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Tag: 1978

  • Michael Havers – 1978 Speech on the Official Secrets Act

    Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Havers, the then Conservative MP for Wimbledon, in the House of Commons on 15 June 1978.

    The subject that we are to debate for the next three hours was last debated in June 1973. I make it clear at the outset that I am not concerned with Section 1. Clearly, acts of spying must be made subject to heavy penalties. The only comment I would make is that, if the proposals that we are putting forward are accepted, it would be a very good thing to call the Official Secrets Act, after Section 2 is taken out of it, a better name—for example, the Espionage Act.

    Section 2 is the section which causes anxiety. The history of how Section 2 came into being bears a little examination. The first Official Secrets Act was in 1889. That dealt with spying and breaches of official trust. Crown servants or Government contractors, if under contracts they were obliged to maintain ​ secrecy, were forbidden to pass information.
    Between 1909 and 1911 there were a number of leaks of Government information to the Press. Therefore, the authorities at that time decided that it was necessary to extend criminal sanctions to the receiver of confidential information, whereas previously they had been directed only at those who gave it. In 1911 the Act was passed, and it made it an offence to communicate or to receive classified information. All kinds of official information were covered by Section 2, however unimportant or trivial, without the need to prove any unlawful intent.

    On 18th August 1911 the Bill passed through all its stages, and Clause 2 was not mentioned in the debates. The Attorney-General of the day, Sir Rufus Isaacs, said that there was nothing novel in the principle of the Bill. Second Reading took up three columns of the Official Report, Committee stage one column and Third Reading four columns, during which there was argument whether an amendment should have been accepted on Report. That was the way that the House approached the problem. We have had the misfortune ever since, and particularly since the last war, of having to manage the law as it was created in 1911.

    The Press made no comment, although it had commented on previous Bills which the Government had sought to bring forward but had to abandon. That may have been because the Bill went through the House at the time of a constitutional crisis over the Parliament Bill and attention was distracted more by that than by what appeared to be a slight tightening up of the legislation of the previous century. The House was no doubt also worried at that time about the increasing threat from Germany and anxious that the espionage provisions in the new Section 1 should become law as soon as possible. Clearly, there was no real understanding in the House of the enormous scope covered by section 2.
    Section 2 has been described as the “catch-all” section. It is extremely well set out in the Franks Report at page 14, paragraph 17:

    “The main offence which section 2 creates is the unauthorised communication of official information (including documents) by a Crown servant. The leading characteristic of this ​ offence is its catch-all quality. It catches all official documents and information. It makes no distinctions of kind, and no distinctions of degree. All information which a Crown servant learns in the course of his duty is ‘official’ for the purposes of section 2, whatever its nature, whatever its importance, whatever its original source. A blanket is thrown over everything; nothing escapes. The section catches all Crown servants as well as all official information. Again, it makes no distinctions according to the nature or importance of a Crown servant’s duties. All are covered. Every Minister of the Crown, every civil servant, every member of the Armed Forces, every police officer, performs his duties subject to section 2.”

    The stock answer to the criticism which is well set out in that paragraph in the report is that no prosecution can take place without the leave of the Attorney-General and that he will prosecute only where important breaches have occurred. That is right, but it still leaves a measure of uncertainty. In our view, any criminal statute should be certain. For example, journalists are entitled to know where they stand. It is not enough to say “All right, technically you will be committing a criminal offence but you are most unlikely to be prosecuted.”

    The area where secrecy and confidentiality should be protected must clearly be defined and limited to the extent where it is generally acceptable and compatible with open government. A balance must be struck where the public interest is protected in both ways. I mean by that that the public interest requires that matters of defence, international security and Cabinet minutes, to take just a few examples, may need to be safeguarded against public disclosure. But the public interest also requires that there is no misuse of secrecy to cover up errors or bungling or to avoid criticism.

    In this short debate I do not want to go into the area of freedom of information. I notice that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis), who is very concerned with that aspect, is present. The phrase “freedom of information” is misleading when compared with, for example, freedom of speech or freedom of choice. Freedom of information means the extent to which the public should have the right of access to official information—that is, the balance of public interest. I understand that Justice will shortly be publishing a report which will make a substantial contribution to this aspect of the subject.

    In the meantime, it is worth noting that in the United States and Sweden, for example, attempts to provide effective freedom of information legislation have proved more difficult than was anticipated. The first Freedom of Information Act in the United States became known as the Denial of Freedom Act. The Swedish Act contains 43 sections of exceptions to the freedom of information rules—a huge number of exceptions. We must also remember that both those countries have written constitutions, so that judicial intervention in establishing the rights of the citizen is much greater than in the United Kingdom. Any discussion of freedom of information must be in the context of the establishment of a system of administrative courts.

    There is no doubt that the Franks Committee made a valuable contribution to the debate about Section 2. The committee was set up in April 1971, honouring the pledge of the Conservative manifesto for the 1970 General Election.

    Although there are three volumes of oral and written evidence, the committee managed to produce its report by September of the following year.

    In June 1973 the then Home Secretary, now Lord Carr, accepted the report in general, but the Conservative Government did not remain in office long enough to implement it. In March 1974 the present Government took office. In April of that year the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), said of the Franks Report:

    “I hope to give an answer … in a shorter time than the previous Government”.—[Official Report, 2nd April 1974; Vol. 871, c. 1089.]

    We are now in June 1978. In spite of those brave words we had to wait until November 1976, when the present Home Secretary made a statement to the House. He accepted the Franks Report with certain reservations about the categories of protected information. He promised legislation as soon as possible.

    My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) asked for a White Paper or a Green Paper. That was agreed by the Home Secretary. It is now 18 months later and we are still waiting. In Opposition time we have, at last, another debate on this important subject. It is important to the Government, the Civil Service, all servants of the Crown, the public and the Press. I should have preferred a full day’s debate in Government time after the White Paper had been published so that we would have an opportunity of learning the Government’s intention. But that possibility looked so remote that we felt that we had to initiate the debate.

    We think, as we always have thought, that the Franks Committee was in general right. We accept that Section 2 of the Act is outdated and far too widely drawn. We agree that certain classes of information should be protected, as Franks recommends. This is summarised well in paragraph 276 of the report, which states:

    “a. is classified information relating to defence or internal security, or to foreign relations, or to the currency or to the reserves, the unauthorised disclosure of which would cause serious injury to the interests of the nation; or
    b. is likely to assist criminal activities or to impede law enforcement; or
    c. is a Cabinet document; or
    d. has been entrusted to the Government by a private individual or concern.”

    There is another category in Franks with which we agree—where official information has been used for private gain.

    That is another form of corruption.

    We have one major disagreement with the Franks Committee. It involves the policing and enforcement of its recommendations. Franks recommends that the areas that should be classified should be classified by regulation made by the Secretary of State, this also involves declassification. In paragraph 8 of the recommendations on page 104, it is stated:

    “Before a decision is taken whether to institute a prosecution for the disclosure of classified information within one of the three categories, there should be a review of the classification of the information which had allegedly been disclosed without authority. This review should be carried out by the responsible Minister himself. He should be required to consider whether at the time of the alleged disclosure that information was properly classified, secret or above or defence—confidential, in the sense that its unauthorised disclosure would cause serious injury to the interests of the nation. If he was not satisfied on this point, then no prosecution would be possible. If he was satisfied, he should give a certificate to that effect to the court. This certificate should be conclusive evidence of the fact that the information was classified within the meaning of the Act.”

    We agree that the Secretary of State should have the power to make the regulations, but we believe that they should be kept under continuous review by a ​ Select Committee and that the matter should be subject to the affirmative procedure.

    More important, the review as to whether the classification at the time of the disclosure was the proper classification should not rest with the Minister. That would smack too much of the Minister being judge and jury in his own cause. When any prosecution is brought for the disclosure of information, the question of whether the information was correctly classified at the date of disclosure should be considered not by the Minister responsible but by an independent committee.

    We suggest that that independent committee should be two Privy Councillors presided over by a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. The defendant should have the right to make representations to the committee, although not, perhaps, appear before it. That view is supported by Lord Rawlinson, who was Attorney-General at the time when the Franks Committee reported.

    It would be feasible for the Minister to provide the information which would enable the independent committee to form a view about whether the classification was correct. It would be similar to the committee of “three wise men” who advise the Home Secretary when he is deciding whether to deport an alien. A safeguard of this kind would satisfy Fleet Street and the general public that the information was or was not properly classified and would avoid allegations of a cover-up by the Department or Minister.

    If our proposals are accepted and form the basis for a new Official Information Act in place of Section 2, the criminal law will be used only to protect information the disclosure of which would really be against the public interest. Any potential defendant would have greater safeguards than exist under the present law and under the Franks proposals.
    It is not a question of open or closed government. If the balance can be fairly struck and impartially checked, the public interest is protected in every way. Our proposals are a realistic and responsible approach to the problem and could quickly be enshrined in our law. We hope to have the opportunity to do that in the near future.

  • John Horam – 1978 Speech on the Kidderminster Eastern Bypass

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Horam, the then Under-Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 14 June 1978.

    I am grateful to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Bulmer) for giving me the opportunity to explain to the House the present position on the scheme about which he is obviously and rightly so concerned. The background to it is the general policy set out in last year’s White Paper on transport policy and the review of schemes we then referred to and on which we reported more fully in this year’s White Paper “Policy for Roads: England 1978”.

    Following publication of the White Paper on transport policy, we set in hand the review of the trunk road programme in which we considered the need for each scheme and whether the standard for each scheme was appropriate. The method of the review was to consider each scheme in the road programme in terms of its impact on the environment, its value for money and its sensitivity to different assumptions about the growth of traffic.

    In some cases it was clear that even on the most modest assumptions about traffic growth the scheme was still needed and the standard was right. In other cases the scheme was confirmed but the standard was modified. If it were clear that a scheme could not be justified in the light of the new approach, it was ​ dropped altogether or replaced by a more limited alternative. Altogether, over 30 schemes were dropped from the programme in this way.

    For most schemes we reached a clear conclusion one way or another, although all these schemes will be kept under review and re-appraised at each stage when decision have to be taken. But there were cases, particularly those at an early stage of planning, where some doubt remained or where it was too early to determine what the standard ought to be. As I shall explain, in this case we came to the conclusion that the scheme could not be justified against our present criteria and ought to be dropped from the preparation pool. I am talking about the Kidderminster eastern bypass.
    We had not, however, had a full opportunity to discuss with the Hereford and Worcester County Council, first, the implications for that council of such a decision and, secondly and most importantly, what alternative more modest works might be needed as an alternative to building the full-blooded bypass.

    The detailed investigations into the possibility of an eastern bypass for Kidderminster to supersede the existing A449 trunk road began in June 1971, when the then Secretary of State for the Environment announced the inclusion in the trunk road preparation pool of a scheme to improve comprehensively the A449 from the Waresley bypass to Wolverhampton. Subsequently, the scheme to be investigated was more specifically defined. Its first stage was a new route between the northern end of the Hartlebury bypass, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and the boundary of the then Worcestershire County Council, the proposed route which has now come to be referred to as the Kidderminster eastern bypass

    The bypass was expected both to remove a considerable amount of through traffic from the A449 in Kidderminster, and thereby improve the environment and access within the town for pedestrians and drivers, and to complete a high standard route from just north of Kidderminster to Worcester, which would be safer and more convenient for through traffic.

    The first stage of the work included the identification of possible solutions. ​ This is normal practice, and I should explain that for almost every major road scheme it involves predicting the volume of future traffic which is likely to use the new road in the design year—that is, the fifteenth year after the road is open to traffic. In making those predictions we have to make a good many assumptions, including assumptions about other new roads which are also being planned or are likely to be planned in the intervening period. The most significant of these to the Kidderminster eastern bypass investigations has always been, as the hon. Gentleman rightly implied, the Bewdley bypass proposed by the Hereford and Worcester County Council to replace the existing principal road, the A456, through Bewdley by a route to the south of the town.

    Soon after the study began, it became clear that the justification for the eastern bypass would be substantially enhanced if the Bewdley bypass were to go ahead in the same period, and the county council’s programme at that time fitted well in this respect. Our study also took into account the possibility of a Birmingham west orbital route and the relief that a Kidderminster eastern bypass and the adjacent improved length of the A449 south of Hartlebury would give to the two-lane section of the M5 motorway in Worcestershire. Towards the end of 1974, we had identified possible solutions.

    Public consultation on these was undertaken in January 1975. By the time the results of the consultation were being examined and evaluated, changes in the Department’s criteria for making decisions on road schemes had taken place.

    First, in 1974 the Department had reviewed the carrying capacity of new roads and reached the conclusion that higher standards of vehicle construction and the improved quality of driving, amongst other factors, indicated that a road built to a given standard could carry a greater volume of traffic than had earlier been assumed. We therefore revised our design standards and issued detailed technical advice in our technical memorandum on design flows for motorways. The following year we also reviewed our national traffic prediction advice. This led to a reduction in the forecast rate of increase in traffic flows and the issue of a further technical memorandum. Improved techniques for asses- ​ sing the economic value of road schemes were brought into use at the same time.

    Along with all other trunk road schemes, the Kidderminster eastern bypass was reviewed in the light of these changes. The review began to cast doubt on the economic viability of the scheme. More recently, we have had to take account of the views expressed in the report of the advisory committee on trunk road assessment—the Leitch Committee—about the need to reconsider the methodology to be applied to traffic forecasts. On 10th January, the same day as the report was published, we produced an interim memorandum on traffic forecasting. This includes advice on how the uncertainty inherent in making such predictions should be reflected by assumptions of high and low levels of traffic growth. The economics of schemes are now assessed on the basis of the low levels. Overall decisions take account of the consequences of flows being under-or over-estimated.

    During our review this year of all schemes in the light of the policy set out in the transport White Paper and of the Leitch Committee’s report, we reached the firm conclusion that, irrespective of what the county council might decide about the Bewdley bypass and the timing of its construction, there was no case for building the Kidderminster eastern bypass for many years to come. The economic assessment produces a negative result and the environmental effects could not possibly justify any priority over competing schemes elsewhere.

    However, before taking a final decision on the future of this scheme we felt it essential to consult the Hereford and Worcester County Council, the local authority with the strategic planning responsibility for the area and the local highway authority. But consultations on these lines had not been carried out—due mainly to shortage of time—when the White Paper was published on 4th April, so we included the scheme in the section of the White Paper which listed schemes for which start dates had not been determined and, by a footnote, indicated that the future of this scheme, which was in a category with several others, was under review.

    We appreciate that a decision to abandon the Kidderminster eastern bypass could affect future consideration of ​ the proposed Bewdley bypass by the county council. I realise that the county council’s scheme is important to it in environmental and local planning terms and that any decision of ours which reduces its potential is bound to give it cause for concern.

