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  • John Major – 1986 Speech on Poverty in Barnsley

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Major, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, in the House of Commons on 30 January 1986.

    It is never a hardship to listen to the right hon. Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Mason) representing his constituency. Yet again, he has spoken movingly about the problems that he sees in Barnsley, and I am pleased to be able to respond. I will try to pick up as many of the issues that he raised as possible in the time remaining to me. I am pleased to see that the hon. Members for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) and for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) are in their places.

    I am aware that social security provision is an emotive matter, which arouses considerable controversy. I also understand that the present Bill, which I strongly support, which proposes fundamental changes in the social security structure, is a matter of high political dispute. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends accept that, whatever might be the political disagreement between us, the Government share their deep concern for the effects of poverty. We believe that many of the proposals in our Bill, as with many of our other policy proposals, are geared to alleviate precisely the problems that the right hon. Gentleman has outlined.

    The right hon. Gentleman mentioned some of the problems that apply to Barnsley at the moment. I appreciate, and would not deny, the special difficulties that have been caused to that area by pit closures and the resultant high unemployment. The latest unemployment figures for Barnsley are depressing and dispiriting. I cannot deny that and would not wish to.

    I share with Opposition Members the hope that unemployment will soon begin to fall, but I can understand their frustration at the fact that the present high levels appear to be remaining for so long. Despite the difficult circumstances, people in Barnsley are finding jobs. Between April 1985 and January this year, the employment service placed more than 2,300 people in ​ permanent employment in Barnsley—an increase of 23 per cent. on the same period in the previous year. I am sure that we all hope that that trend will continue.

    It is not true that the Government are unconcerned and harsh about the problems in Barnsley and elsewhere. I might draw attention to the substantial funds that are made available to Barnsley in the urban programme. In recognition of its economic problems, the need to help the area and the need to broaden its industrial base, Barnsley qualifies for help under the Inner Urban Areas Act 1978. The council, to which the right hon. Gentleman paid tribute, has responded by establishing industrial and commercial improvement areas in Barnsley and in the outlying mining town of Goldthorpe. There is also a conservation workshop at Hoyle Mill, which is funded in conjunction with the Manpower Services Commission. It places 80 trainees, who are engaged in restoring sites of historic interest in and around Barnsley. There are other interesting and innovative projects in the area.

    The right hon. Gentleman talked about housing and some of the related problems. To help Barnsley overcome its difficulties, some £6·7 million has been allocated under the housing investment programme, and there is a further allocation of up to £1 million to meet obligations under the Housing Defects Act 1984. Despite those and other initiatives with which I shall not bore the House, Barnsley faces great problems, many of which spill over into social security requirements.

    The right hon. Gentleman spoke of current board and lodging regulations. We have monitored their effect carefully. On the basis of preliminary information, there is no evidence that they are causing nomadism on the scale that many people feared. The time limits to which the right hon. Gentleman referred are subject to many exemptions. For one reason or another, large numbers of young people will find that they are exempt from the time limits, even if they are in circumstances in which they would otherwise be applied. The right hon. Gentleman will know that the limits do not apply to people who were in their accommodation some time ago.

    I am not familiar with the cases that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned this evening, but I strongly suspect, although I cannot guarantee it, that those young people may have been entitled to some form of exemption. If the right hon. Gentleman cares to let me have the details of the cases, I shall carefully consider them and respond to them.

    In his remarks the right hon. Gentleman spoke of social security provision. At present. spending on social security is running at more than £40 billion a year. That is a pretty substantial amount by any standards. It is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that that money is well spent, and primarily that is what we seek to do through the proposed changes in the Social Security Bill, which will go into Committee early next week. In many quarters, the review that preceded the Bill has been represented as a cost-cutting exercise. That is simply not so. I understand that that is the type of representation that often occurs in political debate. We believe that the proposals that underpin the Bill are principled and worthwhile. They are a part of the reform that we believe will simplify a social security system that is far too complex. They will direct resources far more effectively than at present to the people of whom the right hon. Gentleman spoke, who are in the greatest need.

    The right hon. Gentleman is clearly worried about the living standards of those families in his constituency on low incomes. We, too, are worried about people on low incomes. Under the Bill those families are likely to be eligible for income support, if unemployed, or family credit if in work. The right hon. Gentleman said that many of his constituents would be worse off if the White Paper proposals were enacted. On the basis of the illustrative figures published with the White Paper we shall be spending £200 million a year more on family credit than we spend at present on family income supplement. The income support scheme is likely to cost more than we spend now on the main structure of the supplementary benefit scheme.

    One aim of the social security reforms is to ensure that help goes to the people who need it most. Our reforms will direct that help to families with children. That applies to low-income working families and to those where the parents are unemployed. Today, those families are often in the greatest need, in Barnsley and sadly, in other areas too.

    Our proposals will substantially reduce the unemployment trap, in which people are better off out of work than they are in work. They will eliminate the worse effects of the poverty trap, where a rise in earnings can be more or less wiped out as benefits are withdrawn.

    The new family credit scheme will cost substantially more than family income supplement—about twice as much. It should reach more than 400,000 families—double the present number on family income supplement. Almost all those families will be better off than they are with family income supplement.

    On the basis of the illustrative rates in the technical annex to the White Paper, a couple with two children on gross earnings of £100 could receive £27·40 in family credit compared with £5·50 on family income supplement.

    The right hon. Gentleman is rightly concerned about people who are not in work. Our proposals will get more help to families who are not working. Income support will replace supplementary benefit and in our judgment that will be a significant improvement. A noticeable feature will be its simplicity. At present, to determine the amount of weekly benefit, staff may need to make intrusive and detailed inquiries, such as the number of baths taken by a claimant or what his special laundry needs are if someone in the family is incontinent. However tactfully those inquiries are handled, they are plainly embarrassing and often insulting to the people to whom the inquiries are directed. Yorkshire men and women especially would find those inquiries deeply offensive.

    We must find a better way of getting help to people who are in need, and with the system that we propose—one of premia based on easily identifiable criteria—it will be entirely possible to remove many of those intrusive inquiries. That simplicity—that certainty of entitlement —will be a great improvement, and will be generally welcomed in the House when the proposals are more fully understood.

    I would have wished to have been able to say much more this evening, but only a short time remains. On the transitional protection for claimants, no one receiving supplementary benefit at the point of change to income support will have his weekly income reduced by the change. Anyone on family income supplement whose FIS award is higher than his family credit will keep the FIS award—the higher award—for the remainder of the ​ 12-month award period. We made that clear in the illustrative figures published with the White Paper, and I emphasise it again this evening.

    The right hon. Gentleman mentioned single payments. I deeply regret the fact that time does not permit me to deal in detail with the points that he raised, but if he wishes to discuss that matter later, I shall be happy to meet him and his hon. Friends at any time, when we can discuss the anxieties that he expressed this evening.

    The reforms that we shall make will be seen in due course as a positive advantage to people on low incomes, whether in or out of work. That is part of the intention of ​ the reforms, and we shall seek to persuade the House and the country that they are compelling and worthwhile reforms. In the meantime, may I conclude by telling the right hon. Gentleman that I understand the difficulties which he faces in Barnsley and which he has expressed this evening in such compelling fashion. I hope that he will accept from me that our reforms are aimed at helping people in special difficulty, wherever they live. We believe that they will, and we hope that they will generally be seen to do so when they are more fully understood.

  • Roy Mason – 1986 Speech on Poverty in Barnsley

    Below is the text of the speech made by Roy Mason, the then Labour MP for Barnsley Central, in the House of Commons on 30 January 1986.

    Rapidly increasing poverty in Barnsley over the past five years has had a dramatic and depressing impact on my town. I have represented Barnsley for nearly 33 years, and I have never known such misery on such a large scale as today. I lived through the 1930s and the pre-war depression years, but have never witnessed so many personal pictures of soul-destroying unhappiness through being penniless and pleading for help as are evident in Barnsley today.

    That awful and worrying rise in poverty in Barnsley over the past five years of Tory administration has shattered individuals, many families, our small communities and our local economy. The crucial poverty indicators, such as the local level of unemployment, the number of social security claims and the increasing demand on social services section 1 moneys all reveal a sharp decline in personal and household incomes against a background of increasing job losses, redundancies and pit closures. That scale of poverty is placing intolerable pressure on our local services and resources, both statutory and voluntary, especially the social services, the advice services and housing.

    Although Barnsley metropolitan district council has responded with various practical initiatives, trying to stave off the harshness of personal distress, Government cuts in the rate support grant, and the further cuts proposed in the so-called reform of social security will only exacerbate the serious poverty levels and the social security problems in Barnsley.

    One might ask, where is the evidence? I believe it to be the frightening catalogue of social concern, which is the most distressing that I have ever come across in my time. One in five people in Barnsley is now without a job. In January this year 16,897 people were on the dole, and there was a 20 per cent. rate of unemployment, approximately 6 per cent. higher than the national average and 9·2 per cent. higher than in 1981.

    The mass of poverty is startling. The social services, working on Department of Health and Social Security criteria, establish Barnsley’s poverty line as being a family of four on supplementary benefit receiving £69 weekly income. In Barnsley, there are 7,875 people on the poverty line and, below the poverty line, 3,375 unemployed and 1,500 in work—a total of 12,750 poverty-striken people in the town of Barnsley. Is it any wonder that I decided to bring that to Parliament’s attention?

    In November, 16,739 people were claiming unemployment benefit in the Barnsley travel-to-work area. Most disturbing was the rise in the number of long-term unemployed. Although most people believe them to be in the older age brackets, that is just not true in my town. Of the registered claimants between 19 and 24 years of age, there were 1,087 people unemployed over the year. That is 45·4 per cent. of all the registered unemployed in that age category. What a damning indictment of the Government it is that so many young people in one small town in Britain should be condemned to the dole for so long with no hope on the horizon. What, then, of their poverty? ​ Since the beginning of 1981, 11,420 redundancies in Barnsley have been notified to the Department of Employment. Barnsley council is on a fast-moving treadmill, struggling to fight this surge of job losses. The Regional Manpower Intelligence Unit in January 1985 compared the vacancy levels in travel-to-work areas throughout England. Barnsley was ranked as having the second highest number of unemployed per vacancy in England, with 128 registered unemployed for every vacancy.

    That is an appalling picture of misery thrust upon my town and constituency by a Government who have used monetarist controls, who have squeezed the economy, slashed regional aid, ruthlessly closed steelworks and coal mines, cut social services and caused massive job losses in coal mining towns like Barnsley. Yet the Government cannot provide any answer to the problems in such areas.

    Barnsley council has made strenuous efforts to stem the tide. It has established an employment strategy, built an enterprise centre, small factories, seedbed workshops, and an information technology centre. The council has 35 staff working in teams to help new firms to set up, to help existing firms to survive and expand and to attract new industry and training. I have led teams to Brussels to obtain European regional development grants for the development of a business and innovation centre. This worked has saved and created 1,000 jobs in 1985.

