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  • Jeremy Corbyn – 1986 Speech on NHS Pay

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour MP for Islington North, in the House of Commons on 13 March 1986.

    It is interesting that today we are having a number of debates on the National Health Service. That reflects the great public disquiet about its administration and the appallingly low levels of pay. I wish to draw attention to that issue.

    First, I say with pride, not by way of apology, that I am sponsored by the National Union of Public Employees, and it is right and proper that that should be on the record. I was formerly a full-time official of that union, working in the NHS, and at one stage I was a member of an area health authority, so I have some experience of NHS matters.

    There is grave disquiet within the NHS about the way in which staff are treated. During the past five years NHS workers have suffered from the threat of privatisation, which essentially means that many ancillary staff are being asked to offer their job on an annual or biennial basis to the lowest bidder, as a series of contract cleaning and catering companies line up to take the pickings from the NHS. That has resulted in job losses and a reduction in the real wage levels of many workers, and has created a climate of fear and intimidation. I hope that the Minister will try to understand what it is like to be a hospital cleaner, knowing that one’s job is with a contract cleaning company, whose bid the following year may not be successful, and that a new contractor may pay even lower wages or not offer one a job. A series of hired hands are moved from one contract cleaning company to another.

    Other groups and grades feel equally worried. It started with cleaners, moved to catering staff, and may move to building staff, the various maintenance and gardening grades and right up the scale. The NHS has a major function to play, and we could and should be proud of it. It is no way to treat employees every year to offer their jobs for sale to contractors. If it can be done for cleaners and catering grades, clearly it can be done for many other grades. A number of technical and professional grades already feel the cold wind of privatisation.

    Late last year, as in the previous year, the Department of Health and Social Security produced a glossy book called:

    “The Health Service in England”.

    It is designed to make us believe that the NHS is doing particularly well. Table 19 on page 43 deals with Health Service employed staff by main staff group for England, and shows that nursing and midwifery staff increased from 351,000 to 397,000—an increase of 13·2 per cent.—and lists other grades showing increases in staffing levels.

    I am particularly interested in the treatment of ancillary staff. Their numbers have decreased from 172,200 to 152,200, which is an 11·6 per cent. reduction over six years. That reduction appears to be continuing. The ancillary grades are not only the lowest paid in the National Health Service but are suffering the largest number of job losses.

    On page 46, appendix C shows Health Service expenditure on staffing, goods and services broken down into salaries and wages and supply and maintenance. Within the section on salaries and wages is shown the proportion of total wage expenditure that goes on nurses ​ and midwives—44·5 per cent.—and on ancillary staff—15·3 per cent.—medical and dental 13·7 per cent. and so on. However at the end as a tiny footnote there is “Chairmen’s remuneration 0·03 per cent.” There are not many chairmen in the health authorities, but together they managed to collect £1·7 million in chairmen’s remuneration. When one compares that with the average wages of an ancillary worker one begins to understand the issues I am concerned with. At one end of the scale in the National Health Service we have the doctors’ remuneration at £21,000 a year. However, they are in dispute, as consultants get far more than that. There is also the absolute scandal and disgrace of the ludicrous merit award system, which operates for consultants. Essentially, consultants nominate each other for merit awards, it is done in secret, and the public pick up the bill without having any say in the levels of merits awards that are made to those people. I believe that the last figure quoted was something like £20 million being handed out to themselves in merit awards.

    I am not saying that the doctors, consultants or surgeons do not do a valuable job. One could not run a health service without them. However, I am sure that most of those people would agree, that neither can one run a health service without cleaners, caterers and portering staff. It is a team approach that is adopted in the hospitals and I wish that the Government would understand that with regard to pay. My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) spoke in the previous debate about job losses and cuts within the National Health Service. He mentioned the temporary closure of St. Thomas’s hospital and the threat to Westminster hospital. Yesterday there was an announcement in a local paper of job losses at St. Nicholas’s hospital in south-east London.

    The closure of the Dreadnought seamen’s hospital resulted in yesterday’s strike of cross-channel operators because they are not prepared to see their hospital close. That is the degree of the frustration and anger that exists among the supporters of the National Health Service, never mind those who are within the Health Service.

    I wish to put specific questions to the Government regarding pay. The pay for nurses and midwives has been in the public eye recently and is a matter of public concern. The cause of the concern is the pay gap between nurses and other grades and the way the award was funded. Health Service workers are not prepared to go on being told that they can agree a pay level—an agreed national level—through negotiations and then be told by the Government that the Government are not prepared to pay that award in its entirety, instead passing part of the cost of the award over to the local district health authority.

    That is specifically intended to create an atmosphere wherein, if the health workers accept lower wage rates, there will be more money spent on patient care. We know that this is not the case. It is a cynical manipulation of the way that negotiations should be conducted within the National Health Service.
    I wish to quote from the evidence submitted by my union, the National Union of Public Employees, in its pay review body document 1986 for nurses, midwives, and health visitors.

    “There is still a large pay gap. When we compare current pay levels with the levels established in 1974 by Halsbury and in 1980 by Clegg, and take into account movements in prices and ​ earnings since those dates, we find that a large pay gap amounting to nearly 20% of current salaries exists. It is important to emphasise that the comparison with pay levels set by Halsbury and Clegg is not intended to be purely mechanical. Our point is that on each occasion when an independent review has taken place of nurses’ pay in relation to the pay of comparable outside occupations, a substantial increase in nurses’ pay has been recommended to bring it into line. We believe that this is strong evidence that a similar independent study carried out today, making similar comparisons, would establish that a substantial increase is needed across the board in order to restore fair pay for nurses. In short, a big gap remains, and a substantial across the board increase is needed to fill it.”

    Later in the evidence of the staff side to the nurses and midwives Whitley council, it says:

    “The Review Body must now be aware of the grave concern and anger within the profession which was caused by the Government’s decisions relating to the funding and staging of the 1985 award, although the tone of the Government’s written evidence gave some indication of the cynical and intransigent view it held with regard to funding the award of an independent Review Body. It will be recalled that having acknowledged that the paybill for nurses and PAMs in 1983–84 was some 36 per cent. of health authorities’ total costs, the Government subsequently stated that pay costs in excess of those allowed for in the public expenditure programme would not be funded.

