. I hope that, as we originally intended, the debate can be divided up in this way.

As for the arrangements during the Session, the Leader of the House will make proposals in regard to Private Members’ time similar to those in recent Sessions. The Government are not proposing any alteration as regards Supply time. A total of 29 days is allotted for this purpose under the Standing Order and the Government propose to adhere to that. It will be for the Leader of the Opposition of course, again by convention, to discuss with the other opposition parties what time shall be allotted to them for their discussions.

A year ago, in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, I said that there was work for this Parliament not only for the Session we were then beginning but, I added, for a fruitful Session in 1978–79. There was some dissent. No one ever seems to believe it when I say these things, and people are always wrong. But, having heard the Gracious Speech, the House will agree that we have a valuable programme of legislation for this coming Session. I should like to rehearse some of the measures which will be put before the House.

First, there will be a Bill to provide financial help to those who, since 1948, have suffered severely as a result of vaccinations against diphtheria, whooping cough, polio and several other diseases. The assistance will take the form of a tax-free payment of £10,000. I know from my correspondence that this proposal is deeply appreciated by the sufferers and their families.

Next, there will be a Bill to improve the safety of tankers at sea and to reduce the risk of oil pollution, of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey reminded us when he spoke of the fate of the “Christos Bitas” that has brought once again to our notice the risks to our environment of transporting huge quantities of oil around our coasts.

The Bill will provide, for instance, more stringent rules about steering gear controls aboard ships and about duplicate independent radar systems, and will require a system to be installed—a kind of “black box”—which will monitor and control the discharge of oil from ships and will shut down the flow automatically if the permitted rate of discharge is exceeded. It will provide for more frequent inspection of tankers over a certain age. This Bill will give an opportunity to express the anxieties to which my right hon. Friend has given voice.

All of that will be helpful, but I cannot emphasise too much that at the end of the day, if we are to prevent oil pollution, we shall still depend basically on the seamanship, vigilance and sense of responsibility of those who sail those huge vessels through our seas.

Mr. Nigel Lawson (Blaby)

“Steady as she goes.”

The Prime Minister

That is a very good motto.

Other important provisions of the Bill will amend an outmoded discipline system that now applies to merchant seamen. This new procedure has been agreed by both sides of the industry. The Bill will also contain a reserve power to enable us to protect the British shipping industry from undesirable foreign takeovers.

A further Bill, on which consultation is still going on, will improve the position of employees who are put on short time through no fault of their own. It is proposed to provide them with compensation at 75 per cent. of their normal pay for each day lost.

Yet another Bill—a public lending right Bill—will be brought in to assist authors. Like many other Members, I have been impressed by their case. The Bill will enable payments to be made to authors when their books are lent from public libraries.

Another Bill will enable the Home Secretary to extend the grants that he can give to local authorities to meet the needs of ethnic minorities and so promote harmony between the various communities. The present provisions are too narrow. For example, grants are limited to help- ing Commonwealth immigrants. The new Bill would end this and other restrictions.

There will be a Bill to begin the implementation of the Briggs report. It will provide for national statutory bodies that will have powers to fix standards of education, training and discipline for nurses, midwives and health visitors.

There will be a housing Bill, which will establish a tenants’ charter and improve the status of tenants of public authorities and enable them to play a greater part in their home making. The Bill will give tenants in local authority houses security of tenure. They will be freer to carry out improvements to their own homes; they will have the rights to a written tenancy agreement; and there will be machinery for tenants’ committees to contribute to the management of the housing estates.

A Bill on education will provide for the election of parents and teachers to school governing bodies, so that parents may have a greater influence on the schools in which their children are educated. There will be a proposal to clarify the law on parental rights in respect of school preferences.

We shall be carrying forward our proposals on industrial democracy. We hope that as far as possible the arrangements for extending industrial democracy in factories and workshops will be secured through voluntary agreement and through negotiation. The Bill will take into account the considerable advances that have been made in this direction and in employee participation by a number of companies. But generally in this matter we are well behind some of our European competitors, including the most successful, and we shall therefore propose further statutory rights for employees where agreement cannot be reached between a company and its work force. The Government are continuing consultations on this matter, and legislation will be introduced as soon as they are completed.

Further proposals that we shall introduce will be concerned with what has come to be known as organic change in local government. What that means is the transfer back to certain district councils, especially in non-metropolitan areas, of some of the functions that have been carried out by the counties since the reorganisation in 1973–74.

Some of our historic cities and towns with a long municipal history, cities and towns such as Plymouth, Norwich, Bristol, Nottingham. Leicester, Hull and others, feel keenly that some of the functions that they were then deprived of have not improved since the transfer and that they could exercise them better themselves and be closer to the people. I am glad to say that in this we have all-party support in the boroughs concerned, so I trust that there will be no opposition to it. It should go through quite easily. The Government agree with those cities and towns. The purpose of the Bill will be to remedy some of the deficiencies without going through the massive and a wasteful upheaval of another major reorganisation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment will be having further consultations in preparation for the legislation.

Another Bill will be introduced to increase the statutory financial limits of the National Enterprise Board, the Scottish Development Agency and the Welsh Development Agency to enable them to continue their task of assisting investment and innovation in manufacturing industry and in safeguarding employment. Those institutions have rapidly gained support. They have shown their value. They will fill a gap in the industrial strategy. I am very glad that some of the political controversy, which I think began basically as a result of people not really knowing what was going on, is now dying down.

As regards Scotland and Wales, we shall of course make progress with the provisions of the devolution Acts that require us to hold a referendum before the Acts can commence in each country.

The House knows only too well of the requirement it introduced into the Acts that unless 40 per cent. of persons entitled to vote vote “Yes” the Government must introduce an order to repeal the Acts. The condition laid down in the Acts is “entitled to vote” and not “those voting”. Therefore, it seems to the Government essential that we should ensure the fairest possible test of public opinion by holding a referendum on the most up-to-date register of electors available.

As the House knows, the new electoral register is in course of preparation. It will come into force on 16th February 1979. We therefore propose to hold the referendums as soon as possible after that date, and we have chosen for this purpose Thursday 1st March 1979. This early date will allow the maximum possible vote to be registered on these important issues. I trust that by announcing it now we are giving sufficient time to all—the parties, the returning officers and everyone else—to prepare themselves for the referendums.

As regards Northern Ireland, the Government have accepted and will propose to implement the recommendations of the all-party conference that was held under your chairmanship, Mr. Speaker. Your conference proposed that the number of constituencies should be increased from 12 to 17 but that that number might be varied to 16 or 18. The Bill will provide for that.

The security situation in Northern Ireland is a cause of continuing concern, although—thanks in large measure to the determination of the great majority of people in the Province who have rejected violence, as well as to the courage and dedication of the security forces—violence has continued to decrease. It is still too high, and the potential for increased violence must not be underrated. The Government certainly do not underestimate it. But as the struggle of the men of violence moves on, causing misery and death to innocent people, even they are gradually coming to recognise that violence itself will not achieve the ends that they say they seek.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will continue energetically to work with the objective of establishing in the Province a system of government that will be acceptable to the community as a whole. He is currently meeting representatives of the political parties in the Province in an attempt to find some common ground on which early arrangements for devolution might be based. Despite the differences between the long-term aspirations of those who live in Northern Ireland, it should not be impossible for them to concentrate on identifying and building areas of agreement and common interest, in the interests of all the people of that sorely tried Province.
My right hon. Friend and his colleagues, who work so hard and travel so much in this area, will continue to grapple with the other grave problems of the area, including the problem of high unemployment.

In the past few minutes I have enumerated a baker’s dozen of Bills. They are by no means all the Bills proposed in the Queen’s Speech. But I believe that what I have said and the areas to which the Bills are directed are sufficient to show that the Government are putting forward to the House a programme of reform, of social welfare and change and of environmental protection that will be of benefit to the whole community. It is a solid and substantial programme. It carries into practical effect the approach that I outlined at the Labour Party conference—namely, that there is a need for greater involvement and participation by our citizens in the decisions that affect their lives at work, in their homes or in the education of their children. It is a programme that will seek to improve the quality of life and will underpin those improvements by reasserting the social values and standards—personal, family and community standards—by which we live.

It is in pursuance of that approach that the standards of life of the pensioner will be improved again during the coming year and the child benefits will be substantially increased this month and again in April. It is in pursuance of that approach that we devote so much time to minority groups, such as the handicapped and the disabled.

There is much more to be done in all these fields. The extent to which we are successful will depend to a large degree on our success in continuing the financial and economic recovery that we have achieved. A year ago when we met I told the House that we had made a remarkable financial recovery. Sterling was steady, inflation was moving down and our balance of payments had improved. I added that that financial recovery had not then been matched by an economic recovery. This year I can report to the House that we have maintained the financial recovery of 12 months ago and that in addition the economic recovery began several months ago and is now well under way.

This recovery has taken place against a background of great international uncertainty, both economic and political. Despite the decisions that were announced at the economic summit in Bonn last July to implement a programme of concerted international action, the world economy still remains in recession. The monetary instability that followed the oil price increase of five years ago is still exercising a baleful effect. Indeed, this past week has seen a resurgence of the kind of instability from which only the speculators can gain.

It is our view that the dollar is undervalued on any objective assessment. But this is not just a problem for President Carter and the United States. The economies of the Western world are interdependent and it is in the interests of all to assist the President in his endeavours to stabilise the situation. This morning he informed me that he would today be announcing a further group of measures to support the dollar. These include action to increase interest rates and the mobilisation by the United States of over $30 billion worth of marks, yen and Swiss francs for intervention. This will be co-ordinated with the Governments concerned in the foreign exchange markets.

To achieve this the United States will make a drawing from the International Monetary Fund, will sell some of the special drawing rights, will increase swap lines and will sell United States Treasury securities denominated in some or all of these three principal intervention currencies. Her Majesty’s Government support this further action by the United States’ Administration, which carries a heavy burden as the world’s principal reserve currency. These measures will make an important contribution to restoring dollar stability and on any rational assessment should put an end to the exaggerated movements of recent months, although it will undoubtedly take a short while for the markets to settle down and assess the situation.

What has happened does point to the shortcomings of the situation that we have all endured since the early seventies. These measures should give some calm and some time which should be properly used for a much-needed fundamental review of the present international monetary arrangements and the system. The trouble is that in the middle of a crisis we are told that we cannot look at the fundamentals because everyone is so busy dealing with the crisis, and when we are out of the crisis everyone says that it does not matter. We have to take this matter in hand during the next few months. I have pressed strongly for it in the past and I repeat my plea now. The weight of footloose money is now too great for an economy even of the size and strength of the United States to carry by itself.

I return to a point related to some of the discussions we shall be having in this House later. I state the general principle in the hope that there will be agreement on that, at least. There ought to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that monetary stability is better for world trade and for the developing countries than the turbulences which the world has been experiencing recently.

For this reason the Government, and particularly my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, have been playing a constructive and realistic role in developing the ideas for a European monetary system. More work remains to be done on this and the House will have an opportunity for a full discussion—I am sure that the Lord President will arrange this—before the European Council meeting in December. It is a complex issue and today my right hon. Friend, to assist the House, is tabling a memorandum setting out the background, so far as we know it, up to date. Our general approach can be shortly summed up. We wish to see a scheme which will be durable and effective and which will not force some countries into deflationary policies unnecessarily or others into higher levels of inflation. There is still quite a lot of work to be done before such a scheme emerges. It has not yet emerged.

Uncertainty has not been confined to the financial and economic sphere. In Southern Africa there have been sustained Anglo-American endeavours but a settlement for Rhodesia seems as far away as ever. I shall not go into details in view of the debate that will take place next week, but the difficulty of bringing, or getting, all the parties to agree to come to the conference table at the same time leads me to doubt whether the will for agreement that would lead to a peaceful settlement really exists. Britain and America must and will nevertheless continue to work together and my right hon. Friend will make a full report on this matter if and when he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, early next week.

My right hon. Friend will, in addition, make a statement to the House tomorrow on Zambia, on the assistance which the Government are giving to—I find it necessary to remind some hon. Members—a fellow member of the Commonwealth. President Kaunda turned first to the United Kingdom at a time of critical difficulty. I am glad that he did so. I hope that every hon. Member is glad that he did so. His country has suffered more than any other as a result of the Rhodesian rebellion.

The Opposition Front Bench has wisely asked for the facts. The right hon. Lady did so in rather an aggressive way this afternoon, but nevertheless she asked for the facts before coming to a conclusion. Some of her followers have been more rash and perhaps she was responding to their temper. Those members of the Opposition who think, when they hear the facts, that we should have rejected President Kaunda’s approach, should say so. They will have the chance next week to spell out what their response would have been and to spell out what they think the consequences would have been, not only to Zambia, not only to Southern Africa but to the Commonwealth I hope that wiser counsel will prevail, before people rush into too many denunciations, when they have heard the statement which my right hon. Friend will make.

Uncertainty persists in the Middle East despite the progress towards a settlement which, under President Carter’s auspices at Camp David, the Egyptian and Israeli leaders were able to achieve. In many ways the prospects for peace there are better than they have been for 30 years. It would be a tragedy if the hard work which has gone into their efforts were now to be thrown away through the emergence of last-minute obstacles. I hope, and am confident, that both President Sadat and Mr. Begin are too conscious of the value to their peoples of the prize of peace to let this opportunity slip.

On one front, at least, there has been a movement towards greater certainty. The United States and the Soviet Union have taken further steps towards the conclusion of a second strategic arms limitation agreement which will provide for the reduction, rather than the mere freezing, of strategic arms and will constitute a major contribution to world stability and detente.

As the House knows, the United Kingdom has also continued its negotiations, in company with the United States and the Soviet Union, to reach agreement on a comprehensive test ban. There is still some way to go in this complex negotiation, but we are moving forward. The comprehensive test ban treaty which is our goal will—provided we can get the structure right—provide an effective curb to the dangerous spread of nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile at home it is the tide of inflation that is the Government’s chief concern. The right hon. Lady addressed some observations to us this afternoon, basically about pay. There was hardly anything about inflation—[Interruption.]

