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Tag: 1986

  • Robin Cook – 1986 Speech on Housing in Livingston

    Below is the text of the speech made by Robin Cook, the then Labour MP for Livingston, in the House of Commons on 11 March 1986.

    I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a matter of serious and growing concern to my constituents—the forward housing programme of Livingston development corporation. On the whole, I do not quarrel with the priorities of the corporation, and usually agree with the judgments that it makes within the resources available to it. My point, for which the Government must take full responsibility, is that its resources are not adequate to do the job that if faces.

    There are two separate issues. The first is the amount of capital allocation available to LDC to tackle the upgrading of the existing housing stock. The second is the Government’s ban on general needs building by the new towns, including the LDC. The two are linked, as, were that ban to be lifted, the new towns would require an even more generous capital allocation than they need for the upgrading of existing stock. Both cases stand on their own merit, so I shall address myself to them as separate issues.

    This debate, and my application for it, were prompted by the reduction in the capital allocation for the LDC in the forthcoming year. For the current year, it received £2–4 million net capital allocation for housing purposes. Next year, it will receive only £1.7 million, which is effectively a reduction of one third in real terms. It is difficult for those of us who know and seek to grapple with the housing problems of Livingston, to understand what possible basis there could be in the reality on the ground for that reduction in the net capital allocation for LDC.

    Livingston, by its nature, has a large number of houses that were built in the 1960s, when system building was extremely fashionable among architects. Those houses have proved inappropriate wherever they have been built, but they have proved particularly inappropriate in Livingston, which is on an exposed hillside in Scotland, 500 ft above sea level. Some aspects of the housing stock desperately needs urgent attention if it is to provide acceptable housing into the 21st century, and if it is to stop deteriorating before the 20th century comes to an end.

    First, a large number of houses have flat roofs. Unfortunately, in the 1960s, architects forgot that flat roofs do not allow the rainwater to run off. I have constituents who have reported 14 or 15 times that their roofs are leaking. To be fair to the LDC, quite often the tenants have been visited 14 or 15 times, and have had more patches put on the fiat roof above them. That is no solution. The only solution to the problem faced by the tenants and the LDC is to provide the houses with proper pitched roofs. If the rain does not get in through the roof, it gets in through the Bison cladding. The Minister will be familiar with the problems of Bison-built houses, and he will be aware that where such buildings are in an exposed position, as in Livingston, the case is as strong as anywhere else for urgent treatment of that form of building.

    My next point concerns the provision of the heating systems in those houses. Unfortunately, many of the houses were built at a time when architects blithely ​ assumed that energy, and particularly electricity, would be cheap indefinitely. They therefore built houses that were cheap on insulation, and which are now expensive to run.

    A number of houses in Livingston are recognised by the DHSS as exceptionally hard to heat houses. The LDC, to its credit, perfectly properly wants to replace the heating systems in those houses and provide heating systems that the tenants can once again afford. That is a matter of concern not only to the tenant but to the landlord as, while the houses are not heated, they deteriorate as a result of the familiar problems of condensation.

    In addition to all these problems with the existing housing stock, there is the further quite distinctive issue of the upgrading programme for Knightsridge 4. I will not weary the Minister with the details of that tonight, as he was good enough to meet me and the local councillor, Maureen Ryce, a fortnight ago and we much appreciate the fact that since then he has been able to make a decision approving that upgrading programme.

    That upgrading programme alone requires a capital expenditure of £3·6 million spread over two years. Therefore there will be an annual expenditure of £1·8 million. That figure compares to the total net capital allocation for Livingston for the current year of £1·7 million. In other words, that project alone would swallow up the entire net capital allocation. If we add the other expenditure to which I have referred, Livingston requires and can readily absorb a net capital allocation some two or three times the figure that has been offered for the current year.

    The Minister could perfectly properly argue that the net capital allocation is not the sole capital resource available to Livingston. The LDC can also apply to capital expenditure the receipts that it obtains from the sale of houses. The fact is, however, that those receipts are on a declining profile. We are over the hump in public sector housing sales. In Livingston in the past year there has been a marked reduction in interest in purchases of corporation houses. That is not surprising, since more than half the tenants in Livingston are on housing benefit and are not in a position to purchase their houses. There is bound to be finite point to the demand for council house sales and we appear to be approaching that point.

    It is possible that the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which is currently before the House, will stimulate a fresh wave of applications for purchase, should it complete its passage. That, however, will be a one-off effect. The LDC expects that its receipts from house sales will decline from £2·5 million in the current year to £1.1 million in 1990. That estimate was prepared by a development corporation which takes no view on the rights or wrongs of selling public housing and which has proved itself willing and energetic in marketing the sale of such houses. That corporation nevertheless expects to be able to achieve only a declining revenue from the sale of its houses.

    In other words, the LDC is faced with a declining capital revenue from the sale of its housing stock and a declining net capital allocation from the Scottish Office. On that basis, it is impossible for the LDC to tackle the grave housing problems that it has inherited. In the immediate future that means that it does not have enough resources to meet committed expenditure in the coming financial year. In the longer term, it means that some of my constituents will continue to live with flat roofs, with Bison-clad buildings and with heating that is too expensive for them to use, until beyond the year 2000 on the present ​ resources available to LDC. That is the situation in a housing authority for which the Secretary of State is directly responsible.

    It would not require resources beyond the bounds of imagination to tackle the problems at Livingston. The capital programme of the LDC in 1978–79, the last year of the Labour Government, was double the capital programme in the current financial year. Moreover, none of that expenditure was financed by sales of the housing stock.

    I do not expect miracles. I do not expect the Under-Secretary of State to be able to return us to those halcyon days and the expenditure of 1978–79. I do not think that he has brought his cheque book with him. However, I ask him to give serious and sympathetic consideration to the representations from LDC and to look at them with a genuinely open mind. The hon. Gentleman has been willing—I appreciate this—to recognise the problems in the Knightsridge 4 area of Livingston. He has been prepared to admit that there is a case for expenditure. I put it to him that having recognised those problems, he must now will the means to tackle them.

    I am concerned also about the ban imposed by the Scottish Office on construction of general needs housing in the new towns. That ban was imposed by the Minister’s predecessor three years ago. Since then, no general needs housing has been started in Livingston or in any other Scottish new town. The hardship caused by that moratorium has become increasingly evident during those three years.

    When I was first elected to the seat of Livingston and went to my surgeries there, I had few, if any, cases of people coming to me who were not able to obtain rehousing. I have to admit that it made a refreshing contrast to my previous constituency in central Edinburgh where such cases were the stock in trade of my surgery. However, over the three years, first a steady trickle and now a steady stream of people have come to my surgeries unable to obtain the housing that they urgently and desperately need. I share that experience with local councillors. Yesterday, West Lothian district council carried a resolution requesting the Scottish Office to lift the moratorium on the construction of general needs housing in Livingston, precisely because of the experience of local councillors in finding an increasing number of constituents coming to them whom they could not assist.

    To understand the pressure on the waiting list, it is necessary to remember that Livingston is a new town which has been constructed over the past 20 years. We now have a large number of second generation residents reaching their 20s, getting married and understandably seeking a house in which they can set up their family home. Forty six per cent. of the applicants on the LDC’s waiting list are under 25. The houses are just not there for them. The waiting list grew steadily until December 1984 when the LDC decided, perhaps understandably, that it would have to close the waiting list, except for priority cases. Even so, the average waiting time lengthened dramatically during the subsequent 18 months. The average time that must elapse before a first offer can be made exceeds a year. Many people on that waiting list cannot afford to wait a year. One hundred applicants a year involve cases where families have split up, often in desperate circumstances, occasionally in violent circumstances.

    Bluntly, LDC is caught between the twin pressures of diminishing housing stock from the sales and an increasing demand from the new generation reaching maturity and seeking a family home of their own. The only way out of those conflicting pressures is a building programme of general needs housing. I am not asking for a massive programme. I am not seeking an enormous new estate. I am asking for LDC to have the flexibility to provide a steady responsible programme of perhaps 200 houses a year.

    Some private sector house starts are being carried out in Livingston, and it is welcome, but they do not match the needs of the local community. In the past seven years, the average number of starts in Livingston by the private sector has been 137. It is estimated that we require 350 homes a year. Moreover, the people buying those houses come overwhelmingly from outside the new town. They are attracted by houses in an attractive, modern environment and are welcome to the new town. However, the houses constructed by the private sector do not and cannot meet the needs of the young couples of Livingston who cannot afford to purchase them.

    I hope the Minister will agree that I have put my case in a rational, reasoned and dispassionate manner. I ask him in return to give a reasoned and dispassionate response to my case for lifting the moratorium, but I do not want him to give an instant response tonight if it will be no. He will have adequate opportunity to respond. The five district councils representing Scottish new towns have formed a joint forum which has been examining, among other issues, the housing needs of the new towns. The unanimous view of those councils is that the moratorium should be lifted, and they will be placing a report before the Minister within a couple of months.

    I hope that when he receives that report, he will reflect on my remarks tonight and will, in the light of the evidence that they and I have given, be willing to consider lifting the moratorium. By definition, a moratorium should be only a temporary pause. I hope the Minister will agree, when he receives the report from the five councils, that the time for lifting the moratorium is long overdue.

  • John Ryman – 1986 Speech on Bates Colliery

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Ryman, the then Labour MP for Blyth Valley, in the House of Commons on 7 March 1986.

    I wish to raise the decision of the National Coal Board to close Bates colliery in Blyth. I am astonished that the Secretary of State for Energy is not on the Treasury Bench to answer on behalf of the Government. He had ample notice—more than a week ago—that this debate was to take place. He has been personally involved in many negotiations with the members of the local authority and members of the coal mining unions in relation to this matter. He knows the important principle involved in this subject, because it is the first occasion upon which the recommendation of an independent colliery review tribunal has been specifically rejected by the National Coal Board. In those circumstances I am astonished that the Secretary of State is not here, because he, not the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, was present during some of the negotiations. The only natural inference to draw from that is that the Government do not consider a pit closure of this proportion to be important enough to bring the Secretary of State to the House on a Friday afternoon. No doubt he has other more frivolous pursuits to follow.

    The facts of the case surrounding the proposed closure of the colliery are well known. This colliery, in Northumberland, used to employ 2,000 men. That number was later reduced to 1,700 and then to 1,400, and, by agreement with the NCB, it now employs about 880 men. There are 29 million tonnes of high-quality workable reserves. Production at the mine is better than it has ever been. The agreed evidence of the technical expert before the tribunal was that there are no insuperable technical problems to be overcome in the further working of the pit.

    The recommendation of the chairman of the tribunal was that the plan of Mr. Bulmer, one of the engineers, should be accepted, that the pit should be kept open for at least another two years and that, within those two years, it would become a viable proposition mining high-quality coal and producing it in larger and larger quantities. That is the background to the case.

    One has to look further back to see what has happened. The starting point is the autumn of 1984 when the National Association of Colliery Ovenmen, Deputies and Shotfirers made an agreement with the NCB about the setting up of the tribunal.

    The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Energy answered questions in the House in February 1985. In answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock), both specifically said that the agreement between NACODS and the NCB was “sacrosanct”. ft is interesting to note that although the Government, as long ago as late 1984 and early 1985, were saying that the agreement was “sacrosanct”, now that the recommendation has been made to keep the pit open, their view has changed.

    To complete the picture, in June 1985 the Secretary of State for Energy personally met me, representatives of the coal-mining unions and the constituency, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and representatives from the local authority. At that time negotiations were going on between the NUM and the NCB about whether the colliery review procedure could ​ be established between the other unions in the coal-mining industry and the NCB. The meeting was held in the room of the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who was then a member of the Government, because the room of the Secretary of State was not large enough. We spent an hour and a half, having seen Mr. MacGregor the chairman of the NCB, earlier that day, and, on the whole, discussion ranged round the new colliery review procedure. The clear recollection of everybody in that room representing the coal-mining unions and local authorities was that the Secretary of State for Energy repeated that once the tribunal had been set up and the review procedure conducted, a decision by means the review procedure would be binding on the Government and the NCB.

    In October 1985 a long meeting was held at the Department of Energy in the room of the Secretary of State. That meeting was attended by some Labour Members from the northern group, the president of the Northumberland area NUM, my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) and me. The Secretary of State was obviously in a hurry because he was on his way to the Conservative party conference, but he had the courtesy to see us. I remember it clearly, as it was the week after the Labour party conference.

    We have the minutes of that meeting, which took place on a Friday, in our possession, and the undisputed evidence was that negotiations for the new colliery review procedure were progressing well. At one stage the Secretary of State left the room to make a telephone call to Hobart house and he expected that agreement would be drawn up soon. He was right. The new agreement was drawn up within a couple of weeks. On that occasion, the clear impression given by the Secretary of State was, once again, that the Government and the NCB would respect the decision and recommendation of the independent colliery review tribunal.

