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Tag: 1978

  • Donald Anderson – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by Donald Anderson, the then Labour MP for East Swansea, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    The hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Knox) made a courageous speech in respect of incomes policy. I hope to return to that subject later. However, I am not wholly with the hon. Member in his suggestion that the Conservative Opposition have been helpful, certainly since January of this year, when the Leader of the Opposition, in her speech in Glasgow, said that she saw no case for incomes policy. As one approached a General Election, the impression was given to trade union bargainers that the Conservatives were not in favour of incomes policy and were in favour of so-called free collective bargaining, and, therefore, that all the constraints were off.

    I disagree with the hon. Member in his analysis of the reason for the voting intentions of the Scottish and Welsh nationalists. He argued that there might have been a referendum in September had the Government been in earnest about holding such a referendum speedily. The problem there, of course, was the 40 per cent. hurdle and the wish of the Government and, indeed, of the proponents of devolution, as a result of that hurdle, to have as up-to-date a register as possible. Hence the pledge given today and earlier by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that the referendums would be held as soon as practicable after the coming into force of the new register.

    However, as far as I can divine, it is not a matter of the attitude of the nationalist parties, because they wish to have a sympathetic Government in power, using official machinery in favour of devolution at the time of the referendums, that the nationalist parties are unlikely to give the Conservative Party support when it comes to the Division at the end of the debate on the Loyal Address. Surely it is rather that they positively see benefits for their own countries in the policies that are being pursued by the present Government and, negatively, following the attack on public expenditure, which generates so many of the jobs in Wales and Scotland, in the event of the advent of a Conservative Government which is pledged to reduce that public expenditure, which would put in question much of the regional employment machinery which has been built up painstakingly by the present Government over its years in office, they see positive disadvantages for their countries under a Conservative Government, particularly under the Conservative Party’s present leadership. For reasons of that sort, they have no interest in seeing the present Government replaced by a Conservative Government.

    As regards the Queen’s Speech in general, certainly my own initial reaction and the reaction of many colleagues was that it was much meatier than we had expected. In the last Session of Parliament, by having the three constitutional measures which took up such a large part of the time available for Government measures, almost all the other good but not necessary measures were swept off the table—the merchant shipping Bill and so on. Now there is time available for considering such important measures.

    Indeed, the Queen’s Speech is a programme for a Session. It is a programme that will keep Parliament very busy over that Session. Looking at the amount of work involved in the Queen’s Speech, there is no suspicion that my right hon. Friend or any of his colleagues think that they will not be in Government come Thursday week after the Division. They have every reason to be confident that they can safely plan for a very fruitful and useful Session. It is not an electioneering Queen’s Speech. It is one that is well balanced, and I think that it will find support from everyone save those on the Conservative Benches.

    What is clear is that much of the areas of debate with which we shall be dealing during this Session are not included in the Queen’s Speech, partly perhaps, looking internally at the moment, ​ because reform of this place is properly considered to be a matter for the House itself. More importantly, looking at the fundamental economic issues, one thinks of the European monetary system, which will cause agonising debates within my party. That is not included in the Queen’s Speech, and I hope that the Government, as they have done to some extent today, will make available as much of the background material as possible so that Back-Bench Members can come to a reasonable appraisal of what is at stake in the EMS proposal.

    Secondly, there is pay policy and the whole course of our economic progress, with some indications now, with investment intentions much more favourable, with the degree of growth in the economy and with sterling buoyant, that the Government’s strategy is paying off. The big question mark relates to pay policy, and here I follow the view of the hon. Member for Leek. I hope that as a result of the experience of 1975 and 1976 the country will realise that expectations are such, that basic human nature is such, that the Government must have a global figure which they think appropriate beyond which incomes cannot rise if we are to have an overall sensible economic policy.

    If—this is the central dilemma—there are limits within which the Government’s remit runs, which we see illustrated dramatically in the Ford strike, there could be difficulties if those limits are exceeded. If Ford settles at 15 per cent. or more, that will be held as a pattern not only for the motor sector but for other sectors, and if overall settlements within the private sector are in excess of 10 per cent. how can the Government thereafter seek to hold the line in the public sector, where almost 30 per cent. of the total work force is employed? What sort of argument can the Government make not only to civil servants but to those in the nationalised industries if the barrier is broken so dramatically by Ford?

    Those who argue against an incomes policy yet are in favour of special consideration for the low paid are living in a moonshine world and refusing honestly to face the issues. One sees the interaction between the public and private sectors in, for example, the employment of computer experts within the Government service, where already there has been a substantial loss of computer specialists. If the Government maintain their pay policy only within the public sector, one can foresee a loss from that sector of scarce skills and a general deterioration in the quality of work.

    Any Government, of whatever political colour, must have an aggregate sum which they think is appropriate globally. They must also have some pay policy for their own employees, if only because of the interaction between the public and private sectors. It is wholly unrealistic, and indeed dishonest, to pretend that pure free collective bargaining can exist in our society today, with the expectations which can be raised thereby. Here I am at one with the hon. Member for Leek, who has consistently and courageously put forward his own views on this matter. Both of us are mightily removed from his Front Bench, which speaks with such a multitude of voices on this subject, so misleadingly and damagingly.

    My only regret is that, coming to the fourth year of pay policy, and perhaps inevitably because of the approach of a General Election, the opportunity was not taken to seek to agree on some longer-term strategy on pay and incomes generally on the lines of, say, the Scandinavian model. That opportunity was avoided, I believe, to the cost of this country.

    Having touched on pay policy and EMS, the issues not in the Queen’s Speech, I shall take up briefly what was said by the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) and deal with Wales. This Queen’s Speech has properly been labelled a Welsh Queen’s Speech, with the priority given to fighting unemployment and the extra resources to be made available to the Welsh Development Agency. The WDA, under its current level of expenditure—in the view of many of us, perhaps over-cautious so far—will bump up against the ceiling over the next financial year, so there was need for extra resources in any event. It is touching to see the present unanimity about the WDA, since I could remind Opposition Members, perhaps to their embarrassment, that as one they voted against it when the proposal came before the House. Now, in the light of experience, they are happily converted to its usefulness as a tool of economic regeneration.

    We welcome also the proposal about bilingual education, which is a particularly sensitive and thorny problem in the English-speaking areas of Mid-Glamorgan and South Glamorgan, and the formula so far devised to help the slate quarry men of North Wales.

    Although I come from the other side of the mountains, in South Wales, I know that there is tremendous sympathy among our people for the plight of those quarry men. An extra stride has been taken in the Government’s recognition of their special position. We look forward over the coming Session to a formula which will meet their real human need—something to which the Labour Government are pledged. We set up a commission under the then Sir Elwyn Jones to produce a report. This is now being pushed speedily through the Department of Employment in co-operation with the Welsh Office—and not as a result of any nationalist pressure. The doors, both of bilingual education and of a solution for the slate quarry men, have already been opened by pressure from Labour Members.

    I welcome the cohesion within the Queen’s Speech of the themes of participation in industry, to give workers greater knowledge of company finances, and also of housing. The Minister for Housing and Construction has played an important personal role in drafting the tenants’ charter. The pledge on this matter that we made in our 1974 election manifesto has taken too long to be realised, but at least the package of tenants’ rights will be enforced by legislation to ensure that the practices of the best local authorities are made the statutory basis for all local authorities.

    Hopefully, this will also give greater discretion to tenants in repairing, painting and decorating their own homes, so that they can avoid the anonymous sameness which is too evident in our council estates. Perhaps this tenants’ charter and the new housing proposals will be the most significant achievement of the coming legislation.

    I welcome, too, the theme of the protection of individuals—not only the consumerism which informs a number of the proposals but also the fact that the Government are taking up the abortive ​ Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Davies) to regulate the conduct of estate agents—a much-needed measure for the protection of individuals.

    I am pleased that, in relation to England, the Government have listened to the proud cities such as Bristol and Norwich which have asked for a recasting in their favour of powers under the 1972 Local Government Act. I only regret that, because of the difficulty created by the Wales Act, there is no such proposal in respect of similarly proud and ancient cities, such as Newport, Cardiff and Swansea, in South Wales. We shall be left behind because of section 12 of the Wales Act, which leaves in the air local government reorganisation, leaving it dependent on the whim of a partisan Assembly that is unlikely to come into being. We shall waste several years when, had we been in the same position as England, these much-sought-after organic changes could have been made.

