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Tag: Speeches

  • Tim Rathbone – 1978 Speech on Roads in South-East England

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tim Rathbone, the then Conservative MP for Lewes, in the House of Commons on 29 June 1978.

    I am pleased to have the opportunity of raising in the House a subject that concerns a major capital asset that the country, especially Sussex and the South-East, has inherited over the centuries, namely, our local road network.

    In Sussex and the South-East almost 98 per cent. of the roads are county roads. That may be the highest proportion anywhere in the country. Therefore, it is peculiar that perhaps the South-East region’s share of total national expenditure on road construction and maintenance has remained the same over the past 10 years. If it had remained the same at a sufficiently high level, that would not be surprising, but unfortunately the equality of application of Government funds hides worrying anomalies.

    First, the national budget for all road construction has been halved since 1973. That is of especial concern in Sussex and the South-East. Secondly, the proportion spent on county road construction has decreased overall. From 1967 to 1977 it has almost halved, moving from 13½ per cent. of the total to 7½ per cent. Thirdly, and perhaps in today’s circumstances most worrying of all, the Government’s ​ policy seems to be to force down local authority spending on road maintenance. That was brought home in a quotation in the current issue of Drive for July and August, which reports:

    “A DoT spokesman said ‘At the moment policy on road maintenance is to cut it. I know that we have come in for a lot of criticism from people who are saying not enough is being spent, and we accept that there are genuine fears that standards might fall below what is thought adequate. But the Government thinks that there is scope for saving money on things that are really cosmetic treatment for roads and highways’”.

    That is an extremely worrying statement of policy. I very much hope that when the Minister replies he will refute it.
    The picture is made even bleaker because, whereas in the past local authority expenditure used to be applied primarily for the provision and maintenance of the road network. Nowadays only about half of that expenditure will be so applied, because the remainder has to go, on the one hand, towards subsidies to local transport, which have increased by almost six times since they started at the beginning of 1970, and, on the other hand, to burgeoning administrative costs which are now running at the horrific level of 20 per cent. of the total budget—twice the proportion of only five years ago. This, as any county councillor, county engineer or county surveyor appreciates, is due almost entirely to greatly increased administrative demands from national Government.

    All this is taking place at a time when, over the past 10 years, road traffic has grown by 45 per cent., the gross weight of vehicles has increased by 33 per cent., owners’ expenditure on vehicles has increased by an enormous 248 per cent. and the Government are, I believe quite rightly, encouraging further increases in mobility for everyone.

    The picture is even worse for county roads in the South-East. Because car ownership in the South-East is above the national average at 78 per 100 households compared with the national average of 72, and because truck mileage grows faster as trade with Europe increases, county roads carry more of this burden because of the paucity of motorways in East and West Sussex and in Kent and the lack of many fully developed trunk roads as well. Lastly—a point which ​ applies to the nation as a whole but applies equally to the South East—the volume and weight of traffic everywhere has increased far faster than anyone ever anticipated.

    County councils responsible for their own local road networks cannot be blamed for what is a sadly deteriorating situation. Since the advent of the transport policies and programmes system, the East Sussex County Council, in common with other councils in the area, has become increasingly aware of its inability to build the roads which are needed because of too little Government funding and too much Government administrative demand. Therefore, it has had to submit bids for road building in accordance with Government guidelines, and that has meant not putting forward for approval the road bids that it knows are needed. Unless resources are substantially increased, nearly half of the presently uncommitted, but desired, road schemes in East Sussex will still not be completed by 1991.

    But that is not all. Not only are insufficient new roads being built, but existing roads are no longer being properly maintained. Until recently the standards of roads in the South-East were as high as anywhere in the country and, therefore, among the best in the world. The results of some years of imposed neglect are now becoming noticeable. If not yet at a critical stage of deterioration, it is certainly very serious. If cuts in road maintenance are not restored over the next five years, by 1983 it is estimated that we shall have reached the point of no return and it will become financially impossible ever to catch up with the backlog of road repair work.

    Just as more and more motorways are now requiring major surgical repairs, often including rebuilding of the new substructure down to 18 in. or more, so county roads, few of which were designed and built for today’s weight of traffic, require quite drastic attention. Yet that is just what they are not getting.

    The AA estimates that overall in Britain there are now 250,000 potholes or similar faults in our road system. It is likely that East Sussex has more than its fair share of potholes because, on an index drawing together total road mileage, or kilometreage, in the county, on the one ​ hand, the population using those roads, on the other hand, and the expenditure on those roads, on the third hand, East Sussex has not been able to do better than to come at the bottom of the index for similar counties and at near bottom for all non-metropolitan counties in the country.

    What does all this mean? First, it means that the costs to motorists and commercial vehicle operators have been soaring because of higher running costs through damage to suspensions, premature tyre replacement and increased low-gear fuel consumption. Then there are costs to the community, which are escalating because of increasing numbers of accidents. It is interesting and worrying to note that accidents caused by skidding due to poor road surfaces have increased by one-third since 1974, and this is marked, in part at least, by increasing public liability claims, which have increased both in number and in amount every recent year.

    These, presumably, are some of the reasons why the Department of Transport is carrying out an extensive survey into the state of roads and road surfaces. I wonder whether the Minister is yet ready to tell us anything about the results of that investigation and to indicate any action he is contemplating in the light of those results, and particularly, of course, any increased spending plans that he may have in mind for East Sussex and the South-East.

    In the absence of greater Government funding and greater Government initiative, who is suffering? First, business and commerce are suffering. I give the town and port of Newhaven as an example. Here is a port which is burgeoning and is more prosperous than it has ever been in living memory because of the increased trade with Europe and the rest of the world. In addition to the trade through the port, Newhaven has its own base of light industry, much of it export-directed.

    Newhaven is well linked by British Rail to all parts of Britain, but it is ill served by its road links. Improvements have been made internally. I think that the Minister inspected them quite recently. But still Newhaven has only a B road as its main north-south feed, and this road is soon to carry added burdens of trucks going to and from a new county refuse disposal tip. These are heavy trucks, travelling at 25 to 30 m.p.h., at an expected rate of 2,000 movements per week. So the business of the community and commerce within the community suffer.

    But people in the community suffer too, and, whatever Mr. Bernard Levin may say about the Lewes bypass, as he wrote about it in The Times last Wednesday, the relief that that has given—and it will give even more once South Street relief scheme has come on stream properly—is just the sort of relief which is so much desired by other towns, such as Winchelsea, Rye or Robertsbridge.

    In Kent it is interesting and worrying to note that Kent County Council’s original development plan, produced 20 years ago, included 44 bypasses of small towns and villages, but as of this year only six have been built.

    But communities suffer economically as well as environmentally. Newhaven is a major prosperity centre for the Lewes District Council, for the East Sussex County Council and for the South-East as far as future planning is concerned. But in the 1978 revision of the East Sussex County Council’s county structure plan, which has been approved by the Secretary of State, the development of the port of Newhaven is specifically inhibited because of the weak road links to and from the town. This means that much-needed jobs cannot be created there. The same can be said for other towns in the South-East. Hastings, just down the coast, is a very good example of where quite modest road building and improvement programmes can help to attract trade and light industry and thereby create, naturally, improved employment opportunities.

    But not only do those in the specific community suffer. The ratepayers and the taxpayers of the whole area suffer, because as remedial repairs are cut back and improvements are postponed this inevitably leads to more drastic remedial surgery and more expensive improvements in the future.

    I cite for the House two worryingly dramatic statistics. Road resurfacing, to seal out moisture and to restore anti-skid properties, costs approximately 50p per square metre. But if that is not done and damp seeps in so that roads begin to ​ crack and to craze, rebuilding of those roads can cost up to £15 per square metre—30 times the cost.

    The final group of people who suffer are those who use the roads, whether they are commercial vehicle operators who have to allow for more off-the-road time and increased cost of repairs, or private individuals who, in the South-East, are often retired—as they are in my constituency of Seaford, Peacehaven, Telscombe Cliffs or East Saltdean on the South Coast. They have enough difficulty already making ends meet without additional car repair charges.

    The Minister would do well to bear in mind that even the Prime Minister has to suffer because the road leading from Lewes to his country estate nearby is like a switchback due to the lack of running repairs because of cuts in the road repair funds.

    For a county such as East Sussex this financial circumscription on road building and repairs is particularly frustrating.

    The county of East Sussex has already taken special pride in its road system. East Sussex pioneered the building of concrete roads 45 years ago. More recently, East Sussex pioneered road edge lining which has reduced accidents dramatically by up to 22 per cent. Sadly, such pioneering work cannot be undertaken now when even basic repair work has to be left undone.

    What can the Government do? I ask the Minister to address himself to seven specific issues. First and foremost, will the Minister consider the reversal of the Government’s stated policy of cutting road maintenance? The policy is too shortsighted. It stems from a complete lack of understanding of the long-term, expensive ramifications.

    Secondly, will the Minister consider the allocation of more funds for county road building and improvements to allow county councils to tackle properly such much-needed works as on the B2109 which leads north from Newhaven? I should welcome a re-commitment from the Government in order to improve the roads of the South-East.

    Thirdly, will the Minister consider a reassessment of the provisions in the Transport Bill on local transport subsidies? Even if 70 per cent. of bus subsidies are funded by the Government, an increase in total subsidy of £500,000 in a county area means that £150,000 has to be found from the rates. It is difficult to see from where such funds would come except from highway maintenance budgets or increased rates. Both are unattractive and unacceptable sources. This raises whether funds should be taken from safeguarding a capital asset and used for renewed expenditures of a social nature.

    Fourthly, will the Minister investigate whether lorries, particularly top-weight lorries, are paying their way properly to ensure that the relative level of their road taxes is proportionate to their share of road costs? I was interested to read in The Sunday Times recently that it is estimated that the heaviest lorries might be underpaying their share by £40 million a year.

    Fifthly, can the Minister argue more effectively than previous Ministers with Treasury colleagues that road users should pay a fairer share of motoring-related taxes, particularly the £915 million that they pay in vehicle licence dues and the lesser amount, but still considerable, of £25 million in VAT on fuel? That figure was quoted in the issue of Drive magazine to which I have referred.

    Sixthly, will the Minister examine the need for annual TPPs? What is the real effect of these annual documents, if any, on the condition of county roads or on the lives of those who live alongside those roads or use them daily? Could not TPPs be submitted every three or four years and thereby reduce administrative costs and improve budget planning?

    Finally, in pursuit of the Secretary of State’s intention to devolve more responsibility for local transportation to county councils, cannot central controls be relaxed and unnecessary administrative requirements, often duplicated at local and national levels, be reduced? Is it necessary for the Government to tell the East Sussex County Council in detail how it should mow its grass verges?

    The Secretary of State said, in talking to the County Surveyors Society on 19th January last, that he saw his job as
    “to ensure that the right roads are built to the right standards in the right place at the right time”.

    To that I add only “and that all roads are maintained to correct standards at ​ all time.” There is nowhere in Britain more deserving of the attention of the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary than Sussex and the South-East.

  • John Eden – 1978 Speech on Hospital Beds in Bournemouth

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Eden, the then Conservative MP for Bournemouth West, in the House of Commons on 28 June 1978.

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) on bringing to the House the petition which he has just presented. On behalf of the pharmacists in my constituency, I endorse every word that my hon. Friend said about the strength of feeling which he has so adequately represented. Those who have been responsible for organising the petition and collecting the signatures have done extremely well. They are to be congratulated on having amassed so many names and on having made clear to us in the House, and hopefully to the Government, too, what action needs to be taken in the interests of the pharmacists of England and Wales.

    Before the House adjourns I wish to draw attention to a matter of considerable importance to the people of Bournemouth—the shortage of hospital beds in that area. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) will have the opportunity of catching your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to support what I say.

    There is a serious shortage of hospital beds in the Bournemouth area. That is, however, not a new situation. It has existed for some years. I have seen the lists kept by one consultant that give details of every patient who was waiting on the emergency bed service for over 48 hours during the past three years to four years. It happens—this is not to ​ dramatise but to make a point of fact—that some of the patients died before they were found a bed in hospital.

    The consultants in the Bournemouth area have for long been worried about the shortage of hospital beds. Two of them—the chairman and the vice-chairman of the medical staff committee of the Bournemouth and East Dorset Group Pathology Service attached to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Bournemouth —recently wrote a letter to the local Press in which they stated:

    “While patients in hospitals are receiving adequate care there is no doubt that too many patients wait too long to get into hospital because of an acute shortage of beds.”

    These are responsible people who write such things. They are not given to hyperbole. They weigh their words with care and speak with deep anxiety.