    What happened? The members of the tribunal were appointed, headed by an eminent judge, a law lord, and six eminent members of the Bar—all senior silks with great experience. Early in January 1986 the hearings began. Before they began, the preliminary hearing took place to decide the procedure and documentation. The hearing on Bates colliery took several days. Documents had been submitted in advance, and each side was permitted to call oral evidence, to make submissions and to cross-examine witnesses called by the other side. The evidence was heard by Mr. Peter Bowsher, QC, and it lasted for more than two days. Every opportunity was given to the NCB to adduce any evidence that it wanted. A similar concession was made to the coal-mining unions and to Blyth Valley council.

    A mass of evidence was produced. The documentary evidence was examined and the oral evidence was cross-examined. Lengthy legal submissions were made, and Mr. Peter Bowsher, having analysed the evidence, carefully made a report which ran to many pages. It was a careful analysis of the evidence. Paragraph 7 of his final conclusions makes it clear that he accepted the case put forward by the unions and by Blyth Valley council, and that he rejected the evidence of the National Coal Board. His strong recommendation, made in detail, was that the colliery should remain open for at least two years. He thought that if it remained open for two years on the ​ Bulmer plan, it would prosper even more. That recommendation was issued on 4 February and considered by the NCB that week. On 20 February, the NCB said that it did not accept the recommendation of the tribunal and would close the colliery.

    Those are the undisputed facts. The first thing that emerges from that—one wishes to be entirely accurate about the matter — is that the Government have completely broken faith with the coal-mining unions in Northumberland and with the local authority and that the Secretary of State for Energy has completely broken faith with me. In June 1985, he made the remarks to me which I have described, which were entirely inconsistent with his conduct in February 1986. The only inference to be drawn from that is that he was not being frank with me in June 1985, or that a more sinister reason influenced his actions in February 1986. There is no other logical explanation.

    The next matter that emerges is that Mr. MacGregor and Mr. Archibald, who is the director of the north-east region, are on record as having said many times, orally and in writing, that, once the recommendation was made, the NCB would give full weight to it. What does the phrase “full weight” mean? It cannot mean ignoring the recommendation. When the board rejected the recommendation, it gave no full reasons for doing so. Mr. MacGregor made off-the-cuff comments to a few Conservative students in Nottingham, saying that the board was rejecting the suggestions of the independent colliery review procedure. They were not suggestions; they were recommendations. The coal board had said previously that the recommendations would be fully considered and that full weight would be given to them.

    It is no wonder that the Secretary of State for Energy does not have the guts to be here this afternoon. He has flunked it completely. When I asked him many times during Energy Question Time what the Government’s attitude was, he shrugged his shoulders and, with his usual nonchalant incompetence, said, “It is nothing to do with the Government. I am the Secretary of State for Energy. These matters are entirely for the National Coal Board.”

    Yesterday, and on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said that the decisions were entirely a matter for the National Coal Board. As long ago as February 1985, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister were saying that the decisions would be binding and sacrosanct, but now they shrug their, shoulders and say that it has nothing to do with the Government, but is entirely a matter for the NCB. the deputy chairman of the NCB was a permanent secretary at the Department of Energy, while the present Secretary of State was in office—an unhappy coincidence.

    The present position requires robust thinking and careful analysis. Unless the Government change their mind and accept that they are responsible for our coal mining industry, and unless the NCB changes its mind, the colliery will die. With it will die the jobs of 880 men, the economy of Blyth and the coalmining community. The National Coal Board smugly and arrogantly says that there will be no compulsory redundancies, but that is a lie because there are not enough jobs in Northumberland to transfer 880 men and the pits at Ellington and Ashington cannot possibly absorb that manpower.

    One is slow to make allegations unless they can be proved, because wild and unfounded allegations are too often made in the House. Having considered the matter very carefully and examined all the documents, however, and having studied the transcripts of all the broadcasts by ​ Mr. MacGregor and Mr. Archibald, there is no other way to describe their conduct except to say that they were thoroughly dishonest. They were dishonest with the coalmining community, they were dishonest with the people of Northumberland and they were probably dishonest with the Government.

    I still have friends at Hobart house and at Team Valley and of course I respect the confidence of my sources, but in my respectful submission there is great unease both at Hobart house and at Team Valley about the conduct of the directors of the NCB. The unease is not confined to the coalmining community but spreads to headquarters staff who have seen the dishonest conduct of directors determined to crush a coalmining community in the north-east of England in a vengeful and spiteful vendetta which arose in the aftermath of the miners’ strike. That accusation is justified by the evidence. In the financial year before the miners’ strike £2 million was invested in Bates colliery. What was the point of investing that amount if it was intended to close the colliery so soon afterwards?

    Those are the facts. Let us now see what can be done because we must work together to achieve a prosperous coal mining industry.

    Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) rose—

    Mr. Ryman

    I will give way in a moment. We should work together to increase productivity, which has already increased enormously at Bates colliery, which is an efficient, well-conducted mine producing more and more high-quality coal each week. The productivity figures are excellent. Why do the Government wish to bury a mine with 29 million tonnes of coal under the sea when, according to the colliery review, it will be in profit within two years? What a waste of investment, of skill, of coal and of humanity.

    Mr. Skinner

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me a couple of minutes in the debate.

    I believe that the Government and the National Coal Board connived to delude the miners, and especially the deputies in their ballot in 1984. The whole British coalfield could have been brought to a standstill, so a way round the problem had to be found. One way round it was the colliery review procedure. That procedure was adopted little knowing that well-intentioned people like my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Ryman), who has constantly raised the matter in the House, would be able to convince the tribunal that the pit was a decent pit and should be kept open. The Government and the National Coal Board never expected to have to face the music in an instance such as this. My hon. Friend has explained that the colliery is worth keeping open, that it is viable and that it has reserves. He has explaned how it was subject to a con at the time. Much spleen and vindictiveness is poured on the miners at Bates and the north-east area because MacGregor wants to prove to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary of State for Energy that he is running the show, whatever decent people think. My hon. Friend has an outstanding case. He is to be congratulated on continuing to inform the House. I hope that he succeeds. I hope that NACODS, the deputies’ union, will achieve a majority in the ballot and instead of running away from a decision, as it did last time, that it will act so that its members are able to repair the damage done in 1984.​

    Mr. Ryman

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). NACODS must get on with the job quickly. The matter is urgent. The preparation of salvage and the heightening of seams is going on now, so it is important that NACODS, which has much influence, makes it decision. It is no use behaving like Gebhard Blucher and arriving after the battle when the fight is over. The fight will continue in the House of Commons, in the coalmining industry and in the courts.

    The Government have shirked their responsibility and broken their promises. They have lied to the people.

    It does not matter how long the fight continues, we shall fight for the pit and its community. If we have to fight alone, so be it. But we shall not have to fight alone, because we shall be joined by all the coalmining unions, the TUC and other organisations. We are not fighting for Bates alone. We are fighting the Government on their pit closure policy.

    At one time there were 200,000 miners in Britain. The Government want to get rid of 50,000 of them. We are fighting for the coalfields throughout the country—for the collieries in the north, south Wales and Kent. We are fighting for the survival of coalmining communities throughout England, Scotland and Wales.

    We are convinced that, as the oil runs out, coal reserves will be the prime source of energy. What a panic there was about the drop in oil prices recently. It is essential to have an efficient and viable coalmining industry.

    If the Government had the strength they could tell Mr. MacGregor “Keep that pit open, as the recommendation advises.” The Government and their Ministers do not have the courage, the integrity or the will to exercise their responsibilities. I do not want to be personally abusive about Mr. MacGregor. I do not have to be, because his conduct describes itself. Mr. MacGregor did not even read the recommendation in full. He acted against it without considering it in detail.

    The Secretary of State for Energy is answerable to Parliament for the administration of the industry, although he is not responsible for day-to-day management because of constitutional convention. Why does he lack the courage to say to Mr. MacGregor, “Reconsider. You might come to the same conclusion, but reconsider the report and the recommendations. Reconsider the deputations; reconsider what Members of Parliament and the experts say.” The National Coal Board’s own experts, the technical engineers, say that the pit is technically all right, that it contains good quality coal and that it would be viable within two years.

    Surely nobody is so arrogant or conceited that he does not have the humility and understanding to say, “Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I made a hasty decision. Let us look at the matter again.” I am asking the Government to look at the matter again. After the many representations made to them, the Government may know things that they did not know before.

    The Under-Secretary came to the north-east coalfield many months ago and met miners from Bates colliery and gave them an assurance, which was not honoured. They gave him a plan for making the pit viable and he said that the closure would be reconsidered, but it never was. If the Minister has time to reply to the debate—

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

    Order. The Minister will not have time if the hon. Gentleman keeps on.

    ​Mr. Ryman

    There it is. It is a long story and it has taken a long time to tell, but I am so familiar with the nauseating, pompous platitudes that emanate from the ministerial Bench about this matter that perhaps it is just as well that the Minister has not got long to reply.

    The north-east of England has no confidence in the integrity of the Secretary of State for Energy and his Department. We do not believe what he says, we do not trust him and we do not consider that his words are worth anything. I have to say that frankly to the Under-Secretary. I am sorry that he is having to carry the can for his incompetent senior colleague.

    In this disgraceful state of affairs I speak for the coal industry in the north-east and throughout the country. It has suffered from the ferocious policies of the Thatcher Government — the Walker incompetence, the Joseph indifference and the cruelty towards the coal mining community and in all other spheres of Government.

  • Roland Boyes – 1986 Speech on Local Government

    Below is the text of the speech made by Roland Boyes, the then Labour MP for Houghton and Washington, in the House of Commons on 6 March 1986.

    I beg to move,

    That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Local Government Re-organisation (Compensation) Regulations 1986 (S.I., 1986, No. 151), dated 31st January 1986, a copy of which was laid before this House on 7th February, be annulled.

    The regulations are concerned with compensation for the loss of employment and for diminution of emoluments for members of staff of the Greater London council and the six metropolitan counties. An early release scheme, supposedly designed to create vacancies in other authorities to make way for metropolitan county staff, completes the package of measures put forward by the Government for dealing with the staffing consequences of abolition. However, there are several problems about the package.

    It is no consolation to say that it could have been worse. The initial proposals of the Government were very unsatisfactory. It was only following pressure from the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Trades Union Congress local government committee that improvements were made. The package of measures has done little to assist the management of change, it has produced inequity and disparity of treatment in different metropolitan county council areas, and it is too late. The early release scheme, which might have helped by reducing the number of compulsory redundancies, has only been made operative through a circular dated 26 February 1986, just five weeks before abolition.

    About a week ago I talked at some length in the Chamber about the problems created by only five weeks’ notice of the regulations being given. This evening I shall let Sir Philip Woodfield, chairman of the staff commission, speak on my behalf. In the Municipal Journal of 28 February 1986 he wrote:

    “The uncertainty has been added to by Government delays. Only recently has it laid before Parliament the main transfer order and the compensation regulations and promulgated the early release scheme. It is not sufficient to say that the main outlines of the proposals were announced some time ago. The delay in putting out detailed arrangements for the early release scheme in particular has much reduced its value and anyway people ought not to be expected to make crucial decisions affecting the rest of their lives without seeing exactly how they would be affected.”

    I should like to consider the circumstances of those who leave the employment of a metropolitan county council to take a lower-paid job in another local authority. That move is itself a blow, but it could become a permanent feature for many. The Government’s initial proposals were for a lump sum payment which would have led to greater unfairness for some people. The scheme in the present regulation, although better, has some drawbacks, which the Government could remedy even at this late stage.

    An employee will get up to £5,000 a year. The cash for compensation is calculated according to a formula in the regulations, which is arrived at, roughly, by subtracting the contractual wages paid in the new job from the contractual wages, overtime payments and bonus payments paid in the original job.

    Payments are to be made one year in arrears, so the first is not due until 1 April 1987 for many staff. However, it is possible for residuary bodies to make certain interim ​ payments. I hope that other residuary bodies will follow the example of one in the west midlands that has determined to make monthly payments. That will help to reduce the hardship experienced by loyal officers of local authorities who will suffer from a much reduced income.

    The compensation lasts for seven years, but half payment is made in the eighth year. The Government might like to extend the period of time during which compensation is payable. There are important conditions for eligibility spelt out in regulation 3(7)(2)(a) to (e). Regulation 3(7)(2)(b) states that “an employee must have had three years continuous local government service by 1 April 1986 to qualify for compensation. I have been approached by several representatives of the metropolitan counties who suggest that the requirement should be for no more than two years. I should be glad if the Minister would consider that carefully. Such a reduction would bring eligibility into line with eligibility for payment for compulsory redundancy. The choice of three years is quite arbitrary.

    Redundancy payments are a less straightforward matter. There is a problem, because there are two schemes for calculating redundancy payments — a national scheme and locally agreed schemes. Three metropolitan county councils—South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear and West Midlands—have been prevented from implementing local schemes by the undoubted sharp practice of the previous Secretary of State. I refer to the use of retrospective legislation in March 1984 to prevent them from establishing their own severance schemes. On 1 March 1984, the then Secretary of State said in a written reply:

    “The second will ensure that any terms which are incorporated into existing or future contracts of employment after 1 March 1984 and which relate to compensation for redundancy or detriment will have no effect where they would entitle an employee to an amount greater than that provided for, in due course, in the main abolition legislation.” — [Official Report, 1 March 1984; Vol. 55, c. 276–277.]

