§ Queen's recommendation having been signified—
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to further the development of enterprises owned and controlled by people working in them, it is expedient to authorise—
§ 12.33 a.m.
§ Mr. John Peyton (Yeovil)I do not wish to speak for long at this stage, but I hope that the Minister will be able to explain the Government's position. As far as I understand the position, the Minister simply rose to his feet and moved the motion. He has given no explanation of the Government's position. That is quite unacceptable to the Opposition.
Perhaps I may rehearse the position. So far as I am aware, as I said to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House this afternoon, this Bill is a Private Member's Bill which was introduced into the House in December and given a Second Reading in March. Only yesterday arrangements were made for it to be shuffled into an unusual Committee for a Private Member's Bill. At the same time, amendments were tabled to leave out seven out of eight clauses and to amend the Long Title. In other words, the 1545 whole of these proceedings are being conducted for the purpose of bypassing the need for a Second Reading because the Bill is virtually certain to be rewritten in Standing Committee.
It is true that this apparently innocuous measure was given an unopposed Second Reading by the House in March, but the Government have a rather high-handed way of conducting business these days—[Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is following the tradition set by his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) in making verbal interjections from a seated position. [Interruption.] I do not need advice as to what is or is not in order. I am addressing myself to the question of the Money Resolution which has been proposed by the Government in an effort to make respectable their rather hurried proceedings on this Bill tomorrow morning.
It is strange that the Government should be proposing amendments to a Bill which has been, at least, in the guise of a Private Member's Bill. The Minister has not seen fit to offer the House the slightest explanation of the Money Resolution. If he wishes to intervene I shall be glad to give way—or am I to conclude that the Government have no intention of offering an explanation?
The position is extraordinary. If the Government maintain their position it is unlikely that the Standing Committee on the Bill will make the rapid progress that an innocent measure could be expected to make.
§ Mr. PeytonThe Patronage Secretary addresses me on the subject of threats. An accusation of making threats comes ill from him. [Interruption.] The House will be in difficulty. I am certainly not going to be pushed out of the way by a total refusal by any Minister to explain the Government's position. The Government have conducted themselves in a rather informal manner. They seek to rewrite a Private Member's Bill, thus bypassing the need for a Second Reading. They ask the House to accept a Money Resolution without offering the slightest explanation. I find that wholly unacceptable.
1546 The Minister is not making life easier for himself or anyone else. I hope that he will now see fit to offer some explanation. I ask him that out of courtesy to the House, not just to myself. I hope that the Minister, who has not been on the Front Bench long, will deem it his duty to offer an explanation of the Government's position. I am waiting for him to do that.
I raised the matter this afternoon and the Leader of the House at first indicated that he would make a statement on the subject. He then modified that position, but he said that the Government's position would be made clear to the Opposition before proceeding. The Minister's presence, saying nothing, falsifies and undermines the position of the Leader of the House.
§ Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is the right hon. Gentleman on a point of order or is he making a speech? May we know precisely what is happening?
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton)The right hon. Gentleman is putting his points in connection with the Money Resolution, and he is perfectly in order to do so.
§ Mr. PeytonI am very much obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your guidance and assistance—not that I particularly need assistance in this case.
The Government, true to their recent standard of conduct, are once more offering a blatant insult to the House. They are not giving even the bones of an explanation of their intentions with regard to the Bill. All that we know is that they have virtually rewritten the Bill.
If the Minister is taking advice from his Secretary of State, I very much welcome that, because he needs it. It would be courteous of him to offer an explanation of the Government's intentions. That would be of assistance to the House, the hon. Gentleman and the Government. But I gather that it is not his intention to give an explanation. Therefore, my hon. Friends and I shall be left in doubt about the Government's intentions, and those doubts will lead us to rather unfavourable conclusions, in which case the Minister cannot expect to make the same progress with the Bill as he might have expected.
1547 I shall sit down now, because I am sure that my hon. Friends will be glad to endorse my judgment on the hon. Gentleman and the Government for an almost deliberate lack of courtesy to the House and total failure by them to explain their intentions. We have had a certain amount of that sort of conduct in recent weeks. The Patronage Secretary, who is so good with his monosyllabic advice to others, might take some of it himself and learn that it is the Government's business to offer some explanation to the House. I am glad to note that the Secretary of State appears to think that that is not altogether an outlandish request.