    The Government’s written evidence concluded that ‘the higher pay settlements turn out to be, the less service development will be possible overall’ (para C10). On its own admission this position represented a significant departure from previous years when the level of financial provision has been reviewed in the light of Review Body recommendations and the Government’s decisions on them”.

    On nurses’ pay and prices, it goes on to say:

    “the current (April 1985) value of the Staff Nurses’ pay remains significantly below its real 1975 value. By April, 1986, even with the second, delayed, stage of the 1985 award taken into account (February 1986), the increase in Staff Nurses’ pay since 1975 will have been insufficient to accommodate the effect of inflation, let alone facilitate the rise in living standards which has been the experience of the majority of employees over the period.”

    That is the cry of health workers over the past 15 years or longer at the way that they have continually been left behind other grades, industries and professions.

    It is not only the nurses and the ancillary grades that are concerned, but the doctors, who have seen over the years their 1981 review body decision reduced from 9 per cent. to 6 per cent. and in 1984 and 1985 the fourth and fifth rejections of pay review body recommendations. There is anger across the Health Service about pay levels.

    Ancillary workers in the Health Service have suffered the largest cut and received the lowest pay, and are very much at the bottom of the pile in the hospital, but no hospital could operate without catering workers, cleaners and porters, all those who do the dirty, filthy unclean jobs that nobody else wants to do. They deserve a substantial increase in their basic levels of pay. There is no reason why people have to live on the poverty wages that they are getting.
    I have before me the payslip of a woman in my constituency, Mrs. Gertie Turner, who is employed at the Whittington hospital at Archway. For 23 years and three months she has worked in the Health Service. Until 1977 she worked in the laundry as a press hand, until that department was closed, and since then, she has worked in the linen room. She has the important job of ensuring that the linen is distributed and is available for all the beds, as patients come and go. She has to ensure that the linen is there on time.

    I am sure that every hon. Member will agree that such people are the backbone of the Health Service. Mrs. Turner’s basic pay is £80.10. She gets a bonus of £17.06 ​ and a London weighting of £13.50. Her weekly pay and allowances total £110.66. After stoppages, she takes home £67.34 for a full week’s hard, responsible service. This is a disgraceful figure for somebody who has put in so much work for the Health Service in such a responsible way.
    I turn to the claim that has been put forward on behalf of Gertie Turner and thousands of other people like her in the National Health Service. The 1986 trade union claim for ancillary staff council employees includes:

    “1. A substantial flat rate wage increase, as a major step towards the target of two thirds of national average earnings.
    2. A revision of the grading structure on equal value principles.
    3. A substantial increase in shift and related payments.
    4. A reduction in the working week to 35 hours.
    5. An increase in annual leave and a change in the calculation of leave from a retrospective to a current basis.
    6. A change in the public holidays agreement to provide entitlement for part-time workers whose work on fixed days currently excludes them from most public holidays.
    7. The right of access to arbitration.”

    When I talk about poverty levels of wages and poverty pay in the National Health Service, there is plenty of evidence to support what I am saying. The TUC definition of low pay, two thirds of average male earnings, is £109.06 in 1985 and 117.78 in the current year. The Low Pay Unit has slightly different figures of £115.20 and £124.41. The Council of Europe’s decency threshold, 68 per cent. of the average of men and women, shows a figure of £116.28 and £125.58. The supplementary benefit levels for a family with two children would be £123.61. By all those criteria, people like Gertie Turner are well within the current poverty pay levels.

    I quote next from the document which was put forward by all the trade unions on the ancillary staffs council, trade union side, at page 7:

    “In April 1985 the difference between the average weekly earnings of male NHS ancillary workers and male manual workers throughout the economy was £40.10. The gap with average male earnings was nearly £70 per week. The equivalent earnings gap for women was £96.84 Ten years ago, the earnings gap with male manual workers was £4.90. Nearly 50 per cent. of male ancillary staff earn as little as the lowest 10 per cent. of all manual workers throughout the economy.”.

    The booklet goes on to demonstrate that the problem is even more serious for women full-time ancillary staff. Despite equal pay legislation over the years, it is quite clear to me that women workers in the National Health Service get significantly less on average than their male counterparts.

    When a comparison is made of the earnings of female and male full-time ancillary staff as a proportion of all male manual earnings between 1970 and 1985, it is found that there are certain high points. There was a high point in 1971 when women earned 55 per cent. of the male average and men earned just under 90 per cent. There were then the low points which led to the 1973 dispute. After that there was the award which took men to 90 per cent. and women to just under 70 per cent. of earnings. Then there was the low point which led to the 1979 industrial dispute. Following that there was the Clegg award that took women up to about 65 per cent. and men up to about 85 per cent.

    The current position, from graphs provided not by trade union sources but by the Government’s new earnings survey, is that at present NHS women workers are well below 60 per cent. of male manual earnings and men are just under 80 per cent. of that figure.

    Frequently employees in the National Health Service have had their wages compared with those in local government. The gap now exists on every grade between workers in the local authorities who are not overpaid by any means. Under the local authority manual workers’ agreement a cook would get £92.40 a week. A National Health Service ancillary cook on grade 6 would get £82.92 a week. At the other end of the scale, a local authority dining room assistant or kitchen assistant—that would be somebody working in the school meals service or in a municipal canteen—would get £83.20 a week. A NHS ancillary worker—canteen, grade 1, domestic—would get £72.53 a week.

    Therefore, NHS workers are not happy The Government must tell us what their policy is towards low paid workers in the NHS. And what is their policy on pay generally in the NHS? When the awards are agreed this year for all grades in the NHS, will the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State undertake that those pay awards will be paid for out of national funds and not by local health authorities being forced either to lay off staff, close hospitals, close wards temporarily, or to lock up wards to subsidise the Government’s expenditure in other areas? Will the Government give an undertaking that no longer will health workers, who maintain the health of this nation and who work so hard, for so long and for so little, have to suffer the indignity of poverty wages? I find it ironic that so many Department of Health and Social Security employers are forced at the end of each week to go to another arm of the DHSS to register for the various benefits to which they are entitled because of the poverty wages that they are given in the first place by their main employer, the DHSS.

  • Andrea Leadsom – 2019 Statement on British Steel

    Andrea Leadsom

    Below is the text of the statement made by Andrea Leadsom, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the Scunthorpe Telegraph on 22 August 2019.

    The UK has been producing world-class steel since the 19th Century – it is a key part of our national heritage. From Scunthorpe to Sheffield, steel remains vital to our country’s manufacturing reputation.

