UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: 1985

  • Paddy Ashdown – 1985 Speech on Westland

    Below is the text of the speech made by Paddy Ashdown, the then Liberal MP for Yeovil, in the House of Commons on 8 July 1985.

    The subject of this Adjournment debate is the future of Westland, but first the House may want to know of another future, which was established not many hours ago. I am told that at 10.20 this evening the wife of my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) gave birth to a daughter, Helen Grace. I am sure that the House will wish to assure the hon. Member, his wife and Helen Grace of its best wishes.

    I am grateful for the opportunity of this debate. I am also grateful to the Minister for Information Technology for his attendance, particularly in view of his past contact with Westland as Minister for Defence Procurement, and to other hon. Members who have agreed to take part in the debate and join me in supporting Westland. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) may seek to catch your eye later on, Mr. Deputy Speaker, from the Government Benches, as may the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) from the Labour Front Bench and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross).

    It must be very nearly unprecedented to have so many hon. Members take part in an Adjournment debate. I hope that the Minister will recognise the cross-party support for Westland that this indicates. What is also, I suspect, practically unprecedented is to have such a degree of outside interest taken in such a debate at such a late hour. Nearly 40 of the Westland work force travelled up especially from Yeovil and elsewhere after work today to attend this half hour debate and to show their support for their company and their belief and pride in the work that they do.

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)

    Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he should not refer to strangers in the Gallery.

    Mr. Ashdown

    I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for referring to anybody who may or may not be in the Strangers Gallery. I merely wanted to show that there is support for Westland outside the House. I am sure the Minister recognises that their effort demonstrates the kind of commitment that is one of the greatest strengths of Westland.

    This is at once the most difficult speech that I have made in the House and perhaps the most important. Westland is not only the pride of my community, and of others in the west of England; it is also the source of much of our prosperity. But more than that, Westland has served Her Majesty’s forces as one of the nation’s principal defence industries, with exceptional distinction, most recently in the Falklands, where our helicopters were recognised by all, from the Secretary of State for Defence to the ordinary Royal Marine in the field, to have been one of the principal causes of our victory.

    Westland is our only national helicopter manufacturer and our only hope for major participation in the European collaborative helicopter projects of the 1990s. Westland is one of the key components of Britain’s aerospace industry. It is one of our nation’s first centres of the new technology. Its work force, from specialised design teams to those ​ using the newest technologies on the production line, is loyal, skilled, committed, proud of its work and confident that, as a team, it can keep Britain at the forward edge of world skills in the future.

    In short, Westland is not just vital to Yeovil. It is vital to Britain. The first thing, the chief thing, that I want the Minister to do tonight is to say just that: to say to those listening outside that the Government believe that Westland is an important national asset and that they are committed to playing their role in maintaining the overall integrity of the company.

    I know, as the Minister knows, that the Government have a confidential report confirming the importance of Westland. I know also that the Minister’s Department has shown its confidence in the company by investing in the development of the W30. I know that, whatever the Ministry of Defence does, his Department will want to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that that investment is not lost.

    Why is it, then, that throughout the recent crisis we heard not one word from the Government to strengthen the company’s position? Why is it that the Government stayed silent and allowed those in City boardrooms a free hand to play fast and loose with a great company’s reputation and the livelihood of thousands of workers? Let the Minister tonight make good that deficiency. He knows the company’s underlying strength. He knows that its long-term prospects are excellent. He knows that we have a new chairman in Sir John Cuckney. He knows that there is now, throughout Westland, a grim determination to do all that is necessary to ensure the company’s future. Let the Government make their contribution tonight by committing themselves, in terms that cannot be misunderstood, to playing their part with the work force and the management to ensure that future.

    Let the Minister recognise that one of the chief ways in which the Government can show that commitment is to make a decision soon about the AST404. Is it not the case that Westland has put in the most effective bid for this order? Did not its submission for an uprated W30 meet that specification in detail and in full? Is it not the case that Westland was the only British participant in the competition, and that in purchase price and running costs it was cheaper than the others by up to 30 per cent.? Is not the W30 300 series the best aircraft of its sort in the world, with considerable foreign sales potential? Is it not the case, for example, that Spain, Scandinavia and Australia are almost certainly ready to buy the Westland aircraft as soon as the British Government make up their mind?

    The Minister knows that these facts are true. Why, then, just at the moment when Westland was about to put the ball in the net, have the Government allowed the Army and the Ministry of Defence to move the goal posts? Is that an appropriate way to treat a great company which has served Britain so well? I ask the Minister to give us an assurance that he will use his best endeavours to ensure that the AST404 decision is taken soon and in favour of Westland.

    He should realise that his answer can make a great contribution to a great company, can help sustain prosperity and jobs in the west of England, can support one of our nation’s key sectors and can strengthen Britain’s defence.
    Westland is not seeking charity, nor special treatment — it needs neither. We are asking for a fair chance to ​ do what we do best—make the best helicopters in the world for Britain’s defence. All the ingredients are there to ensure the company’s future: the product is excellent; the work force is dedicated; the management has a new look; and the determination is evident. All that is missing is a clear commitment from the Government to join us to secure that future. I ask the Minister to provide that tonight.

  • Gwyneth Dunwoody – 1985 Speech on the Roads Programme

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gwyneth Dunwoody, the then Labour MP for Crewe and Nantwich, in the House of Commons on 4 July 1985.

    I listened with great care to the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), because I lived for many years in his constituency. Not only were two of my children born in Devon, but I lived in the hospital at Newton Abbot. The information that he gave to the House earlier was completely inaccurate. I know the area extremely well.

    I am not sure what the object of the hon. Gentleman’s speech was. The amount of money spent by the Government on roads is markedly different from the amount that they have spent in other areas of transport. For example, the Government said that, this year, their priority would be to move increasingly towards the provision of bypasses. They would be welcome in Devon and Cornwall, as well as in Cheshire. It is unfortunate that the Government’s sense of priority has meant that our motorways are becoming subject to a series of major reorganisations and resurfacing programmes at this time of the year. It would have been better if the Government had been prepared to undertake a sensibly spaced programme of road renewal at the same time as a programme of new major roads.

    I do not argue with the hon. Gentleman’s statement that the Government have spent much money on roads. However, they have not organised the programme correctly. Indeed, we may have considerable difficulty, not just this year but in the future, in getting a properly planned and organised road programme.

    My objection to the Government’s plans is different. At a time when the British Rail workshops at Swindon will be closed, with the loss of about 2,800 jobs, Government money is being spent not on providing new manufacturing and new work in the workshops but on a road programme that is still not properly organised or planned.

    The Minister of State’s efforts this week have shown some of the difficulties involved. She drove up the M1 to show that there would be some difficulties, but said that ​ her planning had ensured that the difficulties would be absorbed by the travelling public. There would have been more admiration for the Department’s planning had it provided some evidence over a longer period that the Government have balanced our need for a motorways renewal programme and the needs of our urban communities.

    The major roads in my area desperately need updating. There are many problems on the roads between Shropshire —especially the constituency represented by the Leader of the House—my constituency and north Staffordshire, because the roads programme, as it is presently envisaged, will not allow us to spend enough money on updating A-class roads to take the ever-increasing freight traffic. The provision of motorways in the area precludes that. It shows the difficulty of planning in advance for increasing freight traffic.

    The hon. Gentleman said that he is worried by the fact that traffic management is becoming too professional. His slightly derogatory tone when he said that reflects the attitude of the Secretary of State for Transport who, during the passage of the Transport Bill, showed only too clearly that he regards anyone who has a qualification in traffic planning as having slightly doubtful judgment and as being an unacceptable adviser in the planning of a transport system. That is stupid and reprehensible. For modern traffic management it is important to have the input of those who understand how traffic flows effect the areas through which they pass.

    The hon. Gentleman fears that the problem is being dealt with, not by local councillors but by others—an abstract set of advisers hidden away far from his constituency who take decisions over which he has no sway.

    One of the problems in Devon is that for many years one political party has believed that it is firmly in the saddle. Its response to his constituents is often conditioned, not by the needs of the area but by the way in which that party envisages its political advantage. There might be problems in the Newton Abbot area. I suspect that they are not unconnected with the complexion of the political party which has been in control for many years. It was in control when I arrived in the county and has only just relinquished that control at county council level.

    The time has come for the Government to accept that roads must be part of an integrated transport system. Their relationship with the movement of passengers must be calculated, not only on the basis of the numbers of heavy lorries or of road trains, but on the basis of how they can best be integrated with the rail system the aeroplane system and overall transport planning for the future. Britain can no longer afford simply to think in terms of a road system without recognising the Government’s responsibility for planning their commitment to transport spending over a wider area.

    Unfortunately, an effective and vocal roads lobby has emerged. It has advocated changing basic and important forms of transport. The Secretary of State for Transport is straightforward and honest and has made it clear that the only kind of transport planning that makes sense to him is to remove the bus system that operates for the benefit of its passengers and to replace it with a system of anarchy under which any sharp pirate who can make a penny out of the system will be allowed to benefit. The Secretary of ​ State believes that the train and inland domestic airways systems should be regarded less favourably in terms of planning than the motorway system.

    The Minister of State is not only highly intelligent but committed to intelligent road planning. At long last this year she has succeeded in achieving some acceptance in her Department of the fact that many communities want roads developed which are useful to them. People want more bypasses and more A roads. They want the motorway system to be updated so that it does not constitute a hazard to the environment.

    Only the other day I was told by a member of the police force in my constituency that, apart from the speed at which vehicles travel, the hazard caused by the closeness and the number of vehicles on the M1 and M6 is the equivalent of that caused by road trains and major freight movement. That cannot be the only efficient way to transport goods. No proper planning has been done. Public transport should comprise a wider and more intelligently grouped system of services. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider seriously what he has said and will not seek to give the House the impression that transport planners are some obscure and removed breed of men and women who have no understanding or appreciation of the needs of local communities. The Secretary of State for Transport neither understands nor accepts the role of transport planners. In fact, these planners have made their life’s work the extension of the interests and needs of local communities so as to integrate them with the national interest.

    Mr. Nicholls

    Surely the hon. Lady must realise that she is trying to have her cake and eat it. She is suggesting that all the transport sins of the world have been caused by the fact that in the past Devon county council was Conservative controlled. Secondly, she suggests that I am being unkind to traffic managers. Does she not realise, even from her brief acquaintance with my constituency, that the road patterns in the area have been devised at the behest of professional traffic managers? I said clearly—I am surprised that the hon. Lady was not able to grasp the argument — that it is too easy to criticise traffic planners. I said as clearly as I could that there should be another input. The expertise of the user should be taken into account as well as that of the professionals.

    Mrs. Dunwoody

    The hon. Gentleman has confirmed the argument that I was advancing. He seems to believe that transport planners operate in a vacuum. If he has not noticed that local councillors are consulted, that county councillors are consulted and that many people throughout the region are consulted, he has confirmed my view of the Conservative party. It is clear that it is so disinterested in the views of others that it does not take account of the occasions when it takes decisions which should be based on the informed views of transport planners. If the decisions on traffic planning in Devon have been taken entirely by council officers until this stage, I am not surprised that a different set of people is in charge of the county hall.

    I am interested that the hon. Gentleman feels that 15 years is a short acquaintance with his constituency. If we take account of some of the recent political results, he might consider that if he is not careful my acquaintance with his constituency may turn out to be rather longer than his own. However, I would not want to be unkind.

