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  • Paul Channon – 1986 Statement on British Leyland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Oonagh McDonald – 1986 Speech on Orsett Hospital

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Richard Holt – 1986 Speech on Ambulance Services in Guisborough

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Nicholas Edwards – 1986 Statement on Wales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Edwards

    Are they coming?

    ​Mr. Howells

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

    Mr. Edwards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Dr. John Marek (Wrexham)

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

    Mr. Edwards

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

    Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)

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

    Mr. Edwards

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

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

    Sir Raymond Gower (Vale of Glamorgan)

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

    Mr. Edwards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Anderson

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

    Mr. Edwards

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

    Dr. Roger Thomas (Carmarthen)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    Mr. Edwards

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

    Dr. Thomas

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

    ​Mr. Edwards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Michael Foot (Blaenau Gwent)

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

    Mr. Edwards

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

    Mr. Foot rose—

    Mr. Edwards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda)

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

    Mr. Edwards

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Ian Lang – 1986 Statement on the European Social Fund

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

    I beg to move,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. John Prescott (Kingston upon Hull, East)

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

    Mr. Lang

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Eric Forth (Mid-Worcestershire)

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

    Mr. Lang

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • David Trippier – 1986 Speech on the Wapping Printing Dispute

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Leighton rose—

    Mr. Trippier

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

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

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

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

    Mr. John Prescott (Kingston upon Hull, East)

    Another management brief, just as in the Silentnight debate.

    Mr. Trippier

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

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

    Mr. Prescott

    What about Murdoch?

    Mr. Trippier

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

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

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

    Mr. Leighton

    What about Murdoch?

    Mr. Trippier

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

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

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

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

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

    What about Murdoch’s bully boys.

    Mr. Trippier

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

    Mr. Prescott

    What about Murdoch?

    Mr. Trippier

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

  • Ron Leighton – 1986 Speech on the Wapping Printing Dispute

    Below is the text of the speech made by Ron Leighton, the then Labour MP for Newham North East, in the House of Commons on 3 March 1986.

    For 28 years before coming to the House I worked as a printer on the News of the World and later on The Sun in Bouverie street. I am sponsored by the largest printing union, SOGAT ’82.

    Rupert Murdoch’s callous and malevolent sacking of his entire work force of 5,500 without a penny of compensation or redundancy pay is an act of savagery unparalleled in British industrial relations. It is an affront to justice and ordinary human decency.

    I shall begin with what the dispute is not about. It is not about new technology. That is something that the unions accept, and already operate on other newspapers. The truth is that in the Wapping machine room there is no new technology. The machinery there is secondhand. It is 16 years old and it has been in store. It is the same as that which was running in Bouverie street and Gray’s Inn road. It is old letterpress machinery, with no facility for printing colour. The new technology in Wapping is in origination, in computerised photocomposition. This already exists and it is being worked with union agreement at the Daily Mirror and The Mail on Sunday. Let no one say that the unions are Luddite. Technology cannot excuse the barbarism that has occurred.

    One of the most offensive aspects of this squalid story has been Murdoch’s lies, the conspiracy of deceit, over months and years. One example is his cynical pretence of negotiating the transfer of staff to Wapping while all the time working deliberately and cold-bloodedly to eliminate the staff completely. One myth is that the company tried to negotiate for six years and could get nowhere. That is the opposite of the truth, as I shall show.

    The staff at Gray’s Inn road were not involved in negotiations because it was told that it was not going to Wapping. All the members of the clerical staff on all the newspapers were told that they were to stay put when the printing moved and that as a consequence they were not to be involved in the negotiations. The chapel and the department where I worked was the News of the World machine section. I have documents which show that what were called preliminary discussions were proposed by Mr. O’Neill for the company on 3 May 1983, when he invited chapel officials to tour the new building and then to fly to Finland to visit a modern printing plant. The management at that time gave clear, firm, categoric guarantees that there would be no compulsory redundancies.

    On 2 January 1985, discussions had reached the stage where Mr. Britton could write the chapel a lengthy letter setting out all the areas of agreement and the company’s proposals. He again reiterated:

    “The company has given assurances that no regular employee need make himself available for voluntary redundancy.”

    These management proposals were accepted by a chapel meeting in January 1985.

    On 12 January 1985, Mr. Isaacs, the father of the chapel, wrote, as he put it, “with pleasure” telling the management that relations appeared good. At the last meeting with the management, Mr. Isaacs stated that the chapel would
    ​
    “accept all the constrictions laid down by management, and are prepared to move forthwith into Wapping to print the News of the World.”

