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  • John Horam – 1978 Speech on the M25 Motorway

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Horam, the then Labour Under Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 2 November 1978.

    I must confess that junior Ministers do not always welcome Adjournment debates, particularly junior Ministers at the Department of Transport. We have had only two days of this Session so far but this is already my second Adjournment debate. But I am grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) for raising this issue tonight, and I think that we all agree that he has done the House a service in doing so. Perhaps that explains the unusually high attendance for an Adjournment debate.

    The Government have said continuously that we welcome more parliamentary discussion of the national road programme. This is clearly not a matter suitable for debate at local inquiries. I am therefore glad that the hon. Gentleman has provided an opportunity for the House to discuss the M25 in particular, and I welcome the chance to make the Government position clear.

    The question of priority has been to the forefront of the minds of those hon. ​ Members who have spoken. We said in our White Paper on roads, published in April, that we attach the highest priority to the completion of the M25. We mean what we say. We intend to give the work on the M25 all the available resources in terms of manpower and attention that it requires. Whenever the question of the M25 comes up, it gets first priority for available manpower and resources. That must be plain to all hon. Members, and it is the position that I want to establish.

    In reply to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend), let me say that there has been no avoidable delay at all in sections of the M25. Of course, public inquiries take time. All the statutory procedures must be gone through, quite rightly, but there has been no delay due to any failure on the part of the Department to give this the highest priority. I assure the hon. Member of that.

    I hope, therefore, that I have established beyond doubt this evening, once again, the Government’s complete commitment to building the M25 as fast as we possibly can.

    Mr. Townsend

    Is it not possible, though, to bring forward the completion date?

    Mr. Horam

    The answer is “No”. Of course, we shall bring the completion date forward if it is possible to do so. But the major factor in determining completion dates is the progress of the statutory procedures and public inquiries. Everything else is done as quickly as possible, because it is given top priority, frankly, in the office and so forth. Therefore, I think that it is simply not physically possible to bring it forward. If there is any way in which we can save time, of course, we shall.

    But in the nature of things, there is a great deal of public interest in this matter, and there are bound to be long public inquiries. They cannot be avoided, and rightly so. Therefore, I think that we are probably stuck with the sort of timetable that we have now, which is probably fairly realistic in the circumstances. I think that we must avoid delay on that, but obviously I cannot promise that we shall bring anything further forward than we have already said.

    Let us look at the advantages of the M25. The Greater London area, 35 ​ miles across, is a great obstacle to through traffic, including traffic to and from the east coast and Channel ports and Tilbury docks, and the first advantage of the M25 will be to provide a way round this huge area. It will also provide a convenient link between Heathrow and Gatwick and from these airports to the M4 and the M1. This traffic has no business in London and there is a clear need to provide a bypass for it.

    In addition to that, the road will also act as a general distributor. It will link the radial routes which carry traffic in and out of London. Drivers will be able to reach places in London or find the most convenient exit road without crossing the centre or using existing inadequate orbital routes. This function has become more important since it was decided not to go ahead with Ringway 3.

    Thirdly, the M25 will provide some local relief for congested roads on the outskirts of London. This was of particular relevance to the hon. Member for Twickenham and to the other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate.

    Obviously, a road designed to serve an orbital function cannot produce relief for all local roads along all its route. We do not claim that the M25 will produce a marked reduction of traffic in central London. But many suburban areas will see a marked improvement to their environment when the road is finished. It will divert heavy through traffic from some roads in inner London. In some places the provision of an alternative route for through traffic will make it easier to introduce desirable traffic management schemes and to prevent rat-running through residential areas. As the hon. Member for Twickenham pointed out with great conviction and strength, it will be much safer than existing roads.

    I now turn to questions of present progress on particular parts of the road, with which the hon. Member and his colleagues are concerned. On the overall picture, the motorway is approximately 120 miles in length. Of that, 23 miles—not 20, as I think the hon. Member said—are now open. Fourteen miles are under construction, and for a further 50 miles the line has been fixed. As has been said many times, we hope for the completion of the entire thing by the middle 1980s. I do not quite know how that ties in with the ​ Golden Jubilee to which the hon. Member refers, but the mid-1980s is the target.

    Mr. Jessel

    It depends on what the hon. Gentleman means by ” he mid-1980s”.

    Mr. Horam

    “The mid-1980s” is a fairly flexible phrase, but, none the less, it cannot be stretched too far.

    On the details within the area, which will concern the hon. Member, which I define roughly as the area between the M4 and Reigate and Surrey—that broad south-west part of the M25—the short section between Egham and Thorpe, as the hon. Member knows, was opened to traffic in December 1976. Work is under way on the section between Thorpe and Chertsey—and we hope that that road will be opened to traffic in 1980—and on the bridge over the Thames at Runnymede. We hope that the bridge over the Thames will be completed next year. The section north of the bridge to Yeoveney will begin soon. The remaining sections still have formal procedures to complete, but I hope that the link between Chertsey and Reigate will be completed in 1983, and to the M4 and to the north by 1984.

    The hon. Member for Twickenham asked me for details of the consequential effect of the M25, when completed, on his constituency and the area generally around Twickenham, Hampton and Kingston. He quoted the figure of 25 per cent. for relief of traffic crossing over Hampton Court bridge, and wanted me to explain the difference between that figure and the GLC figures for relief, for example, on the A312. It was given, quite rightly, as 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. The difference is that Hampton Court bridge is more part of an orbital route, whereas the A312 is more a radial route.

    Mr. Jessel

    That is not correct. The A312 runs from north-west to south-east and at right angles to any radial route into London. It is a purely orbital route. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has been misinformed by his advisers on this.