I very much hope that the Under-Secretary, who has not been long in his office, will now offer an explanation of the Government's position.
§ 12.43 a.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Les Huckfield)I intended no discourtesy to the right hon. Gentleman. I spent a considerable time in the House this afternoon explaining to him the exact purpose of the Money Resolution.
I intended no discourtesy to the House. In fact, I should prefer to reply to the various points that I am sure hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to make in what I hope will be a short debate.
The amendments that are proposed would leave the Bill substantially unchanged in its content. I say that to the right hon. Gentleman specifically, because it was a Bill—[Interruption.] I say that because I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that on 12th March, on the Floor of the House, his party gave assent to the broad principles of the Bill. I am sure that he will also recognise that the particular bits of this measure to which his party objected on that day have been taken out. Therefore, we have a Bill which has been basically approved by the right hon. Gentleman's party. We have a situation that I have already tried to explain to the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon.
I hope that we can now proceed as fast as possible. I intended no discourtesy at all. I am fully prepared to reply to the various points that may arise in what I hope will be a short debate.
§ Mr. PeytonWhat the hon. Gentleman really must not conclude is that a private conversation in the Corridor amounts to an explanation to the House of the Government's position on any Bill. We are on common ground that the Bill had a Second Reading, but the Government are now attempting to rewrite it. All I have been asking for is an explanation of the Government's position. The hon. Gentleman has just begun to give one, and for that I am grateful.
§ Mr. David Watkins (Consett)rose—
§ Mr. Norman Tebbit (Chingford)rose—
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)Mr. Tebbit.
§ Mr. David WatkinsOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are slightly unclear about which hon. Member you called to speak.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI called the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit).
§ Mr. Ioan Evans (Aberdare)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As we are discussing a Private Member's Bill put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins), perhaps we should hear what he has to say. I understand that he has met the Government and that the Bill has had a Second Reading and has been accepted by the whole House. Amendments have been put forward by the Government after discussions with the Opposition because the Opposition wished that some amendments be made. The Bill is to be considered in Committee tomorrow. May we have an explanation from my hon. Friend the Member for Consett, whose Bill this is? It is not a Government Bill.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI have called the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). We shall see who catches my eye next.
§ Mr. TebbitOne thing is certain. Tonight we are not discussing a Private Member's Bill but what is on the Order Paper, which is a Money Resolution. That resolution was moved in an extraordinarily incompetent and half-hearted style by a Minister of the Crown. Even if we were discussing the substance of the Bill, we would no longer be discussing a 1549 Private Member's Bill that was introduced into this House last December and which had its Second Reading on 12th March this year, because the Government propose to delete seven clauses of this eight-clause Bill, to change the Long Title, and to amend Clause 8, which is the Short Title.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI do not think that those matters appear in the Money Resolution.
§ Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Money Resolution says
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session".We want to know what the Act is.
§ Mr. TebbitWhat is certain is that we cannot refer only to the money without referring to that on which it is proposed that the money will be spent. The point I seek to make is that the Bill that was given a Second Reading is no longer the Bill with which the Government wish to proceed. The Government are proposing to proceed with a Bill of their own. The Minister said, as his excuse for behaving as he did, that he had had a conversation with my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) in the Corridor this afternoon.
As a way of asking Parliament to approve public expenditure that surely must rate as something even more extraordinary than the manner in which Ministers, or civil servants, when they are dissatisfied with a decision in the Cabinet, now proceed to publish the Cabinet papers. We surely should get back—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. No reference to Cabinet papers is to be found in the Money Resolution.
§ Mr. TebbitThe Minister advances, as his case for the Money Resolution, the private conversation that he had with my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) in the corridor outside. Whatever we say about the way other business is transacted, that way of con ducting financial business in this House is something we have not seen before and which we want to hear a lot less of in future.
