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Tag: 1978

  • George Young – 1978 Speech on the Taxi Trade in London

    Below is the text of the speech made by George Young, the then Conservative MP for Ealing Acton, in the House of Commons on 8 March 1978.

    Most hon. Members are now on their way home—most of them, I suspect, in their own cars, one or two enlightened Members by bicycles. Many hon. Members will be outside at the Members’ Entrance, waiting for taxis to arrive to take them home. If they find that they have to wait a little longer than usual, and if their cab driver is a little less alert and cheerful than they might expect, the reason is that the 16,500 taxi drivers in London have been singled out by the Government for harsher treatment than any other section of the community. They bitterly resent the way in which the Home Office has handled their application for a tariff increase.

    I spent a few nights in Ilford, North a few weeks ago, for obvious reasons. I met many taxi drivers there. The animosity they expressed about this matter was something I shall always remember. I am delighted to see in his place my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Bendall), who will represent not only taxi drivers but everyone else in Ilford, North for a long time. I am also pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate (Mr. Berry), who has a large number of taxi drivers in his constituency.

    Although the economics of the taxi industry are complicated, the basic case ​ which I wish to put to the House tonight is reasonably simple. It is that the cost increases that the taxi drivers have had to bear over the past two and a half years have been far higher than the tariff increases that the Home Office has allowed. As a result, the fleet proprietors have had to go out of business. The owner-driver is having to work far longer hours even than Members of Parliament and insufficient funds are being set aside for future investment.

    The responsibility for this state of affairs rests entirely on the Home Office. To substantiate my argument I go back to July 1975 when the last major tariff increase took place, based on a claim made in December 1974. Since then the drivers have had a lop interim surcharge, introduced in December 1976.

    It was against that background that a claim was made last July for an increase of 28 per cent. That sounds a lot, but we have to bear in mind that the increase in British Rail fares from January 1975 to January 1977, a roughly comparable period, was 93 per cent., that London Transport but fares went up 126 per cent., in that period and that Underground fares rose 147 per cent. Those organisations have access to capital funds to help them invest and also have access to revenue subsidies. Both of these advantages are denied to taxi drivers.

    Put in the context of the costs of other transport organisations the drivers’ claim was a modest one, reflecting the fact that, for example, a taxi cab that cost £2,900 in 1975 cost £4,500 in 1977. The cost of fuel has risen by over 50 per cent. and the cost of all the other related goods and services have gone up likewise. The figure of 28 per cent. was not plucked out of the air. It was substantiated in a detailed memorandum sent to the Home Office on 11th May last year based on a formula for calculating costs and revenues of the average cab used by the 1970 Maxwell Stamp report. Since that claim was put in nearly a year ago, costs have continued to rise.

    The approach of trying to justify a tariff increase on the basis of costs was in line with the Price Code operating at that time. I quote from a letter which the Home Secretary—whom we are delighted ​ to see in the House—wrote to another London Member on 10th May last year:

    “In fixing the appropriate scale of charges for London cabs I, as Home Secretary have to have due regard to the provisions of the Price Code. Under the Code fares may be increased to an extent sufficient to offset the increase in prices which has occurred since the base date for the Code which, in the case of taxis, is taken to be 30th September 1972.”

    London’s taxi drivers accepted that those were the rules, and they were quite happy to play the game by those rules.

    The country had a high rate of inflation and the Government introduced a policy to try to tackle it. Because taxi drivers suffer from inflation like everyone else, they supported the initiative and wished to stay within the limits allowed by the Price Code.

    Now we come to the skulduggery, which is what has deeply upset the trade. Halfway through the game, when the taxi drivers felt that they were winning the argument, the Government changed the rules. This is set out in a letter dated 14th February from the Under-Secretary herself:

    “However, at the end of our deliberations, the Government had had to conclude that under current counter-inflation policy it would no longer be appropriate to allow a straight passing-through of cost increases into price rises. As you will recall, earlier stages of the counter-inflation policy placed emphasis on allowable cost increases. Under the current stage less emphasis is placed upon cost increases and more on profit margins, return on capital, and the factors affecting these, such as the efficiency of the enterprise and the use of resources.”

    That is a totally different game with a totally different timescale and totally different rules set up not by the Maxwell Stamp Committee but by the Price Commission.

    The matter was referred to the Price Commission on 12th December last year, according to a parliamentary reply on that date:

    “Following consultation with the Price Commission and the Director General of Fair Trading I have today directed the Price Commission to examine and report to me on prices, costs and margins in the provision of cab services. The examination will cover all of Great Britain, and will include both hackney carriages, such as London taxis, and certain other private hire vehicle services, as laid down in the terms of direction.”—[Official Report, 12th December 1977; Vol. 941, c. 15.]

    We learn from the Minister’s letter of 14th February that the Commission had been directed to report by 30th June.
    ​

    By that time events had infuriated the taxi drivers and the matter had been made worse by the Secretary of State and the Price Commission. If the inquiry had been confined to London’s taxi drivers, and if it had started work on 13th December and used the figures of the audited accounts of the taxi fleets and the owner-drivers, which were available, it might have been completed by now. But none of that happened. The questionnaires on which the report is to be based have not even gone out yet. The offers of audited accounts were refused and, three months after the inquiry was announced, very little progress seems to have been made.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) was provoked to wonder in Taxi of 2nd March.

    “whether there was a conspiracy between the Home Office and the Price Commission to drive London taxi drivers so close to bankruptcy that the Labour Party proposals for the municipalisation of London taxis actually looks attractive.”

    The red herring of hire cars outside London has been dragged across the stage, and it is quite irrelevant to the problems facing London’s taxi drivers.

    In the meantime, an increase of 10 per cent. came into being on 22nd December last year based apparently on the 10 per cent. maximum wage guidelines. This is an entirely inappropriate basis on which to treat the taxi drivers’ claim. By all means give the police and the firemen 10 per cent., but they do not have to buy the police cars or the fire engines and run them. To treat this as a wage claim instead of a tariff increase is totally inappropriate.

    I should like to try to set out in simple terms the problems now facing the average cab driver. The average cab driver driving, say, 24,000 miles a year, which is approximately 54 hours a week, and allowing him a 10 per cent. return on his capital and letting him put enough money aside to replace his cab after five years, would in July 1975 have earned £2,730. His total costs in that year would have been £3,171. That left him a deficit of £441 per year. That has two consequences: either inadequate funds are set aside to replace his vehicle, or he has to work excessive hours.

    If the situation was bad in 1975, by January 1978 it was disastrous. The figures for that month were: income ​ £3,430; total expenditure £4,587. It is not surprising that in the meantime firms have gone bankrupt. Since July 1975, five fleet proprietors, operating some 650 vehicles, have stopped trading. I calculate that to break even now a taxi driver would have to work an extra eight hours per week than he worked in 1975. This is before the impact on his take-home pay of higher taxation and inflation.

    The taxi drivers are confident that the current inquiry will vindicate their claim, but they need the increase this summer. If the report is delayed, if the Government do not accept it or refuse to implement it on time and winter comes without another tariff increase, the situation will be desperate. I have had discussions with the Leader of the GLC, Horace Cutler, who obviously has an interest in an efficient taxi service, as it is part of the transport strategy for the capital. In a letter dated 7th March, I was pleased to hear from him:

    “We hold regular meetings with representatives of the trade to ascertain their views and we support them in their efforts to operate economically.”

    Basically, they want equal support from the Government.

    It is against this background of growing financial problems and total exasperation with the Government that I put five specific questions to the Minister, of all of which I have given her notice. The answers may define the area of agreement, clarify the situation and perhaps demonstrate that the Government have some residual sympathy for the taxi trade.

    First, will the Minister confirm that she and her Government believe that the capital city needs a flourishing and efficient taxi industry?

    Secondly, will she admit that the current level of tariffs means that a taxi driver working as hard now as he worked in July 1975 is substantially worse off on his vehicle operation, setting aside the ravages which taxes and inflation may have made on any take-home pay?

    Thirdly, will the hon. Lady confirm that there is now no incentive to become a taxi driver, as a man who buys a new vehicle today, who makes the accepted provisions for depreciation, running costs and so on, will lose over £1,000 a year on his vehicle operation? Fourthly, will she give an assurance that the Price Commission will report on this matter, as ​ requested, by the end of June? Finally, in view of the intolerable delay to date and the impossibility of back-dating any increase, will she accept and implement as speedily as possible the recommendations it contains?

    I forgot to say earlier that there is present my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Weatherill), who shares the concern of other London Members about this matter.