    The hon. Member for Kidderminster understandably stated his own views on the matter. He shares the concern that both these schemes have been considered as integral, with a decision on one affecting the other. However, a decision to drop the Kidderminster eastern bypass would affect only the economic and not the environmental arguments for the Bewdley bypass, which are very strong.

    The hon. Member has mentioned to me before the consequences of the Leitch Report. That also mentioned the need for an environmental framework for any scheme. The Bewdley scheme has strong environmental advantages. I understand from what the hon. Member has said tonight that Hereford and Worcester are prepared to go ahead with it and are not necessarily proposing to defer it as a consequence of our decision on the Kidderminster scheme.

    Mr. Bulmer

    That emphasises the need for further consultation, because the scheme is finely balanced. The decision has not been taken but it will shortly be taken, so additional consultation is essential. In his earlier remarks about the Kidderminster eastern bypass, was the Minister taking into account all that might happen as a result of the break-up of the M5?

    Mr. Horam

    I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentions that point, which was also made by the hon. Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller). I have visited his area, if not Kidderminster, because I have taken a close interest in developments on the M5. The surface of that road has reached the end of its design life and it must be replaced over the next few years so that the road can be used fully. That will have repercussions for the adjacent roads. On the other hand, the complete replacement of the surface of the M5 over the relevant two-lane stretch will take place over the next four years. It is not possible for the eastern bypass to be built in that time, even if we started today, given the statutory procedures and building time. ​ Therefore, no diversion of traffic as a result of those works could be helped by any favourable decision on the Kidderminster bypass.

    Mr. Hal Miller

    Can the hon. Gentleman understand the fear not only that during the diversionary period while the M5 is being reconstructed there will be trouble on the roads but that when the M5 is completed, if it is still a two-lane road, it will have passed its capacity, which it has already reached? Therefore, there will be continued diversion, either on the A449 or on the A38. We have tried to press the Minister to have alternative provision made to carry that excess traffic.

    Mr. Horam

    That is something that we should like to discuss with Hereford and Worcester. I accept the need for consultation on that. We are increasing the capacity of the M5 to the North from two lanes to three. We shall have to take a view on whether the two-lane stretch of the M5 is reasonable for the needs of the immediate future. There may be a difference between the Department, the hon. Member and the county council, but that should be discussed. It has obvious implications for the council and for roads such as this in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Clearly, we shall take into account the ramifications of the M5.

    Another point that was raised concerned the inner ring road and any link between that and a decision on the Kidderminster eastern bypass. The inner ring road is complete on the eastern side of the town, where it is, in effect, an alternative to what would have been the eastern bypass. It is on the western side of the town, as I understand, that the remaining links are to be completed. The construction has been brought to its finality, and it is utilised fully on the eastern side of the town. In that sense, there is no immediate connection between our decision on the eastern bypass and what happens in the future on the completion of the inner city link. That is something rather separate from our decision.

    I want to make clear that the door is in no way closed. I am very anxious that we should take our decision on the scheme’s future in the light of all the facts and the detailed views of the ​ county council. When the White Paper was published, the Department’s regional director in the West Midlands wrote to the county council explaining our view that the scheme should be dropped from the preparation pool on the ground that it was not economically viable and would not lead to overall environmental benefit to the community in the immediate future. Comments were invited, and the county council has made clear that it is concerned at our decision and would like to discuss it further with us.

    The best way to achieve this is for the regional director, with other representatives of the Department, to meet representatives of the county council so that they may have the fullest opportunity to deploy their case for the scheme’s retention in the preparation pool.

    In replying directly about the suggestion that I should meet a deputation, I should prefer it if we could allow these meetings to take place between the regional director and the county council officials. I have seen the regional director of our West Midlands Region today about this very subject and have made plain my desire for the meetings to be held at an early stage so that the matter can be thrashed out without delay. I realise the implications not only for the road decisions for the area but also for the structure plan, and so on.

    As I understand it, a number of technical factors have to be taken into account, and reference has been made to one or two of them. In reaching our ​ decision on the eastern bypass, should we declare the results of the public consultation, declare a firm line and leave it at that, indicating that we do not believe that it is right to go ahead in the immediate future, or do we say that the scheme is abandoned? What happens in the Torton area, which is the real problem area, where the A499 jinks around and there are some difficult parts? What is the proper relationship, in the eyes of the county council, between the Bewdley bypass and the eastern bypass? I think that the Bewdley bypass can be justified quite independently of the eastern bypass. Certainly the decision not to go ahead with the eastern bypass will reduce the economic advantages of the Bewdley bypass but will not affect the environmental case for it.

    A number of important technical decisions will have to be thrashed out in all these areas. I should prefer it if we could proceed by means of having these meetings at official level between the county council and officials of my Department. But certainly, if the hon. Gentleman feels at the end of the day that he would like to see me with a deputation, I shall gladly see him. I feel, however, that it would be right, as a matter of practicality, to proceed in the way that I have suggested. I hope that that full and speedy consultation will sort out the genuine problems in this area in an amicable fashion.

  • Esmond Bulmer – 1978 Speech on the Kidderminster Eastern Bypass

    Below is the text of the speech made by Esmond Bulmer, the then Conservative MP for Kidderminster, in the House of Commons on 14 June 1978.

    I welcome the opportunity to put before the Minister some of the wider implications of the Government’s decision not to proceed with the Kidderminster eastern bypass and to ask him, in the light of these considerations, to re-examine that decision. If the decision is not reversed, it will have the most serious consequences for many of my constituents. It will vitally affect their chance of a job and, indeed, whether they can live at home in peace or move about their neighbourhood with ease.

    I understand that the Minister is not familiar with Wyre Forest. He would be welcome if he cared to visit us. Such a visit would aid his understanding of the problems that I wish to explain to him.

    The part of the A449 about which we are concerned runs through my constituency on its way between Worcester and Wolverhampton. It is a trunk road planned as a lorry route. It runs through sensitive residential areas of Kidderminster. The need for an alternative eastern bypass to take the traffic out of the town has been accepted by successive Governments since 1960. The present road is wholly inadequate.

    In a letter to me, the chief executive of the Wyre Forest District Council describes

    “the sheer inadequacy of that portion of the A449 between Hoobrook and Broadwaters at Kidderminster, particularly the stretch between its junction with the Comberton Road and its junction with the Birmingham Road. The volume of traffic is far too heavy for the ​ existing carriageway which is barely wide enough for two articulated lorries to pass one another. Any attempt to improve the existing A449 between Hoobrook and Broadwaters would have a catastrophic effect upon the residential properties fronting that stretch of the road. In many cases it would probably result in a complete demolition of the houses fronting the road. The cost of any such improvement would be extremely high.

    In my opinion, the portion of the A449 between Hoobrook and Broadwaters at Kidderminster was the most congested and inadequate stretch between Worcester and Wolverhampton and I just cannot understand why this section of the improvement scheme has been or is proposed to be, abandoned”.

    If the Minister were to join me and travel from Worcester to Kidderminster, he would enjoy a fast journey over that part which has been much improved between Warndon and Hartlebury. But then he would come to Kidderminster. He would be appalled by the conditions that were so eloquently described by the chief executive for Wyre Forest.

    The situation as it stands is bad enough, but my constituents have a real fear that the situation might deteriorate rapidly because of what is happening on the M5. I understand that the M5 is 10 per cent. short of saturation. But for the big increases in oil prices, it would already have reached that point. I understand that major reconstructions are inevitable and that perhaps between 16,000 and 20,000 vehicles per day will not be able to use the M5. If they do not use the M5, what road will they use? Will they use the A38, in which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller) has a keen interest?

    Mr. Hal Miller (Bromsgrove and Redditch)

    Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister to consider the effect of the extensive repairs, extending over several years, to the M5 upon traffic on the A38 going from my constituency? Will he also consider the need for the Bromsgrove eastern bypass to be completed and the possibility of widening the M5 to a three-lane highway at the completion of these extensive repairs?

    Mr. Bulmer

    My hon. Friend can draw some comfort from the fact that the police at the moment regard the A38 as a priority road to be kept clear for emergency traffic. That does not apply to the A449. At present the Department is advocating its use for holiday traffic. ​ If half of that traffic was unable to use the M5 and used the A449, the effect on my constituency would be catastrophic.

    Will the Minister confirm that virtually the whole of the road between junctions 3 and 6 will have to be rebuilt? What guarantee can he give that Kidderminster will not be shattered by heavy traffic diverted from the motorway? What steps will he take to improve the inevitable congestion in Kidderminster if he is not to reinstate the eastern bypass?

    What steps will he take to see that traffic is not diverted from the M5 through Kidderminster? The Minister may not be able to answer these questions tonight, but I hope that he will write to me in due course giving me the answers I seek.

    The Kidderminster eastern bypass has been accepted by succeeding Governments over the last 18 years. Planners have many variables with which to contend—including population, traffic flow and jobs. One that they should not have to contend with is variation of this sort. The structure plan was approved by the Secretary of State for the Environment. It projects the Wyre Forest as a growth area. We desperately need new industry. The carpet industry is going through cyclical and structural difficulties. The Government’s decision to close RAF Hartlebury meant that there were 2,000 fewer jobs in the Wyre Forest area. Unemployment has gone up by a factor of three in the last four years, and we have many school leavers who will not be able to find work this year or next.

    We have no regional aid and no development status, and we have lost rate support grant. Good communications remain one of our essential selling points. I hope that the Minister will not seek to deprive us of them.

    Our planners and the Minister’s Department have always until now accepted that the eastern bypass was an integral part of the scheme which included the Kidderminster ring road and the Bewdley bypass. The eastern bypass was the rim of the wheel, and the inner ring road the hub. A wheel may run with a few spokes missing, but it cannot function without a rim or a hub. Not to build the eastern bypass will destroy the balance of movement and have serious implications for the Hereford and Worcester structure plan and the Wyre Forest urban structure plan.

    I cannot accept the Department’s view that the bypass must be costed in isolation. Nor am I satisfied with the consultation that has been extended. The Department has to work to formulae which do not allow it to consider such factors as the benefits of jobs for school leavers or retaining inviolate such a marvellous eighteenth century townscape as Bewdley. Its calculations are over-dependent on traffic volume. We cannot accept that situation, nor could the Minister himself if he were to come to my constituency and see the problems at first hand.

    In spite of the Minister’s decision not to proceed with the eastern bypass, the county council—and all praise to it—is bringing forward consideration of an earlier start to the construction of the Bewdley bypass and phase four of the Kidderminster inner ring road. The inner ring road was started on the assumption that the Government would at some time proceed with the eastern bypass. Three stages have been completed. The remaining two stages, which have not yet been undertaken, have created extended planning blight and have made the town of Kidderminster shamefully derelict in its appearance in the parts that are affected. The need for action, as the county council appreciates, is urgent.

    The Bewdley bypass has been regarded as crucial by the county council since 1944. Bewdley is the first conservation area in Worcestershire, and yet more than 100 listed buildings continue to be exposed to increasingly serious damage from heavy traffic. The county council is determined to end this vandalism.

    The Government’s decision not to proceed with the Kidderminster eastern bypass is serious enough. But if it was seen to threaten the resolve of the county council to make an early start on the next phase of the Kidderminster inner ring road or the Bewdley bypass, that would indeed be a body blow.

    In conclusion, I say to the Minister that I am not asking tonight for money to be spent. I am asking him to come and see for himself the effect of this decision on the whole future balance of Wyre Forest. I ask him to declare the preferred line for the Kidderminster eastern bypass so that the county council can obtain the maximum benefit from the inner ring road and the Bewdley bypass.

    If the Minister is not prepared to do this now, I would ask him to meet a deputation from the county council to consider the present situation in the light of changed circumstances, in the light of what he now knows about the M5 that I do not think was known at the time, and in the light of the county council’s desire to go ahead at an earlier date with the Bewdley bypass and the inner ring road—and this certainly was not known. I am sure, too, that within the Minister’s Department there is increasing support for the Leitch Report and a desire to look at the whole basis on which weighting is given.

    I believe that the Kidderminster eastern bypass is essential to the future well-being of my constituents. I am not asking that it be built tomorrow, desirable though that would be, but I am concerned that it should remain within the planning framework to be brought forward as soon as circumstances permit.

  • Austin Mitchell – 1978 Speech on Tunnel Vision

    Below is the text of the speech made by Austin Mitchell, the then Labour MP for Grimsby, in the House of Commons on 13 June 1978.

    If I had wanted to grab the headlines or address a packed Chamber, I should not have called for a debate on retinitis pigmentosa. It is not a phrase that trips from everyone’s tongue. In my experience it is a phrase of which people fight shy. Those to whom I have mentioned it today have automatically and wittily replied “You what?” or “Say that again”. That is a reaction that I am sure accounts for the tumultuous attendance for the debate. If it had only been known that it was about tunnel vision, I am sure that the Chamber would have been packed.

    First, I define my terms. Retinitis pigmentosa is a group of diseases whose common feature is a degeneration of the light-sensitive cells of the retina. It is a deterioration that shows itself first in bad vision, impaired vision, loss of vision in dim light, such as in the dusk or in the dark, and goes on gradually to loss of peripheral vision, so that merely the central portion of the visual field remains. That is the tunnel in the phrase “tunnel vision”. It is a tunnel which all too tragically can close, resulting in complete blindness in the severest cases.

    Between 10,000 and 25,000 people are afflicted by retinitis pigmentosa—between two and five persons in every 10,000 of the population. It is a progressive, degenerative inherited disease. It is not something that one just catches.

    Apparently it is a Northern disease. It seems to be more common in the North than in the South. There is, for instance, a high incidence of retinitis pigmentosa in Tristan da Cuhna, because of inbreeding in the population. I do not know whether that explains the high incidence in the North, but it is a feature of an inherited disease, and because it is inherited there is no way of escaping it. That is the beginning of the tragedy that it poses for families throughout the country.

    The disease is often difficult to diagnose. Its victims appear awkward rather than blind. They stumble in dim light. They bump into things that are on the edge of their field of vision. In most cases, ​ however, they can still read. They can still see perfectly well at the centre of the tunnel. Therefore, missed diagnosis of the disease is all too common.

    I have a letter from a Mrs. Hoden, of East Herringthorpe, near Rotherham, that sets out a tragic example of the sort of misdiagnosis that may occur. Her two girls, who suffer from retinitis pigmentosa, were diagnosed as mentally backward, because of the effect of the disease on their ability at school. Their clumsiness at night was put down to the same thing. A boy who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa was classified as ineducable. These children should have been treated in a special school for impaired sight, not intellectual ability. They are now in that special school, but only after what amounted to years of delay because of misdiagnosis.

    Even sadder is the fact that if retinitis pigmentosa is diagnosed, the victims all too often have to be told that in the present state of medical knowledge little treatment is available in this country. Therefore, when the disease is diagnosed, all they can do is to wait for the results of research that is going on in this country and overseas. They have to wait for the development of new methods of treatment to replace the old discredited methods of vitamin injection and placenta implantation—methods tried in the 1950s and 1960s—while going slowly, irrevocably and sadly blind.