    I should now like to mention one or two matters that were omitted from the Gracious Speech. I regret that there was no mention of road safety, although a conference on the subject was convened in June this year by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport. Many of those who attended that conference and took part will now be asking themselves why they bothered. The Blennerhassett report on drinking and driving has been gathering dust on the Department’s shelves. We have clear evidence of the way in which seat belt legislation could save lives. We know that the effect of the 1967 breathalyser Act is now wearing thin. I very much regret that, particularly after the conference in June, the Government could not find time in the coming legislative session for road safety legislation, whether on Blennerhassett or on seat belts.

    Perhaps I should apologise for my next point, because it is to a large extent a constituency matter. I refer to the omission of any mention of a subject that has been discussed freely in the press over past weeks—the Government’s decision to abolish the vehicle excise duty in favour of an increased tax on petrol. There are respectable energy conservation and other arguments for that. Until now the Treasury has maintained that—however ​ attractive the energy conservation arguments for penalising the user—the balance of payments arguments and the arguments about the effect on our own motor industry as people switched to lower powered vehicles were decisive. In my view, those arguments are still as strong as ever they were.

    There is also the question of the effect on rural areas, where earnings are normally less and where people are likely to be penalised by a switch that would mean that anyone motoring more than 7,500 miles a year was likely to lose. There is also the matter of the lack of consultation with the unions involved.

    I think that the Government have made a mistake. Even if on overall national grounds it is decided to make the switch to a petrol tax from the vehicle excise duty—and I readily concede that there are powerful arguments in favour of that—I await the Government’s proposals in regard to the employment effects in an area of South Wales that has suffered, and still suffers, from very high levels of unemployment, and where the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre at Morriston has made a major impact, particularly on female employment. If it is considered that there are overwhelming national reasons for making the change, I hope that the Government will look very carefully at the local employment effect.

    I have spoken of the omissions—road safety and the question of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre. That having been said, I think that this Gracious Speech is well balanced. It will certainly be very much welcomed in Wales. It will be very much welcomed by people of good will who see that overall our economic picture is improving, who see a firm, steady hand in the Government now, and who will welcome the very useful changes that we shall enact over this full legislative Session.

  • David Knox – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Knox, the then Conservative MP for Leek, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    I agree with the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer). As we have come to expect from him, he made a reasonable, sensible and moderate speech. My hon. Friend always makes a real contribution to sensible debate in the House.

    I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak at such an early stage in a parliamentary Session which might not last long. Indeed, it might be over within a fortnight. I confess that, like my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West, I am rather sorry that the House has reassembled without hon. Members having the opportunity to face the electorate. It is pleasant to see some colleagues here who did not expect to return after the Summer Recess. I am referring to those right hon. and hon. Members who do not intend to take part in the next General Election rather than those on the Labour Benches who represent marginal constituencies. Although it is pleasant to see those who were to have retired, I think it was a great mistake not to have a General Election last month. I do not say that in a particularly partisan spirit.
    The Government do not have a majority in the House. They do not have a permanent arrangement with one of the minority parties to give them a majority. In such circumstances, the Government can only limp along from day to day, not knowing whether they will be in office a few clays later. Such uncertainty cannot be good for the country.

    No one knows where he stands. Decisions by employers and trade unionists will be more difficult. Urgent decisions will be deferred because no one will be sure about the future political environment. The inevitable continuous electioneering atmosphere will have an adverse effect on the quality of government. All that can only be damaging to the country. It would have been much better for us to have had an election last month. The uncertainty would have been removed. Everyone would have known which party was to be in power over the next few years. The people would have had a much better idea of the future political environment. The quality of decisions within and outside Government would have been better, and the new Government would have been able to get on with the job of governing the country.

    But, although we did not have a General Election last month, we could well have one later this month or next month, and it is because I believe that the present uncertainty is damaging to the country that I hope the Government will lose the vote at the end of the debate and so be forced to an immediate General Election. I hope that the minority parties will put the country before party and join my party in voting the Government down.

    The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) made a very able speech this afternoon, but she was vague about the SNP’s intentions at the end of the debate. She dragged in a large number of issues, but the essence of the decision by the nationalists must hinge on devolution. The reference by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) to the advertisement which the nationalists have put in Scottish newspapers indicated the truth of that.

    Of course, there must be a temptation for the nationalist parties to argue that they will sustain the Government in office either positively or by abstention until the devolution referendums have taken place. From their point of view, that is a superficially attractive argument. I believe that it is important that these two referendums should take place quickly, because the sooner the uncertainty about the future government of Scotland and Wales has been resolved, the better it will be for the United Kingdom as a whole and the individual countries within it.

    The importance and urgency of early referendums on Scottish and Welsh devolution cannot be said to be an argument for sustaining the Government in power. I say that, first, because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) has made clear, a Conservative Government would hold the referendums on 22nd March next year, and that is very similar to the Prime Minister’s pledge this afternoon. No one who knows my right hon. Friend would ever believe that he would not fulfil that promise.

    I say it, secondly, because there is no reason for sustaining the Government in power. If they had wanted to hold the referendums quickly, they could have ​ done so in September and October, as some of us advised in the summer. Presumably they did not do so because they wanted to exercise some leverage on the nationalist parties over the next few months.

    The nationalists may, of course, argue that a Labour Government will campaign for a “yes” vote whereas a Tory Administration would campaign for “no”. The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East made quite a bit of that argument. No doubt the nationalists would argue that the attitude of the Government of the day is an important influence on the outcome of a referendum. I doubt that. If anything, I should have thought that Government support for one side or the other could well be counter-productive. I do not get the impression that Governments of any particular party are particularly popular or influential on the views of the people. But, in any event, it seems clear to me that there will be an emphatic “yes” vote in Scotland for devolution. The argument is therefore not valid when applied to Scottish devolution. I know much less about Wales and I therefore refrain from forecasting the outcome of the referendum in that country.

    It seems clear to me therefore that there is no great advantage for the nationalists in their sustaining the Government in office. There is the possible disadvantage, if they do so, that their right-of-centre voters will desert them at the next General Election in fairly large numbers. I need scarcely remind members of the SNP, holding as they do constituencies such as Galloway, South Angus and Perth and East Perthshire, how much they have to lose if they back the Government. It must therefore be in their interests to vote with the Conservatives at the end of the debate.

    In the past few weeks there has been a great debate in the country about incomes policy. I welcome that debate not least because it is taking place within political parties as well as between them. It is right that such a debate should take place. Whether we have an incomes policy is an important economic issue, but it is as well to remember—and the media would do well to bear this in mind—that it is by no means the only economic issue that faces the country. And it is perfectly possible to be a loyal member of the Labour or Conservative Party and yet not necessarily to be in full agreement with the current official attitude of either party to incomes policy.

    I hope that the debate on incomes policy will continue with greater emphasis placed on the issue and less emphasis applied to the personalities. I have been convinced for some considerable time that, in the imperfect conditions which obtain it this country, an incomes policy is an essential tool of economic management, both as a means of limiting inflation and as a means of maintaining a higher level of employment than would otherwise exist.

    That is not to say that I would not prefer genuine free collective bargaining, but frankly that is not an option. In practice, free collective bargaining in this country is neither “free” nor “bargaining”. Quite simply, it is the exercise of monopoly power. Monopoly power, wherever it appears, is bad and must be restrained. When monopoly power is exercised in the labour market, an incomes policy is probably the best means of restraining some of its excesses.

    Of course, incomes policies have defects, but these pale into insignificance compared with the defects of so-called free collective bargaining. So-called free collective bargaining between 1969 and 1972 resulted in the inflation and unemployment of the early 1970s. So-called free collective bargaining in 1974 and 1975 led in the years immediately following to the hyper-inflation and the excessive unemployment of that time. So bad were the consequences of that period of free collective bargaining that we are still suffering from both the inflation and the unemployment that arose.

    No one would claim that any incomes policy is perfect, nor that any incomes policy in the future is likely to be perfect either. Nor would the strongest supporters of incomes policies claim that such policies in themselves were sufficient.

    But there is no doubt that the incomes policy of the last Tory Government was highly successful in restraining domestically generated inflation in 1973 at a time when imported inflation in the form of much higher commodity prices was playing havoc with the general level of prices in this country.

    There is no doubt that the present Government’s incomes policy has played a significant part in reducing inflation from 26 per cent. to 8½ per cent. over the last three years. That is why it has had my general support. That is not to condone the irresponsibility of the Government when they allowed inflation to escalate to 26 per cent. in the first 16 months of their period of office. It is only to recognise that when they started to do something more sensible it was in the national interest that they should be given general support.

