§ Q1. Mr. Loydenasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 December.
§ The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen)I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend is attending a meeting of the European Council in Dublin.
§ Mr. LoydenIs the Leader of the House aware that unemployment is responsible for marital breakdown and the destruction of family life? According to the results of a recent survey undertaken on Merseyside, there are between 60 and 70 deaths a year because of long-term unemployment? When will this violence end? When will the Government recognise their abysmal failure in dealing with unemployment? When will they exercise one or other of the two options open to them, which are a changing of course or the Prime Minister's resignation?
§ Mr. BiffenThe Government are fully conscious of the social damages that are caused by high and persistent levels of unemployment. The policy of sound management of the budget lies at the heart of our economic recovery. The fact that 250,000 are at work now over and above the working population of a year ago is a sign that there is the beginning of a turn.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythMy right hon. Friend must he aware of the widespread concern about the Government's proposals for student grants. Will he therefore invite the clearing banks to join in discussions with the Government with a view to abolishing the parental contribution and introducing a system of grants for all, with top-ups for those who require them?
§ Mr. BiffenI note my hon. Friend's interesting suggestion. Doubtless he, like me, will have heard exchanges earlier in Question Time today involving my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. I think that for the moment we might leave the matter there.
§ Mr. SteelWill the acting Prime Minister confirm my arithmetic that 2 million households have had a pre-Christmas bonanza over the sale of British Telecom shares, while about 17 million households have lost about £100 worth each of the assets? Will he confirm that that is so? Is this not the equivalent of the Government playing bingo with other people's money?
§ Mr. BiffenAlthough it is a flattering premise that attends the right hon. Gentleman's question, I must reject 168 it. I shall concentrate upon the particularly narrow and dispiriting comment that he made about the success of the British Telecom sale. The result of the sale is a massive extension of share ownership, especially among those seeking to be small-scale shareholders. The fact that there has been such an impact upon the price in the early dealings is not unconnected with the fact that there is a relatively small market in the shares because of loyalty to the shareholding.
§ Mr. DickensHas my right hon. Friend heard the strong reports that money of the National Union of Mineworkers is being held by Left-wing trade union headquarters in London and that, daily, couriers can be seen leaving these headquarters with suitcases stuffed with used banknotes and heading for the Sheffield headquarters of the NUM? If my right hon. Friend has heard these reports, what do the Government intend to do, especially the Treasury, to investigate the taxation implications of the exercise and the title to the money?
§ Mr. BiffenI am afraid that I have no knowledge whatever of the points put to me by my hon. Friend. But the strike and its financing are so redolent with tragedy that I agree that it might yet end in farce.
§ Q2. Mr. Wareingasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 December.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. WareingIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that, although the Government are led by a married woman, albeit temporarily, many hon. Members hope it remains the view of the Equal Opportunities Commission that the new regulations for the community programme are likely to bring the Government into indirect conflict with the Sex Discrimination Act? If the Government are such upholders of the rule of law, should they not put aside the regulations until there are full discussions with the EOC?
§ Mr. BiffenI was unaware that we were about to run such an appalling hazard. If there is a prospect of illegality, I am sure that this Administration will wish to avoid it.
§ Q3. Mr. Eggarasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 December.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. EggarDid my right hon. Friend note that yesterday Mr. Scargill urged trade unionists to choose between the law and their membership? Is that not hypocritical when it comes from a man who has defied both the law and his own union's rule book? Will my right hon. Friend make it quite clear today that the law is indivisible? No trade union leader or individual can choose which part of it he agrees with and which part he chooses to disregard.
§ Mr. BiffenI am happy to confirm that and to assert that there would be much advantage if the leadership of the NUM returned to the law and to the negotiating table.
§ Q4. Mr. Bruceasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 December.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
169 I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. BruceIs the Leader of the House aware that tomorrow Scottish teachers will be going on strike because of the Government's refusal to grant an independent pay review? Will he recognise that many able and dedicated teachers north and south of the border are leaving the profession because of low pay, and instruct the Prime Minister to grant that independent review?
§ Mr. BiffenI note what the hon. Gentleman says, but I cannot accept that the pay is as catastrophic as he implies. Indeed, it is much to be deprecated if strike action is taken.