Reference has been made to the fact that the Opposition did not oppose the Second reading of the Bill to which this 1550 Money Resolution is said to relate. That is correct, but I say again that that was not the Bill that the Government are now proposing should go through Committee tomorrow. It is a very different matter.
§ Mr. Ivor Clemitson (Luton, East)The hon. Gentleman says that if the amendments that the Government put forward are passed in Committee it will be an entirely different Bill. Will he say in what important point of substance it will be a different Bill?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. I hope the hon. Gentleman will do nothing of the sort, but will address himself to the Money Resolution.
§ Mr. TebbitThe hon. Gentleman does ago, when I read a book—[Interruption]—called "Australia, the Land Evolution Forgot". I can well understand now what that book was getting at.
We have had enough of those hominids who cannot get up on their legs, making guttural noises late at night, and it is about time one in particular was quiet. No doubt if that hon. Member wants to make a speech at some time he will try to do so, but in the meantime—
§ Mr. Russell Kerr (Feltham and Heston)I am trying to help the hot. Gentleman.
§ Mr. TebbitThe hon. Gentleman can help me by going back down under, to where he came from.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerWill the hon. Gentleman help the Chair by dealing with the Money Resolution?
§ Mr. TebbitI shall be happy to do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when I can make myself heard above the uproar from the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr). When I say that it would be a good thing if he went back down under, I do not mean Australia, I mean the place where he became rather excited earlier this evening.
If I may continue, the then Minister of the day, referring to this Money Resolution, which he said might be produced, commented:
If the Bill is given a Second Reading, the Government will be prepared to put down a Money Resolution before the Bill is taken in Committee.1551 They could not have done it much later and still been before the Committee stage. The Minister added:In this Money Resolution the Government will make their intentions clear on the sums they are prepared to make available."—[Official Report, 12th March 1976; Vol. 907, c. 870.]In that a sum is named in the resolution, I suppose that that has been done, but in that we have heard no case from the Minister about why that sum has been selected and what it is supposed to cover, we are entitled to hear a little more explanation. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member wants to know the answer to that question, it is a matter for the Chair who is called and not for me.
§ Mr. Ioan EvansMy hon. Friend's point is that this debate will last only for 45 minutes and that if the hon. Member does not resume his seat and allow my hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins) to speak, my hon. Friend will not be able to speak.
§ Mr. TebbitIf the hon. Gentleman could restrain his hon. Friends from their constant nattering and sedentary interventions he might get the Money Resolution through more quickly. A little more of the normal courtesy—[Interruption.] There you are, Mr. Deputy Speaker—there they go again. As soon as one tries to meet a request for brevity by saying that it is difficult to be brief under constant barracking, barracking starts again. So it becomes less and less likely that the hon. Member will have time—[Interruption.] The barracking used only to come from below the Gangway, but tonight it comes from what purport to be some of Her Majesty's Ministers as well. I do not know whether they think that they are helping their hon. Friend to get to the point at which he can make his speech, but if they do they are as wrong in that as they are in most other things they do. [Interruption.] There is another one at it now.
Considering the reluctance with which the Minister who was supposed to be introducing the resolution got to his feet, it is remarkable how eager other Ministers are to keep opening their mouths and shouting from a sedentary position. If they want to join in why do they not stand up and make a speech?
1552 After all, the resolution not only affects the Bill; it is a matter of public expenditure. Recently, Ministers have been saying a good deal about the need to contain public expenditure. We have heard a great deal about the Prime Minister's resolution not to let the borrowing requirement get out of hand. Now we are confronted with another Money Resolution, further public expenditure, and no explanation at all.
Nothing in the Bill requires the expenditure of taxpayers' money. The Bill could be enacted and aid could be given by reforming the legislation relating to common-owned businesses without any public expenditure being required. We are not told why the Government need public expenditure for this purpose. Indeed, it was not until this morning that we saw what the Government propose to do with the Bill at all.
The essential thing about this expenditure is that it will not only increase the borrowing requirement and of itself be inflationary; it is also likely to be discriminatory as between one sector of industry and another. In those circumstances it seems to me that it would be very unwise for us calmly to give our assent tonight to another slice of public expenditure.