    Barnsley council launched the coal field communities campaign, which now involves more than 60 local authorities representing 16 million people, in an attempt to draw attention to the social, economic and environmental problems facing coal field areas like Barnsley. The community campaign was also intended to advocate policies to alleviate poverty, misery and unemployment in the declining economies of the coal fields.

    As everyone can see, Barnsley council has not sat on its backside. It is fighting the problem. Government policies will have to be radically changed if there is to be any hope of a solution to these problems. National Coal Board Enterprise Ltd. is not the answer. Even if it is creating 500 jobs a month, that is for Great Britain as a whole. Barnsley alone needs that figure every month this year just to stem the tide and avoid being swamped.

    Some 50 per cent. of all Barnsley households are in receipt of housing benefit. Earlier this year the housing department undertook a review of the waiting list. The review revealed that there are now more than 4,700 people on the council’s waiting list. That means that over the past two years the waiting list has grown by 16 per cent. and in some cases in the borough the list has grown by more than 20 per cent. Of particular concern is the increased number of old-age pensioners on the list and the increasing demand for single person accommodation, which has increased by 22 per cent. over the past two years.

    During that time the number of single persons sharing households has increased from 200 to 286, an increase of 43 per cent. That is another tragic story of social distress for which the Government must accept responsibility.
    The ratio of new house building has declined markedly in the council sector due almost entirely to Government restrictions. The rate of council house building has declined from an average of 330 units per annum in the mid-1970s to 128 in 1981–82; 15 units in 1982–83; 19 units in 1983–84; and 33 units in 1984–85.

    With regard to housing benefits, I quote the case study of a miner’s widow on a widow’s pension of £38·38 and an NCB pension of £8·43. She receives a total housing benefit of £11·53. Under the new scheme her total housing benefit will be £9·01, a weekly loss of £2·52. That sum will be taken away from a miner’s widow. Bearing in mind that 50 per cent. of all Barnsley householders are in receipt of housing benefit, thousands more people will be driven into deeper poverty because of the effects of the Social Security Bill now going through the House.

    It is estimated that 29,000 people in Barnsley could lose some or all of their benefits. In Barnsley, more than 19,000 people are dependent upon supplementary benefit for the whole or part of their income. Local DHSS officers are so overstretched that they are taking up to six weeks to process the many claims for single payments for exceptional need. According to their statistics, the Barnsley, east office has 10,893 supplementary benefit recipients and the Barnsley, west office has 8,155. That amounts to 19,048, which is a considerable work load for an overworked staff.

    Also noticeable is the number of supplementary benefit and family income supplement appeals listed for Barnsley. Between January and December 1985 there were 699. The abolition of the right of appeal and the review which has been mentioned are not satisfactory. They represent a major erosion of the legal right of Barnsley claimants. A significant number win their case on appeal. If the appeals procedure is abolished, a claimant’s only recourse will be to the local DHSS manager. I doubt whether many decisions will be overturned under that system.

    Many more claimants will approach the local authority’s social service departments for financial assistance. It is inevitable that the demand on the limited section 1 moneys will be intolerable. How much more poverty will result?

    In Barnsley, the most significant area of increased demand on statutory and voluntary services arising from increasing poverty is on the welfare rights officers. Within the social services department, referrals to the welfare rights officers have increased by 100 per cent. in the past two years. All staff record a dramatic rise in the number of cases with a primarily financial content. There has been an alarming increase in the volume of debt-related problems. Council staff have recently attended a training course on debt counselling. A special leaflet has been produced to help people to cope with enormous debts owed to building societies, fuel boards and hire purchase firms.

    The emergence of loan sharks during the recent miners’ strike was a new and worrying social phenomenon. Mrs.Catherine Allan, the Barnsley citizens advice bureau organiser, wrote to me and said:

    “During 1984–85 the bureau dealt with 1,751 social security inquiries —a 63 per cent. increase in one year…In December 1985 the Barnsley CAB dealt with 731 inquiries compared with 569 in December 1984 …Indicators of the increasing poverty of clients are the large numbers of debt problems.”

    I received a letter from the Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s Families Association. Mr. J. R. Foster. secretary of the Barnsley division, said:

    “1985 saw an increase of 25 per cent. in the number of applicants, a 33 per cent. increase in the Funds disbursed, and of the total number of cases, 41 per cent. were for assistance with. fuel, light, water rates and funeral expenses … I have one case of a pensioner whose gas supply was cut off two years ago, one of a pensioner who has had no water supply since October 85 and some others who are or have been subject of court orders. Some ​ of these are elderly ladies and the thought of court action frightens them a great deal so they cut out other things to pay these bills. I may add that being the widow of ex servicemen or the men themselves, they are very uptight at having suffered the privations of wartime service they have to call on SSAFA and like organisations in their last years.”

    Fiona Moss, the secretary of Age Concern in Barnsley, wrote to me saying:

    “I am perturbed by the increasing number of enquiries related to the standard of living of this area. In fact some are individuals who through pride have deliberately avoided what they believe to be the acceptance of charity. Many tears have been shed in my office. We have miners widows with approximately £7 a week extra pension. Their claim for housing benefits are reduced by the same amount.”

    She goes on to say:

    “Can we afford to die? The £30 state grant is soon to be abolished. What will replace it? Our local paper states that elderly people worry about a ‘Pauper’s Grave’, and figures show that a Barnsley family paid almost £600 for a funeral in 1985 compared to £90 in 1972. I should know—it was my own mother’s funeral. In the past with fuller employment many elderly people were cared for by their own families. These families are also now in the poverty trap. I get many more of these families coming for advice about their parents’ problems —they themselves are at their wits end struggling to survive on low incomes.”

    What a tale of woe and distress and more and more poverty.

    The Barnsley Council’s co-ordinated welfare rights group, Barnsley’s anti-poverty team, has mounted several successful benefit take-up campaigns which have injected substantial amounts of cash to vulnerable groups such as the unemployed, the sick and the physically disabled. A team of dedicated civil servants and volunteers led by Roy Wardell, the director, and Councillor Judith Watts work well beyond their wage-related hours to alleviate stress and worry in the town.

    Unfortunately, the council’s anti-poverty measures have to be seen against a background of appeals by central Government for restraint in spending and of targets set by the Government and block grant penalties. At present, Barnsley is penalised at the highest level. Existing spending plus allowances for inflation and current commitments will result in the target which has been set by the Government by 1985–86 being significantly exceeded.

    Education officers in Barnsley have estimated that the percentage of schoolchildren on free school meals will be reduced from 26 per cent. to 18 per cent. under the proposed changes. This almost certainly will have an effect on the number of school meals staff employed by the council and increased poverty in many families.

    The financial and housing restraints on the under-25 age group, forcing young people to stay in sometimes intolerable family situations, will lead to increased family stress and breakdown in Barnsley. I received a report from one welfare rights worker at the Barnsley centre against unemployment, which says:

    “One of the most serious problems faced by the young unemployed is their inability to find accommodation. Shortage of rented property has forced up rents and many landlords refuse to let their property to unemployed people.

    Consequently, many young unemployed people find themselves having to move into board and lodging accommodation, the disadvantages of which have recently been exacerbated by the new board and lodging regulations, resulting mainly from landlords charging exorbitant rates for their accommodation in the knowledge of DHSS payments. Although landlords have been largely to blame for the abuse of the system it is the young unemployed who have been ​ penalised by reduction in benefits and time limits on their receipt of payment. Within two days of each other two young men, aged 16 and 17, attempted suicide, one by an overdose of valium and the other by slashing his wrists with broken glass. They were both lodgers in the same boarding house and both faced penalisation under the four week rule. In the same week, the week beginning 13 January, an 18 year old girl also overdosed.

    It is a nonsense to say that the under 25s should, if they have no employment, remain at home. The girl mentioned desperately needed her own accommodation due to her father’s violence towards her. Also unemployed families have their benefits reduced by having adult children at home leading often to domestic tension and violence.”

    It is all so sickening to me and I hope that it is to the Minister.

    Barnsley council and I believe that there is a direct link between economic decline, Government policies and the resulting fall in individual and household incomes —poverty. The local economy has suffered more than most from the effects of disputes in the coal industry. Punitive and inequitable legislation in social security reform and local government finance will serve only to increase rather than decrease the scale of the problem of poverty in Barnsley.

    This is the story of poverty in Barnsley brought about by heartless and ruthless Tory Government policies. The town refuses to be dejected. We shall fight on, but we deplore being neglected. That is why the Minister has had to listen to this case today.

  • Dale Campbell-Savours – 1989 Speech on the Televising of the Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Dale Campbell-Savours, the then Labour MP for Workington, in the House of Commons on 12 June 1989.

    Over 12 months ago, I and other hon. Members were invited by Granada Television to the mock Commons studio in Manchester to debate the televising of Parliament. During those proceedings, I spoke against edited excerpts and in favour of a dedicated channel. I returned to my constituency after the programme had been transmitted and was confronted by people who said that I was opposed to the televising of Parliament. In so far as my comments had been edited, that served to confirm my reservation about the whole question of the editing of parliamentary proceedings. That is why I support a dedicated channel.

    I want what Nye Bevan described in his last great speech in 1959, the re-establishment of intelligent communication between the House of Commons and the electorate as a whole. I might add that I do not want to see trivia. I have tabled three amendments, the first of which would block all transmissions from the Chamber apart from those on a dedicated channel. That amendment was not selected. My second amendment would permit edited excerpts to run concurrently with a dedicated channel over an experimental period. The dedicated channel was considered by the Committee and supported. The Committee report says:

    “We believe that continuous coverage of the House’s proceedings on a dedicated channel is a highly desirable objective in the public interest. The fact that we have not felt able to make any specific recommendations on the subject in this Report has nothing to do with the merits of the idea itself, which we strongly support; it stems from practical considerations related to the timing and nature of the experiment.”

    British Aerospace and British Satellite Broadcasting gave evidence to the Committee. However, the Committee rejected their case and the proposals that they put forward for a dedicated channel. The problem, especially in the case of the submission by British Aerospace, was that it was based on funding the scheme from terrestrial broadcasting income and the use by the consumer of a dish costing more than £500 and a dish for professional purposes that costs £5,000.

    British Aerospace was never asked a most important question. It was never asked whether it could transmit on a dedicated channel proceedings of the House to be received on a £150 to £200 Amstrad dish which is currently sold by Comet and Dixon’s and a host of other retailers across the United Kingdom for receiving Sky television. The price of that dish is likely to fall and its use could bypass completely the terrestrial broadcasters because programmes could be transmitted straight from Westminster and received in people’s homes on a cheap dish.

    Mr. Dobson

    Does my hon. Friend accept that even if his proposition went through the current viewing figures for Sky television are such that there are probably more people in the Strangers’ Gallery watching this debate than would see it if his proposition were accepted?