    It will be noted that the date I mentioned in the former Secretary of State’s reply is 1 March. He actually gave the written answer in the Official Report on 1 March 1984. I find that an unacceptable practice.

    As the Minister is aware, my constituency is part of the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear. I shall use Tyne and Wear as a illustration of the iniquitous situation that has arisen as a consequence of the decision of the former Secretary of State. Officers will claim that it is the first time in the history of industrial relations, both inside and outside the public sector, that two different sets of conditions have applied to people being made redundant in the same industry. It is not good enough. It is unfair and unjust. Many of the staff concerned—in fact I would say all of the staff—have given many years of loyal service to the Tyne and Wear metropolitan county and they feel that the Government are using them as political pawns. Even if the abolition of the metropolitan county was a political battle between Members of Parliament at Westminster and councillors on local authorities that is no excuse for the fact that the officers, who were not a part of that political process, will be the ones who will suffer. I find that totally unacceptable. Staff are dismayed at the treatment after serving for many years to the best of their ability.

    It is not the wish of the local authority that this problem has arisen. Well before 1 March 1984 my local authority is on record giving a public commitment to a local scheme ​ that provided a safety net, vital in the north east, an area of extremely high unemployment. It is part of the northern region, as you know well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, which has the highest unemployment level in Britain.

    Those people who are aged over 50 will find it particularly difficult to find another job if they are made redundant when the abolition day is reached. It has been suggested in a most disgraceful front page of the Daily Express that the schemes are “gravy trains”. I cannot understand the Daily Express. I knew that it was a backward newspaper but for it to print a front page lead now about a scheme that was announced on 1 March 1984 is taking things too far.

    The article, by Mr. Don Coolican talks about a “gravy train”. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House have worked in local Government, as I did for many years. We know that some of the directors—I was an assistant director of social services —could be considered to be well paid, but many of the clerical staff, typists and other people who work for local authorities are far from well paid. To describe what some people in a local authority will obtain as a redundancy payment as a “gravy train” is downright misrepresentation of the true facts and it is a disgrace. It is an insult to the workers, who will already suffer badly by being made unemployed, without having such scandalous and scurrilous material written about them.

    The people who face this uncertain future would have been quite happy to have given more years of their lives to serve the people of Tyne and Wear diligently. Tyne and Wear has been used to illustrate the problem but it also affects the staff of two other metropolitan counties, South Yorkshire and the West Midlands. I received a letter from three members of staff of the South Yorkshire county council, with a detailed argument supporting the case for better redundancy pay. They wrote:

    “It seems totally wrong that officers employed by South Yorkshire, and by Tyne and Wear and West Midlands and made redundant by abolition should be treated differently from colleagues in the GLC, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire on the basis of virtual accidents”—

    I think that that is a good phrase—

    “of timing; accidents relating to the timing of approval of severance schemes in relation to government deadlines.

    It may be argued that the GLC, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire simply eluded the government’s efforts and behaved irresponsibly in adopting over-generous severance schemes. This is just not true; it is the scheme proposed to be imposed on South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear and the West Midlands which is the exception. The scheme is the worst ever applied in the public sector. It compares badly with schemes operated by other public bodies such as the NCB, British Gas and Water Authorities. It is understood that it also compares badly with private schemes such as those operated by ICI, GEC, Courtaulds and Marks and Spencer.”

    Certain rights were acquired by the GLC and the metropolitan counties — Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Merseyside — and in general their contractual schemes give employees a higher level of compensation entitlement than the scheme that is set out in the regulations. Under the present arrangements, and excluding superannuation benefits, a person aged 58 with 34 years’ service earning £15,000 a year would receive the following amounts if he worked for the following authorities: Greater Manchester, £20,193; West Yorkshire, £17,163; south Yorkshire, only £8,221. By luck, or by choosing a certain geographical area in which to live and work, an individual may receive almost ​ £21,000 while someone living in another area such as south Yorkshire would receive only £8,000. That cannot be right and it is not right.

    After representations to the Government by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Trades Union Congress, the scheme was improved for staff within the 40–50-year age group. However, there are other disparities that are worth mentioning. For example, a local authority worker is treated differently from a civil servant. The following example shows how payment will be calculated for a local authority worker as against a non-mobile civil servant. I do not criticise those who receive more than others. My contention is that metropolitan county staff should receive the same as civil servants.

    On abolition, a member of staff of a metropolitan council aged 40 years with 20 years’ service will receive 40 weeks’ pay. A non-mobile civil servant would receive 65 weeks’ pay. A member of staff of a metropolitan county aged 50 years with 30 year’ service would be given 82 weeks’ pay and the non-mobile civil servant would receive 104 weeks’ pay. These are examples — I could give many more — that we would like the Minister to consider.

    It is disgraceful that only five weeks remain in which to consider these matters. I hope that the Minister will bring the arrangements for the staff of the metropolitan counties into line with those for civil servants.

    The Government’s main objective was to abolish the GLC and the metropolitan counties. I cannot be sure, but I hope that it was not part of their policy to create two different tiers of redundancy payments and to pay some staff more or less than others. I hope that the Minister will consider carefully the following questions. First, will the hon. Gentleman allow a scheme to operate which was agreed in detail after 1 March 1984, which is now available and which was declared publicly before 1 March 1984? In other words, it can be demonstrated unequivocally that there is no sharp practice.

    Secondly, if the Minister cannot agree to that, will he consider closing the gap between the payments that are made under the two schemes for those aged over 50 years who will experience the greatest difficulty in the job market?

    We would like to see a closing of the gap between the better paid local schemes and non-local schemes. I stress that by closing the gap I mean bringing upwards the scheme we are discussing and certainly not bringing it down from any of the schemes that have been agreed locally. I ask the Minister seriously to consider closing the gap.

    Thirdly, will the Minister take a generous attitude to the problem? The numbers involved will be relatively small When we spent 200 hours on the Bill, the Government talked of possibly 8,000 or 9,000 people being made redundant. We know that, although too many will be made redundant, the numbers will not be of that magnitude. In view of this the Minister has a chance to take a generous attitude to the problem.

    Fourthly, will the Minister agree to look specifically at the compensation that will be obtained by those people, many under 60, who have contributed for over 40 years to a superannuation fund? I understand from a letter from the chief executive of the West Midlands county council, Mr. Hender, that

    “such officers should be compensated by having redundancy compensation payments on the same scale as that provided under Clause 4(1); that is, two weeks’ pay for each year of service.”

    Fifthly, will the Minister confirm that, as regards reorganisation under the Local Government Act 1985, section 84(1) of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 applies to persons who are affected by local public holiday arrangements? I can see that there could be difficulty here where public holidays, associated extra-statutory holidays and concessionary holidays, interrupt continuity of service. Mr. Hender says, giving an example:

    “we have situations where people have left say, Walsall corporation on a Maundy Thursday and have commenced work with the West Midlands County on Wednesday after Easter, the first day of their new contract of employment.”

    Before anyone thinks that that does not sound serious, let me say that normally I am dealing with a different industry, with a miner with 40 years’ service, who receives only 10 years’ redundancy pay after 40 years down a lousy, stinking, dirty mine, all because there was a few days’ gap between the final part of his employment for the last 10 years and the main part of his employment.

    The legislation ensures that staff on maternity leave at 31 March who are not transferred to a successor authority will be entitled to receive from the appropriate Residuary Body any outstanding statutory maternity pay even though their employers cease to exist. However, women employees of the GLC and metropolitan counties also have contractual rights to maternity pay in excess of the statutory provisions, which under present regulations they will lose. We believe that it is completely unfair that the staff concerned should lose such contractual entitlements, which could easily be met by the Residuary Bodies. Women on maternity leave will be unable to make themselves available for other employment or to compete effectively for other jobs, because of their pregnancy or their recent confinement. They will be in a disadvantaged position compared with their colleagues. A continuing entitlement to contractual maternity pay will at least help to provide some compensation. I hope the Minister will take this on board.

    Another problem that could well arise is when some people have worked for local government up to 1 April 1974 and then were compulsorily transferred on that date to employment with a water authority or health authority. Then, on various dates since April 1974 they have voluntarily left their water authority or health authority employers and rejoined local government, without any break in service. In effect they could be considered as returning to their natural local government service. However, it would be considered that there had been a break in service for the purpose of redundancy payments under the present scheme. Will the Minister consider a move from local government to a health or water authority not as a break in service but as continuous service for redundancy pay purposes?

    Finally, there are implications for the Inner London education authority. There has been no indication so far that the powers of section 31 of the London County Council (General Powers) Act 1921 will be applied to any of the new bodies set up under the Local Goverment Act 1985. If those powers are not applied to the new ILEA, the provisions referred to in paragraph 5(a) of a letter which I have received from the GLC—

    “to provide better compensation terms generally than those available to redundant local government employees elsewhere in the country mainly in the area of lump sum redundancy payments and particularly for those under the age of 50 years”—

    ​ —will be applicable only to those employees who are transferred to the new ILEA under a statutory transfer order, and will not be applicable to many employees recruited by the new authority after 31 March 1986. The protection will be secured under the Act because the terms are contractual.
    Moreover, the powers will not be available for use in the way described in paragraph 5(b) and (c) of the GLC’s letter, that is:

    “to provide better compensation terms for specified groups of employees in special circumstances (eg for certain professional staff under 50 years at the time of the ‘Cutler cuts’ exercise in 1978)”,

    and

    “to enable improved early retirement terms to be offered in individual cases, (particularly senior officers) where there has been political pressure for the individual’s services to be terminated.”

    Therefore, it is vital that the powers in respect of those employees are applied to the new ILEA.

    The Government face a test tonight. Can they give the reward that loyal, hard-working, conscientious staff of the metropolitan county councils and the GLC deserve? Abolition day is coming far too quickly, but the Government still have time to reconsider the proposals, and to consider all the disparities that have been created by the announcement of the former Secretary of State on 1 March 1984. Will the Minister consider my questions and arguments carefully so that on the dreadful date all members of staff will be properly compensated for the many dedicated years of service that they have given to the metropolitan county councils?

  • Bernard Braine – 1986 Speech on Drugs Misuse and AIDs

    Below is the text of the speech made by Bernard Braine, the then Conservative MP for Castle Point, in the House of Commons on 6 March 1986.

    I am grateful to Mr. Speaker for making it possible for me to raise a grave and urgent matter—the connection between misusers of drugs and the spread of the dreaded disease AIDS. I do so in my capacity as chairman of the all-party committee on the misuse of drugs, which spans both Houses of Parliament.

    Drugs misuse is serious enough. Since 1979 there has been a rapid and disturbing increase in the number of addicts. It is now estimated that more than 60,000 people regularly misuse drugs, with heroin misuse being most common, but many other drugs are involved, including amphetamines and sedatives. The vast majority of those who are affected are under 30, and many are in their teens.

    Moreover, there is a continuing increase in the number of new addicts. My all-party committee on drug misuse has been advised that in 1985 there was probably a 25 per cent. increase in the number of new addicts as compared with 1984. Although the Customs and Excise has continued to seize very large quantities of illicit drugs and is to be warmly congratulated on its efforts, this has not stemmed the rise in addiction. The purity of illicit drugs now available to addicts does not seem to have declined and there has been no significant rise in the price addicts pay for drugs on the street. Since there is no real shortage, addiction is likely to go on increasing.

    The damage caused both to the young people involved and to the nation is incalculable. The Select Committee on Home Affairs described it as the most serious peacetime threat to our society and few would disagree with that assessment. But now an even greater threat has been added to what is already a serious social problem—the risks associated with infection by the HTLV 3 virus and the development of AIDS.

    In the United Kingdom the first case of AIDS was reported as recently as the end of 1981. Since then the number of cases detected has increased rapidly. By the end of last year 275 cases had been reported, 216 of them in London and most of the remainder in a few large urban centres in England. Since then I think that I can say with some authority that 144 of those people have died.

    The long incubation period of the disease dictates that the number of cases will increase steeply for several years. Predictions suggest that we can expect a further 300 to 400 new cases this year and by 1988 there may be about 2,000 more.

    In public health terms, even more significant is the fact that about 20,000 people, mostly men, are at present infected with the HTLV 3 virus. That figure can be expected, at the very least, to double annually unless steps are taken to inform people how to reduce the risk of developing AIDS by changing their sexual habits.

    It has to be said that the incidence of the disease in Britain has so far been substantially lower than elsewhere. In September 1985, Britain ranked ninth out of the 21 reporting European countries. The incidence in the United States is about 13 times higher than it is here, and by October 1985 more than 13,000 cases of AIDS had been reported in that country. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that there is not much comfort to be ​ gained from the fact that this dreadful disease, for which there is no known cure, is currently less prevalent here than elsewhere.