    The Government have now suggested that incomes increases in the next 12 months should not exceed 5 per cent. I think that that policy can contribute to a further reduction in inflation and to the avoidance of even higher unemployment than we now have. It consequently deserves support. However, the Government’s policy seems somewhat rigid and inflexible, but it is the only incomes policy we have, and even with its defects it is better than no incomes policy. It should, therefore, be supported by all those who have the national interest at heart, and that means by all Conservatives.

    Let me clarify one point. Even though I think that the present pay policy is inflexible, I do not doubt for one moment that 5 per cent. is right as a global amount. Therefore, if one is to have a more flexible approach, that must mean that some would get a little more than 5 per cent. and some a little less. It does not and should not mean that everyone should get 5 per cent., some rather more and most people far more—otherwise, all that will happen will be an inevitable return to the hyper-inflation from which we are still in the process of escaping.

    If one looks at the last few years and at the period between 1972 and 1974, when the Tory Government’s incomes policy was in being, one finds that there is one very considerable difference. I refer, of course, to the behaviour of the Opposition of the day. During the period of the Tory Government’s incomes policy, the then Labour Opposition lost no opportunity to attack it and to try to undermine it. From the Prime Minister downwards, members of the Labour Party gave every encouragement to people to defeat the then Government’s policy, even though that policy was very much more generous than the incomes policy of the present Labour Government.

    Since the Labour Government introduced their incomes policy in 1975, the present Conservative Opposition have behaved responsibly. No attempt has been made to undermine the Government’s policy. No encouragement has been given to people to try to smash it. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said at the Conservative Party conference at Brighton, speaking about the Prime Minister:

    “Let me put his mind at rest. We are not going to follow in his footsteps. We will not accuse him of ‘union bashing’. We will not support a strike in breach of an agreement. We will not act irresponsibly—and he knows it.”

    The Conservative attitude to the Labour Government’s incomes policy has been a model of responsible opposition, and I hope that the new Labour Opposition will copy it after the next General Election.

    I should like very briefly to express regret about two omissions from the Gracious Speech. First, there is no mention of proposals to implement the Erroll Report on liquor licensing. It is now six years since the committee reported. Ever since, the Home Office has dithered on the issue and done nothing at all. In the meantime, the Clayson report on Scottish licensing laws, which was published after Erroll, in August 1973, was implemented in the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976.

    There is considerable evasion of the licensing laws in this country. There is great public concern about them because they are old fashioned and reactionary. If the Government wanted to use the time in this Session to effect a useful and helpful social reform, I cannot see why at long last the Home Office could not have come around to producing a Bill to deal with this problem.

    The second omission, which I regret very much, is the Government’s failure to implement the recommendation of the Speaker’s Conference in the 1970–74 Parliament to lower the age at which people can stand for Parliament. It is nine years since the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18. The Speaker’s Conference in the 1970–74 Parliament recommended that the age at which people could stand for Parliament should also be ​ reduced from 21 to 18. The current situation is anomalous. It seems to me regrettable that the Government do not propose to take the opportunity to implement that recommendation of that Speaker’s Conference as well as the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference in the current Parliament.

    We do not have a lot of legislation for the Session. It would seem to me not unreasonable to ask the Government to reconsider both these points. We have plenty of spare time. Let us have Bills on both of them and so effect two very useful reforms.

  • Anthony Meyer – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anthony Meyer, the then Conservative MP for West Flint, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Dr. Glyn) that, if a Labour Government were to be returned with a large majority, the policies about which we heard from the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) would feature in their programme rather than those currently being defended by the Prime Minister. Indeed, I would go further and say that it would be a question not merely of the size of the majority which would drive them that way, but more the expectation of four or more years of power. In other words, at the beginning rather than at the end of a Parliament they would show themselves more ready to embark on Socialist measures.

    I can see only one consolation in the postponement of the election which the people of this country so manifestly wanted—an election which I am certain, whatever the opinion polls may say, would have resulted in a decisive Conservative victory—and that is the elegant, charming and witty speech made by the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) and ​ the fact that we shall have him with us for the duration of this Parliament.

    If I wanted to find in the Queen’s Speech a convincing reason why the postponement of the election was so disastrous, I should find it primarily in the statement that

    “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.”

    I am sure that that will be an extremely popular proposal. It is a way of masking the unemployment which, despite temporary improvements, is gaining on us apace. Employers’ contributions to national insurance are to be increased to subsidise short-time working. It seems a classic example of the kind of short term measure that we get in a pre-election period from a Government who are worried about their prospects—a measure which certainly will be popular and will equally certainly contribute in the long term to a worsening of unemployment because it will contribute markedly to a worsening of our competitive ability. As an operation, it is like filling in the cracks in the facade by digging away stones from the foundations. I believe that the consequences of this operation, as with other short term cosmetic operations for concealing unemployment, will prove to be disastrous in terms of future unemployment.

    I turn briefly to those items in the Gracious Speech which concern the Principality as I am the first Welsh Conservative Member to speak to the Address. It seems from the Queen’s Speech that the Government have paid quite a high price to secure those three vital Plaid Cymru votes. Having listened to the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) and the impossibly high price that she was putting on the Scottish National Party’s support to either side of the House which cared to bid for it, I understand why the Government settled for the slightly softer option of buying the votes of Plaid Cymru.

    The proposals in the Queen’s Speech for improved compensation arrangements for the victims of pneumoconiosis and silicosis are welcome, but I hope that no one will run away with the idea that these are the result of a sustained campaign by Plaid Cymru. Its part in this ​ matter reminds me of the fly on the coach wheel which, as the four great shire horses dragged the coach to the top of the hill, triumphantly exclaimed “You would never have got there without my help.” There has been an all-party effort to secure these improvements. I am sure that any Government who found themselves in a position to improve these compensation arrangements would have done so. The fact that this Government have done it at this time indicates that they are anxious to secure the votes of Plaid Cymru. I hope that they are also converted to the need for these improvements.

    There is one other item possibly affecting Wales on which I should like to touch. I note with curiosity that the Government have renewed their pledge or reaffirmed their commitment to the reorganisation of the electricity supply industry in both England and Wales. I think that very early on we should have an assurance that that does not mean that MANWEB, the company which provides electricity to North Wales and Merseyside, is to be split into separate Welsh and English elements. All who know about such matters know that the cost of supplying consumers in North Wales is much higher than the cost of supplying consumers in Merseyside where the population is greater. A split of MANWEB can result only in higher electricity tariffs for people in North Wales.

    I hope that we shall have an early assurance on this matter. If we do not, there will be considerable alarm and despondency at the prospect of still further increases in electricity tariffs which are already bearing heavily on certain consumers, particularly old people and those who are unfortunate enough to have electric heating in their homes.

    I shall deal briefly with two omissions from the Gracious Speech. The first involves a prosaic matter, but it causes considerable and increasing concern to certain people in my constituency. I had hoped to find some reference in the speech to the necessity of amending the Shops Act 1950. I had hoped particularly for an amendment to Part IV of that Act which deals with Sunday opening. We are in an inextricable mess over the law on Sunday opening. This is imposing an intolerable duty on local authorities, particularly in areas which can claim to be resorts. They have the right to permit​ opening on 18 Sundays a year. That figure is not adequate because of the short seasons which affect many holiday resorts. The law imposes upon local authorities the intolerable task of forbidding shops from doing something which they and the public want to do and which is in the interests of all but which is contrary to the law. Local authorities suffer great unpopularity because they must carry out the law. The situation is not their fault. It is time that the law was changed.

    Local authorities are unable to do much to control the fly-by-night operators who set up Sunday markets. These are often in unsuitable areas and they cause traffic congestion and dirt. There are provisions to forbid this activity but they are inadequate. The delays and complications involved in enforcing the law make it virtually impossible to catch the fly-by-night trader. If the laws are enforceable, they are enforceable only against respectable stall operators whom no one wishes to harass. Local authorities need greater powers of discretion both to permit Sunday opening for respectable traders and to prevent the installation of undesirable types of Sunday market.

    I shall make my point briefly. There is one omission from the Queen’s Speech which grieves me. It concerns a matter which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition mentioned. I am grieved about the omission of any arrangements for improving the process of consultation of trade union members on the election of their officers and the decision to take industrial action.

