HC Deb 23 July 1968 vol 769 cc463-7

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [19th July], That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Question again proposed.

1.2 a.m.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop (Tiverton)

I rose to speak a minute before the Third Reading was adjourned on Friday. I am glad to see that the Minister is just about to get some technical backing. I was about to explain to the House on Friday why it was necessary to have a full and complete—"full and proper" were the words used by the Minister's predecessor—Third Reading.

It was apparent from the form taken at the beginning of Third Reading that the Minister of State would have been happy to ditch completely the commitments made by his predecessor and allow the Bill to receive its Third Reading on Friday without having honoured the specific commitment given to Standing Committee G by his predecessor at c. 45 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee's proceedings.

In Committee, what was then Clause 7, but is now Clause 11, began to be subjected to scrutiny by the Committee. That is the Clause which enables the Board of Trade, with the approval of the Treasury, to make unlimited grants or loans to any person who is conducting one of a large number of activities. When the Minister of State was pressed on a number of very specific points he quite reasonably told the Committee that his policy thinking had not been advanced sufficiently far to give the Committee the information which it quite reasonably requested, and he gave a positive undertaking to give that information to the House on Third Reading.

What were the questions put to him? I think it is necessary to run through them. I have given notice in writing to the Minister that I wished him to honour the undertaking given by his predecessor. I gave him that notice as long ago as last Friday. I think that for the record it is necessary that we should be quite specific about what the questions were which were to be answered tonight by the Minister of State. The Minister has had ample opportunity to read the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debates in Committee, so none of these questions can come to him new now. I shall quote from the OFFICIAL REPORT. I said: First, who qualifies? This question has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Kirk) … Does the Board of Trade intend to lay down qualifying regulations, or does it intend to remain entirely passive dealing with individual applications on anad hoc basis? Then, a little later: I therefore look forward to hearing from the Minister of State who qualifies for these various acts of public benevolence, what are the rules governing the granting of loans or the provision of grants; when and how will these rules be made known; and whether or not they will be retrospective…. Do these expenses have to be approved in advance by the Minister before a claim for a grant or loan can be made, or can the expenses be incurred and then the bread cast upon the waters in the hope that the Minister will decide to make a grant? Now we come to a particularly important one: Does the Minister's decision whether to make a grant or loan depend upon the merits of the individual case or upon the number of grants or loans which have already been made in the same financial year?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT,Standing Committee G, 16th May, 1968; c. 41–2.] There is, of course, an important principle involved here.

The Minister of State said: I do not propose to follow the advice of the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) and talk right through to the end of the sitting, but if he is in serious doubt about the purpose of the Clause and the amount of money involved, I will elaborate perhaps on Third Reading. I give an assurance to do so."—[OFFICIAL REPORT,Standing Committee G, 16th May, 1968; c. 45.] So we look forward to hearing from the Minister what is the amount of money involved each year. In other words, what will the Department be budgeting for? Because without that Parliament cannot exercise proper financial control over the expenditure which is authorised in what is now Clause 11 and was then Clause 7. This is drawn so widely that this information does need to be given to the House. We do need to be told what will be the criteria which will decide whether the person referred to gets a grant or a loan; and, if a loan, what the terms of the loan will be.

I think it was perfectly proper for the Minister of State to ask us to postpone this to the Third Reading because, quite obviously, this extraordinarily ill-prepared Bill had not reached the point where the Minister was able to give an honest answer to the Committee, but it is absolutely essential, if the Government are to retain any shreds of integrity, that, the Committee having ceased its examination at that point, in view of the undertaking given by the Minister, we should now have a full statement from the Minister covering these points.

We are now in the somewhat bizarre position of debating the Question, That the Bill be read the Third time, without the Minister concerned having made a speech in support of the Motion. We therefore have to put at considerable length and before hearing him speak the points which we hope that he will cover. Otherwise, we would exhaust our right to speak before knowing whether he had covered all the points which his predecessor undertook to cover. He has put the House in a very difficult position and it is incumbent upon him to cover all these points.

It is wrong that a consolidation Measure of this kind, containing financial provisions of unlimited potential, should go on the Statute Book without proper debate. With those few words on only one Clause, I look forward, however belatedly, to a full statement from the Minister of State along on those points.

1.11 a.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. William Rodgers)

This is the final stage of what is, by common consent, a very useful Bill, which has been much improved during its passage by the efforts of hon. Members on both sides. My own credit for this has been small, and I know that the House would wish me to pay tribute to my predecessor, who played an active part during many long hours in Committee and is responsible for much of what is now, I am sure, a very good Bill.

In case the House might inadvertently have been misled by the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), I should emphasise that the Bill has hardly been rushed through. It went to another place on 8th November last, went into Second Reading Committee here on 14th February, has been discussed in the House in all for over 24 hours, and started with 21 Clauses and has ended with 28. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Tiverton, who made over 80 separate contributions to those debates. So it can hardly be said that we have not had a full debate or that he himself has not had a good bite of the cherry.

When the Bill first went into Second Reading Committee, where Bills go which are supposed to be non-contentious, the chief Opposition spokesman said that the Committee generally welcomed the Bill and was disposed to recommend it to the House; thereafter, he and other hon. Members spent eight separate sessions deciding what was wrong with the Bill and how it could be made better. Therefore, at the end of Third Reading, I can say that we have considered it fully, and if everyone is not satisfied, that is only because no one is ever wholly satisfied. If the hon. Member for Tiverton feels at the end of the evening that I have not done justice to his pertinent and probing questions, his experience of the ways of the House will enable him to carry on the debate at his own convenience.

On Third Reading—I would have been happy had this gone on longer, but we took much longer on Report than anyone anticipated, with two hours on the first Clause—the hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) raised some points of particular concern to him about traffic over his own constituency. As I said at the time, these are matters which are perhaps better dealt with in correspondence than in the House at this hour when we want to press on to further business.

We had a long debate on the new Clause dealing with noise, at the end of which I conceded what must be generally accepted, that the disturbance caused by aircraft noise is a major social problem and is likely to increase as aircraft become larger and traffic increases. I do not propose to go into the problem in more detail, except to remind the House that, apart from the measures which must essentially be regarded as palliatives— concerned with how aircraft land and take off, preferential runway utilisation, restrictions on the number of night jet movements—we are taking special steps to introduce a noise certification scheme, which we hope will, over a period, substantially reduce the noise from aircraft. In the interim, I am personally concerned to ensure that the aircraft operating today, which will operate for many years ahead, can, through research, cause less noise.

The hon. Member for Tiverton raised a number of points about Clause 11, which is generally concerned with the development of airports policy. I regret that he is discontented. I would like to develop this matter in greater detail, but my reading of what was said by my predecessor in Committee does not lead me to believe that, even if he had had more time than I have, he would have proposed this moment for a discussion of all the detailed points the hon. Gentleman raised. However, if he wishes to go into the matter further, I will be happy to give him such answers as I can.

As the hon. Member for Tiverton said, the Bill consolidates many aspects of aviation policy. It is a good Bill and the House has welcomed it. The House will be glad to see it go on its way as a useful contribution, to which many hon. Members have, in part, contributed.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.