    Mr. Horam

    I always regret being misinformed by my advisers, and obviously the hon. Gentleman’s knowledge of the local geography is infinitely superior to mine. But the basic point, however we define orbital and radial roads, is that radials will clearly benefit less than orbitals from the building of another orbital ​ route. We believe that, basically, relief on radial routes will be about 10 per cent., whereas that on orbital routes will be rather higher. That is the destinction, and it explains the difference between the two sets of figures.

    Concerning heavy goods traffic, the hon. Gentleman asked what would be the relief there. If we are talking about Hampton Court bridge, where we estimate that the traffic will be a quarter less as a result of building the M25, the figure for the reduction of heavy lorries will be roughly 8 per cent. That is the only figure I can make available at the moment. If I have further information on that point I shall make it available to the hon. Gentleman.

    The hon. Gentleman asked me a detailed point about the Hampton Residents’ Association. Obviously a residents’ association of that kind, with the interests it must have, must be given every facility to make its views known at any public inquiry. I do not know the exact circumstances of the particular case, but I shall have them looked into with that general objective in mind. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman after I have conducted my investigations. If he will bear with me on that, I shall certainly try to try to seek to facilitate the residents’ opportunity to present their views.

    The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth) and I have talked on many occasions about this road. Indeed, he has brought deputations to see me about the M40 to Maple Cross section in particular. We talked about this last July when he came with some of his constituents and other people interested in this part of the M25. I know of his desire that there should be no avoidable delay in that section. That is a matter which is fairly early in the pipeline. We do not expect it to be completed until the early 1980s, probably by about 1984. I know that he is anxious that the various sections should be completed more or less simultaneously. We shall do our best to meet that, although there are problems in completing a massive project of this kind and getting the timing exactly right in all the sections. We have the problems very much in mind.

    The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle) reminded me of his concern, which he has pursued assiduously in the House, and with me personally, for the A128 and the conditions on that. I fully recognise that this is unsuitable for the traffic that it is having to bear at the moment. It will be a major beneficiary from the building of the M25. Things have not gone entirely smoothly in that eastward section of the M25. We have had some problems over court orders and one mistake that we ourselves made set back the progress by some months. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, there is now a public inquiry going on at this moment in Hornchurch. Perhaps by now it has been completed. Again this is something on which progress is being made. All things being said, there has been reasonably satisfactory progress.

    Mr. McCrindle

    Since the hon. Gentleman has confessed that an error at his Department, which I do not hold against him, did indeed hold up progress on the section of the M25 from the A13 to the A12, and remembering that there was to be a gap in time between that section being completed and the section between the A12 and M11, is it a practicable proposition now to try to bring the commencement of each of those sections sufficiently close so that effectively they are developed simultaneously?

    Mr. Horam

    That is a very interesting point and I shall have it looked into. The hon. Member for Bexleyheath was very much in favour of continued progress on this road and made a number of valuable points about the progress of public inquiries. I shall study carefully what he said.

    I come back to the more general point about which the hon. Gentleman was taiking in his contribution. Obviously, hon. Members wish that there was even faster progress than we are able to talk about tonight. I certainly wish that were so. But it would be wrong to underestimate the formidable amount of work in designing a motorway 120 miles long round the fringe of a built-up area such as London. Much of its passes through the Metropolitan green belt, including areas of outstanding landscape value such as Epping Forest and the Kent Downs. From the beginning we have tried to design the road so that it would do the minimum damage to the environment. The greatest care is also needed to avoid unnecessary disruption to homes and communities ​ strung along the route. The new road will affect traffic movements on all the existing roads which lie near its route. All these effects have to be assessed, and the junctions designed so that it brings the maximum relief to existing roads and yet does not create too many new traffic problems on roads which act as feeders.

    We have to consult the public living in the areas through which the road passes to get their views on the preferred route. Then we have to go through the formal procedures laid down in the Highways Acts. In the White Paper on the review of inquiry procedures we described the changes we have made in order to meet the concern expressed by the public about the existing system. I hope that the changes will help the objectors in presenting their case as well as preventing the difficulties which have been experienced at some inquiries and which have made it difficult to hold a fair and reasoned examination of the road proposals. The inquiries which have started this autumn are under the new rules, and I believe this has made things easier for all the parties concerned. In answer to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath, I do regret that some people have still sought to make their protests by noisy, undemocratic means. I am grateful that the inspectors have been able to ensure that this small minority have not been able to stop proceedings, and that examination of the proposals is going ahead.

    We recognise that in the past the scope of inquiries has not been wide enough to examine the justification for a road as well as its alignment and other more detailed effects. We accept that the case for each section of M25 should be examined at the line inquiry in the same way as any other road. But I must make it clear that it is the Government’s policy to build an orbital route round London and the individual sections must be considered against that background.

    The hon. Member has referred to the advantages which the road will bring. I think his views are shared by the over-whelming majority of other hon. Members. But there are some organisations which question that. They fear that when the M25 is completed it will act as a magnet for commerce and industry, drawing firms out of inner London and creating pressures for undesirable development in the green belt.

    Our view of the importance of the M25 is of course fully shared by all the local planning authorities concerned. The South Eastern Economic Planning Council has said that it will have a significant beneficial effect on the economy of the region. Once the M25 is built, journeys will become possible which would not be undertaken at present and new patterns of industrial, commercial and social activity may be formed. These cannot now be forecast except in the most general terms. But there is no reason why these new patterns of movement should create irresistible pressure for growth to the detriment of the green belt or of inner London. The planning authorities have a full range of powers to resist or contain pressures for undesirable development in green belt areas, amply backed by the reserve planning powers of my right lion. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.