    The consultant representative on the East Dorset district management team, Dr. Christian Loehry, has played a leading part in drawing attention to the seriousness of the shortage. He has given me details of waiting time for in-patient treatment that fully justify all the expressions of anxiety and concern. The records have also been shown to the community health council, which I understand now fully supports the views of consultants that early and effective action is most necessary. I see that in a recent statement in the Evening Echo it recommended that

    “every effort be made to co-ordinate efforts to effect a long-overdue improvement in the situation regarding emergency admissions.”

    The figures that I have seen indicate that in the first week of February 1978 the aggregate number on waiting lists for in-patient treatment in the East Dorset district was just under 5,000. In some specialities—notably general surgery, ENT and orthopaedic—the numbers were especially high.

    I know that orthopaedic waiting lists have been eased slightly by the opening of the Christchurch facility. That is extremely welcome, but the situation is still very serious, especially for those who are waiting for hip operations. That information comes to me not only from my constituency but from the two constituencies on either side of mine. It bears out the difficulties and personal ​ problems that are being experienced in the whole of the region—I have an interest to declare because tomorrow morning I have to go to an orthopaedic surgeon to have my hip checked. I hope that something will be done in that regard. It is a serious matter which for far too long has been attended by waiting lists which are totally indefensible.

    There is another matter which should be discussed. When speaking of the Bournemouth area we are speaking of a holiday resort. There is a substantial influx during the holiday months which, at its peak, doubles the population. This causes additional problems for the existing services and no special regard seems to be paid to them. It places extra demands on consultants and doctors and obviously puts new pressures on the beds that are available.

    In this area there is also a marked shortage of assessment beds for geriatric cases. Not surprisingly, Bournemouth has a large number of elderly people. We welcome them. Many of them come to Bournemouth to retire and to spend the remaining years of their lives in this attractive area. But this means that they have special requirements which are not being met adequately. Because of the many elderly people in the area, the need for more geriatric beds is urgent. This applies not only to Bournemouth but also to Poole.

    In answer to a case with which I have been dealing, the district administrator at the hospital wrote to me and said:

    “Facilities for psychogeriatric patients are grossly inadequate in this district”

    —that is the East Dorset health care district. He explained that because of this very difficult decisions on priorities had to be reached.

    It is appalling that that should be so. It is appalling that people should have to take decisions of that kind. Of course as I know the Minister understands, it is far more serious for the patients themselves.

    It is clear that there is widespread concern amongst informed and responsible people about the inadequate number of beds in the Bournemouth area and about the difficulties experienced in admitting patients through the emergency bed service.

    For these reasons I and my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East feel fully justified in raising the subject in Parliament and in pressing the Minister to authorise early action to ease the intolerable situation. Our constituents want action.

    We welcome that in August 1982 a start is to be made on phase 1 of the new 900-bed district general hospital. When phase 1 is completed—and that is planned to be in August 1985—the hospital will provide 281 beds. The net increase in beds, however, depends upon what else is done in the meantime and what else is done when phase 1 is completed. For example, if it is planned to close the Royal National Chest Hospital, some beds will be taken away and the net position will not be as good. We must be careful to ensure that by the end of this exercise we are better off than before.

    My anxieties in this regard are aroused by the fact that we are not to get a complete hospital in 1985. We are to get phase 1 of a complete hospital. Phase 1 is, in fact, a unit package, with many of the essential specialities omitted from it. I am not disappointed that we are getting phase 1; believe me, it is far better than nothing at all. But what would be better still would be a complete hospital, with all the facilities, all the specialities and all the services provided there.
    When is that to happen? When is phase 2 to begin, to complete the hospital that has been planned and talked about for such a long time? When is phase 2 to start? Will the Minister assure me this evening that there will be no gap between the completion of phase 1 and the start of phase 2?

    Meanwhile, it is most urgent that we press ahead with the building of a new 30-bed ward at Boscombe Hospital. This has also been under discussion for years, but for some reason no decision has been taken until just recently. For some reason, the Wessex regional health authority seems to have been sitting on this proposition. I have seen letters from the authority to consultants in my constituency which left me speechless, since they seem to be unaware of the urgency of the situation. Now, at last, it seems that it will go ahead, but exactly when I am not absolutely sure.

    I want to know exactly when this new 30-bed ward is to be built. I want to know when it is to be started and when it is to be completed. If the Wessex regional health authority does not understand the urgency of the situation, it should give itself a holiday from its paper work and come to Bournemouth to ascertain the facts on the spot.

    I want to make two other points. The first is related to this, although not directly concerned with the in-patient aspect. I refer to the out-patient problem. There is an acute waiting time for new out-patient appointments with consultants. In some cases this is grotesquely long. In neurology, it is as much as 35 weeks. There seems to be a grave shortage of neurologists. I do not know what steps are being taken to try to overcome it. I do not suppose that it is peculiar to the area I represent, but this seems to me to be a problem which deserves close attention. A period as long as 35 weeks must be wrong. In surgery, the period is anything from 10 to 31 weeks. In orthopaedics, it is anything from 10 to 29 weeks. In ENT it is 21 weeks, and in urology, 20 weeks.

    It is wrong that we should have to contemplate figures of this order of magnitude. I am certain that the Minister would like to see them shortened. We would all wish to see them shortened. What worries me is that they have been going on like this for far too many years. I had a letter the other day from a leading doctor in my own constituency who has said that over the last seven or eight years, far from getting better the situation has been getting worse. No wonder doctors are worried and frustrated.

    Finally, I should like to make one general point. It is that by comparison with other areas, Dorset is seriously under-funded. Will the Minister please undertake to look at this, and will he tonight give firm answers to the two questions that I have put to him?

  • Harold Walker – 1978 Speech on Unfair Dismissal Claims

    Below is the text of the speech made by Harold Walker, the then Minister of State at the Department of Employment, in the House of Commons on 26 June 1978.

    I am very grateful for the kind and generous ​ remarks of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner). His speech dealt again with a series of very important matters that he touched upon on the last occasion when the House debated the industrial tribunals. He has argued tonight as cogently and lucidly as he did on 21st November last year. I am glad that, in spite of the limited time available, I may be able to deal a little more fully with his case now than I could then.

    First, my hon. and learned Friend expressed concern about the number of complaints of unfair dismissal—and not only the number but the proportion—of all applications to the tribunals that fail. Secondly, he advanced what he believes to be some of the reasons, which he believes may in some cases be beyond an employee’s control. Thirdly, he made some constructive suggestions for reform.

    Between 1972 and 1976 the proportion of complaints upheld at hearings was about 37 per cent. In 1977 that figure fell to 31 per cent. It is much too early to say whether it is part of a trend over recent years for this figure to decline. Much more noticeable, perhaps, is the consistency in the figures since 1972. In any event, it is not a figure that I would set much store by, for reasons that I shall explain briefly.

    It would be wrong to infer that a small drop of this kind in the proportion of complaints upheld necessarily means that employees are failing to obtain their rights under the law. There may be a number of explanations for such a change. It may be that there are changes from year to year in the strength of the applications made, and that the cases which get as far as a hearing are not evenly matched year on year.

    In any case, we see that the picture is different if we look at what we might call the overall success rate. By that I mean the proportion of employees whose case was upheld at a tribunal hearing, plus employees whose case was settled at conciliation. That proportion was 39 per cent. in 1972, but since 1975 it has been more like 47 per cent. each year. Therefore, if we look at the system as a whole, we see that perhaps there has not been the tendency that my hon. and learned Friend suggests.

    My hon. and learned Friend also made the point that applicants might not be fully informed about their rights and were often at a disadvantage in conducting their cases. We are doing our best to counter that problem. We publish a number of guides about the legislation, guides which explain what employees’ rights are, including a very full booklet about employees’ rights on dismissal. Indeed, I well remember criticisms from Opposition Members that my officials were too ready to inform people about their rights.

    My hon. and learned Friend is right to say that many working people are apprehensive about appearing before any judicial body. That certainly applies to industrial tribunals, notwithstanding their informality. It is natural. But we seek to do everything we can to explain the procedures to applicants and respondents alike. There is a leaflet on the subject. Moreover, I believe that the chairmen try to be as helpful as possible, particularly to unrepresented applicants.

    My hon. and learned Friend was concerned about applicants being at a disadvantage as compared with the employer regarding witnesses. This was a point he made in our previous debate—the question of witnesses’ reluctance to appear for the applicant. In fact, both parties may bring witnesses to the tribunal, and if there is any difficulty they can ask the tribunal for a witness order. The tribunal may grant such an order if it considers it justified. The reason for giving the tribunal that discretion is that it is important not to lengthen the proceedings with irrelevant detail. If parties could bring whatever witnesses they liked, the tribunal would soon be like law courts. In my view, that would be a retrograde step. I think that already many employers produce too many witnesses, some of whom can add nothing to what has already been said in the proceedings. In such cases, many chairmen discourage witnesses who can add nothing, and I am sure it is right that they should do so.

    I share the view that perhaps tribunals are becoming legalistic. I do not want them to become as legalistic as the courts. Nor do the presidents of the tribunals. We want to keep them as informal as possible. To the extent that they are becoming more legalistic, as is often suggested, I believe that there is one outstanding ​ reason, namely, that there is an increasing tendency for employers to engage lawyers to represent them. Not only does that put up the cost to the employer; it increases the legalism, and often prolongs cases. I do not go along with those who want more lawyers in tribunals. They may be necessary in a small number of difficult cases, but in the overwhelming majority of straightforward unfair dismissal cases employers could do themselves a good turn and dispense with legal representation. They would find the tribunals no less sympathetic to their case than they are at present.

    Let me come now to some of the other criticisms we hear about tribunals. Some people think that the tribunals may be unduly favouring employers. Yet much of the criticism comes from the other side with complaint that they unduly favour applicants. The truth is, of course, that they are impartial.

    Let us look at the facts. The tribunals consist of a legally qualified chairman and members nominated by both sides of industry. They are therefore well suited to their task and are evenly balanced. Virtually all of their judgments are unanimous, which hardly suggests bias towards either side. I suggest that the truth—and this, perhaps, is why they are criticised from both sides—is that they get things right and so, inevitably, one side or the other is disappointed.

    My hon. and learned Friend rightly drew attention to those who seek to scare employers by quoting the possibility of an award of £13,400 being made against them. Let me confirm what my hon. and learned Friend has said. What most people fail to say is—that that can happen only in the most exceptional cases. To the best of my knowledge it has not yet happened. It can happen only to someone over the age of 61 who is earning more than £5,000 a year, who has been with his employer for more than 20 years, who gets the maximum basic and compensatory award, whose employer refuses to reinstate him following a tribunal decision and whose original dismissal was on race, sex or trade union grounds. I suggest that that is a most unlikely set of circumstances. Well over half the awards made—55 per cent. —are for less than £400 and nearly four-fifths are for less than £750.

    Much has been made of increasing caseloads. It has been suggested that the number of unfair dismissal cases is increasing dramatically. In 1977 there was a slight increase of 5 per cent. Experience so far this year is that there is a slight decline of about 10 per cent. Those who were predicting 100,000 this year have been proved to be wildly wrong.

    There are some, including Tory Members, who, as my hon. and learned Friend reminded us, attribute a high failure rate to the flimsiness of many of the claims. We are often given the impression by critics that people who have nothing to lose lodge a complaint of unfair dismissal just to try it on. That is certainly not the impression that I get from letters to my Department. I have had many comments from employees about the consequences of applying to an industrial tribunal. Applicants who are legally represented have to pay solicitors’ fees. More seriously, the publicity resulting from an industrial tribunal’s decision and from the evidence given during the hearing can adversely affect an employee’s ability to obtain other employment—even when he has won.

    I have had comments in letters such as:

    “So I failed to clear my name. I was now classified as a troublemaker—industrial misconduct. Where could I get employment with a character like that? No one would want to employ me.”

    I think that comments such as that show that employees will not apply to tribunals lightly because they know that they risk their reputation.

    Certainly the tribunals are less intimidating to the ordinary man than the rest of the judicial system. That is deliberately and intentionally so. They may not be perfect, but the tribunals were set up to provide a speedy, informal and inexpensive means of settling disputes. I am anxious however, to stop them becoming more like law courts, and I know that the presidents are also. They are constantly seeking improvements in organisation and procedures which will save everyone’s time and trouble, while giving both employers and employees a fair hearing.

    My hon. and learned Friend asked about the improvements that I touched on and, indeed, promised in the course ​ of our last debate. I am glad to be able to tell him that I am proposing to introduce some changes in the tribunal procedure regulations which I hope will be to the benefit of both applicants and respondents, and which will mean that more information is available, as my hon. and learned Friend asked, before the tribunal hearing. They can only be of help to all the parties, and should help to shorten hearings. I am aiming for those changes to be effective by about the end of August.