    Mr. Campbell-Savours

    I can assure my hon. Friend that more people watch Sky television than are in the ​ Gallery for the debate, and that dishes are being sold. My amendment would provide the kind of support that is needed.

    As I say, the question that I have mentioned was never put to British Aerospace. I contacted the company today and it said:

    “British Aerospace Telecommunications confirms that it could provide satellite and uplink facilities for the televising of Parliament using the ECS … low power satellite (needing a 1·2–1·5 m receiving dish) for about £1 million pa.

    Based on a usage of 32 week year, 37·5 hour week”— that is equivalent to our proceedings in their entirety apart from debates that take place after 10 pm—

    “which is equivalent to £833 per hour. Signals could be received on dishes costing about £500 for this service.”

    I am not putting forward that proposition. The letter continues:

    “If smaller receiving dishes like those used for ASTRA are the requirement then we could, in principle and subject to availability, equally well operate to that satellite from our earthstation here at Stevenage. However, the satellite transponder charges for that space segment”—

    which is four times the power of the transponder that I referred to—

    “are much greater and the BAe Telecommunications inclusive price for the same number of hours would be about £4m pa. This is equivalent to £3,330 per hour. It is understood that receivers from ASTRA are expected to cost less than £200 and many predict that within 12 months the price could fall to about £100.”

    Some people would argue that my proposition would delay implementation of the report. I went back to British Aerospace for another letter which I received today. It says:

    “BAe Telecommunications confirms that it has reserved capacity on the European Communications Satellite for at least the following three years and therefore could guarantee coverage of Parliamentary proceedings from the October date which you identified in our telephone conversation.

    I would also comment that the figures contained in our earlier letter from David Gregory”—

    I understand that Mr. Gregory is here for the debate—

    “referring to prices and availability for the use of the Astra Satellite”—
    that is the Sky television £150 dish—

    “were based on telephone conversations of today’s date.”

    I then asked for a further qualification and this also arrived today. It says:

    “Further to Mr. Gregory’s letter to you, I can confirm that BAeTeI has both the necessary ground transmission equipment and the capacity reserved on Eutelsat satellites for the next three years and as such can certainly transmit parliamentary proceedings from October this year. We can also confirm from a telephone conversation today that adequate capacity is also available on the Astra satellite for a similar period.”

    I read that into the record to show that British Aerospace can provide the facility from October this year if Parliament seeks to resolve the matter in that way.

    Mr. Dobson

    Will my hon. Friend give way?

    Mr. Campbell-Savours

    I am sorry, but I will not. I have already given way to my hon. Friend once, and it is now nearly 9 o’clock. I have an obligation to others who want to speak after me.

    The examination of British Aerospace’s option was based on the reaction of the broadcasters, who were fearful of the expenditure implications. They never considered direct broadcasting on cheap dishes running concurrently with the Committee’s principal proposals. In other words, ​ they did not consider direct broadcasting dishes. They relied on discussion about terrestrial broadcasting being part of the process.

    I shall deal now with the cost. We have two options —£1 million for a £500 dish or £4 million for £150 reduced-in-price Amstrad dishes, plus £200,000 for a sending earthstation near Westminster. There are four options for funding that. First, there is public subscription, which some hon. Members will reject. Secondly, there is the possibility of advertising, which other hon. Members will reject. Thirdly, we have specialist consumers, a number of whom were identified by British Aerospace in a memorandum to the Committee, which said:

    “there is a market throughout the UK for information on the deliberations of Government in the form of continuous sound, television and text by businesses, local press, educational establishments and private citizens. The second group of users is important as a way of monitoring publicly the editorial decisions of the first.”

    We can also offer a service of electronic Hansard, and most town halls would want transmission and would pay for it. The public library system could equally subscribe, and I am also told that it is possible that the satellite companies, during this experimental period, might offer a concessionary tariff, if only with a view to getting the business long term.

    Mr. Cryer

    Will my hon. Friend give way?

    Mr. Campbell-Savours

    I am sorry, but it is 9 o’clock and I have given way once. Other people wish to speak in the debate.

    At the end of the experimental period, we could either throw out the lot—something that some want to do—or we could thrown out either the dedicated channel or what I call edited excerpt television. If we were to throw out the second, should we proceed in the way that I suggest, the effect would be to increase the number of satellite dish sales. I am not saying that that is necessarily a matter that Parliament should take into account, but it would be a factor.

    The fourth and final route that we may go down into the future is that of fibre optics. Along with others, British Telecom is advocating the principle of a fibre-optic network throughout the United Kingdom, on telephone lines. The cables will be capable of transmitting a television picture. In the longer term, those who do not take this service on a dish could take it on a fibre-optic cable.

  • David Mellor – 1986 Speech on Pamela Megginson

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Mellor, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the House of Commons on 29 January 1986.

    I do understand the very great sense of commitment that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant) feels about this sad case, and I am most grateful to him for the acknowledgement he has made of the exceptional treatment this case has received in the Home Office, details of which I shall be happy to put on the record this evening.

    As he has indicated, my hon. Friend has taken a personal interest in the case of this unfortunate woman, and he has written to me about it on several occasions. I have also received numerous other representations on Mrs. Megginson’s behalf. As my hon. Friend has said, it is an ​ unusual case. In September 1983, some two years and four months ago, at the Central Criminal Court, Mrs. Megginson, who was then aged 62 was convicted of the murder of her 79-year-old co-habitee. Although the offence had taken place in the south of France, it was justiciable here by virtue of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. The relationship between the couple was of long standing but, in 1980 or 1981, Mrs. Megginson’s co-habitee started an association with a younger French woman. Matters came to a head in October 1982 and Mrs. Megginson killed him by striking him at least three times with a champagne bottle. She immediately returned to this country and confessed to the killing.

    At her trial, Mrs. Megginson invited the jury to convict her of the lesser offence of manslaughter because, first, when she struck her co-habitee she did not intend his death or to cause him grievous bodily harm and, secondly. when she struck him it was because she had been provoked to such a degree as to cause her to lose self-control. That issue went before the jury, as happens in all criminal cases, but after hearing all the evidence presented by the prosecution and the defence, the jury decided—albeit by a majority of 10:2 — that the charge of murder was proved. The law provides that only one penalty may be imposed following a conviction of murder, and that is life imprisonment, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has no authority to vary such a sentence. Mrs. Megginson exercised her right of appeal without success and, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we must proceed on the basis that she was rightly convicted of murder and properly sentenced to life imprisonment.

    There is no other basis on which Ministers could exercise the powers given to them by Parliament, which do not include any powers to impose any different views other than those which the courts have taken on these points of conviction and sentence.

    The release of a life sentence prisoner is at the discretion of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but, under the provisions of section 61 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967, he may authorise release only if he is recommended to do so by the parole board, and after he has consulted the Lord Chief Justice and, if available, the trial judge.

    There are two essential ingredients to the decision whether a life sentence prisoner should be released: has he or she been detained for long enough to satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence for the offence, and, is the risk to the public acceptable? My right hon. Friend looks to the judiciary for advice on the time to be served to satisfy the requirements of retribution arid deterrence and to the parole board for advice on risk. He is, however, not bound to accept a recommendation for release made by the parole board; nor is he bound by the views of the judiciary, although, of course, he attaches much weight to them.

    There are no fixed times at which the release of a life sentence prisoner must be formally considered by the parole board machinery. It is for my right hon. Friend to decide when this should be done. Under the revised procedure for the review of life sentence cases announced on 30 November 1983 by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorkshire (Mr. Brittan) when Home Secretary, the date of the first formal review is decided by the Home Secretary after obtaining an initial view from the Lord Chief Justice and the trial judge on the length of detention necessary to meet the requirements of ​ retribution and deterrence for the offence. The first formal review will normally take place three years before the expiry of that period to give sufficient time for preparation and, where necessary, further testing before release is finally authorised, if the parole board should recommend it.

    The decision when to fix the first formal review of a life sentence prisoner’s case is not normally taken until after the prisoner has been detained for at least three or four years. However, it was recognised that there were unusual and exceptional features about Mrs. Megginson’s case and, in those circumstances, it was decided to ask the judiciary for its views on the retributive and deterrent element of the sentence at a much earlier stage than usual. This was done in May 1985—a little over 18 months after Mrs. Megginson’s conviction. In the light of the judiciary’s views, I decided that the case should be referred to the local review committee at the prison within weeks after receiving the judicial view. I decided also that the review should take place commencing in September 1985 as the first stage of the formal parole board review mechanism.

    It might assist if I make clear the stages that were then followed. When the local review committee considers the case of a life sentence prisoner, it has before it all the information available about the offence for which the life sentence was imposed and the circumstances in which it was committed; the prisoner’s history, including any previous offences; the assessments and opinions of doctors who may have examined the prisoner before the trial; and any remarks made by the trial judge. It also has copies of all the reports made previously by the staff at the prisons in which the prisoner has been detained and reports prepared specially for the review, together with any representations which the prisoner may have made to the committee, as he or she is entitled to do. In the light of all this information, the committee makes a recommendation on the prisoner’s suitability for release.

    All the papers are then sent to the Home Office, with the local review committee’s recommendation. The case is very carefully considered in the Home Office, in consultation with the Department’s professional advisers. Sometimes, reports from independent doctors, including psychiatrists, are obtained. An assessment is made of all the considerations, including the possible risk to the public if the prisoner were to be released and the case is then referred to the parole board. All this takes time, and prisoners are themselves warned not to expect a decision in their case until at least six months after the local review.

    The parole board, which does not necessarily endorse the recommendation made by the local review committee, may recommend either that the prisoner should be given a provisional date for release or that the case should be ​ reviewed again after a specified period. If it does the latter, my right hon. Friend has no power to authorise the prisoner’s release and the further review follows the same procedure, starting once again with the local review committee in the prison in which the prisoner is located.

    Mrs. Megginson’s case was duly reviewed by the local review committee at Durham prison in September last year. The internal procedures to which I have referred have been completed and the papers have been referred to the parole board. The case will be considered by the parole board next month—only five months after the local review committee procedure began.

    That is another sign of recognition in the Home Office that the circumstances of the case merit processing faster than we are generally able to achieve, given the pressure of work, in all of the many cases that come before us. I know that my hon. Friend will understand if I cannot speculate on the outcome of the parole board’s consideration of Mrs. Megginson’s case or when she might be released. I can assure my hon. Friend that the decision will be conveyed to her as soon as possible after the parole board gives its decision to us.

    Sir Anthony Grant

    I think that my hon. Friend said that the case will be considered by the parole board next month—in February.

    Mr. Mellor

    The lifer panel of the parole board will consider the matter next month. The decision will be conveyed to me. I can assure my hon. Friend that I shall personally ensure, as I have tried to do throughout the case, that matters are then handled expeditiously.

    What happens then will depend very much on what the parole board says. Obviously, I must not say anything that would influence its decision one way or another. Parliament established the parole board procedure to ensure that the public had the additional safeguard, and fetter on the Home Secretary’s discretion of independent evaluation by a lifer panel, which consists of a High Court judge, a psychiatrist and two other members.