    It is hardly surprising that people are not prepared to wait. People faced with the negative despair produced by this disease and with the lack of opportunity for treatment in this country are naturally and inevitably prepared to clutch at any straw, any prospect of hope, that the disease can be not necessarily cured but checked, so that the progressive deterioration can be stopped. Therefore, they turn to hope emanating from overseas, specifically from Switzerland and the Soviet Union. They clutch at the hope offered by treatments there, because that offer of hope is not available in this country.

    I have a letter from Professor Bangerter, the head of the Opos Eye Clinic in St. Gallen, Switzerland. His English is not of the best—like mine—but he says:

    “The letters, we got from England, are so numerous that one of our secretaries is nearly completely engaged in answering them. The ​ balance of these letters is extremely oppressing.”

    He is deluged with letters from people in this country who want help.

    Inevitably, faced with the prospect of the steady loss of their sight, their friends, neighbours and acquaintances who do not want them to go blind are prepared to offer help. Therefore, appeals are made in different parts of the country, particularly in the North, to raise money to send these people to Switzerland, more commonly, but also to the Soviet Union, for treatment.

    The figures for these appeals make instructive reading. I have heard of £22,000 being raised in an appeal in Liverpool for one family—the West Vale family fund. In Retford, £11,000 was raised for a girl called Shirley Dexter. In Sowerby Bridge, £6,000 was raised for Tracy Brown. In Keighley, £4,500 was raised for Garry Turton. In Grimsby, £2,000 was raised for Sid Owen. I read them in that order, but that league table of figures is not necessarily a league table of generosity in those places. If it were, Grimsby would certainly be at the head, not the bottom, of that league. Those are the kinds of appeals which have been launched and subscribed to all over the country. The list goes on.

    The result is that people are being treated in Moscow, but more commonly in Switzerland. The numbers being treated in Switzerland must run into hundreds, possibly thousands, because of the period during which the Opos Eye Clinic has been carrying out treatment. I understand that last week, at St. Gallen, nearly a score of British people were being treated at the clinic. They included a family of 13 from Liverpool, seven of whom were being treated in the clinic for retinitis pigmentosa.

    I hold no brief for either of these treatments. A British expert from Edinburgh University, Dr. Reading, attended a USSR national symposium last December. He came away unconvinced that the Russians had made any advances in treatment. Dr. Bangerter, the founder and head of the Opos Eye Clinic, is regarded, even in his country, as a fringe figure.

    If I wanted to set myself up as a confidence trickster with the happy prospect of receiving large sums of money I could think of nothing better than to open an opulent clinic in Switzerland with large ​ numbers of patients so desperate for help and treatment that they would be prepared to fork out £700 a time for treatment and to come back every three months for further treatment and, once the initial treatment was over, to come back every year for further treatment to stop the deterioration of the disease. Such people would be prepared to pay out £10 for a box of vitamin pills, and even pay for sitting in the waiting rooms. I heard of a lad who went by himself because his money was in short supply, could not find his way round the town, and was charged for sitting in the waiting room of the clinic.

    This situation naturally produces suspicions. Those suspicions are amplified because Dr. Bangerter has never published facts to show the success or failure rate of the treatment. People will continue to go to Switzerland and the Soviet Union to pursue any available treatment, so long as that treatment holds out a hope which is not available here.
    When they return many such people claim that their sight has been improved. They do not say that they have been cured. Some newspapers have highlighted claims from people who say that they have been cured by this treatment, but no such claim has been made by the Russians or the Swiss. The most that I have seen claimed by the Swiss is that they can retard considerably the progress of the disease or stop it over a long period. There is no claim of a cure. The claim is of stopping the progress of the disease. People do return and say that their sight is improved.

    One would need a national survey to discover total figures. I talked to Sid Owen, from Grimsby. He has not had the full treatment, but he says that he can now read better than he could before. I have spoken to Garry Turton, from Keighley, whose specialist has commented on the increased activity in his eye. I talked to the parents of Tracy Brown, of Sowerby Bridge. They say that her condition has been improved by treatment at St. Gallen. I have also spoken to two others.

    I cannot evaluate these claims. All that I can do is to report that such claims are made. They could mean something or nothing. There are examples of spontaneous remission, and that could be ​ associated with the treatment. It could be anything. It could be hope, desperation, and confidence exuded by the Swiss clinic which makes people feel that they have been helped. It is also possible that having spent all the money which has been donated by others, patients will not admit that there has not been an improvement. Perhaps they claim an improvement to support those who have backed them.

    The claims of improvement which are made by those who have been to Switzerland for treatment have not been professionally evaluated. The reason for that is that in son-le cases the patients have broken with their specialists, who did not wish them to go to Switzerland. In other cases the doctor or specialist did not wish to know about the treatment. There is no collective evaluation to give us a picture of the incidence of the disease being checked. There has been no attempt to follow up the hundreds of people who have received treatment, and continue to do so, to find out whether there has been an improvement or deterioration in their conditions.

    We have not studied the Swiss treatment on the spot. The Medical Research Council’s working party on retinitis pigmentosa did not do this. So far as I know, none of the specialists who dismiss the Swiss treatment has been to Switzerland to look at the treatment, although the clinic would welcome an inspection team. I quote from a letter in Professor Bangerter’s classic form of English. He said:

    “Personally I do not have any greater desire than to finally find doctors who are ready to join us in the tight against retinitis pigmentosa. So it is quite self-evident that the English team will get any insight and complete orientation”—

    this is a typically Swiss note—

    “free of charge”.

    So these people are prepared to open up their facilities for inspection by a team from this country. We welcome that kind of inspection, but it has not so far been forthcoming.

    In answering my questions on the subject, the Minister of State has dismissed the Swiss treatment as though it were just a matter of the implantation of placenta of a type done here in the 1950s and 1960s. However, as I understand it, there is in the Swiss clinic a combination ​ of treatments which include injections to expand the vessels in the eye, the contraction of which is associated with the disease, the implantation of amnion from chicken eggs, vitamin and other treatments to check the loss of nucleic protein and, finally, play optics or exercises to expand the field of vision, the contraction of which is a dominant factor of this disease.

    If the treatment is to be evaluated at all, it must be evaluated as a collective group of treatments, each element of which might or might not make a contribution, but all of which must be taken together because it is in that way that the patients experience them. Evaluation of this treatment must be carried out, for no one who is afflicted with the disease will be prepared to heed the warnings of doctors and specialists against going to Switzerland for treatment, because no one trusts the judgment of the doctors, and will not, unless it is reinforced by a specific study of the treatment and its results.

    One needs positive evidence in order to give positive advice to people who are afflicted by this disease. Whether that advice is pro or contra, it must be based on evidence.

    I dwell on the Swiss and Russian treatments because of the numbers of people who are trying to take them up. The numbers who are seeking treatment in Switzerland and the Soviet Union show the scale and desperation of the search by those concerned for some form of treatment—the scale of demand for something to be done to help those who suffer. Clearly, no words in this House will deter those high hopes, but words in this House can add to the demand for an expansion of research into the causes and treatment. They will lead to a demand for a greater concentration of resources on this matter, particularly of money, which here, as in so many other fields, is the key to progress with the diagnosis and treatment of the disease, and the key to success.

    More prosaically, we can ask, as I have tonight, for an evaluation of the Swiss and the Russian treatments and of their effect on the people who have taken them. Preferably there should be a before-and-after evaluation, so that we can say with certainty, with authority and ​ with evidence, either that these treatments are no use and that people should not go, or that there may be something to them and, if there is, that they should be developed in this country.

    If we do not study the treatments and assess them in this fashion, we are letting down the victims of retinitis pigmentosa—people who are bound, whatever we in this House say, and whatever experts tell them, to rage against the dying of the light.

  • Patrick Cormack – 1978 Speech on Kidney Transplant Operations

    Below is the text of the speech made by Patrick Cormack, the then Conservative MP for Staffordshire South-West, in the House of Commons on 12 June 1978.

    I am delighted to have this opportunity, particularly after our last debate, of raising an important constituency case but in such a way that I hope it will help to illustrate a real national problem. I thank the Minister for being here because everything I say will be entirely pertinent to his role—and there will be nothing, I hope, that he will take as being critical of it. His own reputation in these matters is deservedly high. I do not seek to raise the case of Tonya Simpson in anything like a partisan spirit.

    What I have to tell the House is a sad but inspiring story of a very brave little child, of two courageous parents and of some dedicated and determined doctors. To look at Tonya Simpson—many people have had the opportunity to do that because of the television coverage of this case—one would think that she was an ordinary happy child. Indeed, to some degree, so she is.

    However, this apparently normal happy child was born with spina bifida, she developed hydrocephalus, and she was written off by many people. It is only thanks to the devotion of her parents and the skill and dedication, of the doctors who cared for her in Birmingham that she is alive today. Above all, it is due to her own indomitable pluck. I have never met or heard of a child with more courage. Unfortunately, in seeking to arrest the hydrocephalus—after a successful series of operations—her kidneys were badly damaged. She now suffers from chronic renal failure. So although she is not highly intelligent—one would not pretend that—she is an ordinary, bright, cheerful child who enjoys life but who faces death.

    Tonya’s parents came to see me not only because they were naturally concerned about her but because they were more concerned, in a sense, for others and hoped that in her case a national problem could be highlighted.

    Considering all those who have chronic renal failure, especially children and even ​ more especially handicapped children, one comes into contact with deep human problems. In coming to me, the parents of this girl showed great public spirit, because they know, as I know, that, whatever the Minister may say tonight, Tonya’s life is at risk even as I speak.

    As the consultant paediatrician who has looked after Tonya with such skill put it in a letter to me recently, her condition could suddently deteriorate

    “as a result of intercurrent infection or an uncontrolled rise of blood pressure”;

    or, as Tonya’s mother put it in much more graphic and heartfelt words,

    “It’s like living with a time bomb. She might die at any moment.”

    My plea to the Minister is essentially simple: if Tonya cannot be saved—I hope to God that she can—then at least let us make sure that she does not die in vain.

    The tragedy is that as things stand she will die, just like 22 other people in the Birmingham area alone over the last five years. The stark fact is that, during the next year, over 2,000 people—not counting those who are under five or over 60—will develop renal failure and that of those at least 100 will be children over five. Approximately 45 per cent. of those children, but only 33 per cent. in the West Midlands area, will be dialysed. Most of the rest will have been entered on the waiting list for death, in spite of the fact that almost all could have their lives prolonged, perhaps indefinitely, if there were sufficient dialysis and transplant facilities.

    The supreme tragedy is that it is not a question of there not being human skill available to deal with this problem. Doctors know how to treat these patients, but they cannot exploit that knowledge. Instead, they have to face the cruel dilemma—there can be none crueller—of deciding who shall profit from their skill and who shall not.

    Tonya’s doctor explained the dilemma in a letter I received about a week ago. He said:

    “Because of the physical handicap associated with her spina bifida (she walks on crutches) and her mild mental sub-normality, she has not achieved a high priority rating amongst other patients, child and adult, queuing up for our extremely limited dialysis facilities.”

    The fact that Tonya walks at all, be it on crutches, and attends a normal school, is supreme testimony both to her courage and to the courage of her parents.

    The doctor added:

    “The real point is that she has as much right to what doctors would regard as the proper treatment for chronic renal failure as any other patient.”

    I do not think that any hon. Member would dispute those words. The doctor, whose letter I found one of the most moving I have ever received, underlined the tragic irony of it all when he said:

    “The whole problem would be eased by having more dialysis facilities for one can maintain life more or less indefinitely with something like a 90 per cent. success rate by means of dialysis, and this can be used as a ‘holding operation’ until such time as a suitable kidney becomes available.”

    The need for more dialysis facilities has been accepted by this Government, just as they have rightly accepted the need for promoting the kidney donor scheme.

    In a relatively brief debate such as an Adjournment debate, I do not want to rehearse again all the arguments that the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) and others have advanced with such skill in recent months. I am delighted and honoured to see the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) here, because I know that he takes a personal interest in these matters. I do not want to repeat the arguments, although I shall refer briefly to this aspect later. I want to state a few simple and frightening facts of which the House should be aware and of which I am sure the Minister is aware. I am confident that he is as anxious as I am that the facts should be set out and should be correct.

    Britain is, regrettably, very low down in the league table when it comes to treating patients with chronic renal failure. This is sad in more ways than one, because where we pioneered we are now following. Others are taking the lead. We are approximately thirteenth in the so-called league table of European nations. The mark of our own failure was brought out graphically in a recent letter to The Times which was sent by the head nurse of a renal unit in Brussels. In that letter this head nurse made these comments:

    “It is appalling to think that whereas everyone without exception has a right to a machine ​ in Belgium, in a country such as Great Britain, whose National Health Service has been a source of inspiration and an object of envy of so many countries, there are not enough machines available, with the result that the number of deaths due to kidney failure is higher than in the majority of neighbouring European countries. In Belgium, there are almost twice as many dialysis patients per million head of population as in Great Britain.”

    Those are sobering thoughts.

    Another fact that I bring before the House is that in the West Midlands, a populous region with the great city of Birmingham as its heart, we are fourth from the bottom of our national league table in terms of the provision of dialysis facilities. What all this amounts to is that for a child to develop chronic renal failure today is as desperate as it was to get smallpox before Jenner and as tragic as it was to get smallpox after Jenner without having the benefit of the vaccination which he pioneered. For the handicapped child the situation is worse than ever.

    I make these remarks in no spirit of recrimination or bitterness. This is no party issue. I hope and believe that the Minister and I are at one. I am not making any criticisms of this Government in any party sense. What I am saying is that it is tragic that a service which was, and in some ways still is, the envy of the world, should be in this situation. It is incompatible with the idea of a National Health Service that we should have to tolerate a situation in which little children are not even entered into the survival statistics and where doctors are forced to spend agonising hours trying to decide who shall live and who shall die.

    I quote again from the letter written by Tonya’s consultant:

    “I can assure you it is a most invidious task.”

    He is referring to the task of choosing who will live.

    “Who is so elevated as to say without any sense of guilt that to treat a 55-year-old man with cancer of the lung is any more deserving than a 10-year-old child with chronic renal failure? The facts show that the results of chronic renal failure treatments are better than those of most cancer treatments, but surely our society which can afford so much money to bolster up ailing industries ought to be able to provide a better standard of health service. In other words, we should not have to he faced with these difficult decisions if more cash were available.”

    There are two points which are particularly worthy of emphasis there. First, ​ there is the fact that dialysis and transplant treatments have a better chance of success than many other treatments, especially those for cancer. The second point worthy of emphasis—and here I draw upon figures produced by the European Dialysis and Transplant Association—is that it is within the 10 to 20-year-old age group that the best candidates for successful transplants are to be found.