    Let us consider how the disease can be spread. We know that the virus which underlies AIDS can, in addition to spreading between practising homosexuals and among drug addicts who share needles when injecting drugs, be transmitted by men to women during normal intercourse, by an infected mother to an unborn child in the womb, and probably by women to men during normal intercourse.

    We have already been warned. Reports from Edinburgh show a high rate of infection with the HTLV 3 virus among drug users who have injected themselves. It seems that 57 per cent. of drug misusers tested in a general practice in one area of the city are infected. In Dundee, all those who have been found to be infected by the virus have been drug misusers who inject drugs. For the rest of the country there is admittedly a lower rate of infection, but it is rising A relatively short time ago the rate was 5 per cent. I am told that it is now as high as 10 per cent.

    This infection in drug misusers is a very serious problem. Although sharing injection equipment is the route of transmission, the addict remains infected for the rest of his life. Even stopping drug misuse is no protection from AIDS, although this may reduce the chances of the full syndrome developing in someone who is infected. Importantly, men and women are equally at risk.

    Non-drug using partners can become infected, as can babies born to infected mothers. Given that many drug misusers overcome their addiction and return to more normal lives, they may nevertheless infect others who are at present not considered to be at risk and have not the faintest idea that they are at risk.

    It is clear that urgent and sustained action is necessary to check the spread of this dreadful disease. If it is not checked, it will become endemic among injecting drug users and it is likely that it will infect others who have never injected drugs and have never had any reason to suppose themselves to be at risk.

    I raise this matter because I am anxious to know how the Government view this appalling prospect. Can my right hon. Friend tell us what plans he has to educate the public about this serious health matter? Can he tell us what should be done to limit the spread of infection? Does he not agree that the medical profession needs educating as well as the public? Has his attention been drawn to an appallingly irresponsible booklet entitled “Sex for Beginners” which has been published by the British Medical Association, which unbelievably speaks of some men enjoying anal intercourse? There is no qualification, no warning, only a crude indication that anal intercourse is a practice which some people accept as normal. Is this not an encouragement to activity which is anti-social and dangerous in the extreme? Surely the BMA should be told to withdraw the booklet, which in this context is irresponsible in the extreme and must be offensive to many doctors. Will my right hon. Friend take immediate action on this? I ask him now to take immediate action.

    There are other questions which I must put to my right hon. Friend. As drug misusers are at serious risk, what steps are being taken to make them aware of the dangers of injecting drugs and sharing equipment with other drug addicts? I know that the Government are alert to these problems and I am not criticising my right hon. Friend and his Department. I know that extra money has been made available recently, but what funds have been allocated ​ specifically to ensure that adequate steps are taken both to inform drug misusers of the dangers I have mentioned and to train those who work in this area—brave spirits— helping drug addicts? I know, too, of the work which has been undertaken to prepare posters and leaflets for drug misusers and I welcome the efforts made by my right hon. Friend’s Department to support preventive efforts of this sort.

    May I take the opportunity, on behalf of the all-party committee, to thank the chief medical officer for England and Wales and his colleague, the chief medical officer for Scotland, for the way in which they have taken us into their confidence in this matter? In return, I can say that my committee has complete confidence in them and their approach to the problem.

    However, the efforts of my right hon. Friend’s Department are merely preliminary steps to what must be a sustained campaign. What additional steps does my right hon. Friend propose to take to ensure that the resources needed for effective preventive work are mobilised before HTLV 3 infection and AIDS reaches the levels throughout Britain already reached in Edinburgh? Incidentally, the level in Edinburgh seems to be comparable to that in New York. That is a dreadful statement to have to make.

    In some circles it is proposed that needles and syringes should be made more readily available to reduce the likelihood that injection equipment will be shared between drug misusers. Is that not strange logic? If dirty, reused needles and syringes are the principal means of spreading infection among drug users, would not a freer supply result in the means of infection being more widely available than is now the case? Is this not the equivalent of trying to control an epidemic of smallpox by issuing vials of smallpox to the population at large? If, as seems to be the case, drug misusers who turn to injection almost inevitably use the injection equipment of someone else, would not the proposal infect many more people than might otherwise be the case? While there may well be good clinical grounds for providing clean injection equipment to drug misusers within the context of a controlled treatment programme under professional medical direction surely no ethical or clinical grounds can be offered for increased availability outside an authorised treatment programme?

    Moreover, I believe that there may be doubts about the legality of such a course when equipment is provided in the belief that the person supplied will use it for the purpose of taking illegal drugs.

    The Home Office has stated its intention of tackling the problem of cocaine sniffing kits. Would not the sales of needles and syringes to addicts, intent on injecting illegal drugs, come into the same category? Is it possible that supplying such equipment is tantamount to inciting, assisting, aiding or abetting the commitment of offence? I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend would comment on those points. I hope, too, that he will agree that tackling HTLV 3 infection must be a priority. Failure to respond now will inevitably result in untold social harm and immense cost as those who are victims of this appalling disease will eventually have to be cared for by the health service. I repeat that we are dealing here with a disease for which there is no known cure. The chief medical officer for England and Wales told my committee that a vaccine to treat the disease is not expected in less ​ than five years. Here we have an instance where prevention is better than cure, especially as we do not have a cure and cannot hope to have one for several years.

    This is the most serious problem that we have had to face for years and clearly there is no room for complacency. If drug misusers are to be assisted, the means must be provided to allow them an alternative to continued drug misuse. The Government’s prevention campaign is to be welcomed. We have a long way to go, but a start has been made. Now an equally forceful campaign must be mounted to ensure that those already involved in drug misuse are aware of the dangers that they run from AIDS. Education is only part of the answer. Without effective treatment services which attract those most at risk, education will be of little use to those already addicted.

    In the United States, where experience of this problem is well in advance of our own, education has been accompanied by a very substantial increase in treatment services for drug misusers. These have included methadone treatment programmes to move drug misusers away from injection and to help them to become drug free. What plans do the Government have to ensure that there will be an increase in treatment services in this country?

    With the possibility that HTLV 3 infection will spread rapidly unless adequate measures are taken, decisions on central Government direction and financing should be taken now. To leave hard-pressed health authorities to determine priorities in their own good time will inevitably mean that in a few years they will have little or no choice. Treatment of those who have AIDS will then become a priority in health spending whether we like it or not. Increased treatment services now is a cheaper and more humane option both for drug misusers and the population generally. “The Guidelines of Good Clinical Practice in the Treatment of Drug Misuse” suggest a short and rapid drug detoxification, and a referral of more difficult cases to hospital services. If such services are not available, those most likely to be infected are the ones least likely to be offered help and most likely to spread infection through the population.

    I know that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues take this matter seriously, as does the chief medical officer and his colleagues. My concern tonight is to elicit from my right hon. Friend what plans he has to ensure a coherent and co-ordinated response to this most serious threat to public health. But I also feel that it is my duty to warn that, while it may still seem to many that this is a minority problem, without adequate attention and resources being devoted now to its containment it will soon cease to be a minority problem and will then demand far greater resources and bolder responses than have so far been envisaged. Time, I admit, is running out fast.

  • Paul Channon – 1986 Statement on British Leyland

    Below is the text of the speech made by Paul Channon, the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the President of the Board of Trade, in the House of Commons on 5 March 1986.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.

    As I informed the House on 19 February, an invitation was extended to interested parties to declare by 4 March a firm intention to make a bid for one or more of the Land Rover, Freight Rover, Leyland Trucks and related businesses.

    I can now report to the House that appropriate declarations have been made to BL’s bankers by Schroder Ventures on behalf of some institutions and some members of BL management in respect of Land Rover, Range Rover and Freight Rover; by Lonrho in respect of Land Rover and Range Rover; and by Aveling Barford in respect of Land Rover only. General Motors has also confirmed its intention to make a bid for Land Rover, Range Rover, Freight Rover and Leyland Trucks.

    The Laird Group and Aveling Barford are each in discussion with BL regarding the acquisition of Leyland Bus, for which proposals on behalf of some members of the management are also expected. Discussions in relation to Leyland Bus are taking place over a slightly different timescale from those concerning other Land Rover-Leyland businesses. I shall make a further statement to the House on these in due course.

    The BL board is giving careful consideration to all the proposals received on or before 4 March and I hope to have its recommendations shortly. The board and the Government remain anxious to end the present uncertainty surrounding the businesses as soon as possible in the interests of the companies, management and work force and dealers and suppliers.

    I take the opportunity to inform the House of a forthcoming change in the chairmanship of BL. Sir Austin Bide’s appointment as chairman of BL was extended in late 1984 on the basis that he would continue as chairman until a convenient moment for his retirement was reached. Sir Austin has kindly agreed to remain as chairman until decisions have been made on the future of the main Land Rover-Leyland businesses. That will represent the start of a new phase in the development of BL and, on my nomination, the BL board proposes to invite Mr. Graham Day, at present chairman of British Shipbuilders, to join the board and to become full-time chairman of BL at a date to be determined. I express the Government’s thanks, and add my warmest personal tribute, to Sir Austin, under whose leadership BL has achieved notable progress.

    I am appointing Mr. Phillip Hares, the present deputy chief executive and board member for finance of the corporation, to succeed Mr. Graham Day as chairman of British Shipbuilders.

  • Oonagh McDonald – 1986 Speech on Orsett Hospital

    Below is the text of the speech made by Oonagh McDonald, the then Labour MP for Thurrock, in the House of Commons on 5 March 1986.

    I make no apology for talking about the plight of Orsett hospital, which serves the majority of my constituents.

    The hospital’s future has been under discussion in the Basildon and Thurrock district health authority area for the past few months. Because so many doubts have been raised about some of the services offered there, my constituents made their views felt by a petition, which 55,000 of them signed. That constitutes almost the whole electorate.

    A poll of 500 residents showed unanimous opposition to the removal of any services from Orsett hospital. On 27 February, the district health authority again considered the future of services in the area and proposed this time that all maternity, gynaecological and children’s surgery should go to Basildon hospital, subject to a three-month consultation period.

    Before I continue, I want to say that I am deeply concerned about the possibility of any cuts in hospital provision in the Basildon and Thurrock district health authority area. Nevertheless, at the moment it is the future of Orsett hospital which is causing me and my constituents great concern.

    Although Orsett hospital is situated in the east end of the borough and is in fact in the Billericay constituency, it largely serves my constituency from the west end of the borough. Although Orsett and Basildon hospitals might appear to be not too far apart geographically, the journey from Basildon, from the west end of my constituenly, is very difficult. Constituents—mothers-to-be—travelling from Grays, Purfleet, Tilbury, West Thurrock, Aveley and South Ockendon, find the journey to Basildon hospital even more difficult than the journey to Orsett hospital. If an ambulance had to bring an emergency patient to the hospital, the additional few miles could cause tremendous problems.

    Traffic in the area is very bad and it would be possible for an ambulance to be held up, perhaps a little too long, to the detriment, even death, of a patient.
    The hospital has been described as an excellent hospital in which the maternity unit and antenatal care form a good service for my constituents.

    About 40 percent. of births in the area take place at Orsett hospital, and it has about 1,700 births per year. I asked the Department of Health and Social Security for figures and found that the number of births at Orsett hospital per year is about average when compared with other maternity units in England and Wales.

    The maternity unit at Orsett hospital does not have a special care baby unit, which would be desirable. However, there are about 60 other hospitals with maternity units which do not have special care baby units. If my constituents are to be provided with a full and proper service, not only should the maternity unit remain, but the hospital should be provided with a special care baby unit so that the needs of my constituents can be fully met.

    The district health authority has problems of staffing, but it is difficult to be sure what form those problems take. For example, the district health authority suggests that it wishes to phase out a particular grade of specialist in the maternity and gynaecological unit, but when I questioned the Department on that matter, I found that it was not ​ Department policy for that particular grade to be phased out. Staffing problems are indicative of financial problems. Since 1982, the district health authority has had its budget reduced by £2·5 million—5 per cent. Some of that is due to the resource allocation working party formula and some is due to a reduction in efficiency.

    Over the period 1984 to 1993 there is a planned reduction for the regional health authority in the long-term resource allocation. All of those cuts will mean not only the disappearance of the maternity unit at Orsett hospital, but the ear, nose and throat, children’s services, pre-convalescent geriatric services, cuts in the family planning service and other general cuts. Those cuts are being made in an area which is growing. At present the need for maternity units at Basildon and Orsett hospitals is based on population figures that are somewhat out of date. In fact, the area is developing pretty rapidly. In Thurrock, my constituency, the number of houses has already increased substantially, and most of them are occupied by young families, many of whom will have children in future years. That feature of the area has been picked up by the local press. For example, the Basildon Evening Echo reported on 28 February:

    “Essex, already one of the largest shire counties in the country, will be the centre of another massive population explosion between now and the year 2001.”

    The paper goes on to comment that the prospective baby boom is one of the main Problems·worrying county hall officials, and that possibility should be worrying the district health authority more than it appears to be at the moment.