We hope that the Minister will ask leave of the House to speak again, which, with due consideration, we may grant to him—although some of my hon. Friends may not want to hear him again, in view of his poor showing the first time. Perhaps it would be better if the Secretary of State replied to the debate. We hope to hear more justification for this sum of money. It might not be much—we are accustomed to the Secretary of State doing a 90-minute act for £20 million or so, and this sum is very much smaller than that.
There are now eight Ministers in the Chamber. When did we last have eight Ministers and the Chief Patronage Secretary in a 45-minute debate?
§ Mr. Kenneth Lomas (Huddersfield, West)May we have it quite clearly understood whether there will be a vote or not? Tedious repetition and boring comments are not doing the House any good. If the Opposition have decided to vote against this Money Resolution, 1553 will they say so now, so that we can go home?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. This debate must finish at 1.18 am and there are still a number of hon. Gentlemen who wish to catch my eye.
§ Mr. TebbitWe shall get on with the debate much better when we manage to restrain hon. Members on the Government Front Bench—
§ Mr. Tom Litterick (Birmingham, Selly Oak)Get your hand out of your pocket, you slovenly article.
§ Mr. Tebbit—and when we restrain hon. Members on the Front Bench below the Gangway.
§ Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Of course I accept that the conduct of the House is in your hands, but the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) is totally out of order, and he continues to be so. Will you assert your authority?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI have done my best to draw hon. Members' attention to the fact that the discussion on this matter must stop at 1.18 a.m.
§ Mr. PeytonOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that you will address some guidance to the Government side of the House, particularly to those hon. Members below the Gangway.
§ Mr. TebbitAt 1.18 a.m., as you reminded us, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the debate on this matter will end. I hope that we shall be able to hear something from other hon. Members before then. Whether other hon. Members get the opportunity to speak will depend partly on the conduct of hon. Members opposite, and so far their conduct has not been very impressive. [Interruption.] So far we have had from the Minister no explanation of the purpose for which this money would be used. All he said was that the money would be used in a discriminating way between one sector of industry and another. The Minister has given us no reasons why this money is needed for the Bill—to which this House has given a Second Reading—to be able to be operated. It is not needed. There is no case, in my view, for further public expenditure of this nature—
§ Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley)He has said all that before.
§ Mr. TebbitThere we go again, Mr. Deputy Speaker—
§ Mr. Neville Sandelson (Hayes and Harlington)Get on with it, you buffoon. You are bringing the House into disrepute.
§ Mr. TebbitThe hon. Gentleman does himself no good by shouting from a sedentary position that something will bring the House into disrepute. It is difficult to get on with a speech when, contrary to all the customs of the House, one is subject to constant barracking.
The Minister has made no case to show why this sum of money should be required and why he cannot do what he wants for less. Is he satisfied that if, as the Government propose, a body is to be set up to distribute money on a non-commercial basis, he has enough money to act in that way? After all, if the money is to be distributed on a non-commercial basis there can be few limits on the amount it is possible to spend in that manner. I hope therefore that he will tell us why this sum is necessary,
How much of the money will be expended on what one would broadly call administration expenses? How much will be spent in actually carrying out the purposes of the Bill, which is the making of grants and loans. If the Minister cannot say—if he has come to the House not prepared to answer any of the questions put to him but merely hopes to slip the Money Resolution through late at night on the sly, on the basis of a conversation in a corridor with my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil—he and his hon. Friends should be discouraged from thinking that they can get away with that sort of conduct in future.
§ 1.8 a.m.
§ Mr. David Watkins (Consett)The level of the debate so far has not been particularly high, and there has been a great deal of repetition about some points. I hope that by comparison I might apply myself directly to the Money Resolution and seek to deal with one or two of the points raised.
First, I urge the House to approve the resolution. I remind it again that the Bill received an unopposed Second Reading on Friday 12th March after a full debate. 1555 During the debate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Carmichael), who was then Under-Secretary of State for Industry, stated that if the Bill received a Second Reading the Government would table a Money Resolution before the Committee stage began. He also said specifically that the amount the Government would allow for in the resolution would be less than what was originally proposed in the Bill. That fact is reflected in the resolution. I proposed in the Bill expenditure of £1,060,000 spread over four years. The resolution proposes an expenditure of £400,000 spread over five years. The amount now proposed is entirely in line with the suggestion made by the Government spokesman at that time. It is substantially less than half that proposed in the original Bill, and is spread over a longer period.
