Commons Sitting of 14 February 1990

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  TRADE AND INDUSTRY

    West Germany
    Mr. Bradley: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the current balance of trade in manufactured goods with West Germany.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs (Mr. John Redwood): The deficit with Germany in 1989 was £9·6 billion on the manufactured trade account.
    Mr. Bradley: As the deficit with West Germany has grown by over £6 billion since 1979 and now accounts for about half the total deficit, will the Minister acknowledge that he has a problem? Does he recognise that it is his responsibility and will he do something about it? When he acts to close the gap, will he develop an industrial strategy based on British rather than foreign industry?
    Mr. Redwood: Many good things are happening. The Labour party never looks at the invisible account, yet we export services and earn a great deal of money from investments abroad. Do Labour Members realise that we earn more from invisible credits than from total exports of manufactured goods? Do they realise that exports were up by 15 per cent. in the last quarter of 1989 compared with 1988? Do they agree that the strategy that we have developed of a firm approach to fiscal policy and allowing enterprise to get on with the job is working? Have Labour Members seen the latest export surveys which show that exports are going well? Do they realise that their strategy would cause considerable distress?
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Will the Minister at least accept that trade with West Germany has become a trade disaster area? The deficit is twice as large as the one with Japan, which is now a much more open market. Would it not do more good for British trade if, instead of spending a great deal of money on posters telling us that the internal market has arrived, the Minister considered the many examples that have been sent to him of how the Germans restrict imports for wholly bogus and non-tariff reasons?
    Mr. Redwood: The Government are dedicated to completing the 1992 programme. We are especially keen to remove barriers to trade in invisibles to complement the good work being done in the manufacturing sector to remove such barriers. If my hon. Friend wishes to send
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    more details of restraints on trade that are against the EEC treaty and against Government policy, I and my right hon. Friend will pursue the matter with vigour.

    New York Speech
    Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will place a copy of his recent New York speech in the Library.
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): I have already done so.
    Mr. Kirkwood: In the New York speech the Secretary of State acknowledged that every trading nation had something to gain from lifting trade barriers. However, on textiles he seemed to leave the initiative in the hands of the American negotiators in terms of the current GATT round. It would be interesting to hear the American view of the current textiles position in the GATT round. Will the Secretary of State give an undertaking that he will not begin to dismantle the framework of the multi-fibre arrangement until the United Kingdom textiles industry obtains copper-bottomed guarantees of new export opportunities to new trading countries?
    Mr. Ridley: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's interest in my speech. I note his liberal attitude to trade liberalisation. The position of the United States Administration is in one respect similar to that of the European Community. It is that the trade in textiles should in due course be returned to the GATT and that a considerable transitional period will be necessary. There is most dispute about what the interim regime should he. The Americans want global quotas, a solution which is unattractive to the other trading partners. The negotiations will be about a system of safeguards and the length of the transitional period. There is agreement that in due course, after a proper transitional period, textiles should return to a more free trading atmosphere.
    Mr. Bowis: Was not one theme of my right hon. Friend's excellent speech the opportunities for world trade and prosperity that come from the single market, the Uruguay round and the changes in eastern Europe? Was not a second theme of his speech the dangers of protectionism? Does he agree that that is a great danger to world trade and prosperity from whichever side of the Atlantic it comes?
    Mr. Ridley: Both points are correct, but I sought to make a third point—that freedom to invest freely in those countries is an important way for both partners in the transaction to prosper. I criticised the United States tendency to restrict inward investment, but I am sure that the Administration there will ensure that those tendencies are resisted.
    Mr. Gordon Brown: In that wide-ranging speech in New York, why did not the Secretary of State explain that Britain has the worst inflation, the highest interest rates and one of the worst trade deficits of our major competitors? Will he now confirm not only that mortgage rises have put 400,000 families into mortgage arrears of two months or more, but that the latest figures from the Lord Chancellor show that there has been a 46 per cent. increase in small business liquidations over the last

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    quarter? As Secretary of State for Industry, will he press the Chancellor for a Budget for industry that will help to bring interest rates down?
    Mr. Ridley: There are two reasons why I did not make those points in America. First, it is not my habit to knock my country from abroad. Secondly, the particular copy with which the hon. Gentleman suggests I should knock it is inaccurate and untrue. The hon. Gentleman is always in the business of measuring the gross, not the net. If he examines the net survival of small businesses, he will find that it is very much better than under the Labour Government. If he also examines the total of the mortgage sector, he will find the same.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one problem may be that, because of the two Germanys' headlong rush to merge, the deutschmark will weaken, and Germany will become even more competitive than at present with its £46 billion trade balance? Does my right hon. Friend have anything in mind to make sure that our manufacturers are not more disadvantaged than they are already?
    Mr. Ridley: I think that the deutschmark has strengthened on the latest news, although I am not in the business of forecasting what will happen in view of the events described by my hon. Friend. Policy on eastern Europe is not particularly relevant to the value of the pound in relation to the deutschmark. I am confident that British exports will maintain their good record and their good showing whatever happens in East Germany.

    Eastern Europe
    Ms. Short: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the United Kingdom's balance of trade in manufactures in 1989 with (a) the USSR, (b) East Germany, (c) Poland, (d) Czechoslovakia and (e) Romania.
    Mr. Redwood: The hon. Lady will be delighted to know that in 1989 the United Kingdom had a surplus of more than £100 million with the five countries mentioned in her question, comprising a good surplus with the USSR and deficits with the other four.
    Ms. Short: Will the Minister confirm that the Select Committee on Trade and Industry said that Britain was lagging behind the countries of western Europe in its trade with eastern Europe because at that time we were importing more than we were exporting, reflecting the mess that the Government have made of our balance of payments overall? Is it not time that the Government took action to implement the Select Committee's recommendations on trade with eastern Europe, given the current massive and important changes that are taking place there?
    Mr. Redwood: The hon. Lady has asked the wrong question. She obviously wanted to get a different answer. Had she asked about Hungary and Bulgaria, she would have heard about surpluses. I have just arrived back from Czechoslovakia where I led a delegation of eight British business men to encourage more British trade. The Government will take all reasonable steps to encourage British businesses to take advantage of the many new
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    opportunities in eastern Europe. I urge more British business men to visit eastern Europe to follow up the advances that many are making in those countries.
    Dr. Hampson: The whole House will praise my hon. Friend for the efforts that he has begun to put into trade with eastern Europe. In the process of expanding our connections, does the Department have any mechanism or unit for ensuring more secondment of people from the academic and industrial sectors here who can go over there to encourage those countries to look towards us and our processes, especially in distribution and marketing?
    Mr. Redwood: Yes, 25 people in the Department of Trade and Industry specialise in eastern Europe trade matters. Together with those in the Foreign Office, they are working on the distribution of know-how moneys from our know-how funds to strengthen such links for the reason that my hon. Friend so rightly described.

    Stock Exchange
    Mr. Darling: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he next plans to meet the chairman of the stock exchange; and what will be discussed.
    Mr. Ridley: Ministers meet the chairman of the stock exchange whenever appropriate to discuss topics of mutual interest.
    Mr. Darling: Will the Secretary of State discuss junk bonds with the chairman? The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs said last November that junkiness was in the eye of the beholder, but does not the Secretary of State know that the chairman of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission has expressed concern about the matter and hinted in the clearest possible terms that he would like it to be referred to him for investigation? Will the Secretary of State agree to such an investigation? If he does not, the public will begin to think that the Government are prepared to condone, if not encourage, the sort of tacky behaviour that we see on the other side of the Atlantic.
    Mr. Ridley: No, Sir. I do not believe that issues of corporate financing are ones for the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. They may be for the stock exchange, or even the Bank of England, to consider, but not the MMC. Only if there were a merger involving a highly leveraged bid, together with other factors that affected the national interest, would my policy be to refer the matter to the MMC. I agree with my hon. Friend the Minister that junkiness is in the eye of the beholder.
    Mr. Forman: When my right hon. Friend meets the chairman of the stock exchange, will he urge him to make faster progress towards the so-called paperless transactions for share dealings as it is clear that the interests of the small investor would be greatly assisted if progress were more rapid?
    Mr. Ridley: The stock exchange is making pretty fast progress with the Taurus system. When we see the full details, we shall ensure that it contains no conditions that will interfere with the interests of the smaller investor. I agree with my hon. Friend that the sooner we get the system up and running, the better.

    Defence Contractors
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has anything to add to his answer to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish, of 17 January 1990, Official Report, columns 280–81 about encouraging defence contractors to look for alternative work.
    The Minister for Industry (Mr. Douglas Hogg): Yet again, no, Sir. As I stated on the two previous occasions when the hon. Gentleman raised this point, it is my firm view that such decisions are best left to those best equipped to take them—business men.
    Mr. Bennett: I am glad that the Minister remembers his outbursts on the two previous occasions. Has he had the chance to read the speech that the Foreign Secretary made two days later, when he said that turning swords into ploughshares was a cliché, but that turning tanks into tractors was the politics that the Government were involved in? Is the Foreign Secretary more interested in protecting British industry and converting our arms industry into peaceful use than are Ministers at the Department of Trade and Industry? When will the Minister take notice of the more sensible members of the Government?
    Mr Hogg: I am becoming increasingly concerned for the hon. Gentleman, who has posed exactly the same question on three successive occasions. There are two kind explanations for his bizarre behaviour: first, that he has run out of ideas and the Labour party is intellectually bankrupt, which I know to be true; and, secondly, that he is trying to divert attention from Labour's losing policies—the roof and window tax and the payroll tax. The plain truth is that companies such as British Aerospace and Marconi need no advice from a conversion agency about how to diversify or find new markets.
    Mr. Jack: Is my hon. Friend aware of the efforts being made by British Aerospace, through its involvement in Airbus Industrie, to diversify? Is he further aware of the damage being done to that effort by the continuing luddite strike by the engineering unions, supported by Opposition Members? Will he join me in condemning those unions for their inability to agree to a good deal offered by the company?
    Mr. Hogg: As I would expect from my hon. Friend, he has made a powerful point. British Aerospace is participating in the Airbus, which is an extremely successful product. The future of Airbus Industrie is threatened by the strikes of the engineering unions. Those strikes are being supported by the Labour party, which is a discreditable activity and one calculated to damage British industry.

    Tobacco Sales
    Mr. Ashton: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what information he has on the number of retail shops licensed to sell tobacco.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Eric Forth): It is not necessary to be licensed to sell tobacco.
    Mr. Ashton: Is the Minister aware that the Prime Minister has given her full support to the Parents against Tobacco campaign? It is estimated that at least 50 per cent. of retailers are prepared to sell to children under age, and that as many as 500,000 under-age children are regular smokers of tobacco. What will he do to put pressure on local councils to take up the campaign when they are granting planning permission, or to put pressure on newsagents to refuse to sell tobacco to children under the age of 16? Will he support his Prime Minister by putting pressure on them?
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman has answered his own question. There is an adequate law to protect children against those who seek to sell tobacco to them. The problem is one of enforcement. It is for all hon. Members to take up where appropriate with local authorities and the police the effective enforcement of the existing law, and I am sure that they will, aided by the excellent campaign.
    Mr. Wigley: Does the Minister accept the Department of Health's policy to reduce the consumption of tobacco?
    Mr. Forth: Of course.

    Footwear Imports
    Mr. Fry: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is his policy on the future of voluntary restraint agreements on footwear imports from eastern European countries.
    Mr. Ridley: In the light of developments in the EC's relations with Poland, the European Commission has suspended the voluntary restraint arrangement with Poland on leather footwear imports for one year from 1 January 1990. The position will be reviewed before the end of the year.
    With regard to Czechoslovakia and Romania, we have asked the European Commission to maintain the voluntary restraint on leather footwear from those countries during 1990. The Commission is considering our request. The United Kingdom does not have voluntary restraint arrangements on footwear with the other east European countries.
    Mr. Fry: Is my right hon. Friend aware that any increase in imports of footwear will considerably increase the problems of the British industry? Therefore, will he support the European Commission's renewed initiative to make voluntary restraint arrangements with South Korea and Taiwan? Will he also work towards the reduction or removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers to enable British exporters to sell much more footwear abroad?
    Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend will agree that one thing that we can do to help the Poles in their gallant efforts to improve their economy and their present parlous position is to increase the opportunities for them to trade. It would be churlish to deny them the things that they need most, for example, trading opportunities. My hon. Friend may know that the Community has not yet made up its mind what to do about Korea and Taiwan. The member states of the Community are split 50–50 on whether the Commisson should take action. I hope that my hon. Friend will be content with that answer.
    Mr. Vaz: Is the Secretary of State aware that in the past: 10 years 45,000 jobs have been lost in the British footwear

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    industry—35 per cent. of the entire employment in that industry—and that two jobs are being lost every hour? Last week in my constituency, Glovese, the leading manufacturers of ladies' boots, closed because of the level of imports. Will he give an undertaking to the House that he will not alter any arrangements without full consultation with the manufacturers and the trade unions?
    Mr. Ridley: I cannot give such an undertaking. But employment in Britain is running at 26·5 million, the highest ever, and within that remarkable figure it is inevitable that employment will be gained in some industries and lost in others. The flexible work force in the face of fast-changing trading and industrial conditions is one of the virtues that the hon. Gentleman should be preaching to his constituency because he can see with his own eyes the extraordinary effect on employment that such latitude can have.
    Mr. Budgen: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the Government's policy on the provision of training and aid for eastern Europe, in that they are pointing out to all the advantages of privatisation and of joint ventures, and are not engaging in wasteful schemes involving inter-governmental aid.
    Mr. Ridley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and agree with him. I add to his list private investment in eastern European countries. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs recently returned from Czechoslovakia, and there have been other missions. More are planned for the future, when we shall take British business men to eastern European countries to show them the opportunities for investment there. That is the best way of helping those countries to re-establish their economies.

    Manufactured Imports
    Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the growth in imports of manufactured goods from the European Community since 1979.
    Mr. Redwood: Imports of manufactured goods from the European Community have risen from £16 billion in 1979 to £52·5 billion in 1989. Exports of manufactured goods to the European Community have virtually trebled over the same period.
    Mr. Hoyle: Does the Minister agree that those figures are disgraceful? Will the effect of the single European market be to worsen them? Is not this the wrong time to dismantle the functions of the Department of Trade and Industry? Would not that be idiotic? Does the Minister agree that wherever the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry goes, acts of madness follow?
    Mr. Redwood: No, I do not agree with that. Nor do I agree that the figures are disgraceful. The figures for exports are good, and we should be proud of the export efforts of a number of English manufacturers. The hon. Gentleman addresses only a quarter of the problem. He refers to visible trade but not to invisible trade, and to imports but not to exports. One must consider the total trade picture. It is about time the Opposition started realising that our trade position has been improving for five months. There is every sign in the latest surveys that exports will continue to improve this year.
    Mr. Charles Wardle: Will not the development of Japanese-owned car assembly plants in this country do much to redress our trade deficit with the European Community over the next few years?
    Mr. Redwood: My hon. Friend makes the most important point of all so far in this exchange. There will be a major expansion of cars assembled in this country from 1·3 million to 2 million, and, as motor vehicles account for the biggest item in our manufactures deficit, right hon. and hon. Members can immediately calculate that a big change will result from the investment made here by Japanese companies.
    Mr. James Lamond: The Minister seemed strangely reluctant to give the House the actual exports figure. Was that because Britain is in considerable deficit with the countries of the European Community? If so, did the Minister hear the Secretary of State a few minutes ago discarding the multi-fibre arrangement, contrary to the sentiments expressed by the Minister in a recent debate? That must result in an even greater loss to our textiles manufacturing industry, causing job losses throughout the country. Does not the Minister want to do something about that?
    Mr. Redwood: I have clearly given the figures required by the original question. Of course I accept that a deficit exists with some countries—most notably the Federal Republic of Germany. I also pointed out that the position is improving. The Government believe that open trading and the extension of the 1992 programme is the best way of narrowing the trade gap. I particularly draw the attention of the House to the important role of invisibles in our total trading performance. They will be improved if we can persuade our European partners to keep the 1992 programme on track and on time.

    Export Credits Guarantee Department
    Mr. David Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he expects to introduce his proposals to reform the structure of the Export Credits Guarantee Department.
    Mr. Ridley: It is the Government's intention to introduce legislation at the earliest opportunity to bring about the changes to ECGD's structure that I announced on 18 December 1989. The aim is to establish the new company to be created from ECGD's insurance services group on 1 April 1991.
    Mr. Evans: I thank my right hon. Friend for that information. I agree that the insurance part of the Export Credits Guarantee Department should be privatised, but can he assure the House that the credit on capital goods will be maintained and that it will be possible for companies such as British Aerospace, which exports £150 million worth of goods per week or £6,000 million worth per year, to maintain their 10-year view on exports?
    Mr. Ridley: Yes, I made it clear in December that the projects group would not be part of the privatisation but will continue its activities to aid British exports of the kind that my hon. Friend mentioned, including exports by British Aerospace.
    Mr. Morgan: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the insurance services group, which is based in Cardiff and

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    employs many of my constituents, is profitable, that its achievements are a credit to the public sector, and that it has no requirement to be privatised? Can he also confirm that Malcolm Stephens, chief executive of the ECGD, recently made a statement that privatisation of the insurance services group would pave the way for foreign stakes to be taken in the ECGD?
    Mr. Speaker: Briefly, please.
    Mr. Morgan: Does not the Secretary of State conclude that it would be a ludicrous irony if in a few years' time a support service for British exports were controlled by a foreign bank or finance house?
    Mr. Ridley: I confirm that the Cardiff operation is profitable and held in high respect by its customers. I also confirm that the hon. Gentleman got it totally wrong when quoting the chief executive of the ECGD. I have here statements that he made on radio referring to
    "the Chief Executive in a press conference alongside Nicholas Ridley".
    I remember no such press conference. [Interruption.]
    The hon. Gentleman is advocating an illegal action if he is asking me to say that no national other than a British national may acquire a stake in companies in this country. He must recognise that we are members of a European Community which bans discrimination against its other members. The hon. Gentleman should wait and see who puts forward offers when the time comes to privatise the ECGD. If it is not privatised, it will have no future in the European market.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that export credits as they will be operated once reformed will make trade with eastern Europe more viable and possible as a reward for the desires and the declarations about human rights and democracy that have been expressed there? If that is so, can he explain the difference, as seen by the Opposition, between that and our similar programme with South Africa?
    Mr. Ridley: The subject of ECGD cover for eastern European states also raises the question of their indebtedness and the risk that it poses for insurance cover. Different countries in eastern Europe have different debt situations, so I cannot answer the question in a general way, but I confirm that we are doing our best to make credit cover available for exports to eastern Europe when the country concerned merits the credit.

    British Steel
    Mr. Canavan: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what subjects he expects to discuss at his next meeting with the chairman of British Steel.
    Mr. Ridley: I have no plans at present to meet the chairman of British Steel.
    Mr. Canavan: In view of the importance of the steel industry to Scottish employment and to the entire Scottish economy, will the Secretary of State draw the chairman's attention to the need to locate a new steel plate mill in Scotland? That is necessary not just for the Dalziel works, but for Ravenscraig and for the whole future of steel making in Scotland. Does the Secretary of State accept any
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    responsibility for the future of the Scottish steel industry, or was privatisation merely a means of abrogating all Government responsibility?
    Mr. Ridley: Investment by the steel industry is entirely a matter for the steel industry to decide. The point of investment in the steel industry or in any other industry is to ensure the most efficient production and for no other reason.
    Mr. Holt: Does my right hon. Friend agree that privatisation of the British steel industry in my constituency and elsewhere on Teesside has done much for the economic regeneration of the area and is one of the outstanding achievements of the Government in the past few years? Is he aware that continuation of that policy with the privatisation of the Tees and Hartlepool port authority would be most welcome?
    Mr. Ridley: I join my hon. Friend in welcoming the remarkable industrial transformation on Teesside. I should also point to the large increase in British industrial production in the past few years. I believe that both are connected with the policy of letting industry make its own investment decisions.
    Ms. Quin: Given that the overall level of British steel production is still less than half that of West Germany, and given that our share of the continental market is very small, does not the Secretary of State see a great possibility for the expansion of British Steel? In the context of 1992, would not that safeguard the health of all the plants in the United Kingdom? Will he use his influence—or perhaps even his golden share—to secure such expansion?
    Mr. Ridley: I am not sure that the golden share would be of use for that purpose, but I agree with the hon. Lady, and pay tribute to her for striking an optimistic note for once. I will do all that I can to ensure that British Steel has opportunities throughout the world—and in the Community—to increase its sales and its share of the market. We are fortunate in having persuaded the Americans to agree to end the voluntary restraint agreement in, I believe, three years' time, which will give British Steel big opportunities in the United States. It will also give that excellent company further opportunities to increase its market share in Europe.

    Latin America
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on Britain's exports to and investment in Latin America.
    Mr. Ridley: In 1989 United Kingdom exports to Latin America were almost £1·2 billion. At the end of 1987, the last year for which figures are available, the level of United Kingdom direct investment in the region was almost £3 billion.
    Mr. Arnold: Should not we bear in mind that the combined economies of Latin America are far greater than those of Africa, the middle east and the Indian sub-continent put together? Should not we be putting more effort into our exports to Latin America, and perhaps expanding the medium-term export finance cover, particularly for Brazil and Argentina?
    Mr. Ridley: I hope that the opportunities around the world for both trade and investment will be exploited by British industry to an ever greater degree. I agree that Latin America remains an important market. Medium-term cover is available within an overall exposure limit for some of those countries, including Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela, which will present plenty of opportunities for our business men to export to them, at least.
    Mr. Ron Brown: The Government are allegedly committed to perestroika and glasnost. Which of the countries that the Secretary of State mentioned is supposedly a democracy, and how does he justify trade with any Latin American country that is not a democracy? Such trade is clearly an abuse of people's rights, when they know that—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has asked his question.
    Mr. Ridley: I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman has said, now that perestroika and glasnost have broken out in Leith. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown) must be able to hear the answer to his question.
    Mr. Ridley: Only in the past two weeks, the president of Mexico and the president-elect of Brazil have been in London. They are both democratically elected. Many other countries in South America are also democracies. I believe that we should treat them with all the respect that is due to democratic countries, and seek to trade with them to the maximum extent.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I understand that my right hon. Friend met the president-elect of Brazil when the latter visited the United Kingdom recently. My right hon. Friend has said that he is in favour of British manufacturing industry. What steps did he take to urge the Brazilian Government to reduce the huge tariffs that they impose against British exports, particularly textiles and clothing? Does he agree that British manufacturing industry should have a level playing field on which to operate, and what does he intend to do about that?
    Mr. Ridley: I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I have done. I raised my hon. Friend's points with the president-elect of Brazil, who gave me a fulsome undertaking that Brazil would play a full and forward part in the Uruguay round to reduce tariffs and protective devices of all kinds. He agreed with my hon. Friend's policy on free trade, which is also my policy—that we should clear away such restrictions—and I believe that Brazil will be very helpful in the forthcoming discussions.

    Technological Standards
    Mr. Snape: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what response he will be making to the report produced for the European Commission by the university of Louvain with respect to its assessment of the United Kingdom's technological standards; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Douglas Hogg: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the nature of the report. The Government are well aware of the challenge of 1992, and we have policies in place to help firms in all regions to rise to it.
    Mr. Snape: I thought that it was for the Opposition to ask supplementary questions. Does the Minister agree that the report places the United Kingdom, with Spain, at the bottom of the technology and training league? Does he agree that any further reduction in the industry budget will make it even less likely that the regions, particularly the west midlands, will be able to recover from the collapse of manufacturing industry brought about by the Government's disastrous policies?
    Mr. Hogg: As might be expected, I have two pieces of good news for the hon. Gentleman. First, as regards technology, the hon. Gentleman will be very pleased to know that between 1983 and 1987 research and development investment in the United Kingdom rose by 27 per cent. in real terms. Secondly, the main lesson to be learnt from the report is the need to diversify the economies of traditional industrial regions, such as South Yorkshire. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government have been pursuing that policy vigorously—often, I may say, opposed by the Labour party—and we have achieved very considerable success with it.
    Mr. Dykes: As the Right-wing economic ideologues in this country persist in saying that we misunderstand Germany—which, apparently, is bureaucratic, overregulated, subsidised, corporatist and inefficient—could we send a DTI task force to Germany to acquire some of its bad habits?
    Mr. Hogg: In many respects we could give the Germans some very good lessons indeed. For instance, we could give them a lesson in how to reduce unemployment in areas that have suffered economic deprivation. The House will be pleased to know, for a start, that the rate of unemployment in this country is now two thirds of the European Community average. To take Sheffield as an example, in December 1989 the rate of unemployment there was 9·6 per cent., whereas in March 1986 it was 16 per cent. That is a remarkable transformation, and it is due to this Government's policies—not those of the German Government.
    Mr. Caborn: It seems as though there are two Louvain reports—the one that the Government have read, and the one that other people have read. Looking to the competition that there will be in 1992, the report shows clearly that there are major structural weaknesses in the regions of the United Kingdom. Will the Minister re-read the report and consider the first survey of state aid in the European Community? He will see that the average investment per head in manufacturing industry, apart from steel and shipbuilding, is £1,050. The United Kingdom comes at the bottom of the league with £448 and the Germans are well ahead. As for investment in research and development, training and infrastructure, the Louvain report shows clearly that that is where we are weakest.
    Mr. Hogg: It would help if the hon. Gentleman were a little more candid. He has not read the report. It is in French and the hon. Gentleman does not read French.
    Mr. Donald Thompson: Has my hon. Friend read the British textile industry's report? Is he aware that that

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    industry, which is worried about training in this country, sent a delegation to Germany where it found that training in the German textile industry is inefficient, expensive, out of date and no good at all for young people or re-entrants?
    Mr. Hogg: I am very well aware of the German textile industry's shortcomings. More broadly speaking, we think—and most sensible people also think—that the textile industry must be brought back within the general agreement on tariffs and trade. That is the only sensible way forward. The proper way forward for the textile industry is to focus on products that add value to what the industry is already doing.

    Post Office
    Mrs. Fyfe: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he last met the chairman of the Post Office; and what was discussed.
    Mr. Forth: I last met the chairman of the Post Office, Sir Bryan Nicholson, on 11 January. We discussed various matters of mutual interest.
    Mrs. Fyfe: Will the Minister join me in congratulating the Post Office workers who have coped so ably with the extra-large load of card deliveries today? Despite the blandishments of the directors of TNT and others interested in acquiring the profitable sectors of the Post Office, will the Minister reassure the British public, especially those who live in rural areas, that their needs have not been forgotten?
    Mr. Forth: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for putting the question in that way. I agree with all parts of her question. First, I congratulate the Post Office in Glasgow on its excellent performance and on one of the best staff recruitment and retention records in the United Kingdom. Secondly, I join the hon. Lady in praising the Post Office for having one of the best delivery performances in Europe and for charging less for stamps than almost any other country in Europe. I can give her the assurance that she seeks. Despite the fact that my right hon. Friend has met a number of companies interested in the kind of services provided by the Post Office, none has put forward a proposition of interest to my right hon. Friend or to me. We are concerned to maintain not just the rural network hut all parts of the Post Office network.
    Mr. Gow: Does my hon. Friend recall that 13 years ago, with the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern) I introduced a Bill to end the Post Office's statutory monopoly in the collection and delivery of letters? Will he now reintroduce that Bill?
    Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend is ahead of his time in many things. That is a reputation which he rightly enjoys. He must know, however—it has often been repeated—that we regard the Post Office monopoly as a privilege, not as a right, and the Post Office well understands that. The monopoly is kept under review so that an assessment can be made from to time of whether any action is appropriate. That process continues.
    Mr. Henderson: The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that she believes in keeping the Royal Mail intact. The Under-Secretary of State wrote to me on 1 February saying that there were no plans to break up the Post Office monopoly, so on what basis did the Minister say today
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    that propositions had been received relating to the privatisation of the Post Office? Why did departmental officials admit to the press this morning that they had received propositions and that talks had taken place with road haulage companies? Will the Minister make an honest statement and say whether the Government intend to sell off the letters business to the fat cats in the road haulage industry, or is he prepared to accept the need to protect the service throughout the country, especially in rural areas?
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman is confusing himself and there is a danger that he may confuse the House as well. It is no secret that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has met a number of companies with activities in that sector. Indeed, it would be most odd if he had not, as I believe that my right hon. Friend has shown his usual open-mindedness in wishing to hear all points of view and all proposals. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman, as I reassured the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe), that none of the companies' suggestions has found favour with my right hon. Friend, but we shall continue to consider the matter as it is our duty to do so.
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: I would not wish to stop the Minister talking to anybody, but will he give an absolute commitment to the House that he stands four-square, 100 per cent. behind the principle that the postage rate for letters should be the same no matter where in the United Kingdom they go? That is what matters to constituents in the further-flung areas, particularly in my part of the world.
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. Interestingly, that principle and the principle of universal delivery provide the greatest difficulty for those who seek to provide alternatives to the existing postal services. I believe that our insistence on those principles is crucial and I am glad to have the hon. Gentleman's support.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: If newspapers can be delivered all over the United Kingdom at the same price, why should the Post Office continue to have a monopoly? Private enterprise has already shown that it can deliver various goods just as well as the Post Office does.
    Mr. Forth: I am delighted to see my hon. Friend here, obviously in good heart and good spirits. It is untypical of him to confuse deliveries of commercial items such as newspapers with postal deliveries. The two cannot and should not be compared because the Post Office has an obligation to collect an item anywhere in the United Kingdom and to deliver it anywhere in the United Kingdom, and it does so. It is seeking to improve deliveries, but it still delivers at a standard rate. That principle has been re-emphasised not only by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister but by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and we shall continue to do so.

    Japan
    Mr. Buckley: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the current trade deficit with Japan; and how much of the deficit is accounted for by manufactured goods.
    Mr. Redwood: In 1989 the deficit in total visible trade with Japan was £4·8 billion. In the same period, the deficit for manufactured goods was £5 billion. Last year United Kingdom exports to Japan increased by £525 million to £2·3 billion, an increase of 30 per cent. over 1988.
    Mr. Buckley: Now that the Secretary of State accepts that we have a deficit with Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States, and an ever-increasing deficit with other EC countries, does he accept that he ought to be doing something about it? The announcement today of an upturn in output of 4·3 per cent. in 1989, compared with 7·1 per cent. in 1988, is another indication of the devastating effect on the British economy of the Government's so-called economic miracle.
    Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman scoffs too much when he derides the increase in output. He is talking about years of unprecedented growth in the United Kingdom economy. There has been strength in manufacturing, in invisibles and in all sectors of the economy. As I have told the House already, the trade position has been improving in recent months and there is every indication that more progress will be made in the current year.
    Mr. Wells: Are not the areas in which our trade with Japan and Germany weakest the very areas in which Socialism applied in the 1960s and 1970s—motor cars, semi-conductors and all the other areas in which the Labour party tried to reorganise British industry?
    Mr. Redwood: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. It is noticeable that the output and performance of those industries are improving by the day as the Government cease to intervene and cease to pursue the policies that the Labour party pursued when in office. The more the Government continue their enterprise-loving policies, the more industry will strengthen.
    Dr. Moonie: Will the Minister cast his enterprise-loving mind over the problem of computer manufacture? Can he name one major computer component in which we are in positive balance with Japan'? If not, can he tell us of one thing that he intends to do in the coming year to improve the situation?
    Mr. Redwood: I do not have detailed information about all component manufacturers and I would not wish to mislead the House, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that our trade is strengthening and a great deal of inward investment is coming from Japan which is very welcome here. The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Buckley) will presumably not be telling the House today that near his constituency, Pioneer Electronics is to make a major investment, creating about 1,200 jobs in a very important sector.
    Mr. Oppenheim: Will my hon. Friend remind the Opposition that a nation that has never suffered any significant nationalisation, that has had low taxation and public spending and a superb education system and that, above all, has never suffered from a Socialist Goverment is always likely to be in better shape economically than one that has suffered from Socialism?
    Mr. Redwood: That is so very true. Evidence from the other end of the spectrum can be seen in the way in which the Socialist economies of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union are trying to get information from the West about
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    how to run a proper enterprise economy so to enjoy the fruits of prosperity that we in the West have enjoyed for so many years.

