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Tag: Speeches

  • Luke Pollard – 2020 Speech on Flooding

    Below is the text of the speech made by Luke Pollard, the Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, in the House of Commons on 24 February 2020.

    I would like to thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and welcome him to his role. I have a lot of time for my fellow west country MP. I regard him as decent and competent, and I look forward to working with him. To be fair, this is a much better statement than the one the Government made only a few weeks ago about Storm Ciara, but not enough is being done. Simply explaining what has happened does not stop it happening again.​

    On behalf of the Opposition, I want to send my condolences to the families who have seen loved ones die as a result of Storms Ciara and Dennis. I would also like to thank the emergency services, the Environment Agency, local councils, volunteers and those who have worked tirelessly to protect homes and businesses, rescue people and animals from rising waters and fallen trees and reinforce flood defences.

    It is because I have so much time for the Secretary of State that I am disappointed by the slow and pedestrian approach we have seen from Ministers since the flooding hit. Where was the Prime Minister? Where was he? Why was a Cobra meeting not convened? Why was there no national leadership from this Government? Why have the Welsh Government and communities in Wales not received the same extra support as those in England?

    During the general election, the Prime Minister reluctantly visited flood-hit communities to win votes—he was out with his mop, pushing water around shops. But now that he has his majority, he is nowhere to be seen; he is missing in action. He was taking a break in a mansion in Kent instead of giving our nation the leadership that those communities under water genuinely deserve.

    We know that the climate crisis means that we will see more extreme weather more often, and the consequences will be felt most by the communities that are most vulnerable. Since Parliament has declared a climate emergency, it is clear that the Government need to do things differently, but they are not yet, and I say to the Environment Secretary that that needs to change. I want the Government to wake up to the reality that more extreme weather will happen more often. It is not a one-off incident—these are not freak accidents. This is the world in which we live, and we need to have a proper plan for flooding that will address the causes and help the communities that are under water.

    That plan needs to match the scale of the crisis, with proper funding, reversing austerity cuts and ensuring that funding is available to those areas that suffer the most—a new plan not bound by match funding rules that discriminate against poorer areas compared with more affluent ones. It must look at catchment management; upstream solutions, to ensure that we hold more water upstream; tree planting and hitting tree planting targets; a new role for our farmers and water companies; and banning burning on peatlands. It must resource our emergency services fairly, and importantly, the councils that carry the highest flood risk should be adequately recognised in the local government spending review. In short, we need a plan that recognises the climate crisis, and we must act before it is too late.

    We need to move away from building homes on floodplains. Banning building on floodplains makes sense, but it depends on our definition of a floodplain. Most of London is in a floodplain, so let us be clear about the immediate need to ban building on vulnerable floodplains, where rising waters are a genuine risk. Will the Government continue to allow house building on vulnerable floodplains, against the advice of experts? What extra steps will the Government take to listen to the communities that have been devastated by two successive storms? Will the Government allow homes built after 2009—especially those on floodplains—to be covered under the Flood Re reinsurance scheme, since they are not at the moment? We cannot build flood defences with austerity or Government press releases, ​so by what date will the Government have reversed the austerity cuts to flood defence schemes that Conservative Members so enthusiastically voted for in the past?

    I wish the Environment Secretary a very long and prosperous stay in his new job, but I offer him this one piece of advice. Every time homes flood, every time the Prime Minister is missing in action and every time Government press releases outweigh Government action, I will ask him to act. Today, therefore, I ask the Environment Secretary for a new plan for flooding, a new approach to reverse austerity cuts to flood defence schemes, and a proper investigation into these floods, which carries the confidence of communities currently under water, so that lessons can be learned and homes protected from the inevitable flooding that will happen again.

  • George Eustice – 2020 Statement on Flooding

    George Eustice – 2020 Statement on Flooding

    Below is the text of the statement made by George Eustice, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in the House of Commons on 24 February 2020.

    With permission, I will make a statement to the House on the recent flooding caused by Storm Dennis, which followed Storm Ciara and affected many parts of the country.

    I would like to begin by extending my condolences to the families and friends of the five individuals who sadly lost their lives as a result of these storms. I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House are with those grieving families today. Our thoughts are also with those who have suffered damage to their properties as a result of the storms. To have one’s home flooded is an incredibly traumatic experience, and I am conscious that some have flooded repeatedly over recent years.

    Storm Dennis cleared the UK during the course of Monday 17 February. However, this remains a live incident, and I would urge people in at-risk areas to remain vigilant. We are monitoring the situation closely, and most areas are moving into recovery phase. However, rainfall over the past few days is still leading to higher water levels, so we will continue to see effects this week.

    Communities have been affected across our Union. We have had an incredibly wet winter. Some areas have already received almost double their average rainfall for February, with others experiencing a month’s worth of rain in just 24 hours. Records have been broken. Eighteen river gauges across 15 rivers recorded their highest levels on record during or triggered by Storms Ciara and Dennis, including the Colne, the Ribble, the Calder, the Aire, the Trent, the Severn, the Wye, the Lugg and the Derwent. Storm Ciara flooded over 1,340 properties, and the latest number of properties affected by Storm Dennis stands at over 1,400. Wales has also seen significant impacts, and we are in close contact with the Welsh Government.

    In anticipation of the storm, we stood up the national flood response centre on Friday 14 February. The scale of the response has been huge, from setting up temporary defences to knocking on doors and issuing residents with warnings. The Environment Agency issued 343 flood warnings for Storm Ciara and 514 for Storm Dennis. On 17 February, we saw a record concurrent total of 632 flood warnings and alerts issued in a single day. Two severe flood warnings, 107 flood warnings and 207 flood alerts remain in place in England. There are also an additional 13 flood warnings and 39 flood alerts that remain in place in Wales, and one flood warning in Scotland.

    We have been sharing information with the public so that people can prepare for flooding wherever they live. We have deployed over 3 miles of temporary flood barriers and 90 mobile pumps, and we have been keeping structures and rivers clear of debris. Over 1,000 Environment Agency staff per day have been deployed, with the assistance of about 80 military personnel. In Yorkshire, the military helped to deploy temporary defences in Ilkley and kept the road open between Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge in Calderdale. I would like to record my thanks to all the response teams, including the Environment Agency, local authorities, our emergency services and the military. They are all still working hard, with over 20 Government bodies, local authorities and volunteers at work across the country.​

    The Government acted swiftly to activate the Bellwin scheme to help local authorities cope with the cost of response in the immediate aftermath. On Tuesday 18 February, we also triggered the flood recovery framework to help communities get back on their feet. I am working alongside the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to help households and businesses recover. This includes making available hardship payments and council tax and business rate relief. Households and businesses will also be able to access grants of up to £5,000 to help to make them more resilient to future flooding, and a ministerial recovery group is co-ordinating efforts across Government. Storms Ciara and Dennis affected thousands of acres of farmland, so we will consider the need to extend the farming recovery fund once we have all the necessary data.