I submit that the facts recorded in the Second Reading debate rather make nonsense of some of the allegations made so far by hon. Members opposite. I know that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) has felt that the Government have taken over the Bill and altered it completely, but I refute that suggestion. The Bill has certainly been redrafted—and with my agreement, as the sponsor of it—but it has not been altered in substance, except in the reduction in expenditure which will be proposed in amendments to come before the Committee when it meets. It is for that reason that the Money Resolution is proposed.
§ Mr. Patrick Mayhew (Royal Tunbridge Wells)The hon. Gentleman says that it has not been altered in substance, but does not New Clause 1 stipulate that the body, now to be called the relevant body, which is to receive either the grants or the loans, is to be a body on which one or more trade unionists are represented? Is not that a completely different body from that proposed by the Bill, and is not that very substantial? It cuts out any number of bodies the sole purpose of which may be to encourage common ownership but which may not wish to have a trade union represented on them.
§ Mr. WatkinsI do not accept that. The body is not different. What has emerged is the hon. and learned Gentleman's suspicion of trade unionists. He has made a quite irrelevant intervention to express his prejudices in that direc- 1556 tion. I do not accept that as a valuable point. I do not accept that it is any substantial alteration at all, or that the Bill is in substance at all altered from that which was given its Second Reading on 12th March, except for the reduction in expenditure and the deletion of two clauses dealing with conversions into common ownership, which are proposed to be deleted because they are covered in two clauses added on to the current Finance Bill.
There is no lack of precedent for major alterations of this sort to Private Members' Bills. I shall not weary the House with a large number of them, but shall mention one, because I was involved in it. In 1968 I was lucky in the Ballot and was able to pilot through the House the Bill that became the Employer's Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969. That was also legislation in what was then an unprecedented field. That Bill was similarly redrafted by the Government, in consultation with myself. Indeed, it was much more radically altered than this Bill. It became law and has been in operation successfully now for a number of years.
§ Mr. Tebbitrose—
§ Mr. WatkinsThe hon. Gentleman has already spoken at very great length and has left me very little time. This remains the same Bill. To those who say that it is altered in substance, I can only say, first, that their memories have dimmed and, secondly, that they have not read the new proposed amendments, which are identical in substance. The money is less than half that which has already been agreed in principle by the House, and I hope the House will agree to the Money Resolution.
§ 1.15 a.m.
§ Mr. Les HuckfieldI hope that the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) feels pleased with himself, because he has prevented a great many of his hon. Friends from speaking, particularly by the way in which he carried on. I cannot understand his position, because he is complaining that the Bill has been changed. I hope he has gone through the Bill, as I have. All that the Government propose to do is to transfer to the Finance Bill, which is already in Committee, precisely those clauses to which the hon. Gentleman objected on Second 1557 Reading. In other words, as my hon. Friend has rightly said, this is substantially the same Bill as that which was introduced on 12th March and which the hon. Gentleman approved of on that date. I hope that the hon. Member for Chingford will stop making these bitter personal attacks, and read his own speech of 12th March.
As my hon. Friend says, the Money Resolution enables my right hon. Friend to make provision for grants of up to £30,000 a year for five years, to meet the administrative expenses of the advisers, which my hon. Friend mentioned. It also enables grants or loans of up to £50,000 a year for five years for on-lending by the recognised body to common ownership and co-operative enterprises. Grants to enterprises by the body are not provided for.
We went into this in great detail on 12th March, when the hon. Member for Chingford made great sport with the fact that he was delighted at surprising my hon. Friends by agreeing to the Bill. Having gone through that great performance, in which he tried to impress every Labour Member, he has turned round 180 degrees. From what we can see and from the amendments turned down—
§ It being three-quarters of an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted Business).
§ Question agreed to.
§
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to further the development of enterprises owned and controlled by people working in them, it is expedient to authorise—