    But all this was a blind; it was bogus; it was a cheat —for all along, behind the smokescreen of these phoney negotiations, Murdoch was advancing his secret strategy to provoke a dispute and sack the entire work force. All talks were broken off by the management in the spring of last year. The management said that Wapping would not be used for the News of the World or the Sun but for an entirely new title, The London Post. Despite the attempted secrecy and repeated denials, information leaked about people being bussed in from Southampton and about electricians doing production work. The talk of a new title was a further deception covering the final preparations for the production of the four Murdoch newspapers at Wapping and simultaneously throwing the entire work force into the street without a penny.

    These 5,500 British workers, our fellow citizens, have been the victims of a disgraceful, cynical and carefully laid plot to deny them their basic entitlements under British law. The Government should explain whether they approve, whether this is the sort of industrial relations practice that they want to encourage. These thousands of people have in many cases given a lifetime of service to these publications, often predating Murdoch’s ownership. They are not just statistics, but people, flesh and blood with lives, families, futures, hopes and feelings. Are they to be callously discarded and thrown without a moment’s thought on to the dole queue?

    By this brutal action, Murdoch saves more than £40 million, and possibly £60 million, in redundancy pay and gloats about it. But who picks up the tab? The answer is the taxpayer, in state benefits. So the Government are subsidising Murdoch’s barbarism with millions of pounds. Are they happy about this? Do they approve? I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will tell us.

    If Murdoch makes even bigger profits from his British operation by this shabby injustice—he told the New York Times that he expects a 75 per cent. increase in profits next year—what will he do with them? He will export them to America to finance his media empire there. Is this what the Government want to encourage and reward? Murdoch owns 95 newspapers worldwide, yet his four United Kingdom newspapers make more profits—some £50 million last year—than the rest put together. The thanks that the British staff got for producing those profits was the sack from an unscrupulous proprietor who has just sold out his citizenship to become Americanised so as to own more newspapers in America. A former British Conservative Prime Minister once described a business man as the “unacceptable face of capitalism”. Is not Murdoch’s the ugliest, most repellent, unacceptable face we have seen? Will the Government dissociate themselves from it, or endorse it?

    Few would not now recognise that in Brenda Dean and Tony Dubbins the printing unions have two of the most reasonable, measured, temperate and realistic of leaders. They have leaned over backwards to reach an accommodation. The most far-reaching concessions were made to Murdoch to obtain union recognition: an unprecedented offer of no disputes without ballots; binding arbitration triggered by either party; a profitability, efficiency, productivity and job flexibility commitment; joint union comprehensive schemes; and fewer bargaining units—all this, plus direct input, both ​ editorial and advertising. Let no one say that the unions were dinosaurs—not willing to change, to negotiate, to reach agreements taking on board new conditions and working practices. What more could the unions offer and still remain trade unions?

    But Murdoch does not want, and is determined to destroy, free, independent unions. Instead he wants a single, tame, domesticated, client, yellow dog union, rather like the staff association at Government Communications Headquarters. He wants all industrial action, however minor, whatever the provocation, or circumstances, even at the end of disputes procedure and after a ballot, banned completely. He goes further than General Jaruzelski. He wants servitude. His lawyer’s definition of industrial action includes refusing voluntary overtime and attending unauthorised meetings. For those offences, under the special form of legally binding agreement he wants, individual workers could be sued for damages and stripped of their homes and personal possessions. He deliberately and calculatedly laid down impossible conditions to engineer a strike.

    A letter from the law firm of Farrar and Co. of 20 December 1985 to News International, advised on “the cheapest way” of

    “dispensing with the present work force”.

    It explained:

    “The idea is to catch as many employees in the net as possible.”

    It even advised:

    “there may be some merit in having piles of dismissal letters at exit doors”.

    That was in case the industrial action was of short duration. They wanted to ensure that they caught everyone in time. The lawyers reminded the company:

    “We talked of this some months ago”.

    In other words, they had been conspiring and planning it for a long time. Has anyone heard of anything more despicable and shameful in industrial relations? It is a form of industrial terror.

    New technology should be welcomed by all. It should be a boon to all. Its introduction should be by negotiation, handled sensitively, in a humane way, especially for people who have given years of service. All sorts of calumnies have been spread about printers, even by the present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, previously the Secretary of State for Employment. He alleged on the BBC television programme “Question Time” that he had personal experience 10 years ago of SOGAT Saturday night jobs at the News of the World being ballotted around the country and that they were paid £300 for one night. As I worked at the News of the World 10 years ago, I told him that he had grossly misled millions of people. I sent him evidence in writing which showed that pay for a long 14-hour Saturday night in. 1979, seven years ago, including all the overtime, was around £50. Ten years ago it would have been considerably less. In other words, the Secretary of State, in his gross and crude exaggeration, was about 1000 per cent. wrong. I gave him that information in writing on 15 February, but I am still waiting for him to correct the falsehood and put the record straight.