    Investments made in recent years have significantly improved our resilience, but there is much more to do. We are investing £2.6 billion in flood defences, with over 1,000 flood defence schemes to better protect 300,000 homes by 2021. To put this into context, in the floods of 2007, 55,000 properties were flooded, but with similar volumes of water in place this year, thankfully far fewer properties have been flooded, and flood defence schemes have protected over 90,000 properties in England this winter. Our manifesto commits us to a further £4 billion in new funding for flood defences over the next five years.

    Since the incidents of 2015, we have strengthened and improved our system of flood warnings, and in 2016 we introduced the Flood Re scheme, so that insurance cover for floods is accessible for at-risk properties. An independent review of the data on insurance cover will help us to ensure that it is working as effectively as possible.

    Of course, we recognise that none of these steps will take away the anguish of those who have suffered flooding in the most recent storms. Climate change is making the UK warmer and wetter, with more frequent extreme weather events. We need to make nature’s power part of our solution, alongside traditional engineered defences. We are already investing £10 million to restore our peatland habitats, planting enough trees to cover an area the size of East Anglia, with a new £640 million nature for climate fund, and supporting farmers to be part of our plans to prevent flooding through the new environmental land management scheme, to reduce and delay peak flows in our landscapes.

    Later this year, we will set out our policies to tackle flooding in the long term, and the Environment Agency will publish the updated flood and coasts strategy. This country will also lead global ambitions on climate change as the host of COP26 later this year, urging the world to achieve net zero in a way that helps nature recover, reduces global warming and addresses the causes of these extreme weather events. I commend this statement to the House.

  • Stuart McDonald – 2020 Speech on Points Based Immigration System

    Below is the text of the speech made by Stuart McDonald, the SNP MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, in the House of Commons on 24 February 2020.

    Despite lots of competition, this pretend points-based system surely amounts to one of the most damaging, unimaginative and unpopular policy announcements made by a Home Secretary in recent years. Do not get me wrong: it will be fine for the big multinational companies in the City with their armies of immigration lawyers, but it will be a disaster for everybody else.

    Surely the Home Secretary regrets that her paper insults half the population by characterising their hard work as “cheap” unskilled labour and, indeed, by insinuating that their work could just as easily be done by the long-term sick or by robots. Why have employers been given just a few months to prepare for these massive changes when the Home Office took three and a half years just to dream them up? Will she listen to the swathes of industry leaders telling her it will be impossible to fill vacancies because of the salary thresholds? Will she listen to the employers who are worried about being mired in the red tape and expense of sponsorship and visa processes?

    Why has the Home Secretary removed even the half-baked temporary worker scheme that was meant to operate as a transitional measure? Why is there no provision for self-employed workers? What has happened ​to the remote areas pilot scheme promised by her predecessor and to the heavily trailed extra points that were to be on offer for working outside London? And why has she said nothing about the tens of thousands of extra families that will be destroyed if she extends the UK’s barbaric family migration rules to their relationships? Is that her plan?

    This will be disastrous across all manner of key sectors in Scotland, from agriculture to hospitality, from fishing to manufacturing and from construction to social care. Free movement was the one part of the migration system that actually worked for Scotland. Does the Home Secretary even understand the basic point that reducing migration is a disastrous policy goal for Scotland? Has she read the Scottish Government’s paper on a Scottish visa, and will she finally commit to engaging on those proposals in good faith?

  • Bell Ribeiro-Addy – 2020 Speech on Points Based Immigration System

    Below is the text of the speech made by Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the Labour MP for Streatham, in the House of Commons on 24 February 2020.

    I would like to thank the Home Secretary for giving me early sight of this statement. She and the Government call this a points-based immigration system, but Professor Alan Manning, the departing chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, has derided this and called it a “soundbite”—that is, meaningless phraseology. The truth is that the Government are introducing a set of restrictions on migration for work including the damaging salary threshold, ​but that is not the sole restriction. Workers earning below the salary threshold are not low skilled at all. There is no such thing as low-skilled work: just low-paid work. All work is skilled when it is done well. In fact, outside London and the south-east, they are the majority of workers. Again, they are underpaid, not low skilled. In trying to exclude their overseas recruitment, Ministers run the risk of doing even greater damage to our public services than they have done already.

    Ministers must surely be aware that a key problem for the NHS is, as its leaders tell us, that the exit door is closed. Patients who are well enough to be discharged from hospitals are not being discharged, because they lack access to social care packages. Blocking the overseas recruitment of social care workers who are generally paid well below the threshold will cause major problems with social care. It is already in crisis and this will exacerbate the exiting problems in the NHS, yet Ministers seem unconcerned. I must mention the need for the new NHS-specific visa. Surely the obvious thing would have been to create points for NHS jobs in the new system, but then I suppose the Government would have to admit that the salary threshold was simply not feasible and that the system just would not work. This is certainly not a singular global immigration system, and it has already been proved that a number of exemptions will be needed to make it work.

    Social care and the NHS are not the only areas that will be hit. The Government tell us that the unemployment rate is currently close to its lowest, but that completely contradicts Ministers’ suggestions that immigration causes unemployment or creates slack conditions in the labour market, leading to low pay. The Home Secretary seems to believe that the gaps can be filled by the economically inactive, but I strongly doubt that the Government intend to get carers, the elderly and students into work by raising their wages. It is more likely that they will cut benefits once again. Many employers report that they will struggle to fill vacancies or even to close the gap caused by the departing EU workers, who will now lose their rights under the system.

    The requirement to speak English is a complete red herring. This is dog-whistle politics. Most people who come here to work—the Government’s system will demand that they have a specific job offer—come here with some English language skills and learn more as they go along. It is difficult to function in the labour market without any English at all, which is why they already speak English when they come here. Do the Government intend to split up families where the spouse or child has less-than-perfect English? This would be cruel and inhumane. Do the Government also intend to block the recruitment of scientists, mathematicians and IT specialists, for example, if they have less-than-perfect English? If so, that will completely undermine Ministers’ boasts about global Britain recruiting the brightest and best. In fact, the policy will tend towards recruiting only the most desperate if their spouse would be blocked from coming, because others may find employment in a country in which their spouse can reside.