    In one sense the views of the Secretary of State for Transport are unique. They bear a strong resemblance to the views that prevailed in 1802—I do not suppose that there was a Secretary of State for Transport in those days —on the part of the member of the Cabinet who was responsible for deciding how many ruts, for example, a stagecoach should have to deal with in travelling from one inn to another. I am sure that the views of that Minister were similar to those of the Secretary of State.

    The Government are prepared to spend a great deal of money on roads, but their spending has been directed almost exclusively at motorways. I note that the Minister of State shakes her head in dissent, but motorways have, almost exclusively, been the Government’s spending target. Very rarely has Government spending been spread across our road transport system in such a way that local communities have benefited by the building of bypasses, for example. I am glad to note that the hon. Lady’s common sense is now reasserting itself. This year there has been the announcement of a change in planning for the coming years. I hope that she will be able to carry out that programme for the remaining two or perhaps two and a half years in which she and her colleagues occupy the Department of Transport. It is probably the team of Ministers whose policies will be least in need of total change when the time comes for the Government to leave office.

    I ask the Minister of State to explain to the hon. Member for Teignbridge that transport planning must be based on informed and expert advice. There is nothing wrong with being a transport expert. I know that such experts upset the Secretary of State, but their expertise is useful and should be valued. The fact that the advice of the planners is frequently disregarded in the present climate is no criticism of the experts. Instead, it is a plain and open criticism of Ministers and their way of running the Department.

  • Patrick Nicholls – 1985 Speech on the Roads Programme

    Below is the text of the speech made by Patrick Nicholls, the then Conservative MP for Teignbridge, in the House of Commons on 4 July 1985.

    I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about the roads programme, although many other subjects might be more popular. High rhetoric and declaratory speeches about road transport and motorways do not trip neatly off the tongue.

    An inferior road system has an effect on local communities and on the quality of people’s lives. To make my central point, I do not need to discuss the Government’s road programme at length. The importance that the Government attach to the subject has been clearly shown in the White Papers that they have published, in particular that of 1983. In that White Paper, the Government set out their national and local priorities. There is no doubt that the Government know what they are doing. If one considers the progress that has been made since 1979, the details given in the White Paper on Government expenditure and in my hon. Friend the Minister of State’s announcement as recently as 25 June about 51 further projects at a cost of about £300 million. one begins to see that those priorities are being fulfilled. However, when one studies those matters, I believe that one finds that one ingredient has not received the degree of prominence that it merits.
    In 1977, the present Secretary of State for Social Services produced what might be described as a seminal document setting out the attitude that a Conservative Administration would take to transport. The paper stressed that a Government implementing such a programme should seek to ensure that decisions were taken by and for the users rather than the providers of transport. In matters concerning local communities it is vital to ensure that local people’s views are properly taken into account. That problem certainly arises in the context of planning legislation, and I have raised it in the House more than once.

    The procedures adopted must pay more than lip service to local people’s views and ensure that local opinion has a real effect on the policy adopted. When one considers the way in which road traffic policy is implemented at the local level it is clear that, despite our rhetoric before we came to power, local communities do not always feel that they have the input that they want.

    The specific problem that I have in mind concerns the road traffic system in Newton Abbot, a substantial market town in my constituency. Devon is the third largest shire in England, with more than 8,200 miles of road—more than twice the total for any other county. There is no doubt that Devon and the west country generally have seen substantial improvements in terms of major capital projects. For instance, there has been the dualling of the Plymouth-Exeter road. There is now dual carriageway virtually from the end of the motorway to the Tamar bridge. In terms of major projects, the west country has benefited greatly and it was well entitled to do so.

    Improving motorways and dual carriageways, however, may simply move the bottleneck further down the track. It thus becomes even more important to ensure that the traffic is dealt with properly when it leaves those main arterial highways and comes into market towns.

    It would be all too easy for me to say that those responsible for planning the traffic system in Newton Abbot do not know what they are doing. I could make a ​ splendid speech. The Gallery would become packed and reporters would be hanging on my every word. I do not go so far as that, but there is no doubt that the people of Newton Abbot feel that the needs of their town are not properly reflected in the traffic system provided for them.

    These days everything has become a speciality. Even politics, which in our British tradition should be the province of the true amateur, has become professional. Traffic management, too, has become a speciality. There is certainly a feeling among my constituents, especially those living in Newton Abbot, that the specialists have designed a traffic system which is all very well for them but which simply does not work.

    A specific example is the Penn Inn roundabout where priorities were altered in such a way that traffic arriving at the roundabout found that it had precedence over traffic already on the roundabout. By any stretch of the imagination, it was an extraordinary decision. Public protest was such that eventually the highway authority, to its credit, while not actually admitting that it was wrong, did the next best thing and changed back to the old system.

    The system in Newton Abbot has not been completed yet, and those of us who are optimists are wondering whether, when the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted, the system will work. For the time being, the local people are faced with a system of one-way streets and mini-roundabouts, by which the authorities seek to control traffic. A person trying to get through Newton Abbot in a hurry on a weekday had better take a deep breath, because it takes some time to do so. On one occasion—this was not during the high season or at a particularly busy time of day—it took me 20 minutes to get across the Penn Inn roundabout.

    Clearly, if local people are asked to design a traffic system, they will have many ideas. The fact that they may not be able to achieve a consensus does not detract from the basic proposition that, at times, traffic in this market town is being brought to a standstill and the common-sense views of local people on what should be done are not being properly reflected.

    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)

    I have the advantage of knowing the hon. Gentleman’s constituency extremely well, having lived there for many years. I am following his argument carefully. What exactly is his point? Is he suggesting that the previous Conservative-controlled county council, which presumably channelled the views of the inhabitants to the traffic planners, failed in its duty? Is he suggesting that that is why those Conservative councillors were deposed in the shire county elections?

    Mr. Nicholls

    The hon. Lady makes a particular political point. If she casts her mind back, she will recall that her stay in the west country was brief as, having succeeded in being re-elected in one parliamentary election, she was promptly deposed at another. I do not think that her reflections on how we act in the west country are especially helpful.

    I come to the point that I would have made if the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) had been able to contain her exuberance. One cannot be certain whether the traffic planners in a town such as Newton Abbot have got it right. The present structure makes it impossible for local people to ensure that their views are taken into account. A planning analogy is the best analogy ​ that I can offer the hon. Lady. What happens if the local community does not have the right to appeal once a planning application has been granted? It is too simplistic to say, “That means that it must be the fault of the local councillors.” Of course it is not necessarily their fault. Whatever their political persuasion, local councillors properly give a great deal of weight to the advice that they receive from professional officers. The planners in Newton Abbot may be getting it right, but their views cannot be put to the test. Those living in areas where the traffic does not flow freely face considerable hardship. Their hardship may be exaggerated, but one must emphasise the stress faced by the travelling public in using a complex traffic system that is not working properly.

    We can note the Government’s priorities and the spending on major projects and can compare the record of this Administration with that of their predecessor. This Government are getting it right.

    In the end, one must come down to local level and ask oneself: “Can we be sure that there is proper control, so that those who are responsible for road planning are providing transport systems that are there for the benefit of the people, dictated by the people and created in the light of their experience, or is it a case of transport systems being thrust upon them from on high?” That is the point that I wished to make to my hon. Friend.

  • Richard Needham – 1985 Speech on Schizophrenics

    Below is the text of the speech made by Richard Needham, the then Conservative MP for North Wiltshire, in the House of Commons on 3 July 1985.

    It is not very often, I suspect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you find two unrelated Pattens sitting on the same Bench at half past 4 in the morning. I welcome the arrival of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten) to reply to this short debate. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Patten), who suggested over a year ago that I should instigate the debate. I owe much of the information and knowledge that I have gained about the problems of schizophrenia and the problems of parents who have to look after schizophrenic children to a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath, Mrs. Baker, who is the secretary of the Bath schizophrenia group.

    I have been in correspondence with the Department of Health and Social Security on the issue on behalf of one of my constituents for a considerable time. In August 1983 Lord Glenarthur wrote to me, making the following points:

    “In the light of comments received on that document”—

    he was referring to a document entitled “Care in the Community”—

    “we are pressing ahead with a programme aimed at getting out of hospital and into community care as many as possible of those patients who do not specifically require hospital care … As you know, the needs of people who are, or have been mentally ill vary greatly. Both local health and social services authorities are obliged to provide care and after-care for these clients. A community psychiatric nursing service is an important component of health service provision in the community. This aims to provide help outside the hospital and so prevent unnecessary admission to hospital and to provide a nursing aftercare service following discharge from hospital.”

    It is that paragraph that I want to bring to the Minister’s attention in relation to a case in my constituency. I have an elderly couple in my constituency. The husband is 77 years old. His wife is half a year younger than he is and is bedridden. They are not badly off financially, but the last few years of their lives have in many ways been a living hell as they have struggled to look after their chronically schizophrenic daughter. Two and a half years ago she discharged herself from a mental institution. She then squatted in an abandoned farmhouse, but was finally persuaded to move to a MIND hostel, where she set fire to her bedclothes. It was then agreed mutually that she should return home. Since then she has been living at home. I should say that she had also been living at home on and off before that.

    As I have explained, the parents are old and infirm, and what assistance do they get for her care? Once a fortnight they are visited by the community psychiatric nurse, who gives the daughter an injection. The nurse is extremely busy and does not have much time to talk to the parents. That is understandable, and I make no criticism of it. Once every three or so months the head social worker from the local mental hospital comes to visit them. The daughter receives invalidity benefit of £30 to £40 a week and the bedridden mother gets home help five days a week.

    Therefore, the sum total of the assistance referred to in the noble Lord’s letter is a visit once a fortnight from the CPN — the community psychiatric nurse — who, as I have said does not have much time, and who is changed ​ quite regularly, and that is it. There has been no respite for the parents, according to them, to enable them to get away while their daughter is cared for.
    The point that I want to bring to the attention of the House is that chronic schizophrenia is a young person’s disease. It strikes between the ages of 15 and 30 and makes no distinction between rich and poor, clever and stupid. One third of those who suffer have a reasonable chance of total remission, one third do not recover, and one third continue to have attacks with varying degrees of intensity.

    That most of the patients are better treated outside the confines of long-stay mental institutions is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether in certain cases the policy of returning to the community is being properly and adequately organised and financed, or whether an increasing and intolerable burden is being placed on the very often aging parents.

    What provisions are being made for cases such as the one that I have quoted? I see in his place my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson), who also has a great understanding of these problems and whose views are similar to mine on this matter. When will there be individual care plans? When will there be places to which patients can go with their parents to have care dispensed and where the different organisations responsible for patient care can come together to discuss care, provision and future needs so that parent substitutes can be built up, so that general practitioners can feature much more in looking after the problems of the chronically disabled — general practitioners play a vital part in emergencies, but it is often felt by elderly parents that it would be much more useful to have them involved in a more permanent way—and also so that the chances of any likely increase in the suicide rate can be resisted? Parents may feel that without a place which is specifically set aside for them to discuss these matters, the care that their children get and that they can look for is disjointed.

