§ Q1. Mr. Boyesasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 23 July.
§ The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher)This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House I shall be having further meetings later today.
§ Mr. BoyesIs the Prime Minister aware that her Minister for Housing and Construction, speaking in Newcastle last week, described the board and lodging accommodation used by homeless people as bad, badly managed and filthy? I prefer the description squalid, exploitation and humiliation. Will the right hon. Lady turn her attention to the conditions in which the vast majority of those using such accommodation live and introduce new laws to enforce satisfactory conditions?
§ The Prime MinisterOn the whole, housing accommodation in this country has improved during the lifetime of this Government. That is a fact. The hon. Gentleman referred to the supplementary benefit board and lodging payments. He is aware that it will be a matter for debate in the House later this week.
§ Sir Edward du CannAs the British merchant fleet now carries only one quarter of the total of United Kingdom trade—a statistic which has the most alarming implications for our economy and defence—will my 860 right hon. Friend take time during the recess to send for and study the report now being prepared in the Ministry of Defence in response to requests, complaints and anxieties voiced on both sides of the House, with a view to proposing, I hope, early remedial action?
§ The Prime MinisterAs my right hon. Friend knows, I am very much aware of the importance of a merchant fleet to the defence of this country. I am taking a close interest in the report being prepared by the Ministry of Defence.
§ Mr. HattersleySince the Government have awarded pay increases of up to 46 per cent. to safeguard the quality and morale of generals, judges and civil servants, why will they not allow the additional 1 per cent. which would have the same effect on teachers and help resolve the present damaging dispute?
§ The Prime MinisterThis year the Government have implemented the review body reports on nurses and midwives, at a total cost in a full year of £314 million, on doctors and dentists, at a total cost of £122 million, on the armed forces at a total cost of £205 million, and the Top Salaries Review Body proposals at a total cost of £10 million. We have implemented all the reports of the review bodies.
As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, because he was a member of a Government who similarly implemented such reports, there is an understanding that successive Governments have accepted that recommendations would not be modified unless there were clear and compelling reasons to do so. These have been modified only by being staged where necessary—otherwise all have been treated in the same way.
§ Mr. HattersleyIf the Prime Minister is so attracted by the 1978 precedent, why has she not chosen to follow it in staging this pay award over three years or more? Why has she disregarded the 1978 precedent, when an inquiry was simultaneously set up into the problems of low pay in the public service? That issue seems to interest the Prime Minister not at all. All that she means, when she quotes the figures, is that she is prepared to subsidise extravagance for the rich but will not afford justice for the generality of people. Has she no understanding that social justice must play a part in economic policy and that if it does not that economic policy is doomed, as the right hon. Lady has demonstrated in the last six years? Will she now answer a simple question — [HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."] — about the social justice? Will she justify a policy which authorises massive pay increases for the well-to-do on one day and abolishes wages council protection for the very poor on the next?
§ The Prime MinisterThe 1978 report recommended in July 1978 that that report be staged and completed by April 1980—July 1978 to April 1980—whereas this report says:
We urge the Government to implement our recommendations in full.I emphasise "in full." That is quite different from what the right hon. Gentleman said. Nevertheless, we have staged the payments; nothing from April, half from July and the rest from March. To answer the other points that the right hon. Gentleman made, the 1978 report gave average increases of 35 per cent., whereas this report on the Civil Service gives average increases of 12.2 per cent.
§ Mr. HattersleyNow answer my question.
§ The Prime MinisterAlthough those were average increases of 35 per cent. — [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman asked me a number of questions and I intend to answer them.
§ Mr. HattersleyGo on, answer them.
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Gentleman was a member of a Government — [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. It is pointless for right hon. and hon. Members to tell the Prime Minister to answer the question when she is seeking to do so.
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), as a member of the then Labour Government, accepted that report, as did Labour Members then supporting that Government, and as The Times commented the next day:
The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer received general support from Labour MPs for the big increases in pay recommended by the Boyle Committee.The right hon. Gentleman is guilty of cant and humbug.
§ Mr. HattersleyThe House and the country will have noticed that the Prime Minister did not even attempt to answer the question that I put to her, from which we must assume confirmation of what we know already, that social justice is not a consideration that enters into the thinking of her party.
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Gentleman's questions were answered, and he does not like that. He was a member of a Government who accepted average increases for the top of the Civil Service, the top salaries review, of 35 per cent. We, on the same basis, have accepted average increases of 12.2 per cent. The whole of the Labour party supported those increases — [Interruption.] — as did the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), who is now Leader of the SDP, and as did the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel), who was engaged on the Lib-Lab pact. They supported them because they were reasonable salaries for people with onerous duties to carry out and because they were necessary to retain, recruit and motivate those people.
§ Sir John Farrasked the Prime Minister if she will list her offical engagements for Tuesday 23 July.
§ The Prime MinisterI refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Sir John FarrHas my right hon. Friend had a chance to study the disgraceful and misleading film on the police that has been produced by the GLC? Does she think it right that ratepayers' money should have been spent in this way? Is there any way in which she can prevent members of the public having the film thrust upon them, particularly people in schools and youth clubs, where it is due to be circulated free of charge?
§ The Prime MinisterI have seen many pamphlets connected with this matter and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has paid great attention to them. I believe that Londoners will recognise them as the crude political propaganda that they are. It is another reason why the majority of Londoners will be grateful that the Local Government Act, the measure to abolish the GLC, has now passed all its stages.
