HC Deb 27 June 1978 vol 952 cc1210-6
Q1. Mr. John Evans

asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for 27th June.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot)

In the absence of my right hon. Friend, I have been asked to reply.

My right hon. Friend is today returning from the United States, where he received the first Hubert H. Humphrey International Award. My right hon. Friend has also had talks with President Carter and with leading figures from the United States aircraft industry.

Mr. Evans

Will my right hon. Friend convey to the Prime Minister the congratulations of every hon. Member of the House on his being the first recipient of this international award for statesmanship? But will he also make it clear when he sees the Prime Minister that many Labour Members are concerned at suggestions that the Government may implement the Boyle Report on top salaries? Will my right hon. Friend point out to the Prime Minister that if the Government implement that report there is no chance whatsoever of their achieving a further round of pay restraint with the trade union movement?

Mr. Foot

In reply to the first matter mentioned by my hon. Friend, I shall certainly convey his representations to the Prime Minister. I believe that the House would wish to congratulate the Prime Minister not only on the prize he received but on the speech he delivered in the United States, which is a speech of major importance on the international scene. I take note of my hon. Friend's remarks in the second part of his supplementary question, but I have nothing to say to the House on that subject today.

Mr. Peter Bottomley

Can the Lord President suggest how the Prime Minister reconciles the Government's present difficulties over pay when the Financial Statement said that inflation would go up unless pay increases were kept down and when the Prime Minister said yesterday that the Government would make their views on pay known in due course? In view of the fact that the present policy runs out in four weeks' time, when will the Government speak?

Mr. Foot

I see nothing irreconcilable in those statements. The prophecy about the figures was given, and the Prime Minister has already said that a further statement will be made on these matters before the House rises for the recess.

2. Mr. Kilroy-Silk

asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for 27th June.

Mr. Foot

I have been asked to reply.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I have just given to my hon. Friend the Member for Newton. (Mr. Evans).

Mr. Kilroy-Silk

Will my right hon. Friend take time today to reflect on the thousands of redundancies that have occurred on Merseyside and the 600 redundancies now pending in Kirkby? Will he accept that only a bold, new, imaginative initiative by the Government, such as the funding of the 1988 Olympics operation on Merseyside, could adequately deal with Merseyside's problems? Will he also firmly repudiate the Tory proposals to make areas such as Merseyside safe havens for spivs, racketeers, speculators, exploiters of labour, Soho pornographers and ponces, and Tory crooks, because we want none of it?

Mr. Foot

It is easy enough to accept what my hon. Friend says in the latter part of his remarks, and I am sure that all of us on the Labour Benches are glad to agree with him. On the first matter raised by my hon. Friend, I trust he agrees that tackling the appalling unemployment problems on Merseyside and elsewhere calls for a whole series of measures at home and abroad. It was especially those international measures which must be taken on a wide front to which the Prime Minister referred in his speech. I believe that he carries the support of all Labour Members in giving a lead to the whole Western world in seeking to deal with this problem of unemployment.

Mr. Whitelaw

When the right hon. Gentleman is reflecting on respect for the law, will he consider the report of the Advisory Council on the Penal System, published today, and reflect on his own attitude to the independent judiciary? Does he appreciate how much his personal attacks on judges undermine respect for the law in this country?

Mr. Foot

The right hon. Gentleman has been misled, perhaps by his leader, on the subject of my comments on the judiciary. All that I have done is to give some simple history lessons to those who ought to have learnt their history at school.

Q3. Mr. Canavan

asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for 27th June.

Mr. Foot

I have been asked to reply.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave earlier today to my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Evans).

Mr. Canavan

Will my right hon. Friend find time to comment further on the Shadow Chancellor's suggestion that the solution to unemployment in deprived areas such as Clydeside and Merseyside is to create tax-free havens for employers, with little, if any, employment protection legislation for workers? Would that not increase deprivation by creating lawless ghettos where workers would have little, if any, protection under the law in basic matters such as health, safety and job security? If this idea is typical of what is coming from the Tory think-tank, is it not clear that it has become rather septic?

Mr. Foot

I should not like to comment further in response to my hon. Friend's invitation. A most apposite statement was made the other day. It was: There is no way in which this problem"— the problem of inner urban areas— can be solved by easy application of free market forces. Mr. Milton Friedman has only to take a short cab ride from his university in Chicago to see what free market forces have done to some districts of that city. That was said by the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker), and it is the best speech that even he has made for quite a long time.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles

In his acting capacity, will the right hon. Gentleman do a useful job for the Prime Minister and look into a case of apparent lack of co-ordination between two Ministries, one of which expresses regret about the murder of British missionaries while the other pays direct aid to a country which harbours terrorists who do that sort of thing?

