§ Q1. Mr. Flanneryasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 26 June.
§ 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 at Fontainebleau.
§ Mr. FlanneryWhen will the Government admit that their anti-trade union laws have proved to be completely unworkable? Do they intend to arrest all the miners and then all the railwaymen? Is it not a fact that the inexorable march towards a general strike, provoked by the Government, is now relentlessly under way? When London comes to a complete standstill tomorrow, will wiser counsels prevail in the Conservative party than those of a dictatorial Prime Minister and the ineffable and wretched Mr. MacGregor, who have provoked this action between them? Can we expect the Government to come to the negotiating table, announce that the pit closures will stop and discuss with the miners what will be done?
§ Mr. BiffenIt is highly irresponsible to speak in terms of a general strike. Those who do so invite the suspicion that there are elements which would like to use industrial action to secure against the Government what the ballot box failed to secure. It is highly damaging to make the kind of personal and inflammatory remarks that the hon. Gentleman has just made about the chairman of the NCB. That does nothing to assist the process of conciliation. The offer still exists for the National Union of Mineworkers to get around the negotiating table with the NCB, and the sooner the talks are resumed, the better.
§ Mr. CrouchIs my right hon. Friend aware of the widespread public concern at the news this morning that an unauthorised person—a vet—last month took part in a major surgical operation on a constituent of mine?—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. This is a bit of a change.
§ Mr. CrouchWill my right hon. Friend take steps as a matter of urgency to allay public fear so that such illegal and dangerous practices will never happen again?
§ Mr. BiffenThe matter raised by my hon. Friend is clearly of immediate and topical constituency interest, but it touches on an issue of wider general concern. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services will seek to allay the anxieties to which my hon. Friend has referred.
§ Mr. SteelWhat does the deputy Prime Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] have to say about the widespread condemnation among the 29 countries attending the East-West environmental conference in Munich of the wholly negative attitude adopted by the British Government at that conference? Does he agree with the Canadian Minister that the cost of inaction is even higher?
§ Mr. BiffenTo comment briefly on the right hon. Gentleman's initial premise, I am not deputy Prime Minister [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!"] I say that merely to put the record straight. I leave it to the memoir writers to interpret the meaning behind the right hon. Gentleman's use of the phrase.
On the substantive point, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge, sulphur dioxide emissions in the United Kingdom have fallen by 37 per cent. since 1970 and further measures are under consideration to secure a further improvement. It is on that tangible and proven record that we wish to build.
§ Mr. PatchettIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that millions saw on their television screens a constituent of mine on a miners' picket line being viciously truncheoned by a policeman, although he was not resisting arrest? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the loss of faith in British justice among my constituents and many others at the response of the Director of Public Prosecutions? Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to make a statement and to condemn police brutality?
§ Mr. BiffenI remind the hon. Gentleman that there is a police complaints procedure to which his constituent can have recourse—[Interruption.] All those who jeer at that retort are part of a wider movement seeking to undermine the authority and effectiveness of the police in this country.
§ Q2. Mr. Donald Stewartasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 26 June.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. StewartIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that the ordinary maintenance grant for students for 1983–84 is only 92 per cent. of the value of the grant in 1980, which was low enough already? Does he agree that that is disgraceful and typical of the Government's meanness? If the Government do not wish to discourage further education, will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee an uprating of those grants for 1984–85?
§ Mr. BiffenI can give no guarantee in the terms sought by the right hon. Gentleman but, as we have a grant system rather than the loan system which is operated in many parts of the Western world, I believe that, broadly speaking, higher education in this country gets a jolly good deal.
§ Mr. FallonHas my right hon. Friend read the report today that a shadow Minister recently had to be recalled to Standing Committee duties in the House over the public address system at Royal Ascot? If that is true, is it not a rather encouraging explanation for Labour absenteeism?
§ Mr. BiffenI was not aware of that report, but I am prepared to be generous and agree with my hon. Friend.
§ Mr. KinnockDoes the right hon. Gentleman realise that when he agreed in Cabinet to the changes in supplementary benefit arrangements made last week he consented to the removal of £86 million from some of the very poorest people in the land, including a large number of old people who depend on long-supplementary benefit?
§ Mr. BiffenWe are convinced that, taken in its broader sense, the package provides a very good deal and underwrites the Government's performance, which shows that during the lifetime of the Government scales of payment for social security recipients have risen by 81 per cent. compared with a rise in prices of 71 per cent.
§ Mr. KinnockWill the right hon. Gentleman please answer the question that I asked? Does he realise that because of the changes nearly 2 million very poor people are losing from 50p to £1 a week on incomes that can be as low as £36 a week? If he did not know what he was consenting to, will he give an undertaking to work to change it? If he did consent to it, is he not disgusted with himself?
§ Mr. BiffenNo, although I was conscious that the available scale margin to which the right hon. Gentleman referred was introduced by a Labour Government in 1966 and increased in 1968. The decisions that have been taken by my right hon. Friend are perfectly explicable in that context.