    That is why the decision by the Official Receiver to progress an offer on the sale of British Steel is a positive step towards a secure future for the company.

    In my first week as Business Secretary, I visited the vast and impressive steelworks at Scunthorpe, seeing the dedication of British Steel’s workforce first-hand. It has clearly been a worrying and difficult time, and I was struck by the unwavering commitment to securing a future for the company. Their tenacity, hard work and dedication has helped ensure operations continue, orders are met, and production not only maintained but increased since the company entered insolvency. Reaching this milestone is due in no small part to the sheer commitment of British Steel’s employees to the company they feel so passionately about.

    British Steel plays a central role in the lives of communities across Scunthorpe, Skinningrove and on Teesside. I know and have heard first-hand what a devastating blow it would be if steelmaking were to end there. That is why our dedicated Support Group includes local MPs, local leaders and unions, as well as the company itself and its suppliers. Working constructively together has been a key factor in helping secure bids – and I also want to pay tribute to my predecessor Greg Clark, a driving force in this process.

    The government and everyone involved have left no stone unturned in their efforts to support a sale for the whole company, and as many will know, the preferred buyer of British Steel was confirmed last week by the Official Receiver as Ataer Holding.

    Ataer are not new to steel: they are the largest shareholder in Erdermir, Turkey’s largest flat steel producer – whom in the first 3 months of this year alone produced 2.4 million tonnes of steel and a profit of $186 million. When it comes to British Steel, Ataer have publicly stated that if this process is successful, their priority will be to increase production capacity and invest in clean steel production.

    The Official Receiver will now be focusing on finalising the sale. This process should be completed over the coming weeks and though there is much more work still to do, there is now cause for optimism.

    We will continue to work with all parties to ensure we do everything possible to secure a future for this business. Our aim is simple: to give British Steel every opportunity to realise its full potential.

  • John Major – 1986 Speech on Elderly Persons in Rest Homes

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Major, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, in the House of Commons on 12 March 1986.

    I have listened with care and interest to the wide-ranging speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Chope). In the time available I shall respond to as many of his points as possible. I welcome the opportunity ​ to debate this important issue, and understand and sympathise with many of the concerns that he has expressed. It is characteristic of his assiduity on behalf of his constituents that he has pursued this matter extremely vigorously over recent months. I have no objection to that, although I have frequently been on the sharp end of his activities, because few topics are more pressing to those concerned with social welfare than the provision of care for our growing numbers of elderly, especially very elderly, people. There will be an increasing number of them in society year upon year for as far ahead as we can see.

    First, I wish to look at the background to the present circumstances since it is important that it is properly understood. There have been radical changes in the past few years, which have transformed the whole character and scale of the provision of help for the elderly. Historically, many people who could no longer cope on their own have gone into local authority homes, or local authorities have sponsored them in private or voluntary homes. Many others have been cared for in the long-stay geriatric wards of our National Health Service hospitals.

    The new and welcome feature of the 1980s has been the substantial opening up of the private and voluntary sectors to many more people, who have been able to exercise choices previously open only to those with substantial private resources. That has occurred because of the substantial availability of high rates of supplementary benefit, which has become a major source of funding, enabling many people to be cared for in the private sector. The figures show beyond dispute the rapidity of this change. In 1978 supplementary benefit helped 7,000 people to pay their fees in residential care and nursing homes.

    By 1984 the estimated figure was not 7,000 but 42,000, a sixfold increase in as many years. Expenditure too has risen sharply. The figures have been often quoted but they bear repeating. In 1978 expenditure in this area was £6 million. By 1983 it had soared to just over £100 million and the estimated figure for 1984 was £190 million. It will undoubtedly be higher in 1985.
    In most ways, that growth has been beneficial. But the system was open to exploitation and abuse; and it had other features which have caused widespread concern. In the longer term, we would very much like to find a way of restoring a greater measure of responsiveness to individual need. My hon. Friend dealt particularly with that point.

    More immediately, I must reiterate what I have said. We simply could not have allowed the growth that was continuing prior to April 1985 to continue uncontrolled, in the interests both of the taxpayer and of the elderly residents themselves. My hon. Friend will know that the numbers of elderly in the population are increasing, and they must be cared for. We entirely accept that and are anxious to seek the best ways of caring for them in their interests and those of the taxpayer. Therefore, it is right that we should make a comprehensive attempt to address this issue, not simply fudge it by paying ever-increasing amounts of benefits, as some people have urged on us. We need to take a comprehensive look at residential care and that is what we are seeking to do in a number of surveys that we have undertaken.

    As a first step, in April last year we introduced a new structure for the payment of supplementary benefit to people in homes. Our aim was to regain control of expenditure and to relate benefit levels to the type of care ​ and the cost of care provided. The system of limits that we introduced was intended to allow reasonable charges to be met on the basis of the registration categories set out in the 1984 Act. The limits were set by reference to the best information that was available to us and for residential care homes they initially ranged from £110 to £170. I should mention that the limit for Southampton before April 1985 was £110, the same amount as the limit we set for the elderly under the new structure that we introduced in April.

    My hon. Friend asked about the position of people who were already in residential care homes when the changes were made. We have provided, as he acknowledged, extensive protection arrangements for people in homes who were in receipt of benefit when the changes were made and who would otherwise have been adversely affected. Those over pension age will continue to get their existing benefit for life or until payment under the new rules becomes more favourable for them. The new limits will normally apply to those who were in homes but not claiming benefit before April 1985. However, as my hon. Friend acknowledged, in cases of exceptional hardship the Secretary of State has discretionary power to treat certain long-standing residents in a similar way to transitionally protected claimants.

    My hon. Friend asked particularly about the vexed question of topping up payments, which he believes is being misunderstood, and I believe that he is correct. He asked me to spell out the position. I assume that he was referring to payments made by relatives or charities to meet the difference between the supplementary benefit payable and the homes’ charges. Such payments are not —I repeat not — taken into account when benefit is assessed. The guidance in the S manual advises local offices to

    “disregard payments from charities, friends or relatives specifically intended to meet the balance of the charge to the extent that they are used for that purpose”.

    That is entirely clear, and I hope that none of our local offices will misunderstand it.