    Chronic schizophrenia is a dreadful disease. It is dreadful for the sufferer, as he or she withdraws from the family circle, suffers hallucinations and delusions, hears voices, loses the will to work and suffers acute stress and worry. Physically robust the sufferers may be, but they become mentally wrecked. It is dreadful for the parents as they see the love of their children wither and change. It is dreadful for the parents as their hopes for their children are dashed and as their responsibility for the care of their children increases and the prospect of a peaceful old age recedes.

    When one parent was told that his child had chronic schizophrenia, he was advised, “React normally. Try to treat your child as normally as you can, and try to be as normal as you can.” After years of care for his child, he said to me, “You have to become abnormal yourself if you are to survive.” The point that I make follows on from the report of the Select Committee on Social Services. It does not seem to be right that in the care of chronic schizophrenics the parents should be other than a bonus in the provision of those services that patients require. They should not be the centre around which the various bodies which are responsible for patients hover uncertainly.

    The report of the Select Committee, which was published in January, covers the ground very adequately and puts forward recommendations and solutions. When the Government respond to it, I hope that they will follow the recommendations of the Committee and do so with ​ urgency. I trust that they will do nothing to close down existing provisions until adequate community provision is demonstrably in place. It cannot be right that very elderly people have their last years ruined by stress and worry because their children, whose love they find fading and withering away, cannot adequately look after themselves and they, the parents, cannot adequately look after them.

    Mr. Patrick Thompson (Norwich, North) rose—

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean)

    Order. Does the hon. Gentleman have his hon. Friend’s agreement to intervene?

    Mr. Needham

    Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

    Mr. Patrick Thompson (Norwich, North)

    I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene briefly in this short debate in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Wiltshire, North (Mr. Needham). In my short time as a Member of Parliament, I have already come across cases in my constituency identical to those which my hon. Friend described. The matter has also come closely within my experience and knowledge. Therefore, I can reinforce my hon. Friend’s description of the great distress and catastrophic effects of this disease on the families of sufferers.

    It is right to emphasise that schizophrenia is remarkably common although, for obvious reasons, not widely publicised. The National Schizophrenia Fellowship was formed to support families who face this difficulty and who are not receiving the necessary support. It started with a letter in The Times by the founder, and the flood of response to it reflects how common the problem is, yet how little the general public know about it.

    My hon. Friend referred to the effects of recent Mental Health Acts, the fact that treatment cannot always be completed and the fact, therefore, that the burden falls back on the family. Therefore, I do not need to deal with that.
    Relatives cannot easily cope with the problem, especially elderly relatives. Families find it difficult to put up with the emotional stress and the violence. In supporting my hon. Friend, I encourage the Government to provide understanding and support, and to encourage society also to provide understanding and support for people facing this serious problem. I hope the that the Minister will respond in that spirit.

  • Leo Abse – 1985 Speech on Toxic Waste in Gwent

    Below is the text of the speech made by Leo Abse, the then Labour MP for Torfaen, in the House of Commons on 2 July 1985.

    Yet again, I plead on behalf of my anxious and discomfited constituents for a public inquiry into the disposal of toxic waste in Gwent. It is a demand that has come repeatedly from Torfaen council and Gwent county council — which have been discourteously refused an interview with the Secretary of State for Wales—and from many environmental groups in the constituencies.

    The concern expressed is not confined to my constituency. Although the Minister of State and the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Robinson) have received representations and invitations to meetings from their constituents, it is not to their credit that their only comments have been to support the Secretary of State for Wales in his characteristically insensitive and stubborn refusal to grant the public inquiry at which the frustrations, the fears and the facts could be formally ventilated.

    I advise the Minister of State to take care. The Brecon candidate is on the point of discovering that he will be found guilty by association as one who is working for the unloved Secretary of State for Wales. If the Minister of State obsequiously persists in his condonation of the refusal by the Secretary of State, he will find that those of his constituents who are lamentably affected by the activities of ReChem International will be equally unforgiving. I understand that Torfaen is requesting the Minister’s attendance—it is his council as well as mine — to explain his attitude. I hope that he will display more tact and understanding than his boss and will make haste to attend.

    The problems stem from the profound mistrust that my constituents have for ReChem International and its claims. It is not surprising that the firm is mistrusted. It came into my constituency by trickery. Backed by the huge resources of the British parent company — The British Traction Company — ReChem must have known, if it had a scintilla of the technical accomplishments that it claims, that inevitably noxious fumes, smoke and smells would regurgitate, as they now do, out of the stack, sometimes by day but usually by night. Nevertheless, the company gave assurances to the small local authorities then in existence, which were hungry for employment, that there would be no nuisance and no impingement upon a desirable residential area and nearby valuable farming and pastoral land. It duped the local authorities.

    From the company’s first days of arrival, there have been never-ending and justifiable complaints. Each surgery that I hold in my constituency brings fresh complaints. At my last surgery, I was seen by a lady who went into her garden in March, when suddenly a plume of smoke came from the factory and blew into her face. Her eyes immediately started to burn and, after notifying the factory straight away, her condition deteriorated and she was admitted to St. Woolos hospital. Now she has been told that she is likely to lose the sight of one eye. I do not know whether the plume of smoke acted as the catalyst or the cause of her condition, but I am still awaiting ReChem’s comments on the matter. I hope that the Secretary of State for Wales who, parrot-like, always defends this company by saying that there is no evidence ​ to justify the holding of any public inquiry, will give the assurance that he will make immediate inquiries into this lamentable incident.

    The precipitating causes of my requesting this debate are threefold. First, there is the discovery by the BBC’s investigating team of the deadly poison PCB in a capacitator on the Tirpentwys site used regularly by ReChem for dumping. Secondly, there is the evidence which has become available in recent days from the Government Chemist which reveals that the ReChem claim—that it does not emit the dangerous chemicals of dioxins or furans—is false and that the incinerator ash taken to the landfilling site includes measurable quantities of both deadly chemicals in the most dangerous isomer group, the Tetra group. Thirdly, the contents of the June reports of the hazardous waste inspectorate have revealed the appalling manner in which hazardous waste is nationally managed and the consequences that flow from this in Gwent.

    On each of those three points I put these questions to the Under-Secretary of State: why does the Secretary of State, in his desperate efforts always to protect ReChem, so strenuously seek to suggest that the discovered capacitator did not come from ReChem? That point was disbelieved by my council, my constituents and me. Is this not the far more likely hypothesis—that the system of control at ReChem allowed the capacitator to be brought in to the works and to pass out without having been dealt with at all, or after having been inadequately dealt with by incineration? What interest always prompts the Secretary of State to find excuses for ReChem?

    Why, while taunting the Torfaen council that it has shown insufficient cause to hold a public inquiry, does the Secretary of State thwart the council’s efforts to have thorough environmental investigations by persistently refusing to assist the funding of the needed investigation by refusing to disregard the extra expenditure of the target expenditure permitted by this Government to Torfaen council?

    It was a shameless shifting of responsibility to Torfaen ratepayers for the Welsh Office to write to the council on 11 February this year saying that the Secretary of State for Wales

    “does not consider that, in this instance, a case exists for a disregard. He is aware of the background to your application and appreciates that the proposed expenditure could well make a valuable contribution to a wider understanding of emissions in the area. He strongly believes, however, that if your Council feels that the monitoring is essential to meet its public health responsibilities, it must absorb the additional spending involved within its target level of expenditure.”

    Why should the ratepayers of Torfaen be required to pay to investigate the havoc wrought by ReChem because that company, avaricious for profits, is allowed by the Government to import for incineration thousands of tons of hazardous waste through Newport from Holland and Ireland?

    Perhaps my most important question to the Minister is this. Last week the Government Chemist certified that the incinerated ash at ReChem set to the Government Chemist by my local authority showed the presence in it of deadly dioxins and furans in the most deadly isomer group. What action are the Government taking in the light of that new evidence? The matter cannot be delayed. Given the well publicised and acknowledged deficiency in ReChem’s flue gas cleaning system, from this week on my constituents can look at the emissions coming from ReChem’s ​ chimneys and believe as reasonable men and women that deadly dioxins and furans may be falling on them and their children. What reassurance, can the Minister give my constituents today?

    What is the Government’s reaction to the ominous statement released yesterday by the Welsh water authority that ReChem is discharging PCBs into the sewers? The statement makes it clear that those fearsome chemicals have now entered the Ponthin treatment works and the water authority feels compelled to extend investigations to cover all sewerage works in its south-east division. That bare and taciturn statement will of itself send a chill throughout Gwent. Will the Minister now explain the significance of that statement? Can he genuinely and with conviction put a reassuring gloss on it to relieve the anxieties that are now bound to arise?

    Does the Minister accept the validity of the recent request by the industrial air pollution inspectorate to Torfaen council saying that the inspectorate must be consulted on virtually all types of proposed new development within a 1¼ mile radius of ReChem? If the Secretary of State for Wales is so confident that our complaints are groundless, is the Minister prepared to tell the council that that request should be ignored? If he supports the request, why does he do so?

    Does he realise that if he supports the inspectorate we are justified in describing ReChem as a curse upon our valley, sterilising an area of prime industrial and residential land, engendering doubt and unease among all the industries and inhabitants in the area, inevitably depressing house prices and thus robbing the many proud home owners in Panteg? Is it any wonder that all of us in Torfaen want ReChem to quit our valley?

    My next question concerns the tip at Tirpentwys. All the problems there arise primarily because ReChem and its associates disgorge their waste there. Not surprisingly, there is deep feeling in the area that in the battle of priorities for the limited funds at the council’s disposal as a result of the Government’s squeeze serious security and supervisory deficiencies have arisen. I am sure that the council will now remedy that, whatever the cost, and it must be done speedily. But why should my ratepayers be called upon to pay for this absolutely necessary work and supervision? Why should they have to pay to contain the industrial waste, not only of areas outside my constituency in Britain, but of the Dutch and the Irish, to swell ReChem’s profits? It is high time that the Government banned the importation of toxic waste, even as they now intend to ban the importation of asbestos waste.

    My final question relates to the hazardous waste inspectorate’s recent revelation that, although a high proportion of the 5,000 tonnes imported into Britain comes through Newport, the contracting importer—presumably ReChem — has failed to appoint a port agent and, therefore, defeats the main purpose of the Control of Pollution Regulations. What is the Secretary of State doing to remedy what the inspectorate last month called “this unsatisfactory situation”?

    I could ask many more questions, but I am aware that the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) wishes to speak, and I am deeply anxious to have replies, at least to my third and fourth questions.

    I hope that the Minister realises that in 1972 the Royal Commission on environmental pollution said that the public should be entitled to ​

    “the fullest possible amount of information on all forms of environmental pollution, with the onus placed on the polluter to substantiate claims for exceptional treatment.”

    The Royal Commission made the overriding recommendation that

    “a guiding principle behind all legislative and administrative controls relating to environmental pollution should be a presumption in favour of unrestricted access for the public to information which the pollution control authorities obtain or receive by virtue of their statutory powers, with provision for secrecy only in those circumstances where a genuine case for it can be substantiated.”

    Those principles, which the Government are supposed to have accepted, can be implemented only if the Government reconsider their position and permit us to have a proper and exhaustive public inquiry. I am sure that, when all the evidence has been tested, the result will reveal overwhelmingly the need for ReChem to be moved from my constituency.

  • David Winnick – 1985 Speech on Housing

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Winnick, the then Labour MP for Walsall North, in the House of Commons on 1 July 1985.