    I understand my hon. Friend’s proper concern to ensure that Mrs. Megginson should not be in prison for any longer than is necessary. My right hon. Friend has to act within the statutory framework and he has to give due weight to the views of the judiciary when deciding when it would be right to commence the formal review. We have done that. He then has to await the parole board’s deliberations, which will happen next month.

    I assure my hon. Friend that we have treated this case exceptionally and given it considerable priority by comparison with the normal run of murder cases, and I hope to be able to give him further advice before too many weeks have elapsed.

  • Anthony Grant – 1986 Speech on Pamela Megginson

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anthony Grant, the then Conservative MP for South-West Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 29 January 1986.

    In 1982 Mrs. Pamela Megginson, a widow over 60 years of age, killed her lover, Mr. Hubbers aged about 79 in southern France by striking him with a champagne bottle. She had been provoked because Mr. Hubbers taunted her with the youth and beauty of the new mistress he had acquired. One might think that he got no more than he deserved, but Mrs. Megginson was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. She is serving that sentence in Durham prison where she is with some of the worst, violent offenders in the land. She is serving in a wing which has already been condemned for male prisoners. With that lady, who has had no previous convictions, are some of the scum of our society.

    Mrs. Megginson’s only close relative in this country is my constituent—her daughter—Mrs. Bennett. Mrs. Bennett is a mother of three small children and obviously she cannot visit her mother regularly as far away as Durham. I make a plea that Mrs. Megginson be moved to a prison nearer to her daughter, and one more suitable to a person of her record.

    My main point is that to keep someone such as Mrs. Megginson who, as I have said, has no previous convictions or record of violence, in prison while perpetrators of the most bestial crimes are released is totally unacceptable and an affront to the values generally held by the public.

    It has been my purpose for a long time to have Mrs. Megginson’s case reviewed, and I at once acknowledge the most sympathetic care that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary has taken. I originally took up the question of an appeal with the Lord Chancellor in January 1984. Then I took up the question of a review with the Home Secretary in August 1984. In September 1984 my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary kindly told me that the case would be referred to the Lord Chief Justice in early 1985.
    In November 1984 I asked for this exceptional case to reviewed at the earliest possible moment. In reply, I was pleased to be told in December 1984 that the Home Office had identified Mrs. Megginson’s case

    “as one which should be brought into the review procedures quickly and it is already receiving wholly exceptional treatment”.

    Perhaps that happened behind the scenes, but as far as my constituent and I were concerned, nothing happened until 27 September 1985, when she was seen by a member of the local review committee. She understood from that person that she would hear something by Christmas, but she has not heard, and I have not heard. I shall be interested to hear the Minister tell us exactly what is happening. Generally, the injustice of the case contrasts most strongly with recent sentences, and, indeed, releases, for horrible crimes, especially against children.

    I have practised law for many years. I appreciate only too well that one cannot judge cases from newspaper reports, and I recognise the old saying that “comparisons are odious”. Nevertheless, the disparity in some sentencing in our courts and in some of the charges preferred in criminal cases these days is so stark as to leave the public totally perplexed as to what we are all about.
    ​ There is a feeling that some of our courts and some aspects of our criminal law system are divorced from reality. I say in haste that I do not in any way make a criticism of my hon. Friend the Minister or the Home Office. Their task, and the task of Parliament, is merely to provide the necessary sentences and machinery. It is for the courts and the authorities to carry them out.

    The case of Mrs. Megginson is just such a case that deserves comparison with others. Her case contrasts remarkably with that of a recent case concerning Mrs. Doris Croft. She too was a middle-aged widow, also from Cambridgeshire, who also discovered that her elderly lover was about to desert her for a younger woman. She killed him, not with a champagne bottle, but with a rolling pin, equally in a fit of jealous rage. She was put on probation for three years, compared with the life sentence imposed on my constituent Mrs. Megginson. In that case, the charge was manslaughter instead of murder. That is why this case is inexplicable. I am sure that members of the public will find inexplicable the different way in which the case was appoached by the prosecution, but there it is.

    Equally, one can look at more horrible cases. I cite a recent case which attracted a great deal of publicity in the borough of Brent, when a brute by the name of Beckford slaughtered a little girl in the most disgusting circumstances, and was sentenced to seven years. It is difficult for people to understand the vast disparity between the way in which people are treated in our society. I do not believe that that is good for the law, or the maintenance of a stable society.

    I compare the case of Mr. Fenton, who shot his former wife and her second husband with a shotgun. He was also put on probation for three years. In that case, the judge used these words in conclusion:

    “neither justice nor public reaction would be advanced ‘one jot’ by leaving him in prison.”

    Precisely the same considerations apply to Mrs. Pamela Megginson.
    I have the greatest respect for my hon. Friend, whom I know has applied himself diligently to the case, and for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. They are both men of reason and compassion. In all sincerity and humanity I ask them to do all that they can to see that this case is properly reviewed at the earliest possible moment in the hope that it will be possible to allow this sad, unhappy lady, in the latter stages of her life, who has suffered so much already, and is no conceivable danger to the public, and really has already paid for her crime, to return to the bosom of her family, and let her live the rest of her life in peace and tranquillity.

  • Tony Blair – 1986 Speech on the Exchange Rate Mechanism

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the then Labour MP for Sedgefield, in the House of Commons on 29 January 1986.

    The question whether the United Kingdom should join the EMS is not an ideological argument but a practical one. Although the present level of the exchange rate makes the argument for joining stronger than it has been for some time, the balance of advantage still lies against our joining.

    One reason for saying that is that we think that insufficient attention has been paid to the obligations of ​ membership of the EMS. We should treat with extreme caution claims about the stability which membership would bring to our currency. The EMS is essentially a means to an end and for it to succeed there must be a clear and common area of agreement between members on economic policy and objectives. We are not convinced that policy objectives that are currently pursued in the EMS converge sufficiently with those which we would want to be pursued domestically.

    The first thing that we should do when discussing the EMS is to debunk some of the mythology surrounding it. There is a risk of it being seen not as a palliative, which is what it would be at best, but as a panacea that can cure the problems of instability in the exchange rate. It is important that our choice is informed and not a careless embrace of anything with the word “European” in it.

    We should start by examining what the EMS is. It is a club that can yield benefits to the participants, but only at the expense of certain obligations. The stability arises not by natural process but by the agreement of the members to keep their exchange rates within agreed boundaries. It is essentially a statement of intent to act individually or collectively to ensure that the value of currencies is maintained within agreed margins of a set of bilateral central rates.

    Three types of action can be taken. It can be done collectively through mutual support from the pool of reserves—it can also be taken under various short-term financing facilities—it can be taken through members intervening individually and it can be taken through the use of interest rates. France virtually controls its exchange rate by the use of interest rates. The latter two methods of control might be chosen by countries outside the EMS, but they are methods of obligation within it.

    The proponents of the EMS say that those obligations are worth carrying because of the stability that will accrue to our currency. Stability can be long-term or short-term. I do not believe that there is compelling evidence that long-term stability has been brought to the exchange rates of currencies in the EMS. The long-term stability will to a considerable extent be contingent upon policy convergence. Such stability as there has been would equally have occurred if the exchange rates had been outside the EMS.

    It is worth remembering that, when we talk about the medium term, because there are several realignments in the EMS, it is still possible to get considerable variations in the exchange rate. It is worth examining the two major realignments of the past few years—that of the French franc in March 1983, and that of the Italian lira in July 1985. When the French franc came under sustained speculative pressure in March 1983, there was a realignment, but it occurred as a result of the French agreeing much tighter budgetary fiscal measures. We can disagree about whether that was right or wrong, but it is important to emphasise that it was part of a package.

    Mr. David Howell (Guildford)

    Has the hon. Gentleman understood that, whatever might be the arguments for or against membership of the EMS, currencies that are in it and that are exposed to speculative pressure have the support of the entire monetary authority system of the member countries? That is why the speculators were seen off against the French franc in ​ March 1983 and why the devaluation was relatively controlled. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has quite grasped that point.

    Mr. Blair

    With respect, I have grasped it. I said that one of the courses of action available to members of the EMS was collective action from the pool of reserves. France effectively keeps its median line against the deutschmark through the use of interest rates, so the pool of reserves alone is not sufficient to ensure against currency speculation. More important is the fact that the realignment, took place in conjunction with other policy measures. Exactly the same thing happened when the Italian lira was subjected to an 8 per cent. devaluation in July 1985. The price for the realignment was considerable other measures demanded of the Italian Government.

    The two lessons to be learnt from those examples are, first, that realignment can occur, but only when combined with other policy packages — that means yielding up some freedom of action in the EMS — and, secondly, that, although short-term fluctuations in currency might be smoothed out by membership of the EMS, some companies say that that short-term risk can be borne by covering oneself in the forward market whereas a much greater risk, to which one is subjected in the EMS, is realignment where volatility can be intense, sudden and unpredictable.

    The only compelling argument in favour of membership of the EMS is that it provides a hedge or some certainty against short-term instability in the currency. There has been considerable short-term instability in Britain during the past few years. I accept that there is a strong argument to the effect that being in the EMS might cut such speculative pressure, but I would put qualifications even on that claim. There is no clear evidence, for example, that day-to-day volatility of exchange rates damages trade flows. There have been numerous attempts to find such evidence, but it has not been found.

    Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth (Stockton, South)

    What about the Confederation of British Industry?

    Mr. Blair

    I shall deal with its stance shortly.

    The level at which we fix the exchange rate is obviously extremely important, and there is still tremendous disagreement about what its level should be. The most important qualification on our ability in the EMS even to withstand short-term pressures is that Britain has a petrocurrency. With great respect to the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins), he has not dealt fully with the consequences of that provision.

    The first consequence is that the EMS is essentially a deutschmark bloc. It could be said that we would be putting Herr Pöhl of the Bundesbank in 11 Downing Street. He might be preferable to the present incumbent, but we should yield our freedom of action. With regard to Britain as an oil exporter, cheaper oil for Germany would put up the deutschmark. If there is a drop in oil prices, cheaper oil prices mean that the deutschmark lifts and, conversely, that the pound is subject to downward pressure. That tension would be built into the system once sterling joined the EMS.

    Perhaps most important of all is that we do not prevent speculation as a result of oil price fears by joining the EMS. Much of the clamour for joining the EMS during the past few months results from people thinking that the ​ exchange rate crisis in January last year and the flutters of the past few weeks would be cured by joining the EMS. That is quite definitely not so.

    The alliance says that we should go into the EMS forthwith. It said that we should go into the EMS forthwith last year. It has been saying that we should join the EMS forthwith for years. If we had joined the EMS last year, the best rate that we could have got in against the deutschmark was DM 3·60 or DM 3·50. Many suggest that we would not have been able to negotiate such a rate.