    Many of those sacked were women — clerks, telephonists, librarians, cleaners, sales staff and circulation representatives—by no means excessively paid, but all victims of the same brutal treatment. Will the Government stand up for them? We should not forget the journalists, or “journos” as Murdoch disparagingly calls ​ them, who were told, without consultation, to be bussed ignominiously behind the razor-wire fortifications at 24 hours notice, or be sacked. Those who honourably refused were dismissed with standard letters addressed “Dear Sir/ Madam”. So much for press freedom and so much for the integrity and independence of the press. No wonder 108 journalists have left The Times since Murdoch took over.

    We must all look at the grotesque operation of the law. If workers undertaking a strike after a ballot with an overwhelming majority can be dismissed, where is the right to strike? That could not happen in any other democratic country. Elsewhere, a contract of employment is suspended during a strike and reinstated afterwards. That must be rectified in this country.

    What has been the effect of this Government’s legislation? Within days of starting a lawful dispute following a ballot, SOGAT found itself snarled up and enmeshed in a dozen legal actions, its funds sequestrated, with a firm of chartered accountants controlling every penny the union owned. Was that the Government’s intention? The union did not set out to break the law, ignore it, or be in contempt of it or to hide its funds. The union has been open and honest in its attitude. However, the law is geared to make it impossible for British workers to engage in a dispute and not be ensnared by it. Many hon. Members voted to restrict union activity, not to abolish it, but that is what has happened.

    The legislation stopping secondary action was supposed to protect innocent third parties. Action was restricted to the workers’ own employer and the employer’s immediate first supplier or customer, but who is the employer if Murdoch sets up a maze of fictitious and allegedly independent companies? If former employees of Times Newspapers, or News Group newspapers knock on the door at Wapping where those newspapers are now printed, they find that the employer has disappeared and now calls himself something different.

    He calls himself London Post (Printers). It would be secondary action. Is that what was intended? The wholesaler would be the first customer, but not when Murdoch sets up a company between the papers and the wholesaler. Then any action becomes secondary.

    To implement this chicanery, Murdoch set up six separate companies in the year before the dispute. Murdoch has exploited, twisted and manipulated the new laws to render trade union or collective action legally impossible. That cynical spectacle is causing a groundswell of public opinion against him. Even his own Wapping-produced Sunday Times of 16 February talked of

    “the legal ring-fence that now forbids or cripples many traditional forms of industrial action.”

    The paper quoted Eddie Shah as saying that the dispute is being “suffocated by the law.” Murdoch’s own paper actually goes on to say:

    “There is little doubt that so far in this dispute the law has operated almost entirely to corral and circumscribe the unions, to a point where some are wondering whether the balance of worker-employer power may have shifted too far.”

    An editorial in The Guardian talked of the

    “shock on learning that 6,000 well-paid jobs can be junked overnight, without warning and without compensation or redundancy pay.”

    The trade paper, Printing World, talked in an editorial on 19 February of

    “the unfairness of the position. Mr. Murdoch may well be congratulating his lawyers on the subtlety of their machinations, but others are aware that the employment laws are being twisted ​ … For a company to divide itself into associated companies solely as a means of invoking the law against secondary picketing is a cynical manoeuvre. If that is the law then the law needs to be changed.”

    Do the Government agree with that? Will they now change those unjust laws?

    Does the right to withdraw labour still exist in Britain? Do workers have any rights at all?

    The Labour party is clear about those anti-union laws. It will scrap the lot and start afresh, with workers’ rights. But the existing laws are the Government’s. Theirs is the responsibility. Are they prepared to restore some balance, fairness and justice? Will they give an assurance that they do not have yet another anti-union Bill coming along? The present laws not only permit, they positively incite, injustice, strife, division and bitterness and situations such as Wapping. Is that the Government’s idea of “caring capitalism”?

    What the House and the country will want to hear tonight is what the Government are going to do to promote a settlement. For the staff and the unions are not going to go away. The dispute and the picketing will continue until there is a settlement. A settlement can come about only by negotiation.
    The electricians and the journalists at Wapping still have to live in the community. They will not want to work in those appalling conditions for ever.

