Manchester (Deputation) (Hansard, 24 March 1983)

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris (Manchester, Openshaw)
I emphasise at the outset that neither I nor my parliamentary colleagues representing constituencies in the city of Manchester dispute the pressures on the Prime Minister's time, but, by her refusal to meet seven hon. Members, representing constituencies in the city of Manchester, the preening queen of Downing street has delivered a calculated snub to the city and people of Manchester. I and my parliamentary colleagues believe that she has acted in a characteristically insensitive manner, bordering on arrogance.
It was on 13 December 1982 that we first wrote to the Prime Minister asking that she receive a representative deputation from Manchester, comprising civic, industrial and religious leaders, to discuss the critical problems now confronting that city. We were obliged to wait two months for a reply to that letter. Whatever one might think about the handling of correspondence in the Prime Minister's office, in the view of the Manchester Members of Parliament that was shocking deleteriousness.
It was on 4 February 1983 that the Prime Minister finally wrote, suggesting that rather than see her we should see the Secretary of State for the Environment. That may sound a reasonable suggestion to people who are unaware that the Prime Minister had shuffled off a similar Manchester deputation which was anxious to see her in February 1981. At that time her reaction was precisely the same; she suggested that we should see the then Secretary of State for the Environment.
On that occasion the Manchester Members of Parliament, along with civic, industrial, commercial and religious leaders from the city went to see the Secretary of State for the Environment. The most appropriate comment on that visit was made by the Dean of Manchester in reply to a reporter from the Manchester Evening News, who inquired of the dean whether the meeting had been useful. The Dean of Manchester commented: Blessed are those who expect nothing. They will not be disappointed. I cannot think of a more appropriate comment from any souce on that meeting.
Against that background, and in the light of that experience, it was arrogant of the Prime Minister to insist that we go all through that futile, time-wasting exercise again.

§ Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe)
My right hon. Friend is right to recall that not only political and industrial leaders condemned the shabby treatment that we received in 1981, but people such as Canon Alfred Jowett, the Dean of Manchester, in addition to the words quoted by my right hon. Friend, said that the then Secretary of State for the Environment did not even understand the points that were made to him about Manchester's plight. Why should we be expected to go through that same meaningless farce again? Unemployment in Manchester has more than doubled while the Prime Minister has been in office. Male unemployment in my constituency is now 26 per cent. In the inner city it is more grievously serious. It exceeds 40 1180 per cent. in parts of Manchester, yet even those figures, as I am sure my right hon. Friend must agree, tell nothing like the whole story of our concern. The Government's policy for youth is one from school to scrap heap. They have betrayed a whole generation, and now the Prime Minister dodges this debate. Surely that is a shocking comment on the Government's response to the case that we are seeking to make for the city of Manchester.

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that point. One needs to bear in mind that the Prime Minister is the same Prime Minister who, following her general election victory in 1979, stood on the steps of No. 10 Downing street intoning those memorable words from the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi: Where there is despair, may we bring hope". There is despair among the unemployed in the city of Manchester, especially the young unemployed. It is about time that the right hon. Lady thought of bringing some hope and found time to listen to the plight of the people of that city.
I cannot understand why the Prime Minister remains strangely and voluntarily deaf to any discussion about the critical problems now confronting the people of that city. My right hon. Friend highlighted the problem of unemployment. It is right that in this debate we should seek to highlight what we would have discussed with the Prime Minister had we been given the opportunity.
What are the problems that we were anxious to raise with the Prime Minister? What were we anxious that she should listen to? The most daunting problem, facing Manchester now is undoubtedly the number of people out of work. One is entitled to ask why the Prime Minister remains deaf to our pleas. In the city of Manchester unemployment is currently 22.3 per cent., against the national average of 13.4 per cent. There are 35 people jobless in Manchester for every vacancy on the job register. In Moss Side, a constituent part of the city, male unemployment is 36.7 per cent. In the central areas of the city the unemployment rate is 40 per cent. In the Newton Heath ward of the city the current male unemployment rate is 27.4 per cent. Is the Prime Minister wholly uninterested in those statistics and in the plight of the people searching for work?
I am especially concerned with the plight of youngsters looking for jobs in the city. Their job prospects are bleak and depressing. The number of youngsters under 18 out of work is 42 for every vacancy. What hope and prospects can parents hold out to their children? What frustration are we encouraging in youngsters who have applied themselves to their academic studies, acquired the necessary five GCE 0-levels and two A-levels, only to find themselves as one of 42 applying for every job available? That is the real, heart-rending position faced by the children of my constituents.
We encourage our sons and daughters to apply themselves to their school studies, but at the end of the day the only prospect is a TOPS course or short-term training. I wonder whether the children of Ministers end up on a TOPS training course when they have completed their education. That is the plight of the children of my constituents. The real tragedy is that the Prime Minister could not care less. She is not bothered; she cannot find the time to listen to hon. Members seeking to draw her attention to the problems.