    Monopolies and Mergers Commission
    Mr. Jim Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to change the role of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
    Mr. Ridley: I have no such plans.
    Mr. Marshall: Does the Secretary of State accept that while competition must remain central to takeover activities, other factors such as the strategic national interest and the impact of takeovers on regional employment or unemployment must be taken into consideration?
    Mr. Ridley: I am glad to hear the hon. Gentleman agree that competition is the prime concern of monopolies and mergers policy. I accept there could be examples in which the national interest is involved. We also consider implications such as regional policy, but I stress that that is very much a secondary consideration to the competition issue.
    Mr. Ashby: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission should be opened up and brought much closer to the American anti-trust laws with the ability to break up the large monopolies being created in Britain so that we can have real capitalism rather than over-large, domineering companies in any one sector?
    Mr. Ridley: The commission has power to order divestment, or to suggest that I order divestment, in certain cases where monopolies are formed, and that power has been used. The policy that appeared to be evolving in the Labour party in a document called "Industry 2000"—I doubt whether anyone has heard of it—was virtually to put a stop to all takeovers. That would be disastrous for the continuing efficient function of the economy.
    Mr. Mullin: Is the Secretary of State aware that W. H. Smith and Son Wholesale, which distributes many of the newspapers to which the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) referred, is a monopoly? Does he plan to do anything about that?
    Mr. Ridley: These matters have been looked at by the Director General of Fair Trading. I do not think that it is a monopoly because others also circulate newspapers.

    Manufactured Imports
    Mr. Tom Clarke: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the growth in imports of manufactured goods from the European Community since 1979.
    Mr. Redwood: Imports of manufactured goods from the European Community have risen from £16 billion in 1979 to £52·5 billion in 1989, and exports have virtually trebled, as I mentioned earlier.
    Mr. Clarke: Is not a deficit of £14·5 billion a serious matter? Is not that why the Confederation of British Industry is concerned about the impact of high interest

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    rates and the uniform business rate on fixed investment in 1991? Does that not worry the Minister as we approach 1992?
    Mr. Redwood: Investment has been running at record levels and we have been enjoying an investment boom. I am sure that that will strengthen our industrial base for the early 1990s and will continue the improvements to which I referred earlier.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Has my hon. Friend had a chance to read the Labour party document "Industry 2000"? Does it contain anything that would indicate—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should be careful how his question is framed.
    Mr. Bruce: Has my hon. Friend read the document and has he found anything in it to help our import-export balance, or does it propose a return to state intervention and central control? Is he surprised—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must ask about the Government's policy.
    Mr. Redwood: I think that my hon. Friend asked about Government policy. He asked whether there were helpful ideas in a particular document. Having read the document carefully, I notice that a policy gap is developing as the document refers to very few of the ideas in the original Labour policy review. Apart from schemes that the Government are already pursuing, such as training and enterprise schemes, the document contains nothing that would help and many proposals which might be illegal under the European Community regime.

    Manufacturing Industry (Competitiveness)
    Mr. Barron: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received on the competitiveness of British manufacturing industry.
    Mr. Douglas Hogg: Most contacts that my Department has with industry and commerce involve matters having a bearing on United Kingdom competitiveness.
    Mr. Barron: Has the Minister had any direct representations on the lack of skill training in the British
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    economy, especially in those areas where the major steel and coal industries have been running down? The lack of skill training has been well highlighted by my hon. Friends in relation to the Labour party campaign, "Industry 2000". Why has there been deskilling in many major industries that, according to EEC reports, lack skilled people for the jobs that we hope will exist in the future?
    Mr. Hogg: That was a surprisingly uninformed question, even for the hon. Gentleman. He seems unaware that we have put the training councils in place. On a broader point, British industry is in infinitely better shape than it was 10 years ago. I should have thought that the Labour party would welcome the fact that the volume of exports is 15 per cent. higher than it was 12 months ago—a volume increase unprecedented since 1973. Incidentally, Labour Members would be well advised to tell their union friends not to pursue inflationary policies.
    Mr. Caborn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: I think that the hon. Member wants to explain that he speaks French.
    Mr. Caborn: I do not speak French, Sir. I should like to present to the House the report, in English, to which the Minister for Industry referred when he accused the Opposition of not being able to speak French. It is evident that the hon. Gentleman has read the wrong report, that he cannot read French and that he has reached the wrong conclusion.
    Mr. Douglas Hogg: Further to the point of order, M r. Speaker. I am prepared to accept that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) may have glanced at the document and to that extent I withdraw my observation. A more interesting question is whether he understood it and whether he is prepared to submit himself for examination, and I shall report to the House on that.
    Mr. Speaker: I think that that was a very helpful intervention by the Minister.

Points of Order
3.32 pm
Mr. George Howarth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You may recall that, on 17 April last year I was fortunate enough to have an Adjournment debate on the finances of the Mersey tunnels. I have in front of me a letter, dated yesterday, to Councillor Ingham, the chair of the Merseyside passenger transport authority, in which, in effect, the Secretary of State has ruled out any solution to the problems of financing the work on the Mersey tunnels. As my hon. Friends and I have raised this issue in the House, is not it wrong that the Secretary of State did not respond to the House but instead wrote a letter which Parliament has no opportunity to scrutinise?
Mr. Speaker: I must tell the hon. Member with deep regret that I do not immediately remember his Adjournment debate last year. I suggest that he tables a question, and perhaps he will get an answer.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Points of order will take time out of a very important debate.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether I can ask for your advice before the debate on South Africa begins. I refer you to page 94 of a book called "How to be a Minister" by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), in which he said:
"Do not waste your good lines on having"—
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is not a parliamentary book. I shall be very interested to read it. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to do so.
If it were possible for me to impose a 10-minute limit on speeches in the coming debate on South Africa, I should do so. Indeed, even if it were possible to impose a five-minute limit on speeches, I do not think that I would be able to call all hon. Members who wish to speak. Points of order will take time out of that debate.
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not think that it matters whether it takes up time. The liberties of the House are much more important than any debate.
Yesterday afternoon, we had, to quote you, Mr. Speaker, a particularly disagreeable exchange, in which the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) made an absolutely discreditable and disgraceful accusation, and he was allowed to get away with it. We had a build-up of pressure—in a pressure-cooker sense—because there was real outrage among my right hon. and hon. Friends about what was said on the Opposition side.
Is not it time for you again to examine the time when hon. Members may raise points of order? The idea that points of order have to wait until after however many statements there may be leads to more trouble, not less. Should not points of order, like any punishment or design, be made immediately after the offence, and not need to wait for hour after hour, as sometimes happens? On a most genuine point of order, Mr. Speaker, will you look at this matter again—that points of order are raised before statements and immediately after Question Time is concluded, because—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have frequently been asked to look at this matter. The hon. Gentleman will recollect that I have made numerous rulings on it. The proper time to raise proper points of order is immediately after private notice questions or statements. That is exactly what happened yesterday. If a matter needs the immediate attention of the Chair it should be raised as a point of order at the time. As regards yesterday, we cannot go back over that. I did not hear the remark of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman).
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: We all did.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may have done. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is in Hansard."] Of course it is in Hansard, because it was subsequently referred to, but I did not hear it. However, I have now had an opportunity of not only listening to it on the radio but seeing it on television. The remark appears to have been somewhat magnified on the medium. However, we cannot go back on it now. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Well, it was said from a sedentary position. It was not an unparliamentary expression, but it was certainly an offensive comment to make. It may be that we will have an opportunity today to put that right.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Many Opposition Members would want to go along with your ruling about the remark not being unparliamentary. The remark itself was very opportune, and most of us—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We shall not have a debate on that.
Mr. Skinner: Let me put the point of order.
Mr. Speaker: No. The hon. Gentleman is always very helpful. Of course he has a lot of experience in dealing with—
Mr. Skinner: Let me put the point of order.
Mr. Speaker: It is not a point of order. The hon. Gentleman has simply prefaced it in that way.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark), Mr. Speaker. The observation by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was not unparliamentary, but she had to withdraw it.
Mr. Speaker: The House should look at what I said in Hansard. I did not hear that remark, either. What I said was that if the Prime Minister had made an unparliamentary allegation, I am sure that she would wish to withdraw it. She did withdraw it. That is exactly what happened.
Mr. Donald Thompson: On a different point of order, Mr. Speaker. You referred to restricting speeches to five or 10 minutes. Many Back-Bench Members do not think that the quality of debate would be improved by a restriction of either five or 10 minutes, except perhaps in my own case.
Mr. Speaker: I subscribe to that view. It is a pity that the Chair does occasionally impose limits, because I am a believer in personal restraint. If hon. Members could limit their speeches today to about 10 minutes, we would be much better off.
Mr. David Wilshire: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, you rightly followed precedent by saying that you could not pursue remarks made from a sedentary position that you had not heard. However, you were equally saying yesterday that we should have regard to the fact that the television cameras are now here. This afternoon, you said that, on reflection, having taken advantage of what the cameras picked up and of programmes this morning, you had heard something today that you did not hear yesterday. Is not there a case for you to reconsider precedent and, when you find something to have been offensive, to require it to be withdrawn the following day?
Mr. Speaker: It is not for the Chair to require offensive remarks to be withdrawn. Offensive remarks are, I fear, frequently made in the House. The role of the Chair is to ensure that unparliamentary expressions are not used here. It is up to the right hon. Gentleman concerned to decide what to do in relation to that, and perhaps today we shall hear something from him about it.
Mr. Harry Greenway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You said some moments ago that it would not be possible to go over an incident that occurred in the House some time ago. Did you mean that? Surely we are constantly going over matters—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Yes, I did mean it.
Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Is it on a different matter?
Mr. Marlow: It is on a slightly different matter, Mr. Speaker. It is now in the public domain, as we all wearily
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know, that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), a man who chooses his words carefully, said yesterday that the Prime Minister should have done 27 years—[Interruption.]—inside. For the right hon. Gentleman to have said that—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not certain that this is going to add to the quality of our discussions in the House. What is the hon. Gentleman's point of order for me?
Mr. Marlow: The point of order for you, Mr. Speaker, is that if the right hon. Member for Gorton has evidence for that remark, perhaps he should bring it before the House. If not, like any other hon. Member, he should do the decent thing and withdraw it.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps he will.
Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are you aware that we might clear the matter up by putting the words used by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) in the form of a motion? There were so many Tory wets laughing yesterday that we might just carry it.

Points of Order
  BILL PRESENTED
    CONTROL OF AMUSEMENT ARCADES
    Mr. Kenneth Hind, Supported by Mr. Roger Gale, Mr. Den Dover, Mr. Patrick Thompson and Mr. Tim Devlin, presented a Bill to control the licensing of amusement arcades by local authorities; and to restrict entry to amusement arcades to persons over eighteen years of age: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 9 March and to be printed. [Bill 72.]

  Recycling of Plastics
  3.42 pm
  Mr. Tim Devlin: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that ownership of plastic wrappings and containers shall remain with the manufacturer or retailer; to require the return of such materials for recycling; to provide for incentives in the form of returnable deposits for consumers and a standard labelling format to ease segregation of materials; to impose controls on the incineration and disposal by other means of certain plastics; and for connected purposes.
  The Bill is timely because it arises from a recognition by the plastics industry, heavily represented in my constituency, that there is a waste disposal problem with plastic materials, and because it outlines the path down which the industry may wish to go in future.
  I begin by paying tribute to the managers and staff of Visqueen Limited, in my constituency, one of the largest manufacturers of plastic bags and film in this country, who first raised this important subject with me.
  World consumption of plastics has risen from 1·5 million tonnes in 1939 to 80 million tonnes last year. In the European Community, plastic makes up 7 per cent. of municipal waste by weight, but 25 per cent. by volume. Its use is to be encouraged because it has the inherent advantages of lightness, economical cost and excellent mechanical properties. It is a particularly important material in the protective wrapping of food, in the distribution trade, in building and in the electrical industries.
  However, encouragement means that we must think creatively about the disposal after use or possible reuse of plastics. With that in mind, the industry has already taken positive steps actively to collect post-consumer waste and to introduce in-factory reclamation of waste. All the in-factory waste at Visqueen is reused to make black plastic refuse sacks. The parent company now has two further plants on stream—one to deal with agricultural plastic film and bags at Ardeer in west Scotland and the other to deal with supermarket waste at Heanor in Derbyshire, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim). It is due to be opened by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs next Monday.
  Recycling has been slow to be recognised as a major option for waste, but we cannot sustain our present throwaway attitudes indefinitely. If we do not move to tackle the problems of plastic waste, we shall increasingly harm our surrounding environment. There are few alternative options open to us.
  Refuse dumped at sea leads to plastic film damaging aquatic life, smothering fish and plant life and wrapping round the propellors of ships. Agricultural film which is ploughed into the ground comes back up, choking animals and ruining the countryside. In cities, plastics make up much of the lightweight litter about which we complain so bitterly.
  According to William Rathje, an American garbologist—apparently that is the term for someone who excavates dumps—plastics have not been a major problem in landfills. They are inert and compactable. The largest single item in landfills is paper, with telephone directories
  270
  the main culprits, but landfills are filling up, and thermosplastic materials—the six main commodities—are made from crude oil, which is not limitless.
  We must tackle the problems the right way round. The European Commission intends to legislate on the matter, according to Commissioner Schafter-Sotiropoulou. However, as we have found with paper and glass, encouragement cannot be given to recycling until industry has a demand for the collected materials.
  The Bill provides for a marking scheme to ease separation of the six basic materials. It might work in the same way as the Australian green spot system, in which a number or code is put on products to say into which group they fall. I am sure that many consumers who currently collect their bottles and paper, could collect and separate plastics to go in with plastic waste collected from supermarkets.
  Consumer goods, from lawn mowers to clothing, begin their useful life only when sold, but packaging has almost completed its useful life by the time that it reaches the consumer. Like all products, packaging uses raw materials and energy, which are both costly to the manufacturer. Therefore, there is an economic incentive to keep the use of those resources to a minimum.
  Consideration should be given at the design stage to the impact that the package will have as waste. Features that will aid recycling must be considered. These days, few items need only one layer of protection. Most are packed in primary consumer packaging such as a jar, and grouped together by secondary distribution packaging, such as a cardboard box or shrink-wrapped tray. There can come a point where reducing the use of material in the primary pack is counter-productive, because the secondary pack has to be strengthened and more material used.
  Some packaging is so efficient that its secondary packaging gives rise to more waste than the primary packaging. The secondary packaging accumulates at retail outlets and can be more easily collected for recycling.
  Biodegradability is some times held up as an option, but it is not. First, none of the so-called biodegradable plastics are truly biodegradable. Secondly, the research into biodegradability is far from complete. Thirdly, waste in landfill is so compact that it may take centuries to rot.
  If anyone wants a mint condition 1952 newspaper or telephone directory, our American garbologist advises digging down through 38 layers of any tip. With further development of recycling technology, I hope that it will be possible—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a very important Bill. Would hon. Members mind having their conversations outside the Chamber?
  Mr. Devlin: With further developments in recycling technology, I hope that it will be possible to reopen landfill sites by the end of the century and to recycle the plastic materials in them.
  Plastic materials are one of our best options for the future if they are constantly reusable. We can start by recycling waste from large users, such as distribution, supermarkets, the building trades and agriculture. Deposits would work for large users, but they have been found to be ineffective for household goods. Proper labelling is also vital.
  In my part of the world, we want to stop the dumping of rubbish in our North sea. We have run out of landfill

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  space in our county and are looking for more. Our people do not want to incinerate any more than we have to, even if plastic burns well with other materials.
  Recycling represents a crucial fourth option. With this Bill, I ask the House to seize the opportunity with both hands.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Tim Devlin, Mr. Phillip Oppenheim, Dr. Michael Clark, Mr. David Tredinnick, Mr. Stephen Day, Mr. Toby Jessel, Mr. Anthony Coombs, Mr. Hugo Summerson, Mr. Gerald Bowden, Mr. Robert G. Hughes, Mr. Spencer Batiste and Mr. Kenneth Hind.

  RECYCLING OF PLASTICS
  Mr. Tim Devlin accordingly presented a Bill to provide that ownership of plastic wrappings and containers shall remain with the manufacturer or retailer; to require the return of such materials for recycling; to provide for incentives in the form of returnable deposits for consumers and a standard labelling format to ease segregation of materials; to impose controls on the incineration and disposal by other means of certain plastics; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 23 February and to be printed. [Bill 73.]
Opposition Day
[7TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  South Africa
  Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. I repeat what I said in reply to the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Mr. Thompson): a voluntary restraint of 10 minutes or even less would he extremely helpful this afternoon.
  3.51 pm
  Mr. Gerald Kaufman: I beg to move,
  That this House salutes Nelson Mandela on his release after more than twenty-seven years of wrongful imprisonment; welcomes the constructive actions taken by President de Klerk to create an atmosphere conducive to negotiations with the African National Congress on the future of South Africa; notes that the basic structure of apartheid remains intact and that the world community, including the European Community, has imposed sanctions in order to secure the dismantling of apartheid; and calls upon the European Community at its Ministerial meeting next Tuesday to reject the untimely call of the United Kingdom Government for the abandonment of key sanctions.
  During the past two weeks, the world has witnessed historic events in South Africa. First, there was the dramatic speech by President de Klerk announcing the unbanning of the African National Congress and other organisations; the suspension of capital sentences; the freeing of certain political prisoners, and the decision to release Nelson Mandela. That was a courageous speech, on which we congratulate President de Klerk.
  Then, last Sunday, came the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison, a sentence mostly served in brutal conditions, and a sentence which he should never have served. I note that, although the Government amendment to our motion
  "salutes Nelson Mandela on his release",
  it does not include our phraseology that Mr. Mandela was wrongfully imprisoned. Opposition members salute this great man on his regaining the freedom which he should never have lost.
  Let us be clear that, although the measures taken by Mr. de Klerk are welcome, they do not affect apartheid's basic structure. The Group Areas Act continues, the Land Act continues, detention without trial continues, the state of emergency continues, censorship of the media continues and the police state continues.
  Nelson Mandela is free within South Africa, but South Africa is not free. Nelson Mandela is out of prison, but South Africa continues to be a prison, stunting the lives of all in it who, under its racialist laws, are not classified as white. Mandela and his fellow black Africans do not have a vote. They live in poor housing in racially segregated townships. Nelson Mandela, on returning home, returned to a dwelling in one of those townships.
  How is South Africa to become free? We are told that negotiations are to begin—negotiations which we in the Labour party believe can end acceptably only with a South African democracy that gives the vote to every man and woman on a common role. What hon. Members from both

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  sides of the House demand for the countries of eastern Europe, we must also demand for the people of South Africa.
  What is the balance of power in the negotiations that we hope will soon begin between the African National Congress and the South African Government? On the one hand there is the South African Government, buttressed by the laws made by their stooge Parliament, the army, the police, the prison, and the gallows, which still remain. On the other hand, there is the non-white majority with nothing but its courage, its readiness to suffer and endure, and whatever pressure the international community can exert through sanctions.
  Nelson Mandela asks for sanctions to continue. He said that clearly on his release from prison on Sunday, in the historic speech that he made from the balcony in Cape Town. He said:
  "To lift sanctions now would be to run the risk of aborting the process towards the complete eradication of apartheid."
  Mr. Barry Field: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Kaufman: I shall certainly give way to any hon. Member who calls me his right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Field: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. As the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested that it would be a useful gesture to relax sanctions, and President Kaunda has called on the African National Congress to give up the armed struggle, would not the Labour party find itself in good company if it made a gesture of that nature to celebrate the feeedom of Nelson Mandela?
  Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Gentleman has ingeniously managed to combine Nos. 3 and 11 of the interventions that the Foreign Office suggested, in a circular, should be made in my speech.[Laughter.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us get on.
  Mr. Field: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: It cannot be a point of order. I think that the hon. Gentleman did not like the answer.
  Mr. Field: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have not had an answer, and I combined nothing. This House would do itself a great service in South Africa if it tore up the Gleneagles agreement and allowed sportsmen—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to outline that matter later on.
  Mr. Kaufman: I quoted what Mr. Mandela said in Cape Town—
  Mr. Gerald Howarth rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Many hon. Members have a great interest in the debate, and interventions take up time.
  Mr. Kaufman: I am selective about my friends, Mr. Speaker. But if the hon. Gentleman would, from a sedentary position, care to call out the number of his intervention, I shall do my best to deal with it as I proceed.
  Mr. David Wilshire: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman has twice referred to a list produced by I know not whom. Am I to understand that, if any Conservative Member wishes to raise a matter that he genuinely feels to be important, it can be dismissed just because it happens to be on somebody else's list as well?
  Mr. Speaker: I have no knowledge of any list. If anyone has one, perhaps I could have a look at it.
  Mr. Kaufman: I quoted Mr. Mandela, and most of the international community agrees with him—the United States, the United Nations, the Commonwealth and the European Community. Mr. Manuel Marin, the European Commissioner for developing countries, said on Monday that sanctions should continue until the situation is sufficiently clear to accept that the end of apartheid is a reality. Against that near-unanimity in the international community that sanctions against South Africa are essential, only one significant country stands out—the United Kingdom, and especially the Prime Minister.
  The Prime Minister is not only completely isolated on this issue: she glories in her isolation. She has turned being alone into a political way of life—in NATO, in the European Community and, above all, on this issue of sanctions. Her retort to the rest of the international community is, "Don't try to confuse me with the facts of apartheid."
  Mr. John Carlisle: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Kaufman: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, because his question will have been supplied not by the Foreign Office but by the South African embassy.
  Mr. Carlisle: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who, as usual, is giving misinformation to the House. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that Mr. Mandela has called for sanctions to be continued, but will he give an assessment of other voices within South Africa, which represent far more people? Mr. Mandela represents the Xhosa tribe, with 3 million members, but Chief Buthelezi, who represents 7 million people, is against sanctions, at least 2 million coloureds are against sanctions, 1 million Indians are against sanctions and 4·5 million whites are against sanctions. The right hon. Gentleman is fond of quoting numbers from Britain and the rest of Europe, but will he consider the matter from a South African perspective rather than choosing Mr. Mandela as a reason for continuing sanctions?
  Mr. Kaufman: To take one of the hon. Gentleman's examples, Chief Buthelezi has already announced that he would like to enter into association with the ANC in the negotiations to take place with the South African Government. The South African Government have released Mr. Mandela and unbanned the ANC because they are the people with whom the South Africans wish to negotiate. Therefore, it is especially appropriate to pay heed to what they say.
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Kaufman: No, not at this stage.
  The Prime Minister is alone in the international community among leaders of significant countries in

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  opposing sanctions. This weekend her press secretary, Mr. Bernard Ingham, talking about the Prime Minister's isolation, said:
  "The truth is the Prime Minister is in command in this situation. She is leading the world."
  Leading the world sounds all very grand, but what was ever achieved by a procession of one? To be alone in the world and right is to be heroic, but to be alone in the world and wrong is futile and destructive. That is the position in which the Prime Minister has placed herself and this country.
  For years, at every conceivable international meeting, the Prime Minister and her Government have striven to block sanctions. The episodes stand out: at Nassau in 1985, making a space of half an inch with her fingers, and boasting that she had moved just "a tiny little bit"; at Vancouver in 1987, ordering her press secretary deliberately to distort the Canadian record on sanctions; at Brussels in 1988, ordering her then Foreign Secretary to block a joint declaration by the European Community warning of punitive action if the Sharpeville Six were executed; at Kuala Lumpur in 1989, allowing her then poor novice Foreign Secretary to sign a declaration in good faith, and within an hour betraying him and the Commonwealth by issuing a separate declaration—and now, rushing headlong into taking unilateral action in consequence of the recent developments in South Africa.
  The Prime Minister's actions have been surrounded by great confusion. There was the episode of the rebel cricket tour of South Africa—now sensibly called off, as we sensibly demanded. Mr. Gatting seems to have learnt more about the facts of South Africa in three weeks than the Prime Minister has learnt in 11 years in Downing street. But then, Mr. Gatting has a clear advantage over the Prime Minister. He admits that he knows nothing about the realities of South African politics. Questioned in the House, the Prime Minister said that the Gatting tour was
  "not contrary to the Gleneagles agreement".—[Official Report, 23 January 1990; Vol. 165, c. 735.]
  But the Gleneagles agreement—to which the Prime Minister is, in her words, "signed up"—calls on participating Governments to take every practical step to discourage contacts or competition by their nations with sporting organisations, teams or sportsmen from South Africa. The Gatting tour, contrary to the Prime Minister's statement, is a clear breach of the Gleneagles agreement.
  At the time of the Moscow Olympic games, the Prime Minister personally wrote to the chairman of the British Olympic Association urging the British Olympic team not to go to Moscow. Why did she not write to Gatting and Graveney in the same way? The answer is that she did not care whether or not that team went to South Africa.
  Then there was the press conference that never was. Recently, the Prime Minister has taken to turning Downing street—fortress Downing street as it has become, since the barricades were erected to keep out the populace—into an equivalent of the White House lawns. On Sunday, journalists were kept waiting for one hour in the rain there before the ubiquitous Mr. Ingham came out to see them. Incidentally, I was touched to learn that Mr. Ingham was briefing the press against me last night. I am honoured to join the company of the right hon. Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen), the deputy Prime Minister, and a cast of thousands.
  Mr. Ingham told the soaked journalists, "She is not coming down. She does not think she has anything further
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  to say." The Prime Minister with nothing further to say? I bet that the Cabinet would not have minded being soaked to the skin in exchange for such an unprecedented bonus.
  Confusion extends to the Prime Minister's view of the sanctions' legal status. She has scrapped one sanction already. On Sunday, she announced that she has lifted the ban on artistic and cultural contacts with South Africa. That is a harsh decision. Exposing innocent South Africans to the plays of Jeffrey Archer and to the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber is a form of punitive sanction in itself.
  Then we come to the sanction on new investment, which the Prime Minister also said on Sunday she wanted to lift. Is this a voluntary sanction which we are free to lift, without the agreement of the European Community? Yesterday, I contacted the Foreign Secretary's office and asked for a definitive ruling. After some delay, the right hon. Gentleman's staff courteously telephoned my office with their reply. They offered no guidance other than to refer me to what the Prime Minister had said in the House at Question Time. It is no wonder that the Sunday Telegraph said last Sunday:
  "The Prime Minister's good relations with her new Foreign Secretary have caused some surprise."—
  said a Minister.
  "He accepts rebukes and he isn't operating an independent Foreign Office policy."
  In the House yesterday, the Prime Minister was unclear. She said that this sanction was voluntary, but she did not say whether it could be lifted unilaterally. My advice is that it cannot. The decision of the ministerial council of 27 October 1986 says:
  "Member states shall take the necessary measures to ensure that new direct investments in the Republic of South Africa by natural or legal persons resident within the Community are suspended."
  We
  "shall take the necessary measures."
  That seems pretty binding to me, and it is especially binding for the United Kingdom because of the circumstances in which the decision was made.
  The document containing the decision on the ban on new investment in South Africa concludes:
  "Done at Luxembourg, 27 October 1986."
  It was signed "The President G. Howe".
  The circumstances under which sanctions may be relaxed are strictly laid down in agreements to which the Government are a signatory party. The United Nations declaration of December 1989 demands the release of all political prisoners and detainees, removal of all troops from the townships, the end of the state of emergency and the repeal of the Internal Security Act. None of those conditions has been fulfilled. By seeking to drop sanctions now, the Prime Minister is seeking to breach a united declaration which she has signed.
  Mr. Dave Nellist: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, underlying the points that he has correctly made about the isolation of the Prime Minister on the question of sanctions, is the fact that Britain is the largest single investor in South Africa, with £12,000 million-worth of investments? Consolidated Gold Fields has regularly made more than £100 million a year profit out of the blood and bones of black miners. That is why the Prime Minister is such a friend.
  Mr. Kaufman: When I was in South Africa last July as a guest of the South African Council of Churches, I visited the people who had been sacked by the subsidiary of a British company—BTR Sarmcol. They were thrown out of work, on to the scrap heap, with no job, no wages and nothing to live on. That is the way in which British investors are taking advantage of conditions in South Africa.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Kaufman: The statement by the Commonwealth Heads of Government at Kuala Lumpur last October declares that the
  "justification for sanctions against South Africa … was … to abolish apartheid by bringing Pretoria to the negotiating table and keeping it there until that change was irreversibly secured."
  That change has not been irreversibly secured. By seeking to drop sanctions now, the Prime Minister is seeking to breach a Commonwealth statement which she signed. It was a part of the statement that she assented to, and did not disclaim. The statement of partial disclaimer, issued separately at Kuala Lumpur by the Prime Miniser and the Foreign Secretary, clearly states "the necessary steps" under which
  "it would be right to lift some of the measures imposed by the international community."
  Those steps—listed in a statement issued by the Prime Minister as her personal policy—include lifting the state of emergency. But the state of emergency has not been lifted. In seeking to drop sanctions now, the Prime Minister is trying to breach a personal statement that she herself drafted and signed. It is impossible to imagine anything more unprincipled.
  The fact is that the Prime Minister has never wanted any sanctions to be imposed on South Africa at any time. She is now falling over herself at what she regards as a golden opportunity to get rid of them. She is trying desperately to wriggle out of commitments on sanctions that she made apparently in honour.
  In the House yesterday the Prime Minister said, again creating confusion:
  "The sanctions … are totally voluntary".
  But there are several sanctions that, as the Foreign Secretary must know, are absolutely binding on us in international law. The Prime Minister is wrong about that. She also said in the House yesterday that the sanctions imposed by the United Kingdom were
  "some very minor gesture sanctions".—[Official Report, 13 February 1990; Vol. 167, c. 136–38.]
  At other times she has warned of the dire effect of sanctions and their capacity to cause economic damage to South Africa. Most notable, of course, is the ban on new investment presided over in Luxembourg by the deputy Prime Minister in 1986.
  The Prime Minister is confused about every aspect of sanctions except one. The point that she is clear about is that she wants to lift them. Why? There is no doubt of the damaging affects of the ban on new investment: the Trust bank of South Africa calculates that the country has lost $14 billion in loans and direct investments over the past five years, and that 280 foreign companies have abandoned it since 1984.
  A few months ago, the South African Finance Minister spoke of the "economic onslaught", the "beleaguered community", the
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  "need to break the isolation imposed on us … the elementary but remorseless truth … for both the economic and the political policymakers that no country can stand alone."
  The South African Law and Order Minister has also admitted the effect of sanctions on his country:
  "Our ability to make decisions is limited. If sanctions are introduced against us we can do nothing … We do not live alone in the world."
  There is no doubt that sanctions have worked; there is no doubt that they are working. Nor is there any doubt that that is why the Prime Minister wants to get rid of them. She wants to rescue the very regime that sanctions are helping to bring down: she is the world's best friend of apartheid.
  The most sickening aspect of the Prime Minister's opposition to effective sanctions is the argument against them that she has offered. She says that they would put hundreds of thousands of black South Africans out of work, and would cause deprivation and starvation. When did the Prime Minister ever care about unemployment? When did she ever care about poverty? It is true that South Africa contains unemployment and poverty on a horrendous scale, by any standards in the world; that unemployment and that poverty, however, are caused not by sanctions but by the system—the very system which the Prime Minister wants to prop up.
  Let us be clear that apartheid is not racial oppression for its own sake; apartheid is racial oppression to make possible the use of the cheap slave labour of millions of blacks to provide a luxurious standard of living for the minority of whites.
  I do not accuse the Prime Minister of condoning the racialism of apartheid, but I do say that, shorn of its racialism, the economic objective of the South African Government is Thatcherism in its ultimate form: the poor financing the high living standards of the rich. That is what exists in South Africa, and that is what the Prime Minister, given the chance, wants to bring about in this country too.
  Speaking in Soweto yesterday, Mr. Nelson Mandela said:
  "South Africa is a wealthy country. It is the labour of black workers which has built the roads and factories that we see … Our people need proper houses, not ghettos like Soweto."
  Mr. Mandela said:
  "They"—
  the black people of South Africa—
  "cannot be excluded from that wealth."
  This great man, his mind crystal clear after 27 years of incarceration and suffering, states the position in its starkest terms. Mr. Mandela explains the situation and the product and the objective of apartheid in South Africa. He explains why the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is so wrong. He explains why sanctions must stay. He explains why this House should vote for this motion tonight.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During exchanges before this debate started, you said that you hoped that an apology might he given during the speech of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). No such apology has been given. Perhaps that was an oversight. Could you, Mr. Speaker, invite the right hon. Gentleman to give that apology?
  Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me. I have already made my position clear.
  4.22 pm
  The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "salutes Nelson Mandela on his release and welcomes the constructive actions taken by President de Klerk to create an atmosphere conducive to negotiations with all parties in South Africa towards a non-racial constitution enjoying the support of a majority of South Africans; and believes these steps deserve a positive and practical response from the international community."
  It is always difficult to know how to qualify a speech such as that which the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has just delivered. Fortuntely, he has come to my help on this occasion. In his book, "How to be a Minister" he gives this advice:
  "Your final paragraph should be grandiloquent, even if almost meaningless."
  The right hon. Gentleman is certainly consistent. Indeed, he has expanded on his own advice by covering in that way not only the final paragraph but the whole speech.
  I am glad that the Opposition chose this matter for debate because it enables me to set out, in what I hope will be a coherent way, the approach and reasoning behind Her Majesty's Government's policy towards South Africa. I am glad to be able to do that as, up to now, I have not had the opportunity.
  As the right hon. Gentleman said, the world had seen remarkable changes in recent months, but few have been more remarkable, or more welcome, than the transformation being wrought in South African politics—a transformation symbolised by the scenes that we saw last Sunday and thereafter. I congratulate Mr. Mandela on his release. Even those who, like myself, have been able to watch only snatches of the events that have followed the release must have been impressed by the overwhelming warmth of the welcome that Mr. Mandela has received and by the dignity with which he met it. It has been a formidable welcome—this is a serious point—bringing with it a formidable responsibility for one man to carry, and we wish him well as he begins to shoulder that responsibility.
  Contrary to the thrust of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, the Government's policy towards South Africa has always been based on our rejection of apartheid. It is wrong; it does not work; the sooner it is ended the better. If the right hon. Gentleman had heard my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister speaking as forcefully in private as in public about apartheid, he simply would not have made the misleading and perverse remarks that he did about my right hon. Friend. What we have done in the past and what we are doing now is designed to speed up the end of apartheid.
  Mr. Andrew Faulds: Will the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to inform the House whether, before the Prime Minister decided to abandon certain of these sanctions, she bothered to consult her Foreign Secretary or even that amiable dumb-bell, the deputy Prime Minister?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was here yesterday, but I do not think that remarks of that kind add any quality to our debates.
  Mr. Faulds: On reconsideration, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that. I have considerable regard for the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I am only sorry for I he suffering that he has to put up with.
  Mr. Hurd: I do not wish to contradict you, Mr. Speaker, but I thought that the contribution from the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) was rather above the level that we have had so far from the Opposition. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is yes. What has been said and what is being done is part of a measured response, worked out well in advance, to the kind of actions that we hoped the President of South Africa would take and that he is now taking.
  Mr. Robert Adley: I should like my right hon. Friend to clarify one point. There are different ways of interpreting different events. I understand that the Government's interpretation of the situation is that it would help Mr. de Klerk if we began to lower the sanctions barriers. Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is also the opposite argument: that at the moment Mr. de Klerk's main problem is the white Fascists in South Africa, not the African National Congress? If sanctions are lowered, Mr. de Klerk faces the possibility of the white Fascists saying, "We are doing quite well out of what the Government have already done." Since Mr. Mandela's release, has Mr. de Klerk specifically asked the British Government to do anything about sanctions?
  Mr. Hurd: President de Klerk made it clear in our contacts with him throughout that he very much hoped that if he began to move down the path that we and others—but eminently we—have been urging, there would be some response. That seems to be an entirely reasonable point. It is highly desirable that he should have that response to be able to reply to his critics on the Right who are pressing him fairly hard and who have been pressing him even harder since he made his speech on 2 February. We want to help to bring about in South Africa the peaceful replacement of apartheid by a non-racial, representative system of government that is fair and acceptable to the people of South Africa as a whole.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hurd: No, I must get on with my speech.
  To this end, the Government have maintained a consistent policy towards the South African Government of pressure and encouragement. We want to bring about an environment in which the negotiations that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned—on an end to apartheid—can take place. We believe that that requires encouragement.
  Mr. Hughes: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
  Mr. Hurd: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman a little later, if he persists, but I must make some progress with my speech because many hon. Members wish to speak.
  We believe in encouragement when steps have been taken in the right direction and pressure when they have not—a combination of encouragement and pressure. That is why we supported the mission to South Africa in 1986 of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group. The