    I also wish to refer to the accident and emergency unit. I have, of course, discussed the matter with the district health authority, including the district manager, Mr. Taylor. He has given me assurances that the district health authority has committed itself to two-centre planning for accident and emergency units—one at Basildon and one at Orsett. In my view, those two units are essential not only because of the population, but because of the serious risks from the industry in the area. Thurrock, in particular, is noted for oil refineries, power stations, petrochemicals and the docks, and the M25 and the dualled A13 are extremely busy roads. As I fear we know all too well, traffic on such roads can mean serious injuries in accidents.

    Although I have been given assurances, I am extremely concerned about the future of the two units in view of the cuts in the resources of the district health authority. Some of the savings that the district health authority expects to make will come from competitive tendering for cleaning services and so on.

    Other savings are supposed to come from increased efficiency. I am sure the Minister knows that, as few services in the Basildon and Thurrock district health authority area have been put out to competitive tendering, the prospective savings from that can be only guessed at, and cannot be regarded as certainties. I do not expect the Minister to admit that, but, on the other hand, the efficiency savings are to be found more on paper than in actuality.

    Therefore, I am concerned about the future of those services, in spite of the fact that I believe that the district health authority does not want to see the two accident and emergency units disappear. That point was also covered in the Basildon Evening Echo in some detail on 3 March, just this week.

    I referred to the maternity unit, and that of course is my prime concern. It is an efficient and attractive unit. ​ Patients readily turn to it. They value the services provided by Orsett hospital very much, and many of the older residents in Thurrock regard Orsett as their hospital. Let me give the Minister a little history. The original hospital for Thurrock was in Tilbury, in the docks area. It was brought into being by public subscription. Eventually that hospital became out of date and was transferred to a new building at Orsett. The hospital is very much the result of past community effort. Any cuts in services, particularly in maternity services, would be bitterly resented by the whole community.

    The Minister and other hon. Members have had experience of dealing with petitions. They will know that the obtaining of 55,000 signatures on a petition in a very short time, without any real effort by the organisers, shows the depth of feeling in the constituency about any threat to the maternity services and the accident and emergency units at Orsett.

    The number of live births, 1,771 in 1984, means that the maternity unit is about the same size as other maternity units throughout the country. In regard to the views of the medical profession, Professor Sorors, professor of paediatrics at University College hospital, commenting on a suitable and viable size for a maternity unit, said:

    “Not less than 2,000 deliveries a year would be ideal … but it is not practicable, I do not suppose, for every woman in this country to be delivered in a unit of that size.”

    The West Midlands regional health authority has said that a minimal work load of 1,500 deliveries per year is acceptable for a maternity unit. The professor suggested that a large unit was ideal, but he recognised that other considerations were important besides the mere number of deliveries per year. The maternity unit must be acceptable and accessible. Patients must be able to reach it easily, should they find that the birth is more imminent than expected, or is risky. If a patient has to be rushed to hospital, the accessibility of the maternity unit is important.

    Because of the antenatal care provided at Orsett, a mother has her baby in familiar and friendly surroundings. I have visited the maternity unit more than once for constituency, not personal, reasons. I have also visited the prenatal unit. I was most impressed by the care and concern shown by the staff, by the brightness and friendliness of the surroundings and by the way in which people are treated in the maternity unit.

    The maternity unit is a valued part of the community to which the residents feel they have contributed in the past. They are determined that it should remain. If the petition is anything to go by, my constituents will not accept the closure of the maternity unit. They find the journey to Basildon long, difficult and expensive by public transport. They want their familiar and friendly hospital. The medical and financial reasons are not adequate justification for refusing to let the residents of Thurrock have the service that they need and desire.

    The present population want the services. Mothers who are moving into my constituency in large numbers want a convenient maternity unit. If the number of births is to be a consideration, the growth of the population will remove that as a justification for closing the maternity unit. To close the maternity unit only to find that the growth in population necessitated its reopening would be a grave error that would cause unnecessary anxiety and suffering. It would simply be a financial mistake.

    I hope that the Minister will take account of what I have said and begin the consultation period, which will be completed in May. I know that my constituents are relying on me to present their views tonight, and they will no doubt present their views very forcibly indeed during the consultation period.

    We expect the Government to ensure that a good maternity service will remain at Orsett hospital to serve my constituency. We hope that the Basildon and Thurrock district health authority area will not experience cuts and loss of services.

  • Richard Holt – 1986 Speech on Ambulance Services in Guisborough

    Below is the text of the speech made by Richard Holt, the then Conservative MP for Langbaurgh, in the House of Commons on 4 March 1986.

    I welcome this opportunity to speak in an Adjournment debate at an early hour, because on the previous occasion it was at 4 am. My subject matter is much more serious tonight, because this is the last stop for an elected representative to try to redress the position of ambulance services in his constituency.

    “Where is Langbaurgh?” is a kind of music hall joke. When I tell people that it is in Cleveland, they ask, “Where is Cleveland?” It is no joke to my constituents to find that the ambulance service which has served the heart of the constituency for many years has been altered by a decision by the area health authority. A couple of years ago the ambulance authorities decided that a report on ambulance services in east Cleveland would be prepared by the health operational research unit. HORU is a respectable and eminent body. It bases its researches on years of study in various parts of Britain. It puts all the information through a computer, which spews out answers at the end. As we all know, computers are capable of producing answers based only on the information put into them. If one fails to put in information about the topography, the weather or the disposition of the population, the answers are liable to be distorted, if they are based on a standard format.

    The result of the action of the area health authority, acting on the recommendation of the local ambulance service managers, is that, to all intents and purposes, the Guisborough ambulance station has been closed. It is unusual in political life to find an issue on which all sectors of the community—religious, political and academic—are united. They all say in this case that the area health authority was wrong to make this change. Nobody can deny that the authority’s criteria met the specifications of the Department. Indeed, those criteria went beyond the rural and into the metropolitan, specifications. This is a domestic matter affecting the south Cleveland area.

    It may be argued that monetary savings are involved and that that must be for the good of the community. In this case, not only is it questionable whether there will be any savings, but I could adduce evidence to show that what is proposed will be more expensive. Either way we need not spend time trying to put a monetary value on people’s lives.

    The case that I make tonight is based on local knowledge of events in the last 12 months and the strong feeling of the local community that a wrong has been perpetrated. We have nobody but the Government to whom to turn to bring pressure on the area health authority, even at this late stage. to change its mind.

    The initial recommendation was that the Guisborough ambulance station should close. That would have meant my constituents living near the north Yorkshire border being denied an important section of emergency ambulance provision. Bowing to public opinion, the local ambulance management had second thoughts and, instead of closing the Guisborough station, kept it open for 22 of every 24 hours by having on hand an ambulance and crew from Redcar.

    The result is that there has been no cost saving, and a well-established station, its appliances and crews have been dispersed. Every day an ambulance crew travels half ​ an hour from Redcar to Guisborough. Later, it travels back to Redcar, and then another ambulance does the round journey. Thus, for two hours a day ambulances and crews are travelling between the two areas. For 22 hours a day, a strange crew from Redcar waits in Guisborough to answer emergency calls.

    The logic of this has been lost on everyone, apart from the management and the area health authority. The service that is provided to my constituents has been diminished. That diminution goes beyond my constituency, into those of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan) and of my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Sir. M. Shaw), for the ambulance services go to many of the small and outpost villages in the north Yorkshire area that are frequently cut off by adverse weather conditions, when the roads are impassable. These are the people who are most likely to be at risk.

    An analysis of accident statistics in the area shows that the vast majority of road accidents occur on the fast moors road between Guisborough and Whitby. By definition, it will take longer for an ambulance crew to arrive at the scene of an accident than has hitherto been the case. There can be no justification for this.

    Worse still is an analysis of the actions of the area health authority. It produced a plan to close the station, NA 111C h it then amended. Although the area health authority was supposed to take into consideration the views of all the people in the area, it admitted to what it called “a word processing error.” The views of three of the parish and town councils adjacent to Guisborough were not presented at the meeting when the decision was taken. The voices of three important local community councils were not heard.

    If there is a case for the alterations which have been made, it centres on a new ambulance station at Coulby Newham, at the western end of my constituency. This was commissioned and built at a time when the extrapolation of population growth was greater than that which has come about. The ambulance authorities were therefore faced with the embarrassment of a new building for which they had no use. They have justified its use by making it operational and by closing down, to all intents and purposes, the emergency service and cover in Guisborough.

    Why is Guisborough so special? With a population of just under 20,000 it is the major town in my constituency. If one visited Guisborough, one would see, standing in a row in the same road, the police station, the fire station, the hospital, the Territorial Army barracks and the ambulance station, all within 200 yds of each other. What have the authorities done? They have closed the ambulance station. If there is an accident to which the fire engines and the police are called, they look around to see whether an ambulance will join them, or they hope that an ambulance will come to join them from Redcar or Carlin How. This cannot be right.

    All my constituents have been to see me and have prevailed upon me to raise this matter in Parliament. It is their last hope that common sense and pressure can be brought to bear upon those who were responsible for making this decision. The shop stewards at the ambulance station are concerned. In case there are those who might suggest that this is a political intrigue, I must advise everyone that the ambulance service in Guisborough includes a Conservative councillor whose mother is also ​ a Conservative councillor for the town of Guisborough. In the political context, therefore, there is no divide. The new management of the ambulance authority is determined to make the change and to implement the health operational research unit recommendations, irrespective of the views and wishes of the populace.

    Public meetings have been held, at the end of which no one was satisfied with the explanations given by the chief ambulance officer to justify the proposed changes. There have also been private meetings of the chambers of trade, Rotary and others concerned in the town. No one is in favour of the alteration, other than the management. Management admits that when it reached its conclusions it did not have all the evidence. It did not have the information which had been missed by the word processor and/or the computer. There is great strength of feeling that the very latest that could be done is for the Government to write to the area health authority asking it to reconsider the view that has prevailed so far.

    Some may ask why I have not been supported in my endeavours by other hon. Members in the Cleveland area. They are not supporting me because all of them are getting a better deal out of what the area health authority is bringing into practice. Therefore, I do not blame them for not supporting me. If I were the Member of Parliament for an area that was getting improved ambulance cover I would be grateful. But when one is left on one’s own, one’s resolve and strength of feeling become greater. It would have been more honest if other hon. Members from the Cleveland area had had the courage to support me in my long and sustained battle over the past 12 months against the area health authority.

    There is no element of cost saving or of a cutting exercise. All too frequently people claim erroneously that the reason for Government action is that cuts are being made. That is not the case with the ambulance services in east Cleveland. The alteration is intended to improve the service. For one third of the area that will be the case, but for two thirds of the area—the larger geographical but the smaller numerically—that will be far from true.

    I hope my hon. Friend will accept that there is no criticism of the Government and no intention to make play of cost cutting. The decision is wrong. It was made on ill-founded theoretical grounds. I do not want to be responsible for anyone having to tell a newly bereaved widow or mother that her husband or child has died because the ambulance service they had enjoyed has been taken away. That is what we are facing in east Cleveland. There can be no solace in that for anybody.

    It is all very well to say that one is arguing about a difference of seven, eight, 10 or 11 minutes, but one is also arguing about a lost camaraderie which had been engendered within the ambulance station. In the community sense, the ambulance service is responsible not only for emergency cover, but for transporting patients to and from hospitals and homes for the elderly. All of that has been dissipated for no justifiable and logical reason, but because of an administrative managerial change. It is incumbent upon the Government to write a very strong letter to the area health authority venting these views so that the authority can reconsider and alter its decision and restore the position that we had before the changes. If it is necessary to justify the opening of Coulby Newham on any other grounds, and if there is not the money for that, ​ the case should be argued for Coulby Newham, but not at the expense of the ambulance station at Guisborough and my constituents.

  • Nicholas Edwards – 1986 Statement on Wales

    Below is the text of the statement made by Nicholas Edwards, the then Secretary of State for Wales, in the House of Commons on 3 March 1986.

    I intend to concentrate on a few subjects of special importance. Before turning to the central economic and industrial theme, I shall say something about agriculture, rates and the Health Service. At this delicate moment in the negotiations, I do not intend to speak about education, save to say that I hope that all the unions will now join in bringing this damaging disruption to an end by sitting down to talk about pay and conditions of service in the knowledge that the Government are prepared to make very substantial additional resources available to get a better paid teaching profession with extra pay for those with skill, responsibility and experience.

    In agriculture, this has been another difficult year for Welsh farmers and the supporting industries. Fortunately, many in Wales were able to recover some of the harvest during the few fine weeks in September. Farming incomes have declined but not so severely as in other parts of the country. The Government made available £1 million weather aid to help the worst hit. Hill livestock compensatory allowances have been increased and part of the sheep premium for farmers in less favoured areas has been paid early.

    Most milk producers have adjusted to the quota regime better than was expected a year ago. As a result of the outgoers’ scheme, all small milk producers of up to 200,000 litres — that is, more than half the milk producers in Wales—were restored to their 1983 levels of production. We can now issue more quota producers whose development awards represented a high proportion of their total quota. These will now have at least 90 per cent. of the total quota that they would have had if there had been no cut. We shall end completely the 35 per cent. cut in development awards for all producers with quotas of up to 200,000 litres.