§ Mr. GorstWill my right hon. Friend ensure that we can bask in further satisfaction at the direction in which the Government are leading us, by reviewing that direction with regard to student grants, the possibility of VAT on books and periodicals, the cuts in the external services of the BBC and the cuts in the British Council? Will he also ensure that there is an elected element for the GLC? We shall then be very satisfied with the Government.
§ Mr. BiffenIt is one of my hon. Friend's engaging characteristics that he has never been known to bask in satisfaction. A very distinguished forebear of his sat below the Gangway as a member of a fourth party, and the manifesto that my hon. Friend has just outlined is appropriate for that.
§ Mr. KinnockHas the Leader of the House heard today's disturbing reports that our Hercules aircraft are making only three flights a day, instead of the usual six to eight, because there is no grain left in Addis Ababa? What are the Government doing to expand and improve the flow of grain supplies so that the Royal Air Force can resume its flights and move grain within Ethiopia?
§ Mr. BiffenThe right hon. Gentleman raises a fair and highly topical point. I believe that our record of assistance to Ethiopia in the emergent circumstances of the past few months is wholly admirable. [Interruption.] Oh, yes. The famine in Ethiopia is above the triviality of short-term party politics. I shall, of course, study the point that the right hon. Gentleman has raised.
§ Mr. KinnockI agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the famine in Ethiopia is above the short-term frivolities of party politics. The Government should urge a much better response from the Common Market in view of the fact that the most recent figures for the grain surpluses show that they have increased by 400,000 tonnes to 6.4 million tonnes. What is the Prime Minister doing at the Dublin summit, if anything, to ensure that those grain surpluses, which no one is buying, are moved quickly to places where they can save lives?
§ Mr. BiffenI assert at once that the Government have been giving a lead by their example to their partners in the European Community. What was discussed at the Dublin summit will be reported upon tomorrow.
§ Mrs. Kellett-BowmanWill my right hon. Friend pass on to our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister the grave anxieties felt by those many parents who for many years have prudently saved towards the cost of higher education of their children and now find that that provision is inadequate?
§ Mr. BiffenThere has been such a widespread debate upon this point that I doubt whether my right hon. Friend needs any reminding from me, but I shall do as has been requested.
§ Q5. Mr. Dobsonasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 December.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. DobsonWhen the right hon. Gentleman reports to the Prime Minister on the disquiet felt on the Conservative Benches and by the Opposition about the proposed changes in parental contributions to student grants, will he also suggest to the Prime Minister that there is a ready saving in the budget of the Department of Education and Science if the Government were immediately to cut the estimated £30 million subsidy to the public schools by abandoning the assisted places scheme?
§ Mr. BiffenThis debate can be set in many contexts, but I doubt whether most of those on the Benches behind me advocating a reconsideration of policy would choose that route.
§ Q6. Sir John Farrasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 December.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Sir John FarrWill my right hon. Friend pay special attention to the striking DHSS staff at Newcastle? The strike is now causing intense hardship to about 9 million pensioners and 7 million other people. In view of the fact that in the north-east there is a surplus of trained computer operators, will my right hon. Friend urgently consider the possibility of dismissing those on strike?
§ Mr. BiffenMy hon. Friend raises an important point. I understand that of the three unions involved in the dispute, two have settled and the third is now in the process of undertaking consultation. I hope that that will end in a settlement, because there are wider social consequences which I believe will be deplored by all in the House.
§ 7. Mr. Pikeasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 December.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. PikeWhile accepting the Government's responsibility for the long, ongoing coal dispute, may I ask whether the Government accept responsibility for the additional cost to the Central Electricity Generating Board of generating electricity from oil during the dispute and will ensure that that burden is not passed on to industrial and domestic consumers?
§ Mr. BiffenI do not for one moment endorse the premise that the Government are responsible for the long dispute. The responsibility lies with those radical elements in the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers who have ambitions far beyond a mere coal strike. It is still far too early to make a judgment upon the financial consequences of the dispute.
§ Mr. AdleyDid my right hon. Friend either see or read the recent debate between the right hon. Member for 171 Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and Lord Denning on television? If my hon. Friend was looking for somebody either to uphold the law or to protect the weak from intimidation, which of those two would he choose, and why?
§ Mr. BiffenI do not like to be set that kind of examination question in the closing minutes of Question Time. All I would say is that I do not believe that the 172 behaviour of Lord Denning, either on that programme or at any other time in his life, would merit the description "simplistic".