    In conclusion, may I say that in all this criticism of the tribunals and the employment legislation it would appear that too many people lose sight of the advantages which flow from them. For the first time in this field, employees have legal rights in employment which prevent those employers who would otherwise do so from behaving unscrupulously and recklessly. The good employer, of course, has nothing to fear and need have no anxeties from this legislation. But, in turn, the increased security which employees now have reduces the antagonism between employee and employer, and helps to promote stable industrial relations.

    My belief is that there can now be no going back on the new rights which employees have. Among other things, to do so would be to step out of line with the rest of Europe, and to shift the basis for the development of sound industrial relations which the legislation has created. I believe that the way forward is for employers and employees alike to familiarise themselves with the basic provisions of the new laws and to set about building sound procedures which are based on them.

    Mr. Greville Janner

    Before my hon. Friend sits down, will he give an indication of the nature of the changes in procedure that he has in mind? In view of the fall in the number of cases before industrial tribunals, can he give any hope of wrongful dismissal cases being transferred to the tribunals within the powers given to the Lord Chancellor in the Employment Protection Act 1975?

    Mr. Walker

    On the second point, my hon. and learned Friend will know even more sharply than I the distinction between wrongful dismissal and unfair dismissal, and the statutory provisions ​ deal only with unfair dismissal. There is some provision within the Employment Protection Act to enable certain matters relating to contracts of employment to be dealt with in specified circumstances by the industrial tribunals. I do not think that it extends their jurisdiction to cover wrongful dismissal. We are looking very carefully at the possibility of implementing that remaining power within the Employment Protection Act to extend the jurisdiction of the tribunals to cover contracts of employment in the specified circumstances. But I rather doubt whether it will be to cover cases of wrongful dismissal.

    ​ The procedural changes will be those that I suggested, which will enable the parties to have, as my hon. and learned Friend wishes, rather more information before the proceedings of the tribunal commence than they have at present. If my hon. and learned Friend wishes, I shall be happy to send him details.

  • Greville Janner – 1978 Speech on Unfair Dismissal Claims

    Below is the text of the speech made by Greville Janner, the then Labour MP for Leicester West, in the House of Commons on 26 June 1978.

    I am happy to have this opportunity to discuss the increasing failure rate in claims for unfair dismissal brought before industrial tribunals. The latest figures ​ were supplied to me by the Minister on 9th June and show that the failure rate is now 69 per cent.—that is to say, those who bring unfair dismissal claims stand at least a two-to-one chance of losing. Their prospects of success are now no more than 31 per cent.

    In addition, according to the figures for the second quarter of 1977—the latest for which figures are available—even if successful they would recover an average of only £355. In other words, the failure rate is 69 per cent. and even where it is ruled that they were dismissed unfairly they will probably get no more than £355.

    I am sure that the House will find these figures profoundly worrying. Employment protection legislation, which had its embryo in “In Place of Strife”, which was brought in without dissent as about the only uncontroversial part of the Industrial Relations Act 1971 and which has been strengthened by a series of Acts introduced by the present Government, has been designed to protect people in their jobs, so that a man may truly say, “This is my job.” By that he means that it is not to be taken from him without good cause and that if it is taken he will have a reasonable prospect of good compensation to tide him over and cushion him against one of the miseries of fate, which was in no way of his making.

    What has happened to the prospects of success? In 1972, about 34 per cent. succeeded. That was regarded as a low rate and was to no small extent due to people bringing claims out of time. Instead of 28 days people were given three months after the termination of employment in which to bring claims. The success rate rose to 37 per cent. in 1973 and 1974, and to 38 per cent. in 1975. Then there was a small drop to 36 per cent. in 1976 and a massive fall of 5 per cent. between 1976 and 1977.

    Those of us who are concerned that employees should be properly protected ask ourselves why there has been this drop in the protection of employment. The answer that we commonly hear from the Opposition is that too many claims are brought without justification and should never have been allowed to proceed. It is true that some claims should never have seen the light of day, but equally there are hundreds, if not thousands, which are ​ not brought because the ordinary person remains apprehensive of tribunals anxious about courts and happy to keep as far away as he can from lawyers, tribunals, chairmen and procedures of the law.

    I regret to say that other people do not bring claims because they do not want to be labelled as troublemakers, knowing that when they apply for other jobs, if they have been before a tribunal, prospective employers will say “We do not want this man: he is liable to be a nuisance.” So we can balance the bad claims which should not have been brought against the good claims which should have been brought but which were not.

    So I come to the question of industrial tribunals. Why is it that this failure rate is probably the highest in any tribunal in Britain? I suggest, after not inconsiderable experience in this sphere, that there are two main reasons. First, employers are learning to operate procedures which are at least apparently fair. They document their procedures. Where possible, they give at least one written warning of intended dismissal. Where a tribunal is faced with a fair procedure, the employer nearly always wins.

    Equally and conversely, the employee does not know how to operate any such procedure for his own protection. The average person does not know, for example, that when he receives a memorandum of complaint, when he receives a warning suggesting that he may lose his job if he does not change his ways, he should reply in writing and that he should keep a copy of his reply. The documentation of his case is as important to him as it is to the employer. The employer will have his case on file. The employee will be left naked before the storm without any form of documentation and usually with little or no oral corroboration to assist him.

    It is true that wise employees who are members of trade unions will go for help, but they generally do so after they have been dismissed. It is equally true, alas, that the average employee does not know that, although he cannot get legal aid, he can get up to £25 worth of legal help, if not more, under the Legal Aid and Advice Act in the preparation of his case.

    That leads me to my second point. In general, the average employee is not as articulate as the average employer. I happily pay tribute to the chairmen and members of industrial tribunals who do their level best to assist those claimants who appear on their own and in some cases they lean over backwards to do so. In some cases they descend into the arena, and they cannot maintain that balance which a judicial function requires.

    I submit that the lack of representation in industrial tribunals is as sad as it is understandable. One wants to avoid the legalistic approach. One wants to avoid the growth of what some judges have described as a plethora of case law. However, we are dealing with legal rights, with cases in which people’s future is to be decided according to the law of the land. We are dealing with cases in which there is an appeal—alas, on points of law only —to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, and one cannot avoid dealing with legal niceties. It is the law which was brought in to protect the employee when voluntary effort has so dismally failed to do so.

    So today there is a failure rate of 69 per cent. There is an average award of only £355 for the 31 per cent. of claimants who are lucky enough to proceed. So why is it that we hear the plaintive cries of chambers of commerce and employers’ organisations throughout the land that the employee is over-protected? It is obvious that the employee is under-protected. The protection which the law is meant to accord to him is not providing the cushion which he needs.

    The truth is that the employers’ associations are making political capital in order to avoid further protection and they are complaining of what they describe as undue protection of the employee for one of two reasons. Either they do not know the truth, or they do not wish to know it and are deliberately misrepresenting the truth. Either they do not appreciate that there is a two-thirds failure rate and that the average successful claimant receives only £355 and that, as far as one can tell, not one claimant has ever received an “additional award” or approached anywhere near the magical £13,400, or they do know it and are deliberately ignoring it.

    The fact is that the average employee is not sufficiently protected and the aver- ​ age employer should be told that if he provides that decent measure of protection which the employee is entitled to receive he has very little to fear from the law. There is no reason why this protection should not be afforded. After all, it is no more than the requirement of a decent system, with fair regard for rights and a fair and proper way of dealing with people in their jobs.

    In many cases, it is not the inarticulate shop floor employee who is inadequately protected. It is the manager and the executive. The higher up a person goes, the greater is his loss if he is pushed off the shelf into the mire of unemployment, and the greater is the need for his protection since the more difficult it may be for him to get another job.

    At every level there is inadequate protection, which is not realised because people do not want to know and not appreciated because there is a deliberate campaign by employers’ organisations to make out that precisely the opposite is the case, in the teeth of the truth and in the face of the figures—69 per cent. failure rate and £355, on average, when someone succeeds.

    What can the Government do about it? First, I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the assurance which he gave in the debate we had on this subject a few months ago, when he said that he would have the procedures of the tribunals looked into with a view to seeing whether there was some way in which they could be improved so that, for example, the parties to a case could know rather more in advance what they would face when they arrived at the hearing.

    That improvement will not necessarily protect the employee. As we have seen, he has no documentation to assist him. In addition, of course, while the employer can generally bring oral evidence to assist his case, the employee cannot do so because the only people who could assist it are his colleagues at work, and they in their turn are afraid of losing their jobs. The employee does not know how to us the witness summons or subpoena to bring them to the hearing, and even witnesses called on subpoena have a nasty habit of losing their memory as a result. The employee may not get more evidence without assistance, but he will at least be without the documentation and know precisely the case he has to face.​

    Secondly, I suggest that we ought to provide far more information to employees about how they can help themselves—about how they can, for example, make use of their right to request written particulars of the reasons for their dismissal and about the duty of employers to provide those reasons within two weeks of the request.

    The employee and his trade union should be helped to understand the need for documentation and the need to try to set out the employee’s case in writing in the same way as employers do. Indeed, the need here is greater for employees than it is for employers because employers will have other evidence and employees will not. Employees should learn to understand, and should be told by the Department of Employment, how best to present their case. I hope that if these suggestions were followed there would be an increase, not a decrease, in the number of those successful in their efforts.

    I wish in conclusion to pay a personal tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister of State. He has been at work, beavering away in the background in his modest and unassuming way, trying to help people at work virtually ever since 1974, and before that date, outside the House, for most of his working life. I should not like him to feel that this effort to find common ground in order to assist people is in any way intended as an attack upon him or the service which he is giving and which, I am sure, he will give. It is much appreciated.

    On the other hand, somehow my hon. Friend has failed. We have failed. Employees are not receiving the protection which they should have. The latest figures which my hon. Friend has given prove that. I hope that he will be able to provide some hope of improvement, some greater protection for the employee and, perhaps, some hope also that the employer may have reason to worry rather more than he does at present if he does not follow those fair systems which, after all, are designed by the law to protect the employee from unfairly and unreasonably losing his job.

  • Robert Jenrick – 2020 Statement on Visiting Parents

    Robert Jenrick – 2020 Statement on Visiting Parents

    Below is the text of the statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, on 9 April 2020 following a news story in the Guardian.

    For clarity – my parents asked me to deliver some essentials – including medicines.

    They are both self-isolating due to age and my father’s medical condition and I respected social distancing rules.

  • George Cunningham – 1978 Speech on Student Grants

    Below is the text of the speech made by George Cunningham, the then Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, in the House of Commons on 23 June 1978.

    The subject I want to raise in this debate is that of students’ grants, and more particularly the so-called parental contribution to students’ grants—that is, the deduction from the grant made according to the income of the parents of the student. More particularly still, the point I am raising is the discrimination which exists in assessing parential income between parents who pay rent for the home in which they live and parents who have a loan for buying a house and who are permitted to deduct from their relevant income the amount of any interest they are paying on that loan.

    Before coming precisely to that point, I should like to put to the Minister some anomalies which exist in the arrangements as they are now in order to try to persuade him that the system he is operating, and is generally defending, is one which has many anomalies in it of what I would regard as an unsustainable nature. It is high time that the whole system was looked at in order to try to bring into it a higher degree of consistency and logical defensibility.

    The so-called parental contribution is related to the income of the parents. If ​ the income of the parents is above a certain threshold, the parent is expected to contribute a certain amount of the excess towards the student grant. The first anomaly to which I want to draw attention is that the scale for that contribution is inverted according to what one would think the natural way of doing it. The threshold of residual income in the coming academic year is, I think, £3,800. If parents’ residual income is £3,800, some parental contribution is required. If the residual income is between £3,800 and £5,200, the parental contribution is 20 per cent. of any excess over £3,800. Then we come to a tranche between £5,200 and £7,300 of residual income where the parental contribution becomes only 10 per cent. Above £7,300, the parental contribution of any excess is only 8⅓ per cent.

    I am sure that the Minister will agree that on the face of it that is a curious thing in that the person who is at the lower end of the scale is expected to contribute a larger proportion of his excess over the threshold than a person who is at the upper end of the residual income scale. That has not always been the case. In at least the 1971–72 academic year—I think it was the practice generally up to a few years ago—the parental contribution was expressed as a fixed sum, which was small, plus a fixed percentage of the excess of income and that percentage did not vary once the initial threshold was passed. The effect of that anomaly is, of course, that proportionately the systems bears harder upon the person at the lower end of the residual income scale, provided he is above the initial threshold, than it does on the person at the upper end of the residual income scale.

    For example, if we have two lots of parents roughly on average earnings, but Family B has £100 more than Family A, Family B will have to contribute £20 out of that excess to the parental contribution. But if we have two other families which have roughly £7,000 a year of residual income, and again one has £100 more than the other, the difference in parental contribution between the two families will be only about £10, or even only £8 if they have a slightly higher income. That curiosity needs to be looked into.