    At recent meetings, the farmers’ unions have emphasised the importance that they attach to maintaining support for beef in the price-fixing negotiations and opposing proposals by the European Commission that discriminate against British farmers. The Government share those objectives.

    Over the years ahead we face fundamental changes in the pattern for agriculture. We shall need to make full use of a range of measures to achieve those changes and to give farmers the time that they need to adjust. Among the instruments are price restraint, quotas, quality control, income support, assistance with countryside and conservation measures and the encouragement of new crops.

    I am surprised that, at a time when the National Farmers Union in Wales is pressing for much wider use of quotas, Liberal spokesmen have announced their total opposition to quota systems. I look forward to hearing their alternative policies.

    Mr. Geraint Howells (Ceredigion and Pembroke, North) rose—

    Mr. Edwards

    Are they coming?

    ​Mr. Howells

    I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but first of all he said that the Government had plans to introduce quotas; I am just wondering for what commodities.

    Mr. Edwards

    As I thought, we are not to hear the alternative policies. All I am saying is that quotas are one of the instruments that will continue to be needed. We shall clearly continue to need them for milk. The National Farmers Union in Wales, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is suggesting that they should be used for a wide range of commodities. I do not entirely share the views of the NFU on that issue, but the Liberal party has said that quotas should not be used as an instrument at all, and I find that surprising.

    The rate support grant settlement for local government that I announced before Christmas was a good one for Wales. It provided for a 5 per cent. increase in current spending, which is more than the likely rate of inflation.

    Local authorities have complained of a reduction in grant, but this year we were proposing an increase to 67 per cent. Local authorities understood very well that the system was designed to discourage high spending and that authorities spending above the settlement figure would lose grant. I had undertaken that any grant unclaimed would come back to local authorities, but that the method of recycling would be decided only when we had a clearer indication of spending plans.

    While the system undoubtedly had the effect of discouraging authorities from proposing even larger increases in spending—I am glad to say that on average they have been substantially less than in England—some have chosen to impose very high precept demands on ratepayers.

    I make no apology for seeking to discourage high spending, or for trying to protect ratepayers from what the chairman of the Welsh Counties Committee at the meeting with me described as “horrendous rate increases”. I agree with Mr. Arthur Harris of Dyfed that:

    “vast endeavours must be made to reduce the burden on ratepayers”.

    Local councillors talk about the pressures on their services caused by high unemployment and the need to fund high pay settlements in the local authority sector, but private sector firms cannot pass on high wage settlements, or their rate bills, without losing business, and high rate burdens add to unemployment.

    When representatives of the Welsh counties came to see me, asking for immediate recycling of grant, I believe that I was right to suggest that if I did so they should trim their expenditure as well. What shocked me was not that they refused to reduce by 2 per cent., or by 1 per cent. but that they said that it was impossible to make any economies or to reduce by a single penny. I was even more shocked when Dyfed’s “vast endeavours” to help ratepayers led to a further increase in spending and precept, despite its receiving extra police grant.

    Following that meeting with the Welsh Counties Committee I decided that I would give the maximum possible immediate relief to ratepayers through a recycling of RSG, on the clear understanding that it would be passed on, while maintaining pressure on the remaining counties to reconsider their expenditure plans. The decision of the Clwyd county council, both to reduce its precept by 10 per cent. and to make a £1·5 million reduction in expenditure, ​ proved that this was the right approach, and it made nonsense of the argument that expenditure reductions were impossible.

    Dr. John Marek (Wrexham)

    How much extra unemployment will result if the £1·5 million cut takes place, as opposed to appearing on paper?

    Mr. Edwards

    I have just said that, because industrial firms and businesses cannot pass on the demands to customers, with high-spending decisions fewer people will be employed in commerce and industry. So far from increasing unemployment, the cut will protect jobs which would otherwise have been lost.

    Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

    Mr. Edwards

    No, I have just given way and I want to get on. I know what will happen. The last time that I spoke from the Dispatch Box I was criticised for giving way too often and for making too long a speech. On this occasion, the proper thing is for me to allow everyone to speak, and I shall try not to take too many interventions.

    I am glad that other counties have reduced their precept as well, and there are good reasons for thinking that the pressure of the system will lead to further reductions in expenditure during the year. Last year, Welsh local authorities undertook to exercise restraint if we removed the system of targets and penalties. Regrettably some of them have failed to do so; but I am quite clear about three things: first, that our system has and will continue to put pressure on local authorities to restrain expenditure, secondly, that I have been able to obtain direct reductions in the rate burden for the benefit of the ratepayers of Wales, and thirdly, that the case for our package of reform of the local government finance system has been further reinforced by these events.

    Sir Raymond Gower (Vale of Glamorgan)

    South Glamorgan’s proposed rate increase is the highest in Wales, and I should like to know whether my right hon. Friend has made a special appeal to it. There seems to be little difference between the circumstances of the Welsh counties, and certainly not one which would merit such an enormous increase.

    Mr. Edwards

    I agree with my hon. Friend. The leaders of the councils made it clear at our meeting that they were proposing increases in their spending programmes.

    As my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) observed at Question Time, the system is such that, if the authorities continue to spend in this way, they will lost grant and low-spending authorities will benefit when we come to the further redistribution of grant withheld.

    I have now given way three times, twice to Opposition Members and once to my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Sir R. Gower). I should like now to get on with my speech.

    We are at the time of the year when health authorities are having to face the difficult decisions that they have to take about priorities. That will always be the situation because funds cannot be infinite, while demand is virtually unlimited. What the House and the public must understand ​ is that health authorities are dealing with the problems and the priorities of an expanding service and changing needs, and that the allegations of widespread cuts are false.

    The Government are providing record levels of financial resources for the National Health Service in Wales. We are carrying out one of the largest programmes of hospital building ever. Taking account of inflation, recurring revenue allocations to district health authorities have been increased by over 23 per cent. between 1978–79 and the financial year which is just ending. We have recently announced that, in total, a further £44 million in revenue provision will be made available to health authorities in Wales for the coming financial year, which represents a cash increase of more than 7 per cent. over the provision in 1985–86. Between 1979 and 1985, the number of staff concerned directly with patient care has increased by more than 12 per cent. allowing for the reduction in the standard working hours of nurses.

    Among new services announced in 1985 was an eight-bed bone marrow transplant unit in Cardiff. In August I announced that high-resolution CT scanners would be provided at Morriston and Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, supported by five or six small to medium scanners at other locations. The third Welsh renal dialysis unit became fully operational at Morriston in 1985, while the two new subsidiary renal units at Bangor and Carmarthen both opened in the summer and are working well.

    There is, of course, considerable concern about waiting lists, which have risen under this Government just as they did under the previous one. There is one difference between the situation then and now, and that is that already by 1984 we were treating 63,000, or 18 per cent., more in-patients than in 1979 and 51,000, or 12 per cent. more out-patients. These figures have continued to rise since. The acceleration in the number of patients treated and in the range of services has been far greater than under our predecessors: it is a remarkable achievement. Health authorities have been checking on their waiting lists and report that in many cases the numbers include double counting; but that is no consolation to the patients who are having to wait and we are undertaking a major exercise with health authorities to try to get on top of this longstanding problem.

    Mr. Anderson

    The right hon. Gentleman has boasted about an increase in the number of in-patients. How much of that increase is accounted for simply by demographic factors—the aging population—and how much is a real increase?

    Mr. Edwards

    Of course there is an aging population, but we have provided not only additional resources to deal with it but a wider range of new and improved services. It is a considerable achievement to have been able to extend the service in the way we have and to treat this large number of additional patients.

    Dr. Roger Thomas (Carmarthen)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    Mr. Edwards

    I think that this must be the last time I shall give way, or I shall be accused of speaking for too long.

    Dr. Thomas

    How much has the fact that people are leaving Wales and seeking specialist treatment elsewhere contributed to reduced waiting lists in Wales?

    ​Mr. Edwards

    I fear that it has not contributed as much as perhaps it should have. Although we have greatly improved and extended the service, there will always be opportunities for some patients to go elsewhere. Indeed, in some specialist cases, it is right that they should do so. We must use all the available resources for health care in a particular district both within Wales and within the United Kingdom as a whole. I hope that authorities will look at that as one way of reducing health pressures in the short term.

    I turn now to the economy. In the last year, the coal industry in south Wales has undergone a major change, hastened and made more severe by the miners’ strike. Eleven of the heaviest loss-making pits have closed or merged. The number on colliery books is down to about 13,500 and the total work force to just under 16,000. The coal board has fulfilled its commitment of finding alternative jobs for all those who wanted to remain in the industry, while those who chose to leave have received generous redundancy terms.

    While these closures have been taking place, the work force has responded very positively to good management and the result has been a dramatic increase in performance. Productivity has increased by 46 per cent. in eight months; and the coalfield, which had been losing £100 million or more a year, expects to break even in the March quarter. It is a remarkable achievement. It has enabled the board to announce since the beginning of the financial year investment of £80 million—the largest capital development programme in so short a time in the history of the coalfield. Much of this new investment has been directed into new coalface equipment. I am particularly pleased that the board has approved the investment of £30 million in a new anthracite project at Carway Fawr, thereby safeguarding 800 jobs. There are good grounds for thinking that we have now reached the end of a period of decline that has lasted for many decades in south Wales, and caused much hardship.

    The 6,000 job losses in the coal industry, along with losses in a number of other industries including the closure of Courtaulds in north Wales and the loss of jobs at BP Llandarcy, have contributed to the distressingly high unemployment in Wales, now at a record level. I very much regret these closures and loss of jobs, and the impact that they have on local communities, but the process of industrial change is continuous. Whatever general economic policies are adopted, particular companies will cut back or go out of business.

    Fortunately, there have been many positive developments. Two major steel projects have been completed on schedule—the £171 million hot strip mill project at Port Talbot and the £30 million Galvalume project at Shotton. Work is well advanced to provide Llanwern with the Concast facility which will further improve its performance.

    We continue to see a high level of industrial investment in Wales. During 1985, offers of regional selective assistance and new-style regional development grants totalled nearly £60 million, with the aim of creating 12,500 new jobs and safeguarding over 4,800 existing jobs.

    During 1985, Wales continued its record of attracting around one fifth of all the inward investment to the United Kingdom with 25 new overseas projects and 23 expansion projects by existing overseas companies involving a combined capital investment of £143 million. In addition, ​ United Kingdom firms from outside Wales decided to locate 20 new projects and one expansion project in Wales with a promise of nearly 2,750 jobs and over £14·5 million in capital investment. I am glad to say that only today it was announced that Nimbus records, the sole manufacturer of compact discs in the United Kingdom, has decided on a major expansion in Cwmbran which will lead to the creation of 275 jobs.

    In 1985 the small firms centre dealt with over 17,000 applications, over 9,000 from individuals seeking to start up in business. The business improvement services scheme received over 900 applications in steel closure areas and made offers to over 550 small firms with a value of £2·8 million. The number of self-employed in Wales is rising fast. An example of what projects of this kind can lead to is the firm in the Rhondda, Valdons Ltd., which just three or four years ago was launched by two redundant workers and which now employs over 70 people, about 60 of whom are making plastic mouldings to the very high standards demanded by National Panasonic.

    I am encouraged by the very wide range of projects started during the year. The list covers almost every industrial sector, including electronics, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and aircraft, as well as high-volume consumer products such as video recorders and microwave ovens. I was particularly pleased by the decision of an outstandingly successful British high technology company, Renishaw, to establish a manufacturing plant in Cwmbran backed by high quality research and development, providing over 500 jobs; and by Warner Lambert’s decision to consolidate its United Kingdom manufacturing operation at Pontypool which will provide 250. Similarly, Pirelli has announced a major new investment at its Aberdare factory, which will provide over 150 jobs. The further expansion of Amersham International at Cardiff will provide over 200, and a notable success was the safeguarding of over 500 jobs at Borg Warner after a long period of uncertainty.

    Our success in attracting Japanese companies continues with the announcement during the year of projects by Brother Industries, the 10th Japanese company to come to Wales, and Sharp, which will lead to the creation of over 350 jobs at Wrexham, I was also particularly struck on a recent tour by the scale of the modernisation and expansion of the major factories of Hitachi, Sony and National Panasonic in south Wales, involving the creation of nearly 450 jobs. United Paper Mills, a Finnish company, began production two months ahead of schedule at its mill at Shotton in which it has invested well over £100 million to create over 250 jobs on the site as well as providing a major boost to the forestry industry.

    The Welsh Development Agency, with its offshoots WINvest and WINtech, continues to play an important role in encouraging investment and preparing industrial sites. During 1985 the agency contributed 1·5 million sq ft to the total of more than 2 million sq ft of Government factory space that was allocated. The agency expects to spend about £11 million on land reclamation and environmental improvement in the current year and is, at this time, drawing up a further programme.

    The Welsh Office, the agency and Mid Wales Development are working up further programmes to help job-creating business activity in the rural areas, and I hope to announce details within the next few weeks. I believe all Welsh Members will welcome the Government’s ​ decision to maintain the present system of tourist boards, and in particular to retain the Wales tourist board, which is doing much good work.

