HC Deb 14 November 1988 vol 140 cc758-9 4.12 pm
Mr. Gordon Brown (Dunfermline, East)

I beg to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a matter that is specific and important and requires urgent consideration, namely, new evidence relating to the Government's intentions for means-tested benefits. The matter is specific because of the unanimity yesterday in the journalistic record of the Chancellor's briefing last Friday, the independent corroboration of that record in—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. An application is being made to me, but I cannot hear because of the shouting from the Government Benches.

Mr. Brown

The matter is specific because, as a result of the unanimity in the journalists' record of the Chancellor's briefing last Friday and the independent corroboration of that record in a second Treasury briefing last Saturday, the Chancellor now has a clear duty to answer the specific and precise questions that have been put to him about his real intentions for the future of the welfare state and to explain in particular his assertion that only "a tiny minority" of pensioners have difficulty in making ends meet"; his statement that there is clearly a case for restructuring child benefit"; and his view that for millions of pensioners targeting, and therefore means testing, is the way that the Government are likely to go". He has a clear duty to explain why, if his sole aim was to provide more cash for poorer pensioners, he accepted that this would require the education of his Back Benchers and why he suggested that journalists should examine a list of unpledged benefits, benefits that the Government clearly considered themselves free to means-test.

The matter is specific also because, since last Monday's failure to provide detailed answers and last Tuesday's appearance of a transcript, the Chancellor has refused to give full answers to detailed questions. He has run away from facing a debate in the House and has declined to answer the point-by-point rebuttals of his own statement that came from journalists in yesterday's press.

The matter is important because, by his refusal to answer, by his inability to provide a tape or a transcript of his statement or give a satisfactory explanation for the absence of that tape and by his refusal to allow voice enhancement techniques to be applied to that tape, the Chancellor has done nothing to allay the fears of mothers, families and especially pensioners that the Government's real objective is to move from a regime of universal benefits to a regime of universal means testing, so jeopardising for millions of pensioners security in ill-health and dignity in old age.

The matter requires urgent consideration not only because this is the last full day of the parliamentary Session, not only because the journalists have unanimously rejected the Chancellor's explanations as a travesty of the truth, but because of the highly suspicious range of denials, delays and prevarications which we have heard over seven days which simply seek to protect the Chancellor from the proper scrutiny of the House and the general public.

The issue is not the reliability of a Treasury tape recorder; it is the trust that millions of people have put in the welfare state and around which they have organised their lifetime finances—a trust which the Chancellor seems intent on betraying. What this country requires is not a partisan defence outside this place of the Chancellor's general record. What the House requires are straight answers to straight questions.

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,

new evidence relating to the Government's intentions for means-tested benefits. I have listened with care to the hon. Member. As he knows, my sole duty in considering an application under Standing Order No. 20 is to decide whether it should be given priority over the business set down for this evening or tomorrow. I regret that I cannot find that the matter that he has raised meets the criteria laid down under Standing Orders. I cannot, therefore, submit his application to the House.