§ Dr. OwenThe 1978 Top Salaries Review Body contributed to the sense of unfairness that led to the winter of discontent in 1979 — [Interruption.] There is not much hope for hon. Members if we cannot learn from mistakes. I ask the Prime Minister whether she can learn from anything that has been done by anyone else. The sure lesson is that pay comparability with the private sector for top civil servants is all right, but that it is not all right for other civil servants. The right hon. Lady's Government abolished the independent pay research body. That is indefensible. Will the Prime Minister explain what is now to be done about the civil service grades which hitherto have been deprived of comparability?
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Gentleman fully supported the review body when he was Foreign Secretary, in order to stay Foreign Secretary, but he now contemptuously disowns it in opposition.
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Gentleman deserves to be treated with utter contempt.
§ Mr. AmeryMay we have an estimate of how much of the £10 million that is to be paid in top salaries will return to the Exchequer in income tax? Does my right hon. Friend agree that since hon. Members on both sides of the House have voted to improve their financial position they should have some humility in discussing this matter?
§ The Prime MinisterI cannot give my right hon. Friend a precise estimate. He is aware that the top rate of tax is 60 per cent. The numbers in the Civil Service top grades have been substantially reduced during this Government's lifetime. A total of 814 people were in the top posts when we came to power; now only 654 are in post. Numbers have been substantially reduced. That grade of people costs the country less in real terms now than when we came to power.
§ Mrs. René ShortIs the Prime Minister aware that the West Midlands region, one of the most densely populated regions in the country, has 100 fewer consultants in post than the national average? Is she further aware that the region has issued a priority list of 40 consultant posts which it wants to fill immediately? Will she use her influence with the Secretary of State for Social Services to ensure that resources are made available to make those appointments?
§ The Prime MinisterThe last Labour Government set up the Resource Allocations Working Party and we have continued it. The object was to ensure that the Health Service was as similar as possible in terms of service to people in all areas of the country. That causes problems to hospitals from which resources are removed. Sometimes we do not achieve the credit deserved from hospitals to which resources are given. If there is a discrepancy, as the hon. Lady suggests, I assume that it will be dealt with by the Resource Allocations Working Party.
§ Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 23 July.
§ The Prime MinisterI refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. BruinvelsI congratulate my right hon. Friend on successfully concluding the extradition treaty with Spain. 863 Is it not intolerable that British criminals now residing in Spain will get away with their crimes because the legislation is not retrospective? Will my right hon. Friend call an urgent meeting with the Prime Minister of Spain to arrange for such criminals to be booted out, to come back to this country to face the consequences of their illegal acts?
§ The Prime MinisterI congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and his team of officials on the way in which they have negotiated this extradition treaty with Spain. Although, as my hon. Friend said, it will not be retrospective, it will apply to anyone who enters or re-enters Spanish territory after it comes into force. Some of the United Kingdom fugitives in Spain may have to leave the country and re-enter to renew their residential permits. Others may be affected by a new law which gives the Spanish authorities stronger powers to expel undesirable aliens, so it should be an effective treaty.
§ Mr. MolyneauxHas the Prime Minister read early-day motion No. 921, and if so does she accept the constitutional principle that it asserts?
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Gentleman is referring to talks that are at present continuing between the Government in Dublin and the Government in the United Kingdom. He will be aware of the communiqué that was issued after Chequers, and of the full constitutional position, which protects the Unionists in Northern Ireland. Discussions continue, and should any agreement be reached, it will be a matter for debate in the House.
Later—
§ Sir Kenneth LewisOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
§ Mr. SpeakerIs the hon. Member's point concerned with questions?
§ Sir Kenneth LewisYes, Mr. Speaker. With your permission, may I revert to the question that was put to the Prime Minister by my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery), when he sought to cane hon. Members for doing rather well out of the previous pay review body? In case it may be misunderstood, may I put it on the record——
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. That is a continuation of Question Time, and the hon. Gentleman, who has been here much longer than I have, must know that that is not in order.
§ Sir Kenneth Lewisrose——
§ Mr. Geoffrey DickensOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Sir K. Lewis) knows that the whole House disapproves of the practice of continuing Question Time. I am sorry that he was not called.
§ Mr. DickensOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I know that we have a great deal of work ahead of us this week., and there is an end of term atmosphere in the Chamber today, but you may have noticed, as I did, that during the early questions on education, when there were few Members in the Chamber, it was nevertheless very difficult to hear the contributions of one or two Members. I am sure that other hon. Members had the same difficulty. Similar difficulties must have been experienced in the Public and Press Galleries. That being so, is it possible to remind hon. Members that they are professional public speakers, and that everyone is entitled to hear what they have to say?
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I do not think that the House has any difficulty in hearing the hon. Member.
§ Sir Kenneth LewisFurther to my point of order——
§ Mr. Frank CookOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If I were to be successful in catching your eye during Question Time and were to pose a question related to someone else's supplementary question and tried to introduce a new topic, you would rightly correct and admonish me.
Bearing in mind the fact that there were howls of outrage from Conservative Members when my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) merely mentioned the name of an American card game, will you, Mr. Speaker, as guardian and protector of the Chamber, do something when the Prime Minister waffles on ad nauseum about any topic other than the subject of the question? Can you constrain her to confine herself to the subject?
§ Mr. SpeakerI am protector of the Back Benches, but today the Prime Minister was called upon to answer a somewhat lengthy question from the Opposition Front Bench. That is fair enough.
§ Sir Kenneth LewisOn another point of order, Mr. Speaker.
§ Mr. SpeakerWell, a totally different point of order?
§ Sir Kenneth LewisYes, Sir. Can you confirm for me that we had to wait five years, because our pay rise was phased over a whole Parliament?
§ Mr. SpeakerI cannot remember.