    But we recognised that this was the first step. When the measures were introduced, we promised a full programme of monitoring and research. We did so partly because we had an early sense of some of the difficulties to which my hon. Friend drew our attention this evening. One result of the initial feedback was an increase in the limits in November 1985. The residential care home limits were increased by £10, giving a range from £120 to £180. The limits for nursing homes, which are higher because of the more intensive care provided, were also increased by just more than £30 a week. Those substantial increases show our willingness to listen and to take action when we believe it to be necessary.

    As my hon. Friend may know, we are in the process of reviewing all the residential care and nursing home limits. I listened with special care to what he said about the difficulties and problems faced by residential care home owners and residents in his constituency. We shall consider carefully the comments that he and other hon. Members have made during the review.

    As an integral part of the review, we have commissioned a firm of independent management consultants, Ernst and Whinney, to undertake a wide-ranging inquiry into the costs incurred by homes of all sorts. The review will also draw on our monitoring of the arrangements since they were introduced last year, ​ information from our local offices and representations from interested organisations and individuals. Any changes shown to be necessary following that review will be introduced in July this year at the time of the general benefit uprating. Although there is a tendency to think of £120 as the limit for the elderly, assuming that a home is registered to care for them., a range of higher limits is available to residents in residential care homes that stretches between £120 a week and £180 a week.

    As to the longer-term future, most people would agree that there are inherent difficulties in the present system of public funding in this area. The present duality, with local authorities and supplementary benefit as major purchasers and providers of care, has caused problems administratively and, in some cases, for the people whom the system is supposed to help. Our aim is to draw together the two disparate strands so that when someone needs care, it can be provided simply and at a reasonable cost to public funds.

    The first step towards that was made with the joint central and local government working party, which was set up in late 1984 by my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Social Services, for Scotland and for Wales. The working party examined the scope for improving collaboration between the Department and local authorities over financial support for residents of private and voluntary residential care homes.

    In its report, issued last year, the working party made two major recommendations. The first deals with an issue which I know worries my hon. Friend—the assessment of supplementary benefit claimants’ need for care. I recall clearly the remarks of Mrs. Armstrong and the consultant geriatrician when we met in Southampton about a month ago. The working party recommended that we should explore the feasibility of extending local authorities’ existing multi-disciplinary assessments to anyone in residential care claiming benefit and of local authorities advising DHSS offices on appropriate payments. We have agreed with the local authority associations that we should carry out pilot studies to test the proposals. They will take the form of a dry run and will not affect anyone’s benefit. The pilot studies will be conducted by the social policy research unit at York university. The aim will be to explore how the arrangements would work in practice and to identify any new problems and, I trust, their solutions.

    The second recommendation was that we should seek long-term solutions to the problems created by the existing parallel systems of support. We have also accepted this recommendation. We and the local authority associations have agreed to set up a further joint working party to consider ways of harmonising financial support for people in residential care homes. The first meeting of this working party will be held at the end of this month and it is expected to complete its work within a year.

    As I hope my hon. Friend will agree, we therefore have a substantial programme in hand for reviewing the financial arrangements for people in residential care homes and the problems that he mentioned. In the short term, we are reviewing the current supplementary benefit limits, and in the longer term we have the pilot studies on the assessment of supplementary benefit claimants’ care needs and the joint central/local government working party.

    A related issue is the dual registration of homes. A home registered with the local authority as a residential care home may also be registered as a nursing home with ​ the district health authority. We call this dual registration. Indeed, the home has to be so registered if it is providing nursing care of the kind proper to a nursing home. Residential care homes themselves are classified for registration purposes according to the main categories of dependent people, such as physically disabled or mentally disordered people, or elderly people, without attendant, exceptional disability. As I mentioned earlier, different rates of supplementary benefit apply to people in those categories, providing that they are registered in homes that are properly registered to care for them.

    I hope that from all this my hon. Friend will see that we are very carefully considering the financial arrangements for residents in registered rest homes for the ​ elderly. I emphasise that a home can be registered for more than one category, and this is being made clear to local authorities, as the registration authorities, in a circular that is about to be issued, a copy of which I shall put in the Library. A home may therefore be classified to take physically disabled as well as elderly people. I hope that what I have been able to say in the few minutes at my disposal this evening will be of some assurance to my hon. Friend, to the many people who are running residential care homes and, above all, to the many residents of such homes, who may have had some uncertainty about the present arrangements.

  • Christopher Chope – 1986 Speech on Elderly Persons in Rest Homes

    Below is the text of the speech made by Christopher Chope, the then Conservative MP for Southampton Itchen, in the House of Commons on 12 March 1986.

    I am grateful for the opportunity to have a debate about the financial arrangements for people in registered rest homes for the elderly. I know that I am not alone among hon. Members in being concerned about the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson) wishes me to associate his name with some of the concerns which I want to express.

    I appreciate the keen interest which my hon. Friend the Minister has taken in the subject since taking over responsibility for it. May I thank him in particular for the way in which he has listened to the representations of my constituents? In January he visited Southampton and, after meeting several residents at the Brookvale care home, he had a discussion with other rest home owners, a consultant geriatrician, general practitioners and nurses about the problems of residential care for the elderly. Later the same day he opened a new rest home which I am pleased to tell him is prospering, although it is charging fees greater than those who are on supplementary benefit can afford. More recently, my hon. Friend had a follow-up meeting lasting about an hour with two registered rest home owners in Southampton. If he paid the same attention to every constituency, I do not think he would have time to do anything else. I am most grateful for his concern.

    The Conservative Government have an excellent record in extending care in the community, and the expanding national network of residential and nursing homes in the private sector is testament to this. The passing of legislation to improve the standards of care in these homes has ensured that those who look forward to spending the later years of their life in residential care can do so with confidence. The national picture is fully reflected in Southampton and Hampshire. In Southampton, the success of the programme of extending care in the community is such that, despite increasing numbers of elderly, and particularly frail elderly, there are now fewer on the waiting list for long-stay hospital care. My hon. Friend will know, however, that one does not seek a debate on the Adjournment merely to praise the Government but to draw attention to particular problems.

    The first problem to which I draw attention is the position of those who were in receipt of supplementary benefit in respect of their rest homes charges at 28 April 1985. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State first proposed a new structure of national limits for the residential care and nursing home sector on 29 November 1984, he said,

    “These new limits will be designed to reflect the varying cost of providing different types of care. There is no question, however, of elderly, handicapped or disabled people being moved out of their existing accommodation, and their position will be protected.” — [Official Report, 29 November 1984; Vol. 68, c. 1098–99.]