    Secondly, we have the oddity that if there are parents who have two children at college or university, and in respect of the first child the parent is required to make a parental contribution of, let us say, £500, that £500 of assumed expenditure is not deductible in assessing the parental contribution appropriate for the grant given to the second child when he goes to college or university. I would have thought that that was one of the most obvious deductible items to introduce into the system.

    Instead, there is a fixed sum deducted. If there are two children receiving grant, next year it will be £95. So, if the parent is contributing £500, he has only £95 allowed as his assumed contribution in respect of the first child. It is even more odd, because, if the parent is contributing to the first child only £50 parental contribution, nevertheless he gets a deduction on his residual income of £95. I do not know who dreamed up that kind of arrangement, but it is hardly defensible.

    Then we have the fact that life insurance premiums are deductible, and deductible, I might say, in full, and not as to 50 per cent. of the premiums which is the rule for tax purposes. But why should life insurance premiums be deductible at all, especially life insurance premiums to an endowment insurance scheme? In pure life insurance, the premiums will be so small that it does not really matter what we do. But an endowment insurance scheme can have premiums at a very high level, and such premiums constitute, in effect, savings. They belong not to current revenue activities but to capital activities. Why should they be deductible?

    Once again that feature of the system benefits the better off who can afford to have high premiums to that kind of disguised savings scheme, as against the person on average earnings who cannot afford to do so. It means that if a person takes out an endowment insurance scheme and has, say, premiums of £1,000 a year, in addition to getting the tax relief he would have a parental contribution effect which would mean that the real cost to him was considerably less than the notional cost.

    I might also point out that, although the Department says that it tries to keep ​ these arrangements in line with tax practice, the limit for insurance premiums is one sixth of income in the case of the tax system but 15 per cent. of income, which is not quite the same thing, in the case of parental contribution.

    Finally, in the way of anomalies, I am not sure whether the mortgage interest which is deductible is limited to the interest on a loan of £25,000—the limitation which applies in the case of tax relief. As I read the relevant regulations, that is far from clear, because it says on page 28 of the regulations that what is deductible is

    “the amount of any sums paid as interest (including interest on a mortgage) in respect of which relief is given under the Income Tax Acts…”

    As I read that, it is doubtful whether the interest which has to be deducted is limited to the interest on £25,000 such as applies in the case of the tax system.

    It is after pointing out that the system is shot through with that kind of anomaly that I come to the anomaly to which I wish to draw special attention, namely, that in assessing residual income, a deduction is made for interest on a house loan but no deduction is made for rent.

    I have been concerned with this subject for about five years, as far as I can see from my files. Over many years, Ministers have drawn a distinction between rent and mortgage interest and suggested that if we were to permit rent to be deducted, there would arise an irresistible campaign to have capital repayments on a mortgage also deductible. I do not think that there is anything in that argument. It is absolute rubbish.

    Rent and interest payments are conceptually as near identical as two different things can be. Neither has any element of saving or of debt amortisation in it. Both are current payments for current usage. Both are current payments for current usage of housing facilities. They are identical, whether we are talking about council rents or private rents. I do not think that if we made the change that I propose the Minister would be under any logically defensible pressure to make repayments of capital deductible as well. Also, the Minister’s notion that capital repayments are not deductible is wrong—and I shall come to that later.

    I know that the Minister and his predecessors have relied on the Anderson Report of 1958 which considered this matter and which advised the Government of that time against any change in the then arrangements. My answer to that is that it is our duty to look at the arrangements to see whether they are logically defensible, and not look at the recommendations of a Government Committee.

    The fact is that we have changed many of the arrangements as they were at the time of the Anderson Report. For ex ample, insurance premiums are now deductible up to 15 per cent. of income and not up to 10 per cent. as was the case at the time of Anderson, and which Anderson recommended should be continued.

    Secondly, the system was never terribly close to the tax practices. The whole of insurance premiums are deductible, and not only half as applies in tax. There was a similar arrangement, although not identical, operating to that 50 per cent. rule at the time of the Anderson Report.

    The main reason why I would argue against Anderson is that it is a sloppy bit of thinking, if, indeed, one can call it thinking. When the report addressed itself to this subject, this was the mighty advice that it gave, and I quote from paragraph 208:

    “We have considered whether rents should also be taken into account, but we have concluded that there is not sufficient reason to make an exception in this respect to the general principle stated in paragraph 203.”

    That principle was that one should stick as closely as possible to the tax arrangements.

    I do not find that a particularly overwhelming or persuasive argument. I do not find it very logical. Therefore, whatever else the Minister does, he should take the Anderson Report and chuck it out the window. It is not persuasive enough and the material is not there to lead us to overturn our own conclusions.

    At the time of the Anderson Report all interest was deductible for tax purposes, whatever the purpose of the borrowing. Therefore all interest was deductible for the purposes of assessing the parental contribution.

    There has now been a major change in that only interest paid on house loans is deductible for tax purposes. It may have been justifiable not to permit rent to be deducted at that time and to permit mortgage interest to be deducted, not because it was mortgage interest but because all interest was deductible for tax purposes.

    The situation now is very different. The proper way to look at this is by agreeing that we now have two different forms of housing payment. Therefore why should one be deductible while the other is not?

    The financial effects of the system as it operates now can be put in this way. Let us assume that there are two neighbours, Mr. A and Mr. B, each paying £600 in rent, which is not unusual these days, at least in London. One of them—Mr. B—decided to buy a house on a loan of £8,000 so that he will be paying interest of about £800.

    He will find his parental contributions reduced by £160 a year, or more than £3 a week—that is, assuming that both Mr. A and Mr. B are on the low income scale but above the threshold. The actual cost to Mr. B of his £800 of interest will be only £376. In addition to the tax relief on it, he will have £160 knocked off the effect of his parental contribution.

    But if Mr. B and his advisers have their wits about them, they can do rather better than that. What they will do is to take out the mortgage on the so-called endowment insurance method. Instead of paying off the capital bit by bit every month, they will pay off no capital during the life of the scheme but will invest in an endowment insurance policy.

    When that policy matures at the end of the period, the proceeds will be used to pay off the loan. In that case, if the interest is £800 and the endowment insurance costs £200 a year, total outgoings of £1,000 per year, the effect upon parental contribution will be not £160 but £200. The actual cost to Mr. B in taking on the extra £1,000 of expenditure will be only £470 because of the combined effect of parental contribution and tax relief.

    By that means capital repayments are deductible, in effect, so long as the person concerned has his wits about him enough to undertake the operation on the endowment insurance method, because in that case he has deducted not only the interest payments but also the premiums on the insurance policy in total, 100 per cent., provided that they do not exceed 15 per cent. of his income, which they will not. Both the interest and the effective amortisation of the debt are deductible.

    Therefore, this system is unsustainable, not only because of that last anomaly, but because basically rent and interest, event if we were only talking of interest, are the same thing. It is current payment or current usage of the same kind of facilities—namely, housing. The present arrangements are particularly hard on council tenants and private tenants on average earnings because of the curious inverted scale to which I referred earlier. The arrangements are also discriminatory even to people not on average earnings but higher up the scale as between all kinds of tenants and all levels of people who are buying their own homes.

    I am certain that if the case for and against the present arrangements were fully exposed in the House, with somebody here to listen, there would be a majority in the House who would agree roughly with the case I am putting forward. I suggest to the Minister that it is now time for the whole matter to be reviewed I believe that the Government—whether it be the present Government or the next one—will lose on this matter. The anomaly will have to be removed, and I know that that would be the majority view of the House.

    The request I put to the Minister is that Department of Education and Science and Treasury Ministers should have consultations with myself and other Members in the House who are concerned about this matter, so that we can draw up the case for and against the proposals with a view to making the system that we apply more logically defensible than it is now. We should remove this anomaly, which causes a great deal of concern to those who suffer from it and who know the system well enough to realise that it is discriminatory between them and others in essentially identical circumstances.

  • Gregor Mackenzie – 1978 Speech on Scottish Oil

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gregor Mackenzie, the then Minister of State at the Scottish Office, in the House of Commons on 22 June 1978.

    The nicest thing I can say about the speech of the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) is that it was not the most constructive I have ever heard. We all waited for the Book of Revelations. Instead we got something like the performance of an Old Testament prophet, and the speech was almost as long as that we would expect from an Old Testament prophet. It did not help me necessarily to understand the various arguments.

    The hon. Member has demonstrated once again just how narrow and unrealistic is the view of the SNP of oil development and of the opportunities that oil affords to the people of Scotland and of the United Kingdom. In the light of the election results of the last few weeks it is perfectly clear that the people of Scotland do not share the greedy and selfish approach exhibited by the SNP.

    The development of North Sea oil and gas has been one of the most successful operations undertaken in the United Kingdom since the war. Bearing in mind that the oil is being recovered from one of the most difficult areas in the world, the SNP’s niggardly attitude seems to me to be designed to make a success ​ look like a failure. All the people concerned can take credit enough for the remarkable success which has been achieved in moving to a position in which about half the United Kingdom’s oil requirements are being met from the North Sea. The figure last year was 38 million tonnes.

    That fact will be seen increasingly as one of the most important milestones in Britain’s economic history.
    Achieving this state of affairs has not been without difficulty for the Government. Perhaps I might remind the House of the situation we inherited. It was most unsatisfactory in a number of important respects. When we came to office the previous Government, in four years of power, had operated one gigantic licensing round of nearly 300 blocks. The consequences of their action has illustrated how defective their policies were in almost every respect.

    No effective provision had been made to secure an adequate share of the revenues for the people. There was no petroleum revenue tax, and not even any means of making corporation tax effective. There had been inadequate controls over development and no effective controls over the rate of depletion or the flaring of gas. There had been no effective control over exploration after the initial years of the licence. We have taken action to put those matters right.
    The hon. Member for Dundee, East revealed in his speech to day that, we gather, he is now in favour of a depletion rate of 10 million tonnes a year, as against 38 million or 50 million tonnes a year. There would not be the jobs there have been in the offshore and onshore industries or the developments both in the North Sea and throughout Scotland if that policy had applied.

    Mr. Gordon Wilson

    Where in my speech did I say that production from the North Sea should be 10 million tonnes? Nowhere did I say that.

    Mr. MacKenzie

    The hon. Member could not have been reading his speech very carefully. He was questioned on this matter by my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Gourlay). What I have said was the distinct impression that the hon. Member left with my right and hon. Friends and, I am sure, with the Opposition.

    The taxation measures that we have introduced have made sure that the people of Scotland are getting a fair share of the revenues while allowing the oil companies sufficient profit on their investment, encouraging them to develop the resources. The Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Act 1975 puts control where it should properly be, which is in the hands of the Government. Under the Act the companies are subject to tighter control over submarine pipeline routes, levels of exploration activity, and rates of depletion from individual fields.

    In addition, the creation of the British National Oil Corporation ensures that the State participates in all the major discoveries, and guarantees that these important offshore resources will be exploited and developed in the way which best accords with the interests of the people of Scotland and of those throughout the United Kingdom. I believe that all of these measures are now widely accepted both by the public and by the oil industry as just and necessary.

    In Scotland one of the most serious failings was the quite inadequate forethought given initially to the needs of the infrastructure in supporting North Sea oil. That is a condemnation of the previous Conservative Administration and of the SNP Members. Apart from a few slogans which we occasionally heard from the SNP, they made no constructive contribution. Only since we have come to office has a major effort been made to catch up in this area. The local authorities and the other public agencies are, I believe, to be congratulated on their achievements.

    Mrs. Margaret Bain (Dunbartonshire, East)

    Is not the Minister, in fact, outlining with great hindsight the policies that should have been adopted in the late 1960s, when it was a question not of a Conservative Government but of a Labour Government? In the late 1960s the Labour Government practised the kind of policies that were followed by the Conservative Government.

    Mr. MacKenzie

    I am sure that the hon. Lady has one thing in common with me at present—and that is that neither of us knows what she is talking about. One thing that I recall is that the discoveries were made at a very much later stage than that which she has just mentioned.

    It is worth while mentioning that we have done a great deal on the whole question of infrastructure, and much to the benefit of some SNP Members.

    Mrs. Winifred Ewing (Moray and Nairn)

    Where?

    Mr. MacKenzie

    Perhaps I may continue for a little while without interruption.

    There have been major developments of harbours at Aberdeen, Peterhead, Montrose and in Shetland. We have the reconstruction of airports at Aberdeen, Inverness and Sumburgh. There is an immense house-building programme in the Grampion Region, the Moray Firth and Shetland. The improvement in main line railways and communications has been very marked. We have also ensured that ratepayers in the areas affected by these developments were protected from the full impact of the additional financial burden in providing these facilities.