    At this stage it would be both impracticable and not in the public interest to hold a public inquiry into the entire remaining length of the M25. Decisions have already been taken on the assumption that it will be completed. For example, the recommendations of the Layfield panel on the Greater London development plan and the Government’s subsequent decisions on them might well have been different if there had been no plans—

    [debate adjourned]

  • Toby Jessel – 1978 Speech on the M25 Motorway

    Below is the text of the speech made by Toby Jessel, the then Conservative MP for Twickenham, in the House of Commons on 2 November 1978.

    I am grateful for the selection of my subject—the urgent need to complete the M25 London circular motorway, which is of great concern to many of the 12 million people in South-East England who comprise a quarter of the population of our country.

    In 1934, Mr. Hore-Belisha, the Transport Minister who invented Belisha beacons, set up a committee which recommended strongly the building of an outer orbital road round London. Forty-four years have gone by, and now only 20 of the 116 miles of the M25 circular motorway are open.

    I hope that the Minister will be able not only to reassure us that the Secretary of State for Transport meant what he said in his roads White Paper this April that currently the M25 had top priority—but also that the M25 will at the current rate be completed in time for the golden jubilee of Hore-Belisha’s committee. We expect the Government to get on with it and to get on with it fast.

    The objectors to motorways get so much coverage from the media, both broadcasting and the press, that the case for motorways often seems to go by default.

    The first advantage of motorways is safety. On average, a motorway is three times safer to drive along than an ordinary main road.

    The second advantage is the ease of movement. We all know how exhausting and exasperating it is to try to get from one side of London to the other or to cross London at an oblique angle. If one tries to go from Twickenham to Essex, it is a slow, exhausting journey. The same is true if one drives from South London, for example, from Reigate, across to Enfield or from Sevenoaks to Watford. The journey is all but impossible. Anyone going to another part of the country and trying to do a similar 20 or 30-mile journey between two towns—Manchester to Liverpool, Derby to Nottingham, or Glasgow to Edinburgh—expects to find a fast road between them. There is no reason why the inhabitants of South-East England should be deprived of a fast road for a journey of similar length if they wish to make it.

    Thirdly, there is the benefit to towns and villages now enduring heavy through traffic which will be relieved by the motorway bypassing them.

    Fourthly, there is the economic benefit. Motorways cut costs in the distribution of goods, help to hold down the cost of living and inflation and improve our export prospects. This is especially true of the M25 which will link with the Channel ports.

    However, the construction of the M25 is being delayed, not only by the slipping of the Government programme but by the organised obstruction of local public inquiries relating to different stretches of it. Of course, routes have to be scrutinised closely and Parliament has insisted ​ that under the law people who might be affected have the right to have their say. That is as it should be in a free country. But some people are now abusing that right. They are deliberately obstructing public inquiries from getting on with their work. That is not only turning democracy on its head; it is also utterly selfish, and it is acting with total disregard for the safety and well being of other people.

    I said that on average motorways were safer than other roads. If a motorway is stopped, the effect is to kill and injure people. Let us take as an example the 12-mile section of the M25 from Reigate via Leatherhead to Wisley and the A3. The opening of that part is being held back by protestors against the Leather-head interchange. A delay of one year is likely to cost 600 personal injuries and three deaths among people who would otherwise have used that motorway.

    There are also the people who have to endure the exhausting nuisance of heavy traffic thundering past their houses which would be bypassed by the M25. Their needs are being wholly ignored by the motorway protesters. For example, a massive quantity of traffic is pouring through Uxbridge Road, Hampton Hill and the village of Hampton in my constituency. Part of this traffic would be taken away by the M25, although the amount is uncertain. On 4th February 1977 the Under-Secretary told me that the M25 would cut traffic over Hampton Court bridge by a quarter. Last month the Greater London Council estimated that the reduction of traffic in Hampton would be only 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. That is a lesser amount but it would be a significant cut. I would like to know the right figure and what the percentage would be for the cut in the proportion of heavy lorries, which are particularly annoying.

    I would also like to ask why my constituents who will benefit from the construction of the M25 were not notified by the Department of Transport of the public inquiry into the section which would benefit them. I would like to ask whether the Hampton Residents’ Association and the Hampton Hill Association can be invited to give evidence to the public inquiry.

    It is essential to speed up the completion of the M25. I hope to hear that ​ the Government intend to redouble their efforts to bring that about.

  • Alan Lee Williams – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alan Lee Williams, the then Labour MP for Hornchurch, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    I warmly welcome the Gracious Speech. Although it is not one of the most exciting Queen’s Speeches that we have heard for a number of years. It is an immensely practical speech. I think it indicates that the Government will give priority to the fighting of inflation, so I welcome that very strongly.

    I should like to make a brief reference to the paragraph in the Queen’s Speech which calls for an improvement in the Atlantic alliance. I draw attention to this item because I think that an opportunity has been missed by not giving higher priority to the question of standardisation. It is a missed opportunity, because President Carter made a very notable speech in March of last year on this subject. Both the Congress and the Senate have made their position clear. That is that they are very interested in pushing the standardisation of weapons within the Atlantic alliance, which, incidentally, would bring great economic benefits to Britain.

    Therefore, I am very disappointed that there is no particular reference to it in the Queen’s Speech, although, perhaps, proposals will be brought forward to the House. However, as there will not be a debate about defence included in the debate on the Loyal Address, the House will not be informed about that.

    I very much regret that during the debate on the Loyal Address, in which we shall be devoting a long time to a number of other subjects, there has been no demand from either the Opposition or other quarters of the House—apart from ​ myself and, I hope, others too—for at least some discussion about defence.

    Standardisation brings great benefits to us, but it also raises another subject of which I should like to give notice rather than attempt to debate tonight, because no Defence Minister is present. I am really just putting down a marker. In my judgment, one cannot discuss standardisation of weapons without dealing with the question of specialisation within the Atlantic alliance itself. One goes with the other. I should like to see the Government giving some priority to this matter in the coming Session.