That was the conclusion which I drew, that she was more concerned with finding difficulties about pay policy than she was with explaining to the Government her policy for keeping inflation down. Last year’s financial recovery and stability have led to this year’s economic growth, principally because our rate of inflation has been reduced, by a great effort, to the average level of other major industrial countries. There is now growing confidence in industry because of this. As a result, industrial investment is now increasing. The last recorded figures of company purchases of new and up-to-date plant and machinery show an increase of 10 per cent. on a year earlier.

As regards the distribution and service industries, new investment is more than 12 per cent. higher than a year earlier. Industrialists are forecasting that the increase will be maintained into next year. All of this, of course, is subject to keeping inflation down. If company surpluses are spent in meeting excessive wage settlements there will be less for new plant and machinery.

At present, considering the world background, the economy is growing at a reasonable rate. Indeed, we are growing faster than the average for the European Community as a whole. Our unemployment levels have fallen slowly but rela- tively steadily over the past 12 months. We are continuing to hold, and indeed slightly to improve, our share of world exports of manufactured goods. We are expecting this increase to continue despite the increased competition that comes from the slow growth in world trade and the strength of sterling.

As the right hon. Lady rightly said, the country has been given a big boost by North Sea oil. Last year the figure was 38 million tonnes. This year it will be about 55 million tonnes and by 1980 it is probable that we shall reach net self-sufficiency. Each tonne of oil is worth about £50 and it can be seen how valuable an addition this has been to what we have been doing.

Our people are better off than a year ago—higher earnings, lower taxes and a reduced inflation rate. [Interruption.] I do not know which of these three statements the Opposition wish to challenge, so I repeat them—higher earnings, lower taxes and a reduced inflation rate. I do not overlook the blemishes, and I will come to them, but no one can dispute that the last 12 months has been a year of progress on every front. As we begin this parliamentary year, the basic question is whether Britain has the will to maintain that improvement and to support policies that will achieve it. The greatest danger at the moment—and I think that the right hon. Lady’s speech lent colour to it—is that we shall all act as though the danger from inflation is no longer of major importance.

The Government totally repudiate such an attitude. Overcoming inflation is the core of our policy for sustaining economic growth, reducing unemployment and improving living standards. The Government and the House have a responsibility to give a lead to the country in this matter, to recall to our people what still needs to be done, in the words of the Gracious Speech, to overcome

“the evils of inflation and unemployment, the two most serious social problems facing the nation today, and to sustaining the growth of output which is now under way.”

Many more people are at work today, despite the higher number of unemployed, than there were a few years ago.
I do not intend to conduct an argument this afternoon with those who say “Let’s give up pay policy; it is irrelevant or it is too difficult.” They say—and this I understand, at any rate on alternate days, to be the policy of the Opposition—”Rely on monetary or fiscal instruments and you can forget about pay policy.” If the strong or those with monopoly power grab what they can and, as a result, their fellow workers are put out of work—”Well”, they say, “that is for the market to determine and people will have to learn sense.”

I do not accept that view, wherever it comes from. I do not scorn the argument that is now taking place between the Opposition Front Bench and the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath). There is an argument going on in the Labour Party, too, and we all have much to learn. But sometimes when I listen to the right hon. Lady I wish I were as certain of anything as she is certain of everything.

I state the Government’s policy quite simply—namely, that a limit on earnings increases has an important part to play in keeping down inflation, that the Government have a responsibility to say what that limit should be if no one else will do so, and that Government monetary and fiscal policies also have a role to play.

The counter-inflation policy, let me say to the right hon. Lady, is a three-legged stool. One leg is incomes policy, another leg is monetary policy, and the third leg is tax policy. If one of these is weaker than the other two, those two will have to carry more weight, and if too much weight is carried by them the whole stool may collapse and counter-inflation with it. Let me remind the House what the hon. Member for Horncastle (Mr. Tapsell) said some time ago on this matter. I found myself in complete agreement with him. He is at least one of the many voices on the Conservative Front Bench on this matter. He said:

“Those people who wish to rely solely on control of the money supply and do not wish to have an incomes policy are entitled to say that it could stop inflation. I do not doubt that if we pursued a sufficiently rigorous control of the money supply we would bring inflation virtually to a standstill, and that would be a very desirable object to achieve, but the price we should have to pay for that would be very high. The price in terms of the level of unemployment and the level of bankruptcies, in industry, the City and agriculture would be an intolerable price.”—[Official Report, 6th July 1976; Vol. 914, c. 1238.]

I repeat—and I believe that this should be common ground and I ask the Opposition to make up their minds on it—that what we need are all these three elements to work in harmony if we are to overcome inflation in this country.

Let me spell out clearly what I mean so that no one is under a misapprehension. We can keep inflation low, we can sustain the growth in output, we can overcome unemployment, if we have these elements working in harmony, and there is full agreement between the Government, the Confederation of British Industry and the TUC, together with, I believe, the overwhelming support of our people that inflation must be kept in single figures. Trade unionists, employers, pensioners, those in the public services, in health and education and the rest, all know the savage impact that rampant inflation has not only on their standard of life but on the services that are provided in education and in health.

Let us look at the estimates for a moment. I did it myself recently. Let us look at how much we spent on the National Health Service five years ago and how much we are spending now. Let us look at how little improvement we have got for the vast increase in resources we have devoted to it because of inflation. To those who want to improve the Health Service, as I do, and those who want to improve education, as I do, I say that the first test is to keep inflation down. Inflation cuts away at jobs. It reduces the attraction of our goods to other countries and lessens the opportunities for export. It makes our home market more open to imports from countries whose inflation rates are lower than ours.

Of course the level of earnings has a part to play in determining the level of inflation, and the Government have a responsibility to say, even if no one else agrees, what is the best level of increases in national settlements that will achieve this end. Nothing that has been said in the discussion so far that we are having with many groups, and nothing that was said by the right hon. Lady today, can alter our view that the best figure is 5 per cent.

The Government are fully aware of the shortcomings of stating a single figure—I do not need to be convinced of that. The critics have an easy victory when they say that once one states a figure everyone believes that he is entitled to it; and that some negotiators will prove their skill or show their strength by insisting on exceeding it, and finally no one or few people get less than the stated figure.

The right hon. Lady said that she thought it was a question of whether it should be an average or a norm—that once one states a figure, if one states that it is going to be an average and Ford workers get 15 per cent., who is going to get nought per cent. to make up for it?—[Interruption.] Of course I know that the consequence of that average is that Leylands will get nought per cent. Is that what the Opposition are saying? I am very interested to hear that they want to know what we are going to do about Ford. I think Ford has a public obligation now and a public responsibility to state clearly what impact on its prices this proposed wage settlement will have, and it has a public responsibility to account to the country for any price increases that it proposes to make during the next 12 months. The sooner Ford says that, the better.

I am aware of the argument that we should not publish any figure but should rely on the good sense of negotiators not to press for too much. But how are negotiators and the country to know what is regarded as an appropriate figure unless it is published? No one can be quite sure what effect the publication of the 5 per cent. figure has had, but certainly it does enable the Government and others to judge that published figure against prospective and actual claims that we hear about and that are totalling 30 per cent., 40 per cent., 50 per cent. Is that what the right hon. Lady thinks appropriate in these circumstances? She could at least have told us that.

At least the negotiators know what we are aiming at and they know—and they cannot have it spelt out more clearly than I am doing now—that settlements at more than that figure will result, unless other factors enter into the calculations which we cannot see now, in inflation going up. I have never tried to avoid that conclusion and I do not avoid it now. I must emphasise again and again that that figure still applies. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are very good at asking questions. If they will possess their souls in patience, even the younger of them, they will get answers. I must emphasise again and again that that figure still stands as the right level if the country is to achieve the objective of reducing inflation still further. There is an answer to the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). I do not propose to give it while he interrupts in a sedentary manner and I do not propose to give way to him if he gets up.

No one has yet produced any evidence to the Government that we have pegged the figure too low. No one has yet produced any evidence to the Government that a higher figure would achieve the same result of reducing inflation.

Therefore, I cannot state it more clearly. If the general level of settlements comes out at much more than 5 per cent., the level of inflation will not go down of its own accord. Of course, this figure does not include genuine productivity deals, provided that they are genuine and provided that they result in increased productivity so that the cost of producing a unit of goods does not increase or, even better, is reduced.

I have listened to the claims of certain negotiators that in the last round they persuaded employers to fiddle productivity agreements to give higher figures. So much the worse for them and for all of us. The fiddlers may get some temporary benefit for themselves, but in the end we and they will all lose.

Let me sum up. Keeping down inflation is the objective. A 5 per cent. increase in settlements will achieve that. That is the Government’s strong recommendation to employers in the private sector and to trade unions. Any excess will throw people out of work and raise prices. We shall scrutinise carefully the results as they come. If the rise in earnings cannot be accommodated the Government will be forced to strengthen their other policies—the other two legs of the stool. I regret to say that it will mean putting undue weight on them, but it will have to be.

Among other things this could include—and here is the answer to those hon. Members who are anxious to get it, and I shall be interested to hear whether they support it—higher taxation. That is what the Chancellor might have to do. It would include action on interest rates arising from our monetary aggregates. It could result in a smaller increase in public expenditure than would otherwise be the case. All these things follow. As a result it would be more difficult for firms to get credit from the banks. They might not be able to pay so much in wages, or they might have to discharge workers and slow down production, or their investment in new plant and machinery could be less. Any of these things follow. Whether or not the Opposition understand, the country understands that this is not the road which the Government would choose to follow. We do not wish to go down that road. But overcoming inflation is paramount and whether or not we have to follow it depends upon the good sense and understanding of everyone, trade unionists and employers, during the coming winter. At this moment further talks are going on between the Government and the Trades Union Congress and in due course the Chancellor will report on the outcome of those talks.

In the weeks and months ahead we shall hear many complaints about unfairness. If the right hon. Lady follows the pattern which she followed last year she will be the first to jump on the band wagon. Some of the complaints about the squeezing of differentials and about special cases will be legitimate. We shall hear all this. Of course every effort should be made by negotiators to reduce those complaints, but it should also be recognised at the same time that the major fight is against inflation and not every complaint can be remedied at the present time.

Are we to have a winter of strikes? I appeal to every trade unionist not to make it so. I agree with the right hon. Lady that the workers’ power in combination is greater today than ever before. Not crossing the picket line has become an expression of solidarity to a degree which I certainly did not know in my younger days when I was an active trade unionist. But that kind of solidarity if carried to extremes means that life could seize up in a closely knit industrial society such as our own.

There are a few wild voices today which are seeking to thrust vital groups of workers into the forefront in the belief that the State will not in the end be able to resist a withdrawal of labour by such workers. Then, if their assumptions were right, and such claims were conceded under duress, others without the same vital power would demand the same level of remuneration, using the appealing argument, which is very difficult to answer, that fair comparisons for similar work demand the same reward. In the end the result would be that the country would once more be on the upward spiral of inflation.

Mr. Heffer

I know that some of my hon. Friends may not like what I shall say, but there are wide sections of the working people who are on very low pay. Is it not quite clear that those sections of the workers have a right to much higher pay than they are at present receiving and that 5 per cent. is a most ridiculous position for those workers to be placed in? I take not the side which the right hon. Lady is taking, but the side of ordinary working people who support the Labour Government. Is it not clear that it is our duty and responsibility as members of the Labour Party to take the views of those workers into consideration and to give them a square deal?

The Prime Minister

I made it clear at the Labour Party conference that if arrangements could be entered into which would assist the lowest paid workers in this country without that feeding through into the differentials of every other group of workers, I would be ready for it. The discussions which are now going on can clearly focus on that point. But no one will be better off, neither the low paid nor the high paid, unless we keep inflation emblazoned on our banner as the first evil that we have to overcome. I cannot be pushed off this. This is absolutely vital to the whole future of our Government and of our country.

Another argument I hear is that, although the country is generally in favour of moderate settlements for everyone else, that resolve will not last if there is public inconvenience or hardship. It is argued that the public mood will then rapidly change and that people will say “Give them the money” or “Let us have a quiet life”. I hope those who say this are wrong.—[HON. MEMBERS: “That is not what you said in 1974”.]. If that is what hon. Members think then I had better quote what I did say at that time, because the right hon. Lady quoted only part of it. What I said, and made clear, at that time was that it seemed to me that the appeal for votes was against those

“who are doing no more than seeking to protect their existing standards. Is that now a crime?”

The right hon. Member for Sidcup said recently that he had learned something. So have I. I then said at that time:

“Mr. Heath is not the general to fight the battle against inflation”.

I said it for the reason which I think the right hon. Gentleman knows and probably now accepts, namely, that the decision by Lord Barber to allow the M3 figures, the monetary rates, to go up by 25 per cent. to 30 per cent. was a crass error from which the country suffered for the subsequent two years. What we have done is to push down the increase in the monetary aggregates, the M3 figure. It is not now 25 per cent. to 30 per cent. If the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) listens he might learn something. It is now between 8 per cent. and 12 per cent.—about 10 per cent. or perhaps even lower.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Denis Healey)

Six per cent.

The Prime Minister

Against that background, we are operating in an entirely different situation from the one in which we were operating in February 1974. I add one other thing, and I say it to those of my hon. Friends who know the mining industry. At that time the miners of this country had slipped back in the wages league until they were well below the average earnings of the country. Now they are earning far above the average wages in the country. That is the difference between 1974 and today.

However we refight history and however we judge what went on before, I should point out to the right hon. Lady, who was boasting that during her Government’s period of office inflation was only 5·8 per cent., that when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer it was below 4 per cent. She will have to do better than 5·8 per cent.

I wish to make clear that the Government cannot give up their basic policy. The faint-hearts who say we should not be rigid or that we are fighting the wrong battle or that we cannot succeed should make up their minds which side they are on.