    From the start, we have given the highest priority to ensuring that Scotland’s economy gets the maximum possible benefit from activity related to oil. One of the first decisions was to move the Offshore Supplies Office from London to Glasgow. The OSO has had a major role in helping industry in Scotland—and, indeed, in the United Kingdom as a whole —to meet the new requirements of the offshore business.

    We also decided to put the headquarters of the British National Oil Corporation in Glasgow. This has not only provided—many of us are interested in this matter—jobs of high quality, and much needed jobs, but helped to bring an important part of the decision-making on oil matters to Scottish people.

    At this point, I should like to pay a tribute to the very important part that the BNOC played last summer in helping to secure two very valuable contracts for the Marathon oil rig building yard on the Clyde. Further contracts, as some of my colleagues may know, are under negotiation, and, based on the yard’s performance, we are certainly confident of its long-term future.

    We all appreciate that it takes time for industry to adjust to the requirements and specification of a new industry such as North Sea oil. As has been mentioned ​ often, the latest available full figures that we have show that at present some 55,000 to 65,000 people in Scotland enjoy jobs which are either directly or indirectly related to exploration for and exploitation of oil under the North Sea.

    The hon. Member for Dundee, East chided us, in the course of his rather long speech, about the estimates of the OSO. It is worth noting that certainly 60 per cent. of the orders from the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea are now placed in Britain. That is a very good record indeed. We have to improve it further—not by protection or by compulsion, hut by trying to better our own industrial performance and the competitive position of our industries.

    Mr. Gordon Wilson rose—

    Mr. MacKenzie

    The hon. Gentleman took a fair amount of Back Benchers’ time in the debate—a very long time.

    Not many weeks ago I opened a factory in East Kilbride, a factory producing oil well-head equipment. I have visited many other factories. People who go about Scotland with their eyes open—I hope that the hon. Gentleman will occasionally do this—will see that a very considerable proportion of that 60 per cent. of orders is providing jobs for people throughout Scotland.

    Mr. Gordon Wilson rose—

    Mr. MacKenzie

    Once again, I am obliged to give way.

    Mr. Gordon Wilson

    If the right hon. Gentleman has made all these trips and has been in touch with the OSO, will he say what the Scottish figure is in relation to jobs, as he was able to give it for the United Kingdom?

    Mr. MacKenzie

    What we are concerned about is to look at the percentage here. If the hon. Member had been listening as carefully as he has been talking, he would have heard me say about two sentences ago that some 65,000 jobs were provided for the people of Scotland as a result of this industry.

    It is already clear that the United Kingdom industry has built up the skills and the knowledge to compete at home, where there are growing markets for inspection, management and repair of installations, and certainly has a very ​ considerable expertise in the export markets.

    Scotland has, therefore, benefited already to a very substantial degree from the economic activity related to North Sea oil. This has happened at a time when not only Scottish but British, European and international rates of unemployment have been higher than at any other time since the war. It would certainly be a great mistake to imagine that the development of North Sea oil could alone counteract the unemployment caused by the international recession. This has been a boost to our economy. It has come at a time when it was very badly needed, and without it unemployment would certainly be very much higher than it is at present.

    Let me turn to the wider economic benefits which affect the country as a whole. We have heard a great deal from SNP Members about what they would do with taxation revenues from North Sea oil. I can well remember, as can, no doubt, many of my colleagues, on both sides of the House, what was said by various SNP Members during the course of the last General Election. Whenever they were challenged about how they would increase pensions—I cannot remember the figure now; it varied from area to area and from candidate to candidate—all that we could discover was that the money would be coming out of the North Sea. One would have thought that instead of oil coming ashore, someone—an Almightly providence, perhaps—would be delivering pound notes. But I know that the people in the area that I represent were certainly not conned by the SNP candidate. They did not believe that the people of Scotland had collectively won the football pools or anything of the kind.

    I do not think that people find the SNP’s approach to the difficult economic problems facing us to be constructive. Certainly the SNP has failed to make out a convincing case, even on its own terms. SNP Members never explain to us how they would tackle the deep-seated problems of the Scottish economy—problems of steel, of shipbuilding and of motor vehicles. As most of us know these problems stem from a lack of demand in overseas markets and from intense international competition. But whenever the SNP is challenged about ​ these matters, the only answer that we ever get is

    “Do not worry about these matters. If there were a separate Scottish steel corporation, a separate Scottish shipbuilding corporation, a separate Scottish this, that or the other, all these problems of demand and productivity would be solved.”

    The electorate can very well see that the SNP’s policies in this regard are quite farcical and are designed to separate Scotland—I know that SNP Members do not like the word, but designed to separate they are—from the management of the United Kingdom economy as a whole. They will only make a difficult situation quite disastrous.

    Faced as we are with depressed markets, serious dislocation in world trade and intense competition from countries in the Far East, the only hope lies in closer co-operation within the United Kingdom and Western Europe as a whole. A fragmented approach, a separatist approach, will produce only divisive policies, from which I think all of us would suffer.

    Therefore, the Government totally reject any attempt by SNP Members to hypothecate the North Sea oil revenues exclusively to Scotland. We have made our position perfectly clear. Oil, like the gas in the Southern Basin before it, is a United Kingdom resource, to be used for the benefit of the United Kingdom as a whole.

    Mrs. Winifred Ewing rose—

    Mr. MacKenzie

    Perhaps the hon. Lady will forgive me if I do not give way until I have finished this part of my comments. As it happens, I live in Cambuslang, not terribly far away from the hon. Lady’s home. She will know that we use gas in our homes which comes from the Southern Basin of the North Sea. We use it all over Glasgow. We do not talk about the English gas which is coming in to supply various homes in Scotland.

    To take advantage, as Scotland has done over many years, of being part of the United Kingdom, sharing in the United Kingdom’s economic assets and resources, and then to try to keep the benefits of North Sea oil for Scotland alone is not only immoral—irrespective of the work of the Church and Nation ​ Committee or anyone else—but unworthy of Scotland as a whole. It fits ill with the spirit which enabled Scotland to contribute so much to the United Kingdom and the whole economic and social development of this country in the past. It would be seriously damaging to Scotland’s wider economic interests.

    Mrs. Winifred Ewing

    Does the Minister not see in the slogan “It’s Britain’s oil” something terribly unacceptable to the EEC member States, who regard it as a European resource and have their greedy eyes on it? Does he see ally thunder cloud affecting his British nationalist stand on oil from the EEC’s desire to interfere with the promises which the Government gave me in this House when I asked whether the EEC would affect the rate of extraction of the oil and the right to select our price and our markets? Does he see a threat to British nationalist oil claims?

    Mr. MacKenzie

    The trouble is that the hon. Lady is confusing her roles. She is today at Westminister representing a Scottish seat and she should for a few moments forget the obvious interest that she has been showing in the European Parliament for all sorts of reasons for some time.

    The Scottish economy is closely integrated with the rest of the United Kingdom. The Fraser of Allander Institute of Strathclyde University, headed by Professor David Simpson, shows this beyond doubt in its recent input-output study. Just under half of Scotland’s manufacturing output is sold across the border to the rest of the United Kingdom, and nearly half Scotland’s consumption of manufactured goods comes from the rest of the United Kingdom. There can therefore be no question of a prosperous Scotland except in a prosperous Britain, despite what SNP candidates and Members may say.

    Scotland’s problems are essentially the same as those of the rest of Britain. They have common origins in our past industrial structure, our attitudes and our common economic history. They will be overcome only if we recognise them for what they are and work on them until they are overcome. North Sea oil gives us a real opportunity to strengthen our economy. Even with North Sea oil, that will not be easy. it is not a panacea for all our problems, but it will give us a breathing space and a better chance than we have had at any time since the war.

    It is therefore essential that we make the right choices and set out priorities so that North Sea oil gives the maximum benefit to the country. Those priorities have now been decided upon by the Government and were set out in the recent White Paper. We have made it plain that our aim is to promote the expansion of demand and activity to get the economy moving forward.

    We certainly intend to redouble our efforts through the industrial strategy to improve the competitive position of our industries by raising investment. We shall maintain and strengthen the impetus of regional policy which has already, despite what the hon. Member for Dundee, East said, made a considerable improvement in the Scottish position. We shall also invest in the future in new replacement forms of energy supply.

    Since we came to power in 1974, we have already substantially strengthened the measures available to help the people of Scotland. The Scottish Development Agency, which we established in 1975, in advance of any revenue from the North Sea, is now making a significant impact on the Scottish economic scene. SNP Members constantly ask us to add to its contribution, so I hope they approve of it.

    In my own Department, the Scottish Economic Planning Department, we have made offers of selective financial assistance of £97 million in the last few years and have paid out about £373 million of regional development grants, thereby safeguarding and creating thousands of jobs for the people of Scotland.

    The difficulties of the current economic situation, both in the international economy and in the United Kingdom, tend to make us overlook what has already been made possible, and the Government’s policies have already been influenced by the availability of North Sea oil. It would have been difficult, indeed, perhaps impossible, without it to provide the stimulus of the income tax cuts of the Budget of 1977 or the further stimulus provided last November, which was particularly helpful to the construction industry. Without it the scope for ​ measures to assist industry through the Industry Act, the SDA and the industrial strategy would have been curtailed and the special measures for job creation which now benefit about 53,000 people in Scotland would have been much reduced.

    I recall that this was acknowledged by no less a person than the right hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart), who said that the special measures had reduced unemployment in his constituency to the lowest level in his lifetime—and with no disrespect to the right hon. Gentleman, he is no chicken. Therefore, we are already benefiting from North Sea oil to an important extent.

    The effects of the measures that we have taken have been more important in Scotland than in the rest of the United Kingdom. We have heard today, as we have heard before, the proposal for an oil development fund for Scotland, but nothing specific or convincing has been said about how it would work, so I conclude that those who propose it have not thought through its implications in great detail.

    I have explained why we reject the implications of the words “for Scotland” in the motion as being narrow, selfish and unworthy, but, leaving that aside, the idea of a special fund was considered carefully and at length in our review before the White Paper was published. Quite simply, we consider that what matters is to decide the right priorities for our use of North Sea oil benefits, and for that purpose we consider a fund to be unnecessary.

    The policy decisions we need can be taken within the present framework and they must in the end be implemented through our main policy programmes. For a fund to have any effect, it would have to be devoted to the finance of additional items—to things which do not receive sufficient priority in main programmes. If so, it might end up being used in ways which many of us feel would have given poor value for money.

    Mr. James Sillars (South Ayrshire)

    When the Minister says that an oil development fund was considered, is he saying that the Government considered something which they thought selfish and greedy and is that the reason why it was rejected, or were there other reasons?

    Mr. MacKenzie

    I have just made the point that we considered the establishment of an oil fund. I am not sure what kind of oil fund my hon. Friend wanted. I think that it was rather different from that envisaged by Members of the SNP, but sometimes I doubt it.

    For a fund to have had any effect, it would have had to be devoted to the financing of additional items, which might not have been good value for money. If such items can be justified, it is simpler and more effective to adjust our programmes to take account of them. A fund which merely replaced additional programmes of expenditure would in the end satisfy no one. On balance, therefore, we have concluded that the creation of additional machinery would be artificial and the wrong approach to the country’s problems. The right way to use the benefits from the North Sea is to set our priorities as we have done.

    The hon. Member for Dundee, East was very loud and long in his criticisms, if not always acute in his understanding of the real issues at stake. Those who pretend without any justification that opportunities have been wasted, that production should have been held back or that revenues should in some way be concentrated solely on Scotland have a duty to say whether they will also oppose the expenditure measures taken by the Government which have been made possible by oil. So far they have not done so, though they have the opportunity in this debate.

    For my part, I am satisfied that the policies which the Government have set for the development of North Sea oil are working well. Scotland has benefited substantially already from the employment created from North Sea oil, and will continue to benefit, within the priorities which the Government have set for the use of the revenue and balance of payments benefits.

    At the risk of repeating myself, I must say that I still think that this is a selfish and inward-looking motion. I believe that it does not reflect the true attitude of the people of Scotland, who are concerned about the problems of their native land but every bit as concerned about the problems of Merseyside, Wales, the North-East of England and elsewhere. I must also tell the hon. Member for Dundee, East that, just as I think his motion ​ greedy and selfish, I am convinced that it does not reflect the attitude of the people of Scotland any more than his and his colleagues’ conduct in this place in recent days has done.

    Not many weeks ago, the Scottish National Party went into the Lobby to ensure that there were even further tax reductions for the well-to-do in this country. Last week, they went into the Lobby with the Tories to try to stop the whole development of devolution. Where, we often ask ourselves, was the old Celtic fervour? Where was the old Celtic radical? Where was old Uncle Donald that night? He was marching hand in hand with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor).