    Licensed taxi drivers are entitled, if they are entitled to nothing else, to some straight answers to the straight questions that I have put to the Minister.

  • Les Huckfield – 1978 Speech on British Leyland’s Speke Plant

    Below is the text of the speech made by Les Huckfield, the then Labour MP for Nuneaton, in the House of Commons on 7 March 1978.

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) for giving me an opportunity to speak on an issue which has understandably raised a great deal of concern. That is because the proposal to close Speke No. 2 assembly plant has some wide-ranging implications for British Leyland and for Merseyside. As my hon. Friend has ​ said, I am sure that on both sides of the House we all wish that the British Leyland management did not need to take difficult decisions of this sort.

    That need is dictated primarily by the state of British Leyland, which, as the chairman of the company, Mr. Michael Edwardes, made clear in his speech to employees on 1st February, is critical. The company has made no secret of the fact that its performance has been unsatisfactory. That is reflected in the fall in British Leyland’s market share from 33 per cent. to less than 25 per cent. last year, and to 21 per cent. in January.

    I am glad to note that provisional indications are that British Leyland’s market share for February has shown some signs of improvement. Nevertheless, one thing is clear: the company needs a period of sustained production accompanied by a major effort to reduce costs so that British Leyland can compete with other European manufacturers both at home and in export markets. This means adjusting capacity and manpower in line with realistic market prospects, taking account of the impossibility of recovering market share overnight and of the fact that British Leyland still has power and manpower levels geared to production on the pre-Ryder scale.

    If the company fails to adjust capacity now and its market share continues to decline, the result will be that many more jobs will be lost than those affected by the closure of Speke 2. The collapse of the company would have unthinkable consequences for employment in this country. Not only is British Leyland dirt country’s seventh largest employer; thousands of wage earners in supplier industries are dependent on the survival of the company. As Michael Edwardes has made clear, without realistic measures to improve production and reduce costs, that survival must be in doubt.

    This is the task facing the management at British Leyland. It is the management which, in consultation with the National Enterprise Board, must decide on the specific measures necessary to restore the company’s fortunes. The Government have accepted the view of the British Leyland Board and the National Enterprise Board that British Leyland’s capacity, including manpower, must be brought into line with market prospects, but the ​ Government cannot set themselves up as an alternative manager of the company, so that means to achieve this must be left for British Leyland management to decide in consultation with the National Enterprise Board.

    As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in the House on 31st January, the Government have full confidence in the new management at British Leyland and are committed to supporting Michael Edwardes in his attempt to improve the company’s performance. A start has been made. As hon Members may know, steps have been taken to restructure the company, and at the meeting at Kenilworth on 1st February Michael Edwardes secured the backing of employees for his proposals. At the same time the British Leyland board has submitted to the National Enterprise Board its corporate plan for 1978 outlining its proposals for a future strategy for the company.

    It would, however, be difficult for the Government to justify both to this House and to the public at large further investment in British Leyland, especially on the scale that British Leyland is likely to need, unless the management can clearly demonstrate that firm steps are being taken to tackle the company’s problems. Those steps may be unpleasant and, in the case of the proposal to close Speke 2, they have been made all the more difficult to take by the fact that the plant is located on Merseyside.

    I fully understand what my hon. Friend said about the situation on Merseyside. It was because of our concern for Merseyside that we designated it a special development area in August 1974. This means that Merseyside gets regional development grants, Government factories, regional selective assistance, removal grants and grants to encourage the movement of offices and other service industries. In fact, Merseyside is among those places which are given the highest priority in the steering of new investment.

    We estimate that Merseyside received about £302 million of regional financial assistance over the five years 1972–73 to 1976–77. The assistance under Section 7 of the Industry Act has safeguarded or created 40,000 jobs since 1972.
    As my hon. Friend realises, we had a report from the NEB on investment ​ potential in the North-East and North-West. That report made recommendations particularly in favour of widening the differential in regional selective financial assistance in favour of special development areas. The Government also increased the maximum rent-free periods on Government factories to five years.

    The role of the NEB has been strengthened following the establishment of an NEB regional board for the North-West. We have commissioned a firm of consultants to identify the types of business most likely to prosper close to the port of Liverpool. The Liverpool partnership area, which Speke immediately adjoins, will benefit from increased resources under the Department of the Environment’s urban programme, and the greater powers to assist industry given to them under the Inner Urban Areas Bill. I could give my hon. Friend more details about my Department’s small firms information centre in Liverpool and about assistance under Section 8 of the Industry Act.

    Under the Hardman decisions on the dispersal of Government work from London, Merseyside probably comes out as one of the best areas. The bulk of the 4,000 dispersals to the North-West, nearly 3,000 posts, will go to Merseyside. The Hardman dispersals will inevitably take some time to carry out, but I am sure that hon. Members will welcome these additional office jobs and appreciate that this shows recognition of the serious problem.

    There are achievements on the plus side. I shall name but a few. Vauxhall has recruited 2,000 workers at Ellesmere Port. The Co-operative Bank will provide 600 new jobs at hard-hit Skelmersdale. Cross International has announced a £2½ million investment programme with 200 jobs to come over four years at Knowsley. YKK is recruiting at Run- ​ corn. Tate & Lyle is investing heavily. Shell Chemicals has planning permission for a £50 million plant at Stanlow.

    These are a few of the projects in Merseyside.

    In co-operation with the Manpower Services Commission, the Government have introduced a wide range of special schemes designed specifically to alleviate increased unemployment. They include the job creation and work experience programmes, the youth employment subsidy, the job release scheme, the temporary employment subsidy and the small firms employment subsidy.

    It is estimated that over 41,000 persons, many of them young people, have been assisted by these measures in Merseyside. The temporary employment subsidy has been of particular benefit—with applications approved in respect of over 16,000 workers in the area.

    It is difficult to satisfy my hon. Friend in a debate such as this. I fully appreciate the statement that he has made on behalf of his constituents. I and the Department understand the problems of Merseyside.

    There are plans for a new 100-place skillcentre to be established in the Wirral and for a smaller 60-place centre for adults and young people in Liverpool itself. Both of these should be in operation by 1980–1981.

    It is, as I have already made clear, for British Leyland management to take the difficult decisions necessary for the company’s survival and, in this particular case, to decide whether to proceed with the closure after.

  • Eddie Loyden – 1978 Speech on British Leyland’s Speke Plant

    Below is the text of the speech made by Eddie Loyden, the then Labour MP for Liverpool Garston, in the House of Commons on 7 March 1978.

    The Adjournment debate tonight ​ is about the proposal to close British Leyland’s No. 2 plant at Speke, and it has to be set against the background of Merseyside’s unemployment, because my view is that the proposal is completely unacceptable on a number of counts.

    The House will be well aware of the unemployment and job opportunities position on Merseyside. It will be readily appreciated that the loss of a further 3,000 jobs represents a serious setback to any hopes of industrial recovery. This not only applies to Merseyside; it extends into the North-West Region. It will have a serious effect on the attempts being made to reduce unemployment in the area, which is at present running at a level of 11·6 per cent. It will also affect job opportunities in an area which is already starved of jobs It will make it even more difficult for young people to find employment and certainly it will create serious problems for the new generation of job seekers going into industry in the near future, it paints a picture of real despair.

    This is happening at a time when both the Department of Employment and the Department of the Environment are attempting to remedy the problems in that part of the world. The inner city or inner area programme of the Department of the Environment and the Department of Employment’s youth opportunities programme are designed to deal with areas like Merseyside, in terms of job creation.

    These policies are directed towards bringing resources to the area in order to improve the social, economic and industrial fabric of hat part of Merseyside. While this is going on on the one hand, the axing of 3,000 jobs—if this proposal is carried—means that much of the work being done by those Departments will come to nought. It makes a nonsense of almost every policy designed for this purpose.

    Merseyside is a special development area. The efforts that have been made by this instrument will be of no avail if jobs in Merseyside are slashed at their present rate. In addition to the Speke closure, we have heard that the Birds Eye factory in Kirkby intends to close, Courtaulds has already declared that 400 with the loss of a further 1,200 jobs. ​ jobs will go from the Aintree plant. The accumulation of these job losses represents a most serious loss for Merseyside.

    One can well imagine the amount of investment that will be needed to create the number of jobs that I have outlined. We all know that it is not simply the jobs that I have mentioned that will be lost. If we apply the multiplier, it means that we are talking of about 10,000 or 12,000 jobs. The sub-contractors at Speke, transport, the small shopkeepers, the community generally, the loss of £750,000 to the rates, will all have a dramatic and serious effect upon industrial recovery and employment opportunities on Merseyside.