I believe that if the Government and this House give a strong enough lead, we shall carry the country with us.
My resolve is strengthened because this country is at a watershed in its history. So many things are going better for Britain through the advantages of North Sea oil. We can win great benefits in the years ahead. Low inflation and high productivity will produce high earnings. Substantial economic growth will carry us forward to higher levels of employment. If we succeed we shall be one of the industrial leaders of the world by the mid-1980s.

This winter is a make or break time. We shall suffer setbacks—we suffered one today—but we shall not give up. Nor shall we be complacent if we succeed. We are fighting for the future of everyone in our country. The Government will not evade their duty to warn or take action if it becomes necessary, and we look to the House to support us in our efforts.

April 20, 2020
Jim Molyneaux – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

Below is the text of the speech made by James Molyneaux, the then Ulster Unionist MP for South Antrim, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

The Gracious Speech referred to the Government’s determination to bring before the courts those responsible for violence in Northern Ireland. This is the end product of all that is done by the security forces and by all who are concerned with the return of law and order to the Province.

In the past three months since we last met there have been more lamentable and brutal murders. But at the same time these months have witnessed the increasing effectiveness, to use the terms of a previous Gracious Speech, of the security forces.

The story of the past 12 months has been one of returning strength and stability. Depression and hopelessness have given way to an atmosphere of confidence regained, and slowly but surely the law is being reasserted and, what is even more important, hearts and minds are being changed and directed towards more constructive outlets.

From the improving security situation it may seem a far cry to the very important passage in the Gracious Speech providing for amending legislation to give effect to the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference. But the two are related because already the undertaking given by the Prime Minister on 19th April in this House has been one of the major factors in removing uncertainty from the minds of all those who live in that part of the kingdom that we represent.

Ulster citizens have come to see that an increase from 12 to 18 seats is bound to result in better representation of all shades of opinion, and consequently there has been a far greater degree of acceptance of the proposals than we were at one time led to believe. Far from rejecting the increase in the number of seats, the parties in Northern Ireland are now doing their sums to ensure that they win their share, and if possible more than their share, of the increase.

We welcome the fact that the proposed legislation has been endorsed by the official Opposition and supported by practically every party in this House. The reassuring message is that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and therefore is entitled to the same privileges and is expected to bear the same responsibilities as any other part of this kingdom.

We hope that future Sessions will see further progress towards the restoration of democracy as it is understood in Great Britain. Obviously an essential preparation for that is the reinstatement of local government as it is generally understood in this House and accepted in Great Britain and in the Irish Republic.

I hope that there will be progress on the Government’s declared intention to bring forward legislation based on the recommendation of the Lawrence Committee concerning the rating of halls used for recreational and other community purposes. For a number of reasons, which are well understood in this House, mainly because of the economic climate which besets us all in the United Kingdom but also because of the special difficulties in Northern Ireland, this is a matter of widespread and growing concern.

The Government have renewed their pledge to continue their efforts to restore normal life to the Province and to every section of the community in that Province. Legislation such as that proposed can hasten the return to normality and encourage the continued provision of facilities and opportunities that are still clearly needed in many areas.

I wish to refer to the tentative and somewhat reluctant advances made in the last Session towards legislating for Northern Ireland in the proper manner as an integral part of the United Kingdom through United Kingdom Bills. I acknowledge the ingenuity and occasional compliance shown in this connection by draftsmen, officials and Northern Ireland Ministers and I give notice that no Bill presented in this Session which does not extend to Northern Ireland will escape the immediate scrutiny of my right hon. and hon. Friends with a view to inquiring what cause or just impediment can be shown why it should not.

Unlike some of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I make no pretensions to understanding the science of economics, if indeed it is a science. That is why I make a plea to the Government and to all those whose disputes on the subjects of wages and inflation have provided entertaining material for the newspapers in the past few weeks and will, I fear, occupy much of the time of the House in the weeks ahead. My plea is that they should treat us kindly and not leave us in the dark. If it is the case, as one side would contend, that higher wages at Ford’s or Mackie’s cause inflation, please explain why the payment of more money to one set of workers results in there being more money to pay everybody else more.

Could those of us who are a little slower than others in these matters have all this explained? Otherwise, it is difficult for us to join in either condemning or exonerating the Government for their attempts, some of which are very vexaious to our own constituents, to impose a limit on wage increases. I say this as a member of a party which has a better record than most in supporting attempts to contain the growth of public expenditure in total and the size of the Budget deficit in the belief that these magnitudes are very material to causing or preventing inflation and that in the long run all our constituents stand to suffer unless the stability of the purchasing power of the currency is restored and firmly maintained.

Finally, I hope that the House of Commons will approach this new and final Session of the present Parliament in a constructive spirit. It does Parliament a disservice if we trivialise this Session by further indulging in teasing the public and playing childish guessing games. Furthermore, I believe that we should not encourage the news industry to engage in endless speculation about the result or the outcome of this or that Division when the simple and sensible course would be to wait until about 10.20 on the evening in question.

We make a great mistake if we imagine that the public want advance information on such matters, particularly when such information in the past has usually been proved wrong. My own experience is that the public have become bored by the whole pantomime, and it is small wonder that they are disillusioned with politicians in general.

Perhaps the best Christmas present we could offer to the public would be a resolve by us all to keep off the “box” for the remainder of this year, or at the very least to restrict the number of such comedy acts.

To end on a serious note, I feel, as the Prime Minister and the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition have already said, that there is much useful work to be done in this Session. I feel also that we shall earn and win the respect of the electorate only if we diligently complete the task for which members of the electorate sent us to this place.

April 20, 2020
Margaret Thatcher – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

Below is the text of the speech made by Margaret Thatcher, the then Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

It is the privilege of the Leader of the Opposition to congratulate those who move and second this motion. I do so very warmly on this occasion, even though, as the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) hinted, it is rather unexpected. I know that the whole House will applaud the choice of the right hon. Member for Anglesey to move the motion. I use the traditional formula of “the right hon. Gentleman” but it might have been more appropriate to refer to him as a friend of the House. Certainly, he has many friends on both sides of the House. That does not mean to say that people who are friendly with those on the opposite Benches are any less loyal to their own party.

The right hon. Gentleman will leave this House in the same spirit of good will in which he finished his work in two senior posts in Government. But, as he asked, when will he leave? I gathered from the right hon. Gentleman’s comments that he was one of those hon. Members who were prominent in saying their goodbyes in July. What he has just said shows that not even the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party can foretell the future.

The right hon. Gentleman is a Welsh speaker. I understand that he claims that Welsh is the language of heaven. I hope not, because that would mean that many of us would not see much of him in the future.

I should like to make one further comment about the right hon. Gentleman. In recent years, as chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, he has worked closely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) in the interests of Back Benchers. That work will not be forgotten. The right hon. Gentleman has been a Member of Parliament for 25 years. I am sure that he will understand now if I wish him an early enjoyment of the holiday that had to be postponed from October.

The hon. Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth) has been in the House for only a few years by comparison. He always makes reasoned and measured contributions. I understand that the hon. Member’s Whips do not rank him amongst their rebels, but I should have no grumble about that. He made an interesting speech. He drew attention to the unemployment problems in Teesside. I hope that he will continue to impress upon his leader and on his constituents that after four years of Labour Government twice as many people are out of work as when the Conservatives left office.

There have been times in the last few months when many of us felt that it was as if all our problems were being discussed in terms of x per cent. It was as if some mysterious percentage would solve all the sophisticated problems of the British economy and all the sophisticated problems of industry and commerce.

Pay policies, of course, are extremely important, but so, too, are policies for higher production, policies for good profits and policies for new enterprises. It seems to me that we have concentrated so much on continual restraint—I accept that we still need to have restraint in a number of directions—that we have paid far too little attention to incentive and enterprise. We have been so busy analysing the reasons for the comparative decline of Britain that we have forgotten to analyse the recipes for success of some of our Continental friends.

Job for job, their production per person is higher. Job for job, they have a higher standard of living. Job for job, they pay less tax, they save more and they can do more for their children. Because they have concentrated not only on pay policy but on output policy, they have produced enough to provide for differentials, so they do not have the problem of wage explosion that we have. They have produced enough to pay their public sector well. They have produced enough output to provide better pensions, better provisions for the disabled, and more money to be spent on health.
During his party conference the Prime Minister spoke about poverty. He said that where there was poverty there would always be a need for a Labour Government. That is because where there is a Labour Government there will always be poverty.

When I was first a junior Minister I was attached to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. I was questioned regularly by my right hon. and hon. Friends. They said that it was a disgrace and a great reflection on the affluent society that about 2½ million people were on national assistance. Today, after four years of Labour Government, is not it a disgrace and a reflection on them that there are now 5 million people who have to have recourse to social security? That number has increased by 1 million during the last four years. Whenever there is a Labour Government there will be poverty, because Labour concentrates far too little on wealth creation and far too much or redistributing what there is.

The Gracious Speech, Mr. Chairman—[Interruption.] My apologies, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps we have been kept away from this House for too long, bearing in mind that it is the forum of the nation. The Gracious Speech contains a number of matters of a constitutional nature. It refers to the referendums for the proposed Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) said that had things turned out a little differently we would have held the referendums on 22nd March, and that had the necessary number of votes upon which Parliament had decided been reached we would have recommended that the Assemblies go ahead. At the moment, however, I cannot conceal that many of us feel that this is the last Parliament in which we shall all sit together representing all parts of the United Kingdom as Members with equal powers, equal duties and on equal terms. If the Assemblies go ahead, there will be serious difficulties in the United Kingdom Parliament. We may look back on the last year of legislation as one which gave us grievous difficulties and did great harm to Parliament at Westminster.

The Bill to increase the number of parliamentary representatives for Ulster will command great support from us. There will be no difficulty from this side of the House about securing an easy passage for that Bill. I rather had the impression, when announcements were made about it, that there would be considerable difficulties from the Labour side but none from us.

I have to put one proposition to the Prime Minister. When he said that he would be asking Mr. Speaker to have a Speaker’s Conference about increasing the number of Members representing Ulster, I pointed out that under his authority now there is one great part of the United Kingdom which is badly under-represented, and that is England.

Whether that situation exists wittingly or unwittingly on the Prime Minister’s part—I suspect that he has political and parliamentary reasons for keeping England under-represented—I hope that in due course the position will be changed.

It was obvious from one or two sounds that came from various parts of the House that I am expected to say quite a bit about what the right hon. Member for Anglesey called one of the central parts of the Gracious Speech—that which refers to inflation and unemployment. Of course we share with the Government the desire to achieve the same ends on this matter. That is not enough. We accept that inflation must be reduced. As the Prime Minister is often pointing out, inflation is now below what it was when we left office, but I point out to him in return that during our time in office we got inflation down to 5·8 per cent.—an objective that he has not yet achieved.

We share the same objective of reducing inflation as a priority. Of course, we share the same objective that unemployment must be reduced. After all, it was this Government who put both of them up. Of course we share the objective that there must be a stable currency, because without it there can be no confidence in investment or in expansion, and we shall not get the growth that we need.

I even had the impression, from a number of things that the right hon. Member for Anglesey said, that we not only shared the same ends but agreed on a large number of the means. He referred to money supply policies. Whenever money supply or monetarism was mentioned in this House the Chancellor of the Exchequer would accuse us of monetarism, of “Josephitism”. At the next moment, the Chancellor would say that he was far better at holding the money supply than we were. I am glad that the Chancellor says that he has been wholly and utterly converted to the necessity of holding the money supply very firmly. We agree with him wholeheartedly, for reasons that he knows. That is the only final way in which inflation can be held and reduced. He knows it and we know it.

The Chancellor got inflation up to a far worse level than we ever did. He boasted at the last General Election that he had got it down to 8·4 per cent. Of course, he had not. We accept that money supply must be held very firmly. We noticed that in his Mansion House speech the Chancellor said that he had given monetary policy the importance it deserved.

We shall never get inflation down unless we get the money supply right. There is no inflation in a barter society. It is only when money is put into it that the phenomenon of inflation arises. If too much money is put in, obviously there will be inflation.

It was a long time before the Chancellor was converted to the total means of getting down inflation. The IMF insisted that he had money supply targets, but it also insisted that he cut spending under the profligate policies that he had pursued. It also insisted that he cut borrowing—a great change from the policies that he had previously pursued, although he has not taken enough of that advice to heart. He also knows that one of the reasons—in addition to money supply, spending and borrowing—for inflation falling is that North Sea oil has permitted a rise in the exchange rate. But for that he could hardly have reduced inflation last year to 8 per cent.

He said—I believe that he and the Prime Minister got their arithmetic wrong—that with wage increases of 14 per cent. or 15 per cent. there would be inflation of 14 per cent. or 15 per cent. He was wrong. Last year average earnings increased by 14 or 15 per cent., but the rate of inflation fell to 8 per cent. That happened because of the factors that I have enumerated. Inflation will never be reduced—it is as well for the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to be clear about it—unless these factors are right, because it is they that hold inflation or reduce it.

Of course, in fixing the money supply it is necessary to take a view about how much growth there will be in the economy, and that view has to be realistic. In 1976 the Chancellor sent three estimates across to NEDC. The NEDC chose the highest because it could not bear the consequences of public expenditure if it chose the lowest. That is not taking a proper view of the rate of growth. That view must be realistic in all the circumstances. We said in “The Right Approach to the Economy” that it should be proclaimed, discussed and explained. Everyone must understand that the only improvement that can be made in wages is that which comes from real increases in output, which is why other countries have done so much better than we have.

We have to take a view of the growth rate, and in taking that view we have to take a view of the element in it represented by wage costs and consider how much that will be. When the budgets for each and every Department are done, one has to take a view of the estimate for the increase in salaries and wages. None of this is in dispute. The dispute arises, I think, over whether that view is an average or whether it becomes a norm. I must say very strongly indeed that in our view that figure is an average and can never be a norm except in conditions of emergency.