    We have rumbled all of this for a long time. The people of Garscadden rumbled it. The people of Hamilton rumbled it. The people rumbled it in the regional elections. We are rumbling it once again today, and I am sure that I can confidently ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to defeat the motion this evening.

  • Gordon Wilson – 1978 Speech on Scottish Oil

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Wilson, the then SNP MP for Dundee East, in the House of Commons on 22 June 1978.

    I beg to move,

    That this House condemns Her Majesty’s Government for its mismanagement of Scotland’s oil resources and its refusal to establish an Oil Development Fund for Scotland to be used for restructuring the Scottish economy, encouraging industrial growth and reducing unemployment.

    There can be no more important subject for debate for the people of Scotland than that which we have chosen today.

    The future of our country and its economy can rest on this major source of national wealth. I refer to the resources of oil and gas which lie off our coasts.

    Today’s news about the cut-back at Singer on Clydebank from 4,500 jobs to 2,000 indicates the real worry about the fabric of the Scottish economy. It is sad that there is no sign that Scotland can have those additional resources steered towards her and that the Government, although making claims about the value of having a Secretary of State for Scotland in the Cabinet, are apparently unable to do anything to save jobs in Scotland. It must ring in many ears today in that part of the country that a vote for Labour means a vote for unemployment.

    I should like to review the three areas that will be affected by oil—unemployment, the curtailment of emigration and the social distress which many indicators have shown to exist in Scotland. These are the main subjects of political and social concern in Scotland. Every political party has been offering solutions for those problems. In this debate we are discussing, in particular, the mismanagement of our oil resources and the lack of an oil fund to help our industrial structure.

    Labour Members will have grave difficulty in making excuses. They can ​ blame some of the faults on the Conservative Party which failed in its duty by leaving behind a policy vacuum when it left office in February 1974. It can be compared with the early English king Ethelred the Unready.

    In almost every sector of the oil industry which the Government have tackled, they have bungled the approach or climbed down on their main intentions. The consequences for Scotland have been damaging, are damaging and will continue to be damaging for years to come. For example, the platform industry was one of the main areas of interest when the Government came to power in 1974. They set out to exploit the oil well quickly. One of the earliest Bills that we had in this Parliament was the Offshore Petroleum Development (Scotland) Bill 1974. The then Minister of State, now Secretary of State for Scotland, said during the Second Reading of that Bill:

    “to ensure that these vast resources can be used to the best effect they must be exploited quickly.”

    Later he said:

    “It is very much bound up with the question of getting oil out as quickly as possible because the work involved will be an important source of jobs and prosperity for the people of Scotland.”—[Official Report, 19th November 1974; Vol. 881, c. 1108–9.]

    Right from the outset, the Minister indicated that it was the Government’s intention to get the oil out quickly—that was their main criterion—and to produce employment. The oil is now coming out and the balance of payments has been strengthened, although a recent Barclays Bank report pointed out that the advantages of that strengthening will be eroded through import suction, so the alleged long-term benefits may not exist for too long.

    It is in connection with jobs that the Government’s strategy was entirely wrong. The intention was that oil companies should be given a choice of platform yards producing steel and concrete platforms, and there was a wholesale rush to provide those yards. Warnings were given during debates on the 1974 Bill that there would be too many yards and too much dislocation. Today we find that of the yards that were provided, Nigg and Ardersier have been continuously open, Methil closed and reopened, though only with an order which had to be partly shared with another EEC country, Ardyne is ​ empty, Kishorn has recently been empty and Portavedie and Hunterston were never used. As a result, we have wasted more than £25 million of public money which could have been used for alternative industrial development.

    We had hoped—I think that I speak for everyone—that the oil industry would provide one of the greatest injections of life into our engineering industry, but since the Government came to power, we have lost 10,000 engineering jobs in Scotland while there has been an increase of 3,000 such jobs in the United Kingdom as a whole. The engineering sector in Scotland is critical. It is the greatest repository of our skills and has been the backbone of our industry for many years. As other countries have shown, it should have been expanded, even in these difficult days of recession.

    We had hoped that the arrival of the oil industry, giving, as it did, a large and protected home market, would have provided a stimulus for production and development which would have given the engineering industry the opportunity not only to secure a strong base in the oil industry but to become much more sophisticated in other industrial applications.

    The Labour Party’s statement “Oil for Everyone” which was issued before the General Election in October 1974, said:

    “The Labour Government’s plans for North Sea Oil will benefit everyone by creating many more jobs in Scotland. By creating new industry. By creating, through Labour’s new economic strategy, a booming Scottish economy.”

    I am waiting for the “Hear, hear” from the Government Front Bench. Do they think that there is a booming Scottish economy when we have 170,000 people unemployed, compared with the figure of 91,000 when they came to office? If that is their example of a booming Scottish economy, heaven forbid that we should have any more of it.

    It is time that we had a major change. We had a promise from the Labour Party in the election campaign about what it would do, but on the two main sectors, which would have helped many of the people in West Central Scotland who voted Labour, we find that the engineering industry has not got access to the contracts that have come from oil and that it has not been able to maintain its position. ​ The pre-election message of the Labour Party must sound sick to many folk in Scotland and today’s news from Singer will reinforce that.

    A number of jobs have been created. Some could hardly avoid being created, but it is a peak of 60,000 jobs, and once the underwater or land pipelines from the offshore platform have been laid to the market, no more will be laid unless more fields are found. There is a limit, and many of the jobs are only short term. They will disappear. Many have already disappeared and some have been caught up in other developments. The creation of 60,000 jobs is a disappointing achievement in view of the hopes that were held out.

    We must lay emphasis on the fact that we had a strong home market which existed because oil resources were being developed off the coast of Scotland. Bearing this point in mind, I suggested during our debates on the oil taxation Bill that fiscal incentives should be built in to encourage oil companies to buy Scottish. I believe that if the Government had, from the outset, introduced into the licences a “Buy Scottish” provision and it had been known in advance to the licensees that a certain proportion—we suggest 50 per cent.—of the products should be purchased on our home market, many more jobs would have been created in Scotland.

    Throughout the world where oil has been developed, these protections are provided. For example, there is a prohibition in the United States, under the Jones Act, on the use of supply boats which do not fly the American flag. If the mighty American Government which controls the mighty American economy found it necessary to take those steps, surely the British Government could have done at least that for the people of Scotland.

    We have not had the employment and economic multiplier taking effect. We were told that the benefits of the oil industry would penetrate other industries remote from oil and provide more work throughout the country, but if we look at the distribution of employment, although we are happy that many areas, such as the Grampians and the Highlands, have done very well, we find that many areas in Scotland with industrial resources ​ and strengths have benefited hardly at all from the oil industry. In July 1977, the numbers of inshore jobs fully related to oil were nearly 13,000 in the Grampian area, nearly 7,000 in the Highlands, 1,750 on Tayside, 1,600 in Fife, Central and the Lothians together, 845 in the islands and a mere 1,460 in mighty Strathclyde. For most of Scotland, the impact of the oil industry has been a damp squib.

    It may be that Scotland’s industrialists are to be blamed for slowness. It may be that there is an element of fairness in that criticism. The speed of the Government’s intention to exploit the oil did not give our industry much time to catch up. It is interesting that the report of the International Management and Engineering Group on industrial opportunities for the United Kingdom stated:

    “British industry has to break into an area of activity in which foreign investment, mainly American, has established an entrenched position in offshore work, and is daily strengthening that position by the accumulation of experience in solving the still more difficulty problems of the North Sea.”

    There should have been some form of Government back-up to ensure that more work went to Scottish firms. No doubt the Government will say that they established the Offshore Supplies Office. However, the Office had to accept, first the political mandate that it was there to help the early production of oil, to get the oil out as quickly as possible, and, secondly, to provide contracts and jobs. One of the problems is that the OSO is just as likely to provide jobs and contracts for those south of the border as for those in Scotland. It was located in Glasgow, but from the outset many of the important officials—the audit engineers, for example—were located in London. It is only lately that they have been transferred to Glasgow.

    The OSO will not publish the percentage of the work that goes to Scottish firms although it publishes that information for United Kingdom firms. There are regular outputs of information for United Kingdom firms, but it cannot or will not produce similar information for Scotland. It will not produce figures to tell us what business and employment was generated from oil in Scotland and how it assisted in that activity. I accept that the OSO tries to do its best, but I suspect that Scotland has had only a ​ small proportion of the work, bearing in mind that the oil is located off our coast.

    The Minister of State, Department of Energy (Dr. J. Dickson Motion)

    Rubbish.

    Mr. Wilson

    If there is any doubt, let the Government produce the figures. If they can produce the figures, we shall listen to them. The right hon. Gentleman, who is so sensitive on the subject and who shouts from the Government Front Bench, knows full well that he cannot produce the figures. If he did, they would be so shameful and shocking that the Department would be embarrassed.

    Mr. Douglas Henderson (Aberdeenshire, East)

    Get up and give us some figures.

    Mr. Wilson

    If the Government cannot produce the figures, I draw an answer from that. There has been little work going to Scotland during one of the blackest depressions that we have had for years. However, we live in a world in which offshore development is regarded as an extension of national shipping and shipbuilding.

    There are various forms of protection. I suggest that the Jones Act is one example. Many of our merchant seamen would have found it desirable to benefit from a similar measure. It would have meant more jobs for them at home.
    In future licensing rounds it should be made clear to the oil companies in advance that they will be asked to indicate, in the event of their being successful in the allocations of licences and the finding of oil what industrial application or investment they propose to steer towards Scotland. The licences are discretionary and should be used to bring in as much work as possible. I cannot understand why the Government have been so relaxed and liberal in their attitude. They have allowed employment and economic development to disappear.

    I shall make a few comments about taxation and participation. It is difficult to cover the whole range of the development of the oil industry and the use of the oil funds even in an opening speech. Comment should be made about taxation. It is unsatisfactory—this can be seen from the falling estimates of income that ​ the Government will be receiving from the revenues—that the oil companies are seen to be using the loopholes that exist in present legislation. The Government should do something about that. Time is short.

    Labour Members who did not study these matters when we were considering oil taxation will be surprised to learn that the Government halted in their tracks in the middle of the Bill. They set out with great statements about what they intended to do. They said that they would take on the mighty oil companies, but midway through the proceedings in Committee they changed the taxation structure. They took the Bill backside foremost. They had not developed a tax system that would work.

    There is a significant article in the Petroleum Times of 7th March 1975. The article appeared some time ago but it remains relevant as we are still labouring under an unsatisfactory taxation regime. The heading is:

    “The UK Government’s give-away tax.”

    It reads:

    “The battle of the UK rate of petroleum revenue tax is now over, and the oil companies operating in the North Sea can chalk up another victory over a European Government.”

    Later in the article there is reference to dilution. It said:

    “Although the computers have yet to digest the new programmes, it is already clear that the manifesto policies have been diluted almost to the point where no flavour is left.”

    That was the analysis in one of the petroleum journals. It is an objective analysis of the weaknesses of the Government’s tax structure.

    Participation has been summed up by the Government’s words “No gain, no loss”. There has been no gain to the country and no loss to the oil companies. That does not rank very well with the claims made in the October 1974 General Election that a Labour Government would negotiate for participation and take participation. The whole process was a waste of time, and the Government well know it. They had to fulfil the letter of their manifesto promise even if they have been unable to implement it in reality.

    Participation and taxation were two of the main areas of concern to the Government when they took office. They ​ have bungled them. They have bungled the taxation set-up. They could have gone for a higher petroleum revenue tax. They had the opportunity and they decided not to take it. They procrastinated on participation. We have not had anything on that score.

    Depletion policy is extremely important. I can give some credit to the Secretary of State for Energy, who in a speech to the Southwark College of Further Education—he is a hard-working man to cover it—on 1st February 1977 said—

    Mr. Henderson

    Where is he?

    Mr. Wilson

    “The other important question is how fast the Government should authorise the lifting of the oil. If we take it up too rapidly, we may be in danger of having a national surplus of oil in the 1980s only to move into shortage during a period of world scarcity, with all the financial implications of that misjudgment. Very prudent and careful assessment will be needed to weigh our immediate interests against our long-term needs.”

    It is indicative that the Secretary of State for Energy realises, along with other specialists, that oil prices are likely to rise dramatically in the early 1990s, if not before. At that stage oil imports will cost a tremendous amount. However, instead of eking out the oil over a longer period the British Government are making the strategic blunder of trying now to produce as much oil as they can, when there is a glut and the price has stabilised. Yet in the 1990s, as the Government well know, the United Kingdom will be importing up to 50 per cent. of its oil requirement at extremely expensive prices.

    It is only a pity that the Secretary of State for Energy does not have the same fighting ability that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has displayed in the Common Market when dealing with fisheries. If the Secretary of State were prepared to do more about oil and to fight inside the Mafia of the Cabinet, something more might be done.