    The current rate is DM 3·33. When the oil price exerted pressure on the pound last week, the Government, as a member of the EMS, would have been shoving up interest rates and I guarantee that if interest rates had gone up last week, we would have had an alliance motion criticising the Government for raising interest rates. They cannot have it both ways. Penalties are involved and those penalties should be clearly understood.

    The problems is not merely the lack of a guarantee that we will not have interest rate crisis of that type. I would go further than that. If the price of oil falls, it is rational that our exchange rate should be allowed to fall, because the price of a major export item is falling. That difficulty, which faces Britain because of its petrocurrency status, does not fit into the circumstances of the other nations in the EMS.

    Contrary to what has been said, criticisms of the Government’s interest rate policy could be made irrespective of membership of the EMS. January 1985 is the obvious example. The Government appeared to be giving the lie to the market that they would not intervene to prop up the exchange rate. Currency speculators had a one-way bet against our currency. The exchange rate plummeted and the Government had to compensate for that initial period of inaction by jacking up interest rates by 4 per cent. The Government can be legitimately criticised for not cutting rates last summer. They had the opportunity to cut them and their starting base would have been that much less.

    When we consider the Government’s policy during the past week, we cannot criticise them for not being in the EMS and also for allowing the exchange rate to slide. In many ways is is easier to understand the case for the Government, rather than the Opposition parties, wanting us to join the EMS. Joining the EMS implies a fiscal and monetary policy convergence. The fiscal and monetary polices of the German Bundesbank are tight. One would have thought that the alliance, which proposes a fiscally expansive policy, would be the last party to want to join the EMS. There is a clear argument for the Government wanting to join the EMS.

    The argument for the EMS is much stronger if there is an agreement, or the prospect of an agreement, on the fundamentals of macro-economic policy between the member countries. The exchange rate is important, but it is a residuary, not a fundamental. If we join the EMS, it is much better to be certain of the agreed, common policy objectives between the member countries. In relation to the importance of international monetary stability, the initiatives of the Group of Five are of greater significance than what has happened within the EMS. The G5 initiative that forced down the dollar was more important than what was happening in the EMS. The G5 countries criticised Germany for pursuing too tight a fiscal policy, but that is the fiscal policy with which we would be aligning ourselves if we were to join the EMS.

    Whether it be the EMS or the G5, acronyms are no substitute for analysis of Britain’s economy and its problems. The central and fundamental problem is how to prepare for post-oil Britain. Flutters of speculation against our exchange rate are warning signals. We either build up our manufacturing industry to generate the wealth that we shall need when oil production declines, or we face a poor and unstable future. No amount of juggling at the margin will eliminate the central dilemma. The Labour party, and only the Labour party, has the political will and economic sense to address the dilemma.

  • Ian Stewart – 1986 Speech on the Exchange Rate Mechanism

    Below is the text of the speech made by Ian Stewart, the then Economic Secretary to the Treasury, in the House of Commons on 29 January 1986.

    The right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) has made, as is his custom, an elegant speech. He was a distinguished President of the European Commission. He has always been an eloquent advocate of the cause of Europeanism.

    It is important to put the question of our membership of the exchange rate mechanism of the European monetary system into its proper perspective. It is not a question of our being for or against the development of the European Community. The Government’s commitment to constructive membership of the European Community is beyond dispute. The fact that we have remained outside the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS casts no doubt on our European commitment. On the other side of the coin, it is right to point out, too, that, contrary to the assertions from time to time of some of those on the Opposition Benches, membership of the exchange rate mechanism would not lock us into some irrevocable commitment to full economic and monetary union. The truth is more complex, yet more prosaic. The ERM is a fixed, but adjustable, exchange rate system on Bretton Woods lines intended to promote greater economic convergence between its participants, particularly on inflation.

    The Government’s position on membership has been clear throughout. We would be ready to join the ERM as and when we judge the conditions are right for us to do so. ​ I recognise that the right hon. Member for Hillhead believes that those conditions are right today. That is his judgment. However, he will recognise that many factors affecting sterling need to be weighed carefully.

    The Government have to take account of the fact that, unlike all other ERM currencies except the deutschmark, sterling is a widely held and internationally traded currency. It is, furthermore, a currency subject to different and often opposite strains from those that affect the other currencies currently in the system. We have seen evidence of these conflicting pressures in exchange market movements in recent weeks. The House does not need me to explain that conditions in the exchange markets have been, even by their standards, remarkably turbulent of late.

    In recent weeks, the major influence on sterling has been the weakening of the oil price. To some extent, this is a problem of perception. Even before the latest movements in the market, oil accounted for only 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. of our national income and less than 8 per cent. of all our exports. It accounts for only 0·5 per cent. of all our employment and only 5 per cent. of capital investment, despite the massive capital investments required to develop the major fields in the North sea. Those who operate in the markets, as many commentators are increasingly coming to note, often have an exaggerated perception of the importance of oil to the United Kingdom. That is something with which we have to live. It came as no surprise that a fall in the price of oil on the scale we have seen in the past three or four weeks, when the price has fallen by around 30 per cent., should have had some impact on sterling. I would like to think that the markets have already begun to take a more balanced view, but these realities can take time to gain hold.

    The other major factor in the exchange markets recently has, of course, been the decline of the dollar and its differential impact on other currencies. Since the Plaza agreement, the yen has appreciated by nearly 19 per cent. against the dollar, the deutschmark by about 16 per cent. and sterling by 22·5 per cent.; so the decline in the value of the dollar has given rise to substantial adjustments between the exchange rates of other currencies.

    It is against this background that we must judge the question of membership of the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS. We must recognise in so doing that for sterling to join the ERM would bring about a significant change in the operation of the system itself. At present, the deutschmark plays a dominant and central role. The addition of sterling, another widely held and traded international currency, would undoubtedly introduce an element of bi-polarity into the system with which it has not yet had to cope. It may be that it could do so, but it is a question that must give us pause. We should note that the currencies of the other two major countries in the mechanism—the French franc and Italian lira—are both protected by a variety of exchange controls.

    I need hardly say to the House that we have no intention whatsoever of restoring the exchange controls which my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary removed in 1979 when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Such controls inevitably hinder the development of financial markets. Indeed, it is interesting to note, following a point made by the right hon. Member for Hillhead, that London is one of the ​ leaders in the ecu market even though the United Kingdom does not participate in the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS.

    The question for the United Kingdom is, therefore, in a number of respects rather different from that which other member states have faced. The common element, which is insufficiently understood by many alliance Members, is that for our European partners the exchange rate mechanism is not seen as a soft option to be adopted as an alibi. There is no disputing the view of our partners that the ERM can be a helpful and effective anti-inflationary discipline. Indeed, it has by and large worked successfully for those countries participating, particularly since 1983.

    The vital question is not so much membership itself as the resolve with which responsible financial policies are pursued. It is on this point that we must have doubts about the attitude of the right hon. Member for Hillhead and his party. They are very keen to join international organisations. They want us to join the exchange rate mechanism. Indeed, the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth) was using language at Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday that suggested they also wanted us to join OPEC.

    In spite of that apparent enthusiasm for the exchange rate mechanism, it is clear that they would not be joining it in the same spirit as our other European partners. The other European countries have submitted to the discipline it imposed, and had significant success in reducing their inflation rates. Yet the Social Democratic party has revealed that this is not its intention at all. Its autumn statement published last year — a rare example of precision by a party that usually likes to leave its intentions as vague as possible—explained how it would manage the economy. It showed that the Social Democratic party expected, if its policies were implemented, inflation to rise to 7·5 per cent. in 1987. That makes it clear that the Social Democratic party regards the ERM not as a discipline against inflation but as a cover for its own inflationary public spending plans. As such a cover, of course, it would not work.

    This Government may not have joined the exchange rate mechanism, but we have remained firmly committed to the principles of financial discipline which underlie it. We have chosen a different route to success against inflation, but one which has been equally effective. The average rate of inflation during this Parliament has been just over 5 per cent., which compares with an average of over 15 per cent. for the Labour Government of the 1970s. The prospect this year is for continued falls. We expect inflation to be below 4 per cent. in 1986.

    This inflation record has been accompanied by a remarkable turnround in our growth rate, especially when compared with that of our European partners. For a decade from 1973 to 1982 we were consistently at the bottom of the European growth league. In 1983 we grew faster than any of our major European partners, we would have done so again in 1984 were it not for Mr. Scargill’s strike, and every indication is that in 1985 we shall once again be the fastest growing major European nation.

    Mr. Douglas Hogg

    My hon. Friend has told us that the Government are not opposed in principle to joining the EMS and that we shall do so when the time is right. Will my hon. Friend tell us what the conjunction of circumstances will be which will suggest to him when the time is right?​

    Mr. Stewart

    I am not going to offer my hon. Friend or the House a check list of circumstances because, as we have seen in recent weeks and days, circumstances of many kinds can change unpredictably and at short notice. The balance of judgment has to be made in the conditions of the time.

    Sir Russell Johnston (Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber)

    The hon. Gentleman has said that we in the alliance have perhaps misunderstood certain consequences of joining the exchange rate mechanism. Can the hon. Gentleman say succinctly—he has not yet done so—what disadvantages would affect this country if we joined?

    Mr. Stewart

    Greater fluctuations in the market in relation to sterling, to which I have already alluded, do create difficulties in operating any financial or monetary system. That is a point to which the hon. Gentleman’s right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead drew attention. One has to take these questions into account. There are arguments both ways on this matter and one must take a balanced judgment.

    The record of success which this Government have had, without being a member of the ERM amply demonstrates that it is commitment to sound finance and lower inflation which is the key to economic prosperity, rather than the fact of holding a club membership card in the exchange rate mechanism.

    The judgment the Government have to make in relation to the exchange rate mechanism is not, as I emphasised at the outset, one of being for or against Europe. Nor is it one of being for or against international co-operation on exchange rates. Our participation in the Plaza agreement along with other major European countries, as well as the United States and Japan, amply demonstrates such cooperation. It is rather whether, bearing in mind the practical problems, membership of the exchange rate mechanism would provide a more effective and safer means of achieving our economic objectives than the strategy the Government have followed for the last six years. Membership of the exchange rate mechanism is not a panacea, nor is it the only option. There are no magic guarantees that it would reduce inflation by itself. Membership would be successful only if monetary and fiscal policies were appropriately firm.

    Mr. Beaumont-Dark

    I agree with the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) that this is an interesting and important debate. We have talked about whether we should join the ERM or the EMS. However, one of the great problems that we face in this part of the western world is that interest rates are at such high levels — higher than any level in the history of western Europe. America should co-operate and should cease sucking in vast sums of money because it is unwilling to balance its books — there is a $200 billion deficit. Unless we get the co-operation of the United States, whether we join the EMS or any other system, we and Europe as a whole face problems never faced before. We are all pulled down because of the United States’ unwillingness to get its own books and ship in the right order.