All Governments from time to time have had incomes policies, whether it be the Labour Government from 1965 to 1970, the Conservatives from 1970 to 1974 or the present Government. We all know that in time they break. We all know that they break, and then we have to make preparations to get back to what I would call responsible collective bargaining.

I said a moment ago that there was a good deal of agreement not only on ends but on means. The Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote a letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) just about phase 3. What did he say about phase 3? The House will remember that phase 3 started as a 6 per cent. wage settlement, finished up as a 10 per cent. settlement, and then finished up as a 15 per cent. or 16 per cent. increase in average earnings. This is what the Chancellor said:

“The task in the next 12 months is to complete the transition to responsible collective bargaining”—

hon. Members will notice that that is the phrase that my right hon. Friends and I have been using—

“The task…is to complete the transition to responsible collective bargaining from two years of rigid pay restraint.”

The Chancellor went on to say:

“most settlements will have to be well within single figures. But it is common ground between us”—

his phrase—

“that we cannot specify the level of particular settlements in this transitional period.”

There is a very great measure of agreement on means as well as ends.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer knew that he could not go on holding a rigid incomes policy, and I really doubt whether any Government wants to do that. It does not seem to be at all realistic to have x per cent. to solve all the many and complicated problems in many different circumstances in industry.

Incomes policies of a rigid kind do not fail because they are unpopular. They are, of course, very popular. Looking at all the opinion polls, I naturally have a particular interest in those taken around February 1974. We could have done with more support from the Prime Minister at that time. [HON. MEMBERS: “Oh”.] What was the Prime Minister doing at that time but stumping around Aberdare saying,

“We all know the lie about the 16 per cent. the miners are supposed to be getting under a special arrangement of the phase 3 legislation. I will say to Mr. Heath that if he is returned on February 28th, unless he has more money to put on the table, he has a bigger struggle on his hands than he has ever imagined. Mr. Heath is arguing that he is fighting inflation. That is utter drivel.”

That was the kind of support that the right hon. Gentleman was prepared to give to what at that time was a statutory incomes policy.

That, too, broke, but it broke not because it was unpopular with the people. It broke because after one has had a certain number of rigid phases, one must in fact return to responsible collective bargaining.

As my noble Friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter said in a very vivid letter to The Times the other day, the pay policy is like a battleship designed by the German Emperor for his naval chief of staff. All the guns, all the ammunition, all the equipment required are there. It is just that it will not float. We have reached the stage now when, after three phases, a rigid incomes policy just will not float. It just will not hold. There is no point in arguing about it as if it will float; it will not float. We get all sorts of fudging deals, all sorts of “phoney” productivity deals. What my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) says about productivity deals is very good. He says that they are the elastic device whereby the policy can be stretched to meet the ultimate truth of the market place. That is exactly what is happening. So, rigid percentage incomes policies at this stage—no: they cannot and they will not hold.

However, that does not mean that one can abandon all constraint. [HON. MEMBERS: “Oh”.] Of course, it does not. The constraint on one’s money supply is there, and that is the only thing that will ultimately hold inflation. That is why the Chancellor said so in his speech at the Mansion House the other day. To deny that is completely to misunderstand the nature of inflation.

If in fact one has more and bigger and bigger wage increases—and this is why one has to do so much propaganda about it; and the right hon. Gentleman knows and I know—people will price themselves out of the market, output will go down and unemployment will go up. That is the purpose of urging more and more restraint upon those who are doing the bargaining.

I believe that the Government’s rigid 5 per cent. policy will fail. That is not because I believe that people should demand more than 5 per cent. for nothing. Five per cent. for nothing as a starting point seems to me an ultimate recipe for inflation, if one then moves the money supply up to accommodate it. However, I must just point out that the official guidance to civil servants on the 5 per cent. pay policy is one of the most pernickety bits of bureaucracy that I have ever seen and one that I believe would bring productive and creative industry to a dead stop. Let us just look at the first paragraph:

“Any case which gives rise to serious doubt should therefore be referred to the Department of Employment, who will arrange for it to be brought to the official Committee and Ministers as appropriate.”

So we shall get every single case in which there is any doubt going up to some central body. We shall have companies—some of them very successful—which are producing exports and have got the Queen’s Award for Export having two things happening. First they have got the Price Commission in, causing all kinds of trouble—although very few people there know what efficiency is in particular industries. Then, just when they have had trouble and could make their own decisions on the spot with their own shop stewards and trade unions, the matter has to be referred right up to some central body.

That is no way to run industry. It is no way to raise production and to enable us to compete with other countries.
Another paragraph—this was never published except by The Times, says “Use only if pressed.” That acknowledges that under Socialism, under this Labour Government, many people, in order to get more out of the rewards from work, have had to go to benefits in kind. So there is a paragraph which assesses whether the benefit in kind this year is more than 5 per cent. more than it was last year, and so on.

One cannot now run a rigid pay policy like that. But what I believe is happening is that the Prime Minister is perfectly well aware of that. He knows it. But the battle now and the thing that people are really worried about as we go towards more “responsible”—in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s language—collective bargaining is whether the trade unions will be responsible. That is the question that people are asking. The question about which they are fearful is whether trade unions have so much power that they will abuse that power. That, whether or not one likes it, is a question that is exercising the minds of our people, and it is a question to which the Prime Minister should be addressing himself—not just taking it at a rigid incomes policy level.

But I underestimate the Prime Minister. He did address himself to it about nine years ago, when other members of his party were addressing themselves to it and published “In Place of Strife”. The Prime Minister was a person who not only addressed his mind to the problem of trade union power but saw that that White Paper was consigned to the waste paper basket. Not only has he insisted that all of their powers remained exactly as they were; he has increased them during his term of office. He did not resist any change. He increased the powers of trade unions. What happened during phases 1, 2 and 3 was not that those agreements were obtained voluntarily—not in any way. We are dealing with negotiators who are far too skilled for that. They were obtained at a price. The benefit given by the trade unions, in terms of co-operation, was a temporary one. What they got in return were permanent or semi-permanent benefits. One of those prices was a great increase in public expenditure, which landed the Chancellor in difficulty with the IMF.

Another price was giant strides towards Socialism, with increased nationalisation, which the Government have put permanently on the statute book. The Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House were instrumental in obtaining those. The third price was a great increase in the power of trade unions, which made the trade unions the most powerful the whole world over, including the closed shop. Therefore, the Prime Minister is not the person to complain about trade union power or to pose as the person who can in fact stand as a bulwark against it.

There are two things about power. First, there is its existence in law—we are not arguing about that, it is there—and, secondly, there is the use of the power. I believe that things have changed very much since February 1974. I do not believe that one ever fights the same battles on the same ground again, so let us turn, as we ought, to look at the use of that power.

More than 11 million people are members of trade unions. There are not 11 million irresponsible people in this country who will put their own future and that of their families in jeopardy. If one believes that there are, one can have no faith at all in the future of democracy. There are not 11 million irresponsible people—or 10 million, or 9 million. There might be a few who wish to use the power of the system to bring down the whole of the free enterprise world and substitute another central system for it.

The question then becomes: ought one, in the Gracious, Speech, to be looking at the structure of trade unions, at any structure which enables a few people to take power, pose as though they represent a large number—which they do not—and effectively make it difficult for the great majority to make their views and voices heard? That is why we have given attention to a postal ballot paid for by the Government. But there is nothing about that in this Gracious Speech. There is nothing, when we are going into a new phase of incomes policy, to assist the ordinary member of a trade union to make his or her voice heard without intimidation, without having to face some of the scenes that some of us saw on television at the Vauxhall meeting.

The other point to which the Prime Minister ought to be addressing his attention is how to stop circumstances of that kind, and he ought to bring to bear all the powers of the land against—

Mr. Heffer rose—

Mrs. Thatcher

May I just finish this sentence?

Mr. Russell Kerr (Feltham and Isleworth)

He is a member of a union.

Mrs. Thatcher

So was I. I was a member of the Association of Scientific Workers when I was an industrial chemist, and I sometimes said to Clive Jenkins “If things had turned out a bit differently you would be in my job and I would be in yours”.

As I was saying, we ought to bring to bear all the powers of the land to check and stop the intimidation and to enable people to make their views freely and easily felt, as befits a democracy.

Mr. Heffer

I am following the right hon. Lady’s speech very carefully. Is she suggesting that we should get back to something like the proposal made by her right hon. Friend the Member for Sid-cup (Mr. Heath) in the Industrial Relations Act 1971? Is she suggesting that there should be ballots? Should she not take into consideration the ballot held by the National Union of Railwaymen? Should she not take into consideration the ballot of the National Union of Mineworkers, and the types of ballot that could continue a strike when the rank and file are in favour of settling a strike? Has she not learned the lessons of the disastrous days when her right hon. Friend was Prime Minister?

Mrs. Thatcher

The answer to the first half of the hon. Gentleman’s question is “No”, and as the answer to the first half is “No” the second half, with respect, does not follow. No, I was not proposing that. Our proposal is for Governments to pay for postal ballots at the instance of the members of the union. The hon. Gentleman knows, and I know, that in a democratic system one has to make it easy for people to make their views known. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to go to those meetings and stick up one’s hand. The hon. Gentleman knows that better than I do.

I am suggesting that if a large number of people want a postal ballot—want it; it is not compulsory—the Government should pay for it. I am saying this because I believe that the problem to which we ought to address our minds is how to let the 11 million responsible people make their views felt and known. The trouble is that Labour Members will not even address their minds to that issue, let alone take it up with the trade unions themselves. But I believe that the majority of trade union members are responsible, and that the majority of trade union leaders are responsible. If one does not believe that, there is no future for democracy.

The Gracious Speech also says something about Rhodesia. As we heard from you earlier, Mr. Speaker, we shall be having two days’ debate on the general problem of Rhodesia—as I understand it. This whole question of Rhodesia is very important in the minds of many British people at the present time, particularly since arms have been sent to Zambia and since the Prime Minister’s visit to President Kaunda. I think that this afternoon the Prime Minister ought to answer many questions before we go on to that debate.

May I ask the Prime Minister a few questions? What safeguards have the Government insisted upon when sending British arms in British planes to Zambia? Are these arms to be used to defend the guerrilla camps from which, increasingly, Nkomo is attacking the people of Rhodesia? Is that what the Foreign Secretary means when he talks of evenhandedness and asks Mr. Smith and the other members of the transitional Government to attend an all-party conference? If one helps to protect one side, can one blame the other for doubting one’s impartiality?

What else did the Prime Minister agree to do at that meeting in Kano? What else did he agree to do at that curious secret meeting and visit, from which journalists were meticulously excluded? Has he agreed to the use of British troops? If so, the British people will be outraged. What other secret agreements has the Prime Minister reached? We have a right to know, because many of us cannot see the guerrilla leaders coming to the conference table until they believe that they will get more that way than they will by fighting and by the use of the bullet. We shall, Mr. Speaker, be tabling for your consideration an amendment against the Government’s handling of the whole Rhodesian matter.

This is the last Gracious Speech of this Parliament, and when the Parliament is at an end—I accept that we do not know when that will be, and I accept that I cannot bring it about in any way; it is the Prime Minister’s choice, and if he wishes to go on to the bitter end, so be it—and the election comes, I believe that it will be fought on very deep and fundamental issues, and I believe that we have to bring these to the attention of the people.

The election will be fought on the question whether people want to give more power to Governments or want more power to make their own decisions over their lives. I understand and know that many people joined the Labour Party to protect the little man against the big battalions, but now Labour has become the party of the big battalions and big bureaucracy. Another Labour Government will put infinitely more power into the hands of Government, because so many of them believe in collective decision and make far too many decisions political and leave far too few to be taken by people on matters affecting their own lives in their own way.

The election will be fought on the role of Government in economic matters—whether people want more and more nationalisation. This Gracious Speech is very different from the one that Labour puts forward when it has a majority. More nationalisation was approved at the Labour Party conference—North Sea oil, land, the construction industry, the insurance industry and pensions. The election will be fought on the question whether people want to go our way and have more choice, which can only be through a free enterprise system and through more and more competition.

The election will be fought on the question whether people want more and more of their wages spent by the Government through increased tax on the pay packet, or whether they come our way and have reduced taxes on their pay packet, leaving them to spend more of their own money in their own way. Tax cuts are a Tory policy. It would perhaps be as well to remember that the tax cuts coming in November were driven through against the wish of this Government.

The election will be fought on the question of whether people take the view of law and order which they saw demonstrated at the Labour Party conference, which was described graphically in The Guardian and which we all saw on television, or whether they wish to take our view; whether people want to depend on the State for everything from the cradle to the grave, or whether they wish to acquire more personal capital for self-reliance. They will never do it under a Labour Government; a Labour Government will take it away from them. That is one of the great differences in this country—one cannot acquire capital out of earnings merely by savings. It is our policy to leave people with enough of their own money to be able to acquire personal capital, to have more self-reliance and self-help, to have more self-reliance and resources, to be able to do more for their own children. What is so wrong about that?

The result of the election will depend above all on the kind of priority people wish to give to the defence of the Western way of life—whether they believe in the low priority accorded by this Government or believe, as we do, that our first duty to freedom is to defend our own.

This Gracious Speech is an attempt to try to prove that the Labour Party is what it is not. It is an attempt to prove that it is more moderate than it is, and to keep the Left wing of the party very quiet indeed. [Interruption.] I must say, the prospect of keeping them quiet is extremely remote.

What people want now is a Conservative Government, with Conservative policies and a Conservative way of life. They will get that not from a Labour Government posing that way but only from a Conservative Government with true Conservative policies. We look forward to the next Gracious Speech.