    Already they are complaining to management. Engineers have refused to maintain the machines. The London press branch of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications, and Plumbing Union who staff the Fleet street papers were not consulted or balloted. On 29 January this year they sent a resolution of protest to their union. The present situation with its unfairness, hardship and confrontation cannot endure for ever. There must be a resolution. I ask finally: will the Government use their influence to get the parties together, and encourage proper negotiations to end this evil situation?

    Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney) rose—

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

    Does the right hon. Gentleman have the consent of both the Minister and the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) to speak?

    Mr. Shore

    Yes, Sir.

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) for raising this scandalous matter in the House and giving me the opportunity to say a few words about it.

    It is utterly deplorable that 5,500 print workers, men and women, should have been sacked by Mr. Murdoch. It is even worse that the circumstances should have been deliberately engineered so that they forfeited their redundancy pay and that their pension rights should have been put at risk.

    It is a disgrace that the journalists employed on News International papers are compelled to work in an industrial complex surrounded by razor wire and security guards.

    It is equally unacceptable, though so far little noticed, that the more than 3,000 people who live in Wapping— which I represent—should have their lives increasingly disrupted by a dispute in which they are not engaged and which they cannot influence. That disruption is happening in two principal ways.

    First, convoys of heavy lorries leaving News International, escorted by police cars—sometimes with their sirens blaring—are being diverted away from the Highway, which is the natural route, and taken on a circuitous route through narrow streets in the heart of residential Wapping.

    The noise of these heavy vehicles, the grinding of gears as they change down, and the speed with which they are driven, are a major disturbance and source of danger for the people who live in Wapping. That continues from mid-evening until well into the early hours of the morning. Minor accidents have already occurred and more serious ones have been avoided by a whisker. The worst incident yet happened in Thomas More street on Saturday night, 1 March when a TNT lorry driver drove straight at a group of local people and demonstrating print workers. The road was very icy and slippery and the driver hit Mr. Tony Flint, a sacked switchboard worker, on the site and he was knocked unconscious and had to be taken to hospital.

    My second point is that Wapping is being turned, for several days of the week, into a prison for the people who live there. It is now the most heavily policed area in the United Kingdom. People are constantly being stopped and questioned and asked for proof of identity when on foot. Residents driving home have had their cars turned back. That is a gross interference with the normal and lawful rights of free access to one’s own home in one’s own community. I have had many protests by letter and telephone from constituents and from such collective bodies as the Wapping tenants association, the Wapping parent action group and the trades council.

    Clearly, no complete remedy will be found to these problems until the dispute is resolved. These are powerful and additional reasons why the Minister should abandon the “hands-off’ and passive stance of his Department and lend his weight to securing an early and negotiated settlement.

  • Andrew Rowe – 1986 Speech on Social Work Training

    Below is the text of the speech made by Andrew Rowe, the then Conservative MP for Mid Kent, in the House of Commons on 28 February 1986.

    I beg to move,

    That this House takes note of the fact that some 70 per cent. of workers in residential social service establishments have no formal social work qualification; observes that the inquiry into the Beckford case criticised the lack of clarity and specialisation in the training of social workers concerned with children; sees that the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work has put forward radical proposals for changing courses leading to the Certificate of Qualification in Social Work; questions the priorities and objectives of current and proposed social work training; and seeks an assurance that a further opportunity will be given to debate the subject before any major changes are introduced.

    I speak partly as an individual and partly as the chairman of the parliamentary panel for the personal social services, which is taking an interest in this important matter. The matter is not trivial in numbers—there are about 181,257 staff employed by social services—or powers. As the report on the Beckford inquiry put it:

    “After only two years’ training, and scant acquaintance with child abuse in practice, a social worker has the power—judicially sanctioned—to remove a child from its parents for a long time, perhaps irrevocably”.

    It is not a trivial matter of public anxiety.

    There have been more than 20 inquiries into child abuse over the past 13 years. That is partly the result of greater provision, and it should be compared with the increasing number of inquiries into hospitals for the mentally handicapped. It is an indication of a growing understanding of the problems. It is not a trivial matter in terms of public interest, because, as the population ages and more and more people end up in residential care, the biggest factor in determining whether our mothers and fathers and aunts will enjoy a dignified and properly stimulating old age is the quality of the residential care staff.

    All is not well. As an example, let us look at the Beckford case. My motion is slightly inaccurate, because in fact over 80 per cent. of the staff in residential and day care settings are unqualified. If anyone bright enters that vital field, he is urged not to stay too long lest he should blight his career prospects. I wish not to be pejorative, but to be constructively exploratory.