    I beg to move,

    That this House deplores the Government’s very substantial reduction in housing public expenditure which has occurred in the past five years, and which has resulted in considerable hardship and indeed misery for so many unable to be offered rented accommodation; also recognises that much essential improvement and major repair work cannot be undertaken by local authorities, or owner-occupiers on limited means because of the cuts; and calls on the Government to reverse its disastrous housing financial policies and to allow local authorities and the voluntary sector the means to build the necessary accommodation as well as allowing urgent improvement work to be carried out in both the public and private sectors.

    This debate takes place against the background of an acute housing crisis. A large number of families and single people are now without adequate and secure accommodation, and many are forced to live in substandard housing and often overcrowded conditions. Homelessness is continually increasing.
    In London alone, bed and breakfast accommodation is costing the boroughs £1 million a month — a sum that would be sufficient to pay off loan charges on 3,000 new council dwellings. In England and Wales, 1·25 million homes are now unfit for human habitation, and 1 million homes lack one or more basic amenities such as an inside toilet, bath or hot water. Across the country 2·5 million homes are seriously affected by damp, and 3 million homes each require immediate repairs that will cost £2,500 or more.

    Between 1979–80 and 1985–86—the current financial year — there has been a 68 per cent. reduction in real terms in housing public expenditure, from £4,522 million to £1,431 million. The figures for central Government subsidies to local authority housing show that in 1980–81 —a year after this Administration came into office—the amount spent was £1,423 million. In the current financial year, it is just £400 million, a reduction of more than £1,000 million. Those figures explain why there is now a housing crisis and so much housing hardship and misery, so much of which stems from the lack of rented accommodation.

    Ministers are fond of saying—we shall no doubt hear the same today—that cuts took place under the previous Labour Government. I do not deny that. There were cuts, of some of which I would not approve. It is unfortunate that the housing programme was adversely affected during the last two or three years of the previous Administration, but one should compare those cuts with the cuts made under the present Government. There can be no doubt that the present cuts go much, much deeper. Moreover, they are part of the philosophy adopted by the Government towards public sector housing.

    I have accepted that there were cuts under the previous Labour Government, but it is interesting to note that in 1978 — the last full year of that Government — the number of new public sector starts was more than 107,000.

    Mr. Terry Dicks (Hayes and Harlington)

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

    Mr. Winnick

    Not yet. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue for a while longer, especially as a number of hon. Members wish to take part. I shall give way, but not at the moment.

    The number of new council dwellings started last year was the lowest in peacetime — 39,500. However, the ​ estimate for the current year is that just under 32,000 new council dwellings will be started throughout the country. When one compares those figures with the 107,400 starts in the last year of the Labour Government, one can understand what I mean when I say that the housing cuts carried out by the present Government go so much deeper than anything that occurred under the Labour Administration. In addition, fewer private dwellings were started last year than in 1978.

    Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney)

    Perhaps I can reinforce and bolster my hon. Friend’s already powerful argument. In the last two years of the Labour Administration, the Government persistently overprovided for housing sums that were not taken up and spent on new housing by the predominantly Conservative district and borough councils which existed then.

    Mr. Winnick

    I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who had responsibility for such matters during the last Labour Government. We know of his deep concern on this issue.

    Because of Government diktat, local authorities can now spend only 20 per cent. of their capital receipts whereas about two years ago the Prime Minister told us that local authorities should spend on new capital projects. She explained why it was necessary for local authorities to do more. Now not all the money that local authorities raise themselves can be spent. As a result, about £5 billion is frozen at a time when there is such a desperate shortage of adequate housing.

    The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Ian Gow)

    Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the policy on which the Labour party fought the last election were in operation today there would be no capital receipts at all?

    Mr. Winnick

    I anticipated the Minister’s question. Two points should be made. One, as my hon. Friends and I have asked time and again, is that if it is right for local authority tenants to buy, why is it not right for private tenants? Secondly, under a Labour Administration, there would have been, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) has explained, a different approach to housing from that adopted by the Minister and his colleagues.

    Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead)

    My hon. Friend is aware that there are differences of opinion within the Labour party about the sale of council houses, but those of us who advocated the sale of council houses did so on the basis that new funds would be available for local authorities to spend on new projects. We were arguing that by selling, councils were forgoing the possibility of reallocating accommodation in the future for cash now, but that that cash should be spent on replacing housing stock. Is not one of the deceits of this Government that they adopted that policy and sold it on that basis, but have ratted on that commitment?

    Mr. Winnick

    My hon. Friend is right. The Minister would be in a stronger position, even allowing for the fact that we all know why private tenants are not allowed to buy, if he said that the Government believe, and have acted accordingly, that council tenants should be able to buy but that there is a responsibility on the Government ​ to make sure that that which is sold off can be replaced. However, as my hon. Friend explained, the Government have done the opposite. They have been keen to sell at a large enough discount to encourage people to buy but, far from trying to ensure that such buildings are replaced, the very opposite has been the Government’s policy.

    The number of people employed in the construction industry is 300,000 fewer than in 1979. That figure can be compared with the labour force survey for 1983, the last figures that are available. That shows that some 257,000 unemployed people seeking work had been employed, as their last job, in the construction industry. That figure will, I am sure, have increased in the past 18 months to two years.

    When I spoke about the Conservative Government’s attitude I had in mind a particular point. I had thought it proper to give the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) notice of this, and I believe that he was trying to come to the debate, but perhaps he has been prevented from doing so by various duties. The hon. Gentleman was, during the time of the Labour Government, the Tory spokesman on housing and construction. He gave an interview to the National Builder in which he was asked a number of questions on the basis that his party could win the May 1979 election, as it did. He is quoted as saying:

    “Thus, in our view, local authority activity should be directed towards helping those sections of the community that by definition cannot help themselves. The emphasis will be on sheltered housing for the elderly, special housing for the disabled and for the very poor who just cannot manage … the need is not there.”

    In many respects, the hon. Gentleman is to be commended, because he was as frank as one could wish. In the main, Ministers do not use such frankness. The hon. Gentleman set out what is now Conservative Ministers’ philosophy—local authority dwellings are not necessary, there is no need for them except for the poorest and the elderly, and the rest can get a mortgage. In essence, that sums up Ministers’ attitudes and that is why we are facing such a housing crisis.

    It is a myth, and a very dangerous one, that, except for the very poor, the rest of the community can simply get a mortgage and purchase its own accommodation. Owner-occupation has grown, and I welcome that. In the 1960s, the Labour Government took certain steps that assisted people on limited means who could not otherwise obtain a mortgage to get one. We have always been in favour of encouraging people, if they so wish, to become owner-occupiers. What is far from the case is that everyone except the very poor can solve housing problems by going along to the local authority or building society and obtaining a mortgage.

    For the first-time buyers, the average dwelling price in Greater London last year was £32,635. The average advance was over £26,000. In the west midlands, as one would expect, the figures are lower. The average first-time price was £18,429, but the average advance was over £16,000. To quote building society statistics, the average income of people who have borrowed for the first time in 1984 in London was nearly £13,000. In my part of the world, the west midlands, it was £8,555.

    Even when one takes into consideration that there may be two incomes in the household—often, although the wife’s income is taken into account, when the children come she may stop working — and even if one leaves aside, as I have no intention of doing, the level of ​ unemployment, particularly in the west midlands, it must be pretty obvious to Ministers, especially the Prime Minister, that a large number of people are simply not in a position to purchase. They are not earning enough to get an advance so that they can afford to purchase in London or the west midlands. They do not earn that sort of money now, and Ministers are of course saying that there should be low, or no, wage increases.
    A large number of people, whom I would not describe as very poor and who manage to get by as long as they are permitted to work by the Government, have a fairish income. However, they do not have the sort of income that would qualify them for a building society mortgage. They do not have sufficient income to pay off such a mortgage over 20 or 25 years, pay rates on the property and keep it in full repair and maintenance. That is my point.
    Therefore, there remains a clear need for rented accommodation. That need will not be met by the private sector. It is another myth that if one allows the private sector to revive through encouragement, it will meet demands. It will not, and there is no evidence that it will.

    Mr. David Ashby (Leicestershire, North-West)

    Two points need to be made. The hon. Gentleman talks about the private sector, so I shall be interested to hear what he has to say about housing associations, which cater for a real housing need in the areas about which the hon. Gentleman has talked. The other point is that, now that he has told us about people on low incomes, I should be interested to hear about those who are on high incomes but living in municipal accommodation.

    Mr. Winnick

    That is another one of the Tory myths. We all know about Tory propaganda about a Rolls-Royce and perhaps even a Daimler as well outside the council house, owned by people who are going on holiday four times a year to all parts of the world. Perhaps I am naive, but I had believed that at least that Tory myth was no longer in circulation. However, the hon. Gentleman has shown us that, when it comes to council houses and tenants, the Tory mind has not changed much.

    The Minister boasted about shorthold tenancies, but is there any evidence that that is doing anything to satisfy housing need in London or elsewhere? Why are so many people now in bed and breakfast accommodation? Why are local authorities spending the sums that I quoted at the beginning of my remarks if shorthold tenancies are the solution? The truth is that people will invest in the private property market only to the extent that they get a rate of return that they would not get elsewhere. They have no wish to provide accommodation at the level of rents that ordinary people can afford.

    Mr. Allan Roberts (Bootle)

    Perhaps my hon. Friend will ask the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) whether he suggests that quite wealthy people who live in council housing which is now unsubsidised and from which the Sefton council makes a profit should move into owner-occupation so that they may receive large subsidies and income tax relief from the Exchequer.

    Mr. Winnick

    My hon. Friend has asked an interesting question to which I am sure the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) will want to respond. The hon. Gentleman made a valid point about housing associations, but they form part of the ​ Opposition’s argument because, like local authorities, their funds have been cut so deeply that they cannot do their job.

    In the borough of Walsall, no contracts for council dwellings have been entered into since 1979. Nor is there any hope under existing policies that there will be any such contracts. I ask the House to imagine a borough of the size of Walsall with no contracts having been entered into for six years because the council simply has not sufficient finances. Land owned by the council is being sold because it cannot be utilised by the authority. A great deal of work needs to be undertaken on older and mainly pre-war dwellings in the borough. Again there is not the money to do it.

    In passing, I mention the Rosehill estate in Willenhall in my constituency. It was built before the second world war. The tenants have waited for years for their properties to be modernised. The conditions there are terrible.

    I have written to the Minister a number of times asking whether he would be willing to meet a deputation from the Rosehill estate. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State has replied saying that it is not a matter for him. His view is that it is purely a matter for the local authority. The local authority tells me that it simply has not the cash to carry out the necessary work. It so happens that the tenants intend to come to London this month on a deputation and to go to Marsham street. I wonder whether the Minister will be courteous enough to see them — or will he remain indifferent to their plight and, even though they have travelled down from my constituency, will not spend some time putting forward his point of view and listening to theirs?
    I have mentioned my area, but Birmingham has nearly 25,000 council dwellings in need of modernisation and major repairs. Only 40 are being attended to this year, again because of the financial crisis.

    Local authorities have the added headache of putting right the defective prefabricated concrete dwellings in their ownership. The work has to be done out of the annual housing investment programme. On top of all their other difficulties and headaches, local authorities have to rectify the defects in concrete dwellings that require urgent action. No extra money has been provided. The Minister says again that it is up to the local authorities.