    I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend give a pledge that a Conservative Government would make provision for a postal ballot to be conducted at public expense for major trade union decisions. I hope that that principle will be extended to include the provision for a secret ballot—not necessarily a postal ballot—on every major decision affecting industrial action. I confess that I do not understand the hostility which this proposal arouses on the Government side of the House.

    I am sorry that the Lord President is no longer in the Chamber I have read of the indignation which he summoned up when he commented on the difficulties which were put in the way of ​ the introduction of a secret ballot for parliamentary and other elections when local land or mill owners were able to intimidate those employees who voted in a way which was unacceptable to the boss. The secret ballot is the most elementary requirement of democracy. No system can call itself democratic if it does not, as a matter of course, include provision for a secret ballot.

    This matter is of particular concern to my constituency. In my constituency a number of industrial disputes are being fomented and maintained which were possibly originally caused by direct intimidation by militant elements which do not scruple to use the most ruthless methods to oblige their fellow workers to come out on strike and remain on strike. The consequence is that North Wales, part of which I have the honour to represent, which once boasted that it had the finest labour relations in the country, can no longer make such a boast because a large number of major building projects are being deliberately sabotaged by professional agitators using the art of intimidation.

    A secret ballot for all such decisions would destroy the ability of such agitators to intimidate fellow workers. To argue that a secret ballot among the miners and the railwaymen confirmed a decision to strike is not the answer. In those cases the majority genuinely wanted to take industrial action. In such cases industrial action is justified. But in too many cases the militant minority, using the most thuggish of methods, intimidate their fellow workers into going on strike when that is the last thing that the workers wish to do.

    No one suggests that a secret ballot should be enforced on those who do not wish to vote. The objective can be achieved by providing that unless a decision is taken by secret ballot the decision loses the special protection and immunities which are provided by the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act. The special advantages conferred on industrial procedures should be removed unless a decision has been validated by a secret ballot.

    There are few things to which I look forward more in the programme of the incoming Conservative Government than the carrying out of that pledge which my right hon. Friend repeated this afternoon.

  • Margaret Ewing – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by Margaret Ewing, the then SNP MP for East Dunbartonshire, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    Since the ministerial broadcast of Thursday 7th September, there have been two areas of great speculation. One has been about the contents of the Queen’s Speech. At least that area of speculation is ended. The second area of speculation is how the Scottish National Party will cast its votes next week.

    It is unfortunate that the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) is not present because I wish to make it clear at the outset that there has never been any question of a pact between the SNP and the Labour Government. The idea is more abhorrent to us than it is to him. The same would be true with a Conservative Government. We regard both the Labour and Conservative Parties as the same because they are both unionist parties wishing to maintain the Union of Parliaments which we wish to change in order that Scotland can have a Government of her own. The speculation about a pact arose because of the question of the establishment of a devolved Assembly in Scotland. I shall return to this point later.

    As a group, we in the SNP met today and we have carefully considered the contents of the Gracious Speech. There are many aspects that we welcome—for example, the strengthening of the police service and the steps towards industrial democracy and towards more open government. We particularly welcome the possibility of some work being done on the question of marine pollution, because we in Scotland, with the development of North Sea oil, have seen the particular problems there, and my hon. Friends the Members for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) and for Banff (Mr. Watt) have been active in bringing them to the attention of the House, because there is no doubt that the fishing industry in North-East Scotland has suffered as a result.

    However, it will come as no surprise to many hon. Members to hear that we in the SNP have reservations about the Gracious Speech. Many of those reserva- ​ tions reflect the vagueness of the language, and we shall ask for further clarification of such issues. We shall also want to know about the omissions from the Gracious Speech.

    First, there is the question of land. Again, I am disappointed that the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire is not present because it seems to me that, having spent his summer having cups of tea with Sir Hugh Fraser and individuals in that magic number of acres—800—in his own territory, he must have forgotten some of his own statements. If the hon. Gentleman really believes that the promises in the Gracious Speech about land reflect in any way his views or those of anyone who wishes to see a radical approach to land ownership in Scotland, he is sadly mistaken, because it would appear that the reference to land legislation concerns only the registration of titles and conveyancing, and that is only a minor aspect of the problem of land use and land ownership in Scotland. It is a significant step forward, but I suggest that its position in the Gracious Speech indicates that it was a bit of an afterthought by the Government and does not reflect the radical reforming zeal that we once expected from the Labour Party.

    Secondly, there is the question of the Scottish Development Agency and the proposed extension of funds to it. Obviously we welcome that. This matter, too, has frequently been pursued by the SNP in the past. But we want to know how quickly the money will be made available, how much is to be allocated, and over what period.

    I come now to the omissions from the Gracious Speech, particularly the obvious one against the background of unemployment in Scotland, that is, the lack of any oil fund commitment by the Government. The Government claim that unemployment is falling, but last month in Scotland, although the United Kingdom trend was downwards, more people were registered as unemployed. We cannot tolerate this situation in the Scottish nation. The Scottish unemployment figures are a condemnation of Westminster’s neglect, and the failure of the Government to take the opportunity of the oil revenues to create special funds whereby employment could be created in Scotland is a sin which will not readily be forgotten by the Scottish people and by future generations ​ of Scots because it goes against all the evidence which has been produced even by Government Departments.

    The Scottish Economic Planning Department itself, in a report from Professor Gaskin and Professor Mackay, stated that the major beneficiary of the North Sea oil revenues would be the London Government, and that the only chance of a general restructuring of the Scottish economy would come from the investment of oil revenues in long-term structural changes. But the Gracious Speech does not reflect that view, which was expressed by a Government Department. There was a possibility that an oil fund would be given, but again the Government have set their face against it. They have set their face against giving us the opportunity as Scots to spend our money—because that money is ours by right—on regenerating the Scottish economy and eradicating many of the social problems to which the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire referred. Sometimes one wonders whether the hon. Gentleman remembers that he belongs to a party which has cut public expenditure in Scotland and which is in many ways responsible for the deprivation, the low pay and the substandard school buildings. The hon. Gentleman made great play of that, but his Government have refused on this occasion to give us the opportunity to solve those problems.

    A second omission is that of any reference to local government reform in Scotland.

    Mr. James Sillars (South Ayrshire)

    Would not the hon. Lady agree that the last people who she should want to try to reform local government for Scotland are Members of this House, because the last time they did it they made a complete botch of the whole job? Is not the whole argument for the Assembly that it would be the best body, the most able, the most efficient and the closest to Scotland and that it would do it correctly?

    Mrs. Bain

    My reason for referring to local government at this stage will become clearer when the hon. Gentleman hears what I have to say on the question of the Assembly and devolution in general. As I said, there is an omission of local government reform, yet it is generally agreed throughout the political parties in Scotland that there is a desperate need to ​ reform local government. That has been the most unpopular aspect of the legislation which was brought in by the Conservative Government during the 1970–74 period. We should at least have been given the opportunity to start looking now at possible methods of reform.

    A third omission has already been referred to—the question of housing and the fact that the tenants’ charter will not be extended to Scotland. I find this particularly difficult to understand, because while owner-occupation stands at 55 per cent. in the United Kingdom as a whole it is only 31 per cent. in Scotland. In other words, 54 per cent. of the housing stock in Scotland is in some form of public ownership. This is what has led to the director of Shelter writing to every Scottish Member of Parliament. We have this very high level of public housing, yet nothing seems to be done to make sure that tenants in Scotland are given a similar deal to tenants south of the border.

    It is made clear in the letter from the director of Shelter—I see the Under-Secretary of State on the Front Bench—

    “We understand from correspondence with the Under Secretary of State responsible for Housing that similar legislation for Scotland is not currently planned, a situation we view with considerable alarm.”

    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Hugh D. Brown)

    I hope that the hon. Lady will do me the courtesy of actually reading the letter and not relying on the advice of her vice-chairman—because she is a political animal. The precise wording does not rule out legislation this Session.

    Mrs. Bain

    We are most grateful for that reassurance. We hope that we shall have further details of this explained to the House before the vote is taken next Thursday, because we certainly regard this as a crucial aspect of the Queen’s Speech.

    I now turn to the vexed question of devolution and how it will affect the Scottish National Party’s voting pattern next week. I repeat what I said earlier. We regard the Westminster parties as six of one and half a dozen of the other. As a party, we stand for a fundamental constitutional change, a radical change, which establishes democratic independent government in Scotland. Everyone who joins ​ the Scottish National Party signs a membership card stating that. Nowhere on our membership card does it say “We believe in devolution”. Devolution is the result of the people of Westminster responding to pressure from the people of Scotland.