    What of the right to a family life in general? Will the new work visas allow that right? If not, which scientist or person with a PhD would not choose a country that allows the right to a family life? There is also no justification for denying access to public funds for years. If someone is working here, they are paying taxes, and ​they and their family should have access to the benefits paid for by those taxes, including working tax credits and access to the NHS. Have Ministers considered the public health implications of restricting access to the NHS in that way, even if they are unable to consider the human costs? What about spouses who become victims of domestic abuse being denied access to refuges? That is shameful.

    Finally, I want to address a grave concern shared by many Opposition Members regarding workers and citizens’ rights. We cannot accept that work visas are tied to specific employers and want reassurances that that will not be the case. Otherwise, the Government will be creating conditions of bonded employment, where the threat of dismissal implies the threat of deportation. That would be disastrous for migrant workers and their families and detrimental to the interests of the entire workforce.

  • Priti Patel – 2020 Statement on Points Based Immigration System

    Priti Patel – 2020 Statement on Points Based Immigration System

    Below is the text of the statement made by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 24 February 2020.

    With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the United Kingdom’s new points-based immigration system.

    Last week, I announced our plans for a radical new approach that works in the interests of the British people. It will be a fair, firm and fundamentally different system in the control of the British Government that prioritises those who come to our country based on the skills they have to offer, not on the country they come from, and it will enable the UK to become a magnet for the brightest and the best, with special immigration routes for those who will make the biggest contribution. We will create new arrangements for new migrants who will fill shortages in our NHS, build the companies and innovations of the future and benefit the UK for years to come.

    As this Government restore our status as an independent sovereign nation, we will set our own immigration standards and controls as an open, democratic and free country. The Government have listened to the clear message from the British public and are delivering what the people asked for in the 2016 referendum and the December 2019 general election. That includes ending free movement through the introduction of a single global immigration system that prioritises the skills that people have to offer, not where they come from, and restoring public trust in our immigration system with a system that truly works for this country. That is what people voted for, and we are a Government who will deliver on the people’s priorities.

    We are ending free movement: that automatic right for EU citizens to enter and reside in the UK, which does not apply to people from other countries. Now that we have left the EU, this ambitious Government of action are ending the discrimination between EU and non-EU citizens so that we can attract the brightest and best from around the world. Our country and our people will prosper through one system and an approach that is in the control of the British Government—one that will also deliver an overall reduction in low-skilled immigration, as the public asked for.

    Many of the values that define our great country originated in the huge benefits immigration has brought to our nation throughout its history. People from every corner of the globe have made an enormous contribution to the fabric of our society, which is why at the heart of this new single global immigration system will be a focus on attracting talented people from around the world and on the contribution they and their families will make, irrespective of their country of origin.

    Last Wednesday, I published a policy statement setting out the new UK points-based immigration system, which will start operating from 1 January 2021 and will work in the interests of the whole United Kingdom. This will be a single, comprehensive, UK-wide system for workers and students from around the world. Our points-based system will provide a simple, effective and flexible arrangement to give top priority to the skilled workers we need to boost our economy and support our brilliant public services. All applicants will need to demonstrate that they will have a job offer from an approved sponsor. The job must be at an appropriate skill level and the applicant must be able to speak English and meet tougher criminality standards and checks.​

    We have acted on the advice of the Migration Advisory Committee to make the skilled workers route more flexible, as businesses asked for, and we have reduced the required skill level to the equivalent of A-level qualifications and cut the general salary threshold to £25,600.

    The threshold for many NHS workers and teachers will be set in line with published pay scales to ensure that our public services do not suffer and we attract the talent that we need. Experienced workers who earn less than the general threshold, but not less than £20,480, may still be able to apply tradable points to reward vital skills and to bring us the talent that our economy needs. For example, a PhD in a relevant subject will earn extra points, with double the number of points for specialists in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Additional points will be awarded for occupations that struggle to fill vacancies, and I am asking the Migration Advisory Committee to keep its list under regular review to ensure that it reflects the needs of the labour market.

    The Government will ensure that talented employees from overseas on whom our great NHS relies can come here to work and provide high-quality, compassionate care. That means that we will prioritise qualified staff who seek to move to the UK to work in our NHS, as well as retaining our own national commitment—through the investments made by this Government—to invest in and train more brilliant nurses, doctors and public health professionals in our own country. The new NHS visa system will provide a work visa with a fast-track decision, a larger dedicated advice service for applicants, and reduced fees.

    Like many other Members, I represent a partly rural constituency. Our commitment to British agriculture is clear. In addition to the reforms that I have outlined, I am quadrupling the size of the pilot scheme for seasonal workers in the horticulture sector to ensure that our farms and our horticultural sector continue to thrive. That is happening immediately.

    We will continue to welcome international students who want to study in our world- class universities across the United Kingdom, and there will be no cap on their numbers. Those who apply will be accepted provided that they are sponsored by an approved educational institution, have the necessary academic qualifications and English language aptitude, and are able to support themselves financially once they are in the United Kingdom. When they have finished their studies, our new graduate route will allow them to stay in the UK and work at any skill level for up to a further two years. Let me also take this opportunity to reassure the House that the immigration arrangements for members of the armed forces, musicians and other performers are completely unchanged, and those routes will operate as they do now.

    In line with the ending of free movement, there will be no immigration route for lower-skilled workers. No longer will employers be able to rely on cut-price EU workers. Instead, we are calling on them to invest in British people—as well as investing in technology and skills—to improve productivity, and to join the UK Government’s mission to level up our skills and economic growth across our country. Those changes are vital if we are to deliver a high-skill, high-wage and highly productive economy, and because we have provided certainty in respect of the new immigration system, the economy and businesses have had time to adjust.​

    The proposals set out in our policy statement are just the start of our phased approach to delivering a new immigration system. We will continue to refine our immigration system, and will build in flexibility where it is needed. Over time, more attributes for which points can be earned—such as previous experience and additional qualifications—may be added, which will allow us to respond effectively to the needs of the labour market and the economy. However, to be effective the system must be simple, so there will not be endless exemptions for low-paid, lower-skilled workers. We will not end free movement only to recreate it in all but name through other routes.

    The world’s top talent will continue to be welcome in our country. From January we will expand our existing global talent route to EU citizens, giving all the world’s brightest and best the same streamlined access across the UK. Reforms that I introduced last week will allow us to attract even more brilliant scientists, mathematicians and researchers through that route to keep this country at the cutting edge of life-changing innovation and technology, and the points-based system will provide even more flexibility to attract the finest international minds with the most to offer. Alongside the employer-led system, we will create a points-based unsponsored route to allow a limited number of the world’s most highly skilled people to come here without a job offer as part of the phased approach, if they can secure enough points.