    I do not deny that there was a substantial increase in the money provided to owner-occupiers for improvement grants. It helped many people buying their own homes who in many cases would not have had enough to improve them. However, once the Tories won the general election of 1983, they were not interested. Today, as a result, we have a large number of defective houses whose owner-occupiers, many of them pensioners, do not have the means to put them right and to whom local authorities say, “We are sorry, but we have not the cash to give you improvement grants.” What sense is there in that? I remind the House that when the necessary work is eventually undertaken, it will be much more expensive. I cannot understand why the Government will not give owner-occupiers on limited means the chance to put their houses right and to make them adequate for the coming winter. But, again, there is no response from the Government.

    In the last published data on housing investment in different countries, Britain is seen to spend just 2·1 per cent. of its gross national product on housing. That figure has to be compared with 6·1 per cent. in West Germany, ​ 5·7 per cent. in France, 5·6 per cent. in Italy and more than 5 per cent. in the Netherlands. It is difficult to find an advanced country spending as little as we do on housing investment.

    I suppose that in some respects today’s debate is a trailer for the inquiry into British housing whose report is to be published on 25 July. That inquiry was under the chairmanship of the Duke of Edinburgh. There has been one leak concerning a possible recommendation about mortgage interest relief. But it would be unfortunate if that was the only attention that the media gave to that report. I have not seen the report, of course, but I have seen the evidence to the inquiry. That shows the damaging state of British housing and the need for the type of investment about which I have been speaking.

    When the report is published, it should provide the opportunity for a debate not merely in the House but in the country and an awareness of what needs to be done, of the terrible condition of so much of our housing stock and of the misery and hardship of so many people who desperately require decent housing.

    Mr. Dicks

    How does the hon. Gentleman define housing need? Does he differentiate it from housing desire? The very definition often dictates a building programme the cost of which can be extremely heavy on the public purse. Will he define housing need?

    Mr. Winnick

    The hon. Gentleman is, I believe, the former chairman of a housing authority. I am myself a former member of a housing authority. When, as a Member of Parliament, I undertake my surgeries and when I receive letters from young married couples desperately in need of accommodation who have nowhere to live and no chance of buying their own homes, I understand perfectly what need is. I remind the hon. Gentleman of the huge numbers of people in bed and breakfast accommodation and the many people on housing waiting lists who desperately need accommodation. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that there is little housing need, it shows only too well that he is unaware of what is happening, probably in his own constituency.

    Mr. Willie W. Hamilton (Fife, Central)

    Why should my hon. Friend expect a sympathetic reply from a Government headed by the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) who in the last few weeks has been photographed with her husband, Denis, looking at private houses built by Barratts adjacent to Dulwich college at prices of from £350,000 each? Is she in need of housing?

    Mr. Winnick

    I do not know whether the right hon. Lady is in need of housing, but I know that a great many of our constituents are, including many constituents of Government supporters. It does those constituents no service to try to minimise the need, the hardship and the housing misery that so many of them have to face.

    This year marks the centenary of the Royal Commission on working-class housing. Its report 100 years ago revealed the ghastly conditions in Victorian Britain. It may be that some Government supporters believe that those were good days and good times.

    I make no apology for repeating in this debate that there are two matters of the utmost importance to ordinary ​ people which, apart from personal happiness and good health, affect their lives more than anything else. The first is the chance to earn a living and the second is to be able to have decent and secure accommodation. The accusation against this Administration is that by their policies they have taken away the opportunity for many people to have jobs and have denied many an opportunity to have proper and adequate homes.

    All that we are asking from this side of the House, as we have done on so many previous occasions, is that the Government should allow local authorities to build and modernise the accommodation that is needed. It is no use Ministers coming to the Dispatch Box to say that it is a matter for local authorities. It is futile to argue like that when local authorities like mine and so many others are prevented by Government financial policy from doing what is necessary and from carrying out their statutory responsibility.

    How can I criticise my council, which is not under Labour control, for not doing what is essential when all the figures prove that it does not have the means to do so? The responsibility lies with the Government, with the Cabinet, and with those Ministers sitting round the Cabinet table in 1979 and 1980 who made decisions on housing that have caused so much housing hardship. That is where the responsibility lies and that is why it is so important that the matter is debated.

    Time and time again Ministers have refused to accept the immense harm that their housing policies are causing. Part of our accusation today is that they have shown at times callous indifference to the housing plight. They are not interested. They boast about the number of dwellings that have been sold in the public sector, but they are completely lacking in interest when it comes to new build, modernising, or assisting now — not before the last general election but since — those owner-occupiers who do not have the means to carry out essential work such as roof repair.

    I have no illusions. When I was interviewed by a local radio station about today’s debate I was asked if I was likely to convince Ministers. I said, “No, I do not have the power.” With all due respect, I do not believe that any of my right hon. or hon. Friends have the power to do that. The Government are blind, dogmatic and indifferent to the sort of problems that we are raising today. I do not believe we shall change Government policy, or that there is any possibility of change until we turn this Administration out, but, as Labour Members, our responsibility to our constituents is to raise these problems, and to use the House of Commons as a forum to explain the hardship and misery of our constituents and the desperate need for more rented accommodation.

  • Anthony Meyer – 1985 Speech on Rail Services in North Wales

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anthony Meyer, the then Conservative MP for Clwyd North West, in the House of Commons on 1 July 1985.

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport for coming here at this late hour to listen to the debate. I wish to make it plain that I am not setting out to denigrate British Rail. I enjoy travelling with it. The intercity service which I have used for many years has been, on the whole, clean, fast, comfortable, and remarkably punctual. Much of the tourist trade which is so vital to north Wales continues to arrive by rail, as it has for many generations, and in what is now the second consecutive bad year for the tourist industry we desperately need our trains.

    In north Wales, there has, however, been a steady—I do not wish to say dramatic — deterioration in service over the years, not so much in speed, comfort and punctuality as in the convenience of the timetable and the facilities available.

    I accept that where trains are not full the railway cannot go on running them indefinitely. Services must be cut to reduce losses. The problem with that process is that it feeds on itself. As services are reduced, fewer and fewer people use them and further cuts are required to reduce the loss and so on. However, it is no necessary part of this dismal downward spiral that facilities also be reduced. My first complaint against British Rail—it is the least that I shall voice tonight — is the extreme reluctance and dilatoriness that it has shown in allowing private caterers to take food and drink trolleys on trains on which it no longer operates an acceptable buffet service. Some headway is at last being made thanks to the efforts and persistence of enterprising individuals, among whom my constituent, Mr. Osbiston of Dyserth was one of the first, if not the first, in the area to offer a most attractive trolley service to British Rail travellers in the region.

    I shall not renew my plea that decent rolling stock should be allocated to the north Wales line, although that is a sore point in north Wales. The new Sprinter units are coming in slowly, oh so slowly, to replace the bone rattling diesel multiple units in which it is impossible to read, let alone write and still less to drink a cup of coffee. They are being well received and represent a huge improvement. Nor shall I press for the electrification of the Crewe-Holyhead line, although there is a powerful lobby in north Wales arguing for it. I am not at all sure that it would be a justifiable investment, and the effect on the landscape where the train skirts the coastline would be deplorable.

    The essence of a railway service is that it should be reasonably predictable. Hold-ups are, or should be, less frequent than on even the best roads, and journey times are shorter — or were when the trains ran direct from London to north Wales. In the past few years, an increasing number of trains have been routed to north Wales via Birmingham, thus adding three quarters of an hour to the journey time. Instead of running direct to and from north Wales, more and more trains now require a change at Crewe. I have no strong objection to either of those things, provided that there is a reasonable connection at Crewe and no excessive wait.​

    The main burden of my complaint concerns the effect on services to north Wales of the railway works being carried out at Crewe. I fully accept their necessity. I spent one night a few years ago with British Rail being taken round the signal boxes and junctions at Crewe station. All of my colleagues were as shattered as me at the primitiveness and inadequacy of the equipment, which has to handle the hundreds of trains that pass every day through this immensely complicated station layout. It is clear that the work has to be done, and I do not quarrel with the decision to do it all in one go. I have a serious complaint to make, however, about the period chosen—2 June to 21 July. It is just about the busiest holiday period of the year. Had it been possible to start the work two months earlier, the effect on train passengers — north Wales is still heavily dependent on the railway to bring in tourists—would have been much less.

    Once the work started, the trains had to be diverted round Crewe, which has clearly resulted in longer journey times. That is a pity, and might lose us some day trippers, but we have to accept it. The real burden of my complaint is that we in north Wales, and a good many others who are served by Crewe and stations beyond it, do not know what we have to accept. A great deal of time and effort is required to find out, and the answer is quite likely to be wrong.
    The remodelling of Crewe station started on 2 June, and had been planned several years ahead. On 13 May, and quite independently of the Crewe operation, British Rail introduced new timetables for the area. They are radically different from the old timetables to which travellers to and from north Wales had become accustomed and for which the convenient pocket timetables, which can readily be found in the Travel Office, were available at all stations along the route.

    The new timetables are radically different, but as no new pocket timetables have been issued, it is not too easy to find out about trains. Why on earth have they not been issued? How are intending travellers expected to find out the new times of their trains? British Rail has two suggestions to offer. One is that one should buy its complete timetable, price £3, and far too big to go into an already bulging briefcase, let alone the most capacious of pockets. The other is that one should ring up British Rail inquiries and find out. Has anyone at British Rail ever tried doing that from a pay phone box—if one can find one that is not out of order—with no doors?

    British Rail admits that the plan to produce pocket timetables “ran into difficulties” — nothing like the difficulties that passengers are now running into without them. But I suppose that BR would now argue that it would not have been much use printing the new timetables because the Crewe remodelling, which began only three weeks after the new timetables came into force, would have made them inapplicable anyway. In desperation I wrote on 12 June to the manager of the midland region in Birmingham and asked him how I could now get to my constituency by rail. So far I have not had so much as an acknowledgement, let alone a substantive reply.

    I have managed to procure a document that purports to be a temporary timetable. It is called a “reissued” timetable, whatever that may mean. It gives the timing of the trains to north Wales during this period. It is illegible to the naked eye of anyone over 40. It has now been supplemented by a batch of scarcely more legible leaflets, each one covering a section of the journey. One is entitled ​ “Crewe-Chester-North Wales”. It is the only one that covers the north Wales stations. It also shows the connecting trains to and from London.
    According to that timetable, there are only five trains a day from Rhyl to London, whereas until 12 May there were 14, and there are to be 13 when the remodelling at Crewe is finished. According to the timetable, there is no way to reach Chester from Euston before 12.30 pm or Rhyl before 2 pm. The position for the return journey is very slightly better with six trains, including two morning ones.

    As a matter of fact, I do not believe that the situation is as bad as that. Travellers have been spotted on Rhyl station at 11 in the morning who claim to have come from London that same morning. It may be that there are morning trains, but it is just not possible to find out and, as I said, the midland region of British Rail does not answer letters.

    I do not criticise British Rail for doing the work at Crewe—it had to be done. I could have wished that it had chosen a time of year less vital to our already hard-pressed tourist trade, a period during which, incidentally, anyone hoping to travel from London by coach to north Wales instead of by train will encounter the horrendous problems on the M1 near Hemel Hempstead during the first fortnight of July.