    Mr. Harry Gourlay (Kirkcaldy)

    Will the hon. Gentleman make up his mind, or make up the SNP’s mind, what is to be his or its policy on depletion? Earlier he was arguing that very few jobs have come to Scotland from the oil industry, but he is now arguing that we should slow down the rate of depletion, which would add to unemployment in Scotland.

    ​Mr. Wilson

    My party’s policy has always been clear. I have had some say in its evolution. Its policy, basically, is that we take out of the sea as much oil as we require for home and export consumption. That is the principal strategy.

    Perhaps I may put it another way for those who are unaware of the Scottish situation in terms of oil production. We consume about 10 million tonnes of oil per year. If we produce 90 million tonnes of oil, as the Government intend, to quote one of their lower targets, that will be the equivalent for the United Kingdom of about 900 million tonnes of oil per year pro rata. If Britain consumes 100 million tonnes and a population multiplier of nine is applied, obviously that is the scale of the uplifting that the Government are taking per head of population.

    The second point that I want to make in response to the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Gourlay) is that, if we increase the Scottish content of the orders which come in, we shall get many more jobs. On the one hand, we save the oil for future generations. We have agreed to accept higher production figures than we would have wished. We have developed our approach in considerable detail on the subject. If anyone is interested, I can provide some detailed comments that I have made. The important thing is that, by increasing the Scottish content by the methods which I have suggested, we should have much more employment and activity to help Dundee, for instance, West Central Scotland and other parts of the country. That would be more sensible than to stampede into unnecessary oil production and lost job opportunities.

    Dr. Mabon

    If 10 million tonnes is the Scottish net self-sufficiency figure and we have produced 38 million tonnes in one year, is the SNP’s depletion policy that we should not open up any more new fields?

    Mr. Wilson

    No, it is not. It should be taken gradually over a period. We should allow the anticipated rate of production to fall slowly within the parameters which exist for that. There are technical matters concerned with that aspect. I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman came in on that matter. If he had been able to help me with the figures ​ from the Offshore Supplies Office with regard to the Scottish content, it would have helped considerably. If he has that information, we should be pleased to hear it.

    Dr. Jeremy Bray (Motherwell and Wishaw)

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

    Mr. Wilson

    I will allow one more intervention. Time is short.

    Dr. Bray

    If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that it is a matter of continuing with existing contracts, presumably employment in opening up new fields would dry up overnight.

    Mr. Wilson

    No, it does not mean that.

    Mr. Henderson

    That is the British Steel Corporation’s policy.

    Mr. Wilson

    My hon. Friend makes the point about British Steel. If we adopt a gradual process of running down production so that we have a lower depletion take-up rate, we shall have more oil available for future generations. That is very important. There are those of us in this House who have some thought for our children and grandchildren. We are not prepared to blue it all in one great extravagant blow-up of the kind that the British Government have in mind.

    I turn now to petrochemicals. There must be a lot of worry that too little has been done in this connection. We have not had much of the great petrochemical boom which was supposed to build up employment in Scotland. Apart from Grangemouth, most of Scotland’s oil is due to be exported. There has been silence about Cromarty Petroleum. We are waiting to hear a little more about that. Scanitro has gone by the wayside. Many of the petroleum gases are due to be exported without being developed, refined and processed here. We are still awaiting final news from the Government about Mossmorran and the associated cracker.

    We need the jobs in chemicals. Only 1·6 per cent. of jobs in Scotland come from chemicals compared with 2·2 per cent. in England and 2·3 per cent. in Wales. Therefore, there is room for improvement there.

    I find that each company seems to find excuses for exporting to England or further afield and not building up its opportunities and investment in Scotland. The Government have gone out of their way to help, because their refining policy has been relaxed to help the companies to export crude oil instead of refining more, even inside the United Kingdom.

    The plastics industry will grow, according to surveys which I have seen. It is significant—again, we come back to the Common Market—that some of the major European chemical companies have not established branches in Scotland or even in the United Kingdom. We have not had much benefit from that industry. Yet, it is reckoned that about 10 million tonnes of additional plastics capacity will be produced in Western Europe in the next decade. There are opportunities there.

    We are still waiting to hear what is to happen to the gas gathering pipeline. That caused a lot of publicity two or three years ago, but it has disappeared.

    I ask the Government to consider encouraging oil companies to become involved in joint projects to ensure that singly they do not find excuses for failing to build up their investment in Scotland.

    I come now to the last aspect of my speech. I refer to the oil revenues and the oil development fund. The way in which the oil revenues are being dealt with must count as one of the greatest swindles and frauds on the Scottish people for a long time.

    At the last election, all the parties had their own delicate ways of expressing that the Scottish people would get the maximum benefit. That was the inference that they put before the people of Scotland.

    The Conservative Party proposed that there should be a development fund, interestingly enough, to be controlled by the Secretary of State for Scotland—that was reported in an article in the Scotsman in 1975—but guided by the Scottish Assembly. I am not sure whether, as the Tories reneged on their promise of an Assembly, they have now reneged on the development fund about which they made great play in the election.

    The Liberal Party said that Scotland would get half the revenues. That was very generous. I am sure that most ​ English Liberal Members did not appreciate what their Scottish colleagues were doing on their behalf. However, it did not figure in the Lib-Lab pact. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) did not use his influence with his right hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) to persuade him that one of the crunch issues of the Lib-Lab pact should be that the Scottish Assembly had access to the oil revenue—not even the half that the Liberals generously had in mind.

    The Labour Party has procrastinated on the issue and implied that Scotland would get its share. There is a lot of hypocrisy coming from the Labour Party. It used to say that the SNP’s attitude to oil was immoral—that the Scots were greedy. But on 2nd June 1978, that worthy publication Labour Weekly carried the headline:

    “EEC has eyes on our oil.”

    Obviously, “our oil” is very much a form of British nationalism.

    On 16th June 1978, Tribune, that champion of international workers’ solidarity and the flail of “narrow nation-ism”, carried the headline:

    “How the EEC seeks ‘legal’ ways to grab our oil.”

    For those who are interested in following it through, no doubt free copies will be made available by the Government as they must have difficulty in selling them.

    The oil revenues must be the source of the deepest disappointment. We have had “The Challenge of North Sea Oil”. I do not know how the Government managed to come up with that title. I should think that the new PR expert to advise the Prime Minister would have difficulty in fighting any challenge at all in that document which stated that the oil revenues would go into the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s—

    Mr. Henderson

    Piggy bank.

    Mr. Wilson

    Piggy bank. That document states that the oil revenues would be steered towards industrial development in Scotland and in other under-developed regions.

    On 30th January 1975, again during the course of proceedings on the Oil Taxalion Bill, I had a letter from the then ​ Minister of State, Treasury. After turning down proposals which I had made to increase the amount of work coming to Scotland from oil development, it stated:

    “As an Assisted Area Scotland benefits from measures financed by the Exchequer from general taxation. As you will appreciate our capacity to continue with these and other measures such as the Regional Employment Premium (which we retained) will be enhanced by the revenue which will in due course accrue to the Exchequer from North Sea oil. Scotland should thus benefit from our general regional development policy: we hope it will also draw advantage from the more specific measures we have introduced or promoted.”

    Three years have passed, and with them the regional policy and the regional employment premium, the abolition of which, it was indicated by the Scottish Council, would cause the loss of some 20,000 jobs in Scotland. The Government are responsible for taking away REP after saying through the Treasury that this would be one of the benefits that Scotland would get from the oil resources. If anyone believes that, he will believe anything. It shows that the Government say one thing and change their minds after a year or two as soon as they think they can get away with it. I remember the exchange that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) had in connection with the Chrysler car project which had been proposed for 1979. I notice that the Secretary of State for Industry is just about to scurry to Chrysler to explain the position.

    We were accused by hon. Members of being greedy. I remember the abuse that I took. They have to realise, however, that the oil revenues constitute one of the main possibilities for Scotland to develop its economic structure. There is an interesting aspect to the argument about need and morality. The Church of Scotland in its Church and Nation Committee Report in May this year said that Scotland has a “moral claim” to special treatment. When a Church says that Scotland has a moral claim to the oil revenues, that explodes once and for all the insinuations and nasty allegations that have been made over the years.

    We are asserting tonight Scotland’s moral and legal claim to the oil revenues, or a fair share of them. We have to repair our social and economic base. In October 1974 an STUC leaflet declared that Scotland would get the major part of the ​ revenues devoted to industry. It said that these could be used to help restructure the economy of Scotland and the development areas.

    We need development resources to put into our engineering chemicals, plastics, service, food processing and timber production and processing industries, and for investment in energy, in better transport infrastructure, in housing, and, above all, in the development of our human resources. These are the things that we can do with the assistance and help of the oil resources. We have to have them and we have to get our economy moving. We must bring down unemployment. No answer from the Government can provide any solution.

    This House can take positive action tonight to make amends for its ruthless and unscrupulous rape of Scottish resources. It can rightly condemn the mismanagement of Scottish oil, and it can agree the need for a Scottish oil development fund to give the resources necessary to rebuild our nation.

  • Dafydd Wigley – 1978 Speech on the Welsh Economy

    Below is the text of the speech made by Dafydd Wigley, the then Plaid Cymru MP for Caernarfon, in the House of Commons on 22 June 1978.

    I am glad of the opportunity to raise a subject which has been a theme in previous debates on Welsh Days, in Welsh Grand Committees and, indeed, in debates on the economy in general over the past four years and longer. In opening the debate, my mind goes back to the very first week after the March 1974 General Election. On that occasion I remember that there was an opportunity to debate the economic problems facing Wales. The fact which at that time stared everyone in the face was the failure of successive Governments to bring forward a pattern of balanced economic development in Wales.

    I remember speakers who had just joined the Government Benches understandably criticising the previous Conservative Administration for its failures in this direction, as well as the tragic economic developments of the last few weeks of 1973 and the first two months of 1974. At that time, hon. Members of all parties were looking forward to a way of working ourselves out of the economic mess into which we had got ourselves. In doing so, we wanted to ensure that it was not just a search for a boom which would bring benefits to the South-East of England and the Midlands. We also wanted a pattern which would ensure that Wales did not retain the same sort of economic blackspots that it had suffered in the 1920s and 1930s and, to a lesser extent, since the war. Examples of that pattern also, no doubt, existed in other parts of the United Kingdom. There were areas which had suffered because of the changing economic patterns over the last century, the rundown of major industries and the failure to ensure that in their place were developed balanced economic opportunities.

    I initiate this debate not because the economy is an end in itself but because, unless we get the economic circumstances in Wales right, there is no prospect of ensuring the survival of our communities. The possible loss of communities—as we ​ have seen happen in the Heads of the Valleys in Glamorgan and Gwent and the old slate quarrying villages of Gwynedd—means that we also lose our culture, language and everything else which is dear to us. Therefore, the objective of obtaining balanced economic development in Wales is one which is a service to the community as a whole and not an end in itself. But unless we get that balance in development, we shall continue to see declining villages, schools being closed, young people leaving, an ageing population, an increase in the pressure on the social services which that leads to, and the decaying of the whole fabric of a community.

    I am sure that hon. Members of all parties will accept as an objective the need to ensure that there is as reasonable an opportunity as possible for the maximum number of people to have adequate job opportunities, and a future within their own community. Since 1925, Wales has seen the collapse of the coal industry as the major employer. At that time, 225,000 people were employed in the Welsh coal industry. That figure is now about 35,000. In one generation that represents an astronomical decline.

    A decline of similar proportions is now taking place in the steel industry. which is another major industry in Wales. As steel plants close, so again—as in the history of the coal industry—whole communities can be written off. We know the fear that has been experienced in places such as Ebbw Vale and Shotton because the people know that when these industries end there is a very great doubt about the ongoing viability of their communities.

    It is not only in terms of manufacturing industry that we see these problems facing us. We see them also in the agricultural sector and the rundown that there has been in agricultural employment. As a species, the farm labourer has almost gone out of existence. The figures are minuscule compared with what they were only just after the war. With this, we have also seen the amalgamation of farms into large units and the purchase of farms by institutional investors and people from outside Wales, and even from outside Britain, which have themselves led to difficulties facing young people going into agriculture, leading to a position which has aggravated rural depopulation.

    The industries which have grown in the wake of the decline of the old industries have been scattered and sporadic and they have not in themselves brought a full answer to our problems. Since the war we have seen successive Governments trying, by various policies—development areas, special areas and the rest of it—to induce growth from outside and to transfuse industrial activity from sectors outside Wales. In some areas this has succeeded to some extent, but I do not think that anyone will deny that it has been patchy.