    The public perception of the social worker is confused. He is looked upon as a do-gooder, a frightening authority figure, a mediator with other services, an ally or an opponent. That perception, of course, depends partly on where the public are standing at the time and partly on the role of the social worker at the time. Those perceptions arise partly because society as a whole cannot make up its mind whether it wants social workers to help police society for bad families, to relieve it of personal neighbourly responsibilities to the unfortunate, to dispense public charity, or to ensure that public charity is not misused. All those attitudes exist.

    Many people have two consecutive views, and all social workers know how vital it is to be trained to understand that the people they are helping today will feel hostile to them tomorrow. That is because when people have got through a crisis they feel acutely embarrassed and ashamed for having told the social worker so much about their personal anxiety. That comes out as hostility. Social workers are trained to perform on behalf of society an astonishing diversity of complex and demanding tasks, often at personal risk of physical or psychological injury.

    The history of social work development is one of gradual progress from a handmaiden role to other professions to one of a fully-fledged profession with control of its own entry qualifications, training and certification. If I had more time I would quote the minorities report to the reports of the Committee on Medical Auxiliaries, because it put that case well. That professional status is once again under attack and the reasons for that are, first, the ambivalence in the public attitude to social workers— an attitude that has been fuelled by rare cases of disaster—and, secondly, the persistence of the extraordinary belief that medicine is somehow a uniquely superior profession. I do not know whether that is because social workers deal mainly with those most in need, while doctors deal with everyone in the population, whether it is a consequence of the length of training of doctors, or because doctors have better developed disciplinary procedures.

    A striking example is contained in paragraph 2:2 of the Minister’s consultation letter on the Disabled Persons Consultation and Representation Bill, where he explains:

    “There would be considerable difficulties in defining a statutory provision for the scope of a representative role in the National Health Service in the context of the professional relationship between the doctor and his patient.”

    The implication is quite clear, that the professional relationship between a social worker and a client is a totally different animal. I do not understand the reason for that view.

    There is confusion about training and now a demand for professional decisions to be second guessed by courts, as exemplified, for example, in the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters). The Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work has been debating training since 1982 and has now proposed radical changes. First, it proposes a minimum period of three years. Secondly, it proposes one qualifying award in social work, not only to merge the certificate of qualification in social work and the certificate of social services, but to cover all staff. Thirdly, it proposes Iwo routes—one employment based and one college based, both with fieldwork placements—and the new award is to be separate from awards given by universities and colleges.

    There is a frightening amount of confusion surrounding these proposals. The central council seems to believe that it has wide support, and it is true that, by and large, the professional organisations support it. One would expect that—longer training helps to boost professional status, control entry and enhance the negotiating position, as well as to improve the quality of service.

    However, there is much evidence that the universities are opposed to the proposals. Because of my unexpected success in the ballot, I have not had time to collect all the replies to the letters that I wrote on behalf of the parliamentary group to every university school of social work. Some of the replies have come in. It is fair to say that the central council is already deeply concerned about its relationship with the universities. Leeds, London and Brunel have now taken their last social work students, Chelsea college went out of production in 1981 and the courses at Surrey and Glasgow are under threat.

    The head of the largest school in social work, in Scotland, has just written to me. His letter says:

    “You are indeed right in supposing that if the proposals currently being put forward by the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work were to be implemented, it would ​ cause the greatest difficulties for universities. Indeed, I have to say that these proposals have been opposed by almost all of those teaching social work in academic institutions and by their organisations.

    As I am sure you know, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has repeatedly stressed the importance and value of universities continuing to provide social workers with vocational training and the present proposals will hardly assist this.”

    Make no mistake—social work without university entry and research would cease to be a profession, and the public would suffer as a result.

    There are other elements in this anxiety. The trade unions are not entirely satisfied. The Association of University Teachers is deeply worried, and not only about resources. The National and Local Government Officers thinks that the proposals are positive in general, but claims that the service unions are so strongly opposed to internship that the proposal made for that needs to be reexamined. The proposal for three-year training is welcomed by some, but passionately opposed in its present form by others.

    The Beckford inquiry was unequivocal. It said that three-year training is indispensable and:

    “We are convinced that nothing short of a period of three years is required for the professional training of social workers, of which a larger proportion than at the present should be devoted to specialist areas of knowledge.”

    The present state of social work training is worth a comment. Social workers have to cope with more than 30 main Acts, with subsidiary legislation, plus guidance from the DHSS and local policy guidelines. At the moment they spend some 20 weeks in college over their two years. This means that they will have perhaps one day on welfare benefits, four and a half hours on academic work on disability, and perhaps as much as 12 hours on mental disorder. That is hardly an impressive catalogue of the time available.
    Such confusion plays into the hands of those with other axes to grind. At a recent meeting, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of schools claimed that it saw no clear case for a third year of training, and unless and until the profession is clear about its priorities the huge expansion of resources that the central council’s proposals will require will not be found.