    However, I understand that the work at Crewe must produce extensive changes to the schedule and a lengthening of journey times, but why, oh why does not British Rail take the trouble to get proper timetables printed and have intelligible notices put out well in advance at the railway stations concerned? Travelling by rail from London to north Wales at present is more akin to hitchhiking than travel by any scheduled service.

  • Robin Cook – 1985 Speech on Suicide of a Constituent

    Below is the text of the speech made by Robin Cook, the then Labour MP for Livingston, in the House of Commons on 28 June 1985.

    wish to raise a matter of the greatest gravity, arising out of the suicide of a constituent. This issue has moved me deeply, but I shall try to place it before the House in as dispassionate matter and with as little partisan flavour as possible. I am anxious that when the Minister for Social Security replies to the debate he should do so not in a spirit of seeking to justify what his Government have done but in a spirit of honestly examining the effect of the regulations. His junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, was challenged on this matter last weekend but did not show a willingness honestly to examine the effect of the regulations. He said:

    “The whole campaign of opposition to the proposals is no more than political brouhaha … Nobody in need can slip through that net of exemptions. Opposition is coming solely from those individuals who cannot be bothered to look for jobs and prefer to live without effort off the B and B allowance.”

    I hope that it will be felt at the conclusion of my speech that that view is profoundly mistaken and gratuitously insulting.

    The facts concerning my constituent can be briefly stated and are not in dispute. He was 23 years old. His mother had remarried and lived with Brian’s stepfather and stepbrother in my constituency. Brian had a history of psychiatric illness and had been a resident, on and off, for the best part of three years at Bangour village hospital in my constituency. In November he was discharged as fit and, as the phrase goes, returned to the community. He then went into board lodgings in Edinburgh, where he remained thereafter. His medical social worker drifted out of touch with him in January, but he was encouraged by the fact that Brian obviously wished to be independent and was seeking to get beyond reliance on the mental health system.

    Brian appears to have lived reasonably satisfactorily for the next six months. Then on 17 May his world collapsed. He received a notice advising him that his weekly benefit would be reduced from £69·50 to £25·75 on 27 May. We know that thereafter he approached the Edinburgh housing department to seek rehousing, but for a number of years Edinburgh district council has built no new council houses and as a result has an enormous waiting list. There was no prospect of it being able to rehouse Brian and it was under no duty towards him, as a single person, under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977.
    Brian was put out of the hotel where he was staying at the end of the week in which his benefit stopped. He was successful in finding accommodation in another establishment for a few nights but he was put out of it on 6 June. He slept rough for the next two nights and was last seen alive in the all-night cafeteria of Waverley railway station. Thereafter, he climbed on to the north bridge and threw himself off it. He went through the roof of the railway station on to the platform below. There is no doubt that he committed suicide and there is no doubt in my mind that it was induced by the state of despair and homelessness to which he was reduced by these regulations.

    One of the first lessons to be learned from this case is that it is clear that Brian Brown was in one of the exemption categories but failed to get exemption from the ​ regulations. The most alarming feature of his case is not that he was an exception but that his experience is all too common among the many other people who fail to get the exemption to which they are entitled under these regulations. Since the news that I had this Adjournment debate became public, I have received much correspondence from organisations and societies. Indeed, I have never had such a large mailbag on any single issue during the 12 years I have been a Member. All those representations frequently returned to the same point—the difficulty faced by those who are exempt in securing that exemption.

    The Minister has received a list of such cases from the “That’s Life” programme, which had conducted some excellent research into the impact of these regulations. He responded on Tuesday by suggesting that those individuals who were exempt should come forward and claim exemption. There are a number of problems with that approach, and I wish to illustrate them from Brian Brown’s case.

    The reason why Brian Brown could claim exemption was that he had a history of mental illness. I find it distasteful that anyone should have to seek the right to benefit by disclosure of that type of background. We know from his case that he was trying to get beyond his mental illness and his association with the mental hospital. He may well not have wished to come forward and make a claim for exemption on that basis, knowing that the inevitable effect would be to put him back in contact with the mental health system; otherwise, there was no way in which he could prove his case for exemption. The knowledge that that contact was in prospect may well have triggered a psychological reaction that predisposed him to suicide.

    It is possible also that Brian Brown never knew that he was exempt. I have seen the application that he submitted to the housing department. It is clear that Brian was barely literate. I doubt that he read the accompanying literature or, if he read it, that he comprehended it.

    There is another possibility—that Brian could have applied for exemption and been refused. It is clear that large numbers of cases that should be exempt have been unable to obtain exemption when they applied. I turn to one case from the “That’s Life” programme which was featured last Sunday and which has been put to the Minister. It concerns a girl with severe epilepsy, suffering frequent epileptic fits, who applied for exemption on that basis. I should have thought that no hon. Member would doubt that that was qualification for exemption. By last Sunday, she had received a further letter from the DHSS stating that this did not qualify her for exemption.

    There is a wide variation in the proportion of cases getting exemption. In the north-east, 80 per cent. of claimants at one DHSS office have been granted exemption. At one Scottish local office, only 2 per cent. of claimants have succeeded in getting exemption. It is impossible to look at that extraordinary rate of variation without concluding that some people entitled to exemption are not getting it.

    There is another unsatisfactory feature of relying on the system of exemptions to make these regulations humane. It places upon these vulnerable young people a strong incentive to remain in one of the exempted categories and not get beyond it. Lothian social work department, at a ​ time when it is being encouraged—indeed, forced—to reduce its staff, has hired five additional social workers to work with those rendered homeless by the regulations. One reason is the increased number of referrals of young people from the social work department because those young people can thereby claim exemption.

    The position of those on probation is more acute. It is becoming impossible for social workers to consider discharging clients who are on probation if the effect of discharging them is to remove them from exemption and thereby render them homeless. What more absurd conclusion could there be to a period of probation, and what would be more likely to predispose them to return to a life of crime?

    The Government appear to think that those who do not qualify for or secure exemption should return to the parental home. The problem with that is illustrated by the case of Brian Brown. He was not a youngster, but a man of 23. At 23, I was married and living in my own home. It is not surprising that people of that age wish to live an independent existence and do not readily accept that they should return home to mummy. In many cases, the cosy parental home waiting to welcome them back is a myth. Frequently, the background of homeless young people is broken. A stop-over hostel in Edinburgh which caters for young single homeless people calculated that 70 per cent. of its young people have lost a parent either through death or divorce.

    One does need a degree in psychology to understand the tensions and resentment of some young people towards a stepfather who married their mother late in their lives. Sometimes, that is felt by the stepfather towards the children of the previous husband. That does not apply in this case, but it is well known among social workers that one of the main reasons why young girls and women become homeless is the sexual advances or assaults of a stepfather in the house. It is grotesque to suggest that they should return to that risk in the step-parental home because the benefit has been cut. Many of them will not go.

    Large numbers of young people in Scotland are now making shift by desperate expedients. One victim in Kirkcaldy took to living in a tent on the beach there. Others sleep in bus shelters. In Edinburgh, a public house serves as a clearing house between young men made homeless by the regulations and homosexual older men who offer them accommodation for a few nights in return for sexual favours. It is incredible that late in the 20th century we are abandoning vulnerable young people to such an existence.

    Brian Brown did not have the skills or the psychiatric stamina to survive the circumstances. He killed himself after two nights sleeping rough in the summer. There will be other such cases when cold autumn weather sets in, unless we change the system by then. I shall suggest to the Minister a number of ways to make the system more humane. If he cannot respond to them immediately, I ask him to consider them and to write to me later.

    First, if the Minister remains convinced that there is a problem of abuse, why does he not stand the system on its head, and give wider powers to the DHSS to suspend benefit where abuse is suspected, rather than suspend everybody’s benefit and oblige those who are not abusing the system to prove that they qualify for exemption? That would put the onus on the DHSS to establish abuse, not on the claimant to establish that he is not abusing the system.​

    Secondly, the Minister should consider the change, which was made between the consultation paper and the regulations, not to provide exemption for young people living locally. That has created a great deal of difficulty. Had such an exemption existed in the case of Brian Brown, he would not have been caught by the regulations.

    Thirdly, on Tuesday the Minister invited organisations working with young people to help them to claim exemption and to notify the DHSS of any cases at risk. If he is serious in inviting that assistance, the DHSS should notify such organisations of those who are likely to lose benefit and to whom notices have been sent, so that they can find out whether the young people are vulnerable and at risk and could claim exemption.

    Fourthly, as a minimum will the Minister consider including in the notice to young people reducing their benefit information on where to find organisations such as citizens’ advice bureaux and social work departments to obtain the advice, assistance and information that they may need to figure out whether they are exempt under the regulations?

    Finally, what is so impressive about the weight of evidence that I have seen this week is that it has arisen so early in the life of the regulations, which came into force only two months ago. The first evictions began only four weeks ago, when the reduction in benefit started to bite on those caught four weeks previously. In London and Glasgow, the regulations came into effect only on Monday and the first eviction will take place this weekend. The appalling crop of cases that has been gathered so far has thus come to the surface without the metropolis even being involved. The regulations are already causing suffering to an extent of which the Minister was warned but which he did not expect when the regulations were introduced. I do not expect him to say so when he replies to this debate, but I suspect that in his heart he knows that I am right.

  • Piers Merchant – 1985 Speech on Fairground Safety

    Below is the text of the speech made by Piers Merchant, the then Conservative MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, in the House of Commons on 27 June 1985.

    I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the subject of fairground safety.

    This has become a matter of wide public concern. It is of direct concern to every parent, for while every child loves a fairground, regrettably, every child is also a potential victim of tragic accident.

    It is a matter of concern to Government, too, in framing safety requirements under the law, and I take this opportunity to compliment the Minister and his predecessor on the keen and positive interest that they have shown in this area of safety. I know that the Minister intends to keep the whole matter under review, and I hope that he will give serious consideration to the continuing concern of myself and many others. The subject is equally of interest to many right hon. and hon. Members, many of whom have had to deal with the aftermath of tragedy in their constituencies. I am particularly pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) here, because I know that he has a particular interest in the subject, and I understand that he generally thinks along the same lines as me.

    I congratulate the Health and Safety Executive and its team of inspectors on stepping up their work on fairground safety, particularly on the thorough work that they did this week at the Newcastle Hoppings, about which I shall say more in a moment. I recognise, too, that the showmen involved have a vested interest in safety. Of course, they do not want accidents on their rides. They want to entertain, not cause misery. They want credibility, not public boycott. And naturally, they want to earn their living.

    The Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain has shown an admirably positive attitude towards safety. Together with the Health and Safety Executive, it has within the past year, implemented the new safety code, and is carrying out a valuable self-policing role. I pay a particular compliment to the Showmen’s Guild national president, Mr. Whiteleg, who earlier this week travelled to Newcastle to meet me at the Hoppings so that we could together tour the site and examine safety in practice. We saw the log books that are now being kept by operators under the voluntary code of practice. We looked at the machines that were being run and at the safety measures that were recently introduced to make the various items of machinery more effective. Mr. Whiteleg is a genuine man, with honest purpose. If all showmen were as reliable, there would be fewer accidents, and the voluntary code could be relied upon to be 100 per cent. successful.