    What I mean by specialisation is that further thought should be given to the proposition which has been discussed within the alliance for years—that is, that individual members of the alliance should be encouraged to concentrate on producing those forces that will not be copied or repeated elsewhere within the alliance. For example, there is a very strong case for having an air force composed of Dutch, German and United Kingdom elements, so that we have a tactical air force which is truly Europeanised, and one could extend that argument—I do not intend to do so this evening—to the naval forces.

    I do not think that enough attention has been given to this subject, and it is part of the argument for standardisation and the proper effectiveness of the Atlantic alliance to allow nation States to concentrate on the provision of the arms and services in which they have particular expertise. I believe that an opportunity has been missed by not giving proper priority to this subject. This will cause some disappointment, but perhaps my disappointment can soon be overcome if at some stage—perhaps my hon. Friends will pass this on—some reference is made to this subject by the Government.

    If it is not, disappointment will be felt by those who have been pushing this matter for a long time and asking the Government to give top priority to standardisation. I hope that, once the Government have accepted that, they will go on to look at the implications of specialisation so that we can increase the effectiveness of the Atlantic alliance.

    I welcome the Gracious Speech, but I ask the Government to make a statement at the earliest opportunity on the matters that I have raised.

  • Albert Costain – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by Albert Costain, the then Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    The arc lights are now out, the ceremonies to which we looked forward today are over and we are back to reality. When history comes to record this last Session of a somewhat pathetic Parliament, it will be described as the marking time Parliament. It is marking time because the Prime Minister is waiting until the gush of oil from the North Sea is sufficient to give this country an income which will allow him to make up some of the defects which the Government have brought upon themselves.

    It was perhaps unusual for the general public this morning to see a House crowded with Members and tonight with as many empty spaces as there were Members this morning. It is hard for the public to understand what it is all about. But those of us with parliamentary experience realise that it is the custom of the House that certain days are given to certain subjects and that Members have gone away to prepare their speeches on specific subjects.

    I should like to deal in some detail with the hospital services referred to in the Queen’s Speech. Indeed, I promised the Secretary of State for Social Services that I would correct an impression which I gave in a speech in July when I drew attention to the fact that he had special priority for hospital treatment. The right hon. Gentleman took it the wrong way. Indeed, he wrote saying that I did not appreciate how ill he was. However, in my speech I said that we hoped his ​ illness was not severe and that he would soon be able to come back to the House.

    The point that I wanted to make was not that he had priority for hospital treatment. I should point out that my brother died from a heart attack because he could not get medical treatment quickly enough. His illness did not allow it. What I wanted to point out and would point out again—the Secretary of State will have the right to reply if he winds up the debate tomorrow—was the extraordinary situation of a Minister of the Crown saying that he would only go into a public ward and would expect to receive the same treatment as perhaps one of my constituents who might come from a more lowly background.

    The Minister rightly had conferences with his officials in a public ward. We know that took place. I do not suggest that he should not have done it. If he can do it and keep his health, so much the better. What I find so extraordinary is that, for doctrinaire purposes, the Government should feel that it is all right for a Minister to go into a public ward and to have press facilities when in fact it would be better for the hospital and everyone else concerned if the Minister were to go into a private ward, just like the director of a large company, and have his meetings there.

    I make no more of it. I apologise to the Secretary of State if I misled him into thinking that he got priority because he was ill. Anyone who is ill should get priority. However, the Minister should not boast that he went in to a public ward. I promised that the next time I spoke on the subject I would make the matter clear. I hope that I have made it clear. If the Minister speaks tomorrow, he may wish to add to what I have said. If he disagrees with what I have said, I shall be happy to intervene in the debate to make it clear if I have not done so.

    This Queen’s Speech is a marking time speech. It hopes to collect votes. It has been designed to appeal to and bring together the smaller parties. Therefore, we find promises and tempting bait for the smaller parties. We find that it makes reference to the national aspirations of each country of the United Kingdom. But let me leave that and come to the Speech itself.

    ​The first statement which I find particularly interesting is:

    “My Government will seek to ensure that respect for the law is maintained”.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) has dealt with that matter in some detail. I shall not bore the House further, except to say that, as long as we have Cabinet Ministers in picket lines defying the police, I do not see how the Government will ensure the respect for law and order which they claim in the Gracious Speech they intend to maintain.

    I found another item interesting. It is an attempt to catch votes. It reads:

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

    No hon. Member would deny the right of an individual to state his case. I was once PPS to the then Secretary of State for the Environment, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon). He was anxious that individuals should have the right to state their case, particularly at planning inquiries. I am glad to see the Under-Secretary of State for Transport in the Chamber because a number of such inquiries affect roads.

    Something has gone basically wrong. People seem to feel that the only thing that they should do when they are given an opportunity to state their case is to oppose. We have had the pathetic experience of public inquiries being interrupted by those who oppose a particular proposal. Such people act in an undemocratic manner. They act in that way because of the strong lobby which believes that that is the only way in which to state a case.

    Perhaps we should take this opportunity to give greater thought to a more constructive approach to planning. I can remember saying that the most important thing in a person’s life is to have a house of his own, and the next most important is to form a society to ensure that no one else comes along to spoil the view.

    Punch once published a cartoon showing someone at a half-built house saying to his bride “We have bought our house, let us now form a residents’ association to see that no other houses are built here.” We must have machinery to enable ​ people to express an alternative rather than a negative or positive view.