    There is also the question whether we agree with the Seebohm recommendations, properly applied. Seebohm argued that a basic grade worker should be able to work with a whole family, on the sensible ground that if there are several social workers visiting one family the opportunity for confusion and manipulation either by the family or the social worker is enormous. However, it insisted that basic grade workers should be able to call on more specialist help.

    On the other hand, do we agree with the Beckford inquiry, which suggested that training should be turned on its head so that it starts with specialist training and, if people want to widen their interest, they can have a bolt-on module after qualification? We would be barmy to lengthen the training course until we know what we want it to produce. Two things are clear. First, as our population ages and as we press on with care in the community programmes and emptying our ancient institutions, and as pressures in inner cities grow and the rate of change in our society accelerates, leaving more people behind, the demand for social workers who know what they are doing and in whom we can have confidence will grow. Every one ​ of us has an interest in this. Secondly, more resources will be needed. The House has a proper and jealously-guarded interest in the allocation of resources.

    I hope that in the short time available to me I have said enough to justify the terms of my motion and to persuade the Government that not only do we need better training for social workers, but that it would be appropriate to allow Government time to debate any changes that may be made in a matter so close to all of us here and in the constituencies.

  • Ken Hargreaves – 1986 Speech on Housing in Hyndburn

    Below is the text of the speech made by Ken Hargreaves, the then Conservative MP for Hyndburn, in the House of Commons on 28 February 1986.

    I thought for some considerable time before I decided to bring the housing problems of Hyndburn before the House once again. I should hate to be responsible for the borough council being thought of as whingeing or complaining. However, because the constituency is and always has been my home I receive daily reminders of the problems that we face. As I hope to live in Hyndburn long after I have ceased to be a Member of Parliament, I should be distressed if failure to deal with those problems were to be a memorial to a lack of effort on my part.

    The twin aims of the Government’s housing policy are to make Britain the best housed country in Europe and to increase owner-occupation. Both are laudable aims, and, though we are a long way from achieving the first aim, impressive progress has been made. If the Government were to announce before the next general election that they had achieved 80 per cent. owner-occupation, it would be regarded as a major triumph. In Hyndburn we already have that remarkable percentage. The problem for those of us concerned with housing in Hyndburn is to ensure that we maintain it at that level and do not allow it to go into reverse.

    I do not need to rehearse before the Minister the statistics of which he is well aware—Hyndburn’s 80 per cent. owner-occupation, per capita resources below the national average, despite having the 28th highest per capita general needs index score, and the borough’s inability to generate capital receipts. These facts have been set out previously in discussions, debates and documents.

    I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the increased difficulties which we now face as a result of the reduction in the housing investment programme allocation for 1986–87. In previous housing debates, I have paid tribute to the Government for their interest in and help with the problems which Hyndburn faces. The extra resources, visits and meetings with the Minister did much to reassure the anxious local authority that the problems it faced were understood by the Government. Therefore, it came as a shock when the HIP figures for 1986–87 were announced. Hyndburn’s allocation had been reduced from £0·410 million in 1985–86 to £2·572 million for next year. That reduction is serious in itself, but is aggravated by the fact that the Government expect local authorities to make up 42 per cent. of total spending by using capital receipts compared with 25 per cent. in the current year.

    Hyndburn’s inability to generate capital receipts means that available receipts are unlikely to increase total spending by more than 14 per cent. I regret that arguments which Hyndburn put forward on previous occasions and which had the support of the Department of the Environment at regional level have apparently been ignored at the national level. I accept that there is no possibility of an increase in Hyndburn’s HIP allocation for the coming year. I am therefore anxious to explore other ways to ensure that the borough can attract more resources. I also wish to seek assurance for the future.

    The authority has never believed in using Government restrictions as an excuse for inaction and it has tried virtually all the new opportunities presented over the last ​ few years. Many have not proved of any great help in an area where market forces reduce the potential for private investment. I believe that the borough council has been progressive and is worthy of encouragement. The council introduced the volume sale of its relatively few council houses prior to the Housing Act 1980. Improvement for sale and homesteading have been used to sell local authority housing for owner-occupation. Both proved useful in specific circumstances but had comparatively little potential. Partnership housing developments were undertaken with significant private investment, but, after almost three years, some of the houses remain unsold. The private sector shows great reluctance to build on redevelopment sites.

    The authority believes in a block renovation approach and is now initiating block repair schemes. The need for more responsive estate management has been accepted and a priority estate project is about to start on the largest problem estate and is to be followed by similar projects elsewhere.