    Unfortunately, however, not all the showmen are as honourable as Mr. Whiteleg. Let me quote the words of Mr. Rodney Harrison, managing director of Harrison Brothers Amusements, who comes from the north-west of England. In an interview earlier this year he said:

    “It’s time somebody spilt the beans on a small rotten core within the industry. A few of them are getting away with murder under the present system of inspection. Faulty machines are camouflaged. I’ve done it, everyone’s done it. I know for a fact that when the inspector arrives to check the safety of a fairground half the rides have parts missing, but if the inspector can’t see inside the mechanism of a ride then he can’t check it properly. There are lots of good people in the business but the rotten core, perhaps 5 or 7 per cent., have their activities covered up.”

    This week, in the centre of my constituency, on a 26-acre site on Newcastle town moor, has gathered Europe’s largest travelling fair, known locally as the Hoppings. I welcome the fair. I welcome the fun and enjoyment that it will give to many in my area whose daily lives may be dreary and dull. I welcome the business that it brings to the many small businesses that have shows, rides and stalls, many of them local, others travelling from a distance. I am glad that this year has been largely accident-free.

    Last year a 17-year-old girl, Julie Pearce, was trapped by her foot on the Superloop, a huge contraption that sends cars at incredible speed up to 60 ft or 70 ft above the ground and then down again. She was swung round by that machine and eventually flung out, falling 60 ft from the top to the ground. She is still in hospital 12 months later, having suffered multiple injuries. I am glad that she is now fast on the mend. It is a miracle that her life was spared.

    Four weeks ago there was another accident in the northeast. A few miles from the Hoppings is the Spanish city at Whitley Bay on the coast. There a 12-year-old-girl was killed and three others injured when the bolts on the safety harness of a machine called the twister sheared off. On 2 June this year, six people were hurt, two seriously, at Wolverhampton when the phantom chaser collapsed. On 6 May 19 were hurt, 14 treated in hospital, all children, when the chairoplane went wrong at a fairground at Felixstowe. On 27 April this year 17 were hurt, all aged between 11 and 16, at Dover when the “lifting paratrooper” collapsed. These are all fairly major incidents that have happened in the past three months.

    In the past five years, according to the reply given to me by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, accidents causing major injury have trebled—from 13 in 1980, there were 20 in 1981, 23 in 1982, 28 in 1983 and 38 in 1984—a constant increase year on year. Over the past eight years, 25 deaths, 158 major accidents and 283 minor injuries have been recorded.

    These figures do not show everything. They do not catalogue all the minor injuries and near misses. I shall quote a letter that I received this morning from a concerned mother:

    “On Monday this week I went with some members of my family to the Hoppings on Newcastle Town Moor, and I accompanied my 3½-year-old son on the dodgem cars. A notice asked customers to ensure that children wore the safety belts attached to the car … I made quite certain Tim was wearing his properly. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to prevent a really rather nasty bump to his head, when our car and another collided. Tim was jolted forward and his forehead banged against the steering wheel. He cried for some time from pain and fright, and we got first aid from the St. John Ambulance on the site, but I’m glad to say it comes under the heading of ‘minor injuries’. What concerns me, however, is that I feel it could have been avoided. The belt was not adjustable to take into account the quite marked variation in sizes and ages of children, and it was the great degree of slack left in the belt that allowed Tim to be virtually unrestrained in it.”

    “As a mother of three children, I know bumps and scrapes are part of childhood, and I know parents have responsibilities themselves to assess risks and hazards. However, with regard to dodgems (a tremendous favourite with even very young children of three and four) I feel that belts should be adjustable, or parents should somehow be informed of the risks involved to small children whose heads are level with the steering wheel. I hesitate to suggest ‘no under-fives allowed’, but I wonder if we were lucky in Tim escaping with only a painful bump. How common are broken noses, jaws, teeth and so on?”​

    One can tell from the tone of that letter that the writer is a responsible mother, and not prone to exaggeration or undue concern. One is aware that in this accident the bump was minor, but head injuries, by their nature, can easily become serious injuries. She makes a valuable point about safety instructions and gaps that still exist in safety procedure.

    I hope that the examples that I have given illustrate the severity of the still remaining problem. I have said that the Health and Safety Executive has tried hard to tackle the problem within the existing framework of the law. It now has the voluntary code of practice that has recently become applicable. It is also carrying out more inspections than ever before.

    However, the executive faces a number of problems. First, the law is vague. The Health and Safety at Work Etc Act is so general when it comes to applications to fairground sites that it is often extremely difficult to secure a prosecution. Both the law and the voluntary code lack teeth. Then there is also the pressure of time and work on the executive. The factory inspectors did better than ever before in the last year, but they were still able to carry out visits—single visits normally—to only 25 per cent. of fairgrounds. To put it the other way round, three quarters of all fairgrounds were not visited.
    Under the law, there are no mandatory requirements for the Health and Safety Executive to inspect at regular intervals. There are no clear, defined legal requirements on safety harnesses, how they should be constructed, where they should be sited. There are not sufficient legal requirements on designers and manufacturers, on testing of equipment before it comes into service or on giving a type approval to new fairground machinery, often the source of the accident statistics.

    The fact remains that the absolute duties under the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act that apply to a factory do not apply in the same way to fairground sites. Fairground sites nevertheless attract many children and the atmosphere is much riskier than the workplace or factory.

    Even under the voluntary code, doubts have arisen about the nature of inspections and sometimes about the type of inspector selected. Because the code is voluntary and the onus is on the machine operator or fairground to choose the inspector, there are cases of inspections being done by people with few qualifications in machinery and engineering.

    There are obvious shortcomings with safety harnesses. On Monday, when I visited the Hoppings with my 15-month-old daughter, I was encouraged to get on a rocket-shaped vehicle that goes round in a circle and goes up in the air when the passenger pulls a lever. It is a fairly old machine—I remember going on it when I was a child. It has an open cockpit out of which it would be extremely easy to fall, especially for a youngster who was in the wrong position while whirling around. As it moves fairly high above the ground, someone who fell out at speed could suffer serious injury. There was no safety harness in the machine and the operator was not aware of any safety risk. That shows that there is a long way to go on educating machine owners and operators.

    The partnership between the Health and Safety Executive and the Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain has operated well, but it could be developed so that there is a closer partnership because, ultimately, self-policing is the best answer. There must be a clearer framework for education into better attitudes and more awareness of ​ safety so that showmen, who are brought up in a rather free atmosphere can be persuaded to think more in teens of safety requirements such as are found elsewhere.

    We must give the law more teeth in regard to inspections, their frequency and who does them. There should be safety harnesses and we should consider type approval of machinery at the design stage. Such matters cannot be left to voluntary good practice. I hope that I would be the last person to encourage unnecessary laws, but legislation must be considered in this context. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will investigate that possibility and that change might be made by simple amendment, perhaps to the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974, setting out responsibilities for showmen at fairgrounds.

    I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is also worried about fairground safety and that everyone who is involved in what is now a sensitive area wants to do what is best for children, who need watertight protection from risk, for owners and operators and for the general public, as we are all involved with fairgrounds at some stage. I am confident that my hon. Friend will keep the matter under review and I hope that he will find it possible to tighten up present requirements. I look forward to hearing his response.

  • Margaret Beckett – 1985 Speech on Housing Benefit

    Below is the text of the speech made by Margaret Beckett, the then Labour MP for Derby South, in the House of Commons on 27 June 1985.

    I beg to move,

    That this House condemns the Government’s record on Housing Benefit which brought administrative chaos when it was introduced and has since been repeatedly cut with the result that pensioners and poorer families have been deprived of essential help with housing costs; and opposes further proposals in the social security reviews which would bring further cuts and greater poverty.

    The history of housing benefit has been one of the most extraordinary—and and that is saying something—in the lifetime of this Government. The Government have been warned consistently about the structure of the benefit itself and about the problems created by the timing of the changes that they propose. Consistently, the Government have ignored the warnings and now, in their amendment, they blandly try to take credit for simplifying the system that they introduced. I shall look first at the proposals that the Government have laid before us and then briefly at their record in this area.

    Housing benefit highlights the absurdity of the Government’s pretence in the Green Paper, that no figures are available for the changes that they have discussed. Not only have examples been given of a joint taper of 70 per cent. that might be proposed, but we have been told what losses or cuts the Government expect to make from their housing benefit proposals. They expect to save some £500 million.

    On the basis of the 70 per cent. example given in the Green Paper, I understand that a pensioner couple on about £75 a week would lose the whole of their present rebate of almost £5. Similarly, a married couple with two children on £110 a week, which is not a large sum by anybody’s standards, would also lose all or most of their present rebate, again of almost £5. Those are substantial sums for people on such incomes, particularly for those who are trying to raise children.

    One of the first things that we hope to hear from the Government in the debate is whether those figures are accurate and how great the damage to claimants will be. The Government know that they will save £500 million but they claim that they do not know who will contribute to the savings. They do not know how they will contribute to the savings or how much each particular group will lose in order to make that contribution. My first question is: is there any further titbit of information that the Under-Secretary can give us about the numbers of gainers and losers? If not, why not? If not, the unworthy thought occurs to us that it may be because of the contrast between the review team’s proposals and those of the Government, and perhaps more because of the effects of the review team’s proposals.

    In the recommendations from the carefully selected group that carried out the review, we were told that about one third of those who get housing benefits would lose, although about one quarter — a smaller, but still substantial, number—might gain. However, when the review team suggested that there might be somewhat more losers than gainers, and that that was the order of magnitude, it was on the basis that the same money would be available from the scheme as a whole, and that there ​ would be separate rent and rates tapers. Even with those provisos, the review team identified losses for what was reckoned to be 3 million people who now receive housing benefits.

    The Government are not making the same proposals. They are proposing not nil-cost changes, but changes that will save at least £500 million. Nor are the Government proposing separate rent and rates tapers—they are going for a joint taper. On rebates alone, it looks as if the Government’s proposals will mean losses for 5 million people. On rent and rate rebates, it looks likely that about 7 million people will suffer losses in their housing benefit.

    If those figures are incorrect, we should be happy to learn from the Minister what the real figures are, but the Government’s reluctance so far to give us any information makes us suspect that those figures may be accurate. Of the 5 million to 7 million people who will lose benefit, it has been estimated that between 1 million and almost 2 million will lose all entitlement to any housing benefit.

    That brings me to the second question that I should like to ask the Minister, which is in two parts. First, I noticed that on Monday his hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security said in a reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) that the £500 million savings that the Government hope to gain may be drawn over a period. The first thing that we want to know is, what period?

    Secondly, what we should most like to know is whether the £500 million savings quoted by the Secretary of State include the savings from the proposal that claimants pay at least 20 per cent. of their rates. It has been estimated that taking 20 per cent. of rates from claimants would bring in some £250 million. If that is part of the £500 million, we accept that it is a substantial part of it, although we would argue that it is an unjust proposal. However, if it is not part of the £500 million, it means that we are talking about savings of some £750 million, an increase of 50 per cent. on the savings that the Government have admitted, so far, that they wish to make.

    We are talking about enormous sums—more than the Government have already saved in the many cuts that they have made in housing benefit in the past couple of years. The savings through the 20 per cent. of rates proposal will be more than the Chancellor tried to cut from housing benefit in July 1983, just after a general election campaign in which he told us how terrific our economic performance was, and that roses and gaiety were around the corner. Sadly, only a month or so later, he had to introduce cuts in housing benefit. We are talking about even greater cuts than those.