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  group developed a negotiating concept. That, in our view, represented the most feasible basis on which to get the negotiations under way.
  Mr. Hughes: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) is, I believe, one of those who wishes to participate in the debate. Perhaps he could leave his point until then.
  Mr. Hurd: The core of the EPG concept was one of matching and reciprocal commitments by both sides in South Africa. It is worth recalling what it asked them to do. The EPG called on the South African Government to unban the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress, to release Mr. Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners and detainees, to remove troops from the townships, to provide for freedom of assembly and discussion and to suspend detention without trial; in short, to normalise political activity in South Africa. It called on the ANC and others, for their part, to suspend violence and enter negotiations.
  The negotiating concept of the Eminent Persons Group had wide international support. The whole House should be glad that President de Klerk has now gone so far towards meeting the EPG's conditions for dialogue. We urge the ANC and other opposition groups to make an equivalent response by suspending their campaign of violence.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Hurd: Let me justify what I have just said. President de Klerk came to office on 21 September last year. In October he released from long years of imprisonment eight black leaders, including Walter Sisulu, the former general secretary of the African National Congress. In November he announced the dismantling of the national security management system. He began an investigation into serious allegations of covert activities by the South African security forces against anti-apartheid activists, an investigation which has since been raised to the level of a full judicial inquiry. In the same month he opened South Africa's remaining segregated beaches to all races and promised that the Separate Amenities Act, which permits segregation of other facilities, would be repealed.
  Those in themselves were major steps, but they were overshadowed by the further steps announced in President de Klerk's speech on 2 February. Before he made his speech in Parliament on 2 February, we urged him to release Mr. Nelson Mandela unconditionally, to unban the ANC, the PAC and the South African Communist party, and to lift the state of emergency. We expressed the hope that the South African Government would look again at the law on capital punishment and think in terms of protection for minority rather than "group" rights. President de Klerk has taken many of the steps we urged on him and which the Prime Minister urged on him when she saw him in London last June. We have exerted our influence to the full in that direction in South Africa, and we have been able to do so more directly and more successfully than most other countries.
  Mr. John Battle rose—
  Mr. Hurd: Every one of those steps is therefore something for which Britain has repeatedly called and pressed over the years. Now they have been taken, it is absurd to say—as the Opposition do in their motion—that we should behave as though nothing had happened. To propose, as the Opposition do, that sanctions should be maintained in all their forms merely reveals the irresponsibility of their policy. Talk of intensified, comprehensive sanctions, in which the Opposition still dabble from time to time, now clearly belongs to another world.
  The Leader of the Opposition suggests that we should do as Mr. Mandela asks and maintain all sanctions. That is not our analysis. To do that would be to shirk our responsibility. The ANC is a key participant in negotiations about the future of South Africa but, as has already been pointed out, it is the only one. It is the job of a British Government not to favour one party or another, but to try to do what we can to contribute to a peaceful, democratic solution in South Africa.
  Mr. Neil Kinnock: It is precisely the point of a peaceful and democratic achievement that I want to raise with the Secretary of State. If sanctions are lifted, the tragic fact is that the only force for change remaining in South Africa will be mass action, with all the risks of tension and upheaval that come with it. In the knowledge that that is the case, and that if sanctions are lifted, the ANC and the other forces striving for the abolition of apartheid are left to their own internal devices, is he prepared to reconsider any of his current views on sanctions?
  Mr. Hurd: The right hon. Gentleman is making the same mistake as I think he made yesterday, although I was not in the House. He is assuming that we propose the abolition of all sanctions, but we are not doing that. We propose a step-by-step, measured response. The President of South Africa has taken a large number of the measures which we, with the support of the House, have urged upon him. That response, which is a courageous one on his part, requires a response from us if he is to be taken seriously. He has not gone the full way, and we are not proposing to go the full way. Surely the right hon. Gentleman realises that if someone has started a process that we have urged upon him, it is sensible that we should respond by some encouragement so that he can proceed. If we give him no encouragement and say that nothing that he has done is worthy or deserves any response or relaxation, we are throwing him away and discouraging him from taking any further action. If the right hon. Gentleman does not understand that basic point, he is not looking at it through straight eyes.
  Mr. Kinnock: I apologise to the Secretary of State for intervening again, but it is a fundamental point. First, the right hon. Gentleman is representing a Prime Minister who has shown that she is antagonistic to sanctions in principle. Secondly, she has described the sanctions that she installed as gesture sanctions. What real case can he build for suggesting that by the withdrawal of sanctions on which the Government put no value he can exert an influence over or offer a reward to President de Klerk?
  Mr. Hurd: Perhaps I can answer the right hon. Gentleman by continuing my speech and dealing with the sanctions in question.

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  I return to my main point—that we have to encourage the process that is under way. It does not make sense to take punitive actions when the South African Government are doing all the wrong things and to maintain all those punitive measures when the South African Government, at long last, are doing many of the right things. There is an obvious need to encourage the South African Government to take further steps, including the complete lifting of the state of emergency. That is where the right hon. Gentleman has got it wrong. We are not rushing to lift all sanctions. Ours is a measured response. Mandatory sanctions, including the arms embargo which is crucial, remain. We stand by the Gleneagles agreement, to the disappointment of some of my hon. Friends. There is no question of reviewing the arms embargo or associated military sanctions until there is a full democratic constitution in South Africa. We are giving a measured but positive response to President de Klerk's bold moves.
  I now deal with the European Community, on which the right hon. Member for Gorton spent some time. In 1986, the Foreign Ministers of the European Community agreed to impose restrictive measures on South Africa in response to the actions of the South African Government. The European Community imposed those measures to send a signal to the South African Government that they should take steps to open the road to dialogue. In particular, it mentioned the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, and the lifting of the ban on the ANC, the PAC and other political parties. Community Ministers also called for the ending of the state of emergency, and on 10 February President de Klerk made it clear that that could take place within weeks if there was no upsurge of violence.
  We propose a logical, step-by-step response; not to lift all our measures, but to consult our Community partners about lifting those measures adopted in 1986, starting with the Community ban on new investment which was always voluntary in our case.
  The right hon. Member for Gorton may not know that our approach has been endorsed by a letter to a number of Community Foreign Ministers from Helen Suzman, who is one of the leading veteran opponents of apartheid in South Africa, asking the Community to revise the policy of sanctions against South Africa to fortify President de Klerk's ability to combat white fears and resistance, and to enable the South African economy to grow to provide education, social services and employment opportunities to all South Africans in a non-racial society.
  Mr. Kaufman: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
  Mr. Hurd: Before I give way to the right hon. Gentleman, it is worth remembering that the population of South Africa will grow by nearly 1 million people a year over the next 10 years. There are 7 million children at school today in South Africa. By the turn of the century there will be 12 million people needing education. If we were to inflict the serious economic damage on South Africa that the right hon. Gentleman favours, we would leave any future South African Government with a hopeless task.
  Mr. Kaufman: Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to clear up a matter which his office, with all the good will in the world, was unable to clear up yesterday?
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to the ban on new investment made under the presidency of the deputy Prime
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  Minister as a "voluntary" measure. It is certainly a voluntary measure for the companies, because the decision states that the provision
  "may be complied with by the issue of guidance to natural and legal persons."
  Will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear whether the Government's advice is that they can get rid of this ban on new investment unilaterally, or whether that can be done only by another decision of the European Community?
  Mr. Hurd: I shall gladly elucidate. The decisions made in September 1986 were to place bans on new investment, imports of iron and steel and imports of certain gold coins. The bans on those imports were implemented through Community legislation, but the ban on new investment was not—it was a separate decision by member states outside the framework of the treaties. Its implementation was left to the decision of individual member countries. We have no capital controls in this country, and therefore we could only discourage companies from new investment. That was done in a written answer by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The last paragraph of that written answer stated:
  "Meanwhile, if the South African Government were to take those steps for which we and our partners have called, in order to establish a process of dialogue across racial lines, we have made clear in the Commonwealth communiqué that we stand ready to review and, if appropriate, to rescind the measures we have adopted."—[Official Report, 30 October 1986; Vol. 103, c. 220.]
  We seek to lay before our Community partners—I shall do this in Dublin next week—a reasoned case, to consult them on our proposals and to explain why we think there is no logic in the continuance in present circumstances of this voluntary ban on new investment.
  Mr. Kaufman: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question?
  Mr. Hurd: I have answered. We are pursuing the correct policy. We are consulting our European Community partners and making it clear that we see no sense in continuing the ban.
  Mr. Kaufman: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? This is a very important point.
  Mr. Hurd: I think that I should continue. Perhaps I can clarify the matter further. We shall not, of course, instruct companies to invest in South Africa, because Governments do not direct such decisions. We would simply say to the companies, "Make your judgment on straightforward commercial grounds in either direction, free from politically motivated pressures." Companies will look to South Africa's long-term prospects as a stable and prosperous country. South Africa will have to satisfy that requirement, which will remain a powerful incentive for all South Africans to make further progress. South Africa needs to restore its valued place in development if it is to satisfy the aspirations of all its citizens. It will need help from abroad. That is what led the Commonwealth at Kuala Lumpur to call on international financial institutions, particularly the International Monetary Fund, to examine how resources might be mobilised once there is evidence of clear and irreversible change. 'That evidence is now before us.
  Mr. Kaufman rose—
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Hurd: I shall give way to the right hon. Member for Gorton.
  Mr. Kaufman: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered clearly the question that I put to him. Can he take the action that he has described—withdrawing the guidance to the companies unilaterally—or can he do that only if he secures agreement in Dublin next Tuesday?
  Mr. Hurd: We are doing what I am advised we need to do—consulting our partners. There is no written answer and no statement rescinding that decision. We will point out that the logic of the voluntary ban on investment has run out. In the light of the September 1986 decisions, there is no further purpose in carrying on with that.
  At the same time, we remain fully engaged on the ground in South Africa. Part of the trouble in these debates is that they are all about sanctions, whereas sanctions are only part of the answer. We are continuing our bilateral aid programme and are thereby proving in a thoroughly practical way our commitment to help ease the transition to a post-apartheid society.
  I should like to give the facts. The right hon. Member for Gorton has visited some of these projects and knows how important they are. Together with our contribution to the European Community programme, we expect to spend about £40 million in the period 1987 to 1992. Most of this will be spent on supporting education and training. By the end of this year, we shall be funding more than 1,000 scholarships for South African students. We are supporting education projects throughout South Africa. Last year, we played a leading role in helping to set up a scheme run by the Urban Foundation which will enable 40,000 South African families, who would not otherwise have the chance, to buy their own homes. We are contributing to hundreds of community projects that will help to improve standards of health care, education, community support and so on.
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Hurd: I shall continue.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the Secretary of State now give way? He has given way to several Members, so will he now give way to me?
  Mr. Hurd: I have given way extensively. I gave way to the hon. Gentleman the last time we had questions on South Africa, and I shall not do so today.
  It is true that mitigating the hardships caused by apartheid is no substitute for working for its abolition—we must do both—but I hope that the persistence of apartheid will not be used as an excuse for not getting involved. Through our focus on education at all levels, we are helping to prepare the generation that we hope will inherit the post-apartheid South Africa.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? He said 15 minutes ago that he would.
  Mr. Hurd: I did not say that, and I do not intend to give way.
  Mr. Nellist: The Secretary of State said that he would give way.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) wishes to participate in this debate. It will not improve his chances if he does not listen to the Foreign Secretary and delays proceedings.
  Mr. Hurd: I have given way extensively, and I shall not give way again. Hon. Members who are seeking to interrupt me will be able to make their own speeches, if they catch your eye, Mr. Speaker.
  Some people argue that when the Securitate starts to crumble, one should not make concessions to it. That is a false and over-simple analogy. There are lessons for South Africa in eastern Europe, as President de Klerk has acknowledged, but anyone who thinks—this view was apparent in some of the comments of the right hon. Member for Gorton—that the South African Government are about to surrender power for fear of having it wrested from them is deluding himself about the real position. No one who really cares about the future of South Africa would advocate a policy that would set back reform and lead to bloodshed. It is very easy for people to warm themselves with their rhetoric on this subject, but we do not intend to do that. We shall continue to take measured steps to contribute to a peaceful solution inside South Africa.
  Of course, it is true that apartheid has not yet been abolished and that the Group Areas Act, the Land Acts and the Population Registration Act remain in place. The South Africans are not yet at the end of the road, but they have taken the first steps upon it. The South African Government have made it clear that all the so-called "pillars of apartheid" are open for negotiation. They are setting no limits on the agenda. By any reasonable standard, it is now for their opponents to respond.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the Secretary of State respond—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must resume his seat.
  Mr. Nellist: The debate is supposed to be about South Africa and—
  Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to join the debate by making his own speech.
  If there is no response from the international community of the kind that we have suggested, there will be—as my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said the day before yesterday—a danger of a Right-wing reaction, even though those opposing President de Klerk can offer South Africa nothing but increasing strife in a hopelessly divided society.
  If we wanted to snuff out the present process of reform, condemn the black majority to greater poverty than the right hon. Gentleman described, and condemn the white minority to extremist white Government, we would follow the right hon. Gentleman's advice and make no response to President de Klerk's initiative. But we do not intend to do that. That is the wrong way around.
  It is reasonable to look to the many opposition groups in South Africa to take this opportunity. A chance now exists to bring about genuine change through peaceful negotiation, involving not only the ANC but the PAC, the black consciousness movement, the Inkatha movement, which has already been referred to, and all the other political organisations that have struggled against

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  apartheid for so long. They should take up the challenge and heed the many calls, most recently from President Kaunda, to suspend violence and enter negotiations.
  In his speech on 2 February, President de Klerk called on his opponents to walk through the open door and take their place at the negotiating table. I was heartened by that, and I am heartened by Mr. Mandela's belief that the negotiations will begin very soon. I sincerely hope that that is the case. That is the way to speed the end of apartheid. The prize of a free, democratic and prosperous South Africa is one for which we have worked for a long time.
  4.50 pm
  Sir David Steel: The whole House will feel some sympathy for the Foreign Secretary because he had to make that speech today. I remain one of those who are convinced that we would not have had this debate had it not been for the Prime Minister's maladroit remarks over the weekend in response to President de Klerk's press conference and Nelson Mandela's release. One could almost hear the tearing of hair in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the time. That explains why the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was so uncomfortable at the Dispatch Box on Monday.
  I do not dispute for a second that the Prime Minister is opposed to apartheid, but we all know—more important, the people of South Africa know—that her denunciation of apartheid has always been ritual, while her denunciation of sanctions has always been passionate. That has always been the impression gained by people in South Africa. My party would not object to the Foreign Secretary laying down a reasonable programme of looking ahead to the lifting of pressures and sanctions. Of course that is sensible in response to the changes that will come about in South Africa, but we object to that being done prematurely and not in concert with our European and Commonwealth partners.
  I noticed that the Foreign Secretary did not pray in aid this afternoon, as the Prime Minister attempted to do yesterday, President Bush, the Archbishop of Canterbury or anybody else. They, too, have made it quite clear that they are talking about a future programme of lifting sanctions, not about prematurely lifting sanctions.
  I again quote to the Foreign Secretary the words to which the Government are committed. At the Council of Ministers meeting on 10 September 1985 it was agreed that the objective of European Community measures was
  "the complete abolition of apartheid as a whole and not just certain components of the system."
  That is an important recollection to which the Government are wholly committed.
  At the Commonwealth conference at Kuala Lumpur, the Government entered many reservations about the communiqué, but there was no reservation about paragraph 7. It was one of the paragraphs to which the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister assented. The communiqué states that the Heads of Government
  "agreed that the only justification for sanctions against South Africa was the pressure they created for fundamental political change. The purpose was not punitive, but to abolish apartheid by bringing Pretoria to the negotiating table"—
  I stress this—
  "and keeping it there until that change was irreversibly secured. In this respect Heads of Government noted that leading personalities in the South African Government had themselves acknowledged the increasing pressure on the
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  South African economy, and that those pressures would not be diminished until fundamental political change had taken place."
  That is in the Commonwealth communique to which the previous Foreign Secretary assented.
  Mr. Hurd: Looking fairly at the situation in South Africa, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that while apartheid still remained there had been fundamental political changes?
  Sir David Steel: I agree with the Foreign Secretary that there is the foreshadowing of fundamental political change, but the whole apartheid system is still in place.
  I have been to South Africa since President de Klerk came to office. There is no doubt that there is a major change in attitude, mentality and objective between the de Klerk Government and the previous Government. That is not in dispute. It was put to me time and again, particularly by sections of the black population, that once Nelson Mandela was released and the state of emergency was lifted, the country would just be back to had normality—the apartheid system would still exist. That is the position that we face today. Of course we must look forward and hope for the best, but the change has not yet happened, and it will take a little time.
  Moreover, those who doubted, including the Prime Minister, whether sanctions would be effective should look at what was said in the National party manifesto in the elections in the autumn. It states:
  "boycotts, sanctions and disinvestment, have strained the economy of the country and of every business and household."
  We do not rejoice because that has happened, but it is an open acknowledgment of what many of us knew was happening—that the pressure inside the National party and inside the business community led to the removal of President P. W. Botha and his replacement by President de Klerk. There is no question but that they played a major part.
  Mr. Hugh Dykes rose—
  Mr. John Carlisle rose—
  Sir David Steel: Hon. Members know that Mr. Speaker has called for brief speeches. I have given way once already.
  Mr. Dykes: Is not one of the problems vis-a-vis the majority of the population that, although President de Klerk is an enormous improvement on the previous state President, there is still anxiety? Botha originally promised a great deal of reform, but he did nothing about abolishing the Population Registration Act, the Land Acts and the Group Areas Act.
  Sir David Steel: I made that point in response to the Minister's statement the other day. We must make sure that there is pressure for their abolition and maintain it.
  Yesterday, the Prime Minister quoted the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has been forced to elaborate on what he said in Bangladesh. In his press release this morning, he said:
  "But the hardest work—and the hardest tests—lie ahead. When those tests—such as the legislation that enforces apartheid—are tackled, the government of South Africa will need encouragement so that they can show their electorate that the dismantling of the system is good for all the people of South Africa. That, after all, is the whole point of the existing sanctions."

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  The archbishop concluded:
  "We should applaud President de Klerk for taking the essential first steps and be ready at the right time to respond with the easing of sanctions. I pray that time may not be long delayed."
  That is precisely my party's position also. I do not believe that the Government are right to rush unilaterally ahead of our allies in taking unjustified steps.
  Mr. John Carlisle: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Sir David Steel: I will not give way again. I shall conclude my remarks in just a couple of minutes.
  In November, when I was last in South Africa, it was quite clear that every section of white opinion—even those who, slightly to my surprise, did not agree with the imposition of sanctions, including colleagues and friends in the Democratic party who have always disagreed with us on this issue—acknowledged that international pressures had played their part in bringing about the change. Equally, I could find nobody of any particular persuasion in the black community who believed that the Prime Minister had done anything but hinder change. In a sense, that is rather unfair. The Foreign Secretary and I know that her private pressures have been helpful. The work being done by our embassy in Pretoria and by our consulate in Johannesburg on the ground and the projects to which the Foreign Secretary referred are wholly admirable. The trouble is that we have been doing good by stealth. The overall impression among the black population of South Africa is overlaid by the Prime Minister's repeated and isolated antagonism to bring effective pressure to bear.
  I welcome President Mandela's first speech—[Interruption.] I am moving too far ahead. I welcome Mr. Mandela's speech on the balcony in Cape Town, when he paid tribute to the sections of the white population who had played their part in the struggle. He mentioned the black sash movement and the National Union of Students in South Africa. He could have mentioned others also. All the churches have played a significant role.
  I should not like the chance to go by without paying tribute to our colleagues in our sister Democratic party in opposition within the South African Parliament. I refer to Helen Suzman, Colin Eglin, van Zyl Slabbert and others who have a record, admittedly within a limited white parliamentary system, of trying to mitigate the effects of apartheid.
  The challenge facing Nelson Mandela is difficult, but he is the one person who can reunite the black movements. It is essential that Inkatha—Chief Buthelezi's movement—be brought back into a reconciliation with the ANC and the other movements, and Mr. Mandela is the only man who can do that.
  In November I had the extraordinary experience of talking with Walter Sisulu at his home in Soweto. I was deeply impressed and moved by the fact that a man who had spent a quarter of a century in gaol could talk for an hour calmly, reasonably, realistically and with no bitterness about how it would take time for the changes to come about in South Africa and about how they would be under pressure from younger people with rising expectations of instant change. That is a frustration with which the ANC leadership and others will have to deal. In
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  the meantime, while that is happening, there should be no let-up from the outside world in keeping the pressure going.
  5 pm
  Mr. Julian Amery: I should at the outset declare an interest. I have been associated for many years with the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa. I have no reason to regret that. Indeed, I have some reason to be proud of it, as it has pressed for many years for dialogue between the South African Government and the different African organisations. Indeed, the present chairman of the corporation undertook a journey to Lusaka to talk to the ANC leaders some months ago.
  We must, however, face the fact that until the last year there was no basis for dialogue. Under the Brezhnev regime in the Soviet Union, central and southern Africa were turned into a major theatre of the cold war. Cuban troops were sent to Angola, and SWAPO and ANC forces were equipped and encouraged to attempt to overthrow South African rule by force. Only in the last year has western diplomacy, and American diplomacy above all, succeeded in convincing Mr. Gorbachev that he was on to a no-win situation in central and southern Africa and that there was no possibility of overthrowing by force the white regime in the South African Republic.
  Only in the last 12 months have we got agreement for the withdrawal of Cubans from Angola, for SWAPO being prepared to come in peacefully in the South-West African—Namibian—elections. Only in the last few months has the ANC leadership, including the Communist leader, Mr. Joe Slovo, accepted the idea that they could make progress only by negotiation and no longer by violent force. That has been a tremendous change, and it has created a situation in which dialogue should be possible. It has gradually sunk in on the black and white sides.
  I join in saluting Mr. Mandela on his release and for showing great dignity since then. I praise Mr. de Klerk because he has taken a tremendous risk, in domestic and global politics. He has opened a gate and he cannot be sure whether, at the end of the day, there will or will not be fruitful negotiations. He deserves our congratulations.
  I regret that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) is not in his place, because I intend to be rather harsh towards him. I have attended and taken part in many debates in the House under what might be described as the broad heading of decolonisation. Although we no longer have dominant influence, we have some influence as we deal with the future of 25 million people. This is not the occasion for a cheap solicitous speech, which is what we heard from the right hon. Member for Gorton. Had the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) been here, he would have raised the level well above that.
  Because we are dealing with the future of so many people, this is not an occasion for scoring cheap debating points about whether a particular sanction was or was not an international commitment. There is a case to be made, although I do not hold with it, for retaining sanctions, and there is a case for lifting them, but the issue should be dealt with in a more measured and statesmanlike way than we heard from the right hon. Member for Gorton.
  The right hon. Gentleman's remarks left me with the impression that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was absolutely right in her stricture about him yesterday,

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  which a leading article in The Times this morning tended to confirm. Analogies are always dangerous, but it seemed as if the Labour party was committing itself to the point where its South African policy would be dictated by the ANC.
  That happened before, in Mr. Attlee's time, with the Indian Congress party. The result was the partition of India, first into two and later into three, with 2 million dead and with chaotic consequences visible still in Kashmir and Karachi. It is dangerous for a great party such as the Labour party to commit itself to one particular faction in another country. Luckily, its influence—indeed the influence of the Government—is limited today.
  It is equally important to remember that, while the ANC is an important factor in the equation, it is not the only one. There are other important black African factors. There are also the Indians and coloureds, together about 3 million people; and at the end of the day, whatever negotiations are achieved, the conclusions will have to be submitted to the white electorate, whose views we must also have in mind.
  I am not sure that sanctions have played a great part in leading up to Mr. de Klerk's speech—the withdrawal of Soviet support from the revolutionary elements has been far more important—but I would not deny that sanctions have had an important symbolic effect, because they have made the South African whites feel isolated. It is important, if we are to carry them in the general movement for reform, that they should realise that sanctions will be lifted and that they will be less isolated, as already they are, as they move towards reform.
  It is important to remember that President de Klerk has already been received by several African heads of state, that trade between South Africa and black Africa has increased by leaps and bounds, and that even relations with the Soviet Union are progressing. No wonder, since they are both gold and diamond producers and both are benefiting from cheap labour.
  We should have made some gestures in the time of President Botha, because he started the reform process. Let us not under-estimate what he did. It was regarded as revolutionary at the time in white South Africa, and what is happening now goes a long way forward from those steps.
  We must always have in mind the wider objective of our policy in southern Africa. The dismantlement of apartheid is no doubt a worthy goal, but it is not in itself a great objective of British policy. We are really concerned with reviving the economy of southern and central Africa as a whole.
  The report of the World bank shows that this area of Africa is dying, and there are many reasons why that is the case. It is clear that we shall not be able to revive it—to rescue it from its present decline—without co-operation from South Africa, which is the only modern industrial country in that part of the world.
  Until now South Africa's stance has inhibited its co-operation with its neighbours. The real reason why I should like to see apartheid dismantled is to enable South Africa to fulfil what should be its right purpose—to develop and bring forward the economies of its neighbouring countries.
  We want to see progress towards democracy but, as we keep saying about eastern Europe, it must be based on a market economy and private enterprise. The ANC has not yet come round to that view. I hope that it will. It is clear
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  that, unless it does, it will not only bring destruction to what is still a prosperous economy in South Africa but will abort the possibility of the constructive work which the South African Republic could bring about in southern or central Africa.
  5.10 pm
  Mr. Bernie Grant: I have just returned from South Africa. South Africa is a beautiful country, full of resources, but it is a tragic country. One gets the feeling when one goes there that the situation is extremely tense and that unless something of substance happens reasonably quickly there could be an almighty bloodbath.
  I was a member of Rev. Jesse Jackson's party invited by the South African Council of Churches and the ANC to South Africa. On our way, we visited Zambia, where we were the guests of President Kaunda. In Zambia, we had meetings with the ANC leadership in exile. We then went on to Johannesburg and Cape Town, where we met various people, including the South African Council of Churches, clergy from all the South African churches, including the Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist and African independent Churches.
  We also met the Pan-Africanist Congress, the United Democratic Front, Soweto People's Committee, Soweto teachers, NACTU, the Azanian People's Organisation and representatives of the British Council, lecturers in the university of the Western Cape, the National Sports Congress, the Western Cape Traders Association, several ANC and Church leaders such as Oscar Mpetha, the Rev. Allan Boesak, Archbishop Tutu and Mr. Frank Chicane. We also met the mayor of Cape Town and, of course, Mr. Nelson Mandela.
  All those people, except the British consul officer—I did not ask him for his opinion—agreed that sanctions had to be maintained and asked me to take that message back to the United Kingdom.
  Mrs. Edwina Currie rose—
  Mr. Grant: I saw the oppressors at first hand. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] Last Saturday at Crossroads, just outside Cape Town, we held a peaceful rally attended by some 2,000 to 3,000 people. As soon as our party got into our vehicles, vigilantes started shooting at the crowd. The police then started shooting. The Kitzkonstabel, the paramilitary police, who are given three weeks' training and then given rifles and shotguns, surrounded our vans as we were assisting into a lorry a man who had been shot in the stomach. I have spoken about the Kitzkonstabel before in the House. As they pointed their guns at us, I could not help hoping that they had not read Hansard.
  Several people were injured and I witnessed a perfectly peaceful rally being fired on by the security forces. The whole incident was witnessed by the television cameras and a dossier has been submitted to the Minister of Justice for his investigation.
  I was told by the British consul officer that the day before a peaceful crowd had gathered outside the British consul to protest at the Gatting cricket tour. They had been refused permission to demonstrate outside the Wanderers stadium in Johannesburg. The deputy consul-general himself had agreed with the police that the protesters could remain, but as soon as his back was turned the police immediately baton-charged the crowd. Several injuries resulted. One got the impression that, as