    What do I suggest should be done? What do I hope to hear from the Minister tonight? First, I should like his assurance that the dialysis unit at the East Birmingham Hospital, for which the local Lions Club has worked so hard and raised well over £50,000, will now be built. It is already more than 18 months overdue. That is not the Minister’s personal fault but he must regret it as much as I do. It must be built to keep faith with those who gave.

    I hope that the Minister will feel that he can point to that example of local fund raising throughout the country. He might even wonder, with his own splendid reputation in these matters, whether it is worth while creating something on a par with the Queen’s Award for Industry for organisations such as the Lions, who do so much for others and raise such magnificent and enormous sums. So I hope that he will encourage, promise and reassure in that context.

    But beyond that I want the Minister to talk to the Secretary of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer so that money can be found. I suggest that it does not necessarily all have to be new money. I suggest that we might have a critical look at the money spent on administration and on drugs within the NHS. Not sufficient doctors are cost conscious when writing out voluminous prescriptions. It may well be that some money could be found within the existing budget for the sort of facilities for which I am pleading.

    I also ask that the money recently provided for units could perhaps be used a little more flexibly than the Chancellor originally promised, so that those areas which need more staff rather than more machines can use it in that direction. I suggest also that perhaps the Under-Secretary of State could take up the suggestion by Lord Segal in another place, bearing in mind that the noble ​ Lord is a member of the Labour Party and a doctor of great experience, and perhaps commend to the Chancellor that he should allow people who give their kidneys to offset, as Lord Segal suggested, £20,000 and not have it subject to capital transfer tax. It might be an incentive to people to do something.

    I know that the Minister does not have authority to commit the Government to some of these things, but he has the opportunity to advocate them. Governments can act. When Ronan Point collapsed, new building regulations were brought in which, in effect, valued a human life at £20 million. I think Tonya’s life is worth quite a lot, and I think that things along these lines could well be done. I think that the hon. Gentleman has the public on his side—

    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Alfred Morris)

    I hope that there will be the possibility of giving a full and considered reply to the speech of the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack) in the half hour that has been allocated for the debate.

    Mr. Cormack

    I am coming to a close.

    The hon. Gentleman has the public on his side. Only today I had a moving letter from an ex-guardsman injured in Aden offering to give his kidney to Tonya. That is an offer that, unfortunately, it is not practical to accept for all sorts of reasons. I feel confident that the hon. Gentleman will agree with me that the situation is wholly unacceptable, and that it is totally wrong that a mother of a young child should have to say:

    “There is a shortage of staff as well as equipment. I can’t even be trained to operate a machine yet.”

    If the hon. Gentleman agrees, and does just some of these things, and just one extra life is saved in the next year, this debate will not have been in vain, even if Tonya Simpson does not live to read about it; but I hope and pray that she will.

  • Stan Thorne – 1978 Speech on Local Authorities and Housing Management

    Below is the text of the speech made by Stan Thorne, the then Labour MP for Preston South, in the House of Commons on 8 June 1978.

    There are clearly only a few hon. Members who are interested in the points that I wish to make. I am aware that housing is basically a local authority matter, but we are concerned nationally about standards of provision. The Department of the Environment is in business to help local authorities, where possible, to improve their housing stock and to advise in many areas, including the management of stock.

    The background to the problems of the inner town area of Preston cannot be covered in depth in a short speech, but part of the history must be told. In 1955 the council embarked upon the first slum clearance programme affecting a part of the town known as Avenham, between Manchester Road and Frenchwood Street. When clearance was under way and the cost of land was known to be £32,000 an acre, Preston was pressed by the then Minister, on financial grounds, to build upwards.

    Two multi-storey blocks, Lancaster House and York House, were opened in about 1960. They were closely followed by Cumberland House, Westmorland House and Northumberland House. To people in need, these represented acceptable residences. In 1962, further blocks, Carlisle House, Richmond House and Durham House, closely followed by Kendal House and Penrith House, provided a total of 849 dwellings of mixed types including bed-sitters and one-, two-and three-bedroomed flats.

    In 1965 the housing committee was faced with complaints by tenants of heavy condensation and various attempts were made through the construction industry to remedy those defects, without notable success. It subsequently came to ​ the notice of the council and certain social and behavioural problems were also appearing within these blocks.

    The housing committee sought, as far as practicable, not to rehouse into those blocks families with young children, but it must be reported that this policy has failed. I am not involved with many of the families with young children in these multi-storey blocks who want to get out as quickly as possible for a variety of reasons, but mainly because of the difficulties of providing children with play facilities and the mischief that children can clearly get into in that sort of environment.

    The financial problem for the local authority has been immense in terms of cost of building, landscaping maintenance, and so on, and rents have varied over the years. The conditions in these dwellings deteriorated noticeably in about 1970, when vandalism became rife and the behavioural problems produced the fouling of lifts, excess noise, bad neighbour relations and damage to windows and other property within the buildings.

    Attempts were made by the local authority to control these aspects through meetings with tenants and the scheme for locking up in one block, Kendal House, fairly early at night. That produced a pattern of breaking and entering, and was not a success.

    The operation of the lifts has produced a loss of several thousand pounds in refurbishing, and the lift suppliers have clearly lost interest in maintaining an adequate stock of spares to keep the lifts running.

    Under the Fair Rents Act an attempt was made to have the blocks valued in such a way as to provide for a reduction in rents on the ground of inferior accommodation, but that was unsuccessful. Indeed, they were rated at about £10 more than comparable properties in much better areas.

    Various suggestions have been considered by the housing committee, political control of which has changed over the years, as to alternative use. Investigations have been carried out concerning criteria for entry—for example, no young children, executive-type employment, or student occupancy through the Preston Polytechnic. The latter presents considerable difficulties in terms of finance.

    There is about £9 million owing for the next 40-odd years, and any release of accommodation for students would, I believe, not rank for grant or loan. A rent for a flat may emerge at about £20 a week. Modifications have been estimated in respect of one block to amount to £120,000. As students normally require accommodation for only 40 weeks a year the other 12 weeks’ rental presents a problem. Additionally, it must be recognised that some of the present occupants wish to remain in the buildings. One suggestion was made that the blocks be used for elderly people, but discussions with Age Concern soon dispelled that notion.

    After the decision to reduce the number of families with younger children had been taken the numbers of families wishing to transfer crystallised. There are now about 130 families seeking a transfer in a situation in which there are 2,563 families in Preston seeking a home, many of whom—it is estimated at over 50 per cent.—are priority cases.

    The house building programme of the present Conservative-controlled council is 100 houses for rent this year, with the hope that housing associations will supplement that figure. An area cleared for rebuilding, known as Maudland Bank, is presently being developed. Wimpeys are building thereon 72 houses, most of which win be for sale to local authority housing list applicants. In Ingol, about 200 units of accommodation are planned. Within Ingol and Grange Estate there are many families becoming increasingly discontented in two-, three-, and four-storey flats where they have young children and where there are problems of vandalism and anti-social behaviour.

    The Central Lancashire New Town has a role to play in urban renewal and it would be interesting to know whether it can assist in the particular area to which I refer. It is possible that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be able to comment on that. Recently the council has employed staff to knock on doors to sell houses. The end-product is likely to be 1,000 fewer houses for rent. During the past six weeks a further 270 families have been added to the priority list and the trend suggests that by the end of 1978 there are likely to be 3,000 on the waiting list in Preston. That will be the highest figure ever recorded in the town’s history.

    My purpose in raising these extremely difficult problems is to seek my hon. Friend’s advice on their solution. I recognise that that is not an easy proposition. Is there any way in which a local conference of Ministers, housing committee members and officers, Members of Parliament, community representatives within the social service sector, the probationary service, tenants and residents associations and others, could be set up to consider how in a collective way we can overcome the difficulties and plan a progressive housing policy at Preston?

    I should welcome my hon. Friend’s advice on that score. As I have taken only 10 minutes, and have done so deliberately, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins) will be allowed to say a few words to supplement the points that I have made which I am sure the Under-Secretary will find little difficulty in accepting. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise these matters.

    Mr. Ronald Atkins (Preston, North)

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) for allowing me a few minutes to make a contribution to this short debate.

    We suffer from changing fashions in planning. In the 1950s and early 1960s planning opinion favoured high-rise flats as the answer to problems of land scarcity in town centres. These blocks today are almost universally condemned by the same planners. Tenants are refusing to live in them as being unsuitable for their families or for other reasons.
    It is a pity that we cannot anticipate, or even to want to anticipate, the wishes of those who have to live in the buildings that we plan for them. This lack of consultation is also evident in modernisation. For example, some tenants are forced to accept central heating which they cannot afford to cope with and are advised to keep their windows open when condensation or fungus appears on the walls.

    There is a need for consultation and a freer choice in all housing matters. Housing authorities provide better houses, but not always better communities. The authorities do not ask grandparents whether they want to be segregated, with others, away from their children and grandchildren. They do not ask parents ​ whether they would like gran—the best and cheapest baby sitter—to live in a street nearby.

    We in this House deliberate in our Select Committees and discover that violence in the family is often due to the break-up of family ties which in the past made a family secure and a community balanced. High-rise flats are unsuitable for children, and couples need to move when they have children. How can we have a stable community in such conditions?
    There is much to be said for good old-fashioned houses to replace the old streets which are being demolished. When I was a member of the Preston Borough Council, I advocated that, as the houses in the Wilbraham/Geoffrey Street area were being pulled down, the rebuilding of the street should proceed soon afterwards, enabling those who wished to do so to remain in the neighbourhood. If the Tories had adopted that Labour policy, we would have seen houses rising on what is now waste land which attracts vandals, rubbish and vermin.

    It saddens me to see Tory district councils wanting to rid themselves of their most important remaining function—their housing services. In Preston, the housing waiting list has now reached 2,576. It has increased by 105 in the last few weeks. That total was already much too high. But, apart from not carrying on the programme which Labour started, the Preston Council is waiting for others to get on with the job of building on waste land that has been waiting for houses too long. Good housing is the most important factor in social improvement. We ignore it at our peril.

  • John Davies – 1978 Speech on Foreign Affairs

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Davies, the then Conservative MP for Knutsford and Shadow Foreign Secretary, in the House of Commons on 7 June 1978.

    I can certainly agree with the Foreign Secretary about the extent to which his speech has concentrated upon the problems and the areas of confrontation between the Soviet Union and the Western world. It is all too evident. As we look around the areas of tension world wide, it is very rare to find one where the Soviet Union’s finger is not somewhere in the pie.

    I realise, of course—and the Prime Minister said so yesterday—that not all these problems are matters of straightforward East-West confrontation. We know that underlying them in so many cases there are many ancient arguments and discussions, some which—in Africa certainly—pre-date the colonial period. They go back to tribal origins of which we are all well aware. The fact is that in each of them we see appearing the finger of Soviet involvement, to the damage of both the people themselves and certainly of our Western way of life.

    If we review the areas of tension we think of Southern Africa. We need not dwell on that area because the Foreign Secretary has said a great deal about it. However, the extent of the involvement of the Soviet Union is all too evident. It is all too evident in the Horn of Africa. We have the recent events of Afghanistan. I am far from being able to state—I doubt whether many people would be able to do so—the exact nature of the situation in that country. However, there can be little doubt that there again the long tentacle of Soviet interest has been reaching out.

    There is the problem of South-East Asia. There is the problem even of the South Pacific. In a different sense entirely there is the extraordinary effect of the build-up of the USSR merchant marine, with its predatory effect on the whole of the world’s merchant shipping. All these factors are evidence of the Soviet Union’s reaching out to damage not only us but so often the countries concerned.

    There is a great danger that we may adopt and accept some sort of false hypothesis that there is an equivalence of threat from us to the Soviet Union. That is not true. It is totally unrealistic to ascribe to the West a desire to disrupt and overthrow the Russian way of life. That has not been our objective, and it ​ is not so today. There is a great contrast between the West’s approach, which seeks to achieve change by its example and experience, by demonstrating that it runs things in a way that works better, and trying to convince others that as a result they should adopt our way of life, and the approach of the Soviet Union, which seeks to achieve exactly the same objective so often by force.

    Mr. Heffer

    The right hon. Gentleman does not understand what is going on in this world. Has he not read the recent revelations of what happened in Chile with the involvement of the CIA? There were measures taken to try to assassinate certain political leaders. That sort of thing was going on the whole time. Some of us condemn what the Soviet Union does, but it is about time that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends stopped mouthing rubbish about what happens when the CIA and others involve themselves in the internal affairs of countries that sometimes have elected leaders democratically, only to be undermined by the so-called Western standards of the CIA and others of that sort.

    Mr. Davies

    That interjection is totally wrong as regards what I said. Is the hon. Gentleman trying to tell the House that it is the purpose of the West deliberately to disrupt and undermine the life of the Soviet Union?

    Mr. Heffer

    Yes.

    Mr. Davies

    I do not know that, and I do not believe it to be the truth.

    Mr. Heffer

    You are a fool.

    Mr. Davies

    There is a total contrast between the attitude—

    Mr. Heffer

    What about Greece and the colonels?

    Mr. Davies

    I have endeavoured to answer the hon. Gentleman.

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)

    Order. I understand that the hon. Member for Liverpool. Walton (Mr. Heffer) might want to catch my eye at a later stage in the proceedings. He is not doing very well at present.

    Mr. Davies

    The contrast to which I have referred is starkly revealed in the whole of the Belgrade review of the Helsinki Final Act. The whole effort of ​ the West was to reduce tension and to improve relations by a systematic reduction of the causes of conflict within international relations generally within human rights, within normal humanitarian interchanges between States and within information on troop movements and the like.

    What was the response? It seems that it was as near to a complete negative as it could be. The reality is that the Soviet Union pursues ruthlessly the imposition of its own brand of ideology worldwide. Indeed, in President Carter’s speech he said:

    “To the Soviet Union, detente seems to mean a continuing aggressive struggle for political advantage and increased influence in a variety of ways.”

    That seems to be a just and correct statement.

    It is necessary that we seek to ascertain what is happening in the Soviet Union’s approach to the whole of its relationships with the Western world. I make some contrast with the analysis that the Secretary of State outlined. It seems that over many years the Soviet Union has been concerned with achieving equivalence or, where possible, superiority in its military preparedness, both in the strategic area and in conventional armaments, in the presumption that once that has been achieved it may argue from a position of strength and always ensure that negotiations with the West will so preserve either its superiority or at the worst equivalence, allowing it to act in other ways in regard to its own interests.