    Indeed, it was through the industrial development certificate that British Leyland first went to Merseyside. It seems an absolutely blatant contradiction of Government policy that in view of the way that this industry was brought to Merseyside we should now be talking about the axing of jobs in the car industry to the extent suggested. On another count it also means that the plans of British Leyland have virtually taken a U-turn. Indeed, that is as serious an argument and problem as the one relating to Merseyside jobs.

    What has really happened to the plans of yesteryear and to the Ryder concept of a British-based, British-owned car industry? At the time this House supported the rescue of British Leyland and the Ryder plan which gave hope and opportunity for the development of a British-based, British-owned car industry. My right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), the then Prime Minister, said on receiving the Ryder Report:

    “The choice facing the Government on receiving the Ryder Report, the choice now facing the House, is this. Is Britain to have a major indigenous automobile industry, or should we have decided that British Leyland could survive profitably on a diminished scale, selling up-market cars together with trucks and buses? Are we, through a lack of courage in responding to a tremendous and costly challenge, to endanger a million jobs, and at the same time to see a shrinkage of exports, and vastly greater imports for the home market, which would be bound to affect our balance of payments disastrously?

    The Government have decided that Britain must remain in the world league so far as a British-owned automobile industry is concerned.”—[Official Report, 24th April 1975; Vol. 890, c. 1747–8.]

    It would appear that the Government have at least begun part of that U-turn, when one considers closure of the Speke factory and the context of the whole corporate plan.

    There may be differences among us as to how the objectives of the Ryder plan could be achieved, but one thing that we all know is that one way of not achieving it is to close the second most modern plant in the Leyland network. That is what is happening at Speke.

    Some of my hon. Friends and I have met the Leyland management. I for one remain basically dissatisfied with the reasons that it has given for the proposed closure of Speke. The question of the number of sales of the TR7 has remained unanswered. I understand that shop stewards have been unable to elicit information on sales of the TR7 in the United States.

    Also, why were the plans for the closure of Speke not made known at the meeting when Mr Michael Edwardes was presenting the broad lines of the corporate plan to the trade union movement? Why was the closure decision taken when the trade unions had made the strike official, and there was every likelihood of a quick return to work? Why was the decision not discussed in the car council? One of the things that we agreed on was a worker participation scheme for Leyland. Participation means the involvement of workers in their industry. Yet at no time was the question of the closure of Speke discussed in the car council. Nor were there any discussions about the broader implications of the corporate plan.

    Why, also, did the management take so long to decide to adopt the next stage of the procedure in the recent dispute? It was evident that the plant was working under a procedural agreement and that had the next stage been proceeded with the issue could have been settled. Yet there was resistance by the management to take the next steps.

    As a shop steward of 30 years’ experience I know that the procedural agreement forms a very important part of industrial relations. In many cases it is the Bible of industrial relations. Yet here is the management refusing to take the next steps on the procedural agreement, resulting in a prolonged dispute, a further lowering of the morale of workers, ​ and the beginning of the justification for the closure of the plant.

    If the full capacity at Speke was not being reached why was other work not sent there? Obviously, there is work going from Leyland to other parts of Europe. I do not want to argue the case for Liverpool against that for other parts of Europe, or even other parts of the world, but there was an obligation on Leyland to see that additional work that was being done in Belgium was done at factories that were working under capacity. None of these decisions emanated from the workers. They are all part of management’s responsibility. One very much doubts whether the reasons given by management for the closure of Speke are the real ones.

    When the management was asked whether the closure had occurred because of the bad performance of the Speke work force, the company’s representatives said that there was a poor record of performance. But when figures were requested, they were not available. There were merely vague statements that the work force was somehow or other responsible for the situation.

    The management was also asked whether, if Speke had produced every car asked of it, it would still have been closed, and the answer was in the affirmative. Therefore, despite the tirade of abuse from the Press and the Opposition directed against the workers at a factory, it has undoubtedly been market considerations rather than anything else which have led to the present situation. The Leyland management said that Speke had in a sense been self-selected as a plant for closure.

    Many people wonder whether there is not a more sinister motive behind the closure. Let me quote one headline from the Runcorn Guardian.

    “Plant closure manufactured by bosses”.

    The writer claims to have evidence in leaked documents showing top secret sales figures appearing to indicate market resistance to buying the TR7, or “the Bullet” as it is called. The figures show that even after a month’s strike and lost production, when not a single car was produced, there were still 2,263 “Bullets” in the showrooms. The argument is that if production had continued at its normal rate of 12·5 cars per hour on a 17-hour ​ shift, by now the market would be swamped. That situation was not the responsibility of the Speke factory workers.

    Accusations have been made about poor performance and disputes at Speke, but figures issued by the National Enterprise Board in 1976 show that in the last five or six years Speke has been more affected by lay-offs than by disputes. In other words, the situation over the last five or six years has been reasonably peaceful.

    That position is borne out by the National Enterprise Board report. It shows that from October to March 1975 349,000 man-hours were lost through disputes as against 629,610 through lay-offs. In the period to April 1975, 117,366 man-hours were lost through disputes and 500,093 through lay-offs. In the period October 1975 to May 1976, 151,492 man-hours were lost through disputes and 250,380 through lay-offs. The Speke plant, even prior to the recent dispute, had a lay-off of six weeks, which meant that it had been idle for six months.

    On every occasion the media and the Opposition have hit out at the workers. They have made no constructive proposals. As has been evident from Day 1 of the Leyland rescue, they have been opposed to the concept of a British car industry. Many of us believe that the decision to close Speke could lead to further closures and the breaking up of British Leyland. The attacks on Leyland and its work force, especially by the Opposition and sections of the media, will be welcomed by Tokyo, Bonn and other car manufacturing capitals. They do nothing for Leyland workers, except to undermine them and the British car industry. This is at a time when we are talking about the major problem of the penetration of the United Kingdom market by Japanese and other car manufacturers.

    When the car industry came to Merseyside it was hailed as a turning point for the area’s industrial future. Some of my hon. Friends who were members of the city council will recall that when Fords, and then Standard Triumph, came to Liverpool those developments were in accordance with the general policy of the then Government, namely, that regions with areas of declining industry and ​ declining job opportunities should be the places where there should be industrial development.

    I feel that we have reached another turning point for Merseyside. It is a turning point for the northern regions as well as Merseyside. It appears to be one of the arguments used by the Leyland board and the car industry in general that the industry should be located in geographical centres. If that is to be the industry’s policy, the future of the northern regions will be grim.

    I do not believe that the decision will stop at Speke No. 2, and neither do many of my hon. Friends. The decision will be divisive. It will turn worker against worker. I believe that in many ways that is intended. It will turn area against area. That will be done in pursuing a policy of reducing employment in the industry. That is not the policy to be pursued by a Labour Government.

    The House has the responsibility to examine in the closest possible detail all aspects of Leyland’s decisions. Before any decision is made by the Government on the Speke No. 2 plant or on the corporate plan generally, the Government must go through every aspect of the plan with a fine-toothed comb, with a view to meeting two objectives. One objective is to ensure that the social consequences of those decisions are taken fully into account by the Government. The second objective is to see that British Leyland is not starting on the road to break-up and, therefore, missing the opportunities that are presented in fulfilling the objectives of a free-based British car industry.

    I hope that even at this late stage the Minister will be able to say that the Government will do just that and keep in line with the policies and ideologies upon which the Government were elected.

  • Robert Rhode James – 1978 Speech on the Blenheim Papers

    Below is the text of the speech made by Robert Rhode James, the then Conservative MP for Cambridge, in the House of Commons on 6 March 1978.

    It is unusual for an hon. Member to have the opportunity of raising in this House a matter which is of concern to him personally and professionally, in addition to his constituency interest, and although the subject which I am raising at this late hour at first sight appear to be somewhat recondite, it has implications and significance which go beyond this particular episode.

    Early in 1977, the Treasury accepted, in partial settlement of the estate of the late Duke of Marlborough, the Blenheim archive, which consists of a very substantial quantity of the papers of John, first Duke of Marlborough, and including the Sunderland papers.

    In April 1977, libraries and archive centres were invited to apply for consideration by the Minister for the Arts—who in such matters seeks the advice of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts—for custody of this uniquely important collection. On 12th April 1977, immediately after this announcement, application was made by Churchill College, Cambridge.