    We have accepted that we are getting an Assembly which has been granted grudgingly by Westminster. But it is merely a step in the right direction. We saw what happened to the Scotland and Wales Bill and then the Scotland Bill as they made their passage through this place and the other place. We saw more and more powers being taken away. But we are still prepared to accept the Assembly because it is the first internal constitutional change in Britain since 1707. At least that is something of which we can be proud, because it is something which sets us on the road to self-government.

    It is unfortunate that there is no third Lobby in the House of Commons because we have to balance our decision in casting our votes with one party or the other. In coming to that decision, I would make clear that, while the Assembly is a priority for us in the Scottish National Party, it is not the sole priority. That was why I referred to the unemployment situation, funds to the SDA and to Scotland’s housing problems. I hope that Members on the Opposition Front Bench are listening equally carefully. If the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) is serious about wanting us to vote with him next week, he and the Shadow Cabinet must present their alternative strategy for the people of Scotland. Throughout this debate on the Queen’s Speech we shall be listening to hear what that strategy is.

    I should like to make specific reference to the Prime Minister’s announcement today that 1st March will be the referendum date. If the Prime Minister seriously believes that that announcement is a bait to make us swallow his hook, he had better think again, because that date has been mooted for a long time. The whole question of March is not something new. It will go down like a dead duck in Scotland because people have anticipated it. The Prime Minister must bear in mind that, even with the passage of the Scotland Bill, if there is the intervention of a General Election, the referendum may not necessarily be held on 1st March. If the opportunity arose between now and March, when he thought that his party was at its best, I for one believe that the Prime Minister might choose that option and go to the country. Where would the referendum be then? We need something more positive—for example, the date of the first elections to the Scottish Assembly.

    We have heard it all before from Westminster Governments. We all know about timetable slippage. The Bill was to be on the statute book by July 1976. The Assembly could have been in operation by mid-1977. Yet here we are in the latter stages of 1978 talking about a referendum in early 1979.

    The question of the 40 per cent. rule could have been looked at more thoroughly by the Government. Are we to have any details on this? I do not really believe that it is beyond the powers of the Privy Council to make some kind of concession in terms of people who are dead but who will be registered as voting “no” and in terms of students who will have double votes or who will cancel each other out. I do not believe that it is beyond collective wisdom to make some kind of allowance for these factors and to allow an earlier referendum.

    We have had no promise from the Government about the kind of campaign they will wage during the referendum. We know that the Conservative Party has said “no”, but the Government have said that they will support the “yes” campaign. If the Government do not have the money to fund the European Assembly elections campaign for their own party, are we on this side of the House seriously expected to believe that money will be allocated to a campaign in which the Labour Party is as equally divided as it is on the question of Europe?

    Mr. Dalyell

    How can the Government support the “yes” campaign when the leader of the “yes” campaign, Lord Kilbrandon, is reported faithfully by the BBC as saying that the break-up of the United Kingdom would be no bad thing? That, rightly or wrongly, is not the policy of my Front Bench.

    Mrs. Bain

    We, of course, endorse the views of Lord Kilbrandon. It is up to the Prime Minister to decide where he wants ​ to stand on that particular issue. We want to know the details of how the Government will campaign in the referendum. What sum of money are they prepared to spend, and what will be the level of their campaign? Are we to get a booklet as we did during the European referendum? We should like to know about these details.

    Mr. Sillars

    Will the hon. Lady give way on this point?

    Mrs. Bain

    Yes, even though the hon. Gentleman has not been in the Chamber for very long.

    Mr. Sillars

    I must have been, because the hon. Lady gave way to me earlier. I have been following very carefully the argument which she is putting about the Assembly, the SNP and the Labour Government. Is she aware that in local newspapers throughout the length and breadth of Scotland local associations of her own party are inserting advertisements claiming that members of the Scottish National Party are the people who have achieved the Scottish Assembly?

    Mr. Douglas Crawford (Perth and East Perthshire)

    Yes.

    Mr. Sillars

    The hon. Lady’s hon. Friend says “yes” and endorses that poster and publicity campaign. If that is correct, is it not the case that if the present Government fall one then has a change of Government which will campaign against the Assembly? Perhaps something else will happen and the Assembly will not arise. Then by the same token the hon. Lady’s party will be responsible for losing the Assembly.

    Mrs. Bain

    While the hon. Gentleman may have changed his opinion since he first wrote “Don’t butcher Scotland’s future”, he has not lost his naive faith in Westminster Governments. I pointed out very carefully the possibility of an intervening General Election which would create a very different situation for the promised date of 1st March for the referendum. I do not have that naive faith in any Westminster Government. I would never take that as bait to get me into any Lobby.

    I turn to the question of the Conservatives’ attitude. In view of the recent results in Scotland, I believe that the Leader of the Opposition is the Labour ​ Party’s secret weapon. She has been responsible, not for the three hat tricks of victory, but for the three situations in which the Government were able to hold on to seats which they should never have even contemplated losing.

    There are two basic choices open to us. I ask the Conservatives to clarify before next Thursday where they stand on various issues. For example, where do they stand on the question of the Scottish Development Agency which they opposed when it was set up by Parliament in 1975? Ensuing articles that have been written by members of the Conservative Party have not clarified the party’s intentions towards the agency, which has already been responsible for holding about 10,000 jobs in Scotland. I for one would like to know the Conservative attitude on that.

    We should also like to know the Conservative strategy for creating employment in Scotland. If we are to believe all the public announcements which members of their Front Bench have made on public expenditure, a very worrying situation faces Scotland because of the very large public sector there. We want to know their intentions.

    Finally, the Conservatives are in such a state of confusion over the Scottish Assembly that we would like to know whose views they are endorsing at present. I had the pleasure, as did some other hon. Members, of being on “Clyde Comment” last Friday with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor), who has changed his mind on various occasions about the Scottish constitution. He said that the 40 per cent. minimum requirement was cosmetic and it might be that even if there was not a 40 per cent. majority the Conservative Party in power might just take the majority vote and implement the Assembly. However, when he was challenged on it, he started waffling again and changing his mind.

    Is that official Conservative Party policy? Do the Conservatives want federalism as suggested by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind)? He does not like calling it federalism because that makes people think that he is a Liberal. Or do they want a Speaker’s Conference as suggested by the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire? What exactly is Conservative ​ policy towards a devolved system of government in Scotland? There must be a clear answer from them in the next few days, because they know the implications for the future.

    One point of speculation has been clarified today—the contents of the Queen’s Speech. We are not clarifying the way in which the SNP votes will be cast because we want definitive replies to the points that we are raising, not from one side but from both sides. We shall want to balance the issues very carefully in reaching our decision.

  • John Lee – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Lee, the then Labour MP for Birmingham Handsworth, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    I am not quite sure what is implied by that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. By a happy coincidence, I followed the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Hutchison) in the same debate a year ago. I echoed then, as I do now, the sentiments he has expressed with regard to the Falkland Islands. I shall not go over the ground again. The hon. Member has covered it well. He knows the Falkland Islands well and cares very much for them. As I said on the last occasion, I agree with all that he says.

    One comment I might make, in response to what you have said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, concerning my reappearance, is that one happy consequence of the unexpected extension of the life of this Parliament is that one of the few doughty anti-Marketeers who stood firm in this House—the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South—will be with us for a while yet. When I have gone, I shall be replaced, I am glad to say, by a person who is equally anti-Market in sentiment. The lady who is to take my place, without question, at the next General Election is of those sentiments. I do not know whether that is the situation in Edinburgh, South. I fear that it will not be.

    Having watched the way in which the number of anti-Marketeers has been pared clown, because arms have been ​ twisted, it is good to see the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South still here. I know that he will remain as firm on that issue as he has been on the Falkland Islands.

    I turn to other matters. I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) that it is a little odd, perhaps surprising, that there has not been a reference to prisons in the Gracious Speech. We know, and there is no reason why we should pretend otherwise, that much of the Gracious Speech is determined by the complexities and peculiarities of parliamentary arithmetic. There is nothing wrong in that. If this Parliament should follow the pattern of the Parliament of 1959, which went through to the very end of its life, the Conservatives cannot complain. They took that Parliament to the full legal limit. In this century, two other Parliaments have gone to their complete statutory limit. One went far beyond, because of wartime requirements.