    I ask the House to take note of the fact to which the Secretary of State refered, namely, the whole conduct of the mutual and balanced force reduction discussions. That conduct has been based upon the presumption that nothing could be lost to the Soviet Union by loss of time. During the whole of that period conventional arms were being built up, so the certainty of superiority was assured. By that means the negotiations could be protracted. I fear that exactly the same approach is to be repeated in respect of the strategic arms problem. There is no change acceptable within that framework that is acceptable to the Soviet Union, and thus its superiority is either preserved or reinforced.

    Having achieved that position disarmament becomes desirable. It is obvious ​ that when one is assured of at least equivalence, and perhaps superiority, there is every interest in pursuing the whole objective of disarmament. I do not believe that the claim made recently by Russian leaders that they wish to achieve disarmament is false. I believe it to be a true claim but one which would preserve the Soviet Union’s superiority or at least equivalence.

    Mr. John Watkinson (Gloucestershire, West)

    The right hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise the increase of Warsaw Pact forces in the Central Region. However, will he concede that if we take the totality of the forces and equipment available to the Warsaw Pact forces and the totality of forces and equipment available to NATO it is clear that there is parity in a large number of areas, with distinct superiority to the West in many others?

    Mr. Davies

    That superiority has been eroded to a large extent. If we consider the totality of the balance, it is quite clear that it has shifted the other way. The balance of force has changed and a new phase of Soviet strategy has now emerged. From the time that there has been a change in the balance, objectives have been pursued by the Soviet Union by indirect intrusion rather than by the threat of overwhelming force. The exploitation of any potential weakness worldwide that reveals itself is part of the Soviet Union’s scheme. It watches out for cracks in the whole armour of global security and inserts itself in them.

    It is wrong to imagine that the Soviet Union’s whole purpose is to secure dominant situations of threat to the West. I do not believe that to be so. In many instances the internal disruption of key areas is equally as effective as the adoption of a dominant position. If it is possible to undermine areas that have an essential contribution to make to Western interests in future, as much is achieved as if a military superiority or a philosophical one had been attained. The Soviet Union has adopted a quite different approach to the problems of progressively asserting its own ideology and imposing it worldwide. The confrontation now is not a contemplation of a head-on assault but rather one of sapping the resources and morale of the West by indirect means.

    The analysis and recognition of the problem is in no way warmongering or the resumption of the cold war. That is far from my mind. Still less is it a desire to break off contact and to reject negotiation. That, too, is absolutely absent from my thoughts. However, as the Prime Minister spoke yesterday he would dangerously mislead us into seeking to infer that the true appraisal of the real confrontation is in itself evidence of belligerency. In my view, it is quite the opposite. It is reminiscent of the days of appeasement of the 1930s to suggest that a revelation and recognition of the dangers surrounding us constitute a provocation.

    It is equally dangerous to reveal dangers and to be unprepared to take what steps are possible to improve our negotiating status. Yesterday the Prime Minister, perhaps not uncharacteristically, was long on sententious utterances but, as usual, rather short on positive steps to strengthen our negotiating stance. Yet both are available. There are means of doing both. There are the instruments at hand to do so and there are the things which want doing for that strengthening.

    As regards NATO, yesterday I was concerned to hear the Prime Minister say:

    “But there is no intention that NATO should become involved in Africa.”—[Official Report, 6th June 1978; Vol. 951, c. 29.]

    But NATO is involved in Africa. It happens to be involved in Africa by its very proposition that its operational limits reach down to the Tropic of Cancer. Apart from that, it is involved in Africa because from Africa emerge many of the dangers which can provoke the very confrontation which NATO is there to face. Therefore, it is not right to try to eliminate NATO’s role from the whole of this important and fundamental area.

    Of course, I understand that there is no desire to extend the operational zone of NATO, seeing that already the disparity of forces makes the existing zone overstretched as far as we are concerned. Indeed, as regards the United Kingdom, that is all the more sorrily true when we think of the immense reductions in our own force capabilities which have taken place in the last few years. How unhappy it is that the incapacity of NATO to live up to its own necessary ​ commitments should have been so largely caused by our failure to maintain that level which we should maintain.
    NATO is undoubtedly the linchpin of Western defence. Therefore, it must take account of the causes of danger which arise globally. It cannot restrict itself to a limited zone of interest.

    Surely there must be a need for the improvement of the assessment and alarm system which detects areas of incipient danger before they arise and concerts plans to meet them. It must be done. Where else would the overhead strategy be engineered to ensure that the whole mechanism of response becomes more effective were it not within NATO itself?

    This surely is a sphere of action to which the Government must give more attention. It is important that NATO should be involved deeply in the constant forward analysis of those areas where tensions arise and where, as I said, the Soviet Union is so prepared and quickly able to insert itself to the damage of us all.

    Mr. Robert Hughes

    Could the right hon. Gentleman say in which areas of Africa recently he has been surprised at developments where there has been tension?

    Mr. Davies

    I think that the changing situation in the Horn of Africa could be said to have contained a number of surprises for many people, not least for myself, I freely admit, for many countries and certainly for the Government. There are areas where changes take place. The switching of allegiance has caused intense problems. Indeed, the Secretary of State referred to that matter earlier. In the framework of all these spheres, the interrelationships which exist between the SALT II and the MBFR talks and the whole question of nuclear disarmament, in whatever form it takes, need some point where the correlation of the West’s attitude and response to the issues concerned can be thrashed out. To my mind, it is useless to imagine that NATO has not got a fundamental part to play in that analysis.

    Mr. Roderick MacFarquhar (Belper)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    Mr. Davies

    If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue, I shall give way to him later.

    ​ Another instrument which has been inadequately used up to date is the Community. I think that the political cooperation system which was developed in the Community to seek to concert political action within the member countries has found itself too much involved in simply mouthing utterances of exhortation and philosophy which have had extraordinarily little effect on the real outrun of events.

    The use of the Community’s negotiated arrangements, either through the Lomé Convention or its association arrangements with many other States, is an area where much greater involvement of the Community in the political stability of the countries with which it is dealing can be achieved.

    A further instrument may be the OECD. The OECD has been concerned within the West and amongst the Western industrialised countries in seeking to procure certain rules of order amongst them. How much more important that it should do so in relations between Western and Eastern countries. It is ridiculous that we should find ourselves offering terms of contract and credit to the East for the purchase of ships and other materials which we would by no means offer to our own industry. Surely this is an area where again instruments are available and can be turned to the advantage of the West.

    Of course, the Foreign Secretary dwelt at considerable length—I understand it—on Africa. Africa is a case study in itself of the current confrontation. The Secretary of State spoke a great deal about the Zaire problem, and I understand that.

    Mr. MacFarquhar

    Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the whole question of Western instruments, obviously there are three levels at which these can be discussed in the new way. There is the level of rhetoric, and I assume that he does not wish to limit himself to that. There is also the level of analysis. The right hon. Gentleman talked of NATO being able to provide analysis. But I think that the right hon. Gentleman has to go further, especially as regards NATO, if he means that NATO has got not just an interest but the means of doing almost anything in Africa, which would mean that the NATO treaty should be changed.

    ​Mr. Davies

    I said earlier that I doubted whether NATO’s operational zone could be extended for want of the capacity effectively to handle it. At the moment that must be the truth. But its importance in terms of correlating the activities of either groupings or individual States which may be involved seems absolutely intense and needs to be most actively pursued.

    The Secretary of State dwelt particularly on the issue of Zaire, and I understand that. But the problem is far more generalised. It seems unquestionable that Europe and Africa are irrevocably bound up with one another in a mutual interest. Europe’s deep dependence on Africa’s natural resources, be they mineral or food, is one side of the equation. But Africa’s equally deep dependence on Europe’s contribution to its development and management is no less serious. These two continents have got to find means of helping one another and they have to engineer, through their institutions, arrangements to ensure that help. Either deprived of the other’s contribution becomes precarious or worse.

    One has only to see the problem in many countries in Africa today when, either by their own will or by some accident of fate, they have deprived themselves of the input which the Europeans can and should effectively make. It is tragic to see it. We must find means round this immensely difficult problem.

    In no sense is what I am talking about a kind of neo-colonialism. It is not that, whatever. There is a state of interdependence which is fundamental. When the Foreign Secretary speaks of methods of monitoring the adequacy with which aid moneys and the like are utilised, of course we are immediately faced with the smack of neo-colonialism and the paternalism which he condemns. But it is necessary to find methods by which this interflow of materials and products resources on one side and of knowledge and ability on the other is preserved and improved.

    It suffices only for the disrupter to disrupt that interflow—to disrupt the ability of those countries to be able to count on the continuing movement and source of their own needs—for the whole situation to be damaged beyond repair. It is not necessary to install hostile regimes. The spread of Marxist ​ philosophy is not necessary, provided one can so ruin the countries concerned that they can neither take advantage of the Western input of ability nor provide the resources which are their principal source of prosperity.

    The evidence is all too easily available of just the kind of deterioration of which I am speaking. In the last few days I have been speaking to several major employers of European staffs in Africa. I spoke to both African and European employers. They ask—and I understand why—”what chance is there now of getting our people back into these areas?” I believe that 30,000 Belgians are employed in Africa. Many of them are leaving because they have no assurance of the future in that continent.

    Unless we take urgent steps to help, the same will happen in Rhodesia. All those people upon whom the development and prosperity of that country depend will find it impossible to retain their livelihoods there and they will seek to go elsewhere. This is a role for the European Community, perhaps within the framework of the renegotiation of the Lomé Convention.

    Surely the Community could find some way whereby it interposes itself, on the one hand, to guarantee Europeans against massacre—and that involves the question of whatever forces are required—and to guarantee them against being deprived of property and unreasonable political interference; and, on the other hand to guarantee the Africans against exploitation, which they fear, and external domination which they also dread and which they see as a continuation of overbearing colonialism.

    A composite approach to the problem is required involving not only firefighting forces, although they are necessary. Without such an approach we shall not persuade people back into Africa. It must also provide technical and managerial pools and financial guarantees.

    Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)

    The right hon. Member is right to concentrate on the political and economic stability. But in a significant passage he said that there must be protection for Africans and Europeans alike. I accept that we have seen certainly a Cuban and possibly a Russian involvement, the presence of Belgian and French troops, an ​ American airlift and a Chinese interest in Zaire, but what form of firefighting force has the right hon. Gentleman in mind? He says that NATO is overextended. Does he have in mind a European force, a United Nations force or an OAU force?

    Mr. Davies

    In my view such a force, particularly in Africa, would be formed within the framework of the discussions between the European Community and the African members of the Lomé Convention, in order to give the mutual guarantees that both sides ardently require. I do not know whether it should be formed entirely from African sources, entirely from European sources, or from both sides. Within the framework of that convention, the whole purpose of which is to do what I ardently plead for—to try to make Europe and Africa combine for their mutual advantage and protection—it must also be possible to provide for that type of security.

    Dr. Owen

    The right hon. Gentleman is developing an interesting argument about the use of the Lomé Convention. I am sure that he knows that this suggestion would be strongly opposed by our European partners who are currently opposed even to a human rights clause in the convention. They believe that the convention should not involve any form of political interference. The British Government have argued for an ability to intervene on human rights. If we were to extend such intervention to political and defence issues we should be met with considerable resistance, not least by the French Government.

    Mr. Davies

    I understand. But two things must be said. First, the inclusion of the human rights clause, which I applaud, is a unilateral proposal. What I am proposing is something which has benefits for both sides. Secondly, there has been a substantial change of mind in the last two or three weeks because of what has happened. I find it remarkable that it was the French Government who earlier this week were trying to feel their way towards some composite form of safeguarding force. That is a new attitude for the French Government. Let us take advantage of that new mind, if it exists.

    Mr. Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler (Norfolk, North-West)

    Does my right hon. Friend agree that the human rights ​ clause for the convention is being opposed by the francophone countries and many others in the Community because it would interfere in the internal running of the countries which are signatories to the convention? But a non-aggression pact would not be open to the same criticism.

    Mr. Davies

    The mutuality of what I am suggesting has a strength which the unilateral approach does not seem to have.

    There are many other spheres in which the European Community can be advantageously deployed if there is determination and effort. Undoubtedly, in strengthening and reinforcing the growing and more encouraging developments in the countries covered by the ASEAN agreement there is an opportunity for action by the European Community which it has not yet adopted and has not been encouraged to adopt.

    It has a less evident but significant role to play in Middle Eastern disputes. The same is true in the Greek-Turkish dispute. The instrument of the Community can, by political will, be turned not only to consider the economic interchange but the political difficulties in the areas concerned. The Community must be led to take a more positive view of the need to take action to assure the maintenance of the great outposts of Western life in the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.

    There is much action which should be taken and which is positive and useful. It is fine to stand on principles. I thought that what the Secretary of State said was of a noble-sounding character. But it sounded as if he were standing off from the problem. We have to stand into the problem and really get to grips with it. Our complaint about the Government is that they seem to vacillate while the President of the United States has today reiterated his more positive and determined attitude to resist the inroads into our Western way of life. I believe that the world can be made a safer and more prosperous place. We have a part to play. We can and must play it.

  • David Owen – 1978 Statement on Foreign Affairs

    Below is the text of the statement made by David Owen, the then Foreign Secretary, in the House of Commons on 7 June 1978.

    I know that the House is pleased to have two days to devote to the subject of foreign affairs. There must be few occasions in recent history when there has been so much genuine concern about the direction of foreign policy and such a questioning of the relationships between East and West.

    I shall speak this afternoon mainly about Africa. I shall relate my remarks about Africa to the whole nexus of problems, particularly to East-West relationships and what we increasingly describe as detente.

    Nobody in the House wishes to question the fundamental principle underlying detente—the need for a closer working relationship between the two major super Powers in the world, the United States and the Soviet Union. Although no doubt different opinions will be expressed in this debate as to how the process of detente should be managed, and although there will be different interpretations as to what each of us can legitimately expect to extract from our relationships in that process, particularly about the motivation of the Soviet Union in entering into detente, I hope that no voices will be raised in this debate asking us arbitrarily to stop the process of detente.

    Certainly if that view were to be advocated, Her Majesty’s Government would reject it decisively. There can be very few people who would wish to return to the situation that obtained at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, when Mr. Khrushchev said so graphically that the smell of burning hung in the air. For those of us who lived their early adult life through that experience, there can be no wish to return to that kind of dangerous situation.

    Equally, although detente has made considerable progress, and although under successive Governments there has been a fair and broad measure of agreement as to how it should be pursued, there are still grave dangers in the world. I believe that it is vitally important that relations ​ between the two super Powers should be of such a managed quality that the element of risk and of danger is reduced to the bare minimum.

    I believe that the President of the United States is totally committed in pursuit of that aim. I have no doubt whatever that, provided he can satisfy himself that he can negotiate a strategic arms limitation agreement which is fair to both the Soviet Union and his own country, an agreement that protects the vital interests of his partners in NATO, he will make the second strategic arms limitation agreement. I believe, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday that such an agreement will be negotiated before the end of this year.