April 19, 2020
Ian Wrigglesworth – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

Below is the text of the speech made by Ian Wrigglesworth, the then Labour MP for Thornaby, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

It is a great honour to be the last person in this Parliament who will have the pleasure of seconding an Address. As I was asked to carry out this duty with my right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes), who will not be returning as a Member in the next Parliament, I had a fleeting fear that someone knew something that I did not. But we have a strong tradition of returning Labour Members in the North-East of England. That is one tradition that I shall be more than happy to follow when the election comes. The one tradition that I was relieved to find did not have to be followed on this occasion was the wearing of court dress for the moving and seconding of the Gracious Speech.

It is an honour to be asked to second the Address for two reasons: first, because I share the task with my right hon. Friend who has so ably moved the motion. He is known and respected throughout the House not only for his devoted public service, but as one of the kindest and most generous of Members. Others are more qualified than I to speak of this, but I know that I can speak for many of the newer Members, particularly Labour Members, when I say that we are grateful for the willing help and advice that my right hon. Friend has always been prepared to give, in English or in Welsh, during our time here.

Secondly, it is an honour for my constituents on Teesside, Thornaby that I should be allowed to prey a little on the indulgence of the House this afternoon to mention the area which I am privileged to represent. The North-East contrasts vividly with Anglesey. In the last five years Teesside has grown into Europe’s biggest petrochemical manufacturing area. It is the country’s third largest port and, by the early 1980s, it will be Europe’s biggest steel producing area. The vast majority of my constituents work in these and related industries, not least, in the past, my own family, which has had three generations on Teesside in steel and engineering.

It is a particular pleasure and privilege for me to represent a Teesside constituency, for the area is filled with memories of my own childhood and youth there. Indeed, having worked for a short time as a milk roundsman in Thornaby, I often tell my constituents that I remember their Alsatians better than their faces.

Despite being called Thornaby, two-thirds of my constituency is in fact the western side of Middlesbrough, a borough which I have the honour and pleasure to represent together with my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bottomley). Although having early origins, both Middlesbrough and Thornaby mushroomed as Victorian industrial towns following the advent of the railway to the area between 1825 and 1830. Middlesbrough became a municipal borough in 1853 and Thornaby in 1893.

The area is flanked on the south by the beautiful North Yorkshire moors national park, with its hills and coast. The constituency, although small in area, is rich in variety, containing almost every conceivable type of housing, as well as being the home of Teesside park racecourse and the rapidly recovering Middlesbrough football club at Ayresome Park. I seem to have been saying for about 20 years, that Middlesbrough football club is rapidly recovering. Greater faith has no man than that of an MP in his local football team.

It is a happy coincidence that I should have this opportunity to address the House only five days after an event in Middlesbrough which attracted a great deal of attention and stimulated considerable civic pride in the town. Last Friday was the 250th anniversary of the birth of Captain James Cook, in Marton, in Middlesbrough—he is the town’s greatest son—and the occasion was marked by the opening of a large and immensely attractive museum in Stewart park within sight of his birthplace and the church where he was baptised. The museum has been built by a trust presided over by my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and backed in a bold and imaginative way by Middlesbrough council. We hope that the whole country will be proud of this symbol of international co-operation and friendship so reminiscent of the life of the navigator and explorer himself.

The House will not be surprised to learn that many of the problems facing the constituency over recent decades have arisen from the decay of the Victorian industrial and social heritage in the area. The foundations of the iron and steel industry built by Bolckow and Vaughan and of the chemical industry built by Brunner Mond have had to be harshly recast and adapted to modern requirements.

The Northern region has been scarred by unemployment over the decades and, although the Jarrow march started 30 miles north of Teesside, the area has by no means been immune from this problem. With the rest of the Northern region we have shared, year in, year out, the unwelcome accolade of having the highest unemployment of any region in the country, excluding Northern Ireland.

I was drawn into politics in the early 1960s when unemployment was the outstanding issue above all others for people on Teesside. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Hailsham, in his flat hat, at Thornaby station in 1962. I remember the by-elections of my right hon. Friends the Members for Middlesbrough and for Stockton (Mr. Rodgers) and of my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Dr. Bray). Remembering the debates of that time and in subsequent years, I should like to think that we have learned a little humility on this issue on both sides of the House, for the unemployment problem, as everyone knows, is still with us. That is why, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey, I welcome the commitment in the Gracious Speech that the Government will continue to

“pursue every available means of moving to full employment.”

I have received this week the quarterly report of the Cleveland county careers officer. It makes depressing reading, but it shows a drop in the number of young people unemployed and an increase in the number taking up the youth opportunities programme, which is doing such valuable work in assisting young people.

I do not believe that we can hope to resolve this problem until concerted international action leads to a return of confidence and an upturn in world economy. For that reason, I welcome the promise in the Gracious Speech that the Government

“will continue to play a leading part, with our international partners, in seeking an end to the worldwide recession.”

Teesside also has a major structural unemployment problem. Of the total employed, only 48 per cent. are in service industries compared with 58 per cent. nationally. For that reason, we are delighted that the Government are pressing ahead with their dispersal plans to bring the Property Services Agency to Middlesbrough, with 3,000 white collar jobs.

The crazy paradox of all this is that it is taking place against a background of unprecedented investment in manufacturing industry on Teesside. When Henri Simonet visited Teesside two years ago, he called it

“Europe’s most dynamic industrial site. It is like the Ruhr without the pollution or the problems.”

It certainly gives the lie to those who want to knock Britain and its workers. Our industries work round the clock. Our men are trained on night shifts, not in night clubs, as some would have us believe.

Over the last four years more than £1·1 billion has been invested in manufacturing industry on Teesside. That amounts to £2,000 per head of population in Cleveland compared with only £206 nationally. Ten times the national average has been invested in the Cleveland area. Monsanto, ICI, British Steel and British Petroleum are massive organisations and they have made massive investment in Teesside sites on both sides of the river.

The sad paradox is that, despite all this bustle and heavy investment, male unemployment is 10·6 per cent. compared with 6·7 per cent. nationally, and we have been consistently above the national average. This pool of unemployed people is comprised mainly of unskilled and semi-skilled workers. That, it seems to me, is a deficiency that only training and retraining can overcome. Therefore, I welcome the commitment in the Gracious Speech that

“Special encouragement will be given to the education and training of young people and others to safeguard and increase the supply of skilled manpower.”

I am not one who takes a depressed view of the high investment—high unemployment paradox—although it is a problem. It is a problem which will confront the nation more and more as time goes by. In my view, a Luddite approach will not help. Clearly, we must maintain our competitive position in the world. I believe that the inventiveness of men and the great wealth being created can overcome the displacement of jobs by new technologies. For that reason, it is important for the investment momentum to be maintained particularly in the steel industry where the holding back of developments might create severe bottlenecks later and damage our engineering industries even more, particularly those which are engaged in plant manufacture.

Since the Gracious Speech mentions a number of proposals affecting the Celtic fringe, it would be remiss of me as a Northern Member of Parliament not to mention our hope that during this Session the Government will look sympathetically upon the proposal for a new and considerably enhanced role for the Northern Economic Planning Council. The Northern group of Labour Members and the regional council have submitted proposals to Ministers. It is hoped that progress can be made in this Session.

Two further items in the Gracious Speech are of particular interest to me. The first involves banking legislation. We should welcome the proposal to introduce a Bill to control banking more closely. In due course I should like to go further and, through the amalgamation of the National Giro and the National Savings Bank, bring about a comprehensive State banking corporation. As a Co-operative sponsored Member I should also like to welcome the measures which are to be taken in the banking legislation to aid credit unions.

I was pleased to hear that the Government intend to pursue further their proposals for industrial democracy. I am sure that this will be a beneficial piece of legislation. But it should be accompanied by a major campaign by the Government to introduce single status for employees in British industry. Industrial democracy will be hampered unless we are able to overcome the “us” versus “them” attitude in large sectors of industry. It is necessary for the inequities to be overcome and for the antagonisms to be reduced if we are to achieve the sense of identification with a firm that is a precondition to success.

It was once said that one had reached a position of responsibility when one took decisions on subjects about which one knew nothing. There is no doubt that the range of subjects in the Gracious Speech—more than some expected—will test the wits and judgment of hon. Members. We hope that the proposals will improve the society in which we live and the world of which our country is a part. That is another reason why it has been an honour to second the motion. I warmly commend it to the House.

April 19, 2020
Cledwyn Hughes – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

Below is the text of the speech made by Cledwyn Hughes, the then Labour MP for Anglesey, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.

This is an unexpected privilege, but one that I greatly appreciate. I did not think, as I left the House for my constituency at the beginning of August, that I would be speaking here on 1st November. However, I am not surprised because unpredictability is one of the hazards and charms of political life and I am not sorry to be here for a while longer and, I hope, to be able to enjoy a few more farewell parties.

My constituents share this honour, and it has been a joy to represent the island of Anglesey in the House for more than 27 years. There have been enormous changes in Anglesey in that period. From being an island economy dependent, in the main, on agriculture and the port of Holyhead, it now has a range of new small and medium industries and one large aluminium smelter. Anglesey Aluminium Limited has plans for expansion that would provide over 400 new jobs in the Holyhead area. I hope that the Government will do everything possible to ensure that that materialises.

During my period as the Member for Anglesey the population of the island has increased by over 30 per cent. We have retained more of our young people on the island because of the new industries that I have mentioned. Others have come to Anglesey to live because of its attractions. The tourist industry has flourished greatly during the past few years.
Our unemployment problem remains serious. I am glad that the Gracious Speech stresses the evil of unemployment at the outset and undertakes to

“pursue every available means of moving to full employment.”

The Government are entitled to take credit for the wide range of special employment and training measures that they have taken and for the measures that are proposed in the Gracious Speech, but still more needs to be done. The effect of high investment in industry must be studied far more profoundly, because its effect on future employment prospects could be significant.

I welcome the promise of legislation to provide additional finance for the Welsh Development Agency as well as for the National Enterprise Board and the Scottish Development Agency. The Welsh Development Agency and the Welsh Rural Development Board have achieved a great deal and they deserve our support. I also warmly welcome the reference in the Gracious Speech to the examination of the special problems of slate quarrymen suffering from pneumoconiosis. The problem is especially acute in Gwynedd and the Government have shown a determination to resolve it. For this we are grateful.

As the House knows, Anglesey is a beautiful island. There is a convention that the sitting Member for the island is always one of the presidents of the annual eisteddfod of Anglesey. That event is held at Whitsuntide. I have fulfilled the task on 27 occasions; whether I do so next Whitsun is largely a matter for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minster.

In 1907 one of the presidents was one of my predecessors—namely, Ellis Griffith. The other president was David Lloyd George. Speaking in the afternoon, Lloyd George said in his peroration that Anglesey was an excellent platform from which to view the grandeur of Caernarvon, for which he was one of the Members. In the evening session Ellis Griffiths retorted that Caernarvon stood on tiptoe in wonder to see the incomparable beauty of Anglesey. This is still there for all hon. Members to see if they have not already paid us a visit. I have cause to be grateful to the people of Anglesey for their kindness to me over a long period.

I read the Gracious Speech with particular interest on this occasion because it was suggested in some quarters that there would not be enough work for us to do. The Speech seems to be just right as regards quality and volume. There is a school of thought that believes that a Gracious Speech is defective unless it is bursting at the seams with exciting legislation. As my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip knows, I am not a member of that school. Of course, there are times when essential and adventurous legislation to which a Government have pledged themselves must be dealt with promptly; there are also times when it is advisable that the legislative field should lie fallow.

We should consider from time to time the effects of heavy legislative programmes not only on the House—for example, the manning of Standing Committees—but on those outside who are affected by legislation. I am not suggesting that it has happened over the past few years, but legislation that is inadequately processed can bring the House into disrepute. As I have said, I consider that this Speech is just about right. There are some extremely important Bills in the pipeline.

Again in the context of Anglesey and the Welsh coast, I welcome a merchant shipping Bill which, among other things, will help to control marine pollution. We have had some unpleasant experiences in recent weeks with the “Christos Bitas”, and “Eleni V” and the “Amoco Cadiz” before those off the coast of Brittany. We need the oil, and all of us use oil. However, I think that the House would welcome a full statement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at an early date. I believe that the House would wish very soon to debate what he says and the near disasters to which I have referred.

I am glad that the Gracious Speech refers to the

“expansion of food production in the United Kingdom and its efficient processing and distribution.”

I mentioned earlier the significance of agriculture to Anglesey.

It is, of course, crucial to the whole country. North Sea oil is important and it is accepted that it can make a timely contribution if the revenues are properly used for the benefit of the country as a whole. However, in the longer term agriculture is even more important than North Sea oil. The human race one day will have to live without oil, but it cannot live without food. The increasing world population and the demands and needs of the third world make it imperative that we and other advanced countries concentrate on producing more food. It frightens me sometimes when I remember that even today, after all the exhortations to produce more food and after what successive Governments have done to make that possible, we still import about half of all the food that we eat.

We must get away from the myth that the producer and the consumer are at opposite sides of a great divide. Their interests are identical and our policies must recognise that.

Improvements in the common agricultural policy are imperative as the Gracious Speech recognises. The surplus in European milk production is especially worrying, and great thought needs to be given to its implications.

The most important section of the Gracious Speech is that which deals with the economy. If we do not get that right, and if we cannot keep inflation down, the future is not bright for us. The Government have achieved a great deal over the past three years and I pay a warm tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for what he has already done and the lead that he has given.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has borne a heavy burden for a long time. He has occupied the office of Chancellor for longer than most of his predecessors. He has been criticised, and he will have expected that. He has been abused at times, and he can take that as well. He has shown courage and determination and he deserves our praise. I am glad to have this opportunity to give it to him.

I can see no real alternative to the reasonable control of incomes. There is a danger that the term “free collective bargaining” has become an outdated slogan, as outdated as “Two acres and a cow” or “We want eight and we can’t wait”. What is essential, and what takes place in the main, is informed and constructive negotiation based on three factors, namely, the cost of living, the state of the industry or firm concerned in the negotiations and, last but not least, the state of the nation’s economy at any given time.