§ Mr. Alfred Morris
Will my right hon. Friend go further and agree that it is near to contempt for the customs and practices of the House for the Prime Minister to dodge a debate that is fundamentally about her conduct?

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
I certainly agree. Frankly, I have a great deal of sympathy for the luckless Minister who has been invited to come and apologise for the Prime Minister's actions and behaviour.
I have sought to highlight the problem of unemployment among adults in Manchester. I have touched on the plight of the young unemployed in that city. I wish now to highlight another sensitive area of concern.
I do not know how many hon. Members have seen the statistics of the problem facing the unskilled unemployed. For workers in that category, there are 870 for every vacancy on the register. An unskilled and unemployed person in Manchester has virtually no prospect of finding a job. That is a scandal. One might take solace if such people were unemployed for only a short time, but the reverse is the case. At present, 36 per cent. of those unemployed in Manchester have been unemployed for 12 months or more.

§ Mr. George Morton (Manchester, Moss Side)
does my right hon. Friend agree that unemployment, is not our only worry, difficult though it is to see how the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment will be able to answer the points that have been made about that, even with the assistance of the Under-Secretary of State for Industry? There is a range of other issues relating to other Departments, and that is primarily why we wanted to see the Prime Minister. There is the matter of assisted area status, for which my right hon. Friend has been campaigning; the question of the regional patent office, about which we have campaigned to the Department of Trade; the blocking of Manchester's campaign to have the European Trade Marks Office, because the Department of Trade insists that it can only go to London if it is to be in the United Kingdom against the advice of the EC; the regional operations of the Department of Health and social Security; and the stamp duty office in Manchester. A range of Departments are involved and it is completely inadequate for the answers to come simply from the Department of the Environment, although we know of its importance in the loss of rate support grant. Leaving that aside, the Government's economic policies and their effect on Manchester must surely be the direct responsibility of the Prime Minister.

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
I not only agree with my hon. Friend, but I believe that to shuffle off her responsibility and send a junior Minister from the Department of the Environment, who has no responsibility for employment policies, assisted area status and the plight of the young unemployed, to answer the debate is a calculated contempt of the House. It is another measure of the Prime Minister's contempt for the issues that are behind our anxieties this evening.
The real tragedy and reality of unemployment is that it acts as a catalyst and generates poverty. The Prime Minister cannot continue to ignore the plight of so many families in Manchester. In some of the inner city wards of Manchester, 40 to 60 per cent. of the families are in receipt of supplementary benefit. Over 13 per cent. of Manchester's total population currently depend on supplementary benefit because the head of the household 1182 is out of a job. That is the city from which the Government decided to withdraw assisted area status within weeks of taking office.
That was when unemployment in Manchester was 8.2 per cent. Unemployment in that city is now 22.5 per cent. The Government still refuse even to consider the restoration of any form of assisted area status to the city. For those who ask, "Does assisted area status make any significant difference to attracting industry to the city?". I suggest that they talk to the managers of Shell's Carrington plant, which is currently focusing its major investment in Scotland because Manchester is no longer an assisted area. They should talk to the managing director of Victor Wolf Ltd. in my constituency. That company has established itself on the north-east coast because of the attractions that assisted area status gives to companies establishing themselves in those areas. I believe that Manchester's case for assisted area status is unanswerable.
The Prime Minister has on two occasions refused to listen to Manchester's problem. Tonight she has failed to turn up to answer this debate and instead has sent along—I am not being personal to the Minister concerned—a ministerial errand boy to apologise on her behalf. Since the right hon. Lady was elected in 1979 she has studiously avoided visiting Manchester. Her only contact with the city authorities was a glad hand courtesy call on the then Conservative lord mayor way back in August 1979.
That is the sum total of the right hon. Lady's contact with Britain's third largest city during her tenure as Prime Minister. When we ask to see her as elected Members of the city she tries to shuffle us off to the Secretary of State for the Environment, who has no ministerial responsibility to the House for the issues that we were anxious to raise with him.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill)
Order. I am sorry to stop the right hon. Gentleman, but I hope he understands and realises that this is a half-hour Adjournment debate and that the Minister may wish to answer.

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
I accept your strictures Mr. Deputy Speaker, but, quite frankly, until the Prime Minister is prepared to listen to the plight of the people of Manchester, I am not prepared to listen to apologies from the Minister.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Giles Shaw)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With your permission, may I raise a point of order from the Front Bench, which I know is unusual, especially in an Adjournment debate? You have just invited the right hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) to recognise that what he is doing at this early hour is to produce a contemptuous situation in relation to an Adjournment debate. He is now, apparently—

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
rose—

§ Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones (Watford)
Sit down, you silly man.