    Furthermore, I believe that the involvement of the United Kingdom Government with the United States and the Soviet Union in pursuing a comprehensive test ban treaty is a most important development. I believe that we are near to the stage of reaching agreement and that we should pursue that end.

    In seeking that element of detente, in wishing to make a contribution to the discussions which are now taking place at the Special Session of the United Nations in our work in the detailed disarmament discussions, in pursuing a complete eradication of chemical weapons, and in advancing many of the initiatives put forward by the British Government, with the support of many of our allies in the United Nations, I am certain that there is common ground.

    Furthermore, I am convinced that there is common ground in the Soviet Union. It is sincerely and deeply committed to detente and to the element of arms negotiations, particularly relating to nuclear questions. I am less convinced yet of the Soviet Union’s determination to put the same effort into conventional arms negotiations as it is prepared to put into nuclear arms negotiations.

    It is extremely important, as the world sees its scarce resources bound up in ever-increasing arms budgets, that we do not lose sight of the dimension of conventional arms and the extremely large budget which is now forming part of the Third World’s budget on conventional arms, which it can ill afford, certainly often fuelled by Soviet Union arms supplies but also often fuelled by the Western World as well.

    The first test of a real commitment to conventional arms control measures will come before the end of the year in the attitude of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries to mutual and balanced force reductions. The negotiations have been continuing for some years. It is extremely important, if those negotiations are to survive and we are to build on the years of dialogue that have gone before, that we should move them off dead centre and make progress. When President Brezhnev visited the German Chancellor he signed a joint agreement with the Federal Republic which indicated that they were not seeking exact equivalents on all weapons systems but accepted parity in nuclear and conventional weapons. The acceptance of parity underlay SALT I negotiations and is part of the current SALT II negotiations. The concept of parity is essential in mutual and balanced force reductions.

    Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds)

    The Minister says, I am sure with sincerity, that Mr. Brezhnev is anxious to achieve arms limitation. Has the Minister also seen President Carter’s statement of this morning in which he said that the Soviet Union is now engaged in an extensive and excessive military build-up far beyond any legitimate requirements for her own defence? How does he square those two propositions?

    Dr. Owen

    It is always wiser not to give way too early in a debate. I was talking in terms of conventional arms. I drew attention to the fact that the degree of commitment to it has not been proven. I was isolating the lack of progress over MBFR. I was going on to say that during the time which we have been discussing MBFR and the concept of parity there has been an ever-increasing build-up in Soviet conventional weapons, particularly banks and particularly in the central front. There has also been the development of a new weapons system, the SS20, which though called a strategic nuclear weapons system and which therefore comes into the SALT negotiations, is strategic for all of us in Western Europe. It could be targeted on all the major cities of Western Europe.

    During this time, particularly in the area of conventional weapons, there has ​ been no evidence of the same commitment to parity and to a readiness to accept arms control methods. I was to develop the argument. I believe that that requires a response from the West. When there is a clear trend of increased defence expenditure and increased quality of defence equipment across two alliances, it is extremely foolhardy for the Western Alliance not to respond.

    Far too little publicity was given in the recent NATO Conference to the central achievement of that conference. It started when President Carter in the London NATO Summit a year ago called for a response from the West to the continued arms build-up of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. Many people a year ago were very sceptical whether there would be a response. Over the last decade there has been an understandable reluctance—because none of us wants to increase our defence budgets—to match the increase. Each year people had thought that perhaps we could make progress on MBFR, or that it was simply the Soviet Union deciding that it wanted a world maritime role and, that since it was a major super Power, there was bound to be a rapid growth, building up its navy from virtually nothing in the late 1940s and going through the 1950s and 1960s. There were a lot of rational explanations.

    When I was most involved in the balance of forces in 1969–70 there was some exaggeration of the imbalance then existing, but nobody, looking back over the last five or six years, can mistake the trend. We can argue about the percentage of gross national product and about particular weapons, but the trend is clear. It was that trend to which President Carter asked the Alliance to respond. Therefore, the long-term defence improvement programme was set in hand, and a contribution was asked for of a 3 per cent. increase in the defence budget from the member States. In Washington the decision on that contribution was taken. That was an important decision. I dare say that it was the first time in the history of the Alliance that it made a concerted response. That was the right and necessary response.

    However, there is nothing incompatible between making that response and in Washington taking the decisions to make that response effective in detailed planning of weapons’ systems and the deployment of forces, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the world and the NATO powers contributing to the debate in the United Nations on how we can do something about disarmament and arms control. It is consistent, given the present situation, that we should respond to an increase in Soviet Union spending and in the quality of forces but redouble our efforts to achieve balanced arms control measures and reductions in budgets, in numbers of men and in quantity of weapons. That has been the British Government’s position.

    On that aspect of detente there is a great deal of understanding between the Soviet Union and the West. The question for us is: why the Soviet Union, at a time of genuine commitment to nuclear arms control measures, has allowed this very large increase in its conventional arms in particular and the build-up of forces in Europe. That has been done at the same time as the Soviet Union has built up its forces on its border and in the immediate area around China.

    There has always been the argument that the Soviet tendency is to over-insure. That is deep-seated in history and has not come about since the Second World War. There is the legacy and there are the memories of the Second World War, a subject referred to by President Carter in his speech. That is an obvious motive. Whereas when Khrushchev was in power we were always conscious that there was a debate taking place between the executive branch of the Government in the Soviet Union and the military about the relative spending and of the competing claims on scarce resources—an argument which is well known in all of our democracies—it is striking that that argument has not seen any obvious light of day over the last few years. I do not know whether this is a conscious decision, but the political leadership genuinely pursued detente in terms of arms control in nuclear weapons, and usually the closer one gets to nuclear weapons and the awesomeness of their power, the more there is felt to be a commitment to try to do something to contain them. If there is not a conscious decision, there is at least a seeming acceptance that the military should continue to expand and ​ to go for the weapons systems of its choice and that it should not be faced, as the military has to be faced in most of the Western democracies, with the balance of priorities between spending on defence and spending on other matters. One of the central issues that the Soviet Union will have to face if we are to make serious progress in detente is that it will have to come to grips with defence expenditure and with the arguments of its own military.

    There are two other areas of detente where there would be nowhere near as much agreement. The first is human rights. This was an aspect which was put into the negotiations in Helsinki in 1975 and which is resented by the Soviet Union which feels that the West pursues this aspect of detente in a way which the Soviets would call almost aggressive. They would certainly see the West as giving an unbalanced priority to human rights. The other area is the extent to which detente operates outside Europe and worldwide. These are the contentious areas.

    As to human rights, it may well be that in Western democracies, where there is an automatic assumption that most of those rights are both natural and self-evident, there may have been a tendency to believe that there would be more rapid progress as a consequence of the Helsinki conference than was ever likely or possible. I do not believe that Western democracies should shift one inch from their commitment to human rights. It has always been inherent in the process of detente that while we would make progress towards managing relations between countries in a more orderly way, there would not be a cessation of ideological disputes and arguments. The Soviet Union has never claimed that this was involved in the detente process. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said when he was Foreign Secretary, there is no armistice in the wars of ideas.

    There can be no agreement to hold off discussion of central issues such as the weight we respectively give to democracy, to individualism as opposed to collectivism and to dissent as opposed to unanimity. Therefore, the Western world is bound to pursue those issues and those who hold a different ideology are bound to pursue their views.

    As the process of detente continues, we are faced with the inherent contradiction that is implicit in detente. On the one hand, we try to widen the areas of agreement, but on the other, by the mere process of coming closer together, by working together in terms of industry and cultural exchanges and by the mere juxtaposition of our peoples, some of the different ways in which an individual lives his life in either of the two ideologies create tensions and conflicts. This is bound to happen. That tension is inherent in the detente process.

    Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)

    Does my hon. Friend agree that we also feel strongly about what happens in relation to human rights in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay?

    Mrs. Lena Jeger (Holborn and St. Pancras, South)

    And Czechoslovakia.

    Mr. Heffer

    I am talking for the moment about those countries that are not part of the East European bloc. There would be no suggestion on our part that we should go to war with those countries, but that should not stop us from saying that they should restore human rights and civil liberties at the earliest possible moment. In the same way, we say that to the Soviet Union, to East European countries and—Conservative Members should take note of this—to China.

    Dr. Owen

    I agree with my hon. Friend. That is why the concept of human rights is such a powerful concept in foreign policy. It does not discriminate between countries and ideologies. Those who hold dear the values of democracy are able and should uphold the values of human rights whether in Leftist Communist regimes or in Rightist Fascist regimes.

    One of the most interesting developments in the House in the last few years is how the voices on both sides have increasingly tended to show concern for human rights under Left or Right extremist Governments. Two or three years ago, my hon. Friends were always being accused of selectivity in human rights. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), by his concern about what has been occurring in some East European countries and with his well-known views about Chile and South ​ Africa, has shown the sort of balance that ensures that our voice carries more strength because it is not selective. It is directed at any abuse of human rights.

    In the relationship of East-West issues, we should not disguise the fact that progress will not be as fast as we wish. It will be contentious and it will create tensions in our relations. However, having said that, I do not believe that we should back off or change our policies. It is right, though, to make the distinction that the Government have consistently made. There is a difference between the way in which a Government pursue the issue of human rights in direct governmental relationships and the way in which individuals pursue the issue.

    The most powerful concept of human rights is that it works through the public and through the attitudes of a country to its foreign policy. No Government can have a foreign policy in isolation from the attitudes of their fellow countrymen. This is one issue which the Soviet Union must start taking more into account. If it pursues a policy that ignores the valid concerns of Western democracies about human rights, it will contribute to a build-up of public attitudes in those democracies to which every Government will be bound to react.

    That is not to say that Government policy must be wholly reactive to public opinion. It must be prepared to lead public opinion, but if the public feels that the process of detente is all give on our side and that nothing is being returned from the other side, it will soon ensure that we do not make agreements that the Government may wish to make. We would be restrained. That is the sort of pressure that we are beginning to see operated in the limitations on the freedom of manoeuvre of the American President and it would soon be felt by a British Foreign Secretary.

    The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries must recognise that our concern over human rights is a legitimate part of detente. It is a matter that we shall pursue. But we must recognise that it is only one aspect of detente and we should not bring the whole process to a crashing halt because we are not making progress as fast as we may wish in this extremely delicate area which goes to the root of many ideological disputes.

    I turn to the subject of Africa. Here again there has been a tendency, particularly in the last few months, for people to feel that detente is threatened. I do not think that any of us has denied that if detente is to gather momentum—and I have never believed that it is a passive process; there is a passive policy of detente, but there is also a dynamic policy—it must go into new areas and must take a managed relationship and greater harmony out into areas such as Africa.
    There is little doubt that in the past year or more there has been growing evidence that some of the ideological disputes and East-West tensions have been taken away from Europe to other areas, particularly Africa. However, it would be a gross travesty and a corruption of the evidence and the facts to say that Africa is solely an East-West issue. It is not.

    In going through each of the different issues that we face, I wish to say to the House why I believe that it is not the case. I believe that it would be gravely damaging for our policy and standing in Africa if we were to allow this to be portrayed as a purely East-West struggle, although there are elements of East-West tension within it. There are elements of East-West competition within most of the trouble spots. But the Government stand absolutely firm on their belief that African problems are by far best dealt with by African nations.

    We stand firmly behind our support for the Organisation of African Unity, which faces some extremely difficult problems. This is a grouping of 49 countries with diverse economies, diverse religions and diverse languages. It would be extraordinary if they were able to have the degree of unity, for instance, that we manage to get within the Community of the Nine. We may think that our own unity is not strong but it is certainly envied by many other nations. We have shown an ability in the European Economic Community to come together and make collective decisions over a wide range of areas. Many other regions envy this and are far from being able to achieve it.

    I turn to Zaire, which is the most immediate issue facing us. What should the response of the West be in Zaire? Let us go back in history to the spring ​ of 1977, when there was a similar incident on the borders between Angola and Zaire. At that time the French Government responded to a request from a sovereign Government to fly troops from Morocco down into Zaire. The troops were requested of Morocco by Zaire, and Morocco asked whether France would fly troops down there.

    At that time we had a political cooperation meeting in London and I was in the chair. The entire European Community supported the decision that was taken on that occasion. In retrospect, I think that we ought to have done more to try to stabilise the economic and political factors in Zaire. We were given a warning sign then, although I may say that a great deal of effort was made, particularly by the Belgian Government. This is an example of how deep-seated is the problem and how very difficult it will be to establish economic and political stability in Zaire, because so little progress was made during that time.

    We have made a modest contribution, helping in every way we could, to the efforts to deal with the current problem in Zaire. I believe that, faced by the danger to the lives of expatriates in part of Shaba Province, the French, Belgians, Americans and British were right to do what they could on a humanitarian basis to save life. Tragically, we were too late for many people. I have no doubt that we were right about that action that was taken. I have also no doubt that the Belgians and the French, when asked to keep their forces in the area for a short period of time, to try to ensure the establishment of law and order, were right to keep their forces there. They have had our support.

    The next question is much the hardest one. What should be done once the emergency is over? I believe that, through a combination of Press stories and statements, the West has been in danger of getting its priorities somewhat wrong. I believe that the first priority now for Zaire is political and economic stability.

    In this connection a most important event has taken place over the last three days. The decision of President Kaunda to meet President Neto was extremely important, as was the decision of President Kaunda to meet President Mobutu. There is no doubt whatsoever that the three countries concerned—Zambia, ​ Angola and Zaire—will have to come together in a political agreement to settle this long-standing problem.

    This is a problem that the world has known about for some time. The Congo is still with us and its legacy still lives on in Shaba Province. This is shown by the number of refugees. I was talking this afternoon to the High Commissioner who is dealing with the refugee problem, and he told me that there are over 200,000 Angolans in Zaire and Zaireans in Angola. There is a lesser number of refugees in Zambia. Those three countries have a deep-seated political problem which has its roots in the Lunda tribe. The problem has a long legacy. There is much suspicion and much fear, and a very enlightened political leadership will be required in order to resolve these problems. These political problems cannot be resolved against a background of military and economic instability.

    With regard to the economic instability, a meeting is to take place in Brussels, called by the Belgian Government, on 13th and 14th June. This has been in prospect for some time. It is a meeting between the Government of Zaire and other concerned countries, and the International Monetary Fund, to tackle the economic problems of the area. The Paris meeting was also addressed to the question whether five of the Western countries most concerned could develop an economic and political policy, and also a policy on some aspects of the security position, in order to try to stabilise Zaire. Unfortunately, we allowed the military aspects to dominate the headlines. We allowed the military issue to come first, important though it is. It is immensely important to try to get the key technicians for the copper and cobalt mines in Shaba to stay. This is the key to the economy of Zaire. They will not stay if they think that their security is threatened. In that respect the security position has to be addressed.