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  soon as anyone of any substance turned his or her back on a peaceful situation, the security forces immediately went in to deal with the people who were doing nothing but enjoying themselves peacefully.
  The continuing state of emergency in South Africa allows such atrocities to take place because it empowers the police and security forces to act without any accountability whatever. That is why the ANC and other liberation movements have called for the cancellation of the state of emergency as one of the prerequisites for talks.
  Mr. John Carlisle: I have listened with sadness to the hon. Gentleman's account of what happened in that demonstration, and I have no reason to doubt his word. As he was an eye-witness to that incident and is well aware of other incidents, would it not have been sensible for him to seek a meeting and discussions with members of the security forces and, indeed, members of the South African Government? He gave us a list of the people to whom he spoke when he was in South Africa, but, if I ascertained it aright, there was not one Minister or Government official. Would it not have been prudent to have the other point of view put to him? He may not have liked it, but at least he could have come back to the House better informed.
  Mr. Grant: We submitted a dossier to the Justice Minister. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was the head of the delegation, tried to have a meeting with him, but he was out of town. On the day that I returned to Britain, meetings had been set up with Mr. de Klerk, Mr. Pik Botha and Mr. Viljoen, who are senior members of the Cabinet. Those meetings took place. I am here to give an account of what transpired at those meetings. It was clear that our party intended to meet as many people as possible. It also intended to meet representatives of the Dutch Reformed Church and Mr. Gatsha Buthelezi and other people.
  The situation in South Africa is complex and new. The state has been maintained on the basis of violent and evil oppression of black people by a minority white population. Now we have a chance to do something about creating democracy in that country.
  It is important to understand how South Africa has reached this point and what worldwide pressures have prevailed on both the Government and the democratic forces. There can be no doubt that sanctions and the armed struggle have had a major part to play. In just one example of the armed struggle, at the battle of Cuita Cuanavale, the combined forces of the Angolans and the Cubans forced the South Africans and the forces of Savimbi into retreat, to such an extent that now, for the first time after decades of struggle, we have a newly-emerging independent Namibia. The battle of Cuita Cuanavale also assisted the South African Government in changing their mind.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the battle of Cuita Cuanavale makes the case for sanctions? Because of the arms embargo, the aged Mirage of the South African Government was out-gunned by the MIGs of the Angolan Government.
  Mr. Grant: My hon. Friend is correct. It was clear during those battles that the South Africans could not match the firepower of the Cubans and Angolans.
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  It is important to understand the complexity of South African society. Few of those who have not visited the country can appreciate it. I had only a slight taste of it in a few weeks, but I know that it is an extremely complex situation.
  At the moment, South Africa is very volatile. It is not unlike a boiling pot, because to take off the lid suddenly without turning down the fire would be to risk the escape of a cloud of steam that would scald all those people—of whatever colour—who are gathered around it. The task that faces Mr. Mandela is to turn down that fire so that successful negotiations can ensue. It is precarious and challenging, and such an undertaking needs the full understanding of hon. Members here.
  I have no doubt whatsoever that the Mr. Mandela whom I was privileged to meet is equal to that task. He exudes a strength, calmness and authority that is remarkable in a man who has been incarcerated for 27 years. He is astonishingly without bitterness, but remains standing full square behind the principles for which he has sacrificed so much—the principles of a non-racial and democratic South Africa, in which black and white people alike can share equally. It is clear from what he has said since his release that he is a responsible and wise statesperson, who is now ready to play his part in steering South Africa into the future, and who knows full well how perilous and inflammable the scenerio is.
  What, then, should be our role in Britain if we genuinely wish to see a peaceful transition towards democracy in South Africa? I believe that we should see ourselves as outsiders—as outsiders with a grave responsibility, given the sorry contribution that this country has made to prolong the system of apartheid, but as outsiders nevertheless. We should not seek to inflame the situation by raising red herrings about the danger of a white backlash or by raising the bogey of the armed struggle.
  If there is danger of such a backlash, Mr. de Klerk is well aware of it, and it is something that he is well able to handle. Mr. de Klerk does not seem to have been surprised by the ANC's continuing commitment to the armed struggle, and nor should the British Government. It is a weapon that the ANC must hold in reserve in the negotiations that lie ahead in the event of there being no movement to dismantle the institutions of apartheid, which have themselves perpetrated so much violence against the mass of South African people.
  The Prime Minister seeks to make petty distinctions between different kinds of sanctions. She talks, for example, about voluntary sanctions, but to the man or the woman on the omnibus in Soweto or on the train going into Johannesburg, those distinctions do not mean very much. To them, the fact that the British Prime Minister talks about the removal of sanctions is a matter of great anxiety and grief. They are not concerned about, and they are not aware of, the ramifications of discussions with the Commonwealth leaders or the European Community. Frankly, they could not care less, but they are concerned when they see what they believe to be a sell-out by Britain.
  Nor must we rush to destabilise the position, as the Prime Minister has done, by pressing for the removal of sanctions. The demand worldwide is that sanctions should stay until the pillars of apartheid are removed. To remove sanctions now would be the height of irresponsibility. It would strengthen the hand of the South African

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  Government against the mass of the people who have already given so much to reach this position, and who are already at a disadvantage in any future negotiations.
  If the British Government really want to find a way forward, they should be helping to ensure parity in the capability of both sides to negotiate. It seems that the Prime Minister wishes to see the mass democratic movement going naked into the negotiating chamber. Mr. Mandela and the mass democratic movement are already at a gross disadvantage. They do not have the backing of a vast army of civil servants or all the paraphernalia of diplomacy that the South African Government clearly have. They have few resources. Their key personnel are scattered throughout the world, subsisting in impoverished exiled communities.
  Our Government should therefore compare their attitude to South Africa with their attitude to the restoration of democracy in eastern Europe. There, they have given £25 million to assist the process of democracy. They should therefore come to the House with similar proposals for funding the democratic forces in South Africa.
  Britain has done enough damage in South Africa. Let it now be bold and positive. Let us put our money behind all that we have mouthed about supporting the oppressed people in South Africa. The soundest investment that we can make is to ensure that, when there are future negotiations, those people are properly prepared to play their full part.
  5.25 pm
  Mr. George Gardiner: The tragedy of today's debate is that it has arisen out of such a negative Opposition motion. After paying their tribute to Nelson Mandela, which is hardly a matter of dissent in the House, and after some rather grudging acknowledgments to the moves that President de Klerk has made, the motion concentrates almost entirely on sanctions policy which, I submit, is irrelevant to the opportunities opening up in South Africa for dismantling the apartheid system.
  Sanctions pressure has never been particularly welcome to the black population of South Africa. I have made many visits to South Africa, including a couple last year, and have always taken all the opportunities presented of talking to leading blacks. I have never found them pleading with me to urge my Government to impose more sanctions.
  Mr. Nellist: Who paid?
  Mr. Gardiner: I have never been asked to urge others to cease buying the products that provide those people in South Africa with their livelihoods. I have never been urged to ask British industrialists to disinvest and to sell their companies' equity in South Africa to white South African groupings.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gardiner: However, they have talked about and urged the need for improvements in their schools-[HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Gardiner: No, I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Gardiner: They have pleaded with me and talked about increasing investment in their schools—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have a point of order to hear. I call Mr. Nellist.
  Mr. Nellist: Would it not have been more correct, in terms of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if the hon. Gentleman, who has admitted correctly that he has been to South Africa twice, had at least shared with the rest of us what it has just taken us a few seconds to look up in the Register of Members' Interests? He was paid on one occasion by the South African coal industry and on the second by the International Freedom Foundation.
  Mr. Gardiner: I should have thought that the whole point of that was served by the declaration made in the register. I return to the point that I was making before that bogus point of order.
  When speaking to blacks in South Africa and to the leaders of their communities there, I have not found them speaking on the matters that Opposition Members seem to expect. Their concern has been about investment in their schools and clinics and, above all, in jobs for themselves and their families. Of course they have always said that they wanted to see the release of Nelson Mandela, not necessarily because they share all the objectives of the ANC but because they saw him as a symbol of the black condition in South Africa. Of course, they looked forward to having a vote in the future towards the government of their country, but they do not want that on an empty belly.
  We have heard the arguments today, and on earlier occasions in this House, between Conservative Members who think that our opposition to a sanctions policy has helped to speed the process of reform in South Africa. We have heard the arguments advanced by the Opposition who claim that sanctions policy has achieved that. That is an argument of historical interest but, quite honestly, it has become arcane. It reminds me of the arguments that I witnessed when I was a student in the 1950s, when undergraduates debated among themselves which side they would have supported in the Spanish civil war if they had been alive at the time. History has left such questions way behind.
  I make one concession to the Opposition on sanctions. There is no doubt that sanctions have had some effect. When I was in South Africa in February I paid a return visit to Mamelodi, a well run black township to the north of Pretoria. I spoke to the mayor of Mamelodi, a gentleman whom I met previously, and asked him what effect sanctions had had on his area. He said, "Well, Mr. Gardiner, I can only put it this way—last year in this town we had an unemployment rate of 9 per cent. This year we have 22 per cent." That has been the outcome of the sanctions policy.
  If sanctions have had any effect, they have impoverished the black population. Evidence of that is crystal clear if one looks at the opinion polls, conducted by a range of independent organisations, of black opinion in South Africa. They have found that between 70 and 80 per cent. of the black population do not want to see further sanctions imposed against them.
  Mr. Quentin Davies: Does my hon. Friend agree that in the light of the evidence that he has just adduced, and the other evidence available to us, it

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  is inconceivably two-faced and duplicitous—if that is not an unparliamentary expression—for the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) to allege in his speech that it is disgraceful that British companies create unemployment in South Africa and, two seconds later, urge divestment by British companies and speak in favour of sanctions?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: If I heard the hon. Gentleman correctly, he said that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) was duplicitous.
  Mr. Davies: I was referring to the words that he spoke, not to his character.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman says things that reflect on the integrity and character of a right hon. Member, he should withdraw his remarks.
  Mr. Davies: I withdraw my remarks entirely. They were intended as a reflection on the internal logic of the right hon. Gentleman's speech.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I assume that the hon. Gentleman is making an unqualified withdrawal.
  Mr. Gardiner: I agree entirely with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies).
  When it comes to discussing sanctions and whether they should be continued, I refer to the words uttered by Chief Buthelezi at the end of last week:
  "Blacks see the international community being brutally unconcerned about both the wishes and the well-being of the victims of apartheid."
  I can only hope that those words are heeded by the Ministers who will be congregating in Dublin next week.
  All hon. Members welcome the process that has been begun by President de Klerk. It is a challenge to the whites in South Africa, to the blacks, to the African National Congress to make a suitable response to that initiative by dropping its arguments in favour of an arms struggle, and to other groups. I referred to Chief Buthelezi and the lnkatha movement, and there are others. It presents a challenge to us to do all that we can to encourage negotiated reforms and to help secure the wellbeing of blacks in the process.
  As the reform process became stalled under the previous president, blacks managed to obtain and build up for themselves an economic clout in the fast expanding informal sector of the economy. One has only to go to South Africa to see the black taxis, which we would call mini buses, and which are the fastest growing industry in the country. Provision shops are being run from back rooms of houses, and building materials are being supplied from back yards. There is no lack of enterprise among the black community.
  Mrs. Currie: I am interested in what my hon. Friend says. Does he agree that tourism would be a good way of encouraging the sort of developments that he has mentioned, and would provide employment? Am I right in thinking that tourism is one of the sanctions that still operates and is quite effective? Does he agree that there is something not quite right about hon. Members,
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  particularly Opposition Members, being tourists and going on jaunts to South Africa and then deciding that the rest of us should not be able to do so?
  Mr. Gardiner: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The Government accepted a voluntary discouragement of tourism. I am glad to say that it has not had a great deal of effect because tourism provides a great number of jobs for the black community in South Africa.
  What South Africa needs above all else to coincide with negotiations on its constitutional future is investment in industries large and small, with all the spin-offs in the townships and the informal sector. I am glad that the British Government have seen the need for that and are raising the voluntary curbs on investment. I applaud that.
  I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to switch much more into the positive vein and go all out to encourage investment to help South Africa along the way. That will provide a foundation for the new vision that is opening up in that country. It will ensure that when all Africans get the vote, as I am sure they will, they will inherit a meaningful economic foundation to enable them to use their vote in the most responsible way.
  5.36 pm
  Mr. Robert Hughes: It is extremely difficult in this short but welcome debate to know where to start, where to finish and what to put in the middle. It would be a good idea to start with the Government's amendment. In their speeches, Government Members seek to make us accept that their intentions are bona fide, that we are all working for the same objectives, and that there are no real differences between us or about what the end product should be, but minor differences about how we get there.
  The Government's amendment says that they welcome the move towards a non-racial constitution. That jars with what the Government did at the United Nations General Assembly last December. They gave their assent to a wider-ranging document suggesting what the conditions for negotiations should be and what the new South Africa should be like. No sooner had they signed it—a most dangerous thing—than they entered a reservation. Britain was the only country in the United Nations to enter a reservation that it was against the possibility of a new constitution for South Africa based on a non-racial voters roll. What hypocrisy there is in their amendment that they welcome the moves towards a non-racial democracy, after having entered such a reservation at the United Nations. It is hardly surprising that we find it difficult to accept that we are all working on the same side and that it is only a matter of differences of approach.
  The second best starting point for my speech is last Sunday, at 2.05 pm, on that historic occasion when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison. It is difficult to describe the excitement, interest, exuberance and near euphoria felt when he came out of prison. He has not walked into freedom, because the pillars of apartheid remain. He does not have a vote, he cannot live where he likes and there are a number of things that he cannot do. The state of emergency remains and there are still many political prisoners yet to be released. Paradoxically, Nelson Mandela is a much freer man than President de Klerk.
  I fully accept that President de Klerk has made significant moves. He went much further on 2 February than I had expected, and I welcome that. I welcome the

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  unbanning of the ANC, the Pan-Africanist Congress and the South African Communist party. I welcome the unbanning of all the other organisations previously restricted.
  The prospect of negotiations, or a real dialogue to freedom, is a wonderful thing. The sad thing is that it did not happen 20 or 30 years ago. The suffering during that time has been enormous. What a different country South Africa would be today if only the white Government of South Africa had recognised that they had to negotiate and bring about a peaceful transition. Many tragedies could have been avoided if there had been decisive action.
  We are told that we should look not to the past but to the future. We all have a tremendous hope for the future, but the lessons that we have learnt from the past must govern and guide our future actions. I remember, and I am sure that it is in the memory of most hon. Members, the long process of the independence of Namibia. It is 12 to 15 years since the South African Government accepted the principles of UN resolution 435 and the principle of negotiation along the lines of the United Nations plan for that independence to come about, as it will do on 21 March. The South African Government used every dilatory and delaying tactic in the book, but South Africa does not have a time scale of 12, 15 or 20 years to make some real progress.
  We have sometimes spoken in the past, perhaps too glibly, about the last chance and the last window of opportunity. But if this chance is allowed to slip away, the future of South Africa will be too dreadful to contemplate. That is why we must keep up the pressure. That is why we must ensure that, until the process of change has really become irreversible, the pressure cannot be lifted.
  I accept that there is a genuine difference of opinion about sanctions, although not all my hon. Friends agree. When the sanctions argument started, there was a great deal of discussion on the Left, never mind between the Left and the Right or between both sides of the House, about whether imposing sanctions was the right policy.
  We must remember that the call for sanctions came first from the people of South Africa, who said that, if we could not help them in any other way, we should help them through sanctions. I am not saying that sanctions have been fully effective or that sanctions alone have brought President de Klerk to his present position. I am not saying that at all. I have too much respect for the people of South Africa, who have fought in many different ways.
  I say quite frankly that I have too much respect for the members of Umkhonto we Siswe and for those who have fought apartheid through passive resistance to make that claim for sanctions. But they have had an effect. The right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) quoted President de Klerk's election manifesto. He could have quoted what he said on 2 February, when he made it clear that South Africa could not stand alone, that it had to be part of the world community and work together with other countries.
  What annoys me intensely about the Prime Minister is that she refuses even to give a nod or to genuflect in the slightest way, not just to the effects of sanctions but to the struggle of the people of South Africa. I do not like to personalise things, but the Prime Minister's egocentricity casts her in the role of the wicked fairy in Snow White, asking, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the cleverest of them all?" Given her hostility to anyone who disagrees with her, it is not surprising that we charge her, as I charge
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  her, with colluding in and collaborating with the oppression of the people of South Africa. Why could the Prime Minister not have waited? Why could she not at least have allowed more time to pass before rushing in?
  President de Klerk has made many moves, but we should never forget that, when he was elected, he said,
  "Do not expect me to negotiate myself out of power."
  Yet the negotiations must be precisely about the transfer of power from the minority to all the people of South Africa irrespective of their race, creed or colour. That is a noble vision, which Nelson Madela restated after his release. He restated the steadfast principle which our Prime Minister, for some reason unknown to any of us, cannot stomach.
  Many conditions were laid down during the United Nations special session, yet the Government have admitted that not all the conditions have been met. The state of emergency has not been lifted, the Internal Security Act remains in place.
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hughes: No, I cannot. This is a short debate and many hon. Members wish to speak.
  None of the pillars of apartheid have really been tackled, and President de Klerk has said nothing at all about his vision for the new South Africa, beyond the fact that he wants to see some sort of negotiation and dialogue. We would do well to listen to the people of South Africa, who are saying clearly that they do not want sanctions lifted until the process has become irreversible. It is not yet irreversible. We wish it well, but if we take the pressure off now the temptation will be to delay and delay in the hope that somehow, sooner or later, the white Government of South Africa will not have to take the major step and make the major change that is necessary.
  I have no doubt that we shall soon see a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and united South Africa. But what Nelson Mandela has described as the long road to freedom is not yet over. The suffering along that road has been immense and more suffering may yet have to be faced by the people of South Africa before they get their freedom. It has not been in vain in the past and it will not be in vain in the future.
  Many people have stood proudly, shoulder to shoulder, with the people of South Africa in their struggle. It is surely not too much to ask even of this Government at this stage to do something positive to end apartheid. We live in historic times. I regret to say that the Government have so far not lived up to their responsibilities. But if we and the Government all act with a sense of history and on the side of freedom, there will be something that we can all enjoy and celebrate.
  5.46 pm
  Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: I confess that I am mystified by the Government's policy on South Africa and I cannot, in all conscience, support it.
  One would think from the innocuous words of the Government's amendment to the motion that there was little that was contentious in South Africa apart from some constitutional issues. But the harsh reality of apartheid is ignored. The oppression of 80 per cent. of the population and their deprivation of civil rights is passed over. The internal violence and the destabilisation of the economies of the surrounding countries is completely passed over.

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  Nelson Mandela is saluted, but there is no recognition of the fact that his emergence on the scene is the one new factor that gives us all the best chance of solving the big problems and bringing peace, stability and reconciliation to this important but unhappy country.
  Discussing South Africa without discussing apartheid is completely unrealistic. Apartheid is an evil and wicked doctrine, used by unworthy people to justify the retention of power by the minority, a minority which uses whips and dogs upon those who protest against it. which deprives the majority of the vote and even of the right to live where they choose in their own country—all in the name of racial superiority. It is contemptible. I would have expected better from the Government in condemning it in an amendment of this kind.
  I accept that the British Government are sincere when they say that they want to get rid of apartheid, but if so, they conceal their intentions well. They applied what few sanctions there are timidly and half-heartedly when under pressure to do so, and they now seek to withdraw them at the first sign that they are working.
  The present willingness of the South African Government to come to terms with its African majority has been prompted by a combination of internal and external pressures. Our reluctance to add to that pressure, and even to seek to abate it, may have helped to keep open the lines of communication between Downing street and Cape Town, but it cannot have brought about the South African Government's change of policy. My right hon. and hon. Friends in government are made to look foolish by asserting otherwise. I am not convinced by all the intellectual arguments addressed to us by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in the House this evening.
  I am concerned most about the apparent disregard of our Government for the possibility of establishing friendly relations with a future predominantly African Government of South Africa. Our interests surely lie in being a good friend and an ally of the predominantly black democratic Government that will eventually emerge. In practice, we seem to be writing ourselves out of any role in South Africa's future.
  The present South African regime is on its last legs. Nelson Mandela's release has acted as a catalyst, and things will never be the same again. Pray to God that his life will be preserved. As with eastern Europe, the move towards democracy in South Africa is unstoppable. We British have no interest to serve in propping up a doomed regime—only in so far as we can assist in ensuring a peaceful transition to democracy.
  Tribalism is a curse in Africa and in South Africa as elsewhere.
  Mr. Bowen Wells: As in Ireland.
  Mr. Stanbrook: In Ireland also, as my hon. Friend says—but it is a particular problem of government in South Africa.
  South Africa is fortunate in that there is now someone on the scene who commands loyalty and allegiance across tribal boundaries, with some chance of achieving reconciliation and being able to negotiate on behalf of the majority of Africans in South Africa. Mr. Mandela will, I
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  believe, be able to command the overwhelming support of the people of South Africa once it has the smallest chance of becoming a democracy.
  We must welcome President de Klerk's initiative, but we should put our money on Nelson Mandela and give him all the help that he needs to bring peace, reconciliation and democracy to a great African country.
  5.52 pm
  Mr. Peter L. Pike: I echo the comments already made in welcoming the release of Nelson Mandela as the most significant development in South Africa for many years. I welcome, too, the speech of the state President to the South African Parliament on 2 February. Conservative Members suggested that President de Klerk took a great risk in making that speech. Although I acknowledge that it was a courageous speech, involving some risk, if President de Klerk had chosen not to take that line, there would have been an even greater risk to his Government and the consequences for South Africa might have been so disastrous as to make problems in other parts of the world appear insignificant.
  Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress and other organisations have a role to play in achieving a peaceful solution and a free South Africa where all races are equal. One of Nelson Mandela's most significant statements in his speech earlier this week was that he does not want to replace white domination by black domination. Such statements guarantee a role for him in future negotiations.
  I had a motion on the Order Paper for Monday that was not reached which concerned the conditions under which the Prime Minister should undertake an official visit to South Africa. The necessity for such a debate was strengthened by the right hon. Lady's recent comments on sanctions and investment. Because of those statements, our country is regarded by blacks and whites in South Africa as the strongest supporter of apartheid outside their country. I have visited South Africa twice and Namibia, and all their peoples, black and white, consider the British Prime Minister and Government as apartheid's strongest supporters. The Prime Minister's statements since President de Klerk's announcement tend to support that view.
  The Foreign Secretary and the Government should take due note of the role that Britain must play in South Africa which is of great importance for a number of reasons. We are an important member of the Commonwealth and of the European Community, and we have a special relationship with America and, whether we like it or not, this country's investments and commercial interests in South Africa are also significant. All those factors mean that, when our Prime Minister speaks about South Africa, she does so from a position of greater stature than almost anyone else outside South Africa itself.
  Although President de Klerk has opened the door, one can never be too sure what lies behind it. At this stage, President de Klerk has not given any indication, or taken any action, to suggest that apartheid will positively be ended in South Africa. Although our policy on relaxing sanctions and investment restrictions should be kept constantly under review, it would be premature to take any action before receiving from the South African Government a positive sign of their intention to abolish apartheid. The country's racial registration legislation

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  must be repealed, as it underpins the whole basis of apartheid. The Land Act, the Group Areas Act and other statutes must also be abolished.
  A few years ago, the Prime Minister made the important statement that she believed that the form of South Africa's future Government was a matter for the people of South Africa to determine. I share that view, provided that one is talking of all the people of South Africa, including the 80 per cent. who happen to be black. I once asked the Prime Minister whether that statement meant that she accepted a future black majority Government for South Africa, but she weaved and dodged and did not answer. The following day, The Daily Telegraph commented that that was an unanswerable question for the Prime Minister, because although she really wanted to say no, she could not—but she could not say yes either.
  At the end of the day, the Prime Minister must recognise that if we want universal suffrage and freedom in South Africa, it will mean a black majority Government. However, that does not mean that we wish to replace white domination by black domination—to use the words of Nelson Mandela. He wants a free South Africa that can use its tremendous benefits to the advantage of all its people.
  I recognise that when apartheid ends in South Africa there will be major problems. It will be difficult to ensure that the blacks have opportunities for education, health treatment and many other things. The South African economy may be the strongest in the continent, but it will be unable to bear the burden alone. One positive step that the British Government could take would be to say now that if steps are taken to end apartheid and to give freedom to all the people of South Africa, we will assist the country to tackle the problems of the 80 per cent. of their people who are deprived at present.
  At this time it would be wrong for the Prime Minister to make an official visit to South Africa, and it is wrong for us to talk of investment and of ending sanctions. We need more positive signs, and we should encourage President de Klerk for the moves that he has made.
  Ultimately, I hope that there will be genuine talks around a table—talks that will include Nelson Mandela and other people who are genuinely selected to represent the different races in that country. I hope that we will see a day when apartheid ends, and we can welcome South Africa back into the Commonwealth.
  6.1 pm
  Mr. Bowen Wells: I had planned to say how disappointed I had been by the reactions of the House at Prime Minister's Question Time yesterday, and by the approach of the leader of the Government and of the Leader of the Opposition to the difficult question of South Africa. It seems that the two leading parties are more concerned with fighting about their domestic differences in the House, and in this country, than raising their sights, showing that they have vision and recognising the momentous events that have taken place in South Africa.
  The main event has been the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years of wrongful imprisonment for his political views. That is the vision, and the clue. Through Nelson Mandela we may find a way through the serious difficulties which face the South African people.
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  Let me demonstrate that. Back-Bench Members have demonstrated more vision than the leadership. They understand. The hon. Members for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) and for Burnley (Mr. Pike), and my hon. Friends the Members for Reigate (Mr. Gardiner) and for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) showed that understanding in their speeches.
  We are concerned with the difficulties that South Africa and its people face—both white and black, with all their many differences. How do we bring the country away from the state of military oppression and racial oppression, from the denial of basic human rights, towards education for black children and jobs for young black men and women, who are denied the professional qualifications that might help them to progress within society? The community is becoming more and more violent as it objects to the violence of the state and the apartheid system. How do we bring the community from violence to a peaceful, democratic and racially equal society?
  We have a responsibility, and the sort of behaviour that we saw in the House yesterday at Question Time from both sides of the House, and again today at the beginning of this debate, is unhelpful, insensitive and entirely counter-productive to bringing about a peaceful solution to these difficult problems.
  At the age of 70, after 27 years in gaol, Nelson Mandela has to face the problem of trying to bring about a democratic, non-racial society. He still wants to bring about all the things that he said he believed in in the wonderful speech that he made from the dock 27 years ago. His conviction, his authority and the degree to which he has suffered make him the bridge.
  To argue about sanctions—whether we should take them off or not, whether they are voluntary or not—is totally irrelevant to the argument. We should be embracing Nelson Mandela's hope for the future, and helping him to bring about the reconciliation that is required in South Africa, but what are we doing? We do not encourage meetings of the African National Congress here. When Mr. Oliver Tambo had to be treated in hospital in Stockholm, the ANC meeting took place in Stockholm, not in London, because the Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave it no encouragement to do so. The FCO has ignored Mr. Tambo, the leader of the ANC, and his wife who lives in Camden and does an important job as a nurse, living in humble surroundings to keep the family together. Reconciliation and meetings should be encouraged to take place in London.
  Why do we not respond generously to Nelson Mandela? Why does the Prime Minister not phone him, as President Bush did, and invite him to come here? To my knowledge, the Prime Minister has not rung him. She sent an official from the British Embassy to see him in Cape Town. That does not show any warmth or understanding of the problems, nor does it demonstrate the support that we should be giving Mr. Mandela and all those who seek peace—people on all sides.
  We should remember the white community, which is extremely frightened. Its members do not know how they can continue to live under an African majority Government. They have many reasons to be frightened—because of their treatment of black people for so many years, and because of the example that has been set in the north of South Africa and in most African countries. They are not successful communities, and they cannot be described as respecters of human rights or as democracies.