    We have seen some firms move into Wales and succeed. Perhaps I should declare my own past interest, having worked at one time for Hoover, at Merthyr Tydfil. When I was there, the company employed about 5,000 people. Now, in an expansion plan, it is hoped to increase that to 7,500. That is one of the instances of a major modern manufacturing concern coming into Wales and succeeding. But many of the branch factories which have come into Wales have come merely in order to get the grants available to them and, sadly, we all know of examples of those which, after a few years, have packed up and left.

    A characteristic of those which have succeeded and stayed—I include amongst them even the largest, the Hoovers of this world—is that, being branch factories and manufacturing plants, they cannot give a balance of employment opportunities. They have not succeeded in ensuring that jobs are available for management staff, office staff and technical staff at the Welsh level. Very often these jobs are at head office level and outside Wales, so that the job opportunities in many of the Welsh plants have been stilted and geared towards factory floor employment and very often without as great a proportion of the technical and commercial opportunities that would arise in the company as a whole throughout the United Kingdom.

    Where we have succeeded in getting development, we have not always had the right development. But, sadly, there are many more areas which have not had any development. I think of my own constituency and the failure that there has been to fill the empty advance factories standing there. We accept that advance factories are useful in themselves. They make it easier to attract developments when the economy is improving. But advance factories standing empty for a long period can become a depressant upon a community. People start to think—especially people from outside—”Why is it that these factories are standing empty with no one coming in?” So far, we have failed to get a structure of policy which has led to the filling of these factories as well as the construction of them.

    There are reasons for this, and we have laboured those reasons in the past, but it is right to underline them again. The development of the infrastructure is fundamental. The M4 in Glamorgan has been developed, and we have seen in the case of the Ford project at Bridgend how the infrastructure in terms of road and rail communications can play a vital part in locating a major plant. Unfortunately, in many other parts of Wales—this is true of the counties of Gwynedd, Clwyd and in Mid-Wales—we have not had this type of modern road network which is so essential for manufacturing industry. I know of companies which have thought of setting up in my own constituency but which have felt that the communications have not been adequate.

    It is not only road communications which are important, and at a time when we have 90,000 people out of work one would have thought that there was a good case for pressing ahead even faster with the development of road communications —I think of the A55 and the A5 in North Wales. Increasingly important is air communications. Only this week, I had a letter from an electronics company in America interested in the possibility of developing in Gwynedd, having links with the University College of Bangor which had led the company to consider Gwynedd as a location. But one of the prime considerations was the availability of air connections with Gwynedd.

    As we know, although there has been a welcome development of an air link from Hawarden down to Cardiff airport in the last few months, with connections through to international flights from Brussels, there has not been any development of air links through to the more westerly parts of Wales. We would do well to look at locations such as Valley, in Anglesey, Llandwrog, in my own constituency, Llanbedr in Merioneth, down in Pembroke and in Swansea, as possibilities for an integrated air service which ​ could link through to Cardiff and to Brussels for international flights. That is an important consideration in the development of industry.

    The other sector of industry that we have seen developing at a very fast rate in the past two decades in my part of Wales, in Gwynedd and in Dyfed, has been the tourist industry. However, that industry is perhaps an example which underlines the imbalance in our economy and the need for engendering balanced economic development. For climatic reasons, unfortunately, the season in Wales is relatively short—two or three months. We have a period between the middle or end of May and the first week in September when all the tourist sector has to make the money which will keep it going for the rest of the year. We have an economy working at 200 per cent. capacity for a few weeks in the summer and at 10 per cent. capacity for the rest of the year. This is a classic definition of a state of dis-economy. We have an industry, with all the investment that it entails, working for a short period in excess of its capacity but for most of the time way down below capacity.

    In the tourist industry itself we have seen some developments at the least beneficial end of the industry which have soaked up and saturated the tourist market in Wales and yet have not brought as great a return as one would have hoped. The hope always is to see the maximisation of the type of tourism which brings the most revenue that will stay in Wales. Perhaps the day trippers are the sector which brings in least in this way. We have heard of the people who fill their car with petrol and bring their sandwiches with them leave their litter and drive home having spent virtually nothing.

    In looking at the development of tourism as one of the inputs into the economy, we must consider not only the extension of the season but the balance between various parts of the tourist sector, not least the international sector. Tied in with all this, looking especially at the replacement of jobs and the need for manufacturing industry, we must face the reality that there are many fewer footloose supranational companies now than there were 10 years ago. The pattern has changed. I cannot help feeling that we ​ must look in the future to the possibility of putting more emphasis on encouraging young people who have the talent and who have the ideas to develop those ideas themselves in their localities. This means not only having the right incentives and the right assistance available to them through the agencies that we have, but also engendering the right approach, especially in our education sector.

    We want to make sure that we do not develop the brightest of our people to a state where they leave college or university, perhaps at the age of 21, feeling that they must go into a secure job and to be reluctant to take a risk. These are the people who can be planting the acorns which will grow into the big trees of employment in the future.

    That has not happened sufficiently in Wales in the past, for a number of reasons. One is security of employment, which is totally understandable, given the Welsh background. Another is the experience that these people have in their own areas, and of course we have not had the background and experience in industry in the way that we might have had in an area such as Birmingham. We need a new emphasis in this direction to give young people the motivation to go out and start enterprises for themselves. If they succeed, the companies which they found will grow, will develop job opportunities, and will, optimistically, persist in the future and not be the type which close down at the first ill wind of economic recession.

    Finally, I draw attention to the role of the various agencies in this question of getting a balanced economic growth in Wales—particularly the Welsh Development Agency and the Development Board for Rural Wales. These two bodies were set up with the very ambitious objectives of cracking the problems that we face. To some extent they have made a good start. In the more limited time that it has been in existence the rural board has achieved more than the WDA.

    We are worried that the Welsh Development Agency and the rural board are to some extent working in a vacuum. I do not apologise for underlining once again that unless these agencies have guidelines in terms of quantifiable objectives and a strategy for reaching those objectives, geographically and sectorally ​determined, we will not get the maximum benefits that we could out of these agencies. In a nutshell, we need an economic plan for Wales.

    More and more bodies have been pressing for this. The Council of the Principality, the report on “Overseas Investment in Wales”, and a number of influential individuals have also pressed for such a plan. Some of these individuals have not previously accepted the case for the plan, but in the last six months they have admitted that the case for it is now unanswerable.

    Unless we do get this movement, we shall continue to have the imbalance of the past. In the dying days of this Parliament—perhaps this is the last debate we shall have on economic development in Wales—I hope that we shall see the end of argument against a background of rejecting this type of economic approach. I hope that in the new winds of a new Parliament at least we shall have an opportunity of moving forward with a new approach.

    Mr. D. E. Thomas (Merioneth)

    Before my hon. Friend leaves this salient point will he comment on the fact that county councils in Wales now undertake far more economic planning and long-term projections of job needs than the Welsh Office? Does he agree that in the structure plans of each county there are projections based on population and current job opportunities, and projections for job shortfall? There are no national projections. Will my hon. Friend urge the Minister to tell us, when he replies to the debate, whether it is now the intention of the Welsh Office to use the data in the structure plans to produce at least a job shortfall calculation for Wales as a whole?

    Mr. Wigley

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing in that point. Although we have seen development plans for every part of Wales, with quantified figures—some more questionable than others—of the number of jobs needed in each area, it strikes us devastatingly that one cannot have county development plans in isolation. For example, take the comparison between Gwynedd and Clwyd. It is true that there is an interface between these two counties. The same thing must he true of the interface between ​ Mid-Glamorgan, South Glamorgan and perhaps even West Glamorgan. The roads cross the county borders and there is a mutual travel-to-work area. To take these countries in isolation is not good enough. They are woven together. Therefore there must be an overall package—an all-Wales development plan.

    I can see the Secretary of State smiling and I have no doubt that he is thinking that an all-Wales development plan has interfaces outside Wales as a whole. Of course it does. In the present context of United Kingdom economic development, and within the economic development of the EEC, we must consider how to divert more towards the infrastructure in Wales.

    Unless we have it right at the Welsh level we shall lose the opportunities of the agencies that have been set up in Wales. Therefore, if it is not already in the manifesto of the Labour Party for the next election, I suggest that the Government should consider writing in an economic plan for Wales now. This could be one of the best bits of good news that we have had for a long time for overcoming the problem of unbalanced development in the economy of Wales.

  • Michael Brotherton – 1978 Speech on the Humber Bridge

    Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Brotherton, the then Conservative MP for Louth, in the House of Commons on 21 June 1978.

    I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise the subject of road communications on the south bank of the Humber. First, I would like the House to consider the geography of the Humber, north and south. There are two main ports on the Humber—Immingham, on the south bank, and Hull, on the north bank. Grimsby, a secondary port, is on the south bank. Grimsby and Immingham are, in fact, the same port: they are jointly called the port of Grimsby and Immingham by the British Transport Docks Board. On the south bank we have very poor road communications. Recently there has been completed the M62, which runs from Hull across the country to Liverpool. It runs the whole way across the nation. On the south bank, however, we have nothing like that.

    We are building at the moment the Humber Bridge, which is to connect the two banks. There are those who say that the bridge is being built because there was a by-election in Hull in January 1966 and the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), then Minister of Transport, went to Hull and said that the Socialist Government would build a bridge across the Humber. That bridge is in the process of being constructed, and we all know now that, although it started at an estimated cost of £19 million, the cost will eventually end up at about £90 million. There is no way of preventing that bridge from being completed. It is a white elephant; it is unnecessary, and it goes from nowhere to nowhere. When it comes to the south bank of the Humber, there is no real road communication that is of any use at all.

    Why do we need good roads on the south bank? The ports of Immingham and Grimsby together are the brightest jewel in the crown of the British Transport Docks Board. They make an enormous profit. Hull makes a loss while Grimsby and Immingham make a huge profit. At Immingham, which is in my constituency, we have ICI, Fisons and the ​ port, and millions of tons of goods go over the quay there every year. Immingham is the sixth largest port in the United Kingdom. Yet we have no roads. Grimsby is a great fishing port, but the Department of Transport has said recently that it is not to be regarded as a port at all.

    The M180 is the road that is to go from the Humber Bridge across to Immingham and Grimsby. We are told that it will stop just short of Grimsby because Grimsby is no longer to be regarded as a major port. The road is to end at Pywipe. Pywipe is a field just outside Grimsby in my constituency. This dual carriageway is to end in a ploughed field, and we are told that this is because the Department of Transport no longer regards Grimsby as a major port.

    It is not for me to make the case for Grimsby, because Grimsby is not in my constituency. Grimsby, however, is the major fishing port of the Humber. In Grimsby there are such factories as Findus, La Porte and Ross. There are other major food processors. Many of my constituents in Cleethorpes work in Grimsby. If one were to drive along the A18 on any night when the fishing vessels have come into Grimsby, one would know that many dozens of lorries go along that route. A tremendous traffic block is built up night after night because Grimsby, regardless of what the Ministry may say, is a port. Regardless of what the Ministry may say, Grimsby is a major fishing port which generates a tremendous amount of traffic.

    My constituents in Cleethorpes, Humberston and the surrounding towns go to Grimsby to work or to fish. They may go to work in the factories that I have mentioned. As a result of all the jobs in which those people are engaged, traffic is generated and enormous numbers of lorries have to go along these roads. We are now told by the Ministry that nothing will be done: first, that nothing will be done until the 1980s and, secondly, that the road will stop at Pywipe.

    Can the Minister really say that he regards Grimsby not to be a port? Can he really say that he does not regard the people in my constituency as working in a port? Can he really say that the traffic going from Grimsby towards the ​ Humber Bridge, or the traffic going towards the Al and Ml, is not important? Can he really say that he does not believe that this road is important?

    I have said that we have the M62 on the north bank of the Humber. What is required on the south bank, as all those who work on the south bank know, is a decent east-west road communications system. The Humber Bridge is of little use to my constituents or to all those who work on the south bank. What is required is something which will tie in with the Al and MI north-south major trunk roads of the United Kingdom. We need roads which will tie in with the M62 so that we can get across the country to Liverpool.

    At the moment, we have absolutely nothing at all. The M180 is being built and the Brigg bypass has been completed. Obviously, those who live in that area thank the Minister and the Department for what has been done, but the fact remains that the south bank is being betrayed in that we do not have a sufficient communications system which tics in with the north-south trunk routes of the nation. We are being totally ignored by the Department. We are being ignored to the extent that even the planning of the road will stop at Pywipe and will not even continue into Grimsby.

    Those who live on the south bank of the Humber regard with great cynicism the granting of development area status to the south bank of the Humber just before the Grimsby by-election of about a year ago. Just over a year ago, the south bank of the Humber was given development area status, but since then nothing has been done to improve our communications or to give us a decent road system. Nothing has been done to help the people of Grimsby and Immingham to communicate with the rest of the country. People are in despair. What will the Minister do to help us?