HC Deb 01 February 1988 vol 126 cc712-3

4 pm

Mr. Norman Buchan (Paisley, South)

I, too, wish to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter which should have urgent consideration, namely, the intervention by the Prime Minister to change the legal process being followed by Strathclyde regional council in relation to school closures, thereby putting at risk the future of other schools within my constituency. Last week we were all surprised when, in the late afternoon, regulations were tabled after the Prime Minister had first informed the headmaster of a school about them. In a letter to the headmaster of Paisley grammar school, the Prime Minister said: Thank you for your letter of 21 January. I emphasise the date of 21 January because I want to demonstrate that there was a sequence of events which I believe were illegally conducted, illegal in their intention and illegal in their effect, about that date. The letter was not written out of the blue by the rector, but solicited from the rector by the Prime Minister herself.

We are now told—we did not know this last week—in the words of The Sunday Times, of which the editor is Andrew Neil, a former pupil of Paisley grammar school —[Interruption.] No, this time, it was not reported by Gerry Malone; it was only in the Scottish edition—that on 21 January a meeting took place between Andrew Neil and a senior adviser at No. 10. That is corroborated by his interview in the Paisley Daily Express under the heading, "How I tapped Maggie".

Mr. Neil states: 'I was at a … lunch with a senior Downing Street figure … and he brought up the subject. I said something should be done."' Mr. Neil contacted the headmaster, who wrote to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, in the words of The Sunday Times, "fired off" a letter to the Secretary of State who was resisting the proposals to change the regulations, presumably on the same grounds as mine, which were that it was restrospective action when a legal process was three quarters of the way through under one set of laws brought into being and carried out by the Government. The Secretary of State was resisting, so was called in on 22 January when the Prime Minister reinforced her feelings sharply to him. Rifkind got the message.

This is a gross, arbitrary, ministerial intervention in a law which was being carried out—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Member has had his time. He must bring his application to a conclusion.

Mr. Buchan

I shall conclude in one sentence, Mr. Speaker, perhaps with a minor subordinate clause. The intervention affected every other school in Strathclyde. For those reasons the matter is urgent and important, and was illegal.

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter which he believes should have urgent consideration, namely, the intervention by the Prime Minister to change the legal process being followed by Strathclyde regional council in respect of school closures, thereby putting at risk the future of schools within the Paisley, South constituency. Again, I have listened with care to what the hon. Member has said, but I do not consider that the matter which he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 20, so I cannot submit his application to the House.