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  White people have serious misgivings and fears. Mr. Mandela recognises that, he has said so, and we should respond to that.
  Of course, the white Government and Mr. de Klerk should be congratulated on the release of Mr. Mandela. As a lifelong opponent of sanctions, I say that we should lift them as soon as it is practically possible. Surely Britain should say, "Come here and discuss it." We should say that we will reinforce the elements within South African society—black or white—to encourage them to form the bridge and to keep the peace.
  A prosperous society, in which there would be new investment, and a reduction of unemployment among the black population are more likely to put the pieces together and to go through a peaceful transformation. This is no time to talk about loosening sanctions. It is a time for encouraging and meeting everyone in South Africa who wants peace and the evolution to democracy and equality. That is what I expect the Government to do.
  6.8 pm
  Dr. David Owen: The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) made a remarkable speech, as did the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant). The Front-Bench spokesmen on both sides of the House would be well advised not to call a Division.
  The mood of today's speeches has reflected the complexity of the issues that face us all, but especially South Africans, both black and white. Hon. Members' conduct yesterday was a disgrace, given the gravity of the position and the incredible opportunity with which South Africa is now confronted. If we spend our time engaging in a petty little squabble about what has or has not been done in the past, we shall be unable to contribute as much as we might to the resolution of those difficult problems.
  Profound changes are taking place in South Africa, and there is no doubt in my mind that things are already moving far faster than most of us realise. President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela have an understanding about how such matters should be dealt with. I believe that the ANC's role in applying pressure to secure the cancellation of the extremely ill-advised Gatting cricket tour is a sign of that: it was realised that such events can provide a focus for the kind of unrest that would make a repeal of the state of emergency very difficult.
  The state of emergency is the main impediment to the relaxation of sanctions. The Prime Minister recognised that in her statement in Kuala Lumpur. Lifting sanctions would be absurd, and it will not happen: the Council of Foreign Ministers, which is to meet in Dublin, would not dream of relaxing them while the state of emergency continues. That is a sine qua non, as the Foreign Secretary knows. He also knows that he and the Government are not entitled to say that they no longer wish people not to make new investments. He quoted from the resolution, passed under the chairmanship of the deputy Prime Minister, to "rescind". Action cannot be taken on a single decision made by a member state; we are bound by that 1986 resolution. We are also bound by something far more important, and that is honour.
  For the past decade or more, the Prime Minister has waxed eloquent against unilateral nuclear disarmament
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  —rightly, in my view—and unilateralism cannot be criticised at one moment and embraced at the next. For 20 years or more, this country has acted in the deepest concert with the United States, and often with France, on the question of sanctions against South Africa. We have not once been split on that issue, which has not been easy, because of the tactics aimed at dividing us.
  It would be entirely irresponsible for the British Government to abandon the sanction on new investment unilaterally, knowing full well that President Bush has not the freedom to do the same because of the legislation by which he is bound. It is obvious to us all that Anglo-American relations are going through a difficult period, but the improvement that we all want—the Foreign Secretary must want it, too—will not be possible if Britain acts unilaterally. We must act in concert, as we have done in the past.
  I still believe that, properly applied, external pressure can be constructive. Let us face it: the biggest problem is President de Klerk. He represents the minority, but the minority happen to be in power. Under the apartheid system—wrongly—South Africa has all the violent structures of minority power which must be dismantled progressively over the next few years. We know that there will be considerable resistance. Of course, President de Klerk must be encouraged, but he must be encouraged in a manner that ensures that there can be no going back. Having conversed with him, I think that he understands that perfectly. International agreement on a serious reduction of sanctions will be very difficult until negotiatons have started: that should be the threshold.
  It would be mad—crazy—for the two main parties to do anything to damage South Africa's future economy once the talks have begun. I say "the two main parties", meaning the National party and the ANC, but I believe strongly that agreement should be widened to include Inkatha, and the PAC is perfectly entitled to make its case in the talks, as is the Conservative party. There is no doubt that if the negotiations break down and anyone is shown to have entered into them in bad faith, the world will make a judgment. If it should happen to be the South African Government who entered into them in bad faith, the result will he the reimposition of economic sanctions that will really hurt.
  In 1985, for the first time, we discovered a really effective economic sanction, when banks such as the Chase Manhattan refused to roll forward credits. By 1988 it was really biting: the Prime Minister need only read the South African newspapers to discover that. The overriding of President Reagan's veto by the American Congress, on a bipartisan basis, was the biggest single reverse of the Reagan presidency. From that moment South Africa knew that there would be no comfort from Washington, and that Republicans and Democrats were determined to combine to put pressure on South Africa to end apartheid.
  That bipartisanship still exists in Congress, and it will not be broken. I believe that an agreement will be reached, and that President Bush will respond: he has already urged the parties to come together. Would it not be marvellous if the British Prime Minister occasionally came to the House and said that she would like to try to secure agreement here about the pace at which sanctions should be removed? Then the Foreign Secretary would be asked to conduct a dialogue with his opposite number and with

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  the other parties to try to reach a measure of understanding, so that we could. act in concert with our European partners, the United States and the world.
  Let us try to restore the kind of recognition that the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford described. We have an important foreign policy responsibility. We want South Africa to develop quickly the unity of purpose that will lead to a common electoral roll—one man, one vote—and proportional representation, which will provide significant minority safeguards: no constitutional change will then be possible without, say, 80 per cent. agreement. Namibia has shown the way with a Bill of Rights, providing for proportional representation and one of the best constitutions, which will be enacted on 21 March.
  Massive change is taking place in South Africa, but we spent our time yesterday in the House hurling insults at each other. Such behaviour is below the level merited by such events. It is time that the Prime Minister recognised that she is not entitled to act unilaterally—that there must be international agreement. I hope that when the Foreign Secretary goes to Dublin on Tuesday he will be able to say, "We want to give President de Klerk a significant response: we want to encourage him to move forward."
  I do not mind giving the House some idea of the criteria that should be applied. Let us remind ourselves of the provisions of the American Congressional legislation—the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act 1986:
  "The bill provides that the sanctions contained in the bill shall terminate automatically if the South African Government meets five conditions specified in the bill. These conditions related to (1) the release of Nelson Mandela and all political prisoners"—
  negotiations on who the political prisoners are have already begun—
  "(2) the repeal of the State of Emergency and all detainees"—
  I expect that to happen in a matters of weeks—
  "(3) the unhanning of political parties"—
  that has already happened—
  "(4) the repeal of the Group Areas and Population Registration Acts"—
  it will be hard to repeal the Group Areas Act immediately, but if the Government start to sign on for definite progress there is no reason why the Population Registration Act should not go as well—
  "and (5) agreeing to enter into good faith negotiations with truly representative members of the black majority without preconditions."
  That last criterion has virtually been fulfilled: President de Klerk is clear that there are to be no preconditions, and I believe that he will respond, as will all parties to the negotiations.
  It never ceases to amaze me that liberation fighters throughout the world, and black Africans in particular, can demonstrate a spirit of reconciliation at a time of transition, and can forget the oppression that they have experienced in the past. Jomo Kenyatta is a classic example of that; it was seen from the late President Machel; it has been experienced by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe; it is now being demonstrated by Sam Nujoma; and it has been seen from Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu. I am glad that the role of Oliver Tambo has been mentioned. I hope that that will not be forgotten, because in the past 30 years Mr. Tambo has shown remarkable courage in relation to the ANC outside the country. The Foreign Secretary understands these issues.
  Mr. Dykes: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Dr. Owen: I cannot give way. Time is limited.
  I hope that the Foreign Secretary will ignore the vote tonight and that he will take the spirit of the House with him into the chamber of the Council of Ministers in Dublin on Tuesday.
  6.21 pm
  Sir Ian Lloyd: I know that the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) will not consider me in any sense discourteous if I do not follow him closely, though I undoubtedly agree with some of his very interesting speech. I wish to refer to something that was said by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) who accused the Prime Minister of collaborating and colluding with apartheid.
  It was my privilege, in August, to carry a message from the Prime Minister to my old school in Natal. There I addressed a very large audience—about 1,500 people. The Prime Minister's message contained the most unequivocal and total condemnation of apartheid that anyone could expect. The chief justice of the Republic of South Africa was in the audience, and there was no doubt whatever about the message that the Prime Minister was conveying or about the message that I was conveying. All the nonsense about the Prime Minister really supporting apartheid must be demolished. I have no doubt whatever that there is an argument about sanctions, about the means of achieving the end, but I do not think that the first proposition can be sustained.
  I wish also to refer to the very interesting speech made by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant). On occasion, the hon. Member has roused my ire, but this time he did not. He made a profoundly interesting and moving speech, and in his analysis of the major problem of the South African security forces being almost uncontrollable or out of control he put his finger on the central problem of manipulating change in that very difficult country. I welcome what he said about the vast complexities in South Africa. His remarks—if I may say so without being in any sense patronising—indicated great progress on his part.
  The speech of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) was a very different proposition. The right hon. Gentleman is a kind of one-man antiques road show. He comes to the House with his little brown paper parcels, filled with prejudice, half-truths and all sorts of other things. When he opens them—one of his favourites is the one that he likes to open when we debate South Africa—one gets a very strong whiff of smear gas. We know what is happening when the right hon. Gentleman speaks. He has absolutely no sympathy for, and very little understanding of, this question.
  I wish to confess three mistakes that I have made—I believe that humility is the order of the day. Had I been asked 35 or 40 years ago whether an Afrikaner-dominated Government, a nationalist Government, would be proposing what Mr. de Klerk has proposed I should have said, "Not a chance—never." Had I been asked whether an Afrikaner leader of the stature of Mr. de Klerk would emerge and would lead that movement, I should have said the odds were 1,000 to one against. I had the privilege of meeting Mr. de Klerk when he was in London last June and I am happy to admit to the House that my assessment of him was totally mistaken. We now have a situation which opens up great hope and great possibilities.

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  I made those confessions because it is easy to be pessimistic about South Africa, as I myself was and as other hon. Members have been today. It is all too easy to underestimate the idealism, the political skill and the judgment of great Afrikaners such as Smuts. Smuts was one of the founding fathers of the League of Nations and one of the architects of the United Nations, so let no smear on him come from the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist). In this context I should also mention Louis Botha, the first prime minister of South Africa, as well as people such as Helen Suzman, Hofmeyr and, most recently, President de Klerk.
  Perhaps we can inject some humility into this debate. I have read most of the speeches made in this House and most of the early-day motions on this subject in the past 25 years. What comes through most of them is an astonishing certainty, conviction and, above all, condemnation. As the hon. Member for Tottenham has realised, however, South Africa is probably the most ethnically complex society on earth. Most hon. Members' knowledge is derived largely from television programmes, articles—usually hostile—and 10-day visits, or perhaps even shorter visits such as the one that the right hon. Member for Gorton made recently. Nevertheless, they propound solutions and give prolific advice to all concerned about the problems in South Africa—problems which defeated Smuts and Hofmeyr. They are problems which also defeated Helen Suzman, a great battler for the cause of freedom in South Africa, and, indeed, defeated my late and lamented great personal friend, Patrick Duncan, who probably fought as courageous a campaign against apartheid as anyone mentioned in the debate so far.
  We have exhibited an overpowering urge to condemn—an urge against which the great Goethe warned many years ago when he said that people should be suspicious whenever they met anyone with an overpowering urge to condemn. No one disputes the fact that such condemnation has been fully earned by apartheid, but—this is the principal point that I wish to make—the condemnation has assumed a somewhat less defensible form and is in some subtle way becoming a form of anti-South-Africanism which shares the bigotry, the vindictiveness and the viciousness of anti-semitism. I see this emerging in a number of ways and, regrettably, in a number of places. A basic distinction lies at the heart of this debate—the distinction between apartheid and South Africa. There is no defence for apartheid and no one in this House would attempt to make such a defence. South Africa, however, for all its faults and for all the grave situations that have rightly been described, is the nearest thing to an economic miracle in Africa south of the Sahara, and that fact lies at the heart of the debate.
  The House had a similar debate about 40 years ago, when it was suggested that Germany, which had introduced possibly the most appalling doctrine that the western world had ever known—the Herrenvolk concept—should be not only defeated but totally destroyed. That was a great debate and a great argument, and it is one that is mirrored in, and in some senses at the heart of, this debate. I do not believe in total destruction. Nor did the West. To save western civilisation, and to save Europe, after Germany had been virtually destroyed, the Marshall
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  plan had to be brought in. The purpose was to reconstruct Germany, and to enable its great economic engine to serve the purpose which in western Europe only it could serve.
  I therefore have three fundamental objections to apartheid. The first relates to economic change. I do not think that it is arguable that sanctions have not been an important factor, but neither do I think that any hon. Member, on either side of the House, can prove that it has, or has not, been the factor that some hon. Members would like to think that it has been in the change of heart that has taken place. I do not believe that it is so. I believe that that argument ignores the character of the Afrikaner, who seldom makes the kind of cringing response that Opposition Members might expect him to make to pressure from outside. I remind the House that there are 2 million of us out there. When I say "us" I refer to English-speaking South Africans. There are 2 million English-speaking South Africans, whose connection with this country is close and often continuous. As every hon. Member knows, we do not like to be pushed around, and we are talking to "us". When in this House or in this country we use the wrong methods in our attempts to influence people we know what reaction we get. The reaction out there will be exacly the same.
  My second objection is to the blunderbuss character of all sanctions. They are indiscriminate. They affect doctors and nurses and hospitals. They affect teachers and schools. One of South Africa's most distinguished physicists, Professor Serette at Fort Hare, in the most recent issue of New Scientist, stated unequivocally his condemnation of and opposition to sanctions because of the damage that they have done to black education at his university. Opposition Members suggest that all South Africans agree with them, but Professor Serette's remarks give the complete lie to that suggestion.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Sir Ian Lloyd: No. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but there is no time for me to give way to him.
  Does the existence of racial discrimination or ethnic violence justify sanctions anywhere? If so, where does it stop? Who comes next? With whom do we not trade or communicate when this problem has been solved? Not many members of the United Nations would qualify, according to the conditions that we are trying to impose on South Africa.
  There are two phrases in the Opposition motion with which I cannot agree. They are "the dismantling of apartheid" and
  "the basic structure of apartheid remains intact."
  In 1947, there was a most offensive legal institutionalisation of segregation and discrimination, which caused everything that has happened since. South Africa was then one of many countries with segregation; it was endemic in an imperfect world. Between 1939 and 1945, this very imperfect world lost 20 million to 30 million people, and 30,000 of those who died were South Africans who wanted to defeat the Herrenvolk concept. The people who introduced apartheid in 1947 grotesquely underestimated the reaction of the civilised world to what they were doing.
  By definition, therefore, all the legislation that has been passed since 1947 should be dismantled. I wholly share that view, but the ANC is asking for the repeal of all legislation passed since 1910. That may be desirable, but it is a very different proposition. It is like asking Mr. Gorbachev to atone for history by dismantling the USSR

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  and all that has happened there since 1917. Both are utterly impractical and both are beyond possibility. It is an unrealistic, naive and fatuous policy which implies that we have a right to sit in judgment. I do not think that we have.
  Therefore, I wholly and fully support the Government's policy. I also support the first three lines of the Opposition's amendment, which have very much in common with the Government's policy. I hope that all my hon. Friends will go into the Lobby tonight and give the fullest possible support to the Government.
  6.32 pm
  Ms. Diane Abbott: I want to refer briefly to three themes that are uppermost in the minds of the public as they consider the recent events in South Africa: jubilation, expectation and apprehension.
  If last weekend's events are the fruits of anything, they are the fruits of years of unsung, unselfish campaigning by ordinary people, black and white, through picketing, collecting signatures and lobbying Members of Parliament. I know many people, black and white, who have dedicated their lives to a free South Africa. If the release of Nelson Mandela is a tribute to anything, it is a tribute to all those campaigners, black and white, in Britain and throughout the world. His release has created jubilation among them.
  There is also a sense of jubilation among many young black people in Britain. They are often told who their heroes should be, but for many young black people their supreme hero is Nelson Mandela, because of the example that he has set of fortitude, courage, bravery and commitment. He has shown young people what it is to be a black man in the 1990s. Above all, there is a feeling of jubilation among ordinary black people in South Africa, who for generations have borne the brunt of the brutality of apartheid.
  There is a sense of expectation, because a free and democratic South Africa might lead to hope for the whole continent. A free and democratic South Africa, with its huge natural resources and its level of industralisation, could help to raise economic standards throughout the continent. There is expectation, too, among many hon. Members and those outside the House that we shall live to see Nelson Mandela as head of state in a free, democratic and non-racial South Africa.
  There is also apprehension, due to a tiny Fascist element among the white population in South Africa. They will fight as fearlessly and ruthlessly as the Algerian settlers fought, but to as little purpose. However, they will cause enormous disruption and there might be great bloodshed. One wonders whether the police and the army are really under the control of the state.
  Although there has been much talk about fear of a white backlash, I urge the Secretary of State to look northwards to Zimbabwe. I had the privilege of visiting Zimbabwe two years ago. After one of the most bitter civil wars, it is a tribute to the essential humanity of African people that both black and white people live side by side in peace in Zimbabwe. Ian Smith can walk the streets without a police guard. We should not, therefore, be too carried away by talk of threats to the white minority.
  There are many different groupings and many different tribes. The possibility therefore exists of upheaval, of the exploitation of tribalism and of the policy of divide and
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  rule. If Ministers accuse the Opposition of irresponsibility in supporting sanctions and of wishing the armed struggle to continue, what do they say to President Bush, who has stated that sanctions cannot yet be removed?
  The overwhelming feeling in the hearts and minds of us all when we saw Nelson Mandela walk out of prison after 27 years was jubilation. It proved to the Opposition that there is no power on earth that can keep down a people who are determined to be free.
  6.36 pm
  Mr. Donald Anderson: During the last few months, we have savoured sweet moments of history. The Berlin wall is down; the Brandenburg gate is open. Now the most important political prisoner of our day has been liberated. Who can forget, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) has just said, the joy of seeing Mr. Mandela step that grand step into freedom? He can play a unique role in the transition from the old to the new South Africa. His royal progress culminated in yesterday's rally and triumphant homecoming in Soweto. His appeal for discipline and dignity was echoed by the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) and other contributors to the debate.
  The historic grandeur of that moment of joy was not matched by the British Government's response. After her ritual expression of pleasure, the Prime Minister, true to form, rushed into a call for the easing of sanctions. She had already abandoned unilaterally some of the sanctions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) mentioned the new investment. That cannot be justified legally. The sanctions relating to scientific and cultural exchanges that have already been abandoned ought properly, had we been true partners, to have been taken to the Commonwealth and the European Economic Community.
  I remind the Foreign Secretary of the preface to the 1986 Commonwealth Nassau statement on scientific and cultural exchanges:
  "For our part, we have, as an earnest of our opposition to apartheid, reached accord on a programme of common action as follows:
  That is very different from a unilateral abandonment of sanctions. Similarly, the preface, agreed with our EC partners, on the discouragement of scientific and cultural exchanges says:
  "the Ten and Spain and Portugal have decided to harmonize their attitudes on the following measures".
  Again, that would be working in partnership with our colleagues.
  The tragedy for Britain of the unilateral enunciation is not only that it spurns our colleagues, but it gives a clear and wrong signal to white and black in South Africa. To the white reactionary element, it says effectively that we are ready to yield at an early stage. To the blacks, it only underlines what they have known all along—that the Prime Minister is ever ready to protect the reactionary element against the wrath of world opinion. The Foreign Secretary and the Minister of State must know in their hearts as they speak to our people in South Africa just what damage is being done to our work among the black community, which will be the South Africa of the future, by the image which the Prime Minister gives.
  We know that policy on South Africa comes from No. 10 and that the Foreign Office is increasingly marginalised.

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  The Foreign Secretary and the Minister of State know the damage being done by the attitude of the Prime Minister. It has confirmed the view in South Africa that her passions are stonger against sanctions than against apartheid. Indeed, she fails to recognise that apartheid itself amounts to sanctions against the majority in South Africa.
  When Mr. Mandela, as a black South African, stepped out into freedom, it was in many ways the unfreedom of all black people in South Africa. Sanctions must be maintained, as a continued pressure for change and as an indication of the international resolve to end apartheid, until we are further down the road, when the momentum to negotiate is well under way. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said:
  "I do not think that sanctions have achieved anything".—[Official Report, 13 February 1990; Vol. 1967, c. 140.]
  Let her tell that to the business community, the Anglos and others in South Africa, and see how they respond.
  The Prime Minister does not recognise that she is on her own, not only in Europe, but in respect of President Bush. Worse, in regard to our international stance, she is gratuitously using up our international goodwill, as, sadly, she has done in another sphere in her response to German unification, again by gratuitously irritating our allies in Europe and in the German Federal Republic. It cannot be good for British foreign policy to be thus isolated. Gareth Evans, the Australian Foreign Minister, said it all when he said that the Prime Minister is "isolated and irrelevant".
  Already, in December 1989, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) said, we had entered reservations in what was otherwise a consensus resolution at the United Nations. That is why I believe that I speak on behalf not only of the official Opposition but of the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel), who spoke for the Liberal party and who has played such a distinguished role in the fight against apartheid, when I say that it cannot be good for Britain that we are now seen by those who have struggled over the years for freedom in South Africa as the major protectors of a system which has done so much damage to them.
  In that context, given the past protection of the white minority, and given the fact that the Government have refused to meet ANC leaders and that the Prime Minister has called the ANC "just another terrorist organisation", with her real passion coming from attacks on the ANC, is it not clear that the Prime Minister's invitation to Mr. Mandela to visit this country is both naive and impertinent?
  The purpose of the debate is not just to expose the Prime Minister and to show that we are alone, but to take the opportunity to affirm to the world that there is a different view from that of the Prime Minister, as we have seen from the courageous speeches of the hon. Members for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook), Hertford and Stortford and others. We want to reaffirm to the world that the majority here are progressive and concerned, and rejoice with the underprivileged majority in South Africa at the liberation of their great leader. We know, as they do, that it would be wrong to lift sanctions, because sanctions have been one of the key factors which have led to change.
  Events since 2 February have raised hope that the bloodbath which the Eminent Persons Group of the Commonwealth foresaw in 1986 may not come to pass.
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  That, in part, is the result of the vision of President de Klerk and the integrity to which Mr. Mandela himself paid tribute. Indeed, those two men can play a key role in history, President de Klerk as, hopefully, the last white President of South Africa and Mr. Mandela as, hopefully, the first black President of that country.
  In passing, if the whites in South Africa have apprehensions, let them look over the border to Namibia and remember the dire predictions about the whites fleeing from Namibia and about the economy collapsing. What do we see now? A democratic constitution was agreed last week as a prelude to independence, which will take place on 21 March. There is major investment by the international community in that country. In our judgment, it is a model for what can happen across the border in South Africa if only we have men of vision able to carry forward the dialogue to the new South Africa.
  Having spent many weeks in South Africa over the years, I never fail to be amazed at the capacity of the blacks to forgive, as we have seen in Zimbabwe. For that I have great respect. Part of the tragedy of British foreign policy in past weeks has been that the Government, in the shape of the Prime Minister, have identified us with the old regime at a time of rapid change. The Prime Minister takes the reluctant Foreign Office with her. By contrast, we identify with the new, and with those who seek fundamental reforms in South Africa, who seek an end to apartheid and who want to use the vast potential of that country for the benefit of all its citizens.
  6.47 pm
  The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. William Waldegrave): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) who, if we remove the obligatory rude remarks about the Prime Minister which have to decorate every Opposition speech, made many points with which I can agree.
  I shall start with a secondary issue raised by the Leader of the Opposition—the question of isolation. It is a secondary issue because, if we could win the argument that the action that we are taking is right, it does not matter that we are alone. A radical party such as the Labour party should be wary of saying that we always have to move in total consensus. A radical party would find itself in an odd position if it believed that that was so. The argument is about whether we are right. As the Leader of the Opposition asked what will happen if we are isolated in the European Community, let me make matters clear, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did. Of course, we are obliged, and willingly accept the obligation, to consult our partners in the European Community, which is what we will do on 20 February. If we fail to reach agreement, the Government must reserve the right to act on their own, if necessary. That is the legal position.
  The much more fundamental argument that goes to the root of whether we are doing the right thing has been mentioned on all sides, and it was raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Reigate (Mr. Gardiner) and for Havant (Sir I. Lloyd). There is a profound sense in which we are not isolated. No one doubts for a moment that it has been the policy of the ANC to argue for comprehensive sanctions; it is unclear whether the Labour party is still arguing for comprehensive mandatory sanctions. But that is a legitimate argument.

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  Many people in South Africa and elsewhere who have perfectly good credentials to argue against apartheid take a different view. It was quite fair for my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate to refer to opinion polls among the blacks in South Africa, and it is fair to refer to the views of Chief Buthelezi.
  It is obvious that Mr. Mandela will be a key player. Many take the same view as the hon. Member for Swansea, East that he will be the key player, but he is one voice among many in a complex situation, rightly defined in a formidable speech by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) and an excellent short speech by the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott). We often oversimplify such issues, and one of the dangerous oversimplifications is to say that the ANC is the only voice of South Africa.
  As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made perfectly clear, we are not arguing for the abolition of all sanctions. No one is arguing that we should abolish the sanctions on arms sales, for example. As the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) said, until the end of the speech by the hon. Member for Swansea, East, no one on the Opposition Front Bench tried to deal with the issue at the centre of our case. Is it not right to try to make some response to the steps that Mr. de Klerk has taken? My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), in an intervention, at least produced an argument—the first that I had heard against doing that—which was taken up by the Leader of the Opposition. He said that we might strengthen the hand of the Right wing by doing so. I agree with the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington that we should not make too much of the white backlash, although comparisons with settlers in Rhodesia who always knew their status and the Boers in South Africa are a little dangerous. However, while President de Klerk has the present constitution, he must show his own constituents that it is worth their while following him.
  The Leader of the Opposition asked whether there have been any requests from South Africa. The South African Government have made it clear that they desperately hope for some response to the steps that they have taken. They are not unrealistic; they do not believe that they will get very much, but they want some response so that they can demonstrate to their own constituents that it is worth continuing down that road. Surely that argument is at least worth considering. Our emotional commitments against apartheid should not make us doubt our role. It is better that it be done by consensus, but that is not always possible. We have to find a policy, not simply an emotional response, and our policy is to push, press and argue that negotiations are the way forward.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman did not give way. I shall respond to his important speech in a moment. I have only 12 minutes left to speak.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Waldegrave: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) who did not get in earlier.
  Mr. Nellist: As I have now been reselected, perhaps I can turn up some dangerous ground. I knew that I would be in a better position with the Minister than I was with the
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  Foreign Secretary. I shall ask the Minister the same question as I would have asked the Secretary of State. How can the Government ask the ANC to make concessions, following Mr. de Klerk's announcement and the release of Nelson Mandela, when the largely cosmetic changes that were made about segregation do not belie the fact that the Group Areas Act and the Labour Relations Act are still in force in a country where some people do not have a vote? Most important from my point of view, as I represent the interests of trade unionists internationally, there is still a system in which poverty wages down the pits, in the factories and in the townships mean that millions of people live in misery. Until those problems are solved, how the hell can the Government ask the ANC to make any more concessions?
  Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman's points were dealt with in the speech of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes), which I shall turn to next, paying tribute in passing to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery). I am sure that my right hon. Friend is right that the background of world politics has contributed to changing the attitudes of both sides in South Africa. No one is immune from the spirit of the possibility of peace and negotiation that is sweeping the world. The attitude of the Communist party in Russia to its connected parties in South Africa has been very important.
  Mr. John Carlisle: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Waldegrave: I shall not give way as I must deal with the speech by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North.
  Like the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North asked how we could take such a step before the pillars of apartheid had been destroyed. That shows a complete misunderstanding of the European Community sanctions. I beg the hon. Gentleman to read once again the preamble to the 1986 decisions which were designed to bring about national dialogue across the racial barriers. As Mr. Mandela, among others, says, we are now approaching that—[Interruption.] I quoted it yesterday and my right hon. Friend quoted it earlier. As usual, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) comments from a sedentary position. If he still does not know the truth, I shall send it to him and he can learn it by heart.
  The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North said that what has happened is all cosmetic—the words of the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East—because the really big things such as the dismantling of apartheid are not up for negotiation. That is where he and I disagree. Perhaps he and Mr. Mandela divide on this issue, because when Mr. Mandela talks about integrity, he is surely saying that he trusts President de Klerk to negotiate those issues. Mr. de Klerk's spokesman, the Minister of Constitutional Development, reiterated the points of agreement with Mr. Mandela and said that they now have a climate conducive to a negotiated settlement. Mr. Viljoen made those points, and President de Klerk agreed with him again today that they reject any system of white or black domination—or any domination of one group over another. On the two most fundamental issues of all they say that the remains of apartheid—although some of us believe that the most important parts of the structure still remain—must be removed. Whether they are remains or pillars of apartheid, they must be removed. Even the South African

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  Government Minister believes so, and that will be included in the negotiations. Finally, Mr. Viljoen said that they were aiming for universal suffrage in a united democratic South Africa, and President de Klerk reaffirmed that in television interviews today.
  If that is not putting the pillars of apartheid on the table for negotiation—if I can be excused a mixed metaphor—I do not know what is. The South African Government are making it clear that the door is open for talks; they are welcoming everybody, including the ANC, to those talks; they are not making unnecessary difficulties about the background of anyone to whom they wish to talk; and they are moving towards accepting the olive branch that has been offered by Mr. Mandela in terms of talking about defensive action. That is very close to the principle that we have espoused in the House of mutually winding down on both sides. The South African Government are cutting their defence forces.
  Against that background, with the talks ready to begin and the South African Government making it clear that what the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North calls the pillars of apartheid are the subject of negotiations, should we still behave as though nothing has changed? The British Government consider that a response should be made, as my right hon. Friend made perfectly clear, without sweeping away the existing pressures which are not fundamentally caused by the actions of any Government. We all know that what really shook South Africa was not the sanctions or any act of Government, but the actions of the commercial banks in their credit negotiations. Those banks and investors know very well that, unless South Africa moves, there will be conflict. That is why people will not invest there. It is not because the Twelve, the 24 or the Commonwealth tell them not to invest there; it is because they can see the truth. Now that there is a chance of movement and the hope that those investments will return, whatever anyone says, it is perfectly legitimate for us to say that it is pointless to discourage them. In the new climate it would be wrong to discourage them. We should look for some response to the steps that have been taken.
  For many years, the Labour party told us that the Government had caused a dreadful block because there were no sanctions. Labour Members cannot now argue that the fundamental changes have been brought about by sanctions which they have repeatedly argued in the House have no more than symbolic power. They try to have the argument both ways, but logically they cannot.
  I hope that the powerful speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) and for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) laid to rest any claims that the concerns about apartheid are felt by only one side of the House. There is no Member of the House who is not committed to the destruction of apartheid. The arguments are entirely about the tactics and how to make the transition without the revolutionary destruction of the economy and potential of South Africa that could all too easily come about. That is why I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote for the Government amendment.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 214, Noes 278.

  Division No. 74]

  [7 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Allen, Graham

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Alton, David

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Anderson, Donald

  Gordon, Mildred

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Gould, Bryan

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Graham, Thomas

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Ashton, Joe

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Hardy, Peter

  Barron, Kevin

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Battle, John

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Beckett, Margaret

  Haynes, Frank

  Beith, A. J.

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Bell, Stuart

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Henderson, Doug

  Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

  Blunkett, David

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Boateng, Paul

  Home Robertson, John

  Boyes, Roland

  Hood, Jimmy

  Bradley, Keith

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Howells, Geraint

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Hoyle, Doug

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Buchan, Norman

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Buckley, George J.

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Caborn, Richard

  Illsley, Eric

  Callaghan, Jim

  Janner, Greville

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Johnston, Sir Russell

  Canavan, Dennis

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Clay, Bob

  Kennedy, Charles

  Clelland, David

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Cohen, Harry

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Coleman, Donald

  Lambie, David

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Lamond, James

  Corbett, Robin

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Leighton, Ron

  Cousins, Jim

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Crowther, Stan

  Lewis, Terry

  Cryer, Bob

  Litherland, Robert

  Cummings, John

  Livingstone, Ken

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Livsey, Richard

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Dalyell, Tarn

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Darling, Alistair

  Loyden, Eddie

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  McAllion, John

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Dewar, Donald

  McFall, John

  Dixon, Don

  McKelvey, William

  Dobson, Frank

  McLeish, Henry

  Doran, Frank

  Maclennan, Robert

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  McWilliam, John

  Eadie, Alexander

  Madden, Max

  Eastham, Ken

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Marek, Dr John

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Fearn, Ronald

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Maxton, John

  Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

  Meacher, Michael

  Fisher, Mark

  Meale, Alan

  Flannery, Martin

  Michael, Alun

  Flynn, Paul

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'I & Bute)

  Foster, Derek

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Foulkes, George

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Fraser, John

  Morley, Elliot

  Fyfe, Maria

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Galloway, George

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Mullin, Chris

  319

  Murphy, Paul

  Snape, Peter

  Nellist, Dave

  Soley, Clive

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Spearing, Nigel

  O'Brien, William

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  O'Neill, Martin

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Strang, Gavin

  Patchett, Terry

  Straw, Jack

  Pendry, Tom

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Pike, Peter L.