    These large savings do not result from the recommendations of the Government’s review body, and this applies particularly to the proposal to take 20 per cent. “at least”, to use the Government’s phraseology, in rates. The review body said:

    “100 per cent. help with housing costs for those on the lowest incomes is the only fair way of meeting their needs within the present vagaries of the housing market.”

    We wholeheartedly support that view.

    We know that the Government intend to remove help with water rates while at the same time, with another hat on, they are forcing up the water rates. Is there any intention to offer any recompense to those claimants who will be asked to pay 20 per cent. of their rates, even at the level of the rough justice of an average figure, which will be disadvantageous to those in areas with high rates?
    ​

    Apart from the proposals to take 20 per cent. of rates from claimants, we also oppose the severity of the proposed rate taper. Here, both the Government and the review team are guilty of peculiar logic. In the phrase much beloved of the Government, they say that the rate taper goes too far up the income scale. Their justification for that is that it goes further up the income scale than the rate taper. However, the only reason for that is the Government’s cuts in April 1983, April 1984 and November 1984. They have used the cuts that they made to justify further cuts in the rate taper.

    The proposal for such a combined sharp taper will hit most the least well off owner-occupiers who get help only with their rates, and who so often figure among those groups for whom the Government claim to have concern. Again, the Government and the review team part company. The review team proposed to sharpen the rates taper. Although we question its logic in doing so, it also proposed that some form of what one could call rent rebate—in other words, some other help—should be available to all owner-occupiers, so that the impact of the reduced rate rebate that it proposed would have been diminished. Characteristically, the Government have taken the proposal for cuts and left out the proposal for improvement. Once again, one of their hand-picked review teams has gone too far and been too generous for the Government’s liking.

    It seems that the Government may further restrict the entitlement of those on supplementary benefit for help with mortgages, although they must be aware that that is bound to lead to an increase in the number of evictions. I understand that the number of people in serious arrears, which was running at 8,400 in 1979, rose to 29,000 last year. That is under a Government who claim to be devoted to encouraging owner-occupation. Proposals such as those that the Government are making can only lead to these figures rising, and to increases in evictions.

    Mr. Roland Boyes (Houghton and Washington)

    Is it not a fact that in 1984, according to building society figures, there were 11,000 repossessions? A number of those people will find themselves on the homeless lists, and a number will come under board and lodgings regulations. The Government had to admit this week that they had got those regulations wrong. Is there not a strong possibility that they have also got this proposal wrong?

    Mrs. Beckett

    My hon. Friend is correct, and it is an unfortunate feature of the Government’s housing and social security policies that they continually create conditions of whose affects they then complain.

    Another action proposed by the Government that will create substantial disadvantages is the proposal to remove from local authorities the discretion they have to give greater help to particular groups. As local authorities seem mostly to exercise, that discretion to the benefit of groups such as widows and war pensioners, about whom the Government claim to be concerned, this is a strange proposal for the Government to introduce. How many gainers and losers will there be from the proposals to remove that discretion from local authorities?

    How many gainers and losers are there likely to be from the effects of removing the extra help available for those in high-rent areas? I seem to recall that last March, when we were discussing the changes that the Government were then making in the proposals for high rents, some 120,000 ​ people were being affected. Presumably, those people are likely to be affected, all of them for the worse, by the Government’s proposals and in some areas undoubtedly substantial sums could be involved for the individuals who will be affected.

    All these proposals are particularly disgraceful because they follow the removal of the Government’s general subsidy, which has forced up rents. We are horrified and appalled at the thought that the Government are likely to try to take as much as £500 million from housing benefit. Since 1979, they have already taken about £1,300 million from general subsidies for housing and councils’ housing revenue accounts. This follows the pattern identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes).

    When the Government began this process of cutting the general subsidy to housing accounts, they gave reasons that may sound remarkably familiar. They said that it was better to cut the general subsidy because then they would be able to target help on the poorest through housing benefit. Having cut the general subsidy, and increased rents so that more people were forced to draw housing benefit, they then forgot about targeting help on the poorest, and said that, as too many people were claiming housing benefit, that would be cut.

    In these circumstances, it is no wonder that not only the Labour party but all who are on benefits regard the Government’s talk about targeting and efficiency with considerable cynicism. They know that targeting and efficiency, may be the buzz words for cuts this year, but next year and the year after the Government will have different buzz words, although they will be pursuing the same policy.

    Mr. Roger Gale (Thanet, North)

    Does the hon. Lady concede that the purpose of social benefit is to help those in most need and that therefore targeting is worth while if the system is to be effective?

    Mrs. Beckett

    The hon. Gentleman has fallen prey to a delusion common to Conservative Members. The words he used, and the description he gave, have been given for every mean-minded poor law system since time began. The idea of the welfare state is not what the hon. Gentleman identifies.

    Mr. Gale

    The hon. Lady is ducking the question.

    Mrs. Beckett

    I am not ducking the question. I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not understand, because the policies of his Government show every sign not only of a lack of understanding but of their wish to destroy the welfare state. The whole point of the welfare state is that it is for everybody—everybody pays as much as he can when he can, and everybody should have the right to draw when he has a need. That is what the welfare state is about, and it is because it is about everybody being able to draw to the extent that he needs when he has need that it is more expensive. The welfare state is not just for the poorest.

    Surely the Government are not claiming that, under them, anybody who has need can draw benefit. Over 1 million people have lost entitlement to housing benefit since 1983. These people had need and were drawing benefit and they have lost the money only because the Government have made cuts so that they could give more ​ away in tax handouts to the wealthy. If the hon. Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) does not understand that, he does not understand the welfare state.

    Mr. Gale

    Answer the question.

    Mrs. Beckett

    I have answered the question. The hon. Gentleman does not understand anything about the welfare state or the reasons why most people attach such value to it. Fortunately, it is a loss that will cost him and his party dear.

    Over the past couple of years, the Government have taken 1 million people out of housing benefit entitlement. The numbers of claimants have grown only because of the failure of the Government’s economic and housing policies—a failure that, characteristically, they blame on everybody but themselves. However, the penalty for that failure they exact from claimants. The Government’s proposals are also likely to cause problems for local authorities.

    The subsidies for housing benefit, now 100 per cent., though less in some cases, will be cut to 80 per cent. From what we can discover — the Government give no justification—this is an arbitrary figure. As I am sure the Minister is aware, local authorities believe that this will mean substantial cuts in the sums made available to them. Will local authorities lose money, because of the change in the subsidy offered to them? If so, what is the justification?

    Local authorities will lose the 60 per cent. grant that they were given towards the cost of administering the scheme—yet another flagrant breach of an undertaking which the Government gave only a couple of years ago, when the scheme was introduced. This is another extraordinary example of how the Government are proceeding. In the same Green Paper, the Government have reduced the money local authorities receive in subsidies for administration and they have had the cheek to say that claimants have got to pay at least 20 per cent. of rates to encourage them to press authorities to reduce the costs that the Government have just increased by the proposed administrative changes. Not the least of these is the burden of collecting the 20 per cent. deduction from, I understand, some 2·5 million households. The Government then have the unmitigated gall to tell local authorities that they are reducing this 60 per cent. subsidy, not—perish the thought—just to save money, but to

    “provide a greater incentive to local authorities to contain costs and improve efficiency”.

    The local authorities are less than amused by the gall of the Government. Local authorities never wanted the housing benefits scheme as it was introduced, and they have consistently told the Government that they have not been allowed enough time or enough funds to run the scheme properly. The permanent secretary to the Minister’s Department admitted that to the House recently. The Government have now taken the subsidy away from the local authorities, they say to encourage local authorities to improve efficiency. This is similar to the nonsense that we heard about the National Health Service, and it is equally unwelcome.

    The justification which is continually cited for cutting housing benefit is that benefit is paid too far up the income scale. May I remind the Minister again—we cannot get this on record too often — that, for those who pay ​ average rents, all entitlement to benefit for a two-child family is lost at more than £40 below average national wages. Those who live in areas where rents are higher have had rents forced up, but they receive housing benefit above that level, perhaps even up to average wages. I assure the Minister that those people would be only too pleased if the Government were to restore the housing subsidies cut so that their rents could be cut and hence there was no need for them to claim housing benefit, only to be abused by the Government for doing so.

    We condemn the effects of the proposals in the Green Paper. We find it outrageous that the proposals are put before us in the Green Paper while we are in the middle of a consultation period — a consultation period of a whole four months. That was not excessive, one might have thought, for—what was it?—the most fundamental review since Beverage. But four months is too long for this Government to wait for their policies to come to the House to take effect.

    The changes which the Government have proposed in the uprating—it may be an uprating in some benefits but the term is not justified for housing benefit—make exactly the same kind of reductions in rate support that are proposed in the Green Paper, or at least in some of the proposals. It is proposed in the Green Paper to reduce the rates taper to 21 per cent. on net income. However, in the November upratings, when the Government make the rate taper 13 per cent. on gross income, they will carry out the policy which they put forward for consultation in the Green Paper. That is one of the most controversial changes that they have put forward in terms of housing benefit. It is the change that bears hardest on owner-occupiers and it is likely to bear hardest on pensioner owner-occupiers. It was introduced in June, two weeks after the Green Paper, without any opportunity for consultation or reply.

    I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm my figures. About 2 million households will lose money from the housing benefit changes and about 500,000 again will lose all entitlement to housing benefit. There is no need for those changes as part of the uprating because, in the scheme that preceded housing benefit, changes and tapers were not made customarily. In this case, they are merely yet another aspect of the Government’s desire to make cuts.

    I believe that a pensioner couple who are paying £5 in rates a week can now get rate rebate on an income of up to £95 a week but that, from November, under the uprating of which the Secretary of State spoke so warmly today, they will cease to qualify for housing benefit on a gross income of £85 a week—£10 a week less. Many of those who are affected by these latest proposals are the same people who have lost rebates in every cut that the Government have made in the few months since the scheme was introduced, but this cut will be the steepest so far.

    I notice—I ought to say this to save the Minister the trouble—that there are some small improvements in the housing benefit scheme. The Minister of State claimed credit for the increase in the dependent child addition, in response to a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown). We occasionally give the Government the odd cheer, or perhaps even two cheers, but I do not think that the Government deserve even half a cheer for that. We are singularly bored with giving the Government any cheers for the increase in the child addition, as this is the third ​ time that it has been before the House. They give the addition, postpone it, take it away altogether and then decide to give it again. Every time they say that they will increase the child addition, they expect a fresh round of applause. Not tonight, I am afraid. That behaviour is typical of the Government’s approach to housing benefit, which befits the short title of the party to which they belong—it is a con.

    We all know that the Government have made massive cuts in the sums available for housing support, whether through general housing subsidy or, once they managed to cut that, through housing benefit, which many families were forced to take in its place. They know, as do we, that pensioners and less well-off families are bearing the burden of cuts in housing support, but the Government merely increase the burden still more, complain about those who are still able to claim benefits and expect to be congratulated on their compassion.

    The housing benefit scheme shows up the Government’s incompetence and callousness. The cuts that they are proposing in the November uprating and in the Green Paper will, I am afraid, inflict further damage on claimants. The only advantage is that the cuts may inflict so much damage that they will help us to remove the Government.