    Our new fair and firm immigration system will send a message to the whole world that Britain is open for business as we continue to attract the brightest and best from around the world, but with a system that the British Government have control over. Our blueprint for taking back control will transform the way in which people come to our country to work, study, visit or even join their family. Our new independence will strengthen border security, allowing us to reject insecure identity documents from newly arriving migrants. We will be able to do more to keep out criminals who seek to do harm to our people, communities and country.

    Finally, I am pleased to say that when it comes to EU citizens already in the UK, the EU settlement scheme—the biggest scheme of its kind ever in British history—has already received 3.2 million applications resulting in 2.8 million grants of status. Through this system, we will finally develop a true meritocracy where anyone with the skills who wants to come here will have the ability to do so. This is just the start of a phased approach to delivering a new system. I will shortly be bringing forward an immigration Bill and radically overhauling and simplifying the complex immigration rules that have really dominated the system over a number of decades. For the first time in decades, the UK will have control over who comes here and how our immigration system works. I commend this statement to the House.

  • James Cleverly – 2020 Statement on Syria

    James Cleverly – 2020 Statement on Syria

    Below is the text of the statement made by James Cleverly, the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, in the House of Commons on 24 February 2020.

    I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for bringing this urgent question to the House. We are deeply concerned by the crisis in north-west Syria, where the situation on the ground is deteriorating. Over 900,000 people have been displaced while fleeing the regime and Russian bombardment. They are fleeing northwards and being squeezed into increasingly dense enclaves. With camps full to capacity, many are sleeping in the open, in temperatures well below freezing.

    Nearly 300 civilians have been killed in Idlib and Aleppo since 1 January this year. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has confirmed that 93% of those deaths were caused by the regime and its allies. International humanitarian law continues to be ignored, with civilian infrastructure being hit probably as a result of active targeting. As recently as yesterday, the White Helmets reported that Russian warplanes hit a children’s and women’s hospital in the village of Balioun in Idlib.

    The UK has condemned, and continues to condemn, these flagrant violations of international law and basic human decency. Following UK lobbying, in August 2019 the UN Secretary-General announced a board of inquiry into attacks on civilian infrastructure supported by the UN or that were part of the UN deconfliction mechanism, which we continue to support. We look forward to the publication of the results as soon as possible.

    We have repeatedly pressed—including at the UN Security Council—for an immediate, genuine and lasting ceasefire. We have called a number of emergency council sessions on Idlib in New York, most recently on 6 February alongside the P3, where the UK ambassador to the UN, Karen Pierce, reiterated our clear call for a ceasefire and our support for Turkey’s efforts in the region. There is overwhelming support for that in the Security Council, and we regret very much that the Russians continue to obstruct the possibility of agreement.

    As the Foreign Secretary noted on 31 January this year, only a political settlement in line with UN Security Council resolution 2254 can deliver a lasting peace for Syria. The UK will continue to support the efforts of the UN special representative for Syria, Geir Pedersen, to that end. We regret that the Syrian regime continues to stall the process, despite the cost to the Syrian people and the loss of Syrian lives.

    Despite this political obstruction, the UK remains an active leader in the humanitarian space. In the financial year 2019-20, the Department for International Development has allocated £118 million to projects implemented by organisations delivering cross-border aid, primarily into north-west Syria, including into Idlib. This has helped to provide hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people with food, clean water, shelter and healthcare, including psychosocial support.​

    We have provided funding to response partners, including the UN, to pre-position essential supplies to support innocent families and civilians displaced by conflict and are supporting all our partners to respond to this humanitarian crisis.

  • Ken Clarke – 1974 Speech on Caravan Residents

    Ken Clarke – 1974 Speech on Caravan Residents

    Below is the text of the speech made by Ken Clarke, the then Conservative MP for Rushcliffe, in the House of Commons on 19 March 1974.

    It is my pleasure first to congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) on his appointment as Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, and to welcome him in making what I understand will be his first speech from the Treasury bench.

    I am delighted to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that the subject to which I am drawing his attention, and to which I hope he will apply his skill and judgment, is an extremely suitable matter for a Minister who might have a comparatively short tenure of office. It is one where a considerable and worthwhile improvement could be made.

    The problems of mobile home and caravan dwellers concern a number of hon. Members, as is borne out by the numbers who have spoken to me about it since they saw that I was lucky enough to have secured this Adjournment debate, and by the attendance in the House now, which is startlingly large for an Adjournment debate.

    Mobile homes and caravans are becoming an increasingly popular form of residence, particularly at a time of rising house prices. There are all over the country, in many constituencies, large sites with mobile home dwellers in them. A high proportion of those living there are the elderly or young couples, who increasingly find them an attractive way of having a reasonable home in the countryside at a much more modest price than they would pay elsewhere.

    Sometimes the idea of caravan or mobile home living conjures up the vision of scruffy estates of caravans which are an eyesore. There are such sites, but the vast majority, certainly the ones that concern me most, are good, well-run sites.

    The mobile homes are in reality not mobile at all. In most cases the wheels have not moved for many years. The ​ caravans are on brick-built footings, and are in every respect bungalows, usually well cared for by their occupants. They are normally pleasant developments in pleasant parts of the countryside, such as those at Radcliffe-on-Trent, Shelford and Gamston in my constituency.

    They may look like dwellings, and they are bought by people who might otherwise buy themselves a bungalow in the country or a small house. But the position of the occupiers, who buy the caravan but rent from a site operator the site on which it stands, is by no means the same as that of occupiers of any other dwellings or any other form of accommodation.

    In an Adjournment debate it would be out of order for me to recommend changes in the law. The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) had a private Member’s Bill which fell at the General Election.

    The background against which the Minister must consider the problems is that the Landlord and Tenant Acts and their consequences have not applied to occupiers of caravans vis-à-vis their sites. The Rent Acts security of tenure provisions and restrictions on rent increases do not apply. Therefore, the latest surprise for residents of caravans is that the rent freeze declared by the incoming Government has no effect. I understand, upon the ground rents of caravan dwellers. They now find themselves subject to demands for increased rent. It comes as a startling discovery to many residents when they go into occupation to find that the protection which successive Governments thought it right to give those who rent or even buy their own homes does not apply to them because theirs are mobile homes.