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
A contemptuous situation! A contemptuous situation!

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.

§ Mr. Shaw
Mr. Deputy Speaker, is it not a contempt of the House that in an Adjournment debate the right hon. Member who raises this matter should state that he has no wish whatever to have any Government response?

§ Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) has made it abolutely clear that he wants a response from the Government, from the Prime Minister. How can the Under-Secretary of State possibly speak for the Department of Employment? How can he reply, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Moss Side Mr. Morton) said, to questions concerning industry? We have had raised in the debate matters concerning supplementary benefit, and therefore the Department of Health and Social Security. Are, we not, Mr. Deputy Speaker—

§ Mr. Garel-Jones
Abuse, abuse.

§ Mr. Alfred Morris
—in need of your help and guidance? Should there not be a Minister present who can speak cross-departmentally in reply to this very important debate?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
The subject of the Adjournment debate is the Prime Minister's decision not to meet a deputation of hon. Members to discuss the problems of Manchester. It did not specifically state that it was on unemployment. It was on the general problems of Manchester. It is very unusual for a right hon. Gentleman, with all his experience of the House, not to give the Minister an opportunity to reply from the Front Bench.

§ Mr. Garel-Jones
Typical unfairness.

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
In response to your comments, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have been in correspondence with the Prime Minister for four months. From 13 December 1982 letters have gone backwards and forwards between No. 10 Downing street and me. The Prime Minister knows full well every single issue that Manchester Members of Parliament want to discuss with her.
The Prime Minister has sent the most junior Minister from the Department of the Environment to apologise for her in the debate tonight, and that is a contempt not only of the House but of the people of Manchester. That contempt will not go unanswered as far as I am concerned. Whether I am a right hon. Gentleman or an hon. Gentleman—(Interruption.—I intend to put the case for the people of Manchester. I say to the Prime Minister—

§ Mr. Alfred Morris
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the Government Whip wishes to make personal attacks on hon. Members, should he not rise in his place? He said "neither" when my right hon. Friend the Member for Openshaw said that whether he was a right hon. Member or an hon. Member, he still had his rights. Should not he be asked to withdraw that remark?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I was listening so carefully to what the right hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) was saying that I did not hear any comments from the Government Bench. However, if the Government Whip impugned the honour of the right hon. Gentleman, I am sure he will withdraw it.

§ Mr. Alfred Morris
Withdraw!

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
I say to the Prime Minister that there is a real world—

§ Mr. Bob Cryer: (Keighley)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Since you told the Assistant Whip, the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones), that if he had impugned the honour of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) he should withdraw his comments, I should tell you that I heard him say "neither". He said it quite distinctly, and I should have thought that he should withdraw his remark in the circumstances.

§ Mr. Alfred Morris
Withdraw!

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. Since there are only two minutes left in the debate, I think that we had better get on with it.

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
rose—

§ Mr. Garel-Jones
Abuse.

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris
I say to the Prime Minister that there is a real world, with real people and real problems waiting for a solution to their plight. If, as Prime Minister, she is disinclined to listen to their difficulties, and to those confronting the people of Manchester, she should at least come and see those problems at first hand. The people of Manchester have the ability, ingenuity and talent to respond to encouragement. However, they have not received any from this Prime Minister, who remains characteristically deaf to the very real problems confronting Manchester.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Giles Shaw)
The House has listened to an extraordinary Adjourment debate. It will, I am sure, be placed on the record tonight that the manifold problems of the city of Manchester, as represented by the three Members of Parliament present, were as nothing compared with their anxiety to try to demonstrate that the correspondence that they have had with the Prime Minister is significantly more important than the issues to be discussed.

§ Mr. Alfred Morris
rose—

§ Mr. Shaw
It will be noted that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris), who has been a member of an Administration, together with the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), has the enormous presumption to believe that the Prime Minister of the day will answer an Adjournment debate purely because it happens to be raised by him. He does not seem to take note of the fact that there are two Ministers on the Front Bench: one from the Department of Industry and one from the Department of the Environment. In addition, there is another Government member on the Front Bench, making three altogether. There are three Manchester Members on the Opposition Benches.
The right hon. Member for Openshaw clearly does not take any notice whatever of the enormous sums of money being poured into Manchester by the Department of the Environment. The urban partnerships, the inner urban grants and, the derelict land grants do not matter a rap to the right hon. Gentleman. All that he is concerned about is the fatuity of his attempts to impugn—
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Thursday evening, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at twenty minutes past Four o'clock.