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

  Prescott, John

  Turner, Dennis

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Vaz, Keith

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Wall, Pat

  Radice, Giles

  Wallace, James

  Randall, Stuart

  Walley, Joan

  Redmond, Martin

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Richardson, Jo

  Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Ruddock, Joan

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Salmond, Alex

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Wilson, Brian

  Sheerman, Barry

  Winnick, David

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Worthington, Tony

  Short, Clare

  Wray, Jimmy

  Sillars, Jim

  Skinner, Dennis

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie and Mr. Allen McKay.

  Smith, C. (Isl'ton & F'bury)

  Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Carrington, Matthew

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Carttiss, Michael

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Amess, David

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Amos, Alan

  Chapman, Sydney

  Arbuthnot, James

  Chope, Christopher

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Churchill, Mr

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

  Ashby, David

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Atkins, Robert

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Atkinson, David

  Colvin, Michael

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Conway, Derek

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Batiste, Spencer

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Cormack, Patrick

  Bellingham, Henry

  Couchman, James

  Bendall, Vivian

  Cran, James

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Critchley, Julian

  Benyon, W.

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Curry, David

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Body, Sir Richard

  Day, Stephen

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Devlin, Tim

  Boswell, Tim

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Bottomley, Peter

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Dover, Den

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Dunn, Bob

  Bowis, John

  Durant, Tony

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Dykes, Hugh

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Eggar, Tim

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Brazier, Julian

  Evennett, David

  Bright, Graham

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Fallon, Michael

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

  Favell, Tony

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

  Burns, Simon

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Burt, Alistair

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Butler, Chris

  Forman, Nigel

  Butterfill, John

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Forth, Eric

  320

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Freeman, Roger

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  French, Douglas

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Gale, Roger

  Mills, lain

  Gardiner, George

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Gill, Christopher

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Moss, Malcolm

  Gow, Ian

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Mudd, David

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Neale, Gerrard

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

  Needham, Richard

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Grist, Ian

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Grylls, Michael

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Hague, William

  Norris, Steve

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Page, Richard

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Paice, James

  Hannam, John

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Harris, David

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Pawsey, James

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Hayes, Jerry

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Hayward, Robert

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Price, Sir David

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Redwood, John

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Hill, James

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Hind, Kenneth

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Holt, Richard

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Rost, Peter

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Rowe, Andrew

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Irvine, Michael

  Shelton, Sir William

  Irving, Sir Charles

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Jack, Michael

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Janman, Tim

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Jessel, Toby

  Sims, Roger

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Smith. Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Key, Robert

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Kilfedder, James

  Speller, Tony

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Squire, Robin

  Knapman, Roger

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Steen, Anthony

  Knox, David

  Stevens, Lewis

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Lightbown, David

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Lilley, Peter

  Sumberg, David

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Summerson, Hugo

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Lord, Michael

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  McCrindle, Robert

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Madel, David

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Mans, Keith

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N;

  Maples, John

  Thorne, Neil

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Thornton, Malcolm

  321

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Whitney, Ray

  Tredinnick, David

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Trippier, David

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Trotter, Neville

  Wilkinson, John

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Wilshire, David

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Viggers, Peter

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Wolfson, Mark

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Wood, Timothy

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Yeo, Tim

  Waller, Gary

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Watts, John

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Wells, Bowen

  Mr. Nicholas Baker and Mr. Irvine Patnick.

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
  Madam Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House salutes Nelson Mandela on his release and welcomes the constructive actions taken by President de Klerk to create an atmosphere conducive to negotiations with all parties in South Africa towards a non-racial constitution enjoying the support of a majority of South Africans; and believes these steps deserve a positive and practical response from the international community.
  Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given the total lack of regard in the previous debate for the real reason why the white Government in South Africa have retreated—namely, the heroic role of the black working class and the youth of that country—I give notice that I shall seek to prolong the debate by using the mechanism of the Adjournment debate.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): That matter has nothing to do with the Chair. All that I can say to the hon. Member is that I wish him the best of British luck.

  Rail Fares and Services
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): I advise the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.
  7.13 pm
  Mr. John Prescott: I beg to move,
  That this House condemns the Government's approach to British Rail and London Underground that has produced the poorest quality rail and tube services and the highest fares in Western Europe, and has left Britain's transport system unable to cope with the challenges posed by the Channel Tunnel and the Single European Market; believes that Britain's transport crisis is now so severe that it is doing severe economic and environmental damage to the whole nation; deplores the low pay and long hours which typify the average working period of railway workers; recognises the need to set tougher quality of service standards to ensure that real passengers enjoy a safer, more reliable and efficient service at a fairer price and have greater powers to demand redress when those standards are not met; believes that compared to the railway systems of other developed nations, British Rail deserves greater financial support from public funds; and resolves that these problems can only be solved by adopting a co-ordinated approach to transport policy, increasing the level of public service obligation and other grants paid to British Rail and London Regional Transport, and adopting a new approach to investment to ensure that all plans are judged on a common basis, taking full account of environmental, economic and social benefits for both users and non-users.
  This is the first proper transport debate since the new Secretary of State's appointment. Today, the Opposition will express the anger of millions of passengers who, after 10 years of cuts in subsidy and moves towards privatisation, are fed up with paying the highest fares in Europe for a dirty, unreliable and overcrowded railway service. The amendment paints a picture that is a million miles from the daily experience of millions of people who travel on our railway system today. The Government fail to understand that transport has become a major political issue, not only because the Opposition have chosen to make it so but because people feel helpless and frustrated at the scale of our transport crisis.
  The facts of a poor quality service are well documented and are available for all hon. Members to see in the various reports. A dossier of shame has been compiled. It shows that one in six InterCity trains—that is, more than 300 trains per day—are at least 10 minutes late, that 112 trains on Network SouthEast are cancelled every day because of staff shortages, and that more than 800 trains on Network SouthEast are more than five minutes late every day. The position on provincial services is even worse.
  Despite the fact that the number of passengers has increased by 10 per cent.—almost 70 million passengers—since 1983, there are 676 fewer carriages, which is about 50,000 seats, and 2,500 fewer locomotives in the railway system. With the increasing number of passengers on our rail system and with less seating capacity, it is hardly surprising that overcrowding has become so bad on Network SouthEast that on journeys lasting more than 20 minutes there must be at least one third of passengers standing before British Rail will put on an extra train—provided, of course, that there is one available and there are staff to man it.
  On London Underground, one in three escalators are out of order on any given day. Also, 551 tube stations were closed for all or part of a day in the past six months

  323
  because there were not enough staff to keep them open. An increasing number of stations are being closed at certain times because of dangerous overcrowding on platforms.
  The question for the House and for the country is why that has happened. Instead of having arguments about policy differences, it is fair to draw a comparison with the European experience. Other European countries have transport systems which move millions of people around, they have trains and buses, and it is fair to see how their Governments manage to provide a far better system. That is why many people in this country are increasingly angry. They go abroad and see the systems there, and they know that there is no need for the standard of service that they get in Britain to continue.
  Undoubtedly, one of the key differences is the financial framework. The level of Government grant in European countries is far higher and it maintains a better quality system. Almost uniquely in Europe, the present British Government have pursued a policy of reducing public subsidy. In 1983 it was more than £1 billion, but it has been reduced to £560 million this year and there is to be a further cut of £340 million by 1992. The Treasury has saved nearly £2 billion compared with the 1983 levels of support. British Rail now receives only one third to one half of average European financial support.
  The only way in which British Rail could compensate for such a massive loss of income is to pursue a policy of massive redundancies with the loss of more than 40,000 jobs, which has affected the quality of service. British Rail has also had to sell off assets—some very cheaply, as we recently saw in the British Rail Engineering Ltd. case about the sale of land, which is quite usual in privatisation programmes. Fares have risen by 24 per cent. in real terms in the past 10 years. That makes our fares the most expensive in Europe. An average 10 km journey costs twice as much in London as in other capital cities in Europe. That problem can be solved only by a very different policy.
  The Secretary of State inherited a major problem, and it was hoped by many that his different approach might produce an entirely different policy. Opposition Members believe that a different policy is needed. As I shadowed the right hon. Gentleman on energy matters, I am bound to say that I did not believe that there would be any change in policy. He is a great man for explaining why things ought to be working and giving out the message, "It's the way I tell them."
  That is not good enough because the Government's policies are wrong. They are going in for presentation. That is always the Tory approach to problems. They regularly argue that there is nothing wrong with their policies, simply that the presentation is wrong. In this case, the Secretary of State, who has earned himself a name for presenting matters in a better way than his predecessor, has done his best to go in for better presentation.
  When the right hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) was replaced by the present Secretary of State—known as the Prime Minister's trouble shooter—I thought that a fresh mind was being brought to the urgent problems of the railways and that, as the right hon. Gentleman is good at PR, he might recognise, on studying the problems, that presentation and PR are not enough on this occasion. I regret to say that the right hon. Gentleman was brought in not to solve Britain's transport crisis but to improve the presentation and interpretation of Tory policies.
  324
  When Sir Bob Reid said that his job was not to run a service that was desirable but to run one that was profitable—he was talking about the Channel tunnel services—the Secretary of State explained to the House that he had been misunderstood. When Sir Bob warned that Britain's future as the transport hub of Europe was threatened by a lack of investment, the Secretary of State claimed that his speech had been widely misinterpreted.
  When I warned in a statement on rail fares that the downturn in the economy, with the slump in the property market, meant that British Rail would have to cut its investment programme by up to £500 million, the Secretary of State told "The World At One" that there had been a misunderstanding of the figures. His office asked for a copy of my press release, which highlighted the figures and he must have studied them in detail. The right hon. Gentleman with his background as an accountant presumably understands figures better than most, although that is not obvious from the presentation of his policies.
  Does the right hon. Gentleman deny, as I predicted a couple of weeks ago in regard to the corporate review and the Government's financial statement, that we shall be underfunded in the proposed £3·7 billion investment programme? I predicted cuts. Does the right hon. Gentleman deny the story in The Guardian this morning that trains are to be shortened and services scrapped? Is that another misunderstanding? I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will deal with that when he speaks in the debate.
  Such cuts have been happening throughout the system for a long time. Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that the electrification of the King's Lynn and Uckfield lines has been delayed, that station modernisation schemes have been shelved and that park 'n' ride schemes have been scrapped? Does he appreciate that British Rail's investment programme assumes a rate of economic growth that is twice the Treasury's prediction?
  The Secretary of State has assumed that the programme of investment will be protected and will not be cut. He said that in an interview that he gave to The Financial Times. If that is so, how is it to be financed? If the programme is to be maintained and not cut, who will pay for it? Can passengers expect a higher level of fares, or will more jobs on the railways be lost? Will the Government sell more railway assets? Or are the Government prepared to protect the railway system and provide more financial support?
  If the Government genuinely wish to support the railways—not claim that there has been another misunderstanding or misinterpretation—they will have to review the corporate plan that has just been announced by British Rail and the financial framework that has been announced to Parliament. I call on the Secretary of State to review that corporate plan. If he is to provide the investment that he and we wish to see in the British Rail system, that is vital.
  The Secretary of State claimed in an article in the Financial Times that the problem with me—and, I assume, many others—was that I did not understand the figures.
  "It's not my fault John's not an accountant",
  he said. That is true, though I have met many creative accountants who have been paid to present different positions on the same figures. The Secretary of State is a past master at doing that.
  The right hon. Gentleman's knowledge of accountancy did not do him much good when it came to electricity

  325
  privatisation because he constantly said in the House that there would not be any price increases. That claim was blown apart with the statement in the House last week, and particularly with what has happened over electricity privatisation and nuclear plants.
  The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Cecil Parkinson) indicated dissent.
  Mr. Prescott: I gather that the right hon. Gentleman disagrees with me. The record proves the correctness of what I say, including statements made by the right hon. Gentleman to the House and on television. I shall be only too pleased to provide him with the details of that record. His reputation on figures was not good in that respect, which is no doubt why he moved to the Department of Transport.
  Mrs. Teresa Gorman: Does the hon. Gentleman have an opinion about creative returns to the Customs and Excise by people coming through with cameras accompanied by false receipts.
  Mr. Prescott: I shall not enter into that issue. I would be prepared to discuss it with the hon. Lady, and I assure her that I felt as aggrieved as anybody else about that matter. Hon. Members will accept my reputation as one who has never entered into personal slights, and I regret that the hon. Lady has done so on this occasion. She will find that the House does not admire Members who get involved in that kind of slagging, on either side of the Chamber. Professional politicians are better occupied dealing with the substances of politics.
  Mrs. Edwina Currie: Get on with it.
  Mr. Prescott: Not much need be said about the egg woman. She has said enough already.
  Mrs. Currie rose—
  Mr. Prescott: I had better get on with the transport matters with which we are dealing.
  Mrs. Currie rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand that the hon. Gentleman is not giving way. If that is the case, the hon. Lady must resume her seat.
  Mr. Prescott: The country has not gained in the past from interventions by the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). I cannot see that anything would be gained by my giving way to her now.
  Mrs. Currie rose—
  Mr. Prescott: In the White Paper on London traffic we were again challenged on the figures—
  Mrs. Currie: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Surely it is not in order for an Opposition Front Bench spokesman to be so rude and personal about Members on the Government side when we simply wish to ask questions about the railway service and know the views of Opposition Members on that subject. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to refuse to give way on that basis? If so, it is thoroughly bad manners on his part.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. There are no Standing Orders to that effect. The hon. Gentleman made it clear that he was not giving way to the hon. Lady, so I cannot allow her at this stage to intervene.
  Mr. Prescott: No doubt the hon. Lady feels that she has said her television piece. People in glasshouses should not throw eggs.
  When it comes to judging estimates relating to prices, the Secretary of State does not have a good reputation. The House may recall an exchange that took place about the London road assessment figures and the judgement that rail prices would increase by 40 per cent. in real terms. That was contested by the Secretary of State at the time, supported by other Conservative Members.
  I have now seen the correspondence between the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) and it is clear that the right hon. Gentleman has had to concede that, judged in terms of GNP or price increases, our predictions are right. I have since checked my facts with the Library, and if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to deal with that in his speech, I shall be delighted.
  The Secretary of State's judgment is so faulty that he is making fundamental mistakes in his transport policy. Not only is there a fundamental difference between the two sides of the House about how we should approach the whole issue of transport, but there is that difference between all parties in the Opposition vis-a-vis the views of the Secretary of State.
  When discussing these issues with the Council of Ministers in Europe, the right hon. Gentleman must find himself isolated in the policy that he is pursuing. As we heard on Monday, the right hon. Gentleman is fond of talking about the situation in eastern Europe, especially on matters of intervention, integration and co-ordination. Every other country in Europe is pursuing policies different from his.
  The only crumb of comfort he seemed to gather was that the subsidies being put into their transport system by the Germans did not meet with his approval. But whether or not the right hon. Gentleman is proud of what is happening in Germany, the Germans have a far superior system to ours. That is the crux of the matter, especially as in Germany they are not talking about reducing their subsidies.
  The British Government are isolated in their transport policy. If it is a question of disagreement between the two sides of the House, I call in aid—to show that it goes deeper than just disagreement—some of the editorials that are now appearing in the press about the Government's policy in general and the Secretary of State in particular. For example, readers of The Daily Telegraph were told to be "wary of misunderstandings" and that the Secretary of State was taking
  "A pitifully myopic approach to our desperate transport problems."
  Presumably the writer meant to say that he was doing a wonderful job. The same newspaper claimed that the
  "luckless Transport Secretary" was in
  "possibly his last Cabinet post."
  The right hon. Gentleman no doubt interpreted that to mean that he was heading for the top—[Interruption.] Conservative Back Benchers need have no fear because I am now coming to them, and in particular to the hon.

  327
  Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark). After all, Back Benchers travel on the trains. I extended to the hon. Member for Selly Oak the courtesy of informing him that I would be referring to him. He said:
  "You get the feeling that Mr. Parkinson wants the Tories to lose the next election".
  He said that to tell inter-city commuters that they are getting travel too cheap was bizarre nonsense and that the Secretary of State was living in cloud-cuckoo-land. I am sure that the Secretary of State will say that, on careful reading of his hon. Friend's remarks, he is sure that he was widely misunderstood. I do not take that view. It is a clear and categorical statement about the Conservative party's policy on transport, particularly with regard to fares. As I have been told to keep to transport, I shall say that as an influential Back Bencher—[HON. MEMBERS: "Senior."]—yes, a senior Back Bencher or Front Back Bencher, whatever the hon. Gentleman's position is called, he made a trenchant criticism of the Government's transport policy.
  The Secretary of State is finding out that all the clever messages and nice images are not the way to solve major problems. I shall tell him why his message will have no effect on the electorate. The daily experience of British people is so bad—they know what they are experiencing—that they will not listen to such blandishments and messages. We could all give many examples, but I shall give the Secretary of State my experience on the railway yesterday.
  I had to go to Manchester to address a CLES conference on the future of British Rail. I joined one of BR's flagships, the Manchester pullman, at 8 am. The toilets did not work, the brakes were faulty, a boiler had failed and there were staff shortages. The train stopped and I looked out of the window and saw that we had been connected to the other British Rail flagship, the 7.50 Liverpool pullman, and were pushing it into Nuneaton. We arrived 40 minutes late.
  I returned on the 3 pm train, which had worn-out shabby coaches and brake problems and was an hour late arriving in London. I then joined the London Underground Victoria line system, but we were informed that it would not be stopping at Victoria. I bailed out at Green Park and got on to the Jubilee line, which the Secretary of State intends to abolish in one of his new proposals for cross-London links, but found that the escalators were not working. I managed to arrive at Charing Cross on the good old Northern line—as soon as the doors open, one always faces a wall of bodies through which one has to fight one's way on to the train—and took the Circle line to Westminster and was informed that there would be delays and cancellations because of shortages of staff.
  That tragedy of a journey was by no means exceptional. It is the daily experience of many people in Britain. We know that the Secretary of State"s experiences are somewhat limited. He told the Daily Mail when he took the job:
  "When all the fuss dies down I must get myself on a bus or train, I haven't been on either for years."
  In another interview we were told that he intends to travel incognito on the trains and tubes. I do not blame him for that. If he is recognised while travelling on a train or Underground, he will be in trouble. If he had been on the InterCity trains yesterday to and from Manchester and
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  people had seen him, he would certainly have been in trouble. Actually, of course, they did see him—on the front of the InterCity propaganda magazine which stated:
  "Parkinson's mission is to produce a balanced alternative."
  I wish that he had been on the train yesterday to explain the balanced alternative to interested commuters. I agreed that I would pass on their message. I would never use strong language, but I think that the Secretary of State gets my meaning.
  If the policy is wrong, what needs to be done? If we are to learn anything from the European experience, it is that the transport system needs more money. Whatever the argument—politicians cannot buck this—the Government must find more resources for the British Rail system. They cannot sack more people, sell more assets or put the fares up any more. More money has to be found. That is the reality and none of us can duck it.
  Whether it is expressed as a proportion of GDP or in the amounts of money involved, we give only a fraction of what other European countries give to their rail systems. The problems cannot be solved by real fare increases. The Secretary of State puts up the argument that long distance passengers are subsidised and should pay a great deal more. The answer to that argument came strongly from his hon. Friend the Member for Selly Oak, as I said earlier.
  The Confederation of British Industry estimates that road congestion costs us £20 billion. Not many years ago social costing justified putting more money into the railway system. What is so terrible in this country is that we do not judge rail and road investment in the same way. We make rail investment require an 8 per cent. return. For roads, we estimate how many accidents are likely to happen and the time that can be saved and justify millions of pounds of expenditure. A social cost approach for rail is essential.
  Mr. Parkinson indicated dissent.
  Mr. Prescott: The Secretary of State shakes his head. In a letter to The Guardian his hon. Friend the Minister said that there was no difference between the assessment for road and rail investment. I was surprised to hear that remark. It has always been generally accepted that there is a difference. I heard a speech in Manchester. Major-General Lennox Napier, the chairman of TCCC, the passenger consultative body, has always made it clear that the cuts in the public service obligation have affected the quality of services. That is what the passengers say and what the body set up to make the judgment says. He went on to make another point on cost-benefit analysis. He said:
  "I find myself an inspector of public enquiries on roads."
  He does both things:
  "I find myself presented with a cost-benefit analysis for road building which measures all the costs and all the benefits which accrue to society at large as a result of public investment over a 30-year period."
  I am surprised that until now no equivalent cost-benefit analysis has been applied to rail investment. The cost-benefit analysis system should be applied in determining investment and investments should be made in British Rail.
  I should like the Secretary of State to tell us who is right in that argument. Are his hon. Friends right? Is there a difference? If there is a difference, as most of us believe and most of the authorities have always said, would he

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  reconsider his position so that we can have a fair comparison when judging the investment criteria of the two Departments?
  Mr. David Evennett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Prescott: No, I have a problem with time. In the last debate I took an awfully long time.
  On subsidies, it is clear that there is a link between subsidies and the quality of service. I have given the authority for saying that and quoted my own direct experience. The Secretary of State argues, "Why should we subsidise services that are overcrowded?" We have a pricing policy which seems to be geared to driving people off the trains and on to our congested roads. We know the consequences and cost to the economy of congestion. We know the environmental cost of exhaust emissions of more people going by car. It must be desirable to subsidise rail services. Network South East will soon be the only urban rail network in Europe and North America which operates without any public subsidy.
  Mr. Roger King: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Prescott: The hon. Gentleman says, "Hear, hear." I note that he is from a midlands constituency. There is not much hear-hearing from people in the Network South East area.
  It is generally accepted that our fares are too high. In railway transportation it is not possible to secure all the operating and investment costs from the fare box and it is nonsense to attempt to do so. No other country has achieved that. Investment is absolutely crucial. There has been chronic underfunding throughout the 1980s. In both Labour and Tory Governments the Treasury's influence was such that the Government took a short-term view of long-term investment.
  The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. Michael Portillo): So the hon. Gentleman accepts that.
  Mr. Prescott: I have said it constantly. The Minister should look at the record. The last bulge in investment was in 1955. In various Governments, the Treasury has taken the view that investment could be put off and trains could be made to last longer. Now we have the bunching of investment. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Investment is crucial and necessary but it means that we did not have a sustained level of investment in British Rail over a long period. [Interruption.] Yes, it is bunching. We are investing today because of a bunching of investment requirements. I cannot argue with the fact that there is an investment programme. I fully accept it. It is hard to deny that a £3·5 billion investment programme is going on. [Interruption.] Of course there is investment. The engines and coaches are 25 and 30 years old. They cannot go any longer. Investment has to be made. Before Conservative Members start cheering I shall tell them the problem with the programme. Does any Conservative Member know of any industry that tries to cover a 30-year replacement programme in a few years and obtain all the money from the fare box? It is nonsense. It is not done anywhere. It puts the penalties on the passengers.
  France, Germany and Holland are investing far more in the railway revolution that is sweeping through Europe.
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  Throughout the 1980s, the French have invested heavily in developing the TGV and suburban networks. Some 30 per cent. of the cost of TGV and electrification schemes are met by Government grants. The Governments give capital as well as revenue grants to the railway system. We should recognise that the same is critical for our system.
  If we are to have a railway system that is modern and meets the freight requirements of our industry and travelling public we shall have to find more investment for it—and larger sums than those available at present.
  The Minister for Roads and Traffic (Mr. Robert Atkins): Does the hon. Gentleman talk to his hon. Friends in the Labour finance team?
  Mr. Prescott: Yes, I do.
  There are different ways and different priorities in financing such measures. We would not follow the crazy road programme that the Government have embarked upon—[Interruption.] Yes, it is crazy because all that it has done is to transfer the money that has been saved from the public service obligation for railways across to the road programme. The Government have doubled the road programme at the expense of the rail passengers at the very time when we want people to come out of their cars and to use the railway system. That is the craziness of the Government's policy.
  At the same time, the Government have ignored passenger accountability. Passengers feel helpless and the quality of the service is declining. I note that the Secretary of State is talking about a "passenger service charter". I am glad to see that he is pinching some of the ideas of the Labour policy document that we sent to the Secretary of State. That is not the first idea that he has pinched from Labour's transport programme and it will not be the last. However, we welcome that because it means an improvement.
  If the Secretary of State really wants to help the passengers he will have to do something about the fares and about greater public financial support for the railways. I give him another bit of advice—he should establish an independent body so that passengers can complain about what is happening. We shall set one up under the auspices of a public interest commissioner, who will have the Power to investigate British Rail independently, allow passengers to make complaints, award compensation against British Rail for its failures, and give passengers a real chance to exercise their grievances.
  A modern railway system needs additional public financial support, and such a system is absolutely crucial if we are to relieve the congestion that is a major cost to our economy and to do anything about environmental problems. That is not an eastern European solution. It is a good, sensible solution that has been adopted by most western European countries, which have far better transport systems than we have.
  7.41 pm
  The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Cecil Parkinson): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  'congratulates the Government on developing a balanced transport policy which recognises the economic importance to the United Kingdom of its rail, road and air network; welcomes the biggest programme of investment in British Rail for 25 years and the massive increase in investment in London Underground which will relieve congestion and meet the increased demand which is the result of the economic success

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  of the United Kingdom; welcomes the demanding quality of service objectives set by the Government; welcomes the £1 billion which will be spent to ensure Britain's rail infrastructure is in place to service the Channel Tunnel when it opens in 1993; applauds the high priority that the Government gives to all matters of safety on transport; and welcomes its recognition of the importance of the environment in transport policy.'.
  We heard the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East, (Mr. Prescott) at his characteristic worst, full of bluster and wild promises. He may not have read the speech made yesterday by his hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in which she said that the Opposition were determined to avoid any commitments to any major public expenditure programmes. She subsequently said that transport was one of a number of priorities—I repeat, "one of".
  In the past 24 hours, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East has promised to repeal section 42 of the Channel Tunnel Act 1987, and has said that a Labour Government would underwrite the cross-Channel link. I hope that he cleared that with Sam McCluskie, who will find out today that his favourite son is planning to subsidise the competitors of the ferries and hovercraft on which his members depend for their living—[Interruption.] As I said, I hope that the hon. Gentleman cleared that with his friend Sam; otherwise, he might find tomorrow that he is no longer sponsored, which would be a terrible, terrible shock. The hon. Gentleman also made a series of wild remarks, implying that the subsidy under Labour is bound to increase enormously and that it will be centrally funded.
  Over and over again, we hear the hon. Gentleman whingeing. It is not for nothing that he is called the prince of whingers in his time. It is not for nothing that he is universally distrusted and, if I may say so, fairly widely disliked. It is not for nothing that neither we nor the country take him seriously.
  The hon. Gentleman made a modest claim tonight. He said that it was as a result of the Labour party's efforts that transport has suddenly become an important subject. I shall tell him why transport is an important subject—
  Mr. Prescott: The Secretary of State was not listening.
  Mr. Parkinson: The hon. Gentleman should check Hansard.
  Transport has become an important subject because, under a Conservative Government, this country has enjoyed 10 years of substantial economic growth. On the personal level, the net result is that 5 million more motor cars are now on the roads; two thirds of families in this country now own a family car, and 20 per cent. own more than one.
  There has been a huge increase in economic activity, which has resulted in a great increase in the movement of freight and commercial traffic around our country. In London alone, there has been a 30 per cent. increase in the use of light commercial vans. I do not know of any plans—even by the hon. Gentleman—for getting light commercial vehicles on to buses, which seems to be the hon. Gentleman's answer to pretty well everything else. There has also been a huge increase in the number of people travelling by rail, air and road as the country has become more prosperous.
  Another factor is that the Government have been determined to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors,
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  who set out on ambitious programmes that they could not sustain, running the country into an economic mess and subsequently slashing all the capital investment programmes on which they had embarked. We were determined that that would not happen. As the country has become more prosperous, so the investment programmes, right across the whole spectrum of the infrastructure, have been improved.
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing: The Secretary of State has made great play of the importance of those economic benefits to the whole community. Will he therefore tell me why there is such deep concern in my part of the country, where there is no clear investment programme on either the roads or the railways that would ensure that we in the north-east and in the highlands and islands of Scotland can benefit from 1992? What are his Government's direct plans for Scotland to ensure that we have the road and rail network that we merit?
  Mr. Parkinson: As the hon. Lady knows, roads in Scotland are the responsibility of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. However, the train system in Scotland is my responsibility and a substantial investment programme is planned for ScotRail. A huge subsidy is being spent to maintain the rail system. The Government accept the need to maintain that system—
  Mr. George Foulkes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Parkinson: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I want to get on—
  Mr. Foulkes: Will the Secretary of State give way on that very point?
  Mr. Parkinson: No, I want to get on with my speech.
  As a result of the country's increased prosperity—I am glad that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East, started to admit that—there has been a huge increase in investment across the whole spectrum of our infrastructure. Our road programmes are running at a high level. Investment in the Underground, at £400 million per year, is at twice the level when the Labour party controlled it through the Greater London council. Next year, that figure will increase to 3·5 times the amount that was spent in 1984–85. We are also investing the highest amount for over 25 years on the rail network. The investment programme for the past three years represents a 26 per cent. increase over the previous three years and, as I have said, 1989–90 represents a record level of investment in British Rail.
  Mr. Foulkes: Is the Secretary of State aware that, in spite of active representations from an all-party delegation, which included his hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), his right hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), several of my hon. Friends, and hon. Members representing constituencies in Northern Ireland, British Rail is to go ahead with cutting the last sleeper service between Northern Ireland and south-west Scotland and Euston?
  That has tremendous political implications for Northern Ireland and south-west Scotland. The local authorities have come up with some resources to advertise and promote the service, and there is a great possibility that it will be made economic. Will the Secretary of State