    There are other problems which residents tend to discover when they have lived in the caravan sites for some time. Unfortunately, one reason why they discover after some time that their position is somewhat unusual compared with that of other home dwellers is that often no written contract or document worth giving the name to is exchanged between the site owner and his tenants when they take up the tenancy of their caravans. When the new purchaser of the caravan moves in, important things about his security of tenure—the terms on which he can live ​ there, the contractual period in between demands for rent increases, liability for maintenance, liability for acts of negligence, rights of access for those providing services or even for visitors—are left undefined and tend to be sorted out when disputes arise between the site owner and the residents.

    It is clearly undesirable that so many matters remain undefined. This gives rise to constant disputes in some cases. In the worst cases—I emphasise only in the worst cases—irresponsible or even almost dishonest site owners exploit this lack of a clear definition of the relationship between the owner and his caravan dwellers, and considerable harassment and abuse of the position of the tenants takes place. I should like to believe that it is the desire —I am sure that it is—of both those who live in the homes and the best site owners to try to improve the situation.

    During the tenure of the Conservative Government the Department of the Environment, under the previous Minister, lent its good offices to further discussion between the National Federation of Site Operators on the one hand and the Mobile Home Residents’ Association on the other. At first the discussions between those bodies representing substantial numbers of owners and tenants made slow and sticky progress. Therefore, I would very much welcome any indication from the Minister tonight whether any real progress has now been made in terms of producing a recommended contract to be exchanged between site owners and caravan-dwelling tenants. I should also like to see normal methods of contact between owners and tenants on well-administered caravan sites to get rid of these constant complaints.

    There is another point that has emerged from the discussions. I hope that the Minister can deal with it for it is a bad abuse and is a serious problem affecting caravan owners. I refer to the difficulty that faces an owner when seeking to resell his caravan and obtaining an improved capital gain when selling it. Almost all caravan owners assume that when they sell their mobile homes they will be able to take advantage of the rising property market—and certainly this was the situation in the past—to make a profit to go towards investment in a further home. However, I regret to say that in the vast majority of cases ​ this does not happen to caravan owners. The caravan owner finds that he has acquired the right to sell the caravan, but the site on which it stands remains at the disposal of the site owner. In practice it is useless to try to sell the caravan without the site on which it stands. In theory one can sell the caravan and somebody will tow it away, but since many mobile homes have to be put on the back of a lorry the process of moving is very expensive.

    Furthermore, it is difficult to find a site on which a casual owner may move his own caravan. When this happens heavy fees are charged, and at the moment it is almost impossible to find sites.

    Mr. Jerry Wiggin (Weston-super-Mare)

    Does my hon. Friend not agree that one difficulty is that the site owner with a vacant site insists on a new caravan being purchased, so that in such a case the usury is double?

    Mr. Clarke

    Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. The position is, as I was seeking to explain, that when a caravan tenant comes to sell his caravan, he finds that he cannot sell it to a purchaser whom he has approached, say, through a newspaper advertisement because the site owner will not allow the ownership of the site to be passed on to any casual purchaser, or indeed to any purchaser at all. The site owner makes it clear to the caravan owner that if he sells the caravan to the first-corner, the caravan will have to be removed. This enables the site owner to insist that the caravan is sold to the site owner. In many cases the site owner insists on a sale at a marked down value, and this amounts almost to a forced sale.

    Mr. David Mudd (Falmouth and Cam-borne)

    I must declare an interest as parliamentary adviser to the National Federation of Site Operators. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that the Federation deprecates the practice outlined by my hon. Friend. This matter is covered by a code of conduct that is binding on federation members. The federation hopes to introduce that code of conduct as mutually acceptable to its members, and it is hoped that it will lead to an end to this disgusting practice.

    Mr. Clarke

    I am delighted to hear my hon. Friend, in the capacity which he has described to the House, refer to this ​ as a “disgusting practice”. I hope that his federation will take steps to ensure that it does not admit any members who indulge in that sort of activity. My experience is that the vast majority of caravan site owners follow this practice. I have had experience of situations in which the site owners have insisted on knocked-down values for caravans. The fact is that the market price of caravans has been such that caravans are bought in at a reduced price by the site owner and then sold by him at a considerable profit to an incoming purchaser—a purchaser who comes in quite unaware of the fact that there are restrictions on resale. It has tempted far too many site owners in recent years.

    It must be a major item in the profitability of some sites that the capital value of the caravans on the site will accrue to the site owner rather than to the unfortunate owner-occupiers of them. The result is that many caravan owners, especially more elderly people, find it almost impossible to leave a site because the knock-down value of their caravans is not sufficient for them to acquire properties elsewhere.

    This is all legal, of course. I do not suggest that there is anything illegal about it. However, it is what might colloquially be termed a fiddle, and it is an abuse of the relationship between site owners and caravan dwellers.

    I accept that any increase in the value of a caravan on a site is partly an increase in the site value, in much the same way as the increase in values of houses is in part an increase in land values. Perhaps a 10 per cent. share of the profit on the re-sale of a caravan going to the site owner is defensible as being almost legitimate, but I do not think that anything beyond that is legitimate or defensible.

    I hope that the Minister will deal with the practice that I have described and that he will shed some light on the progress of the discussions taking place between the two bodies concerned in dealing with this practice.

    Some time ago I asked my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), who was then the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs, to draw the attention of the Director-General of Fair Trading ​ to this practice. It seemed to me that the Fair Trading Act might provide some opportunity for this practice to be examined. In a letter to me dated 1st August 1973, my right hon. and learned Friend told me that he could neither predict the attitude of the Director-General nor anticipate what action he would recommend but that his attention would be drawn to the problems which my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Oppenheim) and I had raised with him.

    Although I know it is not the departmental responsibility of the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, I hope that he will be able to tell us how the Department of Trade is getting along and whether the Director-General of Fair Trading has yet come to any conclusion about whether his powers are wide enough to stamp out this unfair and illegitimate practice.

  • Ken Clarke – 1974 Speech on Foreign Affairs

    Below is the text of the speech made by Ken Clarke, the then Conservative MP for Rushcliffe, in the House of Commons on 19 March 1974.

    I begin by welcoming you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the Chair. In doing so I shall be careful to avoid incurring your wrath by speaking at too great a length in my first speech before you. I am only sorry that lack of time will prevent my commenting on the number of spectacular maiden speeches which I have heard in this debate. I should like to say one particular word about the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) who now represents a considerable number of my former constituents. Having heard his first contribution to the House I am delighted to know that those constituents will be so well represented by him in the coming years.