    Mr. Stewart

    I do not think I should be drawn into a disquisition on the United States fiscal and monetary policy. I certainly accept the point that the large ​ imbalances in the domestic economy and trade account of the United States have created conditions which have caused turbulence to the rest of the world.

    The United States Administration addressed themselves to these problems more realistically in 1985—the Plaza meeting was evidence of that. The new attitude of Secretary Baker at the annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund shows that there has been an important shift in American perception of its domestic economy and the international implications of its policies. However, this does not remove the need for each country to deal with its own financial circumstances according to its own policies.

    Mr. John Browne (Winchester)

    My hon. Friend has just mentioned that the United States now has a more international perspective on these matters. Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason for this debate is that early in the 1970s the United States broke the gold exchange window and agreed with other western countries to move into an era of floating exchange rates? Membership of the EMS is not the critical issue but the restoration of fixed interest rates based on convertibility of at least one currency—

    Mr. Douglas Hogg

    It cannot be convertibility to gold.

    Mr. Browne

    It used to be the gold exchange standard. The EMS is founded on a floating base. If we choose a fixed exchange rate—which is much more important—it must be done with at least one currency that can be converted into gold at a price to be agreed. Can my hon. Friend persuade the Americans that this is an urgent problem? Would my hon. Friend urge this factor, given the Americans’ new international perspective?

    Mr. Stewart

    I am not sure that I follow my hon. Friend’s analysis and argument. However, the era of floating exchange rates was not a perverse decision taken out of the blue in the 1970s. It was the consequence of increasing instability between a number of major economies under which the old system, under any circumstances, could not be maintained. That is a different cause. Ten years or more later, we are still grappling with the consequences. The major changes in commodity prices —of which oil is the main one—were bound up with this.

    The Government have always said that they recognised the advantages that the exchange rate mechanism could offer in the way of providing a framework of financial discipline. It is not the only possible framework, as we have fully demonstrated, but, combined with the appropriate political commitment, it can indeed provide a method of reducing inflation. The considerations which I have discussed this afternoon suggest that, at present, sterling’s participation in the mechanism would not, on balance, be of benefit, although it is a question which is kept under continuous review.

  • Roy Jenkins – 1986 Speech on the Exchange Rate Mechanism

    Below is the text of the speech made by Roy Jenkins, the then SDP MP for Glasgow Hillhead, in the House of Commons on 29 January 1986.

    I beg to move,

    That this House urges the Government to bring the United Kingdom into the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System forthwith.
    The European monetary system, which this motion calls upon the Government to join forthwith, will be seven years old in a couple of months time. It was the most recent major initiative taken by the European Community and it was put into place remarkably quickly, partly because it did not involve a great series of interlocking individual decisions and therefore did not fall foul of any unanimity rules or even the need for a qualified majority.

    I tried to relaunch the idea of a monetary route forward in a speech in Florence in the autumn of 1977. The European Council after that, in December, showed polite interest, but to say that there was any great sense of urgency or serious intent at that stage would be an exaggeration. The whole thing changed dramatically in the late winter and early spring. For most of its life the EMS has had to contend with the dollar being too high. Paradoxically, that changed because of the temporarily collapsing dollar in the early months of 1978. I vividly remember the occasion when I went to Bonn and Helmut Schmidt told me that he had changed his mind and he thought it was essential to go forward straightaway. He believed that he could get it on board as soon as the French legislative elections, due that year, as this year, were out of the way. So it happened.

    The scheme was unveiled at the Copenhagen European Council that spring and was in place exactly a year later. I do not think there is serious doubt about its limited but substantial success for the participating countries. It has established the fact that it is a lasting entity, despite the fact that the buffeting waves of a violently fluctuating dollar, in particular, have been much greater than anybody expected when the scheme was being put into place. The EMS has survived well.

    There have been many changes of central rates affecting nearly all the currencies in varying degrees but they have been carried through remarkably speedily and smoothly. That is a dramatic contrast to the delayed and traumatic devaluation under the otherwise admirable Bretton Woods system. Those changes have gone through with remarkable speed. When the Foreign Secretary held the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer he presided over a number of meetings of the Economic Monetary Council which put them through. That is an extraordinary example of presiding from outside over a thing which was working extremely well internally.

    Some of the changes have not been such as to render the system nugatory. The Italians asked specially for a wider margin of 6 per cent. either way for the lira compared with the margin of 2·25 per cent. for the other participating currencies. When the Italian lira moved sharply last July, that was the first move for three years. The idea that there has been constant instability and change is certainly not true.

    The fairly recent International Monetary Fund study calculates that the EMS has taken about 30 per cent. off the fluctuations between the participating currencies that would have occurred otherwise. That has been extremely valuable, particularly in view of how much Europe has been plagued by currency fluctuations within the Community, especially in the mid-1970s. This is one of the things that set my mind moving in this direction in 1977. Europe had been doing well throughout the 1960s and the early 1970s compared with America or Japan, but in the mid-1970s it suddenly started to do much worse. I was convinced that one of the major reasons was that the 1960s and early 1970s were a time of relative currency stability in the world, whereas the late 1970s were a time of violent currency and exchange rate fluctuations. That was internal, in Europe—outwith Japan and the United States. There was a considerable effect, but it was external to those countries.

    In addition, there has been a remarkable recent development in the past couple of years in the private use of the ecu, paradoxically, perhaps, more than in the public use of the ecu. It is now a major borrowing and lending currency.
    Therefore, there is no question but that the system which, by our own choice, we are outside, is successful. I think that all the participants value it and other potential participants are eager to join it. For instance, Senor Gonzalez told me just before he came into the Community that he believed that he could bring forward by a year the date of Spanish adherence to the EMS, and he would regard that as very desirable from the point of view of full Spanish membership of the Community and influence within the Community. We might well take a little notice of that point.

    How was it that we did not join at the beginning? Three countries had doubts, although at slightly different stages. Italy and Ireland went away from the last European Council leaving serious doubts as to whether they would join. Then they took their courage in both hands and cam:, in. I am sure that neither of them has regretted that decision at all. Why not us? I heard the reasons given by two successive Governments. Indeed, they are engraved on my mind. I remember that in November 1978 I went to see the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan), and he assured me that, in principle, he would like the Labour Government to bring Britain into full participation in the exchange rate mechanism. However, he added, “I am extremely worried at being locked in at too high a rate, which would inhibit our ability to deal with unemployment.” Almost exactly six months later I went to see the right hon. Lady who still presides over the Government, and she assured me that in principle she was extremely anxious for Britain to be a full participant, but, she said, “I am extremely worried about being locked in at too low a rate, which would inhibit our ability to deal with inflation.” So we did not join. As a matter of fact, all the participating countries had lower unemployment and lower inflation than we did in the two years that followed.

    Therefore, it is difficult to believe that such fears—no doubt legitimate—as well as an endemic offshore mentality were not at work in both those Governments. That worked still more strongly than the reasons given. It was careless and sad that we should have repeated for the third time the mistake of joining late. We did so with the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and the ​ European Community in 1957. If one is joining an organisation it is sensible, if possible, to be there at the beginning because one can influence the organisation’s shape. It is better to do that than to stand aside for the third time, never learning the lesson, and saying that the shape does not fit, when one has not been there to influence its creation.

    Mr. Douglas Hogg (Grantham)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the point that the volatility of sterling, because it is an oil currency, makes membership of the EMS more difficult for this country than for the non-oil economies?

    Mr. Jenkins

    That will make British membership more difficult for the European monetary system rather than for this country. In a way, we are lucky that it has been, and is still, willing to have a more volatile currency in full membership. We want to try to control the volatility of sterling as much as we can.

    In view of the fear of the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth—[Interruption.]—what happened to sterling subsequently—(Interruption.]—

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)

    Order. If the hon. member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) wants to intervene in the debate, he should come into the Chamber.

    Mr. Jenkins

    Following the fear of the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth that he would be locked in at too high a rate, what happened was that, with us outside the EMS, sterling appreciated beyond the wildest fears of anybody in 1978–79. Over two years it rose from $1·60 to $2·40. The result was that our competitive index worsened by 60 per cent., on the scale measured by the IMF. The result of that was the destruction of one fifth of our manufacturing industry and the associated increase in unemployment.

    Nobody should suggest that membership of the EMS would have obviated all that. However, I believe that it would have reduced it substantially. It is a great mistake to believe that any monetary scheme or monetary mechanism can or perhaps should resist the long-term swell of the currency ocean. It can substantially take the top off the waves, particularly when, as happens too often, exchange rates are reacting not to differing levels of inflation, not to differing rates of productivity growth, not to trade imbalances, but much more to changes of sentiments or capital flows. The monetary system can do a great deal to cut the top off such waves.

    That was very much the case in 1980. Everybody knew that rate could not be sustained. It was just a question of when it came down. If we had been in the EMS, the bubble would have been pricked much more quickly, and the damage to our industry and employment would have been much more limited. We would have avoided much of the ridiculous parabola in the sky of sterling going up from $1·60 to $2·40 and then coming down within 18 months back to $1·60, and, for a short period, down to $1·07.

    Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)

    I should like to take the right hon. Gentleman back to some of the possible disadvantages he mentioned in relation to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan). Is it not a fact that the EMS is ​ much more than a smoothing insurance mechanism? Are there not potential disadvantages in a Government’s requirements in respect of a general economic policy to maintain parities? Is not the ruling mechanism—that of the central banks—likely to create difficulties for any member Government which they might not have if it were not a member of the system, bearing in mind particularly the strength of the Bundesbank and of the market?

    Mr. Jenkins

    I hear the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, but I think that the hon. Gentleman has himself complained about how British economic policy has developed over the past seven years. He has complained that we have had by far the highest unemployment rate in years. I do not understand how his dedicated, dogmatic anti-Europeanism can lead him to say that he would rather have what has happened outside the EMS than operate on a co-operative basis. In my view, we would have been able to avoid a significant part of the sterling fluctuation. That would have given us a substantial and healthier base for our economy.

    I have been dealing in detail largely with the past. I shall now consider the position today. Although it would be better to enter the exchange rate mechanism at any time than never to enter it at all, there are obviously some times when it would be much better to enter. This is a very good time because there is a particular conjunction between the sterling-dollar rate and the sterling-deutschmark rate. Those are the two factors of primary importance at which people have been looking in seeking the most favourable juncture.

    Last February, 11 months ago, there was a good occasion. The right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) noted that in his interesting publication, which I read carefully. That opportunity was allowed to slip away, but now there is another good occasion. The pound is approximately 3·33 deutschmarks, down from 3·75 a month ago — a devaluation of more than 11 per cent. against a major European currency.

    I believe that most of the decreases in oil prices may have occurred. The price was $30 a barrel in November. The price is moving, but let us assume that it settles down somewhere between $17 and $20 a barrel. We will have a very uncertain market, but at least the really substantial move has probably occurred.

