HC Deb 28 November 1974 vol 882 cc616-7
Ql. Mr. Tebbit

asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements on 10th November.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson)

No, Sir. It is not my practice to list my official engagements. My public engagements are, of course, regularly reported in the Press.

Mr. Tebbit

I am sure the Prime Minister recalls that his public engagements included a visit to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Even accepting that his lack of military experience—[Interruption.]—perhaps precludes him from understanding the feelings of the country's fighting men, does he not feel that there is an anomaly at that ceremony—[An HON. MEMBER: "Get back to the gutter."] There is not room while the hon. Gentleman is there.

Does the Prime Minister not feel that there is an anomaly, in that those who have died in Ulster are precluded from being remembered by inscription upon war memorials? Will not the right hon. Gentleman examine the matter and take a less rigid attitude towards it?

The Prime Minister

I would take the last part of the hon. Gentleman's question more seriously but for the first part. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, on consideration, as he is not really like this—[Interruption.]—he is not really like this. I am sure that on consideration the hon. Gentleman will feel that the occasion of a national act of remembrance is not an appropriate vehicle for making party points or smears.

Mr. Wellbeloved

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that when he attends the memorial service at the Cenotaph as Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition he represents millions of working-class men and women who gave their youth and their lives in the service of this country? Will he join the rest of the House in repudiating the scurrilous and despicable comments of the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit)?

The Prime Minister

I think that the House has shown what it feels about the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question.

Mr. Heath

Does the Prime Minister recognise that the Secretary of State for Defence, in an answer earlier this week, has now ruled that the important question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) is a matter for the authorities concerned with each war memorial? I think that it would be the wish of most right hon. and hon. Members that local authorities should look favourably upon the question of inscribing such names, considering the conditions in which Her Majesty's Forces are operating in Ulster.

The Prime Minister

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. That is the answer I would have given if the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question had been put in different circumstances. As the right hon. Gentleman correctly says, the Government have made their position clear. I am sure that it would be the wish of all of us that in all the circumstances local authorities and others responsible for war memorials should act in the way the right hon. Gentleman described.