    Despite all those encouraging developments—with continued growth in the economy and high investment—we have not been able to make any impact yet on total unemployment levels at a time when large numbers are joining the labour force and job losses continue to arise from changes in the industrial structure. Against that depressing background, the Government have reinforced their employment and training programmes.

    The growth of the number of long-term unemployed is a particularly disturbing aspect of the situation. During the year, we have more than doubled the number of available places on the community programme, and I am pleased to say that the Manpower Services Commission is well on its way to meeting the June target of 20,500 filled places. Pilot schemes in Neath and Port Talbot aimed at getting the long-term unemployed into jobs or training are already showing encouraging signs. Fourteen thousand places are planned for the adult training programme in Wales in the coming year, representing a threefold increase since 1984–85. The revised training arrangements announced last year are developing well.

    I have been particularly encouraged by the success over the last year of the enterprise allowance scheme, which provides a weekly allowance of £40 to unemployed people wishing to set up their own business. We shall have 5,192 places available in Wales this year, an increase of more than 1,000.

    The two-year youth training scheme is being introduced from 1 April, and that major training programme will provide school leavers with high quality training and work experience. I am pleased that the problems in Mid Glamorgan have been overcome and the area manpower board has unanimously approved the plans.

    Mr. Michael Foot (Blaenau Gwent)

    On the subject of the second year of the youth training scheme, the right hon. Gentleman talks of problems being overcome, but the Government are imposing a considerable increase in the amount that the local authorities have to pay. Will he not look at that afresh, particularly in the light of the meeting we had at the weekend, representing all the heads of the valley areas, which are all facing the same problems? The Government boast about what they are doing about training, when a considerable part of the burden is being put on the local authorities. Will the right hon. Gentleman look at the financing of that matter again?

    Mr. Edwards

    I take note of what the right hon. Gentleman says. As I said, we have allocated massive additional funds to start this training programme, which, regrettably, was not started when the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) had responsibility for such matters. We had to catch up with other countries and I am pleased with the progress that is being made to introduce better training for young people. [Interruption.] The Opposition do not like being reminded of their neglect of these matters in the past.

    Mr. Foot rose—

    Mr. Edwards

    I will not give way again. I have just given way to the right hon. Gentleman.

    I turn now to another package of measures which we have developed in our drive to tackle the problems of unemployment, urban dereliction and social hardship which are the consequences of industrial change. In addition to a major road programme—last week we went out to tender for the Conwy crossing, one of the largest road and bridge contracts ever undertaken in this country—during my time in the Welsh Office we have set in motion a dramatic and far-reaching transformation and reclamation of the urban areas of Wales that have been symbols of industrial decay for so large a part of this century.

    One instrument has been the urban programme. We have increased resources from £7·1 million in 1979–80 to £29 million in 1986–87. I am pleased that it has proved possible to approve 200 new schemes at a total cost of £14·4 million for 1986–87, which represents a 53 per cent. increase in the value of new schemes approved over 1985–86.

    In addition to the urban programme allocations, nearly £10 million has been earmarked for urban development grant projects throughout Wales. Since we introduced the urban development grant scheme in 1982, it has proved to be a highly effective tool in bringing forward private sector projects which together have a total investment value of about £115 million. As well as many other benefits, those projects are expected to create nearly 4,000 permanent jobs as well as some 1,800 temporary jobs during the construction stages. By far the most significant project so far approved is the £42 million redevelopment of the Bute east dock area in Cardiff by Tarmac, which is now well under way.

    We are now looking at what development opportunities might be created in the wider south Cardiff area if we were to construct a barrage across the harbour mouth, and we are awaiting the results of the feasibility studies. Already the proposal has stimulated widespread professional and business interest in the considerable development potential of south Cardiff.

    What is being achieved in south Cardiff also points the way to what can be done elsewhere. It is with that in view that I am today launching a new initiative to improve the environment of the south Wales valleys.

    The special problems of the valleys cannot be tackled in isolation. Just as business in the communities of the coastal plain and the valleys grew and prospered together, so the future of the valleys must be related clearly to the tremendous progress which is being made in modernising and diversifying the economy of the rest of south Wales. A key to achieving that lies in the improvement of communications. The new road between Cardiff and Merthyr and into the Cynon valley is complete. We are continuing to support major improvements to the A467 beyond the Rogerstone to Risca section and have supported the construction of the important new access roads into the Rhondda valley.

    We have approved capital expenditure allocations to the major development programme that British Rail is undertaking, in partnership with the county councils, for the Cardiff valleys network. It involves the replacement of the existing rolling stock, together with new stations, and other major improvements to services and facilities. With other important road schemes planned to improve access to the valleys still further, this is the moment to launch a fresh initiative to help ensure that the valleys share in the regeneration of the rest of south Wales.

    A great deal can be done to improve the valley environment. That is especially true of the town centres and the areas lending to them, where poorly maintained buildings and a damaged environment sell short the enormous attractions which the valleys have to offer. What we shall seek to do is to trigger a series of co-ordinated initiatives by the local authorities and private and voluntary organisations to improve those areas. I am not proposing Welsh Office solutions. Where communities have sound ideas and the willingness to back them, the Welsh Office will focus the many existing mechanisms of assistance and will also make available additional resources to reinforce them, and to promote the contribution that is necessary from the private sector.

    I am making available initially in 1986–87, for that specific valley initiative, on top of the other Government funding, £2 million of special capital allocations for housing-related initiatives and £1 million from urban programme resources, quite apart from special capital allocation of £3 million for housing priority estates projects, much of which will go to the valleys, and which I shall refer to later. Inevitably the bulk of developments under that initiative will fall in later years and those planning those projects can work on the assumption that we shall want to reinforce successful schemes in the years ahead.

    Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda)

    I am not sure whether I heard the Secretary of State correctly. Did he say that £3 million is available for each of the 12 or so districts in south Wales, or is there £3 million for the whole of the south Wales valleys?

    Mr. Edwards

    I am saying that there is a substantial allocation of resources to local authorities under the housing schemes, to urban programme schemes, and to the work of the Welsh Development Agency and other agencies, all of which will be directed and concentrated. In addition, we are making available £3 million in the coming financial year for the initiative, and a large part of the £3 million of special capital allocation for housing priority estates projects will support the initiative.

    I have set out my proposals in a statement, which I have already circulated to hon. Members and to organisations that we expect to be involved. We have shown in south Cardiff and in Swansea what can be achieved. The opportunity is there for the valleys as well. It will not surprise the House if I say that I do not always agree with the Bishop of Durham, but I felt that for once perhaps we shared a common approach when he spoke recently about the need for financial pump priming for community self-help. That is exactly what I am seeking to achieve.

    Our drive to tackle housing dereliction has the same objectives. I have been able to increase local authority housing capital allocations for 1986–87. Within the total of over £141 million, special allocations of some £40 million have been made to encourage local authorities to concentrate on the renovation of both public and private housing stock. Taking into account the available spending from housing receipts, local authorities will be able to spend well over £140 million on the renovation of unsatisfactory housing in the coming year. In addition, I have increased net provision for the Housing Corporation by almost 15 per cent., to £44·7 million. A good deal of those resources will go into the valleys, and particularly into the programme of priority estates projects.

    What can be done is already being demonstrated at Penrhys in the Rhondda and by the Afon project in Wrexham. The number of long-term unoccupied properties has already been greatly reduced, rent arrears have started to come down and vandalism is being brought under control. There is now a sense of commitment to make the estates places where people can live decent lives.

    A new project in Bute Town, Cardiff got under way last October and is already making encouraging progress. We are now launching a further phase with new projects in Merthyr Tydfil, Pontypool and the Rhymney valley as well as in Barry. In total, special capital allocations of £3 million will be made for projects in 1986–87 and we are providing extra revenue support. Most important of all, we are making possible a much more sensitive style of management, which recognises the essential contribution which the people who live in the estates can make to improving them.

    No doubt there will be a great deal to divide us in the debate this afternoon, but I hope that at least we can unite to make possible a real success of those important initiatives, and I seek the support of the House for them.

  • Ian Lang – 1986 Statement on the European Social Fund

    Below is the text of the statement made by Ian Lang, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment, in the House of Commons on 3 March 1986.

    I beg to move,

    That this House takes note of European Community Documents Nos. 7711/85, a Commission Decision on guidelines for the management of the European Social Fund in the financial years 1986 to 1988; 9901/85, a Commission proposal to amend Council decision 83/516/EEC and Regulation (EEC) No. 2850/83 on the tasks of the European Social Fund, in view of the accession of Spain and Portugal; and 9854/85, Thirteenth Report from the Commission on the activities of the European Social Fund (financial year 1984), and welcomes the contribution to employment and training schemes made by the European Social Fund.

    I should like to begin by thanking the members of the Select Committee on European Legislation for having provided us with the opportunity to debate the activities of the European Social Fund. The last time its activities were debated at length in this House was in 1983, and we should clearly have been remiss had we allowed much more time to elapse before we debated the fund again.

    We shall, of course, want to consider during the debate the specific Commission documents set out in the motion before the House, which cover the fund guidelines for 1986 to 1988; the amending regulation following the accession of Spain and Portugal; and the Commission’s own annual report on the fund’s activities in 1984.

    Before doing so, however, it would perhaps be as well to remind ourselves why the fund is in existence and what its objectives are. It was established in 1957 under article 123 of the treaty of Rome, which defined its main purposes as:

    “to improve the employment opportunities for workers in the Common Market and to contribute thereby to raising the standard of living … by rendering the employment of workers easier and … increasing their geographical and occupational mobility.”

    The fund is thus essentially concerned with employment and training measures and provides financial support for schemes to help people who are unemployed, threatened with unemployment or under-employed.

    There can be little doubt that those activities can never have been more relevant than they are today. In our debates in the House there is often a tendency to believe that unemployment is a uniquely British phenomenon. In fact, if we look — as we must tonight — at the Community as a whole, we see that it is a problem that besets the entire Community. Unemployment in the member states has risen from 2·4 per cent. in 1973 to 11 per cent. today. Indeed, since 1980, unemployment in the Community has doubled, reaching 13 million in 1985 — or 16 million if Spain and Portugal are included. Within these overall totals both youth and long-term unemployment have continued to increase. Between 1981 and 1983 long-term unemployment in the Community increased as a proportion of total unemployment from 25 to 39 per cent.

    It is true that if we look at employment as opposed to unemployment we see a slightly more encouraging picture. In 1984 — the last year for which complete figures are available—there was an increase of 0·3 per cent. in total employment within the Community. In the United Kingdom in that year the increase in employment was 1·7 per cent. and our overall employment has continued to rise since then, as the House will be aware.​

    Mr. John Prescott (Kingston upon Hull, East)

    Does the Minister accept that in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Britain’s unemployment was always the average of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development European level? Since 1979 it has risen to about 2 per cent. above the average, which is equivalent to 1 million more people unemployed in this country due not solely to the world recession.

    Mr. Lang

    The hon. Gentleman will have to bear in mind that the work force in Britain has been growing at a faster rate than in most European countries and the percentage of unemployment in the past four years has increased by less in the United Kingdom than in France, Spain or Germany. It is also worth pointing out that the United Kingdom has 65 per cent. of its working age population in work. That is 7 per cent. above the OECD average.

    Clearly, no fund can hope to solve the problem of unemployment in Europe. That problem has too many deep-seated causes for it to be capable of being removed simply by more spending—whether that spending be at Community or national level. The reality is that for too long all over Europe we forgot that jobs are created only when businesses produce goods and services that people want at prices they can afford. That in turn requires a stable economic framework in which both inflation and public expenditure are kept under sustained control, not least so that business can plan with confidence in the future. It also requires a concerted attempt to introduce greater competition; to encourage enterprise and remove unnecessary burdens; to reshape our education and training policies to ensure that they are relevant to tomorrow’s world; and to work towards a more flexible labour market that encourages small firms, the self-employed, part-time and temporary work and the removal of outdated working practices. It is now very notable how those priorities are shaping the policies not just of the United Kingdom Government, but of the Community and the member states as a whole.

    Within that overall framework, however, it is clearly necessary at the same time to take more direct action to remedy the immediate and pressing problems of unemployment. The European social fund is a major instrument to that end, and I should like, without the slightest hesitation or qualification, to express the Government’s appreciation of the contribution that the fund has made for some years past to both Government and non-Government programmes of employment and training in this country.

    Last year the United Kingdom’s total allocation from the social fund was some £300 million — that is approaching 25 per cent. of the total funds allocated in that year.

    Mr. Eric Forth (Mid-Worcestershire)

    Is my hon. Friend yet able to tell us what he estimates will be the impact on the United Kingdom’s share of the social fund of the accession of Spain and Portugal to the Community? He may recall that during the debate on the accession no one was able to give an estimate of that impact. Is my hon. Friend now able to tell us how he believes our share of the social fund will be affected by the entry of the new members?

    Mr. Lang

    There is no doubt that our share is likely to decline, not just because of the entry of Spain and ​ Portugal, but because several other countries are making increasing applications to the fund. However, the fact remains that we have derived substantial benefit out of proportion to our contribution to the Community over the past few years, and we continue to do so.