    It is understandable—and I as one of those below the Gangway looking for more Left wing measures have to accept this—that the limitations of parliamentary arithmetic make some of the measures I would wish to see not feasible in this Parliament.

    I refer now to a matter which is not dealt with in the Gracious Speech and which is a concomitant of the question of prisons. There is a campaign being mounted, it seems, by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir David McNee, and supported by a number of other people, which seeks to alter our criminal procedure to the detriment of suspects. I find this disturbing and ironical.

    When we look back over the past 15 years and reflect upon the sensational criminal trials involving the integrity of senior police officers, starting with the Challoner case and going through the fraud squad, the drug squad and, most sensational of all, the porn squad, it ill becomes the Commissioner of Police to mount a campaign which would reduce the rights of accused persons when in police custody. That does not mean that I am entirely satisfied, as a criminal law-year with procedures, or that I do not think that there are certain circumstances ​ in which the criminal law plays into the hands of the professional criminal.

    Indeed, there is room for certain improvement in the criminal law. For example, there is a case to be made for a reduction in the number of inhibitions upon the right of a judge to comment on the silence of an accused person or his refusal to give evidence at a criminal trial, but if we are to change our criminal procedures—and I very much suspect that this will be so since the present Home Secretary is so amenable to his civil servants in so many matters, as I have noticed—the change should form part of a package deal which will provide, among other things, for certain compensatory advantages for suspects. For example, the questioning of suspects might be video-taped. That would act as a protection for the police against false accusations of improper conduct and it would also act as a protection for defendants against oppressive police behaviour, when it occurs.

    That said, may I welcome several items in the Gracious Speech? We have long waited for a measure dealing with public lending right. This has been an initiative mounted by a number of Back Benchers which has been successfully stopped by others. As one who normally does not vote in favour of guillotines, I give the Government the undertaking that if that Bill should find itself being filibustered I shall be in the Government Lobby in favour of guillotining procedures that might be necessary. I would welcome that move. The Government may think that that is unusual for me, but I give them that token of my good will with regard to that measure.

    I welcome, although I shall be more fulsome in my praise when we see the text, the proposed amendments to the Official Secrets Act. If I were to comment on certain proceedings in the courts I should be out of order. Some of us are not unamused by the way in which the Establishment has ended up with egg on its face in a number of proceedings going back for some considerable time. We remember the farcial Official Secrets trial of the editor of the Sunday Telegraph and, indeed, of a Conservative Member, among others, which ended in fiasco 10 years ago.

    The Home Office did not learn the lesson on that occasion. I am wondering ​ whether, in a few weeks’ time, we may be able to make some rather less inhibited comments about this matter. We shall wait to see what is said.

    I am glad, too, to hear that the Government will press for improvements in the common agricultural policy. Again, I am a little sceptical because I noticed that a report published in The Guardian yesterday suggested that the protagonists of this system say that it will continue essentially in its present form for at least another 10 years. I know that the Minister of Agriculture tries hard, although I thought that he back-pedalled a little the other day in dealing with fisheries in a way uncharacteristic of him. Perhaps, again, I shall be able to be more unstinting in my praise when I see exactly what is proposed to be done and what the Government will do when, as will be the case, they fail to change the policy because those responsible will not accept change.

    Another measure which is most certainly overdue is that regarding credit and the banking institutions. I suppose that this is intended to prevent the occurrence of the scandal of the secondary banks over which the Government of the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) presided so ignominiously at the beginning of the seventies. Certainly, as it operates at the moment, it does not seem that the Consumer Credit Act, although it contains a number of useful provisions, does all that is necessary. As for the Crown Agents, why it has been so long before we have seen a measure to put that extraordinary and anomalous organisation on some sound and rational footing, I do not know. I welcome the fact that it is there. All power to the Government’s elbow in getting this measure through.

    I turn to one or two matters that are not so welcome. Among them is the proposed European monetary system. I suspect that we have not had reference to it today because the Government have not yet made up their mind. I hope that this means that we shall not have that system heaped on top of all the other Common Market measures.

    It will be difficult enough, with the pound rising in value against the dollar as it has done over the last six to nine months, to maintain our competitive position as the economy gets going again. ​ But if we were to be locked into a European monetary system, no doubt at a level which the Germans and French would ensure was to their advantage and our disadvantage, we should find our difficulties compounded. I suspect that the disadvantages would not end there and that, as a further consequence of the “salami” process of integration into the Common Market bit by bit, we should be expected to pool our second and third-line reserves and our overseas portfolio and overseas fixed investments would be the next target for the Eurocrats.

    I wonder when the day will come when we shall be able to stop them. All of those who are against the Common Market, who regretted going in and still work to get us out, will give the Government no end of difficulty should they eventually decide to bring us into the proposed European monetary system.

    There is the allied matter of the European elections. We hear stories that Government funds are to be made available because the Labour Party has not the money to spend on them. I hope that that is not to be the case. I hope that, in order to avoid the derisory poll which I hope and believe will be attendant upon the European elections, we do not have the extraordinary situation of the British General Election and the European elections being mounted on the same day.

    It has been suggested that in order to boost the European elections, following, as they will, the Scottish and Welsh referendums and the local government elections, the only way to avoid a contemptuously low poll will be to mount the General Election for this House and the elections for that organisation overseas on the same day.

    I heard the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) saying “How sad” when the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), whom I had always understood to be an anti-Marketeer—perhaps I misunderstood him—proclaim that the Euro-elections were more important than the elections to this House. What an appalling confession of failure; what a defeatist attitude. Whatever part I shall play in the elections next year—there will be plenty of them—I shall do my best to see that as many Labour voters as possible—indeed, as many voters as possible ​ —have no truck whatever with the European elections and treat the European ballot paper as the waste paper that it deserves to be.

  • John Parker – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Parker, the then Labour MP for Dagenham, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    As the Member of Parliament who represents the greater part of the Becontree estate, which I think is still the largest council house estate in the country, I certainly welcome the proposal in the Gracious Speech to have a Bill on housing that will include provision for a new charter of rights for public sector tenants.

    The Becontree estate was built by the old London County Council between 1925 and 1933, outside the boundaries of its own authority. From the very beginning, the council exercised very dictatorial powers over the tenants of the estate. The refusal to place sons and daughters of tenants on the housing list made it essential that sons and daughters moved away to other areas when they grew up and wanted to marry. That destroyed the whole social community of people living together. Societies and organisations such as clubs, churches and so on could ​ not have a second generation coming on to run them as people got older. The community life was broken up by the council’s dictatorial ways. The result was a great deal of discontent about the way in which the estate was run.

    I remember suggesting, as long ago as 1948, that the only solution was for the local council to take over the estate and to run it. For some years that has been the policy of the Labour Party in the area. It is hoped to take over the whole of the estate in this coming year. One-third of it has already passed into the possession of the local council, and the remaining two-thirds is likely to be passed over in the near future.

    However, there will be a number of problems that will require sorting out. It is necessary for machinery to be set up to give tenants reasonable rights in the running and managing of the estate. It is also important that the local council should retain certain powers over the running of an estate of this kind, because many problems arise in such an area, as I know from my surgeries. I am thinking of tenants who misbehave and make a nuisance of themselves to everybody in the district. Sooner or later the council may want to terminate the tenancies of those people in the interests of the neighbours who are suffering the nuisance, and it must retain the right to do so, which it should exercise in reasonable circumstances.

    There is great controversy about whether people should or should not keep dogs. Half the population on the estate does not want dogs to be there because they foul the green places and footpaths, and children sometimes fall into the fouling and go home filthy and dirty. In high-rise blocks, dogs often create an enormous nuisance to everybody concerned. There are great differences of opinion on matters of this kind, and the local council, in conjunction with local tenants, must be able to have discussions and lay down rules and regulations about where dogs can and cannot be kept so that they are not a nuisance to the population as a whole.

    There is also the problem of vandalism, and the local council must be able to have discussions with tenants and organisations concerned on how to deal with vandalism and nuisances on these estates. ​ This is especially true of estates with high-rise blocks.

    I welcome the Government’s proposal for dealing with local authority tenants, but I await the details of the Bill. There must be a reasonable balance. There must be some right to hand on tenancies to sons and daughters. At the same time, the local council should continue to have adequate authority to deal with nuisances and abuses that arise on estates.