If we allow inflation to get out of hand again, we shall be courting disaster. I believe that the country as a whole is conscious of that. An effective incomes policy and a skilful control of the money supply are essential. It is not always easy to get the right balance, but that is the key to our survival.

For those of us who remember the 1930s—I have regard to what is said about foreign affairs in the Gracious Speech—the greatest achievement of the post-war period is stability in Western Europe. Remembering Western Europe in the 1920s and 1930s and considering it today, one sees that fundamental change has taken place. Notwithstanding our continuing economic difficulties, we in Britain have retained our stability and our basic values.

There has been a tendency for some to denigrate and belittle Great Britain in the past few years. We must be careful, because if we do that others will take us at our own valuation. We have much to be proud of. It is not for a Welshman to tell Englishmen about their inheritance. It is one of the greatest heritages of any nation on earth. I believe that we have the skills, imagination and experience to compete with any country. But much depends upon this House. It is here that the maintenance of stability, of freedom under the law and of the rule of law itself must be guarded and here that leadership must be given, and it is from the House that leadership is expected. I hope and pray that we can provide that leadership. I believe that the Prime Minister is doing his utmost to give us the right lead now. We must give that leadership in the years to come.

April 19, 2020
Guy Barnett – 1978 Speech on Canvey Island

Below is the text of the speech made by Guy Barnett, the then Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, in the House of Commons on 8 August 1978.

The hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) as he said in the speech that he has just delivered, has on several occasions drawn the attention of the House to the concern of many of the residents of Canvey Island about the possible dangers which arise from the proximity of various industrial complexes to residential development. The issues are complex. It is right that they should be thoroughly explored and that decisions for the future should be taken on the basis of as comprehensive an assessment as it is possible to make of potential hazards. I want to try to deal with as many of the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised as I can. Some of them, as he will understand, are matters for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment.

The hon. Gentleman has given the background to this matter and I will not go over the whole ground again. The essential points are that two companies, Occidental Refineries Limited and United Refiners Limited, have been granted planning permissions to construct oil refineries on the west side of Canvey Island. In the case of Occidental, substantial development had taken place before work stopped as a result of the oil crisis in 1975.

In 1974, following anxiety locally about the safety implications of the proposed developments, the then Secretary of State for the Environment decided to hold an exploratory public inquiry into the desirability of revoking the planning permission granted to United Refineries Ltd. in 1973. The inquiry took place on the island in February and March 1974.

The inspector recommended that a revocation order should be made, but one of the assessors had suggested that a study should be made of the totality of risks in the area, and the possibility of interaction between installations in the event of fire or explosion. The Secretary of State deferred a decision and, with the then Secretary of State for Employment, asked the Health and Safety Commission to carry out a study on the safety of installations within the Canvey area.

The report, which was published on 20th June, describes an exhaustive investigation of the risks to health and safety from the existing and proposed installations on and in the neighbourhood of Canvey Island. The investigating team of experts visited the various industrial installations to carry out a detailed investigation of what goes on in each plant, what could go wrong and what the possible effects would be. They also looked at the proposals for additional refining facilities. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, in reply to a Question by the hon. Member in the House on 20th June, welcomed the report as a valuable contribution to discussion of health and safety and environmental matters in the area. He pointed out that installations covered by the report form a significant part of the United Kingdom oil, gas and petrochemical industries and relate closely to the utilisation of our North Sea resources.

The report would therefore be of importance in assisting decisions which may affect those who live in the area, those who depend on the installations for their employment, and the contribution which the installations make to the economy.

The recent investigation was, of course, concerned with the safety of existing installations as well as the proposed refinery developments, and on that side a number of specific recommendations for action now have emerged from the inquiry, and these are already being followed up by the Health and Safety Executive.

There are three existing installations on Canvey Island handling potentially dangerous materials whose activities were investigated by the team. They are the British Gas Corporation’s methane gas terminal, and tank farms owned respectively by Texaco Limited and London and Coastal Oil Wharves Limited. Certain installations on the mainland which could present a threat to the island were also investigated, as was the movement of dangerous substances in the area by road, rail, pipeline and water. Each of these activities was the subject of close inquiry, situations which could lead to a number of casualties were identified, and estimates were made of the probability of an accident occurring and of its consequences in terms of the number of casualties. The hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to the risks, and I fully understand his concern for the people who are living in the area.

It is important to bear in mind that an accident which is regarded as capable of causing a large number of casualties will not necessarily result in such massive consequences, nor does the consideration given to particular accident imply that the chances of their happening are necessarily very high. Throughout the study the investigating team was requested by the Health and Safety Executive to err on the side of pessimism in its estimates. The overall assessment resulting from all this investigation was summed up by the Health and Safety Executive, which said that the picture was not one which ought to result in fear and worry among people living in and around Canvey. The most likely outcome, in the view of the HSE experts, is that nothing should happen in the industrial installations in the area which will hurt anyone outside them.

Nevertheless, the study showed that certain actions needed to be taken in regard to the installations which were investigated. Indeed, one of the positive results to emerge from all the inquiries, analyses, and so on, is the series of specific recommendations relating to the existing installations. During the course of the investigation certain matters came to light which required immediate action. These were dealt with as they arose in the usual way in accordance with the health and safety legislation.

By the end of its investigation the team had identified various ways in which the risks from the existing installations could be further reduced. These are detailed in the report, and I understand that discussions have already begun between Her Majesty’s Factory Inspectorate of the Health and Safety Executive and senior management of the firms concerned in order to secure the necessary improvements. I will say a little more about those affecting the installations on the island itself.

At the British Gas Corporation terminal the team has suggested that the pipeline from the terminal that contains liquefied petroleum gas could be emptied and taken out of service. It also suggested that the capacities of the existing containment walls around the boundaries of the tank farms of inflammable liquids at the sites owned by Texaco Limited and London and Coastal Oil Wharves Limited should be increased.

Sir Bernard Braine

I am following with the greatest interest what the Minister is saying. Since a suggestion has been made that the liquefied petroleum gas pipeline should be closed, as I under- stand it has, will the Minister confirm that there is liquefied petroleum gas stored at the terminal, and that the statement made by the chairman of British Gas and another spokesman to the press is totally inaccurate?

Mr. Barnett

I think I can confirm that liquefied petroleum gas is stored at the terminal. I think that that is correct, although I do not speak with authority, as the hon. Gentleman will understand, on that point.

Recommendations were made in a similar way in regard to the installations on the mainland. On the movement of vessels in the Thames, the PLA is urged to take action to ensure that the 8-knot speed limit for all vessels in the Thames estuary is strictly observed.

The Health and Safety Executive is satisfied that all these suggestions could, it necessary, be required under the general duties imposed by the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. It is now for the firms, or other bodies concerned, either to carry out the improvements detailed above or to show that equal standards of safety could be achieved by alternative methods.

Sir Bernard Braine

It is very good of the hon. Gentleman to give way. On the question of the restriction of speed of vessels carrying hazardous cargoes, is the hon. Gentleman aware that on 1st August 1978 I asked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he would discuss with the Port of London Authority the desirability of restricting the movement at night of tankers carrying such cargoes?

The answer that I received was:

“No … the Port of London Authority consider that their existing arrangements ensure the safe movement of vessels whether by day or night.”—[Official Report, 1st August 1978; Vol. 955, c. 300.]

I understand that the Health and Safety Executive has not consulted Trinity House or the pilots on the river. If it had done so, there would have been a very clear indication that there is considerable anxiety about the hazards among those concerned with waterborne traffic. Will the Minister therefore undertake to get the PLA to look at this matter more seriously and responsibly than it appears to have done up to now?

Mr. Barnett

As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, this does not lie within my area of responsibility, but I shall certainly see that his request is passed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. I am assured that discussions are taking place with all the firms concerned. The British Gas Corporation has already informed the Health and Safety Executive that the LPG pipeline from the methane terminal will be emptied. The hon. Gentleman made a number of specific references to the storage of LPG at the methane terminal. I do not propose to comment on the accuracy or otherwise of the reported remarks by the chairman of the Corporation, but it is clear from the report that LPG is stored at the methane terminal. However, I understand that it is largely an emergency stock reserve. The hon. Member is well aware that the Health and Safety Executive expressed serious doubts in its report about the continued storage of large amounts of liquefied natural gas and liquefield petroleum gas at the terminal and the consequential ship-to-shore transfer operations. Discussions have been opened with the Corporation about the possibility of reducing the risks from the terminal, and the Corporation’s response is at present awaited.

However, I can give the hon. Gentleman some reassurance with regard to the LPG. The Corporation already has it in mind to reduce its stocks of LPG and is in touch with the Health and Safety Executive about the best means of doing this.

This all illustrates the very practical nature of the recommendations which have stemmed from the inquiry and which, when put into effect, will result in a very significant reduction in the estimates of risk. The Health and Safety Executive’s conclusion is that, subject to a satisfactory outcome of the discussions currently going on, it would not consider the situation such that any of the existing installations should now be required to cease operations. I am assured that the Executive intends to keep a close watch on the situation and will not hesitate to make expeditious use of its powers to secure the improvements already mentioned, and any further improvements which appear to be necessary in the future.

The hon. Gentleman referred, perhaps somewhat scathingly, to the way in which the report dealt with the desirability of building another road. The Health and Safety Executive report suggested that appropriate authorities should study the team’s assessment when considering whether another road should be built, and indicated that the Executive proposed to have further discussions with appropriate authorities about the value of a new road and about emergency planning generally. That seems to me to have been a reasonable approach. After all, the team is not expert in road and traffic matters.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in reply to a Question from the hon. Gentleman on 17th July, those discussions are now taking place. It is the local authorities who are responsible in the first instance, but my right hon. Friend and his colleagues will study the results of the discussions which are now taking place as soon as they are available.

On the question of the proposed new refineries to be constructed by Occidental Ltd. and United Refineries Ltd., the Health and Safety Executive report made it clear that there were ways in which the additional risk resulting from the projects could be very substantially reduced, notably by providing a new pipeline for transhipment of liquid petroleum gas and a suitable water spray system in the proposed alkylation unit at the Occidental refinery. The report concluded that provided the companies were to build their plants in accordance with the requirements and to make appropriate arrangements for transhipment of liquid petroleum gas, there would be no objection on health and safety grounds. It is important to bear in mind the proviso The report does not merely say that on health and safety grounds the new refinery facilities could be built: it stipulates that if they are built they must be built in accordance with the Executive’s requirements and significant improvements which would be required are expressly stated.

But, of course, planning decisions rest not with the Health and Safety Executive but with the local planning authorities and, in some cases, with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, and in reaching any planning decisions with regard to future development in the area they will have full regard to the report. Since my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has to exercise a quasi-judicial function in relation to the planning cases before him, the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot say anything at this stage about the merits of the various arguments that are being advanced for or against the proposed developments. But I can say that my right hon. Friend will carefully consider all relevant representations made before he comes to a decision.

As the hon. Gentleman will know from the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to his Question yesterday, it is my right hon. Friend’s intention to reopen the earlier exploratory inquiry into whether the permission granted to United Refineries Ltd. should be revoked. This will enable interested parties to comment afresh in the light of the Health and Safety Executive report. The hon. Gentleman said that the conclusion in the report about the building of new refineries was illogical. It will be open to those who oppose the project to argue this at the public inquiry. We shall be in touch with the company and the local planning authority about the arrangements for reopening the inquiry.

As the hon. Gentleman may have seen in the press, Occidental has been reconsidering the commercial aspects of its proposed developments in the area, and has decided at the present time not to go ahead. My Department has been told by the company that it is the company’s intention to withdraw its appeal, and so my right hon. Friend is not now rearranging the postponed inquiry into this appeal.

As I have said, these arrangements will ensure that my right hon. Friend will be able to make his decision in the light of the new knowledge provided in the HSE report and of the observations of interested parties on it. It seems to me important to stress that, by arranging for this very complex and detailed investigation to be undertaken by the HSE, the Government have proved their determination to show, as in the case of Windscale, that important planning decisions should be taken in full knowledge of all the implications for those likely to be affected.

The hon. Gentleman closed his speech by calling for a number of explicit assurances. As I am sure he appreciates, most of them bear on matters which are not the direct responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. In so far as the interests of other Secretaries of State are concerned, I shall, of course, bring the relevant points to their attention. Meanwhile I would stress that the Health and Safety Executive is already holding discussions about all the improvements suggested in the report with either the firms concerned or the appropriate authorities.

On the risks to people living close to major hazards, the method adopted by the team was to select specific regions for assessment of the risks, and no fewer than five of those were on Canvey Island itself, all comparatively close to the three installations on the island. Research into the behaviour of fuel gases is in hand and account is being taken of experience world wide, including the report of the General Accounting Office to the United States Congress, which, although published as recently as last Monday, is already being studied by the Health and Safety Executive, as indeed it appears to be by the hon. Gentleman. The recommendations in that report mentioned by the hon. Gentleman refer to the siting of new terminals and expansion of existing ones.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman has already been assured by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment—but I am glad to repeat the assurance—that he and the other hon. Members concerned, as well as the appropriate local authorities, will be kept informed at regular intervals of progress on the implementation of the report.

Mr. Michael Heseltine (Henley)

Before the Minister sits down, may I ask whether he feels that, in view of the very detailed requests put by him, my hon. Friend is entitled to an assurance that he will get answers from the various Ministers with whom the Minister will want to confer? The Minister said that he would refer these matters to his colleagues, I understand that, as, I am sure, does my hon. Friend. But it would be appropriate that my hon. Friend should know that answers will be forthcoming from Government sources to his specific questions.

Mr. Barnett

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. In so far as I have not been able to answer the hon. Member for Essex, South-East, I can give the assurance that where questions have been put my right hon. Friends will see that replies are given him. As I indicated at the end of my speech, it is our intention to keep the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, the House, informed of progress.