    Sentiment in the oil markets is very uncertain, and the price is likely to fluctuate with every rumour about what Saudi Arabia is going to do, or about the date of the next OPEC meeting. The problem is how to tame the impact of the short-term changes in sentiment without hopelessly disrupting the domestic economy.

    Outside, interest rates are almost the Government’s only weapon. If we were fully in the EMS, support from our partners would provide an alternative means to manage short-term fluctuations. We would have a much better chance of living through a period of see-sawing expectations without disruptive alterations to either exchange or interest rates.

    Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark (Birmingham, Selly Oak)

    I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s argument with great interest. He talked about interest rates and the damage that fluctuation of the pound has done to manufacturing industry. The right hon. Gentleman knows Birmingham almost as well as I do, so he realises the effects. Control of the EMS would not rest on good will, ​ which does not exist between central banks—only logic does. Because of what has happened to the pound as a result of the influence of the petrocurrency, and because of the present interest rates structure, would not interest rates be 2 to 3 per cent. higher now if we had been in the EMS? Would that not be more dangerous for us than the present system?

    Mr. Jenkins

    I think that interest rates would be lower if we were in the EMS. I would not say that interest rates would in all circumstances be lower in the EMS, but I would say at the present time in my view—one can only express one’s own view—interest rates would be lower, and the immediate prospect would be one of lower rather than higher interest rates.

    Mr. Tony Blair (Sedgefield)

    The motion says that we should forthwith join the exchange rate mechanism. Suppose we had joined in October or November last year and the best rate we could have achieved was 3·60 or perhaps 3·50 deutschmarks to the pound. Considering the pressure on the pound last week, is it not the case that we would have been raising interest rates?

    Mr. Jenkins

    I am saying that we are now at the best juncture we have reached for some time. There have been other good ones. I would not have joined last October. I would have joined last February—

    Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

    The right hon. Gentleman said “at any time”.

    Mr. Jenkins

    I said it is better to get in, rather than never to get in. Over the past seven years we have become like lift dwellers in a department store. We have gone into the lift, and it has gone up and down past every floor. The attendant has called out, “Soft furnishings, hard furnishings, sports goods, toys” and we have said “No, we want none of those.” We always want to move on to the next floor. Lifts are very useful objects, but they are not suitable for permanent living. If one is always to say that there is never the perfect opportunity and thus try to get out before it is suitable, it would be more advantageous to get out on the floor that suits one, rather than on the floor that does not suit one. I would not stay in the lift indefinitely, and that is what the policy of the Government is about.

    Apart from the short-term fluctuating position, there is also the medium and long-term position, and without the oil price shocks of recent weeks we would anyway have been in for a rough landing as our oil surplus runs down. What I am saying is that our huge surplus of oil will certainly be given to Russia, and it seems to me that we greatly want the assistance, if we can have it, of our other European partners to try and make that landing smoother. Be in no doubt that having reserves 10 times ours, which are those that are at the disposal of the EMS, is a considerable benefit. We are lucky that they still want us in.

    Why do they? I think the reason bears upon another more general reason. They want us in more because of the importance of the City of London as a financial centre, rather than because of the importance of sterling as a currency. It is not nearly as important as the deutschmark.

    It is greatly in the interests of every trading country and every economy to make sense of the world monetary system. Be in no doubt, with the fluctuations that we have had recently — and I am in favour of changes in ​ currency rates which reflect realities in the performance of different economies—nobody is suggesting that we can or should resist the violent changes which make the free-floating rate the enemy of international trade, of international investment flows, and bring into being the grave danger of creating protectionist forces to a strong degree with currencies such as the dollar, which are forced up and kept at artificial lengths for some time. I do not think we can possibly put Bretton Woods back on its pedestal again, but we can create a tripod of greater stability, and if we are to do that, it manifestly has to be on the basis of the dollar, the yen, and the ecu as the currency of the European system.

    As long as Britain is outside the mechanism, the European leg of the tripod will be hobbled by the absence of the City of London more than by the absence of sterling. It is as though New York and Chicago were outside the dollar area. That is why Britain is still welcome in the exchange rate mechanism. It is also an additional reason why we should be in favour of entering it. Enlightened self-interest is our motive for getting some sense and stability back into the international monetary system.

    I am convinced that so long as Britain remains outside the ERM—outside the only major Community initiative in the past 10 years— and so long as she manifestly repeats the old habit of 1951 and 1957, we shall inevitably diminish our influence on other matters concerning the European Community. Spain noticed that fact as soon as she entered the EEC. She said, “We want to have full influence and we must be a fully participating member.” It is curious that somehow we cannot see that.

    On direct and indirect grounds, the case is strong. The moment is as good a one as we are likely to get. I urge the Chancellor to overcome what I fear has now become the Prime Minister’s prejudice and, in accordance with what is now a substantial balance of informed opinion, to get on with it.

  • Neil Kinnock – 1986 Speech on Westland

    Below is the text of the speech made by Neil Kinnock, the then Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 27 January 1986.

    For all of the people in the Westland company, the affairs of that company are obviously vital. For most of us outside the company, the affairs of the company have become increasingly important in recent months. But no one inside or outside the Westland company would have considered four weeks ago that this matter could become one of such current critical significance.

    As the Prime Minister said yesterday, it was a comparatively small thing. Now it is palpably a very big thing. It has grown in size because of the actions and the attitudes of the right hon. Lady and Members of her Administration. Of course, the Prime Minister says that it would never have assumed this proportion but for the fact that one member of the team was not playing like a member of the team. It is plainly true that we and the country would not have known what we know now but for the fact that the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) kicked over the bucket of worms by resigning earlier this month. All the dishonesty, duplicity, conniving and manoeuvring would still have been taking place. We would not have known about it quite so quickly and quite so clearly.

    Evasions, manoeuvrings and deceits nurtured this comparatively small thing until it became a very big thing. It was turned from an issue into a crisis by the dishonesty of people in this Administration. That dishonesty infected the Government’s whole approach to the affairs of Westland plc. There was a basic duplicity of their public dispassion about the affairs of that company and their private partisanship in the bids that were being made for Heseltine—[Laughter.]—for Westland. I think that may be the last occasion on which Conservative Members of Parliament have cause to be amused in this debate. Clearly, they hold a cavalier attitude towards dishonesty, which may explain the attitude of many of them—

    Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North)

    On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the Leader of the Opposition to accuse hon. Members of this House of dishonesty?

    Mr. Speaker

    I think the Leader of the Opposition would wish to withdraw any allegation of dishonesty against Members of this House.

    Mr. Kinnock

    I only withdraw allegations if the cap does not fit—[Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker

    Order. This is a debate in which the House is taking a great interest. I ask the House to keep it on a level which is in keeping with our conventions. I am sure that the Leader of the Opposition, at the beginning of his speech, would wish to get us off to a good start.

    Mr. Kinnock

    You have that guarantee, Mr. Speaker, and it will continue like that—

    Hon. Members

    Withdraw.

    ​Mr. Speaker

    Order. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw any allegations of dishonesty.

    Mr. Kinnock

    I said that hon. Members opposite have a cavalier attitude towards dishonesty. [HON. MEMBERS: “Withdraw.”] On the point of order, Mr. Speaker. On the basis of the view that you take of affairs, I will certainly withdraw what I said earlier. I said that the Government’s attitude was one of public dispassion and private partisanship. There are also the standing charges that still exist about moved meetings and minutes that were incomplete, and now we have the differing versions still existing of the meeting between Sir Raymond Lygo and the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. We know enough of the truth about the connivings of 6 January to understand that the dishonesty has run right through this whole episode. [Interruption.]

    All dishonesty has to stop. We have had two dress rehearsals from the Prime Minister full of half-truths and concealments. Today the Prime Minister must come clean. That is not only my view; it is the view expressed throughout the country and expressed by the Home Secretary in the course of his interview yesterday. Today, the Prime Minister must answer the questions that she signally and significantly failed to answer six times last Thursday.

    First, when did the Prime Minister find out about the decision to leak, how it was to be done and who was to do it? Secondly, how can the Prime Minister explain her claim that she did not know what action was being taken? Thirdly, did the Prime Minister establish an inquiry in response to the justifiable outrage of two Law Officers who felt that their integrity was being abused and compromised—

    Mr. Churchill (Davyhulme) rose—

    Mr. Kinnock

    —or was there an additional reason for that? After seven days delay, did the Prime Minister establish an inquiry whose conclusions would not in the normal course of events be published, simply because she knew that demands for such an investigation would most certainly be made? Was that inquiry established for detection or was it established for deception? Was it set up to obscure the issues and to provide an excuse for silence? Was it set up by a Prime Minister who knew very well who had leaked, why they had leaked, when they leaked and what they did it for?

    The Prime Minister must give clear and truthful answers to all of these questions. She must make no mistake. Today the Prime Minister is on trial. [HON. MEMBERS: “Rubbish.”] The main testimony against the Prime Minister is provided by herself. It is provided by her own words to this House last Thursday, and testimony is further provided by the whole nature of her style of governing. How could it be that a Prime Minister who prides herself so earnestly on her involvement in detail; who prides herself so much on her knowledge of the minutiae of her Government; who has such a deep engagement historically in the Westland affair did not know of a supremely important decision, taken by those so very close to her, to manipulate events on 6 January?

    How can it be—

    Mr. Churchill

    I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, but before he accuses others ​ of deceit, will he explain whether it was deceit that led him to falsify his age when he first put himself forward for political candidature or did he just forget how old he was?

    Hon. Members

    Oh, no.

    Mr. Kinnock

    I think that that may be the best that Conservative Members will be able to do in the course of this afternoon. That was certainly the last time that I inadvertently added a year to my age.

    On the testimony against the Prime Minister, provided by herself, we have to ask how it could be that seven days could pass before she recognised that the issue of the leak was so important that it warranted an inquiry. Who would expect us or the country to believe that 16 days could pass between the corrupt practice of that leak and the Prime Minister’s discovery of the details when the plotters were her closest confidants—her most frequent companions?

    Who would expect the House or the country to accept that in all that time the Prime Minister never asked her associates to venture even a guess about the identity of those involved in the leak? Who can expect us to believe that in all those endless hours of contact, through all those days of discussion and debate and questions, and statements in the House and in the even closer quarters of No. 10 Downing street, the Prime Minister was really blundering around in blissful ignorance of the actions of 2 January? Who would expect us to believe any of that?

    Well, obviously the Prime Minister expects us to believe that. It is clear that the Prime Minister expects the House, her party and her fellow citizens to suspend all normal standards of belief and to accept that it is strange but true.

    “Truth,” she said on television yesterday, “is often stranger than fiction.” When we heard that, as when we heard her last Thursday, many of us wondered whether the Prime Minister had lost the ability to tell the difference between truth and fiction.