    In circular LASSL 86(1), issued on 14 January 1986, there is confirmation that the level of charges being met in a person’s supplementary benefit before 29 April 1985 will be maintained indefinitely where the person is over pensionable age. I welcome that, but it does not meet the problem of rising costs and charges. Most residential rest ​ homes have had to increase their charges since April 1985 or, if they have not already done so, will soon have to.

    Who is to pay the increased charges? The DHSS will not if the charges are already above £120. By definition, the residents do not have the means to pay the extra and even if they did this would be offset against their supplementary entitlement. I know of several proprietors of rest homes in Southampton who will have to take a crunch decision soon — next month is the crunch time—about whether to waive increased charges for the residents in the category I have described or ask those residents to leave. Surely if my right hon. Friend is to be consistent with his pledge to “protect the position” of such residents, he should be willing to allow increased supplementary benefit in line with the retail prices index. He should not rely upon the charity of the home owners, and should remember that because the residents do not enjoy security of tenure both they and their relatives are extremely worried about what may happen.

    The second problem to which I draw attention is the position of those who were resident in rest homes at 28 April 1985 but who were paying privately and whose means subsequently fall to such a level as to cause them to qualify for supplementary benefit. Many of those who enter residential care use the capital released from the sale of their homes to meet the costs, but even £30,000 from the sale of a house pays for only three or four years in a rest home at £150 per week. These people expected that, once their capital was depleted, they would be in the same position as anyone else who qualified for supplementary benefit. Surely the pledge given by my right hon. Friend to which I have referred should extend unequivocally to these residents as well.

    In this context I welcome the contents of paragraph 5 of the circular of 14 January, which states:

    “For those claiming supplementary benefit after 29 April 1985 the new system of national limits applied straight away. But Ministers have decided to introduce a new provision to help some long standing residents in residential care homes who did not claim supplementary benefit until after 29 April 1985…Where application of the new limits could produce exceptional hardship the Secretary of State has the discretionary power to extend to an individual the benefit of transitional protection so that he could receive the same rate of benefit as he would have received had he claimed before 29 April”.

    I hope that much greater publicity will be given to this very welcome concession by the Government, because I know that the problem has been a cause of concern to many. I have met many residents and their relatives who are still concerned, however, about what will happen when the money runs out. I doubt that the discretionary power will allay all their worries and concerns. I find it hard to contemplate a situation in which my right hon. Friend would choose not to exercise his discretion to extend transitional protection. If I am right in that, why cannot he go the whole way and guarantee that, in the situation that I have described, the transitional protection will be extended?

    The third problem on which I seek my hon. Friend’s comments is the rigidity of the limit of £120 a week on supplementary benefit payments for residents in residential rest homes for the elderly. In most homes in Southampton this limit is well below the fees charged to those who pay privately. I imagine that £120 a week is probably too much for a pensioner who is up and about and fully in command of his faculties and who does not qualify ​ for attendance allowance. Such a person should not, perhaps, even be in a residential rest home—at any rate, not at the expense of the taxpayer.

    However, at the other end of the scale there may be a nonagenarian who qualifies for the full attendance allowance, who is very frail and who is incontinent. For such a person, living in a centrally heated, single room with full board, 24-hour care and free laundry, £17 a day is a bargain. It is clearly far below the reasonable cost. One needs only to consider the cost of care in a long-stay hospital. It is £48 a day. Therefore, £17 a day is very much on the low side where a very considerable degree of care is required.

    I do not underestimate the problems involved in having separate levels of supplementary benefit entitlement, depending on the extent of the infirmity and the degree of care being provided. But the present system, particularly now that the attendance allowance payments are taken into account and set off against supplementary benefit, discriminates against the very people that we should be most eager to help. My hon. Friend saw some such people on the occasion of his visit to the Brookvale care home in Southampton.

    The fourth problem is the one of topping-up payments. If a person is below pensionable age and a home’s charges exceed the supplementary benefit limit a local authority is able to top up the balance above supplementary benefit. The same principle does not apply, however, to a person who is a pensioner. I am sure that many local authorities would much prefer to top up a payment rather than have to provide home help services and meals on wheels. A district health authority might also be willing to make a topping up payment because it thereby saves on district nursing services. In Southampton, in the light of a recent decision to remove payments for incontinent aids, it would mean a saving of between £40 and £50 per resident per month if a person moved into a residential rest home.

    There is also a problem about topping-up payments by relatives. I hope that in his reply this evening my hon. Friend will spell out clearly what those rules are. I have spoken to the officials in the supplementary benefit office in Southampton. They are in a state of confusion. The result is that some of the decisions that have been handed down seem to be wrong. I understand that under the regulations it is possible for relatives to top up payments, but I do not believe that that is the general understanding. I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend has to say about that problem.

    The fifth problem concerns the inflexible arrangements which apply to the categorisation of residents. A nursing home resident can receive between £170 and £230 per week from supplementary benefit, yet I have had constituency cases of individuals who would clearly qualify for nursing home provision but who would prefer to stay in a residential rest home where they have already spent many years, where the environment is familiar and the standard of care is as high as they would wish or need. My hon. Friend wrote to me about one such case on 28 February. The 89-year-old lady has charges of £180 per week. When I wrote to my hon. Friend he suggested that, in view of her disabilities and the high degree of care she needs,

    “it may be that she should now be accommodated in a nursing rather than a residential care home. The limit for a non specialist nursing home is £170 per week. This higher limit could not be paid for”—

    this particular lady’s—

    “present accommodation unless the home were jointly registered also as a nursing home.”

    But joint registration of this home is not a practicable possibility. There are planning problems and the additional facilities which the owner would have to provide would only be worthwhile if all her residents were in need of the level of care provided in a nursing home. The owner does not wish to register as a nursing home and the resident does not wish to move to a nursing home.
    If a pensioner resident suffers from disablement but had become disabled before reaching pensionable age, the maximum supplementary benefit payable is £180 rather than £120, provided of course that the home is duly registered for the elderly and physically disabled. Yet if a pensioner resident becomes frail and disabled in old age, the limit is fixed at £120.
    Circular LASSL 86(1) explains:

    “This distinction is intended to avoid ambiguity between those suffering from substantial and permanent disablement and those simply becoming frail in old age.”