    Churchill College, which was established as a living memorial to Sir Winston, possesses an archives centre which was opened in 1973 and which contains the most modern facilities for the safe storage and use of historical documents. It is a purpose-built archive centre, with the most advanced protection against fire and theft, air-conditioned and humidity-controlled, with a special fumigation for the safe destruction of fungal infestation of documents. It also possesses a comprehensively equipped conservation workshop and a full-time conservationist of very high reputation, whose preservation work, particularly on damaged documents, is of outstanding quality.

    The centre has a keeper, a full-time qualified archivist and graduate assistant, and a secretary, in addition to the conservationist, and full supporting facilities. If it is a small unit, it is a highly efficient unit and its facilities are outstanding, it is widely respected and its staff is devoted to the administration of the archive and its service to scholars.

    The archive contains the voluminous papers of Sir Winston, his father, Lord Randolph, and a considerable number of the papers of John, first Duke of Marlborough. These include some 1,200 original Marlborough documents collected by Sir Winston while he was researching his biography of his ancestor, and presented to Churchill College by Lady Churchill, and also the highly important correspondence between Marlborough and Antonie Heinsius, grand pensionary of The Netherlands during the war of the Spanish succession. These papers were the gift of Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch Government to Sir Winston in gratitude for his unforgettable services to the cause of Dutch liberation.

    The archive also contains the papers of General Thomas Erie, one of Marl-borough’s most trusted officers. This represents a major collection in itself of the Marlborough papers. Among its more modern collections are papers on Lord Attlee, Lord Swinton, Lord Slim, Lord Esher, Lord Hankey, Lord Vansittart, Reginald McKenna, Sir Edward Spears and—a most satisfactory renewed liaison—Mrs. Virginia Crawford and Sir Charles Dilke. But the gems of the collection are, obviously, the papers of the first Duke, Lord Randolph, and Sir Winston, kept in one archive under perfect conditions in the college that bears their name and commemorates three centuries of brilliant service to this nation by one extraordinary family.

    It was the wish of the present Duke and Lady Churchill that the Blenheim archive should join this collection in Cambridge. Indeed, Lady Churchill felt so deeply about the matter that she joined me in a public letter to The Times and she wrote privately to the Prime Minister. Among others who pressed the case for Cambridge were Mr. Harold Macmillan, Sir John Colville, Professor J. H. Plumb and my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill), who is unable to be present at the debate tonight but has asked me to emphasise his personal and family concern about this matter.

    Although the decision in such matters is technically that of the Secretary of ​ State for Education and Science, effectively it is that of the Minister for the arts, who in his turn is advised by the Royal Commission on Historical Documents. I believe that that excessively complex chain was at least partly responsible for the subsequent confusion and for the extraordinary decision made by the Minister that the papers should be sent to the British Library in London.

    Having invited representatives of the Department of Education and Science and the Commission to visit the centre, Churchill College was surprised and concerned to receive no reply to its application apart from a single printed card of acknowledgement. When a member of the Commission visited Churchill in July 1977, six days before the Commission met to consider the matter, he emphasised that he was doing so informally. It became evident that he was unclear on certain vital and fundamental aspects of the Churchill application.

    When the college raised the matter with the secretary of the Commission, Mr G. R. C. Davis, the eminent former deputy keeper of manuscripts at the British Library, it was informed that a member of the Commission staff had recently visited the archive. In fact, the visit was paid over a month before the public announcement of April 1977 and was again entirely informal and casual in nature.

    It should be said at this point that a major misunderstanding seems to have arisen between the Commission and the DES. The Commission says that its role is purely advisory and that it is not entitled to be in direct contact with applicant institutions. How it is to evaluate their merits without such contact is to me inexplicable. For its part the DES firmly states that the processing of applications lies in the hands of the Commission. In any event, no representative of the Department, let alone the Minister responsible for the decision, has visited Churchill or has been in contact with it except in response to telephone calls.

    As this curious proceeding has taken so long and so mysterious a course, I asked the Minister to meet a deputation consisting of myself, the Duke of Marl-borough, Sir John Colville, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford, Professor Plumb and representatives of the college on 24th January, the day of Lady Churchill’s memorial service. On 19th January I was informed that the decision was to be announced on 23rd January. In the event it was made on 25th January. There was accordingly no point in the Minister meeting the delegation.

    I assure the Minister of State that I do not want to make any particular point about this, but it seemed unfortunate that the decision was announced in the week of Lady Churchill’s memorial service and that it was not possible for the Minister for the arts to delay the decision until he had heard the distinguished delegation.

    In his announcement of 25th January the Minister said that he had been particularly influenced by the advice of the Commission that

    “the cataloguing, arrangement and scholarly use of the Blenheim archives will require constant reference to and close comparison with other papers of the period already held by the British Library.”

    That statement could not have been made by a scholar and certainly not by anyone with any personal experience of working in the manuscript department of the British Library. The advantages of having the complete archive of the first duke in one site far outweighs the quite illusory asset of “constant reference” to other papers. The Minister’s argument is untenable in historical, scholastic and practical terms.

    The Minister went on to say:

    “I have also been impressed by the scale of the resources required for the proper cataloguing and conservation of the collection.”

    By that he means that he is impressed by the resources of the British Library as he has not discovered those of Churchill College.

    What are the resources at the British Library? I refer the House to a devastating recent article by Mr. Nicholas Barker, the new head of conservation at the British Library, in The Times Literary Supplement of 18th November 1977, entitled “Blight in Bloomsbury”, in which he rightly relates the lamentable conditions for the preservation of books and papers in the library, and concludes that

    “The crisis can only be resolved by an increase in trained conservation staff, and by the provision of proper conditions for the storage and use of all the different kinds of material in the British Library “.

    Mr. Barker’s strictures are fully merited. The British Library does not have air-conditioned or humidity-controlled storage facilities. It does not have adequate staff. Its record in preparing catalogues, in which it has made promises to the Minister which seem to me impossible to fulfil, is poor. The collections themselves are deteriorating. None of this is secret or new information. Indeed, the crisis to which Mr. Barker refers—and such it is—is spelt out clearly and starkly in the annual reports of the Library since 1973, and they make dismal reading. I shall quote only from the 1976–77 report:

    “Strenuous efforts are being made to reduce the cataloguing backlog … The problem of how to best to conserve the priceless collections in the care of the Library while making them available for study to present and future readers has been the subject of a major review. It is clear that substantial additional resources will be required over a considerable period in order to halt the progressive and accelerating deterioration of the collections.”

    All the evidence at my disposal makes me profoundly doubtful whether the British Library is technically capable at present of handling the collection in anything approaching the matter which Churchill College can, and the Duke of Marlborough has authorised me to express his considerable concern on this aspect.

    I should like now to put two questions to the Minister. Is it correct that the board of trustees of the British Library had never been consulted or made a collective decision about either the application or the acceptance? Secondly, can the Minister confirm the points that I have made about facilities at the British Library?

    I am asking for this decision to be at least reviewed, and at best reversed. What it means is that the wishes of the Churchill family—including what was virtually the last wish of Lady Churchill—have been ignored; that the papers of John, first Duke of Marlborough, will have been split up permanently, to the great detriment of scholars and scholarships: that these papers have been entrusted to an institution which does not at present possess the proper facilities for their conservation: and that the archive centre that is most qualified and is most appropriate has had its claims virtually unconsidered.

    There is no case, in terms of scholastic value or practicality, for the Minister’s action. It would, indeed, be a national tragedy if the papers were thus to be divided and for the concept of the Churchill archives—complete, and meticulously maintained—to be damaged so severely by this ill-considered and indefensible decision.

    I should like to conclude on a personal note. As the youthful biographer of Lord Randolph Churchill and of Lord Rosebery, and who played some part in ensuring that the Rosebery papers remained in Scotland, I do not accept the proposition that great collections should necessarily be in London. The Rosebery papers belong to Edinburgh and the Chamberlain papers to Birmingham. Ideally, the Churchill papers should be housed either at Blenheim or Chartwell, but the fact is that the vast bulk of them are now in Churchill College, in my constituency. I appeal to the Minister, and to the House, that this unique collection should be housed in one place, in the building created as a memorial to that family, where it would be complete, and where it would be treasured and preserved for all time.

    I am deeply obliged to the Minister for attending this debate. I am sure he will understand that I am making rather more than a constituency appeal to him.

  • John MacGregor – 1978 Speech on Investment Income Surcharge

    Below is the text of the speech made by John MacGregor, the then Conservative MP for South Norfolk, in the House of Commons on 5 April 1978.

    I beg to move,

    That leave be given to bring in a Bill to abolish investment income surcharge.