    Mr. Frank Allaun (Salford, East)

    As three of the Governments represented in Paris are intervening militarily in Zaire—and the British Government have rightly disavowed this intervention—will the British Government withdraw from the gang of five? If next week at the Brussels conference there is any sugges- ​ tion of military intervention, will the Government dissociate themselves from it?

    Dr. Owen

    I do not think that my hon. Friend has followed my argument. I said that I thought that we were right in sending RAF Transport Command to Zambia. In fact, it flew into Zaire at one stage. This was for the purposes of humanitarian assistance and it was part of a collective response. My hon. Friend said that three Governments are involved. Only two Governments are involved on the ground. The Americans were involved in transport. The Belgian Government have today made a decision about withdrawal, and so have the French Government. The French Government have said that they would withdraw. The United States Government have been faced with the problem that the Government of Zaire have asked them to do what the French Government previously did—that is, to fly Moroccan troops down there to replace the departing French troops—and the Americans agreed to do this. I do not think that they could have done anything else in the circumstances.

    I want now to move on to the longer-term problem—

    Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North)

    Without any reservations whatsoever I condemn the killings in Shaba Province of whites and blacks and condemn whoever was responsible for it, but will my right hon. Friend address himself to the question how we can ensure peace and stability in the area for the indigenous population, as well as expatriates, if we maintain by military support a corrupt regime, whose record of killing of people in Angola and in Shaba leaves us all with feelings of great horror? How can we provide any stability if we support corrupt regimes by military means?

    Dr. Owen

    This is one of the greatest problems that we face. We have to live with the Government who are there. I believe very strongly that the problem which my hon. Friend puts forward is a central one. If the West’s support for Zaire—and I stress that it is for Zaire—was not to be contingent on certain conditions, we would be making a great mistake. I believe that our economic support and all other forms of support now must be clearly and deeply contingent on a monitorable plan for economic assistance, economic reform and restructuring ​ in that country to ensure that the money goes for the purpose for which it is allocated and for which it is given and also that it is accompanied by a readiness to look at political solutions to problems and, if possible, a widening of the decision-making structure and political involvement in that country.

    I want to stress that I believe that we have an opportunity to create a strong Zaire. But if we do it in a way which says “This is carte blanche to do what you like” we shall make a grave mistake. I am not in favour of too much paternalism, but in this case I believe that it will be necessary to ensure that there is an agreed economic plan which is kept to and a degree of political commitment and widening out.

    This is one reason why I am particularly against seeing these issues as an East-West struggle. If we see it as an East-West struggle, we shall be dragged in day by day to supporting purely a particular regime or a particular group of individuals, and we shall lose sight of our central objective, which is to support Zaire and the stability of Africa in that region.

    As for the question of military intervention—and I deal with it because it is a serious problem—would that it were so easy and would that it were possible for security to come purely and simply from the indigenous forces of that country. That would be by far the easiest solution. But I believe that it is reasonable for troops from other African countries to be called in by other Governments if they wish to do so.

    Here I come to this suggestion of a Pan-African force, and I must say that I still have great difficulty with what this concept is. I see a European Community which in 1954 failed to agree on a defence community. I do not know what people think of or mean by a Pan-African force. Are we asking the OAU to have a structure, and a command structure, or are we asking for a collective response? Certainly I think that we should involve the OAU as much as we can in any military questions which are being asked. I think that any questions which are being asked about military support there are more likely to come not from Africa collectively but from the region, and that it would be helpful ​ if the type of military response was always seen as a response by a Government asking for support from other Governments. For instance, in 1964 in East Africa when this arose, it was an emergency action initially and then one other African Government came in and put their troops at the disposal of the Government. That was a decision taken at an OAU meeting.

    If we are to have that sort of response, I think that it should be geared to Zaire and Zaire’s problems. There is no African country which will put troops at the disposal of any country. They will judge each one on its merits. They will ask themselves “If we put in our troops, which country, under what circumstances, and what are the arrangements?” If some permanent military defence structure for Africa comes, it will come from the OAU. The belief that such a structure can be built up by us in the West, with a lot too much talk of NATO involvement, has made some of the sensible security arrangements which ought to have been made over the last few weeks much harder to achieve. Now, by standing back a little, let us hope that we can provide a sensible security structure which will be seen to be supporting the Zaire Government and not polarising the issue into East-West relations and which will allow for a political framework.

    We ought not to forget that the OAU has attempted before—recently not always with a great deal of success, but in the past with considerable success—mediation and conciliation, and I believe that we should encourage that process now. In the last Shaba incident in 1977, Nigeria worked very hard to try to achieve conciliation.

    Concerned involvement from the West is helpful to Africa. Many African countries want it, and we should not be ashamed to demonstrate it. But it is the way that we do it and the manner in which we do it which is important. If we see it as being to help Africans solve African problems, I believe that it will meet with a response. But if it is seen as the West intervening in Africa, I believe that we shall not get the sort of response that is wanted.

    I should like now to say a little about Francophone Africa and Anglophone Africa. Recently, I have tried to develop ​ closer relationships with many French-speaking African countries, and I believe that it is in British interests to do so. Similarly, I believe that it is in our interests that France should show more interest in the Commonwealth African countries, and I am glad to say that they have been doing so. There has been a considerable degree of discussion.

    It does not matter if the West’s response is not always identical. It is one of our strengths in dealing with the East that the West, because of its diversity and because of its pluralist democracy, does not always have an absolutely unified response. Someone said that the Soviet Union can sing in unison but that the West must try to sing in harmony. Sometimes we shall have different emphases and different shifts. It is helpful for the West—for the United States, for us, for the Federal Republic of Germany and for France—to work closely together in Africa, but not just exclusively.

    When Belgium has, as it has, a very intricate knowledge of Zaire, we should work with the Belgians. We worked with Canada in Namibia as part of the five-power initiative in the United Nations because of our membership of the Security Council. We worked with Italy over Somalia and Ethiopia.

    Here again, I come back to some of the debates in this House of very recent memory and to some of the urging which I received, especially from the Opposition, that we should have intervened with arms supplies to Somalia, when I stood firm by the OAU principle that we should respect the territorial integrity of the countries and that we should not put ourselves on the side of those who would run down the easy route of trying to change the map of Africa by force. It might look easy for a few weeks, but it would result in total havoc for Africa—a Pandora’s box.

    At this Dispatch Box day after day I had to defend our decision to defend the territorial integrity of Ethiopia, not because I approved of what was going on in Ethiopia then, not because I approved of that Government’s human rights record, but because I did not believe that a decision like the Ogaden and a dispute as deep-seated as the Ogaden could be supported by force, and I was not prepared to put the West on the side of the wrong on the issue of principle. I believe that ​ it has greatly strengthened our ability now to respond in Zaire that we did not put ourselves on the wrong side in that dispute.

    Equally, I believe that by singling out Eritrea, which was an internal dispute, as an area in which the Cubans would be very ill-advised to intervene, in marked contrast to their previous support for the Eritrean Freedom Movement, and by questioning their non-aligned status, we contributed to a rethink of the Cuban position. I believe that Cuba now is finding some difficulty in establishing itself with others in the non-aligned world as truly non-aligned. I believe that that worries them, and well it might, because their actions have not been the actions of a concerned non-aligned country. They have followed slavishly the line of the Soviet Union. If they wish to re-establish their non-aligned credentials, I believe that they must now show their willingness to withdraw or at least to reduce their forces in Africa. They have a perfect example to reduce their forces in Ethiopia. The issue of the Ethiopia-Somalia border dispute which they went into is now, we hope, being resolved. The Minister of State is now visiting Kenya and will be visiting Somalia.

    I wish to improve our relationships with Somalia, but I do not wish at the same time to have no relationships with Ethiopia.

    At this stage I would like to suggest what the West can do, and why I believe that the last few weeks have shown a lack of confidence in the West’s policies in Africa. Over the last few years, I believe, the West has improved its standing, its position and its ability to influence in Africa. I do not take the defeatist view of our lack of influence in Africa.

    We shall carry influence in Africa by sticking to principle. It will be achieved by pursuing, even through long-drawn-out negotiations, the negotiated path to independence in Namibia and by doing the same thing in Rhodesia and bringing Zimbabwe to independence. It will not be achieved by having a foreign policy that flutters around on the wind of editorial policies that often change three times in ten days. It will be achieved by having principles and sticking to them, by refusing to simplify extremely complex issues and by being prepared to take one’s stand on principles.

    Because it has been prepared to condemn abuses of human rights in Africa—not just South Africa and apartheid, but in Uganda and action over the Central African Empire—the West will have some influence long term on that pattern of government.

    I believe that if we hold steady, even on Rhodesia, in dealing with the problem that has bedevilled us for more than 12 years, there is a prospect of a negotiated settlement. I believe that the atmosphere in that country and around it is coming close to a recognition that there must be negotiations between all the parties and that the round-table talks must take place. Given persistence, given that we stick to our principles and are not backtracked into other parts of Africa, and given that we do not damage our standing in other parts of Africa, we can achieve the settlement that we all want to see in Rhodesia.

    That settlement will not be achieved by going down one side or another or by embracing the internal settlement, which has many features that are inadequate and will have to be negotiated. It will not be achieved by attending meetings of the internal settlement. It will be achieved by holding our position on principle and by being prepared to bring together all the parties, those outside and those inside. I believe that that could happen. The settlement will be achieved not by being thought to be, or being seen to be, supporting any one group of nationalist leaders but by letting that decision be taken by the electors.

    In Namibia and in Rhodesia we have the chance of an internationally acceptable solution as a result of fair and free elections, with United Nations peacekeeping and involvement if necessary. That is a great prize. It is a prize which the Soviet Union has never been able to contribute to Africa. We want to achieve that type of high-level commitment to a negotiated settlement, to peaceful objectives and to the principle of an African solution. We ought to help with aid—

    Mr. Michael Brotherton (Louth)

    Aid to guerrillas.

    Dr. Owen

    The hon. Gentleman can always be guaranteed to introduce that sort of comment. I suggest that he should ask himself about his own contribution to Africa. Given the position of demo- ​ cratic countries and our policy of not supplying arms to freedom movements, he should ask himself whether in standing aside from them altogether, having no relationship with them, and not giving any form of humanitarian help, we would not do the very thing that the hon. Gentleman so dislikes—push them ever further into the arms of the Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union. One of our greatest problems is that because we do not supply them with arms and other countries are prepared to do so, we lose influence and we have to redouble our political efforts.

    It is wise for us to put economic aid into these countries. I am not at all apologetic to the hon. Member over the fact that we have an aid budget for Mozambique. I believe that it is a great mistake to believe that one influences countries by cutting oneself off from them. It is very rare that one can totally cut oneself off from countries which have governments which are recognised in the United Nations and free and sovereign governments recognised by the OAU. The fact that we have relations with Angola and Mozambique helps us to influence their policies.

    Mr. Brotherton

    While conceding that the Foreign Secretary may be convinced by his own argument, I want to press him on how he can reconcile his high-minded argument about principle with giving money to people in Mozambique and Angola in order to enable them to murder blacks and whites alike in Zaire and Rhodesia.

    Dr. Owen

    Of course we are not giving money to them for this purpose and all the money is contingent, qualified and carefully selected so that it cannot be given for such purposes. If some of it slips in the wrong direction, I would be very grateful to have information about it and I will do my utmost to stop it. But given the choice, it is wise to keep relations with those countries, to keep our influence with them and to try to ensure that they remain non-aligned so that they are not driven ever-increasingly into a Marxist ideology and total alignment with the Soviet Union. I believe that same policy is applied elsewhere.

    I am perfectly prepared to believe that wherever possible one should open a dialogue. I know that there are some ​ hon. Members who criticise us for not holding a dialogue in the Middle East and there is some substance in some of those arguments. It would be very much easier if some of the groups with whom hon. Members think we should have a dialogue would at least recognise the state of Israel. It would be very much easier to have a dialogue if that formal recognition could be given.

    I have tried to relate in a whole variety of different parts of Africa these complex issues of East-West relations. They are very difficult. There is no doubt that it is not in our interests to see a Marxist ideology spread across Africa. I do not believe that it is in Africa’s interests either. Many people in Africa know this.

    We should be more confident about the whole of our aid budget. The Soviet Union spends less than 0·1 per cent. of Soviet GNP on foreign aid. In fact the value of Soviet aid to developing countries has declined since 1973–74. The Soviet Union makes no contribution whatever to the North-South dialogue. The Soviet Union is not making friends in many of these countries. Where the Cubans have involved themselves they have often found themselves very soon in dispute with the country into which they have gone. In the Horn of Africa the Russians supplied arms to Somalia and to Ethiopia. Both those countries were under Soviet influence but, hopefully, one of those countries will come increasingly into a friendly relationship with us now that it has withdrawn to its own boundaries.

    In acting as we have in this matter we have retained the friendship of Kenya which, at one stage, could have been gravely damaged had we followed some of the advice that some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen urged upon us in the House.

    There is no simple easy one-paper policy for dealing with Africa. But I believe that if we apply principle, if we have courage and steady nerves, we shall have a policy for Africa which will enrich Africa, contribute to that continent and its future and in the process increase the standing of Britain, increase our export effort and our industrial involvement in that continent, and bring greater peace to the world.

  • Michael McNair-Wilson – 1978 Speech on RAF Greenham Common

    Below is the text of the speech made by Michael McNair-Wilson, the then Conservative MP for Newbury, in the House of Commons on 26 May 1978.

    Before I start my speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I have your guidance? I am listed on the Order Paper as starting the debate at 2 p.m. You have allowed the debate on unemployment in West Belfast to go on for a further eight minutes after 2 p.m. May I hope that you will allow me the same leniency, so that my debate will not be foreshortened, as clearly the Order Paper requires that it should not?

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton)

    I quite understand the concern of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson). I can put his mind at rest. The matter is entirely in the discretion of the Chair. Although the previous debate overran, and I know that two other hon. Members, as well as the Minister, desire to intervene in the hon. Member’s debate, it is conceivable that I shall show latitude there as well. I hope—piously, perhaps—that in later debates the time may be made up in other ways. The hon. Gentleman does not need to worry unduly.

    Mr. McNair-Wilson

    I am most grateful for your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and most grateful to have the opportunity this afternoon to debate the future of RAF Greenham Common in my constituency. As you may be aware, the future of the base and whether it is to become fully operational again has been exercising my mind and the minds of many of my constituents since February of this year, when I was informed that the United States authorities had requested the reactivation of Greenham Common as a fully operational air station from which to operate 15 KC135 tanker aircraft.