    That is Civil Service newspeak of the worst sort. If an 85-year-old bedridden amputee is frail and incontinent, he is disabled. Why should the cost of looking after him be deemed to be £60 a week less, if he was disabled at the age of 65 rather than 64? That is one of the worst anomalies.

    There is a similar inflexibility in the assessment of those with mental disorders. Senile dementia is not apparently classified as a mental disorder, although its symptoms are often similar. The amount of care needed to look after someone with it is a great deal more than that for an ordinary old person. Yet supplementary benefit allowances are no different.

    I know that my hon. Friend does not have responsibility for incontinent aids, but does he agree that it is desirable for health authorities to provide incontinent aids at no cost to residents in local authority, private and voluntary residential rest homes? I can understand why such facilities should not be provided to nursing homes because by their definition they are meant to provide full care and treatment, including all nursing services. But at a time when resident rest home owners are being pressurised from all sides, it is most unfortunate that in the Southampton health district the provision of such incontinent aids to residents in residential rest homes has been withdrawn by the health authority.

    In a masterly understatement in a letter to me, my hon. Friend said:

    “We do not regard the present arrangements as immune to change if the need can be shown.”

    I hope that he will show that he has thought further about the possible ways in which the system can be improved and changed, and that he will not delay in putting right some of the present shortcomings which threaten to discredit an area of Government policy for which there should be only properly great praise.

  • Roy Hattersley – 1986 Speech on the City of London

    Below is the text of the speech made by Roy Hattersley, the then Labour MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook, in the House of Commons on 12 March 1986.

    I beg to move,

    That this House, deploring the increasing influence of the City over the Government and its policies, calls upon the Government to put aside considerations of political support and personal connection and to introduce a system of regulation of, and supervision for, the financial services which will provide an adequate response to the increase in City fraud, to introduce a stricter system of surveillance of monopolies and mergers, and to adopt economic policies which are to the benefit not of the City alone, but of the whole economy and which will therefore assist in the reduction of unemployment, the rehabilitation of manufacturing industry and the provision of an adequate alternative to diminishing oil revenues.

    Today we debate the City against a background of continuing economic crisis. The fact that the existence of that crisis, the truth of the existence of that crisis, will be rejected by Conservative Members who speak underlines the gulf which divides the two sides of the House and the necessity for today’s debate. Conservatives judge economic success by the Financial Times index. We judge it by different standards, not least the ability of our nation to provide jobs for all its people.

    The facts of the economic crisis are that unemployment now stands at between 3·5 million and 4 million, manufacturing trade is in deficit and real interest rates are at record levels. Each of those individual catastrophes has been intensified by the Government’s enthusiasm for economic policies which benefit the City but damage the rest of the economy. We have today a Government of the City for the City and, by far too large an extent, by the City.

    The connection between the Government and the Tory Benches was on blatant display during the Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill when stockbrokers and underwriters from the Conservative Benches took it in turn to defend their vested interests and to argue against effective Government supervision. It is that close connection that makes a Tory Government certainly unwilling to tackle, and perhaps incapable of tackling, the City fraud crisis by instituting an effective system of regulation and supervision.

    Yet rarely a week goes past without the discovery and exposure of some other malpractice and scandal. Indeed, ​ only this morning our newest daily paper, Today, had on its front page an exclusive story about what is rightly described as the latest series of dirty tricks.

    The normal defence for the City’s behaviour and the Government’s refusal to act appropriately is the assertion that a majority of City firms is honest. Of course, I accept that, but the honest and honourable majority is not sufficiently determined to expose and act against the criminal minority. I give a current example. Ten days ago, I wrote an article in The Observer which spoke of stock exchange fraud. Early this week, I received a letter from Sir Nicholas Goodison, the chairman of the stock exchange, who asked me—I think it was intended to be a challenge—what I meant by stock exchange fraud and what examples I could give him.

    I cannot believe that Sir Nicholas does not know the facts of insider dealing, as confirmed on 11 December by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in an answer given in another place. He confirmed that there were 25 prima facie cases of insider dealing and that 80 cases were referred to the Department of Trade and Industry under section 2 of the Companies Act, and he expressed anxiety about the difficulty of securing convictions in such cases. Yet Sir Nicholas challenges me to explain what I am talking about. I can only assume that Sir Nicholas’s definition of fraud is different from mine and different from that of most people outside the City.
    Some people in the stock exchange take a stronger and clearer view on these matters than does the chairman. Michael Feltham of the stock exchange finance department wrote in the Financial Times earlier this week:

    “We can track down the small insider deals … but the big fish go offshore.”

    They go offshore because of inadequate supervision and because too many people in the City who may be honest are not prepared to expose the dishonesty among them. Indeed, the City remains a charmed and closed circle wedded to the misplaced loyalty of a gentleman’s club, although the City is clearly no longer the exclusive preserve of gentleman.

    The City is incapable of regulating its affairs. Let us consider the alternatives to that, in each area, which are offered by the Government. The Government’s remedy for bank fraud is a board of supervision which is almost a subcommittee of the Bank of England. But the Bank of England, especially under its present Governor, is wholly incapable of performing that task, because the Bank of England is not the agent of Government in the City, but the voice of the City in Government. What is more, the new supervisory agency—the Bank of England—was blamed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the going was rough and he needed something to hide behind. It was made a scapegoat for compounding the Johnson Matthey affair, yet now the bank must make sure that errors for which it was partly responsible do not happen again.

    As a remedy for the City’s general malpractices, we are offered the prospect of legislation based on the Gower commission’s recommendations. Yet the Government know that those recommendations were made before deregulation increased potential rewards, potential risks and, therefore, the temptation to defraud. As a remedy for Lloyd’s fraud, we were offered two conflicting ​ assurances. The first was that the Lloyd’s Act 1982 is sufficient; the second is that a new inquiry will examine whether the Lloyd’s Act 1982 is sufficient.

    I ask the Chief Secretary two specific questions, although in the light of previous behaviour whether anyone will believe his answer is open to question. What does he think about, in many cases, the absence and, in all cases, the delay and reluctance to mount prosecutions against City frauds? Secondly, how would he react if I were to suggest that we abandoned any hope of pursuing social security frauds, most of which are minute compared with the rewards obtained from City malpractices?