    This Bill is about jobs, about economic growth and about fair play. Whatever the earlier case for an extra impost, on investment income, the developments on the tax front and the growth in the tax burden over the past four years now mean that the surcharge is having seriously damaging effects in a number of important directions, and I seek this opportunity of drawing attention to them and tackling them. I wish to make six main points in relation to jobs, economic growth and fair play.

    First, concerning jobs, there is now widespread agreement that in dealing with the appallingly high level of unemployment one of the main contributions in the future will have to come from the small businesses, because the public sector and the large and medium-sized companies in this country will be seeking in many cases to shed labour rather than to promote new jobs. Yet the small businesses are quite inadequately encouraged at the present time.

    Much of the evidence to the Wilson Committee on the City has drawn attention to the problems of finance for small businesses. Indeed, the institutions, the banks and so on, are now doing much to assist in that area. But the real gap—and, I suspect, an increasing gap in the future—is for finance in start-up situations, in venture capital, and for the very small businesses, because the banks and institutions naturally do not wish to risk equity capital at that point since they have their own depositors to take care of.​

    Getting the small business off the ground is still one of our major problems. Previously, this used to be done by private investors who knew the locality, knew the people and were prepared to risk some of their spare capital in order to get these businesses going. It is done in this way in America and in other countries where positive fiscal incentives are given compared with the fiscal disincentives that we apply here.

    Even the National Research Development Corporation, in its recent evidence to the Wilson Committee, said:

    “The mortality rate of small companies is high, and this in turn inhibits support for new technology-based firms in general. Special measures, including increased fiscal incentives (or the removal of current fiscal disincentives), may be required to promote the growth of small innovative enterprises.”

    The plain fact is that the risk of losing one’s money in small businesses is high and the reward is virtually nil, especially at a 98 per cent. tax rate. I believe that it will be right—as I believe the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is considering—to introduce relief for losses against other income in order to assist start-ups. But the abolition of the investment income surcharge is also necessary to assist and encourage jobs in small businesses.

    Secondly, turning to the more general aspects of growth, we are all agreed that we want to see more investment in British industry and commerce and, perhaps more important, better use of the investment. I would be the first to admit that encouraging saving is only one part of this problem. There is a need first to see the demand side increasing, as we do not have demand for new investment and for new capital on the scale required as we would all wish to see at the present time, because of the lack of confidence in British industry.

    But at some stage the importance of the saver and the investor will come back into play. We do need to encourage new capital. Again, the investor gets poor rewards for subscribing to equities at present. For the high taxpayer the return is minute and after inflation is often acutely negative. Each year today there is a 5 per cent. decline in the number of shareholdings in British companies, and it is the individual small investor who is getting out. To a considerable ​ extent that is a tax matter because of the fiscal benefits to the pension funds, on the one hand, and the fiscal disincentives of high rates of taxation, especially investment income surcharge to the direct investor, on the other.

    Another worrying aspect of this matter is the ever-increasing reliance on institutional investment in the Stock Market. I believe that this should give us some considerable cause for concern, because it means intensified volatility in the market, possibly less investment in the secondary, middle and smaller public companies and hence greater difficulty for them in raising new capital, and some would also argue the risk of only a small number of investment decision takers in stock market investment tending to concentrate on investment fashions. The abolition of the investment income surcharge would help to redress that balance and to get more investment directly from investors into British industry through equities.

    Thirdly, I want to turn to one particular aspect—growth in farming. About 45 per cent. of agricultural land today is tenanted. Yet the fiscal burdens on the agricultural landlord—unless again it is an institution—are now penal, partly because his returns are treated as investment income. If he is paying between 80 per cent. and 98 per cent. in tax, he is less likely to be willing to invest in improvements to land, buildings and machinery because of the feeble after-tax return at the end of it. This is harmful to agricultural production as well as to all the allied industries which depend on a successful and growing agriculture.

    It also means that many are tending to bring land in hand as soon as they can, for fiscal reasons, which is harmful to future tenant farmers in this country. I believe that we should be seeking a definition of a working landlord and enable him to benefit from current agriculture fiscal reliefs. That is the way mainly to go forward to the benefit of agriculture generally. Meanwhile, the abolition of the investment income surcharge would help.

    My last three points relate to fiscal justice and fair play. Fourthly, we now have an appallingly muddled position in relation to tax on savings. Wins on the pools or on horses are virtually tax-free. Savings through pension funds and life assurance obtain a variety of tax benefits ​ which significantly affect the investment decisions of the saver. Gilts and other forms of Government savings, such as the Trustee Savings Bank, have considerable tax-free advantages which much distort the flow of savings patterns. It is important here to realise that the Government by their tax decisions are greatly benefiting themselves in relation to savings, especially in connection with high-rate taxpayers for whom gilts held for more than one year are enormously more advantageous than any other form of saving.

    Only equities, building societies and other forms of private sector saving have to suffer the whole battery of taxes on savings. Investment income surcharge is one of the significant ones. Its abolition would help to remove distortions—indeed, gross distortions—which fiscal measures have so sweepingly introduced into savings.

    Fifthly, I turn to the international comparisons. Few countries today have an investment income surcharge at all. None among our industrial competitors has rates on earned or on earned and investment income combined anywhere near ours reaching up to the top rate of 98 per cent., nor at the levels of income at which we impose them. I believe that it is no coincidence that we are not only so far out of line with them in our tax measures and tax burdens on direct and investment income but frequently out of line in our success in growth rates.

    Sixthly, and most troubling of all, I want to draw attention to the quite unfair burden that the investment income surcharge now imposes on those with comparatively low incomes and on those aged over 65. Indeed, it is these groups with whom I am most concerned, despite all the other very important arguments, in pushing this measure today. One hundred and sixty thousand of those who pay investment income surcharge—or roughly one-third—have incomes below £4,000 a year. Indeed, this morning I had a letter from a constituent aged 58, who has just been declared redundant and who will have to make use of his redundancy payments and the savings which he has developed over his lifetime. He has an income—which he will expect not to grow from now on because he does not expect to get a job at his age—of about £2,000 a year and is naturally ​ infuriated as he now finds that he is paying a marginal tax rate of 44 per cent. on that income.

    Over 45 per cent. of those paying the investment income surcharge are pensioners. What I find so appalling here is the quite unfair situation where those who are fortunate enough to have occupational pension schemes or self-employed schemes have their savings treated as earned income after the age of 65. But there are those who are not able to be in that position, perhaps because they were in a company which did not operate such schemes or had a small business and were not able to afford the self-employed annuity schemes which were not so generous in the past. Those who concentrated their savings on building up their businesses and get their retirement savings out of that business, or in other ways, find that they have this huge burden at a very modest rate of income of a 49 per cent. marginal tax rate.

    It is scandalous that those who built up their savings in this way should be discriminated against. As the Building Societies Association points out, a single pensioner pays at a rate of 49 per cent. with an income of £3,410, whereas someone single and of working age has to reach an income level of £6,945 before he pays above the tax rate of 34 per cent. That is quite monstrous discrimination.

    What particularly riles these people is that this is not unearned income at all. What they are getting after the age of 65 is income out of savings earned out of a hard working life and out of taxed income during that working life. There is no wonder that there is so little incentive to save in certain directions today, especially after inflation is taken into account. No wonder that the children of so many of these people—[HON. MEMBERS: “Too long.”]—should see themselves what has happened so that they no longer wish to save.

    In conclusion, I recognise that there are many priorities in tax today. I have been among the first to argue for many of them, especially for those on low incomes and many others. I recognise that it may not be possible to carry through this measure exactly in this form at the present time. But I do believe that we should at least have amendments to this Bill to raise the threshold to £4,000 to ​ bring it back in real terms to where it was only a few years ago to help the pensioners, or perhaps to abolish it altogether on the pensioners as the Building Societies Association has urged.

    But it is because I believe that the arguments long term for abolition are so compelling that I have sought to bring the Bill forward in this way today in order to encourage the wealth creators and the risk takers.

  • Anthony Steen – 1978 Speech on Inner City Land

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anthony Steen, the then Conservative MP for Liverpool Wavertree, in the House of Commons on 4 April 1978.

    I beg to move,

    That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make it compulsory for local authorities, nationalised industries, other public bodies and statutory undertakings to dispose of vacant land in their ownership in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.

    The aim of the Bill is to compel those local authorities guilty of land hoarding either genuinely to develop vacant land in their possession within a limited period or to put it on the open market by way of public auction so that others can do just that.