    I found it difficult to pick out the proposals which are intended to provide a greater opportunity for public participation. I presume that the public should have the opportunity to discuss the White Paper on broadcasting. All hon. Members receive many letters expressing opinions about programmes and broadcasting procedures. Hon. Members are regarded with slight suspicion by the broadcasting authorities. Perhaps arrangements could be made to enable constituents to communicate their views to the authorities without having to write to them. Some people find it difficult to write letters. Sometimes they sign petitions which they have not read, but they find it difficult to write letters.

    I am particularly interested in constituency terms in the Bills which will seek to improve safety and discipline at sea and to help control marine pollution. My constituency is particularly susceptible to the effects of Channel collisions. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees), who is present tonight, knows very well that if the ships get past Folkestone they then have to get past Dover, with all the danger of the Dogger Bank and the Goodwin Sands. The difficulty is in meeting the need for more experienced officers and crew to control these ships.

    I have the honour of having Trinity House headquarters at Folkestone. I frequently have discussions with the pilots who operate from this station. I am always greatly impressed by their devotion to the service. They will board ships in the most treacherous conditions of storm, wind and wave because they feel it essential for them to guide the vessels through. I understand that the Government have consulted Trinity House, and it appears to be reasonably satisfied with the legislation which is proposed. Until we see the Bills, we are unable to judge them, but when they appear we shall study them most carefully.

    The next aspect of the Gracious Speech which concerns my constituency greatly is the part dealing with fishing policy.

    The Speech contains the extraordinary statement:

    “My Government will continue to press for improvements in the Common Agricultural Policy”.

    ​Of course they will. We always intended to do that. When I had the honour of working with the then Secretary of State for the Environment, he always said that until we got into the Common Market we would be unable to make our proper contribution; but having got into the EEC we are in a position to make it.

    The Gracious Speech continues:

    “They will also take all measures necessary to conserve fish stocks and will continue their efforts to achieve an acceptable Common Fisheries policy within the EEC.”

    I have never had any doubts, and those who have been connected with the negotiations and with our fishing policy know very well that we have always contended that the most important part of that policy is the conservation of stocks.

    I have a great suspicion that the Minister of Agriculture, when he thought that an election was about to be cast upon the country, over-exaggerated the difficulties so that he could solve them to his own satisfaction and try in that way to win votes.

    The Health Service is another item in the Gracious Speech which is to be debated at length—I believe it is tomorrow. It is extraordinary, in view of the amount which is now being spent on the Health Service, to realise how much it has deteriorated. My hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree represents an important part of Liverpool. I have been sitting on the Public Accounts Committee where we have been investigating in great detail the additional cost of the Liverpool teaching hospital. It is extraordinary that a hospital which cost nearly £50 million should be delayed from opening because of a disagreement between people in the hospital wondering whether they would be made redundant. A hospital of that sort, which costs so much in interest charges, should be used to the ultimate and not be delayed by bureaucratic procedures.

    In my own constituency we fought to get a new hospital built at Folkestone. In the event, it was built at Ashford. Again, we have a hospital which has been completed and ought to have been commissioned, but it has not been commissioned because there are some disagreements between the parties concerned.

    I hope very much that when the Secretary of State speaks tomorrow he will ​ explain in some detail and tell us what positive steps he is taking to get these hospitals running as the public expect them to run. I hope that he will say how he will cut down the numbers of bureaucrats, which have been building up. Many of the staff in the hospital services joined them in order to save lives. Many of them now say to me that all that they are doing is wasting paper. This is one of the problems. I hope that the Secretary of State will take the opportunity tomorrow to explain what positive steps he is taking to help to carry out what the hospitals are intended to do, which is to alleviate suffering and save lives.

  • Anthony Steen – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anthony Steen, the then Conservative MP for Liverpool Wavertree, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    I wish to speak about the part of the Gracious Speech to which I do not believe that other hon. Members have yet addressed their minds. I refer to the great towns and cities and revival of those great cities, because that has been a major plank of successive Government strategies, both economically and socially.

    I think it was the Wilsonian Administration about 10 years ago which started it off. It was quite natural, therefore, that in the Gracious Speech there should be a line about the inner city areas stating that the Government would continue to press forward with their partnership plans. Presumably, the Secretary of State for the Environment will be at the helm, as he has been up to now, directing the operations. This Session he will be armed with the Inner Urban Areas Act and the partnership committees now fully in being. The only problem is that the Secretary of State has now been at the helm for some three or four years and not very much has happened to show his work.

    If one looks at the cities, one will not see the new dawn about which the Secretary of State has been talking. In fact, many people have grown restless when they have seen no evidence that the cities are on the mend. They also find it difficult to reconcile the utterances of the Secretary of State, who keeps ​ saying how gratified he is with progress, with the stark reality which shows our major cities continuing in their rapid decline. How can the Secretary of State possibly equate his optimism with the persistently high levels of unemployment which we find in most of our major urban areas, with the lengthening list of firms wanting to leave the inner cities, or with the continuing exodus of people from the inner areas to the outer zones and the ever-increasing shortage of good homes? I am only sorry that the Secretary of State for the Environment is unable to be with us tonight. In the face of this situation, the provisions of the Inner Urban Areas Act are damaging. I shall explain why this is so.

    The Act has given the poor urban authorities the powers to increase their borrowing. Therefore, those already heavily committed in debt to crippling housing debt charges can just increase those charges. The Act has tempted some of the most deprived urban authorities to become even more deprived. It is driving them deeper and deeper into debt and creating even more problems for them in the future.

    The Inner Urban Areas Act is just one manifestation of the tricks up the Government’s sleeve. It is a mirage created by the Government that prosperity for our cities is on the horizon. The illusion has been fortified by a whole gamut of cleverly chosen named projects which convey positive thinking but which so far have meant absolutely nothing.

