§ 2. Mr. Martinasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 14 March.
§ The Prime MinisterThis morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today, including one with President Mubarak of Egypt.
§ Mr. MartinDuring the course of the Prime Minister's busy day, will she consider the problems at the Springburn British Rail engineering workshop, where the work force is to be reduced from 1,500 to 500? Since the turn of the year about three major redundancies have been announced in my constituency and some young people are even getting married without ever having had a decent job. Will she come to Springburn and tell us that her policies are working?
§ The Prime MinisterThe hon. Gentleman will be aware that the amount of work for British Rail workshops has diminished as changes in the business on the railways and in the type of equipment which they use occur. With regard to his wider question, we are doing everything that we can to increase the youth training scheme and to give more young people technical training so that they may be better able to find jobs.
§ Q3. Mrs. Peacockasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 14 March.
§ The Prime MinisterI refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mrs. PeacockDoes my right hon. Friend agree that the Kirklees metropolitan district council appears to be misguided when, having given away £35,000 to support striking miners, it now finds it necessary to increase the rates by 35 per cent. to save local authority jobs, given that that will put in jeopardy many jobs in my local industries?
§ The Prime MinisterSuch a rate increase puts an enormous burden on small businesses especially, because it has to go on to their costs and therefore on to their prices. That makes them less competitive and can deprive the area of jobs. It is also an enormous increase for domestic ratepayers.
§ Mr. KinnockI know that the Prime Minister will share my concern and that of millions of other people about the increase in crimes such as mugging and robbery, the increase in drug-taking and the acts of hooliganism such as those last night, which horrified the people of Luton and the whole country. Since concern clearly is not enough, what is the right hon. Lady's personal view of the main causes of these afflictions of society?
§ The Prime MinisterIt is not for me to give a personal view on that. The crime figures for 1984 show that there has been a large overall increase in the number of notifiable offences recorded. This is in spite of the increased police manpower and better training and equipment.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to what happened last night on the football field. There is a question on the Order Paper which my hon. Friend the Minister responsible for sport will answer at the end of Question Time. However, I will comment on sentences. There was extremely important guidance from the Court of Appeal. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has made it clear—and he has been supported by the Court of Appeal—that sentences that fail to reflect society's abhorrence of serious crime can undermine public confidence in our criminal justice system.
§ Mr. KinnockI am sure that the Prime Minister was not trying intentionally to evade my question. The problems of breakdown in behaviour are so great that none of us can simply watch them increase. Everyone, most of all the House of Commons and everyone in it, must have a direct opinion on what are the main causes. Does the right hon. Lady agree that we need action to identify and deal with the causes of these afflictions and the breakdown in behaviour in society? Does she agree, further, that asking the police and the courts to bear even greater burdens is no answer and that issuing yet another White Paper undertaking yet another inquiry is no answer for the old who are frightened, for parents who are anxious and for young people who have to grow up in this society?
With those considerations in mind, will the Prime Minister engage in activities to get at the root causes of these problems so that we can arrive at the right cures to them? I assure her that if she undertakes — [HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."] This is a basic matter of national concern. It deserves a real response. If the right hon. Lady is prepared to take action to get at the causes, I assure her that she will have the full co-operation of the Opposition in taking steps to provide the cures.
§ The Prime MinisterAs the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, there have been many theses and inquiries into the causes of crime. Despite all of them, crime has increased under all Governments and in all countries. The causes vary from lack of parental discipline and lack of teacher discipline to background—in fact, to everything. Having said that, it is not exactly easy to cure it. We have to tackle it by way of increased numbers of police and 432 increased equipment. I believe that what the Court of Appeal said in the case of R. v. Wood in January 1984 is very true:
It seems to us, that the time has come for the courts to impose sentences which may deter those who are minded to use violence at or near football grounds.
§ Mr. Kinnockrose—
§ Mr. KinnockThis is a national problem, which faces us all. It requires national answers that involve us all. The right hon. Lady is still talking about symptoms. What will she do about the causes? Why will she not accept offers of help in identifying those causes and in curing the problem?
§ The Prime MinisterWhen one has said that contributory causes are family background, parental discipline and teachers' discipline, it does not help to solve the problem. It may help the right hon. Gentleman to get through Question Time, but it does not help in solving the problem.
§ Sir Edward GardnerDoes my right hon. Friend agree that, when dealing with punishment for serious crime, there must be a distinction between offences which do not involve violence and offences which do involve violence? Does she agree that for offences involving violence, only in rare cases should the offender escape imprisonment?
§ The Prime MinisterI agree with my hon. and learned Friend, and I believe that that is what the Court of Appeal was saying in the case that I cited.
§ Mr. Donald StewartWill the right hon. Lady take time to consider the fact that a rating revaluation is taking place in Scotland for the second time and that there has been no similar revaluation in England? As this means a 17 per cent. increase in rates — almost four times the rate of inflation—and is defended by the Secretary of State for Scotland on the ground that it will protect Scottish ratepayers, to avoid an unfair advantage being given to one part of the United Kingdom will she order its postponement until similar protection is offered to English ratepayers?
§ The Prime MinisterAs the right hon. Gentleman is aware, the system for revaluation is different in Scotland from that in England. Had I interfered, he would have been the first to complain.
§ Q4. Mr. Heathcoat-Amoryasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 14 March.
§ The Prime MinisterI refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. Heathcoat-AmoryHas my right hon. Friend seen the alternative Budget proposals put forward by the deputy leader of the Labour party, in which he calls for a 98 per cent. maximum rate of taxation and describes his proposals as penal? Does she agree that the Labour party has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing during its six years in opposition?
§ The Prime MinisterYes, Sir. Now we have it directly from the Labour party that it wishes to reimpose penal taxation rates up to 98 per cent. That is confiscation. It is a tax on enterprise and initiative and it will not help the country, jobs or industry to recover.
Q5. Mr. Marshallasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 14 March.
§ The Prime MinisterI refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
Mr. MarshallFurther to the question of the right hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart), is the Prime Minister completely unaware of the outrage felt in Scotland about revaluation? Will she now instruct the Secretary of State for Scotland to postpone the revaluation either until he carries out his promise to reform the rating system or until revaluation takes place in the rest of Britain?
§ The Prime MinisterThe difficulty that arises from revaluation is the variation between the amounts raised from industrial and commercial ratepayers and those raised from domestic ratepayers. That is only a small part of the problem. The real problem is the high rate of expenditure and the comparatively few domestic ratepayers. That means that rates are not a proper tax on the accountability of the local authority.
§ Q6. Mr. Colvinasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 14 March.
§ The Prime MinisterI refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
§ Mr. ColvinWill my right hon. Friend find time today to confirm that teachers' pay has increased by 9 per cent. ahead of prices since 1979, and that if we wish to improve what is currently on offer to individual teachers the way to do so is to reward merit, which would involve not paying any more to those teachers who deny children examination opportunities and who also threaten schools for the handicapped, 10 of which are under serious threat?
§ The Prime MinisterI agree with my hon. Friend that teachers' pay should be restructured to take into account performance and success in teaching children, which, after all, is the fundamental job. I agree also in condemning some of the strikes that there will be this week and next week that affect special schools. That is one of the most despicable and disgraceful things that a teacher can do. For example, this week teachers are on strike at a boarding school for 300 partially sighted children, among others. That is disgraceful.