    The scale of land hoarding by local authorities and nationalised industries is not fully known. Suffice it to say that ​ 250,000 acres of prime land, mostly in the city centres, lie dormant. There are over 16,000 acres of derelict or vacant land in London. There are over 2,000 vacant acres in Liverpool and 1,100 in Birmingham. In Liverpool 60 per cent, of the vacant land in the inner city belongs to the local authority, and a further 20 per cent, is in the ownership of British Rail, the water authority or other public undertakings. Much of this vacant land has come about as a result of massive demolition programmes and the failure of the public authorities to rebuild on it.

    The consequences of this land remaining dormant are far-reaching. It creates an artificial demand for what is left in the inner city. It sends land prices soaring, and rents with them.

    Secondly, as a consequence, new factories and offices are preferred to be built on the green field sites on the edge of the city, where land is cheaper.

    Thirdly, the failure to create jobs or to provide homes in the inner city results in a mass exodus of population. Between 1966 and 1976, Liverpool lost 22 per cent, of its population—150,000 people; Manchester lost 18 per cent.—110,000 people; and Birmingham lost 8 per cent.—85,000 people.

    Fourthly, by reducing the rate base, the city councils have inadequate funds to provide services for the businesses that remain. The small firm is, therefore, penalised by massive commercial rate demands, and often loading on top of it for refuse collection.

    Fifthly, inadequate rate income in the inner areas means that domestic ratepayers in the middle and outer bands of our cities are increasingly subsidising the provision of services in the city centres. If wealth is to be created in our cities, a prerequisite is that the dormant land there must be used to the full. So long as it lies idle, it attracts an artificial value which, as it continues to rise, makes it less and less possible, for anyone to buy.​

    The Bill would therefore force public authorities to make up their minds. Either they can develop their land and build homes and factories on it, creating new jobs and providing accommodation to tempt back skilled workers who left many years ago, or, if they prefer not to develop the land themselves, it will automatically be auctioned at the market value to the highest bidder and with a covenant that the buyer must develop it within a limited period.

    If vacant land remains tied up with public authorities, our cities must continue to die. Small businesses will continue to be driven out and the domestic ratepayer will get less and less value for his money.

    The nation’s attention is focused on the revival of our cities, yet without the release of dormant land there can be no such revival. It is the cornerstone of our return to prosperity, but there is no hint of such a plan in the current Government legislative programme. That is why I seek leave to introduce this Bill.

  • Bill Rodgers – 1978 Speech on Trunk Roads and Motorways

    Below is the text of the speech made by Bill Rodgers, the then Labour Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 4 April 1978.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the Government’s policy for the trunk road and motorway system.

    The transport policy White Paper published last June outlined a new approach to the planning and improvement of the national road network. In the spirit of this approach I have now carried out a review of the objectives and methods of the trunk road programme in England and completed the first stage of a reassessment of all the schemes in it The results are brought together in the White Paper “Policy for Roads: England 1978” ​ which I have today presented to Parliament.

    My Department, jointly with the Department of the Environment, has also been reviewing the procedures for public inquiries into trunk road schemes. We have been guided by the Council on Tribunals, with which we have worked closely. The Government’s intentions are set out in the White Paper “Report on the Review of Highway Inquiry Procedures” which I have today presented jointly with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.

    Copies of both White Papers have been available in the Vote Office since 3 o’clock.

    To devise and implement the right policy for roads presents many problems and dilemmas. Within the framework of the national transport policy, we need a road system that will support our major national objectives—the industrial strategy, regional development and the regeneration of inner city areas—as well as relieve the serious local problems caused by traffic. The inter-urban road system has been transformed over the last 15 to 20 years but many deficiencies remain. The routes to the major ports are not yet complete. There is an urgent need for an orbital route round London. Certain of the assisted areas still lack adequate communications, and many bypasses are required. Hon. and right hon. Members in all parts of the House continue to urge priority for new roads to serve their constituencies.

    Yet people are now less inclined to take for granted the assumptions on which road planning has proceeded in the past—for example, about future levels of traffic. They are less willing to accept the lengthy disruption caused by major construction projects. They are alert to the possibly damaging consequences, as they see it, of major new roads for the areas in which they live. As a result, there has been some dissatisfaction with the way that my Department and its predecessors have explained their proposals and apparently made their decisions. Public inquiries have on occasions been disrupted.

    I shall not take up the time of the House by detailing all the changes which I propose. But the main elements of the new approach are these. First, in place ​ of a predetermined strategic network, our approach will be selective. Within the planned level of investment on trunk roads and motorways of about £300 million, there will be a more rigorous approach to priorities, with emphasis on vital industrial routes, but also increasingly on schemes with high environmental benefits.

    Secondly, there will be more flexibility in applying design standards in the light of greater uncertainty about future traffic levels and the cost and supply of oil. Greater flexibility also reflects my concern that roads should be fitted into the environment in a discriminating way.

    Thirdly, in the appraisal of road schemes my Department will apply a comprehensive framework for decision, as recommended by the Leitch Committee, whose report was published in January. It will set out the range of factors that need to be taken into account—economic, social and environmental: those that can be quantified and those that cannot. In this way, each can be given its full weight, and a balanced judgment can be made.

    Fourthly, there will be a greater openness at the various stages of planning, from public consultation to the inquiry. In the arrangements for inquiries, my Department will secure that realistic alternatives are genuinely explored. It will make available information covering the range of factors on which road proposals are based and decisions reached so that, as far as possible, there can be equality of information for all those concerned.

    Finally, we need to put beyond doubt the impartiality of inspectors who are appointed to conduct trunk road and motorway inquiries. With the approval of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and I will, in future, in exercising our statutory obligations, ask my noble and learned Friend, the Lord Chancellor, to nominate a particular individual considered by him to be suitable for a particular inquiry.

    On this basis, Mr. Speaker, I believe that we can have a road programme that meets the country’s needs and commands a very wide measure of approval.

    Where there are conflicts of interest, they can be resolved openly and fairly. “Policy ​ for Roads: England 1978” is the first of a new series of annual policy statements which will enable the House, if it chooses, to discuss the principles underlying the decisions of Ministers. I shall also welcome wider public discussion of these important issues.

  • Kenneth Warren – 1978 Speech on Ceefax and Oracle

    Below is the text of the speech made by Kenneth Warren, the then Conservative MP for Hastings, in the House of Commons on 4 April 1978.

    Tonight I should like to raise the subject of Government support for the Viewdata and Teletext projects. These are means of transmitting information by both television and telephone to the public, industry and the community. They are brilliant British inventions. I think that they rank with the inventions of the jet ​ engine and radar in this country and that they are superb examples of British technical genius in action. Of particular importance is that they are two years in advance of any foreign rival. They are now on test and are not only proving that they work but that with good will they will meet the great expectations of the engineers who have developed them.

    I have nothing but praise for the way in which a dozen British companies, including the Post Office, have worked together in harmony but quietly in developing these new communications systems. More is the pity that in the quietness of the House we shall be told a story of British achievement, bearing in mind that the House is so often filled to hear the story of a British industrial disaster. Perhaps it is a reflection on all of us that we have become too used to failure and are not used to success when we see it.

    Our need tonight is to talk of the way in which we can bring this project, which is on the threshold of success, to the reality which I am sure both sides of the House want to see.

    I particularly praise the inventor of the system, Mr. Sam Fedida, who was once in the Post Office, and also the entrepreneurial style of Sir William Barlow and Dr. Alex Reid, who in the Post Office have shown a vigour, enthusiasm and entreprenuerial style which has been too long invisible in the Post Office. Praise also goes to those who worked on CEEFAX and ORACLE in the IBA and the BBC, who in parallel are leading the world—and my superlatives are carefully gauged—in this “first” in information technology. As a technologist myself, from what I have seen to date I believe that we have here a brilliant system, which will be a winner.

    The problem to which I wish to address myself tonight is the role that should now be played by the Government to ensure that the systems developed to date achieve the success that they deserve. For too long this country has failed to harvest the fruits of its own technology. For too long we have suffered industrial policies which have subsidised failure rather than stimulated success.

    The beauties of Viewdata and Teletext are that they are simple and will help ​ all the people of this country, and I hope, the world to gain a new freedom of access to information, not only across their own nations but across the frontiers of the world. They can be signal contributions to understanding between peoples.

    The clever parts of Viewdata and Teletext are translations of the concepts that started off as thoughts, drawings and views in the minds of people which now have been translated into systems that are proving that they are real and reliable. They are—I hope that the Government will recognise this—the first recognition in this country that a world information revolution is upon us. They are both systems which are built by venture capital from private industry and from the Post Office. Ranges of work have been done by companies such as Mullard, GEC, ITT, Rank, Decca—a dozen companies which make up the forefront of British communications technology.