Mr. Foot

This whole question was dealt with fully and adequately by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary yesterday. I do not believe that there is any contradiction in what he said to the House and the whole of our policy on this matter. I am sure that the best course for the House to take in this respect is to follow the advice of the British Council of Churches, which is fully in accord with what was said by the Foreign Secretary yesterday.

Mr. Arthur Lewis

The Lord President referred to his orginal reply. May I refer him to his reply to the first supplementary question? Does he not think that it is disgusting that top civil servants should get a 20 per cent. pay increase without one murmur from the Government and that there should be rumours of 20 per cent. and 30 per cent. rises for the members of boards of nationalised industries without one murmur from the Government, while he has said that he can do nothing for hon. Members who, if their pay were set at the same real level as the salaries they were receiving in 1965, would be entitled to just on £11,000 per annum? If he cannot do it for one, why does he do it for the other?

Mr. Foot

I have nothing to add to the earlier answer that I gave on this subject.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton

Why did the right hon. Gentleman bother to turn up at all?

Mr. Foot

Of course, hon. Members' salaries will be debated in the House in a few weeks' time, as I have indicated on a number of occasions.

Mr. Pardoe

Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the first four Ques- tions to the Prime Minister are pretty ridiculous, make a mockery of the House and make it look even more ridiculous than it sounds on the radio? May I ask him a question that is directly relevant to the answer that he gave about the Hubert H. Humphrey memorial award? Is he aware that the main barrier that Hubert Humphrey met on his way to the White House was the lack of cash? Is he further aware that the United States Government subsequently had to change the regulations governing the remuneration of political parties in America? What will he and the Government do about the Houghton Report?

Mr. Foot

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be of great benefit to democracy in this country if we could carry into effect the recommendations of the Houghton Report or recommendations along those lines. I should like to see a majority in the House to achieve that purpose, and as soon as there is such a majority I hope that this will be one of the many excellent measures that will be brought forward. Whether the hon. Gentleman will be here to join us in that happy event, I am not sure.

Q4. Mr. Edwin Wainwright

asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for 27th June 1978.

Mr. Foot

I have been asked to reply.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave earlier today to my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Evans.)

Mr. Wainwright

Will my right hon. Friend ask the Prime Minister whether he is aware that, in addition to increasing the cost of defence and promising £700 million on the training of youth, the Conservatives also have a General Election gimmick of £4,000 million cuts in public expenditure? If the Prime Minister is not aware of this, will he ask the Leader of the Opposition to explain how the Conservatives are to bring about those cuts?

Mr. Foot

As to my right hon. Friend being aware of these simple facts, I think that the idea has crossed his mind occasionally and I dare say that over the months ahead he may be provoked into making references to these matters. Of course, it would greatly assist us if the Opposition —perhaps the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) himself—would make a full statement of all the expenditure increases they have recommended. I gather that they are having deep disputes on this subject, and the sooner we can see them resolved, the better.

Mr. Anthony Grant

While the Prime Minister was in America, did he express to President Carter the Government's support for the lifting of the United States arms embargo on Turkey, which the British Secretary of State for Defence supported last week and which the Western European Union Assembly also recommended last week?

Mr. Foot

I do not think that that was one of the special subjects which the Prime Minister discussed, although he will, no doubt, be making a full statement to the House on this and many other aspects when he returns. The House should recognise that in his speech in the United States my right hon. Friend took a special occasion to try to ensure that the nations of the West should apply their minds at the Bonn Summit meeting to the appalling problem of unemployment. He urged that nothing should be done to injure the SALT negotiations—I believe that he will have the support of the country in that—and he also outlined an attitude towards the problems of Africa which should command the support of people throughout this country. The House should recognise that the Prime Minister on his visit to the United States spoke for the whole country—or, at any rate, for the more civilised section of the country.

Mr. Henderson

Has the right hon. Gentleman any information about whether the Prime Minister has discussed with President Carter the question of the Singer Company on Clydebank? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the Glasgow, Garscadden by-election great promises were held out to the people of Clydebank that the Prime Minister would be able to save the jobs of the people in Singer and that these expectations have been cruelly dashed in the last few days?

Mr. Foot

The hon. Gentleman has misrepresented the situation. This was not one of the subjects which the Prime Minister was discussing with President Carter. Of course we have been eager to sustain jobs on Clydebank, and it was partly because of action by the Government that the jobs were available in the first place.

Mr. Grocott

Will my right hon. Friend try to find time to get hold of a Conservative Central Office list of official Tory parliamentary candidates and note that they include these days the names of extremists such as Ward of Grunwick? Will he point out to the electorate on every conceivable occasion that, should it he misguided enough to vote Tory next time, we shall be in for a long, hard winter if people such as Ward are elected?

Mr. Foot

I must say that my hon. Friend is a generous fellow. It is hard to think that some of the prospective candidates would be any worse than a few of the Conservative Members we already have on the Opposition Benches.