    The special needs of the elderly have been recognised and the council has taken up with enthusiasm the recommendations made by Dr. Anthea Tinker in “Staying at Home” and has just inaugurated its first warden call scheme in council houses. This will be extended shortly to the private sector. The council has also developed extra care provision in sheltered housing to ensure that the frail elderly are able to remain there rather than have to move into residential homes at a greater cost to public funds.

    It remains the authority’s policy to encourage housing association activity as an integral part of its housing strategy. The council’s initiatives show that it is willing to try anything to help to alleviate the problems and to prevent the even greater difficulties that we foresee arising in the future unless action is taken now. The council has proved that it uses its limited resources effectively and imaginatively. It is worthy of support. Whatever form the support may take this year, it will only limit the damage done as a result of the reduced HIP allocation, but it could, if coupled with some reassurances about the future, do much to reduce anxiety felt by councillors, officials and householders.

    The council responded quickly and positively to the announcement of the establishment of the urban housing renewal unit and it has worked closely with its officials and advisers to prepare a package of measures which would improve an estate and bring in private finance to redevelop part of it. A reasonable response to the council’s bid for funds would be an immense help to the problem estate involved, a great support for the priority estate project initiative and release much needed funds for use elsewhere in the private sector.

    A favourable response to the council’s approach for Community refurbishment scheme funding for Huncoat would improve houses and encourage people in the area, which has the highest unemployment in the borough. Although help with urban housing renewal unit schemes and CRS would remove to some extent the immediate financial worries, the council is anxious about possible changes in Housing Corporation funding and the rumoured moves away from the HIP system.

    The criteria for Housing Corporation investment have recently been changed to priority areas only — it is priority based on arbitrary criteria which result in authorities with similar GNI scores having scores that vary from 22 to 88. Hyndburn scored 22 which, for 1986–87, ​ is a cut-off point. We are worried that Government pressure for a higher cut-off point could lead to a loss of Housing Corporation investment in the borough, which would be a most bitter blow. May we be assured that less arbitrary criteria will be used in future and that the council can anticipate Housing Corporation investment?

    Rumours of moves away from the HIP system are worrying. The principle of HIP — allocation in accordance with needs—is sound, and the GNI system, while flawed, is a good basis to work on and reasonably comprehensible. Can my hon. Friend assure the council that HIP allocations will continue, that they will be based on a reasonably sophisticated index of needs and that they will include some means of weighting to take account of potential for private funding to replace public funding needs?

    My constituents are suffering from poor housing conditions, which are prevalent in many parts of Hyndburn. They know from experience that only a Conservative Government is likely to help them. They are aware that, during the last year of the Labour Government, only £223,000 was spent on improvement grants, whereas we spent £1·8 million last year. The people of the borough were shocked and amazed by the recent episode in the council chamber, which showed the lack of concern of Labour and SDP members. The two parties voted that the director of housing and the chairman of the housing services committee should not be allowed to accept an invitation from my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction to meet him to discuss Hyndburn’s undoubted housing problems. The decision was made because Labour and SDP councillors were not included in the invitation.

    Do they really believe that the people who desperately need home improvement grants, for example, are interested in who talks to the Minister as long as he gets the message and Hyndburn gets the money? Fortunately, because of the courage and determination of the chairman of the housing services committee, Councillor Mrs. Elizabeth Court, who, like me, is willing to go anywhere and talk to anyone if it will help in any way to reduce our housing problem, the meeting with the Minister went ahead, as Mrs. Court attended in a personal capacity and not as housing chairman. Although we were denied the contribution which would have been made by the director of housing, Mr. Edgar Bignell, the meeting proved most useful and I hope that, as a result, Hyndburn’s case for UHRU and CRS was reinforced.

    Because of the reduction in the HIP allocation, it is vital that we find other sources of funding. I accept that the progress towards making this country the best housed in Europe depends largely upon the provision of a sound economic base and the creation of real productive jobs, and not just the making of artificial jobs. I look to the Government to provide a balanced programme for housing, to provide the public finance necessary to pump-prime housing strategy, and to do it in a way that attracts additional private investment. Time is short. Local authorities are increasingly dependent upon capital receipts. The amount of those capital receipts will steadily diminish over the years and the Government must take account of that.

    I support the Government’s policy of reducing public spending, but their housing policy runs contrary to that aim, as it does not reduce public spending, but simply postpones it. Such a postponement will lead only to the need for far greater spending in the not too distant future. ​ The Government should switch more resources into housing and must ensure that the money is used to greatest effect.