    We want to know truthfully now exactly when the Prime Minister first knew of the decision to send the Solicitor-General’s letter. We want to know truthfully now exactly when she first knew of the decision to leak the Solicitor-General’s letter. We want to know now exactly when she first knew of the involvement of the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and her office in the conspiracy. When did she first know that he had given his authority, as she put it, and when they had given their cover, as she put it, to act in good faith—act in good faith by making a furtive phone call to the Press Association for the specific and carefully contrived purpose of discrediting another member of her Cabinet?

    We know that the right hon. Lady has not answered those questions. She has admitted that herself. Any statement, she said yesterday, is almost always a basis for further questions. That may be the understatement of the Prime Minister’s lifetime. [Interruption.] But all we have had so far are excuses for the omissions and evasions of last week—no apologies for not answering questions with meticulous accuracy; just attempted excuses. All we have had is the propaganda about “toughing it out”—a phrase, Mr. Speaker, which you will recall first entered the British vocabulary when it came out of Richard Nixon’s office.

    We are told that last Thursday the Prime Minister was sheltering the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The Home Secretary told Mr. Brian Walden yesterday—[Interruption.] They are going to hear it all, Mr. ​ Speaker—that he could feel the courage going through the Prime Minister when she made her statement, as the Home Secretary put it, “protecting Mr. Leon Brittan”. That excuse has palpably gone because the late Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has gone, although, interestingly, he went not without resistance. Even when the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan) wanted to do the right honourable thing and resign, the Prime Minister tried to talk him out of it and even invited him to apply for the next vacancy for “high office”, as she put it.

    But what of the Prime Minister’s excuses for the omissions from last Thursday’s statement and questions? [Interruption.] The Prime Minister said that the majority of the inquiry report—[Interruption.] Even the deliberate efforts, that will be heard by the nation, by Conservative Members to interrupt the House and to prevent someone from getting a fair hearing, will not stop the truth being heard. [Interruption.]

    The Prime Minister said that the majority of the inquiry report was new to her. She said that, until the report was available, she did not have the full facts—what she called an “enormous number” of facts. As I listened to her then and to the Home Secretary yesterday, saying how much they wanted to be able to give the full facts, I began to think that it was the Government, not the Opposition, who had got the emergency debate today. [Interruption.]

    The protest that there were just too many facts to be absorbed does not carry any weight at all. Of course, it is handy to have the full details for the historians—the dates, the times, the places, the footnotes. But only one fact was absolutely essential for the Prime Minister; one fact really mattered, and that was the fact that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and her office had conceived, organised and executed the leak. That was the fact which mattered and it was the fact which the right hon. Lady was forced to admit last Thursday. It was also the fact—the single salient fact—that the right hon. Lady was denied for over a fortnight.

    Who were these people who decided to keep the right hon. Lady in the dark?

    Who were these merciless people who made the Prime Minister, in her innocent ignorance, go through the charade of the inquiry into the leak? [Interruption.]

    Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)

    Do something about the giggling schoolgirls opposite.

    Mr. Speaker

    Order. I did not see anything going on.

    Mr. Kinnock

    Whatever anyone sees, the whole country will be able to hear what has been going on. Once again, Conservative Back Benchers have decided that, because they cannot take the truth, they will try to bury it. [Interruption.]

    We want to know who were the people who prevented the Prime Minister from being able to gain access to the single fact about the involvement of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and her office in the decision to leak. Who were the cynics who let the Prime Minister be in the dark for 16 days? Who let her come here to tell truths so partial, so incomplete, that they began to look like untruths and who let her come to make a whole speech in this House on 15 January without telling her that they ​ knew who had leaked, how they had leaked and why they had leaked? Who were these callous people who caused the Prime Minister so many problems over the weeks?

    Why, they were the Prime Minister’s own Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and, strangest of all, her own office—the Prime Minister’s very own office, her closest, most senior staff; her office which, in her own words, did not seek her agreement; her office, which, in her words,

    “considered—and they were right—that I should agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry”.—[Official Report, 23 January 1986; Vol. 90, c. 450.]

    That begs the question. If her office did not tell the Prime Minister, why did her office not tell the Prime Minister? There can be only two reasons. It was either because they did not want to tell the Prime Minister or because they did not think that there was a need to tell the Prime Minister. If they did not want her to be involved, that could be for only one reason—the simple, straightforward reason that they were doing wrong, that they knew that they were doing wrong and that they did not want the Prime Minister to be contaminated by the guilt.

    Of course, it may be that they thought that the Prime Minister did not need to know about what was going on. They might have said to themselves, “There is no need to tell the Prime Minister. We know what her attitude is to Westland. We know her attitude to the turbulent Secretary of State for Defence. We know what her attitude is to his campaign and we know what her attitude would be to us using dirty tricks to defame and undermine the Secretary of State for Defence.”

    Were the people in the Prime Minister’s office actually right about that? Do they really know the Prime Minister? Either they do know the Prime Minister and they think of her as a woman who would stoop to conquer, no matter how low, or they are totally mistaken and she is not the woman that they think.

    From the Prime Minister’s statement last Thursday it appears that they do not know the Prime Minister. We have the Prime Minister’s own word for it. She told us that her office did know her well enough to guess accurately that she would agree to the attitude taken by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and that she did not and would not have consented, if she had been consulted, because she felt that there was a different way, a better way, to make the relevant details known.

    Despite their years of close proximity and despite the deep mutual trust that has to exist between the Prime Minister and her office, it appears that they did not know the Prime Minister at all. There they were taking important decisions in her name—[Interruption.]

    Hon. Members

    Order.

    Mr. Speaker

    Order. May I say to the House that backchat does no credit to the House.

    Hon. Members

    It is deliberate.

    Mr. Kinnock

    Either they knew the Prime Minister or they did not know the Prime Minister. She says that they knew her well enough to understand that she agreed with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, but that, had she been consulted, she would have told them that there was a different way and a better way that must be found to make the relevant facts known. ​ That is all despite those years of close proximity and all that close contact. Despite all of that, there they were, taking important decisions for the Prime Minister as she busied herself yards away in Downing street.

    They did not tell the Prime Minister, so we are told. All the time, they were outrageously miscalculating the Prime Minister’s attitude towards the correct method of putting matters into the public domain. Having made that miscalculation, they then apparently compounded the fault by allowing her to set up an inquiry into a leak which they themselves had perpetrated.

    They must have been wrong—practically wrong and terribly wrong; too wrong to enable them to endure in their present positions. At least that is what we would think. How can they continue to carry out the immense responsibilities and be the object of the Prime Minister’s trust when they could be so terribly wrong, so we are told, about her attitude towards the way in which that information should be released.

    If they are so wrong, why have they not gone? They have not gone, and they are not going. They are not going because the Prime Minister says that she has complete confidence in them. Why has she that confidence in them? Is it because the Prime Minister, who has the reputation for. being ruthless with those who fail her, has suddenly gone soft? It cannot be that. It must not be because of charity. Can it be because of complicity by the Prime Minister? Can it possibly be that the Prime Minister is not innocent but that she is implicated and involved?

    For the moment, we withhold our judgment while we wait for the Prime Minister to give her account. Last Thursday, in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), the Prime Minister said that she hoped that we would have the decency to accept her version of events. We have the decency; what we lack is the gullibility to accept the Prime Minister’s version of events.

    We want the facts. We want them now. We want only the one version that will be believed—the truth, the whole truth and absolutely nothing but the truth. If the Prime Minister cannot tell that truth, she cannot stay. If she will not tell that truth, she must go.

  • Peter Morrison – 1986 Speech on the Tin Industry

    Below is the text of the speech made by Peter Morrison, the then Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry, in the House of Commons on 24 January 1986.

    I am glad that the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) has had the opportunity to raise an incredibly important matter for Cornwall.

    I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s detailed and well-informed account of the tin industry in Cornwall. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks) may be aware that I have been down two tin mines in Cornwall and I have visited Cornwall perhaps more times than any other part of the country since I became a Minister about five years ago.
    I am aware that unemployment in Cornwall is extremely high—about 19·5 per cent. I am aware also that Cornwall’s distance from market places could be described as an inhibiting factor. I believe that people in Cornwall feel that way. I think that it is fair to say—I do not say this in a patronising way—that the rest of the country misunderstands Cornwall’s position. To a certain extent, it is assumed that problems do not exist in Cornwall. When we go as tourists and holiday makers to the area, we are greeted with enormous hospitality and great generosity. The countryside is beautiful and the seaside is perhaps everyone’s dream. We do not see the true position.

    Most people would not expect unemployment in Cornwall to be 19·5 per cent., yet, in the big cities, the ​ unemployment levels are as follows: Manchester, a little less than 14·5 per cent.; Newcastle, 18·4 per cent.; Glasgow, 17·5 per cent.; and Bristol, 11·3 per cent. Even Ebbw Vale, where one would expect a much higher level of unemployment, has precisely the same unemployment level as Cornwall. I do not underestimate Cornwall’s problems. The problems are not sufficiently understood, and some people underestimate them.
    Of course I understand the position of those who work in Cornwall, especially at Geevor, South Croft) and Wheal Jane, and at the other small producers in the constituency of the hon. Member for Truro. The hon. Gentleman said that about 1,500 people work in the tin mines. About 4,500 people, including dependants, are directly affected. Many other people are indirectly employed and, not surprisingly, are worried about what is happening. They will read what has been said in the debate and dissect it carefully.

    It is still too early to judge the impact of recent developments on the commercial prospects for tin mining in Cornwall. The most important factor will be the price at which tin settles when the market reopens. Some fall in price is probable, indeed almost certain. The extent of that fall in the short term will depend on the outcome of the Government’s efforts to secure an acceptable settlement of the International Tin Council’s debts and a return to orderly trading. As it is unlikely that the International Tin Council will agree to resume buffer stock buying, it seems inevitable that in the longer teen supply and demand will have to balance—I was interested in what the hon. Member for Truro said about the tin mines of Cornwall in the market place in the longer term—and some of the world’s more expensive producers are likely to have to close as a result. It is against that background that prospects for Cornwall tin will have to be assessed.

    We have already said that we shall consider applications for grants for tin mining companies to help them reduce production costs. Since 1979, we have given grants of £3·5 million to continue projects, including exploration.

    Decisions on grants cannot be taken until we can be satisfied that any project receiving assistance from the taxpayer has reasonable prospects for a sound commercial future. I hope that the hon. Member for Truro and his constituents will understand that.

    The period of uncertainty has been lengthy, and that is bound to cause problems for some companies. That is one of the reasons why our priority is to restore orderly trading as soon as possible. That will be in the interests of everyone. That is taking longer than we had hoped, but, when 22 countries are involved, there are bound to be difficulties.

    The United Kingdom has made quite clear its readiness to meet its share of any commitments of the International Tin Council member countries and has called upon others to do likewise. Proposals aimed at finding an acceptable solution to the International Tin Council’s problems have been put forward, and we have made great efforts to resolve the crisis through diplomatic channels and will continue to do so. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that an inordinate amount of time has been spent in my Department dealing with this matter. The people involved are working nights and weekends.