Sir Bernard Braine

With permission I should like to say a few more words. I thank the Minister for the courteous and effective way in which he has tried to answer my questions this morning. I realise, of course, that a number of matters do not fall within his province, and I am grateful, therefore, to my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) for extracting a promise that I shall get detailed answers later to all my questions.

I am not reflecting in any way on the way in which the Minister has sought to answer me, but I fear that there is one matter on which he did not touch. This is so serious that I must draw attention to it again.

The assessment by the Health and Safety Executive of the degree of risk to people living in the area is an overall assessment. The area investigated is nine miles long and two and a half miles wide at its widest. Common sense shows that if people in the area generally are at three times greater risk than the rest of the population from an industrial accident, those who live very close to the methane terminal—in fact on its doorstep—are more exposed to danger than those who live, for example, two miles away.

I specifically asked for a revised assessment by the Executive of the risks to people who live very close to this major hazard. Perhaps the Minister was not equipped by his advisers to answer this point this morning, but the answer is of paramount importance to the people of Canvey who have to live with these hazards day in and day out. I think, therefore, that a fresh assessment should be made of the risks to which these people are exposed.

I gather from the Minister’s reply and from the letter that I received from the chairman of the British Gas Corporation this morning that there is no intention whatsoever of closing down the British Gas terminal on Canvey Island and that the Corporation will be permitted to continue importing the same quantities of LNG and LPG as it has done up to now.

I have already given an example of the way in which the chairman of the British Gas Corporation tried to fool the public by saying that no LPG was being handled at that terminal. I am glad to hear from the Minister this morning, a fact confirmed to me by the Health and Safety Executive and the petroleum licensing authority, that that statement is untrue.

There is LPG being stored on Canvey Island close to people’s homes. It is being stored with no particular object in mind. It is a hazard and it should be removed. I want an assurance from the Minister that steps will be taken to remove such material from Canvey Island.

The sooner the British Gas Corporation is told that in the end it is answerable to this House as a public corporation and takes heed of people’s anxieties and fears about the liquefied gas stored on Canvey Island, the better.

I promise to keep on and on about this until Canvey Island is made safer than it is now and safer even than is envisaged in the report when its suggested improvements have been carried out. I hope, therefore, that I shall get detailed answers to all my questions from the Department of the Environment and the other Departments involved.

April 19, 2020
Bernard Braine – 1978 Speech on Canvey Island

Below is the text of the speech made by Bernard Braine, the then Conservative MP for South-East Essex, in the House of Commons on 3 August 1978.

It may be thought that as I rise to do battle on behalf of my endangered constituents on Canvey Island we have already gained our first objective. The news that Occidental International Oil has decided to defer indefinitely the building of its refinery on the island is encouraging, but that does not mean that a serious threat to our environment is removed. It is merely suspended.

The decision is not surprising, as the latest figures I have managed to extract from the Department of Energy show that the use of gross refinery capacity in this country is running at only 67 per cent. As everyone knows, there is excessive refining capacity throughout western Europe. For the time being, therefore, there is no need for any new refineries in this country.

However, Canvey is still threatened with a second unwanted refinery. Indeed, the company which has planning permission to build it—United Refineries Ltd—has indicated publicly that it wishes to go ahead.

I wish to make it clear at the outset that the present dangers facing my 33,000 constituents on Canvey stem not from those two proposed refineries, neither of which is operating, but from the existing petrochemical complex in nearby Thurrock and on the island itself from the largest concentration of gas, chemical and oil storage in the country, much of it dangerously close to their homes.

Nowhere else in Britain is so large a population exposed to so unique, so massive and so varied a concentration of risks to their safety The position is unique precisely because Canvey is an island. If anything should go wrong—and the possible scenarios for disaster are legion—the only escape route is provided by two roads which converge at a single roundabout. Even that could be put out of commission by a cloud of escaping gas, as it lies in the path of the prevailing winds blowing over the Thurrock petrochemical complex.

It does not take much imagination to see why my constituents have been so bitterly opposed from the beginning to the bringing of oil refineries on to their already endangered island, with the consequent increase in the movement of ships carrying hazardous cargoes to and from its jetties and of tanker vehicles carrying a wide variety of toxic and inflammable liquids on its roads, for all this would add immeasurably to the hazards they already face.

For example, there are already 56,000 movements a year of hazardous material on Canvey’s roads. The proposed oil refineries would add another 65,000. We have just seen in Spain what can happen when a single liquefied petroleum tanker blows up.

Understandably, therefore, my Canvey constituents have been bitterly opposed to the introduction of oil refineries from the beginning. Yet until 1974 it proved impossible to get the mandarins in Whitehall to take any notice of our anxieties.

No Minister or senior civil servant charged with responsibilities in this matter ever came to Canvey. Public inquiries to hear our objections were an expensive farce.

That is why I was driven on the night of 23rd-24th July 1974 to hold up the business of the House by making the longest speech from the Back Benches for over a century. My purpose was to shake the Government out of their extraordinary complacency. By that means I was able to put on the record the hazards which my constituents face.

As a result, the late Anthony Crosland—I give him full credit—realised that there was a case to answer. He set up an exploratory inquiry into the possibility of revoking planning permission for one of the two unwanted refineries. It was our first breakthrough.

That inquiry, held in February/March 1975, came down firmly on our side. It recommended revocation. It also recommended, as I had hoped it would, expert investigation into the totality of risks facing the people who live in and around Canvey Island, from both the existing installations and the proposed refineries.

Alas, that provided the Government with an excuse not to do anything about revocation until the expert investigation had been completed. After some delay, the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Secretary of State for Employment directed the Health and Safety Executive to make an investigation, the first of its kind ever to be undertaken in this country.

That was a welcome development. The investigation, which began in April 1976, was expected to be completed by the end of the year. In the event, it was not completed until April this year, and the findings were not made public until 20th June.

We learn from the published report that the task proved to be far more complex than had been expected and that even now

“further work needs to be carried out for there remain some uncertainties in the assessment.”

That, as I shall presently show, is a masterly understatement.

The report is, nevertheless, an important document. It not only confirms all of our worst fears about the existing hazards at Canvey, it actually uncovers others hitherto unknown to us. Above all, it shows that the proposed oil refinery development, thrust down our throats by successive Governments, and as they were planned before the investigation began, would have added significantly to the existing hazards. It proves beyond any doubt that risks have been taken recklessly by Ministers with the safety of my constituents.

The Prime Minister was engagingly frank when in answer to me on 25th July he confessed that while he had seen the report he had not read every page of it. Let me help him, and everyone else who has responsibility in this grave matter, by spelling out precisely what the report says about the threat to the safety of my constituents.

First, it makes plain that the existing risks from gas, oil and chemical installations already operating in the area, stretching for nine miles from Stanfordle-Hope in the west to Canvey in the east are undeniable, unacceptable, and must be reduced.

Second, it admits that, given the huge concentration of dangerous and flammable liquids stored in that area, in the event of an explosion disrupting storage tanks burning liquid could reach people’s homes, spreading fire and destruction.

Third, it shows that assumptions hitherto made about the behaviour of escaping ammonia are wrong and that, given certain weather conditions, a spillage could kill people if prompt evacuation could not be arranged.

Fourth, it expresses serious doubts about the large quantities of liquefied gases transhipped and stored at the British Gas Corporation’s methane terminal close to people’s homes.

Fifth, it describes the terrifying possibilities of liquefied petroleum gas at the terminal escaping from tankers, forming a large cloud of flammable mixture which could ignite and explode, causing casualties.

Sixth, it admits the possibility of large clouds of gas vapour drifting towards residential areas before being ignited, either as a result of an accident at one of the land-based installations or as the result of a collision between a liquid gas tanker and vessels in the estuary or at the jetties.

Seventh, it warns that if an accidental release of gas took place no action could be taken to lessen the probability of explosion leading to cataclysmic fire and casualties.

Eighth, it draws attention to the network of pipes criss-crossing these installations, carrying liquefied gases. When one recalls how the above-ground explosion at Flixborough fractured below-ground pipes—a fact which I drew to the attention of the Government twice, on 12th and 23rd May 1975—it is not difficult to see how a veritable holocaust could be created.

Ninth, the report lists a miscellany of other dangers, such as an accidental release of highly toxic hydrogen fluoride from the Thurrock oil refineries which, in certain concentrations, could kill people. It speaks of the blowing up of one storage tank and metal splinters from it piercing other tanks and pipes, setting off a train of disaster. For full measure it mentions the possibility of an explosion involving vessels loading TNT and munitions at the Chapman anchorage at the eastern tip of Canvey.

Tenth, it reveals that none of the companies in the area:

“had made a systematic attempt to examine and document those few potentially serious events which might cause accidents among people in the surrounding community”.

That begs the question why such neglect has been permitted for so long and whether similar neglect is not being practised elsewhere in the country.

The report then makes a number of sensible and practical suggestions for reducing this frightening array of hazards. For example, it suggests that low containment walls should be constructed around the hazardous installations; that protective bunds should be built around tanks containing hazardous liquids, that a water spray system should be introduced to dilute hydrogen fluoride released accidentally into the atmosphere. It suggests that a new road should be built on the western side of the island to carry hazardous tanker traffic. The report has already compelled British Gas to close a pipeline carrying liquefied petroleum gas. All of that is good. I welcome it. I am satisfied that the Health and Safety Executive has the power to insist on such works being undertaken.

The report argues that if all these suggestions and others are carried out the risks can be reduced by 50 per cent., probably even by 75 per cent. If we take those figures on trust, it means that even after all the suggested improvements are made the people of Canvey will still face above-average risks to their safety.

If the report had stopped there it would have performed a useful service. But, incredible as it may sound, it goes on to conclude that the proposed oil refinery development, subject to certain improvements, would not add significantly to the risks and can therefore proceed. That is a lunatic conclusion. To tell a community that has been in danger of injury and death from such a terrifying concentration of hazards that its chances of survival can now be reduced by half or even three-quarters, but to say that two fresh hazards can be introduced, not only gives people no comfort at all but defies all reason and makes a nonsense of much of the investigation.

That is how my constituents feel about it. On 27th June I wrote as follows to the Prime Minister:

“Last night I presided over a public meeting on Canvey Island at which the authors of the report faced an audience of about a thousand local people and totally failed to convince them that their conclusion that further oil refinery development would not significantly add to the risks fitted the terrifying facts which their investigation had uncovered.”

I told the Prime Minister:

“The anger and frustration of the people of Canvey and neighbouring South Benfleet over the way in which their health and safety has been persistently ignored in the past by piecemeal planning decisions, and in their view is now to be compromised in the future, was made very clear. The fact that the report recommends measures which could reduce the totality of risk by 50 per cent. or more is fully appreciated, but there is not a single one of my constituents who believes that, in the face of what the report says about the risks, the Government has any right to permit oil refinery development to take place, even after the suggested improvements have been made.”

I concluded:

“I beg of you to intervene to see that commonsense prevails.”

Public opinion in south-east Essex is now fully aroused. On 17th July the Castle Point district council declared its continued opposition to any refinery development on the island whatsoever, and passed a resolution calling upon the Secretary of State:

“to revoke the planning permission granted to United Refineries Ltd. in accordance with his Inspector’s recommendation at the exploratory inquiry in 1975.”

The totally illogical and irresponsible conclusion of the Health and Safety Executive report on the subject of refinery development has caused me—and I hope everyone else, especially Ministers—to look very closely at the rest of this strange report. I am bound to say that I find serious flaws in it.

First, the report has all the marks of a task not completed, being firm in some matters and weak and indecisive in others. I conclude that its authors were under considerable pressure from vested interests.

Second, the report is totally unconvincing on the scale of risk to the residents. The area studied stretches for nine miles from west to east and is two-and-a-half miles wide at its widest. The report says that in this area people are three times more at risk than elsewhere in the kingdom. But a child could see that this totally ignores the far greater risk to families living next door to, say the British Gas terminal. Here the risk is vastly greater, probably 10 times greater.

Third, it is exceedingly odd that an investigation which cost £400,000 of taxpayers’ money should result in a document that has a vital appendix missing. Yet that is the case. One can look in vain for appendix 10. I had to table two parliamentary Questions to establish that the missing appendix was a paper prepared by the British Gas Corporation on “The possibility and consequences of an unconfined explosion involving LNG”— a not irrelevant or unimportant matter, one would have thought, in the context of the investigation. Yet the Minister’s answer was that its inclusion was thought to be “inappropriate”.

I can well understand that view being taken since the appendix—which I have now seen—shows that the British Gas Corporation takes the dangers of LNG far more lightly than is currently the case, for example, in the United States. The Corporation’s experts, for example, believe that LNG cannot be involved in unconfined explosions and that the hazard need hardly be considered. It would certainly have been embarrassing for the corporation to be seen to be making light of so serious a matter I can well understand why the appendix was omitted. All I can tell the House is that the criteria of risk to people in the United States, laid down by the Federal Power Commission in turning down an LNG site there, are such that if applied in this country the Canvey methane terminal would be shut down tomorrow. Thus, I find the attitude of the Health and Safety Executive towards the British Gas Corporation activities at Canvey disappointing in the extreme.

Those activities, we are told on page 29 of the report,

“account for about a third of the total risks from the existing installations and their proportion will be about the same when all the improvements suggested by the team have been made.”

The report goes on:

“We have serious doubts whether the British Gas Corporation should continue to store such large amounts of LNG and LPG, at the terminal and to carry out the consequential ship to shore transfer operations. If the storage of such large quantities is to continue it will be necessary for action to be considered to meet the suggestions of the team, so that the risks could be significantly reduced”

Instead of a carefully considered public response from British Gas, we get a defiant roar from its chairman, Sir Denis Rooke.