    I wish to take this debate away from the international geographical ramblings indulged in by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley), back again to the proposed renegotiation of the terms of our entry into Europe, which was dealt with by the Foreign Secretary. I was considerably reassured by the way in which the right hon. Gentleman put this singularly puzzling part of the Labour Party’s programme now that it has formed a minority Government.

    Nothing that the right hon. Gentleman said could have given much joy to anyone who still had any illusion that this country would leave the European Community at some stage. He assured us that the renegotiations would not be any kind of confrontation. It was clear that they would be conducted through the machinery of the Council of Ministers and within the set-up of the EEC as this Parliament legislated that the country should join it. I hope that, given the tenor of what he said, my party and the Opposition, who outnumber the Labour Party, will respond in kind and will not obstruct reasonable discussions with the Europeans if there is some prospect of a worthwhile advantage to our population coming from them.

    The Opposition believe that we negotiated entirely acceptable terms, and ​ we remain glad to have put them to Parliament and to have recommended them to the country. However, if in discussions with our fellow members this new Government are able to produce changes in the balance of interests between the member countries I am sure that no one will want to try to prevent progress being made which will be to the advantage of our population.

    Since we joined the Community the process of negotiation on issue after issue has been going on all the time, and in my view the Opposition should lend their weight to the Government’s advocacy of British interests where they put them forward legitimately in the negotiations.

    That is not the issue between the two sides of the House, of course. The issue that I feared might arise between my party and the Government was the idea that renegotiation would be some selfish or chauvinistic attempt to turn absolutely everything in the EEC to our short-term, narrow financial advantage. There are those Government supporters who would like to go through the details of Community policy extracting advantage from every single one of them in cash terms, in the mistaken belief that Britain has to be a net gainer on every head of European policy before the idea is at all acceptable. That is a strange method of bargaining for mutual advantage between any association of States, and it would be a strange foreign policy. But clearly that is not a policy which will be pursued by this Government. If it becomes the policy pursued by them under pressure from their backbenchers we shall have to take a sterner attitude.

    Having heard the Foreign Secretary shed a little more light on what he intends to negotiate about, it was interesting to hear that the terms of entry, which originally were what the renegotiation was to be about, were not to feature very large. Most of the terms on which this country entered the EEC have been overtaken by events.

    The sugar agreement remains an important element, and it was one about which we experienced difficulty when we entered the EEC. However, the details of the sugar debate at the time that we joined have now been overtaken by higher world prices outside the Commonwealth agreement. Again, the ​ terms for New Zealand seem to have faded, because they have not created any great practical problems. However, the Community’s agricultural policy, which was one of the basic items in our negotiations to enter, remains an important matter, and in April the new Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries faces a tough agenda, which would have been faced by his predecessor had my party won the election.

    For the immediate short-term future, the Foreign Secretary emphasised that he will try to stop domestic prices going up, and he reassured the British housewife in those terms. However, he knows quite well that the only risk of that arising in terms of any commodity, out of the April discussions, is in beef. If he intends to try to keep down the price of beef in the April negotiations I hope that he will take steps to guarantee beef production over the coming year or two as well.

    The only other term of entry to which the Foreign Secretary intends to bring attention is our contribution to the Community. That certainly can be discussed. The method of self-financing of the Community is coming into question in the Community itself, but it is one matter which obviously will have to be taken up by the new Government.

    The levy on imported foodstuffs will be an irregular source of finance to the EEC and it is looking of doubtful value. On the question of the 1 per cent. VAT, I am sure that the Government have every chance of negotiating zero VAT on foodstuffs and the like. That point was carried with the assistance of the Conservative delegation to the European Parliament only recently.

    The Government will find that all these matters are already on the agenda. If they wish to call it “renegotiation”, I trust that they will get on with the serious business of discussing all the other matters which Europe is evolving and which it is in our interests to get on with.

    Some regional policy clearly must come forward quickly. I hope that the Government will do better than we did. I am not criticising former Ministers for the delay, but there has been disappointment that no new regional policy has come forward.

    The democratic institutions must be reviewed and strengthened. Even if the Labour Government carry on with the almost laughable business of not sending representatives to the European Parliament, I hope that they will back up the efforts made by Conservative Members to increase the European Parliament’s budgetary and other powers in the Community.

    I turn now to the question of economic and monetary union. Half the EEC’s currencies are floating, and the snake is long since dead and forgotten. Some form of economic and monetary union is a logical successor to any free trading area if there is to be genuine free competition within that area. I am sure that any renegotiation will be welcomed.

    I could go on through all the matters that the Government have to “renegotiate” if they wish. For example, there is the matter of agreement with the 45 associated States. Progress needs to be made in strengthening the aid policy in the EEC.

    The social fund should be developed. This country is doing quite well out of the social fund, but I hope that that will be “renegotiated”.

    Our common bargaining position on GATT has to be looked at. I look forward to the Secretary of State for Trade contributing to the evolution of a common bargaining position for the European Commission in the GATT negotiations.
    The Foreign Secretary should take part in the regular meetings of Foreign Ministers. What he said about our position vis-à-vis the Americans and Europe and our relations with the Arab States are matters on which he will clearly make an extremely valuable contribution to the evolution of European foreign policy.

    All these matters are on the agenda and were being actively discussed in the institutions of the European Community before the election. What is being called “renegotiation” is merely carrying on the process of the previous Government, but paying lip service to one part of the Labour Party.

    The Government cannot, without prolonging a major political crisis, start negotiating on the matter of sovereignty to the extreme that many opponents of the EEC would wish. They cannot get round ​ the direct application of legislation once enacted by the Council of Ministers. They cannot throw out the entire common agricultural policy. They cannot abandon the principle of Community preference. These matters amount to complete withdrawal from the Community. I trust that this minority Government will not attempt to put them on the agenda.

    I have spoken in terms of “renegotiation”, but I am reluctant to allow this jargon to dominate the European debate in this country because it is not understood and is not what the country thinks we are talking about. The difficulty underlying the European debate is that the whole country is still split on the principles of entry, that the House is split on the principles of entry, and that the Labour Party is split on the principles of entry.

    Renegotiation is a comforting formula which was devised to take the heat from this political problem at a time when there are those who still want us to withdraw from the Community. The formula devised originally, that the Labour Party wanted entry into the EEC in principle but not on Tory terms, has not been believed by anybody.

    Is the Secretary of State for Trade urging British membership in principle only if the terms can be put right? Is the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) suddenly against the terms negotiated by the Conservative Government which he endorsed at the time by voting in favour of entry? Did Enoch Powell lend his support to the Labour Party in the election because he thought that some of the terms for renegotiation were what the public were demanding?