    For example, there are now seven so-called partnership schemes covering 15 local authority districts. There are 15 programme districts and 14 recently announced designated districts. These are on top of the existing areas which are included in development area status, special development status and the old assisted areas. No one quite understands what these areas are or what they do. All we know is that there has been no sign of any revival in our towns and cities in the last four years.

    It seems from the Gracious Speech that the Government propose to continue with those schemes and with those names. In the last few years the Secretary of State has followed the publication of the White Paper on policy for the inner cities by doing two things. He has topped up the ​ urban aid programme, which had lost its real force, and he has introduced a Bill, which is now an Act, which will make the poor local authorities poorer because they will be asked and expected to increase their debt charges.

    The White Paper from which we expected so much is no more than the culmination of a decade of activity in research analysis action projects which have now cost the taxpayer £100 million. The House will recollect where all this began—with the urban aid programme, which first came about in 1968. This was to deal with the pockets of deprivation. Then we had the community development project, the educational priority areas, the young volunteer force, the neighbourhood schemes, the urban guideline studies and the inner area studies. Then research was started into transmitted deprivation, followed by the quality of life studies. Then we had the urban deprivation unit and comprehensive community programmes, and the GLC set up a deprived areas project. There are now area management and research trials in Liverpool.

    When the White Paper was published 18 months to two years ago, the nation held its breath and thought that at last, after all the research schemes and action projects, the actual action was about to start. The principal actors seemed to be in the right place, the set-up was brilliant, the lyrics were racy, the producer came from a good stable, and, indeed, it was to be a spectacular. What, in fact, did we see? None other than our old friend Mickey Mouse. The Government’s approach to the cities’ problems has been as meaningful as a Walt Disney cartoon.

    In Liverpool there have been only three partnership meetings in the last 18 months. These were chaired by the Secretary of State for the Environment himself. There have been a few other Ministers present—from Industry, Employment and Education. Then the leaders of the Conservative, Liberal and Labour groups also attend, and county councillors, the health authority and many others are involved in partnership meetings.

    If that was all we were witnessing, we would perhaps be content that there was one group of people looking once again ​ into the problems of the inner city. But that partnership committee is but one of a great number of committees. There is an officers’ steering committee consisting of more than a dozen principal officers, not to mention the working groups of senior officials on the economy, housing, physical areas, environment, recreation and transport. There is also an inner area sub-committee made up of 20 councillors, and there are more committees and sub-committees than I have mentioned.

    But as the non-statutory bodies—the voluntary organisations and community groups—are not involved in the partnership, despite pressure from this side of the House that they should be included, the voluntary bodies have started to go it alone. They have set up rival partnership committees. The one that is now running in Liverpool has 170 organisations meeting every two or three months, running exactly in parallel to all the other Government committees. The conflict and confrontation are right there in the partnership.

    Despite the buzz and whizzing of papers through the official corridors, the numbers of acres of vacant and derelict land in Liverpool are still around 2,000, and over three-quarters belongs to the city council and nationalised industries.

    Therefore, despite the huge build-up to the effect that all the problems were to be solved, we have still exactly the same number of derelict and vacant areas which are not being used to produce wealth or create jobs in the very area where the partnership committee is at work. It is here that we see land hoarding at its worst. This has caused artificially high book values. Not surprisingly, authorities cannot find buyers because scarcity knocks up the rent and rates as well as driving small businesses away from the inner cities, and jobs with them.

    This is no way to woo back the thousands who have already fled the inner city in the last decade. But surely that is what the partnership is purported to be all about. It is about revitalising the inner areas, creating new jobs and new homes and developing new businesses. What is the point of building new advance factories in inner Liverpool on Government money when there are so may good, empty, older factories which are not used and which, with a little modernisation, rehabilitation and imagination, ​ could be good for use again? What justification can there be now that the Inner Urban Areas Act is in force for permitting the Lucas Aerospace factory, a company which has closed its large old premises in my constituency, to move out into a green field site on the edge of Liverpool, depriving the inner city of both jobs and rate income?

    That makes nonsense of partnership, because that is what partnership would not approve of. There is plenty of space left in Liverpool and many other principal areas which could be used first before green field site development. But green field site development on the edges of a city is always cheaper and the infrastructure in the new sites is more reasonable than if one seeks to put infrastructure back into the inner cities. One reason for this situation is the artificially high land value which the inner city now attracts.

    It is also strange that the partnership concentrates on the inner areas, because many of the large provincial towns, in which the population has moved from the inner city to the outer city, are where the concentrations should be. The populations are no longer in the core areas because, as a result of demolition, they have moved to the edges. Yet the edges of the city comprise the one area—and Liverpool is no exception—not included in the partnership.

    The partnership specifically excludes those major areas of population density and concentrates on inner area revival. It is in the outer city that the social problems exist. The one thing that the partnership areas have in common is that they include a number of marginal seats within their boundaries, and they have also suffered from severe cut-backs in public expenditure over the past five years.

    For example, we were spending £5·3 million on improvement grants in Liverpool in 1974–75. In 1977–78 that figure was down to £1·5 million. Local authority mortgage loans to buy and improve totalled £4·7 million in 1974–75 but barely £1 million last year. If the partnership is talking about reviving the inner city and rehabilitating the older houses, it must be pointed out that the sums of money in the local authority budget which could do this work have been drastically cut.

    What is partnership all about? All one can say about it is that the Government are trying to put right the money they took away. There is no question of giving more money or new money. They are merely putting back and making good the previous losses. If this is all the partnership is about, why set up such an elaborate structure? We could have done without the Minister and his colleagues walking down Dale Street in Liverpool, smiling from side to side and posing for local photographers. But that is what it appears partnership is about, because to date the new money is hardly sufficient to replace the old and the replacement money is accompanied by far greater Government controls and sanctions. First they took it away, then they put it back to what it was before—but with increased controls and sanctions.