In the Evening Echo—our local newspaper—of 27th July, he is reported to have said:

“No LPG is being handled on our installations at Canvey. But that does not mean that we would never handle it again”

In the same report, another spokesman for British Gas was quoted as saying:

“We haven’t any plans to store LPG on Canvey at the moment, but we cannot say what will happen in the future…We do keep LNG on Canvey, but that is something else entirely”

Hon. Members will see, however, that the report states categorically on pages 20 and 29 that LPG is stored at Canvey. Who, then is telling the truth? If in fact LPG is being stored there, close to people’s homes, and British Gas is trying to conceal the fact, should it not be removed forthwith? My constituents and I want a very clear answer to that question.
Let me explain why this issue has to be faced. In the United States, where they have vastly more LPG and LNG installations than we have in this country, serious attention has been given to the dangers of storing LNG close to urban population. I have seen the evidence given at an inquiry two years ago by Dr. Edward Teller, one of the world’s greatest nuclear scientists and an acknowledged authority on the safety of nuclear installations.

Dr. Teller told a committee of the California state legislature that with LNG installations there is always the possibility of an “enormous conflagration”, that although the complexities in the case of nuclear and LNG risks are comparable, much less is known about the latter, and he warned that all possible precautions should be taken. Similar warnings are given in a massive report to the United States Congress on the safety of liquefied gases, which was published on Monday by the Comptroller-General of the United States General Accounting Office, the investigating arm of Congress. His office has kindly sent me a copy.

That report states that a major spill of liquefied gases in a densely populated area could result in a catastrophe and that action should be taken now to protect the public. It makes strong recommendations and it issues this warning:

“We believe that future large-scale unified energy gas facilities should be located away from densely populated areas, that any such existing facilities should not be permitted to expand in size or in use, and that urban facilities should be carefully evaluated in order to ensure that they do not pose undue risks to the public.”

Canvey is a built-up area. Some people live very close to the methane terminal. Yet the Health and Safety Executive report contents itself with saying that if the storage of such large quantities of LNG is necessary, action will have to be taken so that the risks can be “significantly reduced”. That implies, does it not, that the existing risks are significantly greater than they should be.

The intentions of British Gas are clear enough. In a letter to me which I received this morning, the chairman indicates that, subject, of course, to the requirements of the Health and Safety Executive, it is the corporation’s intention to go on importing the same quantities of Algerian LNG for years to come. Do the Government approve of that? Who is to judge the need to store liquefied gases on Canvey? Is British Gas a law unto itself? Or is the question to be determined by the Health and Safety Executive, which is answerable to Ministers?

Far better it would have been if British Gas had been told in the report quite firmly that it is wrong to go on storing such large amounts of LNG and LPG so close to people’s homes. Why such timidity? I issue a plain warning to the Government. No one has the right to imperil the safety of a whole community.

Perhaps the most serious flaw in the Health and Safety report is its total neglect—indeed its astonishing neglect—of the human reaction in the event of disaster or even in a limited incident. Because Canvey is an island, evacuation of population would take several hours. That would be possible nowadays in the event of flooding, when several hours’ warning of unusual tides can be given. I need not remind the House that in 1953 the island was the worst-hit district in the flooded areas of Eastern England, when we lost 53 lives, so we are particularly sensitive on that subject But clearly it is impossible to give hours of warning in the event of explosions leading to a cataclysmic fire.

Just imagine the chaos that could be caused by people trying to get off the island over a single exit while the rescue services from the mainland were trying to get on. The only suggestion that the report offers is that in the majority of the disaster situations it envisages, people should stay indoors and shut their windows. Who, pray, is going to give such advice if a methane cloud is moving rapidly towards the residential area, or if there has been an involuntary release of ammonia, or if LPG is exploding? Who is going to have the time in which to issue such a warning?

There is a hint in the report that to help evacuation an additional road might be provided off the island to the east. That is an interesting suggestion. Of course, it would take some time to build. Yet there is no firm recommendation in the report. The matter is merely left for discussion with the local authorities. That simply will not do. The Government must take firm control of the situation. I therefore seek explicit assurances on the following points.

The first is that all the suggested improvements in the report will be implemented without delay.

The second is that a revised assessment is made by the Health and Safety Executive of the risks to people living very close to the major hazards, so that nobody is allowed to shelter behind generalised assumptions about risks over the whole of the area investigated.

The third is that immediate steps will be taken to reduce sharply the storage and transhipment of liquefied gases at the methane terminal, and that discussions will be opened at once with the British Gas Corporation about moving its operations to another site remote from population.

The fourth is that the British Gas Corporation is asked to spend some part of its massive profits on realistic research into the dangers of LNG and the problems of decommissioning the storage tanks on Canvey in the light of world-wide experience in these matters.

The fifth is that talks are opened at once with the object of improving road communications with the Essex mainland, especially at the eastern end of the island, and that the necessary finance will be forthcoming to the highway authority.

The sixth is that the Port of London Authority be directed to pay serious attention to the desirability of slowing down to eight knots all ships carrying hazardous cargoes in the Thames estuary. I do not need to tell the Under-Secretary of State that all the shipping carrying such cargoes in the estuary passes very close to the Essex shore.

The seventh is that the financial implications of revocation of planning permission are grasped by the Secretary of State, since the district council would be totally unable to meet any claims for compensation.

The final one is that some kind of periodic safety audit is authorised so that Parliament, the local authorities and the public can be kept informed as to how the safety of the people living in and around Canvey Island has been improved.
Nothing short of these requirements will satisfy me or restore the confidence of my long-suffering constituents. I am asking for common sense action now. I do not want to be the man who was proved right after a disaster has occurred. ask the House to remember Aberfan, where 116 children and eight adults lost their lives in 1966. They need not have died had those who knew that the tip at Merthyr Vale colliery was unsafe had done something about it. The report on that tragic happening made it clear that it need not and should not have happened.

The tragedy of Aberfan and that at Flixborough sprang from a single neglected source of danger. At Canvey there are innumerable sources of danger, each compounding the rest. So my last words to the Minister are these—act now, act before it is too late; act with firmness and purpose; delay no longer.

April 19, 2020
Paul Channon – 1978 Speech on Travel to Work Costs

Below is the text of the speech made by Paul Channon, the then Conservative MP for Southend West, in the House of Commons on 3 August 1978.

I welcome this opportunity to raise the subject of the cost of travel to work. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport for coming here this afternoon to reply to this debate.

This is a topic that is of keen interest to my constituents, as it is to the constituents of virtually every other hon. Member. I contend that the effects of substantial travel costs are far wider and more important than just the effect on individuals on the finances of British Rail or on the local bus service or whatever the form of transport might be.

The implications of fares policy in respect of buses and trains are enormous for the whole community. There are great implications for planning, regional policy, housing policy and the future of the inner cities. All these will be affected in coming years by decisions taken about fares policy and the cost of travel to work.

I wish in my brief remarks this afternoon to concentrate on rail travel. A large part of my comments applies also to travel by bus or by Underground. I am concentrating on rail travel because that is the subject about which I know most. I shall concentrate my remarks mainly on London and the South-East and on travel to work in that area, but the principle remains the same for other parts of the country. When talking of the costs of travel to work, it is not unreasonable to concentrate on London and the South-East, where there is the most acute problem.

I think I am right in saying that there are probably about 7 million people who use public transport for travel to work in some variety or another in this country. That figure has recently been issued. In 1976, 868,000 people arrived in central London in the morning peak hours by a variety of forms of transport between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. It is estimated that a further 187,000 came by private transport, mainly by car. Very substantial fare increases have taken place in recent years, as everybody knows.

It is frightening to discover that in 1938 the yearly season ticket from Southend cost less than £25. That is within the lifetime of most people here. In 1962 it had risen to £93, and since then costs have escalated and fares have risen five of the country. Fares in general have more than doubled since 1972, but in times in the past 16 years in that part London and the South-East they have risen by more than 100 per cent. since 1975. That is faster than the retail price index and far faster than people’s net incomes, because of a combination of events, such as incomes policies, wage freezes and high levels of personal taxation.

Consequently, the level of rail fares has become an extremely serious burden for many thousands of people. The culmination of the feeling about increases in rail fares came with the proposed increase of more than 16 per cent. last year. Rail fares have an enormous effect on the budgets of many people, particularly young people starting work who find the burden of commuting to London especially severe. Many people are forced to commute because there are no suitable jobs locally. In that sense, they are a captive market and can do little about it. It is an interesting question whether it would be wise to provide more jobs locally or whether that might have a bad effect on the structure of employment in London.

The Under-Secretary will be aware of the great anxiety that was caused some time ago by the Government’s consultation document which suggested that the outer suburban services of British Rail should meet their full allocated costs by 1981. On top of the burdens already being faced by commuters at that time, that proposal would have been an intolerable extra burden with incalculable effects on the standard of living of many people.

Those who commute into London on lines which pay their way find it frustrating that it is not possible to find out exactly what those lines are costing. I realise that this is due to a change of policy some years ago, which I regret, but it should be an aim of Government policy to ensure that the maximum information should be given, though I understand that the allocation of costs is extremely difficult and that there must be a rough and ready element in trying to come to a fair allocation of costs for any line.

The Government’s original proposals would have meant massive increases in fares. Fortunately, the Government retreated from that proposal in their recent White Paper, but they say that fares are bound to rise and suggest that they should be phased so that commuters can have a period of years in which to adjust to the increases. The Government point out that London commuter fares constitute 40 per cent. of British Rail’s passenger revenue and that there will inevitably be fare increases over the coming years.

Is there any way out of this dilemma? I accept that there is a dilemma between the need to contain the costs of British Rail, the need not to have too vast a sum in public subsidy and the need not to place too great a burden on those who have to travel on public transport.

Recommendation no. 34 of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries last year should be implemented much more fully than the Government have so far been prepared to do. I urge that the Under-Secretary should instigate a full-scale inquiry into the balance of advantage between users of public and private transport with a view to seeing whether any fiscal concessions are possible. I urge the Minister to take that suggestion back to his colleagues.

I have argued for many years that there should be a measure of tax relief for travel to work. As long ago as May 1962, I moved a new clause to the Finance Bill to that effect. I have tried to get such a system introduced and I have had the support of many of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friends the Members for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine), Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) and Braintree (Mr. Newton).

I accept that there are arguments against that suggestion, including administrative arguments, but other countries seem to manage such schemes fairly well, although the Under-Secretary was a little vague in his reply to me yesterday about the practice in other countries. Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands all have systems of tax relief for travel to work and they have not found that to be an insuperable burden. The report of the Select Committee also shows that there is a system of tax relief in Sweden, but there is some confusion about this matter in our Government circles.

I was told yesterday by the Under-Secretary of State that there were no allowances for costs of travel to work in Belgium. I was rather surprised to hear that. In the answer that I received from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury as recently as 16th July, I was told that if the Belgian scheme for relief for travel to work was adopted no fewer than 16 million taxpayers would benefit. There must be some confusion between the Department of Transport and the Treasury. Which is right? I ask the Under-Secretary to tell us. If other countries can give such relief, I do not accept that the administrative arguments are insuperable.

I accept that the cost would be substantial. On introduction, any scheme would have to be limited. I suggest that it should be limited to public transport. Differing figures have been given. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury told me on 16th July that if we adopted a system of tax relief for travel to work by public transport the cost would be about £200 million. In the context of our total Budget, that is a sum that at least could be considered by future Chancellors.

It is said that there are arguments in equity against the solution that I propose. To the fury of my constituents and the constituents of many other hon. Members, it is argued by some outside commentators that commuters are already a rich group and oversubsidised by the Government. On the contrary, I argue that the standard of living of many commuters has fallen very considerably. It was stated in the Government’s response to the First Report from the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries of 1977 that between 1974 and 1977 rail fares had more than doubled but that average earnings after tax had increased by about 50 per cent. for a married man with two children.

There are many commuters, including many of my constituents and, no doubt, the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree, whose real standard of living has fallen substantially over the past few years. The present users of rail transport, including commuters, are frequently locked in by their homes and their jobs. That applies especially, perhaps, to those who live in council houses. As a result of the residence qualifications that exist in many local authority areas, especially in the South-East and in London, it is almost impossible for moves to be made. It is an extremely expensive operation for owner-occupiers. Any large-scale move back into London because of excessive railway fares would make the pressures on housing in London considerably greater, and they are severe enough even now.

The case is all the stronger because of the recent Inland Revenue ruling in response to Questions tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) which were answered on 6th June. It has now become clear that if employers reimburse employees with season tickets, they are not liable to tax in certain circumstances. There is some confusion outside the House, and I shall be grateful if the Under-Secretary of State confirms the position.

As I understand the Revenue’s ruling, if an employer contracts with British Rail to give an employee a season ticket and the employee’s earnings are less than £5,000 a year, there will be no charge on the value of the season ticket. The employee’s earnings have to be not such as to bring him within the special legislation bearing on benefits in kind.

If an employer gives an employee a season ticket and the employee agrees to accept a reduced salary in return, he is taxable. There are many anomalies, fiddles and difficulties. If an employer gives an employee a season ticket in the circumstances that I have described, there is exemption from tax. If, on the other hand, an employer pays an employee his expenses of travelling from home to work, there is a liability to tax. We all know of the special situation that applies to company cars and to those who have private and business cars.

The rules relating to tax relief on travel to work have become increasingly anomalous and unfair. In all the estimates of the costs of tax relief for those who travel to work no estimate has been given of the increase in traffic that would accrue to public transport undertakings. They could be considerable. The long-term effects of present rail policy will have profound effects on London and the South-East. It will have profound effects on planning, housing demands and regional policy in general.

I ask the Government to re-examine the recommendations made by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries 18 months ago. This recommendation has been brushed aside by the Government. In the interests of those who have to travel to work, many of whom face considerable burdens and are likely to continue to do so if there is no change in policy, I urge the Government to undertake an inquiry so that all these matters can be considered.

I hope that justice is seen to be done for all. I ask the Minister to consider with his colleagues the setting up of the inquiry which was recommended by the Committee. That would be a great step forward for many thousands of my constituents and many tens of thousands of people elsewhere who travel to work each day.

April 17, 2020