    The United Kingdom is thus among the leading beneficiaries of the fund, and it is one of the most clearest and tangible benefits of our membership of the Community.

    Among the major programmes to which the fund made a substantial contribution last year were the youth training scheme, the training opportunities scheme, the community industry scheme and training programmes for the disabled and for women. As from this year, as a result of decisions taken at last December’s meeting of the Heads of Government of the Community, the fund will also be helping us to expand the enterprise allowance scheme— which, as the House will know, is proving enormously successful in encouraging the unemployed to set up new small businesses or to become self-employed.

    At a different, but no less important, level, the social fund administration last year approved applications from the United Kingdom for support in respect of 1,500 projects being run by local authorities, charities, training institutions and private companies. There is no doubt that, without that support, the many programmes and projects in question would have had to be drastically curtailed and, in many cases, abandoned altogether.

    So the importance of the fund to the United Kingdom is clear. It will be obvious from what I have said that the United Kingdom Government are naturally concerned that we should continue to secure the substantial benefit from the fund in the future that we have obtained from it in the past.

    Of course, no situation is ever static, and the entry into the Community of Spain and Portugal — which we greatly welcome—means that there are now two more countries with major problems of unemployment bidding for the available funds. That is as it should be, for the fund is there to help alleviate problems of unemployment in all member states. Nevertheless, it is extremely important that the fund should continue to reflect the clear and undoubted needs of the older industrial areas of northern Europe alongside those of the Mediterranean regions when it comes to setting priorities for its future support.

    I would also hope that the fund might be able to give a somewhat higher priority in future to the needs of the long-term unemployed. As I said, long-term unemployment in the Community — by which I mean those people who have been unemployed for over a year — has risen dramatically throughout the Community in recent years. In most member states of the Community it is now more than a third of total unemployment and in many it is closer to, or even above, 50 per cent. In the United Kingdom, some 40 per cent. of those unemployed have been without work for over a year. That is roughly in line with the Community average.

    It is now, I think, generally accepted that the longer a person is unemployed the more difficult it becomes for him or her to get back into employment. That is why I should like to see a somewhat greater degree of priority given within the rules of the fund to support for measures ​ in member states which are helping the long-term unemployed, whether through work experience, training or participation in work of benefit to the community.

    As a Government, we should also like to see—as we have made known to the Commission—some redrawing of the priority areas boundaries which effectively set which areas of the United Kingdom are likely to benefit most from the fund. As with all decisions on boundaries, inevitably some arbitrary lines have to be drawn. There are, none the less, some clear anomalies, such as the exclusion of Powys and the Western Isles from the list of priority areas, which we should like to see the Commission look at again. We shall continue to urge the Commission to re-examine its present guidelines in this respect.

    I turn now to the specific documents which the Select Committee has drawn to our attention. The first concerns the Commission guidelines for the management of the European social fund in the financial years 1986 to 1988.

    As the Committee noted in its report of 23 October last year, there is no doubting the importance of the activities which the fund supports which are in turn largely determined in any one year by the fund guidelines. The guidelines, adopted annually for a three-year programme, say which types of scheme will be given priority in different regions of the Community. I should make clear at the outset that they are adopted by the European Commission on its own responsibility, though the Commission naturally takes account of such views on the guidelines as member states may put forward.

    Because of the heavy demands on the fund, the Commission proposed stricter limits on the types of scheme to be given priority in 1986. In slightly more detail, the guidelines gave priority to substantial training schemes involving at least 200 hours training. They also required training to contain an element of introduction to new technology, recognising the vital importance of this to people’s future work prospects. Priority was also given to training in small firms adapting to new technology, and the existing priority for schemes for women, migrant workers and the disabled was reaffirmed.

    The second Community document before the House contains the Commission’s proposals for accommodating the needs of Spain and Portugal within the fund’s budget following their entry into the Community. Before their entry, 40 per cent. of the fund was devoted to a number of regions within the Community judged to have special priority status. These included the whole of Greece and the Republic of Ireland, the mezzogiorno region of Italy and the whole of Northern Ireland. The Commission proposals were to extend these special priority areas to include the whole of Portugal and a number of regions of Spain. The Commission also proposed an eventual increase from 40 per cent. to 44·5 per cent. in the proportion of the fund allocated to these special priority areas.

    At the December Social Affairs Council, which was attended for the United Kingdom by my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General and Minister for Employment, there was pressure from a number of countries to raise the percentage of the fund devoted to these areas to 50 per cent. While mindful of the needs of Northern Ireland, we were at the same time also conscious of the needs of the rest of the United Kingdom, and I am pleased to say that the eventual decision to raise the percentage of the fund to 44·5 per cent. but with immediate effect, was one which we judged to be a fair balance between the differing interests involved.

    The third document before the House — the Commission’s annual report for 1984 — has inevitably become a little dated with the passage of time. This was the first year of operation of the fund after the 1983 review. It was a particularly good year for the United Kingdom, since we secured some 32 per cent. of the available commitments, and 38 per cent. of the payments made were to our schemes. We cannot expect to do so well every year, but the outline of the type of projects supported makes it clear that, as a nation, we are both imaginative and persistent in the variety and scope of the schemes we are putting forward to help the unemployed. The United Kingdom is very much in the lead on this aspect of Community policy, and we are pleased to see other countries following our example and getting support from the fund for similar programmes.

    One statistic that emerges from the report is the increase in the applications to the fund—an increase of about 90 per cent. in 1984 compared with 1983—to a total of about 3,300. That figure rose again in 1985 to nearly 4,800 —a further increase of about 40 per cent. It is fair to say that the fact that this volume of applications is processed within the Commission by relatively few staff is a considerable compliment to those concerned in the Commission. At the same time—as they will know only too well—the continuing increase in applications has heightened some of the administrative problems associated with the fund’s operation — not least the fairly long delays that can occur between applications and payments. These are matters which my Department continues to take up with its counterparts in the Commission with a view to identifying ways in which the administrative process might be made easier, and I hope that some useful changes may emerge as a result.

    I hope that I have said enough to demonstrate the importance that the Government attach to the European social fund and to the clear benefits that it has brought to the United Kingdom. As well as leading to numerous local initiatives, it has helped us to mount at Government level several major programmes—such as YTS—which have much to offer not only within the United Kingdom but, by way of example, to the Community as a whole. At the same time, it is clear that the social fund, in attempting to ameliorate some of the worst problems of unemployment in the Community, has an especially valuable role to play as a positive expression of the Community’s commitment to many of the less fortunate members of our society. Therefore, I welcome tonight’s debate and I look forward to listening to the views of other hon. Members.

  • David Trippier – 1986 Speech on the Wapping Printing Dispute

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Trippier, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment, in the House of Commons on 3 March 1986.

    I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) for giving me notice that he wished to intervene in the debate. I shall certainly consider the two specific points that he has drawn to my attention and if necessary I shall draw them to the attention of my colleagues in the Government.

    I can tell the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) that we all want to see a swift and peaceful solution to this dispute. I am not here this evening to give advice either to News International or to the print unions about how they should conduct their business. I am certainly not here to talk about personalities. I must challenge the assertions made by the hon. Member for Newham, North-East about the fairness of the laws that the Government have introduced on industrial relations and I make no apologies for speaking about the law for which my Department is responsible.

    Let me briefly remind the House what was left by the Labour Government when we came to power in 1979, as the changes that were subsequently made have a direct bearing on the dispute at Wapping. In 1979, trade union officials had immunity for the organisation of all sorts of excessive forms of industrial action, such as for example, indiscriminate secondary action, strikes—mainly about political matters—picketing at other people’s places of ​ work and secondary action to enforce the closed shop. In 1979, trade unions had almost complete immunity from legal action to recover the cost of the damage they had caused and at that time union balloting practices included balloting at inconvenient branch meetings and indirect block voting systems for union elections and strike votes by a show of hands at mass meetings.

    The aim of the legislation that we have introduced step by step since 1979 has been to redress the balance of power in industrial relations, which had been shifted greatly in the unions’ favour by the legislation of the Labour Government. Not even the hon. Member for Newham, North-East could deny that. We have given employers legal remedies against unreasonable action taken by trade unions in several situations. First, there must be a trade dispute between employees and their employer which is wholly or mainly about industrial matters. That means that unions can no longer organise political protests, which can greatly damage employers who have no control over the issues involved.

    For all industrial action organised by a union, we have made immunity conditional on the holding of a properly conducted secret ballot in which the majority of those voting must say that they wish to take part in the action. It is important to stress that every person asked to go on strike must be given the chance to vote, and that is especially relevant to Wapping. They must be reminded that, by taking industrial action, they will be breaching their contract of employment that by taking strike or other industrial action, they are putting their jobs at risk. That is what our law requires, and that is again especially relevant to Wapping.

    We have also limited the circumstances in which employees may take lawful secondary action. Where secondary action interferes with the performance of commercial contracts, or threatens to do so, its organisers must satisfy—

    Mr. Leighton rose—

    Mr. Trippier

    The hon. Gentleman has already had a fair crack at the debate, and I agreed to allow the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney to intervene, so I have been left with only a short time in which to answer the debate.

    If the secondary action is indiscriminate in its effects — for example, if its main effect is to disrupt the business of employers not involved in the dispute—its organisers have no immunity. The requirement, which is now most familiar, is that secondary action should take place at a customer or supplier who has a commercial contract with the employer in dispute, and be aimed at the supply of goods or services between them.

    There are special provisions to cover the case where, because of a dispute, the employer in dispute transfers work normally done by his employees to an associated employer such as a subsidiary company. We did not, as some urged at the time, and some people seem to think now, outlaw all action in those circumstances. A reacting of section 17 of the Employment Act 1980 will show that we gave unions the right to take action against any associated employer to whom work is transferred because of the dispute.

    However, immunity for secondary action is subject to further conditions. Inducement to break a contract of employment has no immunity if it interferes with the ​ supply of goods or services and the reason, or one of the reasons, for the industrial action is that the supplier does not recognise, negotiate with or consult trade unions or union officials, or because he employs members of a certain union or non-union members.

    Mr. John Prescott (Kingston upon Hull, East)

    Another management brief, just as in the Silentnight debate.

    Mr. Trippier

    The hon. Gentleman would be amazed. I wrote most of it myself.

    The law on picketing is also important. Where pickets interfere with the ability of employers to fulfil their commercial contracts, they and their organisers normally have immunity from civil law proceedings only if the picketing is at or near the pickets’ place of work and the purpose of the picketing is peacefully to obtain or communicate information or peacefully to persuade a person to work or not to work.

    Mr. Prescott

    What about Murdoch?

    Mr. Trippier

    I have to tell the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) that daubing cars with paint is not peaceful persuasion by anyone’s standards.

    It is important to remember that picketing which is not peaceful and which, for example, leads to violent or abusive behaviour, intimidation or obstruction of the highway, is likely to involve offences under the criminal law. There is no immunity for people who commit such offences while taking industrial action, and they may be arrested and prosecuted by the police.

    All this means is that the industrial relations scene to which the hon. Gentleman refers is light years away from the one that we inherited. I am pleased to admit that the number of strikes is at a post-war low and that the number of days lost shows a substantial decline.

    Mr. Leighton

    What about Murdoch?

    Mr. Trippier

    I said at the beginning of the debate that I would not refer to personalities.

    This decline has been made possible partly by our laws, but our laws alone cannot take all the credit. They would not have succeeded if they had not reflected and kept pace with the views of ordinary working people. Ordinary working people do not want to be called out on strike without first being asked for their views, and that means not just a car park show of hands but a properly conducted secret ballot. Ordinary working people do not want to be dragged into somebody else’s dispute.

    I do not want to go back over old ground, but I think that the Labour party suffers from a peculiarly short memory. They were, after all, swept from power in revulsion against the wholesale spread of secondary action and secondary picketing that gripped the country in the winter of 1978. Our aim has been to see that never again will there be such wholesale damage done to employers, trade unionists, non-union members and the community at large by the spread of someone else’s quarrel.

    We have done all that we can to open the doors of new technology. The hon. Member for Newham, North-East said that that was not relevant, but I think that it is extremely relevant. So often in the past secondary action and mass picketing with its bully-boy tactics have been used to stop the implementation of new production techniques.

    Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington)

    What about Murdoch’s bully boys.

    Mr. Trippier

    Standing out against new technology does not preserve jobs, it destroys them. Of course, not all the jobs that disappear in this way in the United Kingdom are lost for ever. Many of them are alive and well and living in our competitor countries, where there has been a longer tradition of shared objectives between management and work force. I have said before that I do not work to advise either of the parties in this dispute—

    Mr. Prescott

    What about Murdoch?

    Mr. Trippier

    I do not wish to get involved with personalities, as the hon. Member for Newham, North- East has sought to do, by referring in emotive language to one individual. I want to end simply by noting that a new realism is developing in other industries and indeed, thanks to Mr. Eddie Shah, elsewhere in the printing industry. I hope that that realism will one day take root in Fleet street.