    Even on the most charitable interpretation, the most that can be said for the partnership in our area is that it is a little more of the same thing, but it has done no particular good for people living in the inner areas. Far from finding cures for old ills, the partnership appears to have done little more than partly refill some of the local authority coffers for special needs—improvement of council housing, rehabilitation of private homes, grants for mortgages and loans and grants for voluntary work.

    Liverpool found its £30 million housing budget increased to £40 million—the level of some years ago—through the partnership. We then had the extraordinary situation of the director of housing passing a confidential note, which everyone now knows about, telling the local authority that he cannot spend £40 million because he does not have the machinery to cope with and process all the applications which will result from the increased cash and saying that, unless he is given more staff and resources or the rules and regulations are changed, he will have to hand back £3 million to £5 million this year. That has happened in an area where the housing is probably the worst in the country.

    There is no point in topping up a fund which has dropped unless it is accompanied by all the paraphernalia and bureaucracy that is needed to run the fund or unless the rules are changed. The partnership will not do that. It insists on playing according to the rules as they ​ have been, rather than having new approaches and innovations.

    I am told that similar problems exist in other spending departments where an injection of funds, far from helping to solve problems, is merely creating new problems within the departments. If the partnership were just this it would be an extremely sick joke, because the new machinery would be fouling up existing mechanisms which were working before the partnership came along. However, I suggest that there is a far more sinister move behind the partnership.

    One may ask whether this is the first step of the Government to establish a sort of regional supremo for the metropolitan areas which the Government feel have failed to rejuvenate their urban areas. Is there to be a sort of local dictator from London to push, chivy and ultimately control the local authorities in the area? Let me explain why I think that this is happening.

    In some ways the Government have lost faith in the Liverpool city council as well as the Mersey county council. They consider those local authorities to be without ideas, but that is not true. The Liverpool city council is already building houses for sale, and the county council has a number of exciting and interesting projects to revive the economy of Merseyside. However, such initiatives are seemingly discouraged because of the partnership’s insistence that every new project that emanates from the city council or county council must come under the partnership scheme.

    There is already talk about setting up sub-committees of the partnership so that the local authorities are subordinated to this new tier of government. Is the partnership to become a new tier of government? Has it been subtly erected above the local authorities so that the Minister has control of what goes on at that level? Can we expect this to be the first stage of manoeuvring in regional control and regional government? Is that what the partnership is all about? If the partnership means a new approach and a new initiative, where are they’? All that we have seen is a little more of the old thing served up in new guises.

    There is talk of the urban aid programme. It is the upgraded 1978 model of the 1968 scheme. It has broader terms of reference and an increased amount of public money. No one has ever seen the urban aid programme tackling our major cities’ problems. On the contrary, it has helped to bring forward some of the projects that are already in the pipeline that the city council would have undertaken in any event. It has helped to do that a little earlier. For example, there is a sports complex in Edinburgh Street, Liverpool. It is stuck in a park in the middle of nowhere. The council has been trying to bring it forward for many years. As a result of the urban aid programme it has managed to start building it now. The complex is virtually completed. However, it will do nothing to solve unemployment, housing or the provision of jobs in the inner area.

    One wonders whether the Government would be better to pay off Liverpool’s housing debt for a few years—it is now running at £28 million a year—instead of all this partnership nonsense. If they paid off the housing debt for two or three years, that would allow the council to spend its own money as it thought best.

    One of the problems of urban aid is that it distorts the existing priority lists of the local authority by pushing forward schemes in which the Government are particularly interested, thus distorting the picture locally.

    I should like to ask the Minister, if he ever turns up in the Chamber, one or two further questions. Does he expect to hear proposals from one partner in the partnership in areas of concern which are the responsibility of another partner in the partnership? Is it the Government’s belief that the needs of the inner cities can be met merely by taking existing local authority services and Government functions and trying to extend their boundaries? Surely the Home Office community development project showed the limitations of neighbourhood-based experiments finding new ways of meeting the needs of those living in areas of high social deprivation.

    If the Government are not planning to make the partnership a vehicle for new solutions and the creation of change, the cities have been hoodwinked, as well as the people living in them. All that we are ​ witnessing is another project in the same mould that will deceive and distort. It will do nothing to solve the real problems. If the sum result of the White Paper is another, more elaborate talking shop, dereliction and despair in our industrial towns will continue and worsen.

    It may be that the Government have already concluded that there are no solutions to the ailing cities. If so, why erect such an elaborate fa çade to conceal the truth, undermine local authority powers and block up the existing machinery? I cannot believe that the Government are that stupid. It must be part of a greater strategy to bring the cities under Government control with Whitehall and the Minister in a new tier of government on top and in charge.

  • John Stokes – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Stokes, the then Conservative MP for Halesowen and Stourbridge, in the House of Commons on 1 November 1978.

    It seems quite a long time now since I heard the Gracious Speech read over six hours ago. Apart from the excellent speech of the leader of my party, my main recollection of all the other speeches I have heard is of their length. I hope that in my case I can speak to the point and not perhaps at such excessive length.

    I found it hard to reconcile the complacent tone of the Gracious Speech with the state of affairs in the country today. I wish to speak with extreme seriousness for a few moments, quite broadly, on the present state of our country. There was no recognition in the Gracious Speech that the nation is demoralised and that our proud national spirit is to some extent diminished. Nor have the Government brought forward any new measures to fulfil their fundamental duty to defend the realm and maintain law and order in our land.

    The second paragraph of the Gracious Speech reads:

    “My Government will continue to safeguard the nation’s security and make a full contribution to the North Atlantic Alliance”.