    The issue was whether we should join. That has been settled by Parliament. I trust that the Government will not use the charade of renegotiating to reopen this issue. I am delighted to see from his style that the Foreign Secretary intends to play for time and to allow these things to be conducted in a reasonable and civilised manner.

    At the end of this strange process, which is really only a political formula devised for the needs of the moment, the results will be put to the British people, presumably in a referendum. The referendum has an unhappy history in our recent ​ Political past. The Prime Minister refused to contemplate it in principle at the 1970 election. Even when the European Communities Bill was going through the House a referendum was rejected by the Labour Party. The right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn)—now Secretary of State for Industry—however, kept it going and finally pressed upon his right hon. Friends the need to go for a referendum, with the result that the present Home Secretary resigned on that issue and has, as far as I know, never supported it.

    Even then there was this division, and there is still genuine constitutional doubt about a referendum over the issue of whether or not we joined. How can there be a referendum on renegotiation once we have joined? We are not entirely clear what is being renegotiated, what question will be put to the British public, how it will be put and what the Government will say about it. I do not believe a referendum will ever take place. The Prime Minister said in the debate on the Queen’s Speech that there would “almost certainly” be a referendum. We all know and the Labour Party knows better than we do what “almost certainly” means in the politics of the Prime Minister. It is very little guide to his future actions. At the end of these renegotiations I trust that the Foreign Secretary with his great skill will be able to persuade his party that all the worst Tory blemishes will be removed and the whole thing can then perhaps be made to work in an acceptable Socialist way if we carry on as we are. If he fails to do so and if a fraudulent question is put to the public about a supposed process of renegotiation, I hope that the House will reject such a clear affront to its constitutional position and our political tradition once again as it did in the last Parliament.

    I trust that once the Government have got over the difficulty of saddling themselves with this strange election commitment they will get down to a sensible European policy aimed at producing a decent level of unity among the members. Even I, as a keen pro-marketeer, recognise the present problems of the lack of unity in Europe, the lack of a proper relationship with the United States, the difficulties of establishing a relationship with the Arabs, and general problems of payments deficits which will arise because ​ of higher oil prices. All these need a sensible European policy from the Government, which I hope they can soon find their way back to pursuing.

  • Jim Lester – 1974 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Jim Lester, the then Conservative MP for Beeston, in the House of Commons on 19 March 1974.

    It is difficult to say at this moment that one is at home in the Chamber, but I felt immediately at home when I walked into the Lobby. I believe that that was mainly because the servants of the House thought that I was the reincarnation of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor), whose name I happen to share but for one letter.

    It took me a little time to explain that there were little differences and that neither of us would be flattered if it were suggested that we either looked alike or shared political views. However, we are already having difficulties with crossed mail and so I should like to make a proposition to the hon. Lady: perhaps we should share a room and a secretary and, with the permission of the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon), form a regular pair, although I gather that that ​ is not the custom. However, if he would not allow us to form a regular pair, we ought to be allowed to pair regularly.

    It is a great honour to represent the new constituency of Beeston, because this is the first time that the name has appeared in the annals of the House. My constituency is situated in the west of Nottinghamshire and represents seven-eighths of the old constituency of Rushcliffe, which has been so well served in the House by succeeding Members. Currently, my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) sits immediately below me. In the past, Lord Redmayne and Tony Gardner were hard-working and industrious Members.

    It is an area of settled communities of great variety and richness. It is a pleasure for me to speak of at least two aspects of the constituency which one feels are to be affected by Europe in the future. Industrially, it is as varied as its people, with many major companies. I was sorry to hear that the Leader of the House had ‘flu over the weekend—an illness that I shared with him—but I hope that the medicines produced by Boots, in my constituency, helped him through his difficulties, as they did me. Equally, as Members punch the buttons of the telephones in the House they may be interested to know that they were installed by Plessey Telecommunications, another big company in my constituency. I am sure that many people’s homes are warmed by the boiler which bears the name of this constituency.

    There is much more—light engineering, hosiery, knitwear, and 52 farms. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) talked of moving about on her bicycle and using it for getting around her constituency. She will be pleased to know that that also, although not built in, was certainly invented in Beeston.

    As one travels round the industrial constituency one finds that in many ways it has accepted the challenge of the EEC by collaboration, by working with other companies in Europe, and by genuine increases in exports. I believe that the marketing director of Boots described its increase in exports as “explosive”. As one who abhors violence in all forms, particularly in its present form in modern society, I enjoy using the word “explosive” when we refer to trade and exports within the Community.

    I am concerned that the uncertainties raised in the Queen’s Speech will not necessarily be helpful to the long-term livelihood of the area that I represent—an area which has accepted the challenge so well. When discussing fundamental renegotiation, one wonders whether it includes and takes account of the great deal of industrial groundwork that has been carried out over the past years, because within one year it can scarcely begin to bear fruit. I hope that these figures and calculations, when they come through, will also play a part when the benefits are calculated.

    My constituency is in the heart of the country, in Nottinghamshire. In the heart of the constituency there is the Festival village of Trowell, which was chosen by the right hon. Herbert Morrison at the time of the great Festival of Britain.

    There is, therefore, a constant reminder of where one’s heart should be.

    Equally, in my constituency the coal industry has played a big part. I want to get involved in this subject, particularly in the House, because in local government I have been involved in the coal industry in so many ways, dealing with closures and with the healing of the scars that the coal industry has left on the landscape. I view the industry’s future with great concern and interest, particularly within a European framework, in which it has played a founding part. The total of British energy, particularly the production from the coalfields of Nottinghamshire, will play a major part in the future.

    But Europe is not all industry. At the top of my constituency there is the little town of Eastwood, which was part of the constituency of the hon. Member for Ash-field (Mr. Marquand) until the boundary changes. It is a town with a character and accent of its own. It is also the birthplace of D. H. Lawrence—and many of us are quoting literary figures in our speeches today. D. H. Lawrence was a man of few inhibitions, and there is no question but that he drew strength from his background in this community, and those of us who read both his books and his poetry know it. It is significant, however, that it was not until he visited the Rhine that his poetry started to blossom and his pansies or pensées were really a product of the Suns of Tuscany—and ​ Tuscany is an area which I should like to consider my second home. This, therefore, is part of Europe and part of the important thinking that influences most of us.