    I commend to the Minister the neighbourhood revitalisation service. At present there are four pilot schemes in operation in Sheffield, Oldham, Bedford and Gloucester. Their purpose is to demonstrate that a properly co-ordinated partnership between public and private sectors, with a small amount of public sector investment, can generate a gearing ratio of private sector investment in the housing stock. That concept can be developed to include business investment in the area.

    It is too early to say what the gearing ratio should be, but it is expected to be in the ratio of 1:3 over a period of time. Such schemes are an effective use of scarce resources and additional money allocated to similar schemes would be well spent—not least in Hyndburn, which would be one of the areas to benefit from an expansion of NRS.

    I urge the Government to look closely and urgently at the whole question of improvement grants. I hope that they will seriously consider declaring housing stress areas into which additional capital from revenue resources could be invested to concentrate spending on areas with the highest levels of owner-occupied properties that are substandard and in need of repair.

    Such concentration of resources would be justified, as it would protect individuals who have invested their limited resources in their own homes. It would be cost-effective and would create much needed jobs because improvement grants are labour-intensive. Given that investment in improvement areas has all those advantages, it is disappointing and hard to understand why the Government have not moved more resolutely in that direction.

    Lent is a time for repentance and a time to examine exactly where we stand. It would be a good time for the Government to do just that in relation to their housing policy.

  • David Owen – 1986 Speech on Johnson Matthey Bankers

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Owen, the then SDP MP for Plymouth Devonport, in the House of Commons on 27 February 1986.

    I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 10, to discuss a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,

    “Johnson Matthey Bankers’ gold bullion transactions and the refusal of the Prime Minister to establish a public tribunal of inquiry.”

    The House has been attempting to discuss the problem of Johnson Matthey Bankers since October 1984 and there has never been a specific debate on that issue. It has many ramifications. It involves the Prime Minister because of her refusal to establish a public tribunal of inquiry on 2 August 1985. It involves the Chancellor of the Exchequer because of his repeated assurances over the Governor of the Bank of England’s claim that the bullion trading of JMB was sound and, of course, it involves the judgment of the Governor of the Bank of England.

    The matter is specific because there is £175 million of public money at risk because of the decision of the Governor of the Bank of England to rescue JMB and because of the Government’s acceptance, on a number of occasions, that that money should not only be maintained but increased. It is therefore a matter that will have to come before the House.

    It is my submission that it is urgent because today we have seen JMB’s headquarters raided by Customs and Excise under a warrant, to look at the transactions in the gold bullion market. We know that around 30 other premises in the country have also been similarly raided to see what has been happening. I understand that there have been 12 arrests, none of them involving personnel of Johnson Matthey Bankers. Customs and Excise believes that about £7·25 million worth of gold bullion may have been smuggled into the country from April last year until 11 days ago.

    It goes much wider and deeper than that. There is reason to believe that the smuggling and purchase of gold at a below market price by JMB has been continuing for a considerable time. It is on the issue of the bullion market of JMB that I have been probing the Government, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister for a long time. [Laughter.] The correspondence on this matter is substantial and if any right hon. or hon. Member wishes to see the correspondence I would be happy to show it.

    The matter is urgent because not only is £175 million at stake, but the reputation of the City of London, in particular the reputation of the Governor of the Bank of England, is considerably at stake. Solemn assurances were given. The Governor of the Bank of England gave me an assurance on 21 December. He wrote:

    “Your assertions, and attempts to demonstrate that the bullion operations of JMB are basically unsound, would, I believe, diminish the confidence of its customers and counterparties and their willingness to do business with it, making it more difficult for JMB to trade profitably in the future.”

    The letter also said: ​

    “The advice which you have received is ill-informed and the conclusions you draw ill-founded.”

    There is no doubt that JMB’s bullion market transactions have been operating under a considerable cloud and the concerns that I expressed were both well informed and well founded. I submit that when the reputation of the Governor of the Bank of England, as well as the judgment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister, is at stake, that is a matter of considerable urgency.

    I wrote to the Prime Minister specifically, urgently and privately on 1 August last year to ask her to establish a public tribunal of inquiry. That was not done lightly. It was done in the knowledge that two members of Johnson Matthey Bankers had just been dismissed. It was clear that there was more behind it than the explanation that was given. We have had constant difficulty in getting at what is really happening. The Price Waterhouse report has not been revealed. The hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) has been vigilant on one other aspect, relating to the industrial and marketing context. On the bullion market, we have not had proper bank accounts published by the Bank of England and we have not had the results of the investigations. I submit that it is now time that the issue was discussed in the House as an urgent and specific matter. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will accede to my request for a debate on the Adjournment.