    The Queen’s Speech does not contain any recommendations for dealing with juggernauts. Those who read The Guardian are rather horrified at some of the information that has come out during the last two or three days about pressure being put by leading civil servants to allow the road haulage industry to put the case for 38-ton and 40-ton lorries to a public inquiry. A certain Mr. Peeler, we are told, said:

    “We welcome the idea of an inquiry to get round the political obstacles to change the lorry weights.”

    The Guardian in its leading article yesterday had some comments on the juggernauts, but its financial columns carried an opposite point of view. It said:

    “The Minister should not put environmental considerations before export, employment and financial considerations in dealing with the question of juggernauts.”

    It is all very well for people who live in this small island to suffer from juggernauts in the way that we do, and sometimes to be killed by them, but we want some control over whether we shall be killed or allowed to live by these juggernauts.

    Juggernauts are a big problem in my constituency. What was built between the wars as a suburban road is now sign-posted with a green sign directing traffic from Dover to the North of England along Ballards Road. This is not a trunk road but is simply a local authority road, and the traffic on it has increased considerably. On 1st March, between 8.30 am and 8.30 pm, 870 lorries of 15 tons or more passed along that way, and similar figures can be given for almost every day since then.

    The result of that traffic is that local houses are being shaken to pieces. This means enormous expense to local ratepayers in Barking because of smashed pavements and drains and service pipes ​ that are crushed and need renewal. This results in a charge on those living in the houses and ratepayers generally. These heavy lorries also create difficulties for old people going to the shops if they have to cross roads, and for children going to school. Furthermore, after the recent disasters abroad there are fears about the number of petrol and chemical lorries that travel along this road.

    Because of the crowding of traffic on that road, there is now what one can call a rat run. There are diversions through neighbouring roads such as Orchard and School Roads which are residential roads near to schools and shopping areas, and this traffic is creating enormous problems. Twice recently, direct action has been taken by mothers lying on the road and blocking it at peak hours to stop traffic running through these rat runs. The feeling among local people is that nothing is done to solve the problem and that everybody passes the buck.

    The Home Office passed the buck. The Department of Transport passed the buck. The buck was finally passed to the GLC, which the Department says is the authority that should deal with transport and find the best route through this area. A look at the map, however, shows that it is difficult to find an alternative route on this side of London to take traffic from the South-East up to the North.

    I am told by the Department of Transport that all trunk roads are primary roads for major traffic and that in this case the GLC has the job of assessing the most suitable non-trunk road to include in the primary route network. I hope that the GLC will reconsider the local position. As I said, it will be extremely difficult to find an alternative route through this area for heavy traffic.

    The Department goes on to say that when the opening of the A12 to A13 section of the M25 takes place it will bring relief, but that will be in 1981. Why wait so long? Priorities for road schemes should be looked at every October and November for the coming season. I suggest that this project should be brought forward to 1979.

    The road transport haulage lobby is one of the strongest in the House and in the country. It is one of the most dangerous lobbies, and it has enormous ​ power. The Government would do well to face up to the road haulage lobby.

    They should face up to it first and foremost by taxing juggernauts fairly. Large juggernauts do not pay their fair share of taxation. Other lorries, public transport, motor cars and so on pay their fair share of taxes, but juggernauts do not. The first thing to do is to raise the taxation on these juggernauts.

    Secondly, I suggest that these juggernauts should be limited to motorways, and a list of trunk roads which they may use. All roads to be used by juggernauts should be made and maintained as trunk roads, and only they and motorways should be used by these huge lorries.

    Thirdly, there should be distribution centres in all large cities on the trunk roads, from which local traffic can collect containers and other goods brought there by these juggernauts. The goods could be distributed in much the same way as marshalling yards are used to distribute traffic carried by the railways.

    Fourthly, the Government should encourage other forms of transport. What about the railways? It is time that we reconsidered the Channel tunnel. I suggest that it is a viable proposition for freight trains to carry goods only over considerable distances. The latest proposal is for a fairly simple Channel tunnel to be financed largely from EEC resources. It would be a two-rail route, and if the volume of traffic justified it another tunnel could be built later.

    I suggest that such a tunnel would make an enormous difference to the amount of traffic on our motorways. It would be possible for freight trains to take goods from Glasgow to Lyons, or from Liverpool to Zurich, without any break on the way. What happens now is that a large amount of traffic comes to Calais and a large number of ships come into Rotterdam or Hamburg, where they offload their cargoes into lorries—usually foreign lorries—which then come over by ferry on to our roads. It would be much better if a lot of this traffic was taken directly by rail rather than by lorry, and in the long run it would be cheaper. If funds are not entirely forthcoming from the EEC, the Government should invest in this development to make the railways once again a viable freight carrier.

    I am pleased that the South Yorkshire canal has finally been given the go-ahead. It is to be used by coal and steel traffic in the neighbourhood. Surely similar forms of transport could be developed for the London docks. The BACAT scheme failed, but surely something similar could be developed not only for the South Yorkshire canal but for the Thames, so that suitable ships could bring cargoes direct from the Continent up into our waterways.

    I do not wish to discriminate against the ordinary motor car, which pays its fair share of taxation. It would have more room on the roads if many juggernauts were removed. There is a great danger in many areas of traffic being bogged down in jams. The individual motorist and the public transport operator both suffer.

    As a member of the Historic Buildings Council, I know of the problem of historic towns being shaken to pieces by heavy traffic. I was pleased to learn this summer that at last a bypass around Ludlow is to be built. Another proposal is for one around Berwick, which is also highly desirable. The Department of Transport should collaborate positively with the HBC in deciding where bypasses are to be built, since historic towns are important foreign currency earners through tourism, and this would also help their inhabitants to live more pleasurable lives. During October and November every year proposals for bypasses and road transport should be reviewed five years ahead. If some proposals could be pushed back and others brought forward according to the needs revealed, well and good.

    For example, Tewkesbury obviously needs a bypass. Also, I can never understand why one has not been built around Petersham, a small village near Richmond, where a road could easily be put through the bottom end of Richmond park, where no one would see it. The houses in that attractive village are being shaken to pieces by traffic.

    There is no mention of conservation in the Gracious Speech. There has been an enormous increase in interest in this subject in recent years. This interest is particularly welcome in a mainly urban population. It shows that people are anxious to preserve the surrounding countryside and its wildlife. But many conservationists are ignorant of, or ignore, the problems ​ of country dwellers. Some important societies, like Friends of the Earth, have alerted people to the danger of the extinction of species such as whales and otters, but many animal lovers who lobby this House are ignorant of the subjects they take up.

    If wildlife is to be maintained, from time to time it has to be culled, which means killing. Many animal lovers do not like that prospect. There are more deer in this country now than there were in the Middle Ages. Many of us are glad that they can be seen from time to time, although most of the flesh is exported to Germany, because British people do not much like venison. But this means regular culling of the deer in the New Forest and other areas.

    Practically every deer culled in the New Forest is found to be peppered with buckshot, probably fired by young boys. If culling is not done scientifically, it causes a great deal of suffering to the animals. Animal lovers should recognise that it is necessary and that it should be properly and responsibly organised.

    There has been a great campaign against the culling of ponies in the New Forest and on Dartmoor. It is alleged that they are sent to Belgium to be eaten. We cat cows and bulls, so why should not the Belgians eat ponies if they wish? It is better that they should be scientifically culled than that their numbers should increase to the point where they are a nuisance to themselves and to people in the neighbourhood.

    There has also been a campaign recently about seals in Orkney. When seals become too numerous, one cow bites off the heads of another cow’s pups, and then the males come in and overwhelm them when they want intercourse again after their birth. The result is an overcrowded colony with a great deal of suffering. The Scottish Office mishandled its publicity on this matter. A decision should be made, on the evidence, about the optimum size of a colony and the cull should be carried out accordingly. To take the line that we should never kill wild animals is sloppy sentimentality. That is the approach of many of the sillier animal lovers, who in my experience are often university dons.

    There should be some expenditure also on forestry, a subject which was widely ​ discussed during the debates on the Wales and Scotland Bills. Ninety per cent. of our timber is imported and we need to help the balance of payments. Government and, I hope, private money should be spent on planting over the next 50 years to double the area under trees. The land must be acquired and the Government should assist in finding suitable land. When land is afforested with crops of varying ages, there is a big increase in wild life as compared with conditions on open moorland.