    The KC135 is generally acknowledged to be one of the noisiest, if not the noisiest, four-engined jet aircraft flying anywhere in the world today. It was the forerunner of the Boeing 707 airliner. Because it is a military aircraft, it has none of the sophistication in terms of noise suppression machinery which might be found in existing marks of the 707. Fully laden with 27,000 gallons of aviation fuel, the KC135 has a long, low take-off and climb, during which it emits a very high level of jet noise, which has been described as a shattering roar. Local officials in my constituency estimate that operating these aircraft from Greenham will mean that literally tens of thousands of people living along an 18-mile by 2-mile-wide corridor through West Berkshire from the end of the runway will be subjected to noise levels of not less than 100 pndB, a level which will be extremely intrusive and disturbing. Those living close to the base and immediately below the flight path will be subjected to noise levels as high as 135 pndB, a level which outside their houses could cause physical pain.

    As well as the thousands of houses around the base, there are also 12 schools and two hospitals, one of which is for geriatric and maternity cases and lies directly under the flight path. On take-off the KC135 emits a large quantity of dark smoke and unburnt kerosene which causes an odour and fall-out nuisance. By anybody’s standards, it is a very unsocial aircraft. Yet if Greenham is reactivated that is what my constituents will have to live with, plus the danger of one of these aircraft being involved in an accident and falling on parts of Newbury, Thatcham, Greenham, Brimpton or, conceivably, even Aldermaston, with consequences which could be catastrophic.

    That is the nature of the threat to those living around Greenham and in West Berkshire. At least, that is what we suppose it to be. In fact, since the United States proposal was put in at the beginning of this year nobody, either from the United States Air Force or the Ministry of Defence, has proffered any details as to exactly what we should expect.

    Such details as I may myself have gleaned I owe in part at least to a visit paid to me by an American general in 1977, at the instigation of the Minister of Defence, when he gave me certain facts and figures on a confidential basis and until the proposal was put in. Those are all that I or my constituents have had to go on. We are at least grateful to General Rosencrans for his candour and responsibility in telling us what he thought we might have to put up with. I therefore hope that this afternoon the Minister will show the same candour and responsibility. I hope that he will break the wall of silence and tear away the veil of secrecy which surrounds the American proposal.

    Before asking a number of key questions with regard to the American proposal, it might be helpful if I explain the genesis of RAF Greenham Common and show how we have come to the situation in 1978 that this non-operational air base is now threatened with reactivation.

    Greenham Common was first requisitioned in 1939 by the Air Ministry and was used as an airfield by the RAF until the end of the war. It was then partially derequisitioned, so that by 1950 part of it had been returned to agriculture and several of the air base buildings had been demolished. In 1951 it was requisitioned again, this time for the use of the United States Air Force, which operated from it until 1964, when it was closed. It was closed in such a definite way that in 1964 a civil servant in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government wrote to the Berkshire County Council that

    “The Ministry of Defence no longer has any interest in the use of this airfield for flying purposes.”

    In fact, the base has remained non-operational ever since, although in 1968 it was designated as a standby deployment base for the United States Air Force in the event of an emergency.

    In 1976 it was used by the United States Air Force for its F111 strike aircraft while the runway at Upper Heyford was being resurfaced. The noise of those aircraft brought me literally shoals of letters demanding to know whether the Americans were remaining at Greenham for only the three months which they promised or whether their temporary stay would become something rather more ​ permanent. I have passed many of those letters on to the Minister. He may remember that on 16th December 1976 he was able to write to me, and I was able to write to my constituents that the Minister had said:

    “There is no intention to alter the standby status of RAF Greenham Common and consequently, of course, no plans to station any aircraft there permanently.”

    The Minister’s assurance set the minds of my constituents at ease, and mine with them.

    Since the F111s had flown away and peace had been restored to Greenham Common, we thought that that was the end of the matter. But, of course, the Minister’s assurance was just one more assurance along the line since 1964. It was his assurance and assurances like it which prompted local authorities in Berkshire to allow so many houses to be built near the air base. It must have been that sort of assurance that the Department of the Environment was working on in 1975 when, on appeal, it consented to allow the construction of 81 houses in Russell Road, very close to the air base. Then, emboldened by that decision, and no doubt by its conversations with the Ministry of Defence, the Department of the Environment gave consent on appeal in 1976 for 620 houses to be built at Thatcham, again extremely close to the base.

    I remind the Minister that that was far closer than the advice which the Government gave to local authorities in their White Paper on airports policy earlier this year, when they stated:

    “New housing developments should not be permitted in areas close to major airports seriously affected by aircraft noise.”

    The White Paper acknowledged that

    “Of all the problems associated with airports, the disturbance caused by aircraft noise remains the most serious.”

    Yet those consents were given although the local authority had originally turned down the requests.

    Today we have around Greenham many thousands of houses which will be very seriously affected if the base is reopened. Many hundreds of people have bought those houses on mortgages and have used their life savings. Since February of this year, when the American proposal went in, they have seen the value of their houses ​ plummet. It is estimated that £1 million has been wiped off the value of houses in and around the Greenham air base.

    The Minister will know that I have asked him what compensation the Ministry of Defence is prepared to give to those people if it is decided to let the Americans use Greenham. What sort of grant is the Ministry prepared to give to all those other people whose lives, from the moment of reactivation, will be intruded upon by excessive noise which will spoil the quiet existence which they are now enjoying? I remind the Minister that if Greenham were a civil airport both the compensation and the noise insulation grants would be given as a matter of course. It would be less than justice if my constituents could not enjoy the same privilege.

    I have outlined the American proposal and how we believe it will affect us if Greenham is reopened. I have traced the history of the base to the present day. I should now like to ask the Minister to spell out the details which so far no one has given us. Will he tell me just exactly what the American proposal involves? Will he tell me whether the 15 KC135s are all the aircraft that will be stationed at the base, or are they just the thin end of a very much bigger wedge? Will he say how long the Americans intend to keep the base open if he gives them consent to use it?

    Will the Minister say what are the most up-to-date noise levels of the KC135 and what sort of noise footprint they will create around the base and in West Berkshire? Will he tell me what noise suppression procedures American military pilots are required to follow? Will he say how many American service men will be stationed at Greenham? Will he say what sort of build-up in road traffic we should expect? Will he tell us that the MOD and the USAF are working out compensation plans for householders whose properties have been blighted and that they are prepared to give noise insulation grants? Will he perhaps tell me that a decision has been made whether it is to be Greenham?

    My constituents and I believe that Greenham is the wrong place for the tanker aircraft, for some of the reasons that I have tried to explain. If anyone seeks to tell me that it is the cheapest ​ of the alternatives available, I think that I can and will reply that perhaps it is cheapest in physical terms, but what about the cost in terms of human suffering from excessive noise, what about the blight on house values and what about a despoiled rural environment? These, too, have a cost, and they have to be put in the balance before any decision is made.

    We all recognise that NATO needs strengthening. We recognise that new air bases may be required and may have to be reopened because the existing ones are utilised fully—if they are. I submit, however, that Greenham is not the only air base standing vacant and that the problems surrounding its reactivation outside an emergency or war-time situation require that it should remain on standby and nothing more for as far ahead as anyone can see.

  • Joan Lestor – 1978 Speech on Whooping Cough Vaccine

    Below is the text of the speech made by Joan Lestor, the then Labour MP for Eton and Slough, in the House of Commons on 26 May 1978.

    My debate follows well from the subject raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley). Last July the Minister and I met on a similar occasion. Following that debate he wrote a letter to me about whooping cough vaccine. I had asked him during the debate why smallpox vaccination was no longer advocated as a routine measure for young children in this country. The Minister promised that he would let me have the answer in a letter.

    Two weeks later he wrote to me and said that smallpox vaccination was no longer advocated as a routine measure because the incidence of smallpox abroad had declined and that therefore the risk of a child contracting it in this country was now less. He said that it was felt that the risk of damage from the vaccination was more dangerous than the likelihood of small- ​ pox. That is true, and has been for a long time.

    I wish to find some common ground with my hon. Friend before I begin the main thrust of my argument. I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that in all these illnesses, whatever the efficacy of the protection might have been, good health, sanitation and improved environmental circumstances have contributed as much, if not more, to the erosion of these infections than has any form of vaccination.

    It is common for the Department of Health and Social Security to say that since the vaccination was introduced among young children in the 1950s, whooping cough has declined, but whooping cough was declining in this country long before vaccination was introduced. An examination of the figures at the turn of the century proves that. Instances of whooping cough have risen and fallen over the years, but they have never been as great as they were when the disease was at its peak at the turn of the century, although there have been epidemics.

    I take issue with my hon. Friend and shall continue to do so until I at least am satisfied, because whatever one’s views might be about vaccines in general, the anxiety about the whooping cough vaccine and the way in which the situation has been handled by the DHSS is militating against the use of many other protective vaccines for young children.

    My hon. Friend is not a doctor. His colleagues are not doctors, neither am I. Ministers rely for their conclusions on advice and judgments given to them by advisers under the Committee on Safety of Medicine.

    When the medical profession disagrees as profoundly as it does on the question of whooping cough vaccine any layman or woman has a right to go to other sections of the medical profession and ask them their opinion. Is what such people say being evaluated properly? Those who first questioned thalidomide were told that they were foolish, that there was no evidence, and that it should be ignored. A time will come when, just as we see contraceptive pill after contraceptive pill withdrawn because of new dangers associated with it, other drugs will be withdrawn. A few people stand out and say “I am not satisfied. I am ​ not happy”, and one must take note of them.

    For most of my information, but not all, I shall quote Professor Gordon Stewart, of Glasgow—who is well known to the Department—and Dr. John Wilson, of Great Ormond Street. It is well known that cases of whooping cough have been declining for a long time.

    I wish my hon. Friend to establish an important matter. We were told that there would be an epidemic of whooping cough and that unless there was a massive campaign of vaccination of children against it all hell would break loose. We were told that there would be a devastating epidemic. We have had epidemics before to a greater or lesser extent. The most important consideration, however, is the number of children who, having been vaccinated, were among the increasing number of cases in certain parts of the country subsequently to suffer from whooping cough. The evidence to that effect is mounting to considerable proportions. Again, I refer my hon. Friend to the work that has been done by Professor Gordon Stewart in this respect.

    I believe that the evidence will ultimately show that children who are vaccinated against whooping cough suffer from it far less severely. In the early days of vaccination, doctors, believing that vaccination gave total protection, were not notifying cases of whooping cough. I hope that the Department is checking the research which has shown that recent cases of whooping cough have occurred among children who were vaccinated against the complaint. Large numbers of children—Professor Gordon Stewart puts the figure at 70 per cent.—who were found to be carrying whooping cough had been vaccinated against it. In addition to the dangers, therefore, there is doubt about the efficacy of the vaccine.

    Much was made by the Department and my hon. Friend the Minister about the possibility of an epidemic and about the need for a campaign. In spite of the advice that the campaign should be delayed, he took the view that it should go ahead. He said that children who had been damaged by the vaccination would be compensated, and that the risk from the vaccination was so minimal and the risk from whooping cough so great that it was better to have children vaccinated.

    It is interesting to note, however, that the incidence of measles, rubella, and influenza, as well as other children’s illnesses against which protection can be given, have all increased. Has the DHSS done it work to check whether the increased incidence of these complaints has occurred among children who were vaccinated? If that is so, why pick out just whooping cough, particularly when we know some of the dangers associated with the vaccine?

    Figures have been published from time to time showing the risk of death from whooping cough. The group most at risk from whooping cough always has been babies and young children. The few deaths that have occurred in the current outbreak of whooping cough have been of young babies. The reason is that young babies cannot be protected against whooping cough. Babies can be vaccinated against whooping cough only between the ages of nine and 12 months, and therefore babies outside that age range are at risk from whooping cough, whether there is a programme of vaccination or not.

    Even before vaccination was introduced, young babies died more frequently from whooping cough than did older children. It is an illness that proves fatal in very young children. We now know, therefore, that babies cannot be protected against whooping cough. Even so, the Department is considering reducing the age for vaccination in order to concentrate the efficacy of the vaccine into a shorter period of weeks or months. If that is so, the DHSS must proceed with care. It may cover itself by saying that children at risk should not be vaccinated, but how on earth does one establish whether a young baby is at risk?

    I do not believe that the Department can ever establish the common factors among the children who were damaged as a result of the vaccine to enable it to determine which group of children is at risk. That is because there were no common factors. Many children who suffered damage from the vaccine had not been thought to be at risk. Just what is the area of risk? What were the common factors among the children who were at risk? What were the common factors among those who suffered brain damage as a result of the vaccine? If we do not know what these common factors were, how can we say which children are at risk?

    There is talk about bringing down the age in order to concertina this thing in to protect young children, but if children who have been vaccinated are getting whooping cough—I think that the evidence that has been presented is overwhelming—the likelihood of offering greater protection to babies seems very suspect.

    Secondly, and, of course, more importantly, if—I do not know this—the DHSS decides that it would not be sensible to bring down the age of vaccination for young children, they will continue to be at risk, and they have the biggest risk of death from whooping cough. It has always been the argument about death from whooping cough that has been the main thrust of the argument for vaccinating children. But young babies have always been at risk in relation to the older children in the family.

    Professor Gordon Stewart says that the vaccine is fairly ineffective and that this fact has been hidden because doctors believed that children were not getting whooping cough because they had been vaccinated. It is interesting that the baby in the family has often had whooping cough and no one has known where the baby has got it from, because the rest of the family have been protected. But if Professor Gordon Stewart’s argument is correct, that it merely lessened the symptoms but they still got the disease, of course babies were still getting whooping cough. There is little that one can do about that, with or without vaccine.

    I put another point to my hon. Friend. Has the extent of the damage to the vaccine-damaged children been quantified in any way? People talk about brain damage, but we know of cases of paralysis, of various types of mental defects, of continuous screaming, and of other minor effects resulting from the vaccine which have also been reported to the Committee on Safety of Medicines.

    Among the things that I should like to ask my hon. Friend is the question whether the chairman of the Committee on Safety of Medicines has given his blessing to the campaign now going ahead for the vaccination of children. Has he given his support to the advocacy to parents that they should have their ​ children vaccinated? If so, I believe that he and the Department are being very negligent in not taking into account and answering the constant arguments that are being put forward by Professor Gordon Stewart and others. To my mind, they have not been answered. Until they are answered, I believe that a large number of parents in Britain will hesitate not only about this vaccine but about many others. Until these points are answered, the whole case about preventive medicines and preventive inoculations, and about various other things, is very much at risk.

    In conclusion, I say to my hon. Friend that I do not believe that anything that has happened since the first warning signs about whooping cough vaccine were given has wiped the slate clean, as it were. There are doubts about the efficacy of the vaccine. There are certainly doubts about the way in which one will protect those at the greatest risk—babies—without subjecting them to even greater risks. Thirdly, there are very strong doubts indeed that the risks from the vaccine are now not greater than the risks from the effects of whooping cough.

    It was on those grounds that the smallpox vaccine was certainly discouraged in this country, and I believe that it is on those grounds that the vaccination of children against whooping cough should also be discouraged.