    All that being said, and my hopes of an honest answer being optimistically renewed, I must tell the Chief Secretary that the City crime wave is not the most important or most urgent issue that we should debate. The crime wave is only one aspect of a larger problem: the City’s view of itself as an independent power that is too big, too powerful, too rich and too international to be supervised by the Government, the Government’s craven acceptance of the view that the City can act independently and the Government’s agreement that the City can develop a life of its own detached from the rest of the economy.

    The United Kingdom is the only country that talks about a separate institution— the City — as though it were not part of the rest of the world, the rest of the economy and the other prospects and hopes for the country. With the City’s international connections, only in Great Britain is its interests not so much different from the interests of manufacturing economy, but often diametrically opposed to them. Indeed, as the circumstances and facts of the past seven years prove, as the real economy of investment, output, manufacturing, exports and jobs declines, the City can benefit from that, improve its position, increase its rewards and extend its influence.

    The Government’s pandering to the City’s wishes has meant that, for the past six years, our economic policy has benefited financial services but worked directly against the interest of manufacture, employment and visible trade. The City has benefited from high interest rates, uncompetitive exchange rate and the abolition of exchange control; it has benefited, in part scandalously, from the sale of national assets.

    The City has made vast sums from the privatisation programme, and again I ask the Chief Secretary some specific questions. Much of the money—certainly some of it—was made improperly. First, the City prices the assets, or, to be more specific, it underprices the assets. It is estimated that the City underpriced the assets sold by the Government by about £3 billion. Had the Government obtained the proper price, it would have been enough to fund the entire programme of jobs for the long-term unemployed that was recommended to the House by the Select Committee on Employment.

    It is worth noting that the Government, composed of City experts—or at least financial journalists—let the City get away with it. I hope that the Chief Secretary will tell us whether incompetence or malice allowed the Government to sacrifice £3 billion to City corruption. It was one or the other. One way or another, the Government lost £3 billion of taxpayers’ money and, as the afternoon goes on, the Chief Secretary must choose which it was.

    Having underpriced the assets, the City then bought many of them at the artificially low price. Indeed, I understand — I trust that the Chief Secretary will comment on it — that some City institutions bought ​ assets in excess of the amount which they were officially allocated. As well as making that killing on the underpriced assets, the City also charged the Government an unwarranted underwriters’ risk premium, when it knew that there was no risk. The City knew that the stock would be sold and that the price was too low, yet it chose to charge the Government a commission which it knew was unjustifiable.

    Some of the questions that I would have wished to ask this afternoon have, as a result of recent prosecutions mounted and continued this week, become subject to the sub judice rule, but I can at least ask the Chief Secretary this. As it is beyond dispute that many of the assets sold by the Government have been scandalously undervalued—

    Mr. Tim Smith (Beaconsfield)

    Rubbish.

    Mr. Hattersley

    Rubbish? We shall hear the Chief Secretary defend that in a minute. Many of the assets sold by this Government have been scandalously undervalued—

    Mr. Smith

    What about the last issue of Cable and Wireless shares, which was exactly right?

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)

    Order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene, he knows that there is a proper way to do so.

    Mr. Hattersley

    As it is generally accepted by all those without bias or a vested interest in financial concerns—those who have are showing their spots and colours vividly and dramatically this afternoon—that what I have said is true, I ask the Chief Secretary how he proposes to avoid that scandal in the future, or is he so anxious for a quick sale of public assets to pad the Budget and make future tax cuts possible that he is prepared to sell off national assets knowing that the city is improperly and unscrupulously lining its pockets?

    Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda)

    My right hon. Friend was challenged from a sedentary position by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith). I hope that my right hon. Friend will listen to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Does my right hon. Friend realise that the hon. Gentleman is parliamentary consultant to the National Association of Security Dealers and Investment Managers, and to the County bank, and obviously has a strong interest in this debate and knows what he is talking about?

    Mr. Hattersley

    I think that the interesting nature of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks was not so much his authority, which I do not doubt, but the passion with which he defended the vested interest with which he is concerned.

    I concede that, not surprisingly during the past seven years, the City has done very well by its own standards. City salaries have risen astronomically. I know that the Chief Secretary is an expert in these matters. Will he give us his judgment about City salaries and about the society in which we remove the wages council protection from the young but allow City institutions to pay men of 30, 35 or 40 not only £50,000 or £60,000 a year, but a £250,000 signing-on fee—a new phrase in the English language that goes with hello, and which the Chief Secretary knows perfectly well is common in the City? Will he comment not only on the morality and propriety of that, but on how he thinks that it affects the Government’s drive for lower wages for those at the lower end of the income scale?

    The City has done well, its salaries have risen vastly and City employment has risen while employment in the rest of the economy has slumped. We have to understand — and hon. Members who defend the City have to accept—that the City has not and cannot make up for the matching and related collapse in manufacturing industry. The City cannot fill the gap that will be left in our balance of payments when the oil begins to run out. The British Invisible Exports Council was explicit on this point. It says that it does not see the growth of services

    “as being to a major extent a substitute for decline in general industrial activity.”

    In the words of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath),

    “the service industries have to have something to service.”

    In the economy in general under this City-oriented Government, it has been seven years of decline, in part because the City has hopelessly failed to provide investment in export promotions, in job creation and in the areas where manufacturing industry might grow and where new jobs might be found.

    There are three sectors of particular concern. One is small firms, particularly those that need, and should be provided with, loans and investment at the soft rates common among our more successful creditors. Secondly, there is an important need for but failure in long-term investment—the failure of the City to take a long-term view of these things. Thirdly, there is a desperate need for the City, when it is examining industry, to make a more sensible evaluation of the long-term risks.

    One of the reasons why long-term risk evaluation is so often inadequate is that the City does not know about manufacturing industries, is not interested in them and is not concerned in them. In our more successful competitors in the OECD and EEC there are banks that choose to work as part of industry alongside industry and understanding its problems. Here in Britain, the City is different, superior, exclusive and industrially ignorant. However, when charged with failure to provide an adequate investment, the City always gives the same circular, self-righteous, self-serving defence. It is that there is plenty available for suitable investment. I see the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) utter the words as I say them. That is his view, but not that of British industry.

    I quote from Sir Terence Beckett, not usually on the side of Labour party economic policy, who spoke to the House of Lords Select Committee about:

    “the widespread comments I get from industry, particularly small and medium sized companies who have difficulty in getting finance from banks”.