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  intervene personally, look at the case, and talk to the chairman of British Rail to see whether that vital service can be saved? If he does, he will gain a great deal of good will from hon. Members of all parties.
  Mr. Parkinson: I am aware of that problem, and the hon. Gentleman knows that the service was withdrawn because it was under-used. That is an operational day-to-day matter for British Rail.
  Sir Hector Monro: I am so glad that InterCity is profitable. However, should it remove one of the last rail links between London and Ireland just because it is the least profitable of British Rail services? British Rail has a duty to keep the main InterCity routes going.
  Mr. Parkinson: The service was withdrawn because it was not being used. I have never known what benefit it is to the public to keep a service going when the public do not want to use it. Running empty trains up and down the railway may give some people satisfaction, but I cannot see what good it does the public or the railways.
  The Government's policy on transport is straightforward and clear. It is to develop a balanced policy to improve all aspects of our transport arrangements. We have steadily built up two substantial programmes across the spectrum. For example, as a result of the "Roads for Prosperity" White Paper, the Government have recognised the need to improve the national road system. In spite of predictions from the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East and others about our lack of success in negotiations with the Treasury, this year we won a roads programme of £5·7 billion over the next three years—a 50 per cent. increase in real terms, which gives us a major programme.
  Hon. Members talk about the Channel tunnel and getting freight on to rail, but the Channel tunnel will be capable of handling only about 3 per cent. of our exports—97 per cent. of our exports will still have to leave this country by the traditional routes of ports and airports. The road system connecting those ports is a vital part of maintaining Britain's prosperity.
  The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East has at last admitted that the Government have approved the biggest ever investment programme for British Rail—£3·7 billion over the next three years—and £2·2 billion for the Underground. Other major public transport investment will be made. We have a record programme for the improvement of airports. Our air traffic control system will have £600 million invested in it to improve the capacity of our airways.
  Right across the spectrum, the Government are showing, in a controlled and sensible way, that they recognise the nation's transport problems and are making the investment to deal with them. We differ from the Opposition because we do not believe that strategic planners, drawing up strategic transport plans, are the people to determine the future of our transport system. They have an almost unenviable record of getting it consistently wrong. If the transport system is modernised, the public will be capable of making the choice about which transport method best suits it.
  Mr. Robert Adley: As my right hon. Friend has discussed road and rail, I shall continue the Scottish symphony. When there were bad floods in Inverness a year or so ago—
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing: And this year.
  Mr. Adley: Let us not discuss the weather in Scotland.
  When there were floods a year ago and the Inverness rail bridge was washed away, the damage done to the roads in that area was paid for by the taxpayer. However, British Rail was expected to pay from its own revenue for the repair of the railway bridge. Is that a fair and equal comparison between road and rail?
  Mr. Peter Snape rose—
  Mr. Parkinson: I shall not give way, because the hon. Gentleman will have the chance to make his own usual boring say towards the end of the debate. I do not see why I should make way for him now.
  Mr. Snape rose—
  Madam Deputy SpeakerOrder. I can hear only one hon. Member at a time.
  Mr. Parkinson: I shall deal with the argument about the lack of public contribution to investment. ScotRail receives a subsidy that represents more than 70 per cent. of the costs. The passengers on ScotRail contribute less than 30 per cent. Therefore, the taxpayer is making a substantial contribution to ScotRail.
  Mrs. Ewing: What is the answer?
  Mr. Parkinson: I have just given the answer, but the hon. Lady did not understand it.
  Opposition Members have been making great play about the level of this year's fare increases. The fare increases on British Rail are 8 to 8·5 per cent. and on London Regional Transport they are just over 9 per cent. There is one record that no Government will wrest from the Labour party. In 1975, the Labour Government increased fares by 50 per cent. in a single year. In no year under the Labour Government was any fares increase less than double figures—except, for some reason, the one that took place two months before the 1979 general election. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East has suddently become the great friend of the long-distance commuter, who pays about 40 per cent. of the standard fare to travel at peak hours. He pays less than the cheapest off-peak fare. That was regarded as unsatisfactory by British Rail, and last year it proposed that, over a three-year period, the discount should be reduced—not eliminated—from about 60 to 40 per cent.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because it is unfair to the rest of the travelling public to have heavily subsidised fares for people travelling in peak hours.
  The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East, in his normal wide-awake fashion, cottoned on to this two years late. It was announced two years ago, but it took him by surprise when the second stage was announced this week.
  The long-distance commuter, of whom there are 18,000, will still receive a substantial discount, but it will be smaller. His fares increase this year will be about 13·75 per cent. Another advantage for long-distance commuters is that they can choose when to pay the increase. Most of them, having more sense than the hon. Gentleman, trade in their season tickets a day before the fares go up, and

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  travel for an extra year at the lower rate. If the hon. Gentleman has no group to worry about than that one, he is a lucky man.
  Through the whole of the hon. Gentleman's argument runs the theme that fares should not have gone up. That would have meant that British Rail's losses would be increased, because it does not make a profit. If the fares had not gone up but the expenses had, the losses would have gone up, and therefore the taxpayers' contribution would have gone up because there are only two sources of revenue. The hon. Gentleman backs every wage claim that is made. and wages represent 60 per cent. of the expenditure.
  I shall quote a remark made by a more enlightened Labour Transport Secretary who had some experience of Government and running an organisation. The following statement was issued by the Labour Government in a Command Paper in 1977:
  "subsidies transfer the cost of a service from the traveller to the taxpayer or the ratepayer, and the traveller is often a taxpayer or ratepayer himself. To use subsidies to disguise from people the cost of the services they are paying for is pointless, and to subsidise richer people at the expense of poorer is perverse."
  Mr. Gerald Bermingham rose—
  Mr. Prescott: Who was it?
  Mr. Parkinson: It was the Labour Government. If the hon. Gentleman knew anything about government, he would know that White Papers are issued in the name of the Government collectively. That was presumably the voice of the Labour Government. At the time, the hon. Gentleman was scrubbing around on the Back Benches, and many people think that he was at his best in those days.
  Mr. Snape: The right hon. Gentleman should not be so personal.
  Mr. Parkinson: The hon. Gentleman devoted his speech to attacking my professional qualifications. I do not know what his are, if he has any. None of us knows what he did before he came here.
  Increasing British Rail's losses, increasing its subsidy at the taxpayers' expense or cutting investment would not be a sensible way forward. British Rail's services need to be improved, and the farepayers should make a contribution. There should be massive investment programmes. They are in place and they are being sustained. They will produce a better service, because British Rail will have better equipment at its disposal. We have set it service objectives that are designed to ensure that the passenger has a better deal—better punctuality, more cleanliness and more regular services.
  I found it objectionable that the hon. Gentleman should complain about the decline in British Rail's standards and its record last year. In the four previous years, British Rail had a record of improved punctuality and service.
  Mr. Prescott: No.
  Mr. Parkinson: Yes, look at the figures.
  Mr. Prescott: The figures are fiddled.
  Mr. Parkinson: There was no fiddle. The hon. Gentleman should try to remember what happened in 1989, when there was an unnecessary, mindless and
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  wasteful strike that ruined British Rail's reputation, cost British Rail £70 million and put at risk investment and jobs. The hon. Gentleman tacitly supported that strike throughout. The hon. Gentleman complains about an effect, the cause of which he supported.
  Mr. Prescott: So did the arbitration.
  Mr. Snape: So did the public.
  Mr. Parkinson: We listened to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East with no surprise but with a growing marvel at his nerve. He represented a Government who presided over British Rail's decline, who increased its losses, reduced its investment and saw the number of passengers go down.
  Mr. Prescott: Not true.
  Mr. Parkinson: Check the figures. They are there for all to see. British Rail's investment programme was slashed, and many believed that British Rail was in a state of terminal decline.
  It is under a Conservative Government that investment has gone in, performance standards have been set, new equipment has been bought, new signalling systems installed and stations modernised and lengthened. We shall preside over an improvement in a system over whose decline the Labour Government presided and which many believe they sponsored. I invite the House to reject the Opposition's insolent, ill-informed and aggressive motion, and to support the Government's amendment.
  8.3 pm
  Mr. David Marshall: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) on initiating the debate, which comes at a particularly opportune time to consider the bleak future facing Britain's rail passengers and railway workers. I also congratulate my hon. Friend on his excellent exposure of the failure of the Government's transport policies in general and railway policy in particular.
  The Government's amendment is a huge joke to any regular traveller. The Government want to be congratulated on developing a balanced transport policy, but what they have developed is balanced chaos in our rail, road and air networks. Passengers are crammed in like sardines on London Regional Transport's Underground and on many British Rail routes, paying ever-increasing fares which are arguably the dearest in the world, and worrying more and more about safety on trains and platforms—especially on platforms which are unmanned in order to save money.
  Sir David Mitchell: When the hon. Gentleman speaks about overcrowding on the London Underground, should he not take into account the fact that we have the largest number of people in work in our history and we cannot have that without a massive increase in the number of passengers? That is what is causing the overcrowding, not a reduction in the number of trains or inactivity by LRT. It is congested because many more people are travelling.
  Mr. Marshall: The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly valid point, but the Government are doing nothing to cope with the problem—quite the reverse.
  Congestion on our roads is bringing many of our city centres and many lengths of our motorway system to a

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  grinding halt, at a cost of billions of pounds. Perhaps the Secretary of State will say how many billions of pounds congestion on our roads costs the nation.
  We also have overcrowded airports. Heathrow has insufficient terminal capacity to meet the demand and the delays caused by air traffic control problems which resulted from a lack of investment in air travel control infrastructure between 1979 and 1987. I defy the Secretary of State to deny that that is the case. He cannot do so.
  Mr. Bermingham: The Secretary of State would not give way to me, but my hon. Friend has given me the opportunity to intervene while he is still here. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State, who talks of balance, shows no balance when considering the charges for the Mersey tunnel? Apparently, the Humber bridge's debts are to be written off by the Government because they must not fall on the local community charge payers, many of whom live in Tory constituencies. However, the cost of the Mersey tunnel will fall on the Merseyside community charge payers at a cost of £8 per head per year. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State shows a complete lack of balance?
  Mr. Marshall: Of course. I would go even further and say that there is an unanswerable case for the removal of charges on all estuarial crossings and toll bridges in Britain. I look forward to the day when such tolls are removed.
  The present investment programme in British Rail is welcome, but the tragedy is that there was no such programme between 1979 and 1987. There was nothing like the accelerated programme of the past two years. During those previous years, many of today's and tomorrow's problems were created as a result of the Government's deliberate lack of investment.
  Sir David Mitchell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that during the years to which he is referring British Rail was given consent for the biggest investment programme since steam gave way to diesel? Can he deny that? If that is true, does it not make nonsense of the point that he is trying to make?
  Mr. Marshall: No, I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's point. The Government underinvested in public transport, particularly in the railways, during those years. It is only now, because of the huge public concern about transport safety and the realisation that votes may be lost on transport issues, that the Government are committing those resources and additional investment to the railways.
  The public expenditure White Paper shows that the growth in passengers on LRT has almost completely tailed off over the past three years. That growth was largely generated by travelcards, sales of which have now evened off.
  On 7 June 1989 the chairman and chief executive of LRT and his chief officials appeared before the Select Committee on Transport, which I have the privilege to chair. The Committee was astonished to be told that the Underground in central London was so near to an intolerable level of overcrowding that fares would have to be increased to curb growth in passenger demand.
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  That is the exact opposite of what public transport should be about. It was also made clear to the Committee that there could be no major expansion of capacity until well into the mid-1990s or late 1990s. If that is not an abject admission of the failure of the policies of the past 10 years, I do not know what is. The Committee was so concerned about the position that it took the unusual step of publishing a report after that single sitting.
  When the Secretary of State appeared before the Select Committee recently, he was very dismissive of road pricing, which could take some cars off the road and compel people to use public transport. The right hon. Gentleman felt that that was a highly unattractive option. Why is a policy of pricing people off public transport, such as London Underground proposes to cope with overcrowding, seen as an attractive option? Such a policy can only lead to people being forced to use already overcrowded roads. Why should one option be unattractive to the Secretary of State but a comparable policy, apparently attractive to LRT's chairman, be deemed attractive?
  Mr. Parkinson: It is not part of Government policy to drive people either off the roads on to the Underground, or off the Underground on to the roads. If the hon. Gentleman will study Underground fares, he will see that that is the case, because they have not been increased in real terms for 10 years. They have on British Rail but not on the Underground. I repeat, it is no part of our policy to price people off the Underground.
  Mr. Marshall: I do not agree with the Secretary of State, and nor does my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody).
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The Secretary of State was the person who appointed the new head of London Regional Transport—
  Mr. Parkinson: Not me.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: The right hon. Gentleman's Department made that appointment. That chairman then told the Select Committee that LRT could not cope with the increase in the number of passengers and would price them off the Underground. When he was asked to reveal with which financial theory such a policy accorded, he was unable to answer, so we assumed that the source of that policy was the Department.
  Mr. Marshall: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point much more succintly than I could have done. I invite the Secretary of State and other Government Members to read the Committee's second report of last year.
  Following that meeting of the Select Committee, on 12 June, in a parliamentary reply the former Secretary of State said that he would have to hear convincing arguments from LRT before agreeing to pricing the public off the Underground. Is that the present Secretary of State's policy? Does it apply also to British Rail? In some ways the right hon. Gentleman answered those questions with his earlier intervention. Perhaps the Secretary of State or the Minister for Public Transport, when he winds up, will give an example of what he considers to be a convincing argument. Is it not the case that there will be a 33 per cent. cut in InterCity's subsidy by 1992–93, and that consultants considering public transport alternatives to

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  new roads in London were instructed by the Department's officials to assume a massive 46 per cent. real increase in fares by the year 2001? A report to that effect appears in this month's Railway Gazette International. How does that figure compare with the increased cost of private car use, which is estimated at only 9 per cent. by the year 2000? Is the increase linked to the removal of public service obligation subsidy completely? Will the Secretary of State come clean and tell the House what are his intentions?
  The Secretary of State's policy is to allow InterCity to operate as a private company, which means that it could take certain business decisions that were very much against the public interest—such as doubling long-distance commuter fares. Even if half InterCity's passengers were lost, revenues would be maintained while rolling stock levels would be reduced. Would the Government stand aside and allow that to happen? I would not put it past them.
  I return to the scandalous withdrawal of the Stranraer-London sleeper services to which my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) referred earlier—as did the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), who was apparently brashly dismissed by the Secretary of State. Despite all-party opposition from Members of Parliament representing constituences in south-west Scotland and Northern Ireland, no one in British Rail seems to give a damn what happens. Local authorities and other interested organisations are willing to commit themselves financially to helping the services, yet they are still to be withdrawn. Does that signal the beginning of the end of sleeper services between London and Aberdeen, Inverness and Oban, and perhaps even between Edinburgh and Glasgow? Will the Secretary of State agree not to withdraw those sleeper services and personally to examine the Stranraer service—and not hide behind the argument that that matter is entirely for InterCity to decide?
  Everyone knows that the Government are not very popular in Scotland because of their policies. Perhaps the Secretary of State can build up a little good will by giving a categorical assurance that no more Scottish services will be withdrawn, especially in rural areas. Will he consider the electrification of the east coast line north of Edinburgh to Aberdeen? Can he guarantee that Channel tunnel passengers from Scotland will have direct inter-line facilities in London, without having to change stations, from the day the Channel tunnel comes into operation? There is a strong suspicion that Scotland will not benefit, and nor will other areas, and that not all the necessary infrastructure will be in place when the tunnel opens. There is no such suspicion attached to the French operation. I for one am not in the least reassured by the Secretary of State's promise that everything will be all right on the night. I do not believe that we will be ready for the opening of the Channel tunnel.
  Most railway workers do a first-class job in all kinds of weather, working long and unsocial hours for low pay. Last year, they had to fight very hard for an 8·8 per cent. pay increase, yet the salary of British Rail's new chairman will increase from £92,000 to £200,000 per annum. Any Government, regardless of their policies, must acknowledge that the best way of improving services is to provide more financial support for infrastructure, and to pay railway workers decent wages and provide them with good working conditions.
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  The nation needs a properly planned, co-ordinated and integrated transport system. I make no apology for reiterating a longstanding trade union and Labour party transport argument. The nation needs a system that will take into account economic, environmental and social benefits for users and non-users alike. The Government will not provide such a system, but the next Labour Government will.
  8.18 pm
  Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: One would have more respect for the criticisms made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) and by his hon. Friends if they at least acknowledged some of the achievements of our transport system over recent years. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State acknowledged that many improvements need to be made, but one must acknowledge also those that have already been made.
  If I may say so in her absence, the intervention of the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) could not have been more wide of the mark. Roads in Scotland, of course, are the ultimate responsibility of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. I remind the hon. Member for Moray that the part of Scotland that I represent as well as the hon. Lady has seen road dualling between Perth and Aberdeen nearly completed, but she made no mention of that. In the last nine months, my right hon. Friend has committed himself to major improvements to the road between Aberdeen and Inverness, in the hon. Lady's own constituency.
  Mr. Adley: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I would rather not give way, as this is a short debate and I want to finish fairly quickly.
  I welcome my right hon. Friend's commitment to investment in British Rail, and to its continuation. Investment has increased in recent years.
  I want to concentrate on the concern in my part of Scotland about current plans to finish the electrification of the east coast line at Edinburgh and not to continue it to Aberdeen. The hon. Member for Shettleston mentioned this.
  We certainly appreciate that some £400 million has been invested in the east coast route. It has been the biggest single investment that British Rail has carried out in its electrification programme, and we are grateful for it, but it is only logical that it should be continued beyond Edinburgh to Aberdeen. I ask my right hon. Friend to do all that he can to ensure that it is completed.
  I know that I am talking about a further investment of some £80 million, but when one compares that with the hundreds of millions spent on the Channel tunnel, and the £200 million or more which is projected for the Heathrow link, it is no wonder that there is anxiety in our part of Scotland.
  People in areas north of Edinburgh are worried that British Rail has said that electrification is not justified. We welcome British Rail's commitment to consider the matter again.
  Why are we so concerned? The people in the north of Scotland want to take advantage of the Channel tunnel, as do other areas, and we want to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the integrated European market after 1992.

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  Under the present arrangements, the east coast main line is part of the integrated United Kingdom InterCity network. If electrification ends at Edinburgh, locomotives will have to be changed, and that makes many people think, rightly or wrongly, that the area north of Edinburgh will become peripheral. We will not share in the advantages offered by the improved journey time from London to Edinburgh. That journey is to be cut by 35 minutes, but the journey to Aberdeen, after allowing for the change of locomotives, will increase by 20 to 30 minutes. We do not count that as progress. We ask for our share in the 35-minute improvement in journey time that Edinburgh will get.
  Freightliner's terminals are being closed in Scotland, and four British Rail area manager's offices are closing. Therefore, my right hon. Friend should not be surprised at the kind of fears that I have expressed. They are genuine fears, and we do not want to see the north of Scotland become peripheral.
  Mr. Mark Wolfson: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Buchanan-Smith: No, I would rather not give way, because of the time.
  The Grampian region has a population of more than half a million. Tayside has 400,000 and Fife some 350,000, so we are not talking about peripheral areas. They have a large population and it is growing, which is a reverse of the national trend in Scotland. It is also an area of high economic and industrial activity. My right hon. Friend used to be at the Department of Energy, and he should not need persuading about the importance of that part of Scotland because of North sea oil.
  Would the investment be justified? British Rail says that its figures show that it would not, but the figures are only a little short of viability. I welcome the fact that they are going to re-examine the figures, and I hope that something positive will result.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) that this should be costed in socio-economic terms and not just economic terms. We want a full cost-benefit analysis, showing the benefit to travellers, the time saved, the reduced congestion on roads and other economic and social benefits to the local areas served by the line. I understand that that is how road investment studies are carried out, and how investment in harbours and ports is assessed. We ask for similar treatment for this line. The issue has real relevance in regional development terms, particularly if the whole of the United Kingdom is to benefit from the Channel tunnel.
  I remind my right hon. Friend that this kind of project is appropriate for external funding. Some 40 per cent. of the line goes through assisted areas. The inquiries that have been made of the European development fund show that it could be used. One of its purposes is to correct regional imbalance. Therefore, a considerable amount of funding could come from Europe, and I hope that advantage will be taken of that.
  More recently, a number of individuals and bodies have come up with the suggestion of private funding. Some of my hon. Friends have criticised the amount of money that
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  Scotland gets. However, people in Scotland are prepared to put money into a project such as this, and the chairman of British Rail is considering proposals at the moment.
  I ask my right hon. Friend to keep pressing British Rail about the project, and to facilitate it in every way that he can. We want an integrated transport system. The Scottish Office has improved roads in north-east Scotland beyond recognition in the past 10 years under the Conservative Government. Aberdeen airport is one of the busiest airports in Britain, and a lot of money and investment has been put into it. We want choice and competition in transport services, so we want the rail system to be improved, not hindered, so that it shares in the competition and offers choice to the user. That makes sense for regional development.
  I ask my right hon. Friend and the House not to forget that the area concerned services the generation of all the revenues from the North sea. We simply ask for a little of it back.
  8.26 pm
  Mr. Ronnie Fearn: St. Valentine's day is an appropriate day to discuss rail services. I am certain that the majority of the British public, and those who travel on British Rail and London Underground, have a love-hate relationship with the managements of those companies, and would rather put them in the stocks.
  The public know that the management are not the real culprits because their hands are tied, and they have no alternative but to do what the Government order. They know that profit and loss has to take priority over quality and service.
  Mr. Ian Bruce rose—
  Mr. Fearn: I shall give way in a moment.
  The recent astronomical fares increases are symptomatic of the Government's attitude towards anything that can be even remotely considered a public service. The ideology is to apply market forces, but in this case I do not think that that is going to work. Britain needs a comprehensive public transport system to meet the economic and trade needs of the 1990s, and the social and environmental needs of today and beyond.
  On Monday, during questions, the Secretary of State chose to give my right hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) a tongue-in-cheek response to his question about the need for an integrated transport system. Is the Minister aware that we are probably the only country in Europe that ignores the social and environmental public interest aspects of our public transport system, and probably the only country that does not view public transport as a public service, but thinks that its profitability, when it is run as a commercial organisation, is the only evidence that it is operating in the best public interest?
  The Secretary of State also said in his response that his Department was pursuing a balanced policy, with record levels of investment to improve all aspects of the transport system. He made it sound as though the Government had performed a great service, and that we should give them a pat on the back.
  Yet we know that the share of total capital invested in the railways today which comes from the Treasury is minimal. We also know that, in France, capital investment plans announced this year show that they are investing in

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  their railways at well over twice the rate of investment in Britain, and theirs is already a well-funded system. The cost of travelling on French railways will be cheaper. The French have seen the opportunities of 1992 and of the Channel tunnel, and have reached out to grasp them. We have not done that; our transport policy will hang around our necks like a millstone for the rest of time.
  What is required is planning, along with co-ordination, investment and financial support. Part of our policy should be a recognition that—properly developed and fully exploited, and with the dedicated reserved routes that they control—the railways can carry far more passengers and goods than the roads, using much less space, ensuring greater safety and causing less environmental pollution.
  What the system does not need is a massive fares increase, which will deter passengers and return them to the roads. In September 1978, the price of a standard return ticket from London to Brighton was £5·65; in September 1989, it was £16·20. Following the latest increase, the fare is 200 per cent. higher than it was when the present Government came to power.
  Hon. Members will want to know how inflation affects those calculations. Rail fares are rising faster than the inflation rate: the rise in the retail prices index over the same period was only 115 per cent.—which, of course, is nothing to be proud of. Passengers are being priced off the rails. Our roads are becoming more congested, with all the social, economic and environmental disadvantages that that creates. It is madness to build more roads in the mistaken belief that they will relieve congestion: the more roads that are built, the more cars there will be to fill them. It is nonsense for us to pursue policies that will inevitably bring our major towns to a halt.
  London Regional Transport's declared policy is to deter passengers, at least during peak hours. British Rail claims that it has never been part of its policy to turn passengers away, but the current fares increases will do just that. Today's press reports that British Rail is to make further cuts in services, and to shorten trains on Network SouthEast and the rural provincial lines, seem to confirm that its policy is to reduce capacity rather than increase it.
  Both groups point to the increased number of people they transport to dispute that fact, and to justify claims that services have been improved. The number of passengers has undoubtedly increased over the years, but that is probably due less to efforts to improve services than to the nature of today's society. More people are on the move: as communities break up, they travel further to work, do the shopping and engage in leisure activities.
  Many people have moved further afield to be able to afford their own homes. They have been hit hardest, especially in the present climate of high interest rates. The recent fares increases are the final blow, and many people may have to consider moving again or even leaving the home ownership market altogether. Moreover, those on low incomes who cannot afford to buy cars increasingly cannot afford to travel on public transport either. They are in danger of becoming isolated from the services they need, and of being unable to participate in the life around them.
  I referred earlier to the policy of encouraging off-peak travel. Of course, if LRT's attempts were entirely successful, the "off-peak" period would become the new rush hour. More to the point, there is a limit to the amount of off-peak travelling that is possible: flexible hours may have some advantages, but they too are limited—not only from a business point of view, but because they can be very
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  destructive to family life. As a frequent traveller on British Rail and London Underground, I am always rather sceptical when I hear talk of "off-peak hours", because the trains are always crowded when I travel on them, whatever the time.
  I have not said much about the quality of service on the railways. Certainly the astronomical price of tickets should warrant excellent service, but more often than not it does not approach such a standard. Trains are cancelled, run late, do not contain the advertised buffet car and are poorly maintained, and in some cases passengers have no idea what is happening.
  On my latest trip from the north, my train was an hour and a half late. When I questioned a member of staff, he said that the driver was ill and had not turned up in time. When I asked another member of staff who happened to be passing—admittedly he was on the catering side—he said that the train had not come out of the siding in time. Later, someone on one of the platforms said that the delay was definitely due to a landslide in Scotland. As it happened, none of the excuses was correct.
  Even when efforts are made to inform passengers, it is virtually impossible to hear, because the tannoy system does not work.
  Mr. Ian Bruce: Clearly a good deal of creativity is involved in the production of so many good excuses. If we privatised the railway service and gave it its head, it would improve considerably, as does any service in which British industry and enterprise are involved.
  Mr. Fearn: The hon. Gentleman has a point, but I think that the number of excuses would be reduced only if staff were paid a proper rate for the job. If British Rail had more employees, the service would be better. The problems are all symptomatic of a system that has been cut to the bone in the interests of cost efficiency, and that is not a good way in which to run a public transport system.
  I have mentioned the Secretary of State's reference to his Department's balanced policy. Last Monday, at Transport Question Time, he said that in the next three years the Government's roads programme would amount to £5·7 billion, and the rail, Underground and other public transport programmes to £6 billion. Does he really consider that a good, balanced policy? Spending on more roads has been justified through cost-benefit assessments, but no form of rail investment has been seen to bring such benefits.
  I note that it is now part of British Rail's objectives to undertake cost-benefit analysis to enable Government to justify capital grant for investment. I also understand that the payment of capital grant for non-user benefits has, in theory, been Government policy since 1987, but that policy has not been followed through in practice.
  Mr. Kenneth Hind: The hon. Gentleman's constituency and mine adjoin each other and we have common problems, caused mainly by traffic flow. Bypasses are needed to relieve the pressure on the villages in the area. A bypass has already been built in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, on the edge of Southport, adjacent to the new hospital that owes its existence to this forward-thinking Government. In the villages, however, and in and around Ormskirk and Southport, the public are asking for the traffic flow to be relieved. Surely it is only right for the Government to give that a high priority.
  Mr. Fearn: The hon. Gentleman and I agree on that, and we are both working towards the new road system leading to Southport. If the Minister had agreed to open the Burscough Curves, a flow of traffic from Scotland and the north would have opened up the north-west, and I hope that that will still be a rider. We know that the local authorities must get together, but Government money is needed as well.
  When does the Minister expect the first capital grant for non-user benefit to be made under the new objective? How does that fit in with the requirement for British Rail to operate in a commercial manner to ensure a return on investment of at least 8 per cent.? It is clear that transport costs should be reduced. To achieve this, we must invest in our railways.
  Investment in the railways could have a proportionately greater effect than investment in roads, and it could have greater environmental and social benefits. Other nations in Europe have seen that. Other nations have invested at a far greater rate than has Britain. Proportionately, they have invested more public money. It is time that we did the same. If we are to compete, if we are to benefit from 1992 and from the Channel tunnel, we must invest in our infrastructure. The railways and London Underground are part of that infrastructure.
  8.40 pm
  Mr. Simon Burns: The only thing more depressing than the simplistic motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition was the somewhat negative speech of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott)—a characteristic performance with nothing but dubious criticism. The hon. Gentleman tried to scale the heights, but did not quite get there. We heard nothing constuctive. Nor—and this is more important—did the hon. Gentleman's speech tell us anything precise about what the Labour party proposes to do about rail transport, or about where the money to pay for the very vague ideas spluttered out would come from. I remind the hon. Gentleman that in 1984 another politician—Fritz Mondale—went round the country criticising his political opponents but failing to come up with any detailed, constructive proposals of his own. People turned to him and said, "Where's the beef'?" I say to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East, "Where's the beef, Giovanni?" The British electorate want to know the precise details of the policy. We do not want simplistic solutions and flowery expressions in an attempt to con the electorate.
  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his admirable speech, not everything that British Rail is doing is now completely up to scratch. There is a good reason for that. Our railways were neglected in the late 1960s and the 1970s. There was under-investment and gross over-subsidisation. Opposition Members call for the investment of more taxpayers' money. That would not improve the service one iota; it would lead to inefficiency. The use of taxpayers' money leads to lethargy and to a total refusal to meet the demands or satisfy the needs of the customer. That is what British Rail has been suffering from, and that is why, until recently, British Rail was not providing anything like as good a service as its customers deserve and should have been getting.
  Mr. Adley: Does that apply to West Germany as well?
  Mr. Burns: My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) raises the question of West Germany.
  Mr. Martin Flannery: Yes, tell us about West Germany.
  Mr. Burns: Once again the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) seeks to intervene from a sedentary position. Many people regard the hon. Gentleman as the unthinking man's Alf Garnett. If he listened a little more in quiet, he might learn something and increase his knowledge of the subject.
  In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, I would say that it is too easy, too glib, to make comparisons between subsidisation in Britain and subsidisation in Europe. The railway debts that the British Government have written off have not been written off in Europe. That is why the subsidisation figures there are far higher than they are in this country.
  Mr. Adley: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Burns: I am sorry, but I cannot give way. Other hon. Members want to speak, and I am pushed for time.
  I would point out to my right hon. Friend that Chelmsford is one of the largest commuter towns in the south of England. I, too, have been a commuter, and I can say that the service lacks a number of elements. For example, the cleanliness of trains, despite the target, is not good enough. Neither is time-keeping.
  Mr. Prescott: Here come the complaints.
  Mr. Burns: Not at all. Before the hon. Gentleman gets carried away I shall explain that, despite those criticisms, there is investment pouring into British Rail and it is being reflected in the service. But because there is so much catching up to do, as a consequence of neglect in the 1970s, it is not possible to do everything overnight.
  Those lines in which there has been investment have seen the benefits of remarkably improved service. The Liverpool Street to Chelmsford line is not so good as it should be, but one can see that the investment there is beginning to bear fruit. New and additional trains are being introduced. Outdated rolling stock is being replaced with new carriages. More than £1 billion is being invested in Liverpool Street station. Of course, because of the building work, that station has been a nightmare for commuters in the last three years. The rebuilding is extensive, and when the station is up and running it will be a showpiece for London and will bring benefits for commuters.
  Within the last three years there has been a major rebuilding programme at Chelmsford station. My constituents will be delighted at my right hon. Friend's announcement at Question Time on Monday that a new signalling programme on the Shenfield to Chelmsford to Colchester line, costing more than £19 million, is to start early next year. That will bring real benefits to commuters and to the line when it is in operation in 1993.
  The crux of the matter is investment. What is needed is investment. That is why I welcome the fact that since 1983 the Government and BR have invested more than £3 billion in British Rail. [Interruption.] The Government and BR have invested more than £3 billion in British Rail, and during the next three years more than £3·7 billion will