    I have no doubt that the Minister will dispute my view, but I must say that I am delighted that the heavy hand of Whitehall has not been on the motive power of the project. On the other hand, I will be the first to say that if any Government are needed in an industrial project their presence in specific areas where help is required needs to be timely and of sufficient strength to complete the job properly.

    I should like to propose certain ways in which the Government could and should now help. The first is to endorse the systems as viable ways in which information can be conveyed between people. This may sound an unusual proposal to put before a House or to a Government—that all they have to do is to shout “Hurrah”—but this is such a wonderful invention that an endorsement by a British Government would be tremendous, timely and completely fair and reasonable.

    Secondly, I believe that the Government should give leadership in establishing that the viable and reasonable international standards for all these systems can be achieved.

    Thirdly, I ask that the Government should recognise that these systems are means of improving the process of government at all levels of government in the United Kingdom, whether it be at ​ national, county or district level, or within the national corporations of the State.

    To enlarge briefly on each of these proposals, taking endorsement first, a public expression by the Government of good will towards the project would not only be a spur to those who have quietly given so much of their time and their effort but also would be a tremendous help, I understand, to export sales projects. Before I came to the House, I knew what it was like to try to sell electronic goods in a very competitive market in the United States and the difference it makes or does not make to have the support of a British Government. I did not have it and it was like going up the north wall of the Eiger. Why not give these people the chance of a smoother ride round the softer side?

    I understand that the Post Office export division is all ready to go. I think that it should be assisted.

    We must also, I hope, look to the Government to ensure that any necessary legislation—this needs to be examined—is on line on time.

    On the question of leadership, to put it bluntly the French came in two years after we had started, and now, as is too often the case with our French allies, they are unwisely, from a technical viewpoint—I do not think it is my place in the House tonight to give way any technical secrets to which I might have become privy—trying to force through international specifications in favour of their equipment without the authority of technical backing which they should have.

    The Government could give leadership and I believe should give leadership in the relevant international authorities such as the Conference of European Posts and Telecommunications to make our systems and their systems acceptable rather than to find a situation where the French are trying to make our system unacceptable and theirs acceptable. We must speak through the Government with one authority for telecommunications and broadcasting at the debating tables where these international standards are agreed.

    Thirdly, I think that the Government should explore immediately, in collaboration perhaps with the central computer authority of the Civil Service Department which I recognise is another Department ​ from that of the Minister who is kindly replying to the debate tonight, the use of this breakthrough in information processes to improve the process of government.

    I have absolutely no doubt that the Viewdata and Teletext could bring to the Department of the Environment, the Home Office, the Department of Trade, the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Health and Social Security and the Minister’s own Department, new ways in which information could be gathered and exchanged.

    I hope that it would help the market surveys of the Department’s own requirement boards, which, I was told in a parliamentary reply, are unable to carry out their own surveys through a lack of expertise. I hope it would help the Foreign Office in the United Nations debate on direct satellite broadcasting, because these systems provide a means of supporting the British contention that we can supply world-wide freedom of access to information across frontiers.

    However, the Luddites are at work, and it is not unusual with new technologies to find people speaking sourly of something that looks like progress. I understand that the National Union of Journalists is already in dispute over one of the systems about who should get the jobs involved. But this is a new project which offers more than enough jobs for everyone, and everyone should welcome the chance of many more jobs. I hope that all the unions will look upon this development as an opportunity for new employment.

    I understand that the Advertising Standards Association feels that someone should censor what is available. The deputy director of that authority believes that Viewdata could become “a haven for all sorts of crooks and misleading advertisers who could not find a home in the existing media”.

    That Luddite attitude must be dismissed rapidly, so that it does not present an obstacle to what should be a great British venture. To achieve that I should be happy to give Mrs. Whitehouse the chance of acting as a temporary censor.

    In this century we have seen two great revolutions in communications. The first was that of the Wright brothers, who opened the door to Concorde, by which ​ the world can be spanned in a day. The second has been the revolution in communications by which we have literally moved from smoke signals to Viewdata and Teletext. We have changed communications so that instead of people having to travel to find facts they simply use television and the telephone. It would not be going too far to say that here for the first time in 20 or 25 years since the world first saw the computer we can look to a new world of communications which is dawning before us.

    The systems are a world of enterprise for industry. New jobs will replace old and more jobs will be waiting. We are only one year away from the systems being available in the High Streets of Britain, yet their names have never before been mentioned in Parliament. We now need a combined effort by industry and Government to reach out for the international success that these systems truly deserve, and I look forward to the Government tonight meeting me in that request.

  • George Robertson – 1978 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made in the House of Commons by George Robertson, the then Labour MP for Hamilton, on 14 June 1978.

    I do not need to underline to this House the pride I have in being elected as Member of Parliament for Hamilton. I hope that my presence here and the result in that constituency are of some little relevance to this debate.
    It is a great honour for me to follow in the footsteps of the late Member for Hamilton, Mr. Alexander Wilson. I knew him well and I know that he was widely respected in the House. He was a man of dignity and integrity, who worked quietly and without fuss in his constituency and in the House pursuing the interests of the people of Hamilton and of Larkhall. He did so diligently, without publicity and with honour.

    The work which Mr. Wilson did quietly was all designed to help the people of the area and to further the interests of his constituents. I know from the volume of work which is there and the catalogue of achievement mentioned to me during the by-election that he was a man who clearly made an impact in the House and had much to offer.

    Although I am proud to be the new Member for Hamilton, I am aware that that is possible only due to the tragic and untimely death of Alex Wilson. I know that he also made a considerable contribution within the parliamentary mining group. That is an industry which he knew well and from which he came. He is well remembered within the industry in Scotland, throughout Scotland and in the mining group.

    At this stage in history it is also a pleasure for me to represent Hamilton because the features of that part of Lanarkshire show all the promise of the new Scotland which lies ahead. It is an exciting mixture of ages, of classes, of population and of industry. In that mix it has changed dramatically from the older and more traditional industries of the past—especially that of mining, on which Scotland’s economy previously relied—to light engineering, electronics and the production of sophisticated clothing. In those areas it is excelling. The character of Hamilton is an indication of the way in which Scotland will go in future—not just electorally but in the areas of industry and of technological progress.

    During the by-election, as perhaps during any by-election, local circumstances and problems were highlighted. Although there is much of promise in the area, one of the greatest causes for concern is unemployment. As an aspiring Member, I made it my duty and obligation to pursue the subject of joblessness in the community. We cannot rest, in the House or throughout the country, as long as the present level of unemployment continues.

    At 11 per cent., unemployment in Hamilton is considerably above the Scottish and national average. It is a substantial problem. The most serious aspect is youth unemployment. The prospects for young people leaving school this year and in future without jobs are a matter of concern for them, for their parents and for us in society as a whole, because the future of the country and the future stability of society will be largely dependent on the sort of future that we can offer to young people.

    I feel that we have in the country as a whole to make a concerted effort to ensure that the problems of unemployment that we now face are purely temporary, and that we can build a future prosperity which will mean that especially the young people will be assured the jobs, the training and the prosperous future that they would wish for themselves, and that their parents would wish for them.

    However, I fought a campaign based on the Government’s record. I did it not uncritically but not apologetically, and I asked the people to give their assessment of the situation and their view of the future and to say which party they would trust to run the country’s affairs in the future. In the context of this debate, it is instructive and relevant to remember the answer that the people gave.

    However strongly we feel about the present position of the economy, we must recognise that locally and nationally much has been done to alleviate the problems of unemployment, and especially to look after the needs of young unemployed people. In the Hamilton area, much has been done about unemployment as a whole. In the past five months there has been a positive increase in employment and a very clear decrease in unemployment which has been greater than the national trend, which in itself is welcome. As for youth unemployment, over half those between the ages of 16 and 17 registered as unemployed are already involved in job creation schemes and Government-assisted programmes. We were able to show that, although there was a level of concern that we should not in any way attempt to disguise, there has also been positive Government action to make sure that the impact was the least that was possible in the circumstances.

    The area also shows other signs of Government intervention, and of the intervention of a Government in regional policy which has made a serious impact on the problems of Central Scotland. The Scottish Development Agency—of which I was privileged to be a board member until I came to Parliament—had quite a significant impact in the area. Its industrial estates employ the vast majority of the people in the area, and in companies in which investment has taken place in surrounding areas jobs have been safeguarded for people who work within Hamilton. In the steel industry—one of the largest employers in Hamilton, although it is marginally outside the constituency—investment by the Government has assured the future of Ravenscraig and associated industries.