§ Sir David PriceWill my right hon. Friend take advantage of his opportunity to convey questions to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and, in connection with her negotiating position at Fontainebleau, stress that the whole of British coastal shipping waters are open to coastal ships from other EEC countries, whereas five of our major EEC partners preclude all British coastal ships from trading on their coastlines, which is quite contrary to the treaty of Rome? Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister use that as a negotiating card when she is accused of being anti-European?
§ Mr. BiffenThat is exactly the sort of question that can be legitimately directed to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when she returns from Fontainebleau. That is a very good reason for my not anticipating her answer.
§ Q3. Mr. Terry Lewisasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 26 June.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. LewisCan the Lord Privy Seal justify the Government's intention to stop dole payments to unemployed Olympic athletes when an hon. Member will be participating in the Olympic games on a full parliamentary salary?
§ Mr. BiffenI must say at once that I am unaware of the circumstances to which the hon. Gentleman refers, so I shall not seek to answer his question. I shall refer it to the Secretary of State for Social Services.
§ Mr. Gerald HowarthDoes my right hon. Friend agree that it is intolerable, and perhaps ironic, that the travelling public will be inconvenienced yet again by a 24-hour rail strike in support of the miners, many of whom, like my constituents, are not on strike but at work? Will he remind the chairman of British Rail that this sort of secondary industrial action is unlawful and that there is a remedy, which he should be encouraged to seek today?
§ Mr. BiffenI am sure that many will have noted what my hon. Friend said concerning secondary picketing and his advice to the chairman of British Rail.
§ Mrs. ClwydDoes the right hon. Gentleman agree with the description of the Prime Minister in The Guardian as a politician whose tact and diplomacy has all the finesse——
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I know that the hon. Lady is relatively new to the House, but she must ask the Lord Privy Seal a question for which there is ministerial responsibility.
§ Mrs. ClwydIn that case, Mr. Speaker, will the right hon. Gentleman advise the Prime Minister that she should use some real tact and diplomacy rather than, as yesterday's description of her in The Guardian states, using all the tact and diplomacy of a soccer hooligan on the terraces of Europe? Does he agree that the Prime Minister will return from Fontainebleau with only half a cake and not the budget rebate that she has consistently promised the House in the past few months?
§ Mr. BiffenAs I said earlier, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be answering those very questions in a much more authoritative fashion than I could ever dare essay. Meanwhile, I totally reject the hon. Lady's description of my right hon. Friend and, above all, deplore the rather lacklustre language employed by The Guardian, which is usually of a much higher literary standard.
§ Q4. Mr. Marlowasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 26 June.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. MarlowHow does my right hon. Friend react to the ugly scenes that we saw on television last night, when two working miners were savaged by the mob? How is it that in this 15-week catalogue of violence, intimidation and criminality, not one single picket has been sent to prison? Does my right hon. Friend believe that the Government have yet sufficiently taken on the Fascist Mafia of Arthur Scargill?
§ Mr. BiffenIt is for those who use the rhetoric of working class unity and fraternity to excuse the disgraceful scenes that were portrayed on television last night of the treatment of those two miners.
§ Mr. DormandWill the Leader of the House convey to the Prime Minister the fact that the miners will not succumb to the Government in the dispute and that their determination grows day by day? If the Prime Minister is not convinced of that, I invite her to come to my constituency and to see it at first hand. Does the Leader of the House believe that the Government have no responsibility in any circumstances for the hardship being caused to miner's wives and their families?
§ Mr. BiffenI have no reason to doubt that the social security arrangements are being applied equitably in the mining districts as elsewhere.
§ Q5. Mr. Sumbergasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 26 June.
§ Mr. BiffenI have been asked to reply.
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. SumbergIs my right hon. Friend aware of recent elections to the NUM in the Nottinghamshire coalfield, where those who want to work have kicked out of office those who want to strike, including the brother of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)? Does that not show that the so-called tribute of the people has failed to follow the Churchillian maxim that one should trust the people?
§ Mr. BiffenI am sure that we make our own judgments and inferences, as my hon. Friend has. One thing is clear. The central feature of the dispute is that it divides mining community from mining community. That is the explanation of the frustrated bitterness shown by Arthur Scargill and his supporters.
§ Mr. SkinnerIs the Minister aware that at the Bolsover election five miners who have been on strike out of a committee of eight were re-elected, so they have a majority? Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that the secretary at Welbeck colliery, who has been on strike from day one, has also been re-elected? As for my brother, he has been nominated by the Nottinghamshire NUM as the Labour party parliamentary candidate for the Sherwood constituency. That constituency is currently held by a Tory—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and after the next election there will be two Skinners here instead of one.
§ Mr. BiffenI am not sure whether my immediate reaction should be that I do not know whether that pleases the Leader of the Opposition, but, my God, it pleases me. My second thought is that I should like to pay respect to this family contribution to ensure that Sherwood remains a Tory seat.