Engagements (Hansard, 18 July 1989)

§ Q2. Mr. Ward
To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 18 July.

§ The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher)
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. I also attended the ceremony to mark the arrival of his Highness the President of the United Arab Emirates. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I shall be attending a state banquet at Buckingham palace.

§ Mr. Ward
Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the borough of Poole on the award of a European flag for clean beaches and bathing waters? Will she remind those people who are leaving these shores for 216 polluted beaches elsewhere in Europe that the Environment Commissioner of the EEC has complimented this country and has said that no other country in Europe has a greater awareness of environmental problems?

§ The Prime Minister
Yes, I gladly join my hon. Friend in congratulating the borough of Poole. I also thank the dockers of Poole for returning to work. I note the contrast with many less desirable resorts overseas. I am glad that the European Commissioner has at last congratulated my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on the way in which this country is vigorously tackling its environmental problems, in contrast to the way in which the Labour Government failed to tackle them when they were in power. Under the EC directive, which we are now following, we have enabled the water authorities to spend £100 million per year to comply with that directive. Britain is the only European Community country with a programme to ensure full compliance in the 1990s.

§ Mr. Kinnock
Will the Prime Minister tell us why, after 10 years of her Government, it is necessary to trawl Holland, Germany, Denmark, Australia, Barbados and other countries in a desperate search for trained teachers?

§ The Prime Minister
Perhaps because we have a bigger proportion of teachers to pupils than was ever the case under the Labour Government—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker
Order.

§ Mr. Kinnock
The Prime Minister must be the only mother or grandmother in the land who does not realise that there is a great and growing shortage of primary school teachers and of teachers of science, maths and languages in secondary schools. She must also be unaware that her policies are making matters even worse. How can the right hon. Lady and her Ministers inflict on other people's children problems that they would never accept for their own children?

§ The Prime Minister
I tell the right hon. Gentleman again that we have a bigger proportion of teachers to pupils than was ever the case, or was ever thought of, under the Labour Government. Classes have got smaller and we have a better curriculum and, yes, we have flexible pay to enable us to attract more maths, science and physics teachers, in whom I am particularly interested.

§ Mr. Bowis
Will my right hon. Friend find time to make it clear that in the view of the Government, it can never be right to use industrial action against the old, sick and young—[Interruption.]—as is now happening because of the NALGO dispute? Will she also make it clear that it can never be right to be silent on such an issue, as right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Front Bench are silent?

§ The Prime Minister
Yes, I totally agree with my hon. Friend. The Opposition talk about compassion, but some of the unions do not practise it when it comes to the point. I also notice that in the railway strike, two of the unions went through the proper procedures, one to independent arbitration, and accepted the results of that arbitration and their members are prepared and ready to go back to work. The third union, under the militants on its executive, did not. The question is which unions do Opposition 217 Members support—those who follow the procedure or those who do not and who are prepared to put the public to great inconvenience?

§ Q3. Mr. Bradley
To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 18 July 1989.

§ The Prime Minister
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

§ Mr. Bradley
In the light of the comments by the Junior Health Minister, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, that the current financial crisis in the National Health Service shows that the figures are meaningless and misleading, may I ask the Prime Minister urgently to review the agenda for South Manchester health authority's meeting this coming Thursday, which proposes £1.2 million worth of cuts, the shedding of 100 health care posts and the option of compulsory redundancies? Will the right hon. Lady give assurances to the people of Manchester that extra resources will be made immediately available to meet the health needs of the mentally ill and the elderly of south Manchester?

§ The Prime Minister
Having allocated enormous extra sums to the NHS, the service is not in crisis. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that for every £1 that Labour spent on the NHS per year, we are spending £3 per year. We have made available £2 billion by way of additional funding, which was announced at the time of the Autumn Statement, and since then £204 million has been made available to cover costs arising from doctors' and nurses' pay awards, plus £40 million of additional funding. That is a massive amount of extra funding because under the Conservatives the economy is successful and can afford it.
As to the situation at the Withington hospital, about which the hon. Gentleman asked me, a 24-bed ward containing 21 patients has been temporarily closed, but the patients will continue to be cared for. Between 15 and 17 of them will be moved to other places within that unit. The remainder may be discharged, but only if the doctors are satisfied—[Interruption.] I have been asked the question. Opposition Members may not like them, but I have the answers—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The Prime Minister.

§ The Prime Minister
The remainder will be discharged if the doctors are satisfied that their treatment has been satisfactorily completed and that the necessary support services are on hand for their aftercare.