    I do not believe that the Government are continuing to safeguard the nation’s security to anything like the extent that they should, nor do I believe that they are making “a full contribution” to NATO. We know this from the complaints that we have heard from Dr. Luns and others.

    Some weeks ago I was with our forces in Germany. As everyone knows, they are short of almost every kind of equipment, notably tanks and aircraft, but also vehicles. Many of those which they have are older than the men who drive them. The forces are also short of arms, ammunition and petrol for exercises and manoeuvres. Even more disgraceful, we found that in many units the soldiers were short of certain mundane articles such as boots, socks, and jerseys.

    The troops feel that they are to some extent neglected, and I am afraid that this is true. All ranks have lost faith in the Government. That is a deeply serious matter. They have no confidence that they will be paid properly. I have never come across such bitterness, not only among the serving men but among their wives. Yet now we hear that there is to be yet another defence review and that still more cuts in our defences are envisaged.

    Our forces may soon be reduced to the size of those of a small country such as Denmark or Belgium. In spite of these serious deficiencies, I am glad to say that I found the morale of our troops high. I am certain that this is due to the inspired leadership of the officers, warrant officers ​ and NCOs—leadership which, in my view, is far above that which we see in all walks of civilian life.

    Turning to the situation at home, the Gracious Speech says on the second page:

    “My Government will seek to ensure that respect for the law is maintained, and will give full support to strengthening the Police Service.”

    Yet, as we all know, there is probably more violence now in this country than at any time since the fearful disturbances of the Middle Ages.

    Violent crime, including the most distressing crime of rape, continually increases. Many people in my constituency—and I know that this is general throughout many towns in England—are fearful of leaving their homes at night.

    Protection by the police of private property against burglary or theft has almost broken down, and respect for authority and for the law has woefully diminished. There is general lack of discipline in the community. Vandalism and thuggery continue in many of our towns. The situation in our prisons is clearly dangerous and getting out of hand. Meanwhile, the Home Secretary does nothing. He hardly even wrings his hands. I doubt whether he could keep order in a nursery.

    On the economic scene, we observe a Government presided over by a Prime Minister and a Chancellor of the Exchequer who have seen both prices and unemployment double since 1974. If anyone had prophesied that situation in 1974, he would have been considered a dangerous lunatic. But I believe that there will be no escaping these trends for the nation as long as this Government remain in office.

    Production and productivity are still appallingly low, and unless the situation is improved rapidly there is nothing to prevent the nation from becoming the poorest in Europe. I have recently been in France and Germany. As more and more people now realise, they are increasingly drawing ahead of us in prosperity. One can see it in many ways. When one returns to this country, one’s first feeling is “My goodness, what a poor, shabby nation we have become,” starting at our railway stations, getting into our dirty trains and seeing our dirty streets in London or ​ Birmingham or many of our big towns. If we cannot even keep our trains and streets and public places clean, there is clearly a decline of very serious proportions.

    The conduct of foreign affairs is, after defence and law and order, one of the most important functions of government. As the House knows, I am a student and lover of English history. I am sorry to say so, but I believe that under our present Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs the nation has reached its lowest point in esteem in many centuries. The Government seem to have ceased to believe in us and in our nation. Yet, if we do not stand up for ourselves, no one else—neither the EEC nor any other nation, and certainly not the United Nations—will stand up for us. What strikes one so forcefully in France is that every Frenchman puts France first, second and third on the list. Do we really think that our Government have the same feeling towards our beloved country?

    In Rhodesia, where I was a few weeks ago, we have the extraordinary and, I believe, almost unprecedented spectacle of our Foreign Office supporting terrorists who have been trained by the Cubans and armed by the Russians. These are the people who are being backed by our Government, particularly by our Foreign Secretary, against the interim Government of Rhodesia composed of blacks and whites. No doubt there are reasons of State for that. No doubt it is not just wishy-washy sentimentality. No doubt this is meant to placate America, which has always hated the British Empire, has never had the slightest idea of how to handle black people, and which certainly can teach us nothing. It may also be an attempt to placate Nigeria and some of the black countries in Africa. But if we do not respect ourselves as a nation, and look after our own people in Rhodesia, no black nation and no black people will have any respect whatever for us.

    I therefore very much hope that next week, when these grave matters come before this Chamber, my party will have the courage of its convictions, above all, listen increasingly to what most people in England are saying and vote determinedly against the continuation of sanctions.

    Finally, we see in education an attempt to devalue examinations and to water ​ down everything of merit. Under this Government, the country is rapidly losing its way, its sense of direction and its sense of purpose. If this goes on, I believe that we shall end up as a sort of second rate Socialist State with lower and lower standards and, of course, less and less freedom. The Government seem quite unaware of the grave deterioration which has taken place, certainly since 1974 and probably earlier. The sooner we have a General Election, the better.

    I noticed a poll in the West Midlands today—and I have some interest in that part of the country—which put my party 18 per cent. ahead. I am not surprised. That is a feeling which I have had all along. I am certain that if an election were held in the next few weeks, we should, at least in England, gain a substantial majority, and then the task of national recovery will have to begin.

  • Donald Anderson – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • David Knox – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Anthony Meyer – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

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

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

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

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

    “legislation will be introduced to improve arrangements for compensation of workers on short-time, and to reduce redundancies at times of high unemployment by encouraging the alternative of short-time working.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Margaret Ewing – 1978 Speech on the Loyal Address

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. James Sillars (South Ayrshire)

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

    Mrs. Bain

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mrs. Bain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Dalyell

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

    Mrs. Bain

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

    Mr. Sillars

    Will the hon. Lady give way on this point?

    Mrs. Bain

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

    Mr. Sillars

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

    Mr. Douglas Crawford (Perth and East Perthshire)

    Yes.

    Mr. Sillars

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

    Mrs. Bain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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