    There is a strong campaign by ramblers’ associations and others against conifer forests, but if those forests are properly managed they are very attractive. One of the most popular areas in the Lake District is Tarn Hawes, which is a mainly conifer beauty spot. What is aesthetically unattractive is a large number of trees all of the same age. I agree that in its early years the Forestry Commission made many mistakes in its planting, but it has since had the services of Dame Sylvia Crowe and more recent planting has been much better managed from a scenic point of view, without any damage to the productivity of the forests that have been so organised.

    I hope and trust that the Government will take an active interest in making available to both the Forestry Commission and private owners more land to plant up and so increase our forestry reserve. I am sorry that the Gracious Speech does not include proposals to make capital available for that development. But, on the whole, I welcome the Gracious Speech as incorporating the right kind of programme to try to carry through at present. I hope that we shall manage to carry at least some of it into law before the end of the present Session.

  • Patrick McNair-Wilson – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by Patrick McNair-Wilson, the then Conservative MP for the New Forest, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    I wish to refer to two points in the Gracious Speech—Rhodesia and inflation and the incomes policy.

    We read with interest and optimism that the Government intend to strive with the United States for a peaceful settlement in the Rhodesian rebellion. I urge the Government to go beyond that. I believe that a final appeal is now required to ask Mr. Smith to abandon the rebellion and to renounce the unilateral declaration of independence. As long as that country remains in rebellion against the Crown, there is no way in which Mr. Smith can receive recognition either from countries such as the United States and others in the developed world or from the guerrilla leaders who surround him.

    Rhodesia has become a country in which it is no longer safe for people to go outside Salisbury and Bulawayo. We have to look towards renunciation of this illegal act of 1965 if we are to find a proper solution. I should like a governor-general to be appointed—a man with ​ very special qualities—who would ensure, if there was a renunciation, proper elections adequately supervised by someone from this country.

    I should like there to be an amnesty for terrorists and an appeal made for Mr. Nkomo and the others to join in some sort of constitutional settlement. In the interim, let us make it clear that even if Mr. Smith renounces UDI we shall use the internal settlement as a framework upon which we can build. My fear is that that will not happen. Although Mr. Smith has made it crystal clear that he intends to give up politics in Rhodesia, I fear that he will cling on too late and for too long and that there will be a bloodbath in that country.

    I should therefore like to feel that the Government, in implementing this part of the Gracious Speech, would make that direct appeal to Mr. Smith to lay down his sword to his Sovereign and to bring that country once again back into legality. I do not intend to comment on Bingham, sanctions and the rest, but I believe that that appeal would be well worth making, even at this eleventh hour.

    Not surprisingly, the Prime Minister devoted much of his speech this afternoon to the question of inflation and the way in which we can conquer this problem in Britain. It is a problem which we have seen sweeping through many countries in the developed world. I think that all of us have started from quite the wrong premise, and, regrettably, the right hon. Gentleman’s speech continued it—namely, to blame wages for inflation. That is entirely wrong. I believe that wages are merely a reflection of inflation. Inflation is created by Governments.

    I very vividly remember the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), when he was Prime Minister, commenting in, I think, 1964 on that first sterling crisis, saying that what was wrong then was not that our economy was weak but that there was a crisis of confidence. As those of us who were here then will recall, that crisis of confidence led to a major run on our currency, and with it came the inevitable inflation, because if a country is one that requires, as we do, to buy so much from overseas, a weak currency leads to higher prices, and those higher prices eventually come through to the wage packet, which no longer buys what it bought the week before.

    It is at that point that wage claims start to rise steeply. It is utterly wrong, however, to blame those who are demanding higher wages to match inflation for creating that inflation. It is the Government who bear the responsibility for doing that. Attacking those who are trying to protect their standards of life merely because they want to be able to buy what they bought the previous week for the same amount of money is quite the wrong thing to do.

    Therefore, I find the juxtaposition of the paragraphs of the Gracious Speech of great interest. In paragraph 6 on page 4 we see the words:

    “My Government are resolved to strengthen our democracy by providing new opportunities for citizens to take part in the decisions that affect their lives.”

    What decision affecting the life of the ordinary person could be more important than his ability, in his short working life, to earn the reward to which the hard work that he puts in entitles him? Yet we are, in one breath, saying that we shall increase the opportunities for people to take part in discussions about democratic decisions while at the same time we have a Government, following upon the Government of my party, who are determined to control wages in a totally unacceptable manner.

    The wages argument goes far deeper than merely the numbers game of percentage points. We are talking fundamentally about freedom and totalitarianism. We are talking about the freedom of people to negotiate their rewards from companies and people who employ them and the alternative of a Government who impose upon them what they are to earn.

    I make no apology for opting for a free wage bargaining system. I recognise all the imperfections that exist in that. I am well aware of the attractiveness of the Government pulling a figure out of the air and saying to industry and commerce “Negotiate around that.” Certainly the Government have a responsibility to do their sums and to tell us what sort of figure they believe the country can afford. But they really cannot expect people to accept a figure such as that, across the board of every industry. How can an official in Whitehall or anywhere else determine whether people should be earning more or less, and whether a ​ company can afford to pay increases in salaries or whether it should not pay any increase at all?

    With this concept, which now appears to be becoming part of the perpetual landscape, I believe that we are running away from that freedom and leaving totalitarian government, which will control all our lives, to decide how much we shall earn and ultimately where we shall earn, because if we accept the policy of wage control from the centre it will not be very long before we have the direction of labour, which will follow behind it.

    I was interested in the television programme the other night in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) was talking in a miners’ club, in Lancashire, I think. It was put to him very clearly by those who were talking with him that the only way they would accept a wages policy would be if there was control not only of wages but of prices, profits and dividends. If we are to have that sort of total control, we are moving into a whole new era of government in Britain that we have never seen before. That will mean a rigid control over everything that one can earn and save in one’s lifetime. I do not believe that that is what this country wants. I do not believe that today, with the exception of the Prime Minister and perhaps my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup, anyone believes any longer in the 5 per cent. wage policy. It has now become a complete fantasy.

    Let us be very honest when we say that. If one recalls, as I recall vividly—perhaps all hon. Members recall it too—what happened in 1974, one realises that when the Prime Minister talks about the coming winter being a watershed, one should tell him that one predicts that it will also set the seal on his downfall, because the fact is that in February 1974 the Conservative Party was ordered over the top of the trench straight on to the barbed wire of the National Union of Mineworkers, and we never got off it, losing the General Election as a result.

    What is happening now under the present Government is a re-run of that event. I cannot see that it will do this country any good to have an industrial head-on confrontation once again. It really is a suicide mission. It is no good the Prime Minister and his ​ friends telling us that the Government are only indicating what the country can afford. With the paraphernalia of the black list and all the other hidden persuaders that now exist in the Government’s armoury, we are producing not only something akin to a statutory policy but a situation in which the market forces which one has to have in industry are no longer able to work.

    This afternoon the Prime Minister said that he wanted to know what the Ford wage claim would do to the price of Ford products. The fact is that if Ford products can be sold competitively against the products of the other car and truck manufacturers, what the claim does to Ford prices is irrelevant. What is important is that we in Britain are able to compete with the competition. It is not a question of pulling tidy figures out of the Treasury. It is a question of a company such as Ford being able to decide what it can afford and paying it.

    Until we get back to an economy which enables individuals, whether they be owners of businesses or workers in businesses, to have the freedom to negotiate on the basis of the profitability of their industries and what can be afforded, we are heading down that dangerous road to totalitarianism, be it of the Left or of the Right, which will ultimately undermine our whole society.

  • Dennis Canavan – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Tam Dalyell (West Lothian)

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

    Mr. Canavan

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

    I welcome the reference to “more open government”—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “After contact with their South African subsidiaries they”

    —namely, Shell and BP—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Dalyell

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

    Mr. Canavan

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

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

    Mr. Canavan

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

    I am pleased that emphasis is put on

    “overcoming the evils of inflation and unemployment.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Emlyn Hooson – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk (Ormskirk)

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

    Mr. Hooson

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. John Lee (Birmingham, Handsworth)

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

    Mr. Hooson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Kilroy-Silk

    There was an allocation of £5 million.

    Mr. Hooson

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

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

    Mr. Kilroy-Silk

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

    Mr. Hooson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Jim Callaghan – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. John Pardoe (Cornwall, North)

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

    The Prime Minister

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Nigel Lawson (Blaby)

    “Steady as she goes.”

    The Prime Minister

    That is a very good motto.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Heffer

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

    The Prime Minister

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Denis Healey)

    Six per cent.

    The Prime Minister

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

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

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

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

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