    Although temporary Government measures are not an answer, there are all the signs in the area that the jobs which are necessary for the future, the growth that is needed and the hope that is desired by the people are being promised by the Government. The people in my area gave a pretty clear and decisive answer as to which party they would trust for the conduct of their affairs in the future.

    The acid test at the end of the day is the will of the people, and there have not been very many tests of public opinion in Scotland where the issue has been put to the country. Not only has the Government’s record been judged and, I think, honourably tested in this election. The future of the constitution of the country was also put to the test in the circumstances here. The policies of separation and of the disintegration of the United Kingdom as we know it were clearly put to the electorate. The electorate gave an answer which shows that people in that area, as throughout Scotland, want to see Britain united and the problems faced head on.

    I also feel that one of the lessons of that by-election, and its result in my presence here today, is that the people of Britain and of Scotland are tired of the cynical manipulation of policies by whichever party may choose to pursue them. They have rejected confrontation quite clearly and precisely whether it be in industry or within the separate parts of this country. If there is an answer to be taken from any of the election results that we have had recently, it is that the constitutional settlement proposed by the Government is necessary, desirable and in keeping with the desires of the peoples of this country, who are looking for a different constitutional set-up.

    The Government’s resolve in this area of the constitution, despite the frustrations with which they have clearly met so far, has been of enormous consequence in stemming the tide towards the break-up of the United Kingdom. I believe that the lesson of the present period is that the British people are tired—and clearly tired—of confrontation, and that they will in future continue to put their trust in this Government, believing as they do that only this Government’s competence, conviction and philosophy will be relevant to the problems of all these islands in the 1980s.

  • Queen Elizabeth II – 1978 Queen’s Speech

    queenelizabethii

    Below is the text of the speech made by HM Queen Elizabeth II in the House of Lords on 1 November 1978.

    My Lords and Members of the House of Commons,

    I look forward with great pleasure to receiving the President of Portugal and Senhora Ramalho Eanes on a State Visit in November, to visiting the countries of Eastern Arabia and Iran during February and March 1979, and to paying a State Visit to Denmark in May. I hope to be present in Lusaka on the occasion of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

    My Government will continue to safeguard the nation’s security and make a full contribution to the North Atlantic Alliance and the improvement of the Alliance’s defence; they will continue to search for ways of developing constructive relations with the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe; and they will seek the fulfilment of all the provisions of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe by all the signatory States.

    Negotiations with the United States and the Soviet Union on a comprehensive nuclear test ban will be continued and My Government will work for more substantial progress on mutual and balanced force reductions in Central Europe.

    My Government will continue to play a full and constructive part in the development and enlargement of the European Economic Community.

    My Government reaffirm their commitment to the United Nations and their support for its peace-keeping role. They will work for a fair settlement in Cyprus and will support all endeavours to ensure a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

    My Government will make every effort with the United Nations to achieve peace and justice in Southern Africa. In Rhodesia, they will continue to strive, with the United States, to achieve a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement, involving all the parties, which will be acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole. In Namibia, they will maintain their effort to secure free and fair elections and independence in 1979, under United Nations auspices.

    My Government will continue to play an active part in the development and strengthening of the Commonwealth. They will make every effort to promote successful co-operation between industrialised and developing countries for the benefit of both. They will maintain an effective and increasing programme of assistance to developing countries, and in particular will direct help towards the needs of the poorest peoples of the world.

    Members of the House of Commons,

    Estimates for the public service will be laid before you.

    My Lords and Members of the House of Commons,

    My Government’s economic policies will continue to be directed to overcoming the evils of inflation and unemployment, the two most serious social problems facing the nation today, and to sustaining the growth of output which is now under way. They will pursue every available means of moving to full employment. They will continue to play a leading part, with our international partners, in seeking an end to the worldwide recession. Building on the stronger domestic economy now established and using the benefits of North Sea oil further to improve long-term recovery, they will vigorously pursue their policies designed to promote the success of industry and to increase productivity. In all these matters My Ministers will co-operate closely with the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry.

    New ways will be sought to help small businesses. Special encouragement will be given to the education and training of young people and others to safeguard and increase the supply of skilled manpower. Legislation will be introduced to provide additional finance for the National Enterprise Board and for the Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies. Following continued consultations with industry, legislation will be introduced to improve arrangements for compensation of workers on short-time, and to reduce redundancies at times of high unemployment by encouraging the alternative of short-time working.

    Social justice and racial tolerance will be promoted through My Government’s social policies. The partnership between the Government and the local authorities in Inner City areas will be pressed forward. A Bill will be introduced to improve the funding of schemes designed to help ethnic minority groups.

    My Government will seek to ensure that respect for the law is maintained, and will give full support to strengthening the Police Service. Every effort will be made to recruit the aid of the whole community to defeat crime and vandalism.

    In Northern Ireland, My Government will maintain their efforts to establish a form of devolved government acceptable to all sections of the community and to ensure that those responsible for violence are brought to account before the courts. My Ministers will work energetically to improve living standards and increase opportunities for employment. A Bill will be introduced to increase the representation of Northern Ireland in the House of Commons, in accordance with the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference.

    My Government are resolved to strengthen our democracy by providing new opportunities for citizens to take part in the decisions that affect their lives. A number of the following measures include provisions for that purpose.

    Draft Orders will be laid early in the Session to provide for the referenda on devolution to Scottish and Welsh Assemblies, to be held when the new electoral registers are available.

    Following further consultation on the proposals in the White Paper on industrial democracy, legislation will be introduced to ensure that employees and unions are able to participate in discussions of corporate strategy and to provide in due course for employee representation on company boards.

    The proposals set out in the White Paper on Broadcasting will be pursued, with a view to legislation on changes in the constitution, structure and organisation of broadcasting, including improved arrangements for the views of listeners and viewers to be heard and taken into account.

    Further proposals will be brought forward to achieve more open government. It remains My Government’s intention to replace Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 with a measure better suited to present day conditions. My Government will continue to make information on public policy more readily available.

    My Government will bring forward proposals to amend the Local Government Act 1972 in order to secure the better functioning of local democracy in a number of the large towns and cities in England. A Bill will be introduced to strengthen the consumer voice in relation to nationalised industries.

    Legislation will be introduced to improve the law on education in England and Wales and to enable grants to be made in Wales towards the cost of bilingual education. A Bill on housing will include provisions for a new charter of rights for public sector tenants, a new scheme for subsidies in the public sector, more flexible arrangements for the charging of interest on local authority mortgages, and further assistance towards the improvement and repair of existing homes.

    Bills will be introduced to improve safety and discipline at sea, to help to control marine pollution, and to amend other aspects of Merchant Shipping legislation, and also to strengthen the enforcement powers necessary for the safety of offshore oil and gas installations.

    My Government remain committed to the establishment of a Public Lending Right for authors, and will introduce a Bill for this purpose as soon as possible.

    My Government will continue to press for improvements in the Common Agricultural Policy and to promote an expansion of food production in the United Kingdom and its efficient processing and distribution. They will also take all measures necessary to conserve fish stocks and will continue their efforts to achieve an acceptable Common Fisheries Policy within the EEC.

    My Government re-affirm their commitment to the reorganisation of the electricity supply industry in England and Wales and will introduce legislation for this purpose.

    Fresh support will be given to enable the National Health Service to fulfil and extend its services to the public. Bills will be introduced on the regulation and training of the nursing, midwifery and health visiting professions on the lines recommended by the Briggs Committee on Nursing; and to provide for the scheme of payments for those who have suffered severe vaccine damage. A measure will be introduced to extend benefits for the disabled and to correct and clarify the law relating to social security. My Government are examining schemes to provide compensation for those such as slate quarrymen who have suffered respiratory diseases from dust in their employment, but who are unable to obtain such compensation through the courts because their employers have gone out of business. A Bill will be introduced to improve the arrangements for legal aid.

    Legislation will be introduced to extend protection for individuals who entrust their savings to others. It will include Bills relating to banks and other deposit-taking institutions, to credit unions, and to estate agents. There will be legislation to amend company law, including strengthening the provisions governing the conduct of company directors, and to establish the Crown Agents as a statutory corporation. A Bill will be introduced to improve procedures in commercial arbitration.

    Scottish Bills will be introduced to improve criminal justice and criminal procedure in Scotland, to establish a system of registration of title to land, and for other purposes.

    My Government will continue their programme of law reform.

    Other measures will be laid before you.

    My Lords and Members of the House of Commons,

    I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your counsels.