    One of the most enjoyable occasions that I attended as a candidate was when the Eastwood comprehensive school staged a celebration of our entry into Europe. The young people of that school, with comparatively scarce resources, captured the culture, the variety, the cuisine, and the expanding horizon that was part of their natural history. They put that before many of us, including their parents. Whatever comes before the House concerning Europe I shall tend to judge in the light of these young people and hundreds of thousands like them, and their interests. We tend to talk about Europe as if it were just today; yet for many of us it is much more than that.

    The Queen’s Speech could mean that committed people would work for a better Europe. I was delighted to hear the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies). Indeed, one was comforted by the tone of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and the practical way he approached the future. Many of us feel that there could be a tepid disinterest which is merely an excuse for withdrawal and a referendum which would just take account of the temporary discomforts.

    Yesterday the Secretary of State for Employment showed a fine sense of the House and of the historic past, but many of my colleagues and I are concerned that the House should show an equally fine sense of the historic future.

  • Ivor Clemitson – 1974 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Ivor Clemitson, the then Labour MP for Luton East, in the House of Commons on 19 March 1974.

    My first and pleasant duty as a new Member is to pay tribute to my predecessor Charles Simeons. He undertook much good and hard work in the constituency during the three and a half years he spent as Member for the old Luton constituency.

    ​ The new Luton, East constituency covers much of the same territory, and is one of those marginal seats which come within the are of the swingometer. If the pointer of that blessed instrument had stuck as far in the Labour direction as we in Luton, East pushed it, there would not even be a mathematical possibility of a defeat of Her Majesty’s Government in any Division, real or hypothetical. However, that was not to be. In voting behaviour, as in progress down the path of the affluent society, Luton is ahead of the times.

    I am not saying that Luton’s comparative affluence is as great as all that for most of its citizens. Even with the latest pay offer a track worker in Vauxhall Motors will earn only £39 for a flat week’s work. Even if the pay were twice that sum, or even greater, I am sure that there are few hon. Members of this House who would exchange what they might sometimes consider to be the tedium of this place for the tedium of a track in a modern motor car factory.

    My reference to wages of a number of my constituents may seem to be out of place in a debate on foreign affairs. After all, in foreign affairs are we not dealing with such great matters as the relationship between sovereign nation States? My point is that the sovereignty of separate nation States is a concept which to a considerable extent has been overtaken by events.

    I have referred to Vauxhall Motors, and the House might like to know that that company employs 35,000 people, most of whom work in Luton and Dunstable, The plant in my constituency is the largest of the three Vauxhall manufacturing plants. Yet in 1971 Vauxhall Motors provided only 1·8 per cent. of the profits of the parent company, General Motors, of which Vauxhall is a wholly-owned subsidiary. I have no need to remind the House that General Motors is the largest manufacturing company in the world. The story does not end there for Luton. The commercial vehicle section, what used to be known as Rootes Motors, is also in south Bedfordshire. And, incidentally, what used to be called Rootes Motors is now part of the Chrysler Corporation, the second of the three giant American car companies. Furthermore, also in my constituency is the British headquarters of Skefco, which is part of a world-wide company of ​ Swedish origin, SKF—the Swedish equivalent of which I shall not attempt to pronounce.

    Therefore three companies, Vauxhall, Chrysler (UK), and Skefco dominate the manufacturing scene in my constituency. All are part of huge, world-wide companies. The fashionable name for these companies is “multinational”, but that word is a misnomer because the word “multinational” merely means “many nations”, presumably implying that the companies concerned carry out operations in many countries. That is merely a platitude. A truer and more incisive term would be “supra-national” since these companies transcend nation States. Their size is enormous. The sales of General Motors exceed what is spent in this country on education, health and all the social services put together. The budgets of the largest supra-national companies make those of most nation States look like very small beer.

    If we were to rank nation States and supra-national companies together in cash terms we should find that our view of the world changed very considerably. We are so used to looking at maps of the world with their brightly coloured blocks representing the separate nation States that our minds are diverted from the realities of the wealth and the power of the supra-national companies. We need somehow to draw a new world map.

    It is often argued that the power wielded by super-national companies is used benignly and not malignantly. Our attention is drawn to the benefits conferred upon a host country by the activities of such companies—the investments they bring and the employment opportunities they provide. That is not the point, however true those arguments may be. The point is that enormous power is exercised within what I term these vast industrial states, and it is a power which is formally accountable neither to those employed in those companies nor to the nation States in which the industrial states operate. In the last analysis, more power over the people in my constituency is exercised from Detroit, New York and Gothenburg than from the town hall in Luton or from Westminster or Whitehall.

    Whether any nation State on its own is powerful enough or, perhaps more important, willing enough to control these ​ vast industrial states is open to question. In the long run, if the power that they wield is to be made properly accountable it will have to be done by separate nation States getting together to exert power over the super-national companies.

    I have always regarded the argument against the Common Market from the point of view of the loss of sovereignty as questionable. I say that not because I am enamoured of the Common Market. I am not. I believe that our first year of membership of the Common Market has been an unmitigated economic disaster. A mere £70 million trade deficit in 1970 has been turned into one of more than £1,000 million in 1973. So much for the great pro-EEC argument that entry would provide us with a massive market for our goods.

    When we talk of loss of sovereignty I wish that we were more concerned with the more important if less obvious and more insidious loss of sovereignty to supra-companies.

    It could be argued that the banding together of nation States in an organisation like the EEC is a significant step towards the assertion of proper political control over those supra-national companies, which is precisely the point that I was arguing a moment ago; but the reality seems sadly to be the reverse. Far from limiting their powers it seems to be increasing them, and it will go on increasing them, first, because removal of controls over investment and trade serves to accelerate the process of rationalisation within those companies. It makes little sense in the end, for example, to have two sets of people designing virtually the same vehicle in two different countries. The fears of a number of my constituents on this kind of score are not without basis in logic.

    The second reason why the EEC is increasing the powers of the supra-national companies is that the whole ethos of the EEC prevents any real control over the supra-national companies from being developed. It is little wonder that we do not find the large supra-national companies among the ranks of the opponents of the EEC.

    I am not a little Englander or a little Britainer. Like everyone who believes in the essential equality and brotherhood of mankind I yearn for the day when the ​nation States can disappear from the face of the earth, but I do not want them replaced by the faceless and unaccountable sovereignty of supra-national companies, nor by an organisation such as the EEC as it is at present under whose aegis those companies seem to bloom like hothouse plants. Sovereignty should be sovereignty of the people, and it is the restoration of sovereignty to the people—to all people wherever in the world they may live—which should be our primary aim and concern.