    The British Chamber of Commerce was equally conclusive. It said:

    “Every bank will tell you that there is money available in all directions—but they have to or feel obliged to put certain criteria on the lending which are somewhat different from our overseas competitors”.

    The hon. Member for Beaconsfield may laugh at the idea of the British Chamber of Commerce complaining about the absence of investment, but he is laughing about the failure of the Government and the institutions that they support to help small firms to develop and grow.

    In any case, what does money available for suitable projects mean in practice? I give the House a definition offered to me by a west midlands clothing company whose highly successful expansion, principally into the export ​ market, was made possible only because of the help that it received from the West Midlands enterprise board. The chairman of that company, who had touted about the City looking for new investment, said;

    “If I had wanted to build a casino in Mayfair they would have pressed £5 notes into my hand. But because I wanted to make things and export things, they did not want to know.”

    They want to know about some things—the merger boom, for example, which occurs under our wholly inadequate competition policy. The City wants to finance takeovers, which have nothing to do with efficiency, output or employment, because this is a sector of easy pickings. It is work with which the real economy has no connection, work that is unproductive in terms of investment, output and jobs.

    What is more — and the tragedy and mistake is accentuated by the takeover boom—the stock exchange system as a whole concentrates far too much of its financial attention on short-term profits. Prices are determined by the most recent returns, and so are takeover profits. Now, with more and more successful predators stalking the market, company after company increasingly occupies its time in erecting protection from suddenly being swallowed up. I offer in evidence the comments made in an article in the Bank of England Quarterly by David Walker, the bank’s executive director. He talked about takeover mania:

    “re-inforcing in many boards the disposition to be cautious about innovation expenditure which reduces profit in the short term.”

    The country needs the will to innovate and a willingness to make judgments on the long-term not the short-term profits. Yet the takeover mania, the inadequacies of present competition policy, buttressed by the behaviour of the City, has concentrated industry’s mind more and more on the next share price, on the next quarterly profit and on the prospects of being swallowed up while the needs of the real economy are investment growth and jobs. Those needs are forgotten.

    Perhaps most important of all, for the City to say that its investment programmes, investment potential and the investment it makes available to manufacturing industry are meeting the economy’s needs is for the City complacently to accept an economy in which manufacture collapses, in which there is an incipient balance of payments crisis which will break over us when the oil runs out and in which there are permanently 3 million or 4 million men and women unemployed. That may be good enough for the City, with its vast salaries, its great power and its special relationship with the Government. It is not good enough for the Opposition, and I do not believe that it is good enough for the people of this country.

  • Robin Cook – 1986 Speech on Housing in Livingston

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Boris Johnson – 2019 Statement at the G7

    Below is the text of the speech made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at the G7 in Biarritz, France, on 26 August 2019.

    I’d like to thank President Macron for an incredibly stylish and highly effective Summit that he’s just hosted for us here in Biarritz.

    Every conversation that I’ve had with my fellow leaders, I’ve been struck by their enthusiasm to expand and strengthen their relations with our country – whether that’s on trade or security or defence, science and indeed the growing opportunities we’ve had to collaborate in space and technology.

    We’ve also spoken in Biarritz about the biggest global challenges confronting us all today and these are things that I think very much matter to the people in the UK.

    We’ve been talking about biodiversity. We’ve got to stop the tragic loss of habitats and species that is happening around the world. We can’t just sit back as animals and plants are wiped off the face of the planet.

    The world’s animal populations have declined by about 60% in the last fifty years – about a million species are now facing extinction.

    And we’ve seen in the Amazon rainforest the tragic increase in fires which are made more likely by deforestation. And that’s why today I’ve announce £10 million in new funding to protect and restore the rainforest in Brazil.

    With one million birds and 100,000 mammals losing their lives every year from eating or getting tangled in ocean plastic – we’ve got to do much more to protect the oceans, and today I’ve announced £7 million for the Blue Belt programme to extend our work to protect the vital marine ecosystems in conservation areas in overseas territories.

    And don’t forget Britain has the fifth biggest marine estate in the world.

    If we don’t act now our children and our grandchildren will never know a world with the Great Barrier Reef, or the Sumatran Tiger or the Black Rhino.

    And so next year at the biodiversity COP – the Summit in China – the so called aichi targets must, in our view, be replaced with new, more ambitious targets to help us get back the biodiversity that this planet is losing, and has lost.

    And I’m pleased that the G7 Summit today in Biarritz has accepted those UK ideas, those proposals for biodiversity targets, for humanity to set targets to stop the reduction of habitats and species. And obviously we are going to follow up on that at the COP Summit in the UK if we’re lucky enough to get that and I very much believe that we will.

    There’s one issue underpinning all that which I believe holds the key to tackling so many global problems and that is the vital importance of educating girls and I’m very pleased that here at the G7 people, everybody, every delegation has supported the UK’s campaign to give every girl in the world 12 years of quality education.

    Today I announced funding to give 600,000 children in the world’s most dangerous countries, where girls are twice as likely as boys to be out of school, the opportunity to go to school for the first time.

    We discussed Iran, and we are all agreed that Iran should never under any circumstances be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. And there is clearly an opportunity for Iran to now come back into compliance with a nuclear deal – the JCPOA – and to resume dialogue as well as to cease its disruptive behaviour in the region.

    We expressed, collectively, deep concern about what is happening in Hong Kong, and the G7 nations all want to support a stable and a prosperous Hong Kong. And we remain collectively committed to the one country two systems framework.

    And I was pleased that was reflected in the conclusions of the Summit, which was as I say very productive indeed.

    People can quarrel with Summits and with world leaders coming together in this way for discussions about the wide ranging issues we have had – but I really think that if the leaders who have been gathered together in Biarritz over the last couple of days really follow through on these discussions, and really mean what they say in the conclusions, I think it will make a real difference to the issues that the people in our country care very deeply about.

    So I thank you very much for sticking with it. I know it’s been a long old Summit, but I’d like to take your questions now.

  • John Ryman – 1986 Speech on Bates Colliery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) rose—

    Mr. Ryman

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

    Mr. Skinner

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

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

    Mr. Ryman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

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

    ​Mr. Ryman

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

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

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

  • Roland Boyes – 1986 Speech on Local Government

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

    I beg to move,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    I think that that is a good phrase—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    and

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

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

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

  • Bernard Braine – 1986 Speech on Drugs Misuse and AIDs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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