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  be invested to improve the service. That is the way forward. That is the way in which we will get a better service. And we shall continue.
  My constituents accept that the fare increases that they have had to put up with over a number of years have been above the rate of inflation. But they are saying "Thank God we did not have the 50 per cent. increase in fares that was experienced during the time of the last Labour Government." Thank God, as a result of some of the increases in fares, they have seen improvements in the service. I remind the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East that they were less than amused when their fares went up again this month to pay for the strike last year that the hon. Gentleman endorsed and encouraged. That is the answer on fares.
  Perhaps the most powerful argument against the whole case for subsidisation comes from the Labour party consultation paper of 1977, which said:
  "Social, environmental and economic considerations do not seem to justify the large subsidy which railway users now receive, hearing in mind in particular that the generality of railway subsidies are regressive in effect."
  That is the truth of the matter. That is why it is right that there should not be further subsidisation just to cushion inefficiency. We cannot have a system of meddling and blanket subsidies; that benefits the rich far more than the poor. What we need is more investment. It is time that that was recognised by the Opposition. We should not con the electorate with subsidies. We should provide real benefit. We should improve the service through investment. That is the way in which British Rail is proceeding.
  In conclusion, I say to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East that the motion that he and his hon. Friends have asked the House to support should be rejected. It shows that the Opposition have learnt nothing, and that they propose to do nothing in the future if they ever get into power. The House should reject the motion and treat it with the contempt that it so richly deserves.
  8.49 pm
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Nothing delights me more than to hear a Conservative Member of Parliament say, with great fervour, that we must never allow the rich to subsidise the poor. From a party that has just introduced the poll tax, the effrontery is so amazing we can only sit and gawp. Almost every other European country has spent more on state assistance to its national railways than we have. We spend 0·22 per cent. of our GDP on state assistance to our railways. Luxembourg, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and even little Portugal, with its rundown system, spend more on their railways.
  We are told that British Rail is responding to the performance target set for it by the Government and that it will be able to introduce a much better service. The reality is quite different. Using 1989–90 prices, when the Conservative party took power in 1979 investment in British Rail was £518 million. In 1988–89, that figure has risen to £600 million. We are not talking about a tremendously impressive increase in investment. The Government decided, for dogmatic reasons, that they would not invest in British Rail and that they would reduce the passenger service grant. That led to considerable discomfort for passengers, although fares increased and services grew much worse.
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  I spoke last week to a member of the French Assembly who had been asked to produce a detailed report on transport for 1992. Shortly before that, I spoke to members of the German Parliament about their transport plans. A French Government transport official says:
  "For us the TGV is an Airbus on rails. It is competitive with air up to 500 kilometres. It gets cars off the road and it is clean."
  If other nations are prepared to spend more money on improving their services, why do we suffer from constantly increasing fares and constantly declining services? The reason is simple. The Government boast that they have allowed British Rail to increase its investment, but they have never said that they expect all that investment to be provided directly by passengers, through increased fares. They never refer to the fact that people who have had to move out of city centres to find somewhere to live have already had to bear considerable fare increases.
  We desperately need a Government who are prepared to face up to reality. The Government's transport policy takes no account of the fact that our road system is incapable of carrying all passengers and freight and that it has become bogged down to such an extent that even industry, when it is realistic, can put a figure on what the Government's policy is costing it. If asked, industry would make it plain to the Government that it wants a rail system that will provide a good alternative to our overcrowded roads.
  London's transport system is almost breaking down. Crisis management has led to the stopping of escalators on London Underground and people cannot get to the platforms. Passengers find it difficult to go from place to place at particular times of the day. They are forced to endure conditions on London Underground that are unacceptable in this day and age.
  The Government should not perpetuate their confidence trick by saying that they are investing more in the system when what they really mean is that they are prepared to allow British Rail to borrow more money, provided that passengers will put up with lower standards of service and higher fares. The Government say that they are committed to improving the transport system. The reality is quite the reverse. The passenger is paying, in every sense of the word. If Conservative Members of Parliament do not accept that fact, at the next general election they will be shown clearly what their constituents think of the Government's commitment, or lack of it, to a public transport system.
  8.56 pm
  Mr. Mark Wolfson: I intend to speak briefly about the railway line problems in my constituency and then to compare the United Kingdom network with those that are developing rapidly in Europe. The comparison is not favourable to this country.
  There are three railway lines in Sevenoaks. Year after year the Uckfield line has been unreliable and has continued to lose passengers. Electrification is essential if the line is to provide the service that passengers can reasonably expect. The north-west Kent lines run from Maidstone to Swanley, and the high-speed Channel tunnel link will feed into those lines. We shall debate that matter in more detail on another occasion. However, those lines, which run into south-west London, are already overloaded. British Rail has said that its Channel tunnel

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  link services will not be detrimental to existing services. All of us who represent constituents in that area have difficulty believing that, but we shall hold British Rail to it.
  I also have in my constituency the Sevenoaks to Orpington line which runs from Tonbridge and Hastings into London. The service there, although better than on the other two, still leaves much to be desired in punctuality, reliability and, above all, cleanliness.
  I do not argue that just throwing money at the problem will solve it. Good management by British Rail is the key, but there is also an essential need for a strategy and for increased funding. I have a specific question for my right hon. and hon. Friends on management. Am I correct in understanding that the new chairman of British Rail, Mr. Bob Reid, will not take up his job fully until September or October and that there will be an interregnum between the departure of Sir Bob Reid and the taking of full control by his successor? If true, that is extremely disturbing in that all the consultation on the detail of the high-speed link, before the legislation is deposited in Parliament, will take place between British Rail and Trafalgar House when there is no full-time chairman in post. It is extraordinary that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State could not arrange for Mr. Robert Reid to take over the job when his predecessor leaves in the spring. I cannot believe that Shell, with its strength of management, could not have done without its current chief for a further three months.
  I shall concentrate on the unfavourable comparison between the British Rail network and the European network of the future. On which European railway lines have my right hon. and hon. Friends travelled during the past six months? What is their impression of them, and how did they view Britain's rail network as of now and, more importantly, as of the next decade in comparison with the networks of France, West Germany, Italy and Switzerland?
  I recently had the opportunity, with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) and others from both sides of the House, to travel on the newest TGV line from Brittany to Paris. We saw new marshalling yards, new rolling stock, and brand-new and extremely efficient train sets, as they are described. The track out of Paris follows an old route unused since the first world war, but not sold off; it was kept with an eye to the future. The line has been well barriered for noise and a large part of it is in a cut-and-cover tunnel. Landscaping has been carried out over the top to a very high standard, with local authorities being involved in the project.
  Mr. Adley: I support everything my hon. Friend has said. Will he join me and, I am sure, other hon. Members in pleading yet again with the Government to stop immediately the policy of successive Governments of selling off redundant railway track? There may be a case for closing some services but there can never be a case for destroying part of our transport heritage.
  Mr. Wolfson: I thank my hon. Friend for his comment. I cannot go as far as he does about never selling unused track because there may be places where, taking even the longest view, there would appear to be no future use for it. However, the example I have described makes strongly the case that he is arguing.
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  The line from Paris has been superbly landscaped. New houses have been built alongside it, enhancing the environment, and the value of houses on each side of the track has increased considerably. Suburbs that were previously regarded as being on the wrong side of the track are now attractive. The improvement is the result of a long-term strategy and long-term planning for the railways.
  The speed, design, quality and performance of the new train are better than those of the newest trains in Britain. There is no vibration or noise when one moves from one coach to another. I take up the point of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) that train will be the way to travel in Europe for distances between, say, 200 and 1,000 km rather than making the change from bus to plane to bus. No less a person than Lord Young of Graffham, when Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, said off the cuff that Europe will travel by train in the future, not as now by plane. At that time he was spearheading the campaign to bring Britain up to date with the opportunities of 1992. Unless we build a rail infrastructure to meet that challenge, we shall not meet it effectively.
  Sir David Mitchell: My hon. Friend refers to the scope for travel within the continent and to journeys between 200 and 1,000 km as the major front for rail travel in future. Does he accept that journeys of those distances, which exist throughout the continent, can make a railway network pay in a way that could never be achieved with the shorter distances in Britain?
  Mr. Wolfson: My hon. Friend makes the point that it may be easier to do that on the continent, but in the Standing Committee considering the Channel Tunnel Bill, he argued that the Channel tunnel provided British Rail with the greatest opportunity for more than 100 years. I agree with him that the Channel tunnel will link us into the long-distance network, but the Government need to demonstrate a greater commitment and give a higher priority to the railways than they have in the past. Funding is required to build an infrastructure.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) pleaded for national support, as well as arguing that support would come from the private sector, for his area of Scotland as part of a regional development policy. That is exactly what the French have done in building the TGV for the Atlantic coast. They took the view that Brittany and the south-west of France needed the stimulus of a high-grade modern rail service, from which growth will follow. That argument applies exactly to the case that my right hon. Friend was making for Scotland. It is no surprise that a number of hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies have spoken tonight. They have said they want the benefits of the Channel tunnel in Scotland. In Kent we are concerned about having too much growth, because it is not needed in all parts of the county. My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) is in a different position. He could do with the stimulus—[Laughter.] I do not wish to be misunderstood. My hon. Friend's constituency will benefit from the stimulus. An effective rail link is crucial to bring the benefits of the Channel tunnel to the midlands, the north and, above all, to Scotland.
  Mr. George J. Buckley: Not with £600 million investment.
  Mr. Wolfson: I do not suggest that when the Labour party was in government it had a satisfactory record of investment in the railways. It did not. I certainly cannot support the Opposition's motion today as I have no confidence that they would be able to deliver.
  I look to the Government to provide a larger proportion of public investment, as capital subsidy and as continuing subsidy to running costs if we are to get the full benefits of the rail system that I believe this country deserves.
  Finally, I wish to refer to the political relevance of all this. It is of real concern to rail travellers throughout Britain when they are travelling in cattle truck conditions. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made the perfectly sensible point that lines had closed and the sleeper service was suspended because they were not being used effectively. He did not say that some lines are used so effectively that people travel in cattle truck conditions. After 10 years of Conservative government, people expect the service to be better, whatever the Government's capital investment in British Rail. My concern is for the British economy in the future. I am not satisfied that our stategy is correct. It is flawed and I shall therefore abstain in the vote.
  9.10 pm
  Mr. Alan Meale: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak after the Secretary of State. I have never heard so much codswallop about transport policy. He said that everything in the transport industry on the rail side was hunky-dory. Has he forgotten the simple facts throughout 10 years of Conservative Government? We have had worsening services on all railway routes, lack of investment and one of the most major strikes ever to confront the industry; and recently we heard that railway lines three times the length of the Channel tunnel were to be put underground in Kent because the work infringed on some of the constituents of Conservative Members.
  The Secretary of State said that the Government were spending more than any other Government. He had the audacity to accuse the Labour Government of not investing in the railways. The Labour Government invested in people—80,000 more rail workers were employed to serve the community which needed rail links, but they have been left languishing in the dole queues, at the cost of services.
  A few Conservative Members are smiling. If they are in any doubt about what happens, they should have the courage of the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) and ask people whether they are happy about the fares increases forced upon them. Some have to pay more than some of our constituents in the east midlands, the north and Scotland earn in a week from their part-time jobs, the only ones that they can get.
  It gives me great pleasure to follow the ridiculous speech by the Secretary of State and to commend the Opposition amendment, which refers to the excellent argument that is always used in transport debates. The amendment states:
  "problems can only be solved by adopting a co-ordinated approach to transport policy".
  The argument is not simply about rail services but about the co-ordinated approach that all our constituents are supposed to want.
  The debate gives me an opportunity to raise an important local matter involving industrial relations. Yet
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  again, because of the Government's policy, services have been disrupted in my constituency and the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes), for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) and for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). Severe problems have arisen because of legislation to end the so-called monopoly of the bus companies that service the railway network, by selling the public services to the private sector.
  Amazing problems have been caused because of a new monopoly being created in the bus industry. In my area, the East Midlands Motor Services Co. supplies bus services to railway stations. In my case, the nearest railway station is 15 miles away. Eight hundred constituents a re facing the most horrific circumstances because of the policy of selling off companies. That cannot be allowed to happen. It is not right for the Government to talk about freedom of expression in eastern Europe without acknowledging that people who adopt democratic practices in their workplaces—[Interruption] If the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) wishes to speak, he may do so when I conclude my speech, or he could do what he has done earlier in the debate, and pop up and down during other hon. Members' contributions.
  The Government cannot argue about freedom and democracy in eastern Europe without recognising that, when transport workers follow legislative requirements to conduct ballots and so on, a new employer will often say, "If you carry out the results of ballots, you will be sacked on the spot." There have already been two such occasions. Already, in the East Midlands Motor Services Co. trade union representatives have been sacked simply because they wanted to maintain services.
  Mr. Harry Barnes: The case that my hon. Friend is discussing also involves rail and road transport connections. The trade union concerned is the National Union of Railwaymen. That demonstrates that the workers know something about the integrated nature of the services. Problems were initially created by the dismissal of Dave Edinbrough, who is one of my constituents and lives at Tupton, near the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). Dave Edinbrough was sacked merely for involving himself in trade union activities. He is a good trade unionist and a good worker. The company took action to get rid of him. That has exacerbated the situation and led to further problems and the dismissal of other trade unionists.
  Mr. Meale: I agree with my hon. Friend. Among other things, Dave Edinbrough was accused of telling bus drivers to report safety faults that were a danger to the travelling public. It is a disgrace. He was required by law to do that. The amendment
  "applauds the high priority that the Government gives to all matters of safety on transport".
  Government legislation allowed private monopolies suddenly to take over from public monopolies. At least with public monopolies the public's health and safety were protected.
  I regret that the Secretary of State is not in his place—I trust that he will return before the end of the debate—because I wish to pay tribute to him over what happened in that case. When the company was privatised, there was another company in the wings wishing to buy it, and the right hon. Gentleman stepped in and sorted the issue out.

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  But unfortunately the management buy-out team then sold the company to a new entrepreneur, a Mr. Suter, who is taking steps against the work force, who are anxious to maintain a high level of service.
  Guarantees were given in Tory legislation that workers in a public company that was privatised would receive shares in the firm and would then be able to purchase additional shares. Despite repeated attempts by the workers to buy into their firm, the present and previous owners have prevented them from doing so. I trust that the Minister will investigate the case, because it seems that the present and previous owners are in breach of the law.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: I have the impression that Tory Members feel that my hon. Friend should not be discussing the issue that he has raised and the way in which the company in general, and Mr. Suter in particular, are trying to destroy trade union participation in what used to be called the East Midlands Motor Services Co. but what is now known as Stagecoach.
  My hon. Friend is drawing attention to the fact that, when there are no railways and we have only a bus monopoly—in this case, a bus monopoly 100 miles wide stretching from the east coast to the west coast—not only do fares go up but, in this case, the company sacked two leading directors and managers with 28 years' service.
  Now the bus drivers are being threatened into not reporting defects on buses. They are frightened to death of losing their jobs. That is what can happen when the railways shut, and Tory Members should understand it.
  Mr. Meale: I agree with my hon. Friend. Tory Members who think that this issue should not be debated at this stage should reflect that the nearest railway network stations for many of our constituents are 10 or 15 miles away. The only way—
  Mr. Stephen Day: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I rise simply to point out that, if the matter which the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) is raising is of such importance to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), perhaps the latter should have been in the Chamber for the whole of the debate.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Let us get on.
  Mr. Meale: Thank you for your protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In any event, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover has been present for most of the debate. When he has not been present, he has been flitting back and forth delivering messages to my hon. Friends and me regarding the sort of issues that should be raised.
  We have every right to raise these issues because the communities of north Derbyshire, Bolsover, Mansfield and Ashfield rely on bus services to reach the rail network, and I congratulate the Secretary of State—who I regret is still not in his place—on intervening and trying to get a rail network in the area.
  Mr. Harry Barnes: My hon. Friend need not apologise for raising this matter, because in addition to the motion standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and others, the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister and other leading Conservative Members
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  welcomes what is being done by the Government in terms of the rail-road network. We are dealing with that very point.
  Mr. Meale: Yet again, I agree with every sentiment that my hon. Friend has expressed.
  The Front Bench spokesmen and the Ministers are looking at the clock. They wish to put express views before the Division. I ask the Minister to take note of some of the points that I have raised tonight about events in the company to which I referred, which have been caused by legislation enacted by his Government and the guarantees that were given. I do not apologise for doing so. Conservative Members come to the House to represent the people who give them the greatest support. I come here to fight for my class, and I am pleased to do so.
  9.25 pm
  Mr. Robert Adley: The speech that we have just heard was rather sad. Perhaps the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) would have done better if he had reminded the House that Barbara Castle closed the railway lines in his constituency. It was my hon. Friend the Minister for Public Transport who took the historic decision not to close the Settle to Carlisle line. That was a landmark in terms of railway closure policy. It is one of the few things on which I intend to congratulate my hon. Friend.
  The Opposition motion is long on words and short on memory, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out. However, the Government amendment describes a public transport scenario which I do not recognise. The Government's policy on railways fails to recognise their proper role in a modern industrialised nation.
  The Labour policy, as described in the motion, sounds good, but experience teaches us that Labour economic policies lead to a failing economy, reductions in public expenditure and, so often, the abandonment of many well-meant plans.
  The question of investment and subsidy has been raised. In a press release sent out by his Department two days ago, my hon. Friend the Minister said that the revitalised economy had led to a dramatic increase in rail travel. There has been welcome economic growth as a result of the Government's policies. That has led to more cars on the road and, in turn, to more congestion. My conclusion is that we need more support for the railway system, particularly at its pressure points and in those areas where the railway is the only sane way of coping with the movement of large numbers of people in and out of cities in peak hours. Separation as between investment and subsidy may be a finely drawn argument for book-keepers but it does not seem to me the only way for politicians to grapple with the serious transport problems that we face.
  We must give credit to the Government for enabling British Rail to invest its own money in the east coast main line, the electrification of East Anglian services, and the Windsor link in Manchester. I shall not weary the House by repeating all the examples. There has been a great deal of investment, not of the Government's money but mainly of British Rail's money, which it has earned from its customers, in the "new" railway, but as the Government have cut the public service obligation grant we have found

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  that much of the existing railway is seriously and sadly declining into the dirt, delays and other faults that Opposition Members have highlighted.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) referred to the recent visit to France by Conservative and Opposition Members. The French have a completely different attitude to their railways. A 30 per cent. grant is available to the SNCF from the French Government. To summarise the position succinctly, I can do no better than refer to an article in the Glasgow Herald today by the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson), who was with us on the trip. Referring to the cancellation of the 6.15 am express service from Victoria to Gatwick, he said:
  "It was a fitting start to a day devoted to comparing and contrasting British and French railways; not just the quality of rolling-stock or services, but the whole national philosophy which underlies them. It is a short, sharp educational experience which I commend to anyone who is concerned about the future quality of life in our own country."
  Perhaps when my hon. Friend the Minister for Public Transport replies, he will answer on behalf of himself and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the question that was posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks: "When did any Ministers last travel on any French, West German, Italian or Swiss trains and what were their impressions of that experience?"
  Many of my hon. Friends do not like the frequent comparisons with France. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) got quite irate and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State got very irate when I mentioned West Germany. Although my right hon. Friend has given up attacking my figures, in response to my question on Monday about the levels of investment in the German railways, he said:
  "I have not met any German transport Minister who is proud of the subsidy. They think that it is an outrage that the German taxpayer is forking out £3 billion a year to subsidise the railways."—[Official Report, 12 February 1990; Vol. 167, c. 9.]
  I do not know my right hon. Friend's source for that, but I have with me a press release that I received recently from the German embassy. It is headed:
  "Railway system on the right lines for 1992".
  It states:
  "The railways need more public subsidy-and they will get it."
  I do not know whether the person who wrote that on behalf of the German Government ever talks to the person whom my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was quoting when he said that the Minister concerned objected to the subsidy that the West Germans have in their railway system. The press release also states:
  "In 1989 alone, 3,000 new personnel are being taken on",
  and refers to the fact that
  "Promoting competitiveness of the railway system by making sure that other means of transport do not acquire artificial advantage by back-door subsidies"
  is also part of the West German transport policy. We are not talking about a Socialist Valhalla. We are talking about the West German Christian Democratic Government.
  I must therefore ask my hon. Friends, some of whom blanch at the words "subsidies" and "public investment", which comes first—economic progress or infrastructure investment'? One reason why the West Germans have such a successful economy is that they are investing millions and millions of pounds in their transport infrastructure. Deutsche Bundesbahn receives a subsidy to encourage
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  heavy lorries in transit across West Germany to move on to the "rolende landstrasse", which I have written in capitals in my notes for the benefit of Hansard. Like the SNCF, the Deutsche Bundesbahn has a "social tariff structure", which means a subsidy to keep fares down.
  Mr. Roger King: We are stopping the subsidy.
  Mr. Adley: My hon. Friend says that we are stopping the subsidy, but we are also stopping the trains and overcrowding them. There is a direct equation. I recognise that with his road interests my hon. Friend likes to advocate such a policy, but it does not appeal to me.
  I take up another point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. In the information kindly provided by the Government in the Whips' Office for this debate, we are told that accurate comparisons are impossible, given the differences in networks, accounting methods and organisation. However, the next paragraph states that huge amounts of BR debt have been written off, amounting to more than £1·5 billion in cash terms since 1962.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford kindly gave way to me in his speech to allow me to ask him his view of the West German subsidy. I think that the record will show that he said that the West Germans have not written off their railway's debts. However, I must advise him that British Rail has written off £1·5 billion and that Deutsche Bundesbahn has written off £4·2 billion. I am sorry to confuse my hon. Friends with some of the facts and I apologise if those facts interfere with their political prejudices.
  My hon. Friend the Minister of State has previously chided me on the question of Government investment in the railways. My hon. Friends rightly welcome all the investment that is going into our railways, but they should be aware that in 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1987 British Rail had absolutely no recourse to borrowing from the national loans fund and in 1984 and 1988 it had little recourse to the fund. The investment money has come from British Rail's own resources.
  Mr. Brian Wilson rose—
  Mr. Adley: I shall continue with my speech as I do not want to go on indefinitely.
  In the United States, that great paradise of private enterprise, in 1987 Amtrak took 65 per cent. of its revenue from fares. In 1990, the figure is planned to be 70 per cent. British Rail's figures for the two years 1987 and 1990 are 75 per cent. and 82 per cent., and on InterCity 89 per cent. and more than 100 per cent. However, the passenger journeys completed by Amtrak in 1987 were 20 million, while the figure for British Rail was 727.2 million. By any stretch of the imagination, this country's record with its nationalised railway system is infinitely better than anything in the United States.
  Before some of my hon. Friends clamour for privatisation, I suggest that they ask themselves what the following railway systems, which include the best passenger railways in the world, have in common—I refer to the West German, French, Italian and Swiss railways. The answer is, of course, that they are all nationalised. Which country has the worst passenger railway system of the industrialised nations? The answer is probably the United States. If I were setting an A-level paper, I would ask what conclusions could be drawn from that.

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  The sad fact is that public transport and party politics make uneasy bedfellows. I am also sorry to say to some of my hon. Friends—
  Mr. John Butterfill: Is my hon. Friend winding-up?
  Mr. Adley: If I am going on too long, I will finish by commending to the House the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in her advocacy of Victorian values. Can any hon. Member imagine what public transport in any of our cities would be like if our Victorian and Edwardian forebears had not built the railway lines and underground systems that we enjoy in this country?
  Sir David Mitchell: That was private enterprise.
  Mr. Adley: It was indeed. The construction that has taken place on new underground railway lines in London in the past 15 or 16 years, however, has been restricted to certain sections of the Jubilee line. London's congestion problems can be solved only by new underground railways. The first priority is the Paddington-Liverpool Street line, the second is the Chelsea-Hackney line and the third, which the Government have chosen, is the Jubilee line extension.
  The internal combustion engine once threatened the railway systems of the industrialised world with extinction. That very internal combustion engine is now choking the nation to death. The railway is the last means of civilised transport open to man. Until all parties in the House swallow their political dogma, eradicate prejudices and follow the French and German example, misery will remain our lot.
  9.37 pm
  Ms. Dawn Primarolo: In the last few minutes of this debate I shall quote the western region of the Transport Users Consultative Committee which is chaired by the Conservative leader of Bristol city council. That organisation is known for its support of the Government's policies. It describes the railways in the south-west as follows: the Cotswold line as the "railway of denial"; the Falmouth line as the "railway of dilapidation"; the Gloucester-Bristol line as the "railway of decimation"; and the Swindon-Bristol line as the "railway of deprivation".
  This evening's debate has been about the lack of investment. According to Hansard, since 1981 there has been a 60 per cent. reduction in investment in real terms by the Government. The debate has been about the way that our European counterparts consistently invest in the railway. We have discussed overcrowding and its safety problems, and congested roads and the environmental difficulties that they bring. We have discussed the problems that transport users face. How much longer do we need to discuss them before the Government invest properly in our rail network?
  9.39 pm
  Mr. Peter Snape: The debate, albeit truncated, has been interesting in some ways. Most Conservative Members appear to have swallowed the Department of Transport's propaganda that investment in our railway system has never been higher. It took the hon.
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  Members for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) and for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) to point out that that investment is paid for almost entirely by the passengers out of higher fares.
  Mr. Parkinson indicated dissent.
  Mr. Snape: I will come to the Secretary of State's speech, but he provokes me to comment now. I have for some time been seeking detailed information about who pays for investment in our railway network. So far, my questions having been shuffled between the Treasury and the Department of Transport, of the £3·7 billion of investment about which the right hon. Gentleman boasted tonight, we have been able to isolate only £100 million that has come from the Government. The right hon. Gentleman boasted about his accountancy prowess. He or the Minister for Public Transport will be able to tell us what percentage of that £3·7 billion came from the Government.
  Over and over again hon. Members on both sides of the House, but particularly Conservative Members, have asked the Secretary of State how many journeys he has made on railways in other parts of the world.
  Mr. David Marshall: Or Britain.
  Mr. Snape: Some of us are more concerned that he should make one or two journeys in the United Kingdom to see the squalor that many passengers have to put up with daily. Conservative Members say "Come off it," but the amendment that the Government have had the temerity to table bears no resemblance to the reality of daily life for commuters or for long-distance passengers on our railway network.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) talked about his problems in getting to and from Manchester yesterday. I do not want to provide anecdotal evidence about how bad some of our railway journeys are. Hon. Members on both sides of the House must agree, at least privately, that the delays on InterCity, on other provincial services and on Network SouthEast have never been so great. Perhaps because some of my hon. Friends recall that I used to work in the railways industry, I receive many of their complaints. I have never received so many complaints about the railway system as I have under the Secretary of State's stewardship, and he has been there for only five minutes.
  However, let us be fair. The Secretary of State, accountant to the last, has done something about punctuality on British Rail. He has moved the goalposts of a five-minute late arrival to a 10-minute late arrival.
  Mr. Parkinson: It is the other way round.
  Mr. Snape: That shows how much the right hon. Gentleman knows about the playing field about which he talks. He has moved the goalposts.
  Before the right hon. Gentleman shouts too loudly, let me say that we were all a little concerned about his display earlier. His red face looming over the Dispatch Box is a pretty terrifying sight. I was not sure at one stage whether it was indignation, claret or a faulty sun lamp that made the right hon. Gentleman look like that, but whatever it was, it was worrying.
  The Government's amendment insults the intelligence of the House. It certainly insults the intelligence of the hon. Members for Sevenoaks and for Christchurch because

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  they do not believe it. Does the Secretary of State appreciate the contribution of those much scoffed-at people who operate British Rail's services? The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) made a contribution—I had better be kind about it—apparently based more on enthusiasm than on ignorance. He accused Opposition Members of supporting every railway dispute. Having spent some years working for the pretty rotten wages that British Rail traditionally pays, I had a lot of sympathy for the railway staff in their dispute last year. I remind the House that every opinion poll showed that the British public did so, too, as did those who eventually sat in arbitration on that claim.
  I say to the hon. Member for Chelmsford and to others that if railway staff continue to be paid as inadequately as they are now, and if we insist on that staff working the kind of hours that they do now, the circumstances that surrounded the Clapham junction accident will recur.
  Mr. Burns indicated dissent.
  Mr. Snape: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but if he reads the contributions to the inquiry of Mr. Stanley Hall, the British Rail board's director of safety, he will find that Mr. Hall commented that if staff are forced to work 12 hours a day, six months at a time, to pay their mortgages—anyone with the Abbey National will be even worse off from tomorrow—one must expect that their contribution to safety standards will inevitably slip.
  The amendment does not recognise that problem, nor does it acknowledge that the railway network is being run into the ground. The days are past when engineers decided rolling stock standards and railway operations. It is the accountants who run the railways these days.
  The Secretary of State talks about ideology. The ideology of privatisation for the sake of it ensured that the Sprinter multiple diesel units ordered as the flagship of British Rail's provincial services are running so late that the next timetable is being completely recast. The ideology of insistence on privatisation meant that the earliest Sprinters had their electronic door controls set outside the train, so they let in water. That meant that the whole fleet had to be returned to the makers for repair. The ideology of privatisation gave us Pacer trains that break down all over the network, and whose replacement gear boxes must be obtained from Germany. We did not get the gearboxes from a nationalised industry. The Secretary of State never knows what is going on.
  Mr. Parkinson rose—
  Mr. Snape: The right hon. Gentleman would not give way to me, so I certainly shall not give way to him.
  The fact that those trains exhibit all the quality and reliability of the average.Skoda is a direct tribute to the Secretary of State and his system of operation.
  Mr. Roger King rose—
  Mr. Snape: I am certainly not giving way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) either. This is a serious debate.
  The amendment mentions ensuring that
  "Britain's rail infrastructure is in place to service the Channel Tunnel".
  Mr. Roger King: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to mislead the House? He knows better than anyone else that when
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  the modernisation programme of the mid-1950s was brought forward by a nationalised system, none of the rolling stock worked.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is a point of argument, not a point of order.
  Mr. Snape: The Minister for Public Transport will have to pay for that puerile intervention by the hon. Member for Northfield; that must be a matter between the two of them.
  The amendment mentions the infrastructure that will be needed for Channel tunnel services. Day after day, we hear Conservative Members ask what contribution will be made, where the infrastructure is, and what will happen to their constituents when the tunnel opens. Only the right hon. Gentleman knows where he drew up the amendment.
  The Secretary of State spoke earlier of safety. He sometimes accuses the Opposition of exploiting that subject, but arising directly from the Hidden report on the Clapham junction inquiry will be a great deal of expenditure, to say the least. The introduction of automatic train protection will be extremely expensive and will require additional staff to install and maintain it. The installation of black boxes in cabs, particularly on Network SouthEast, will be extremely expensive, but we are told that Network SouthEast must break even within the next two or three years. Is the right hon. Gentleman going to provide any public money for those much-needed safety measures? We are eagerly waiting for some replies, but they are not usually forthcoming and I do not suppose that they will be tonight.
  For all the torrents of abuse that we got from the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box earlier, his speech was very thin on content, like most of his speeches. The Daily Telegraph sums up the right hon. Gentleman pretty well. Its editorial of 29 December sums up the right hon. Gentleman, the Government's approach to the railway system, and his future prospects, saying:
  "Mr. Parkinson has taken a course that will damage the environment, increase costs to business and inconvenience the public. It is a pitifully myopic approach to our desperate transport problems, and ill becomes a Government that wants to help business expand."
  The article concludes:
  "Ultimate blame, though, lies with Mr. Parkinson. He must start thinking realistically about transport needs, even if he has to spend"—
  Mr. Parkinson: The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) read it earlier.
  Mr. Snape: Not this bit—
  "even if he has to spend taxpayers' money to satisfy them."
  That is from The Daily Telegraph—from Max Hastings. It continues:
  "Failure will lead to chaos, and chaos cannot be an option."
  That is what our motion is about tonight.
  I hope that Conservative Members who spoke so bravely about the railway system and its needs will vote in the Opposition Lobby tonight. Tomorrow's opinion polls, the voters in the Mid-Staffordshire by-election and the electorate, including commuters who are temporarily represented by Conservative Members, will decide that they are fed up with public squalor and fed up with the right hon. Gentleman.
  9.52 pm
  The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. Michael Portillo): I shall begin uncontroversially, I hope, by saying what a pleasure it was to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) making a characteristically fair speech. He paid tribute to the biggest single electrification which has occurred—on the east coast main line. I know that he is right, and that British Rail is in discussion with groups such as CREATE about electrifying the railway line north of Edinburgh. I remind him that British Rail is going to put 90 mph diesels with air conditioning—I am not sure whether that is necessary in Scotland—on that line. The InterCity 125s are the fastest diesels in the world. None the less, I shall draw his remarks to the attention of British Rail.
  I notice my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) in his place. I am sure that we all sympathise with his constituents, whose railway line has been cut off by floods, and we look forward to that service being restored.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) made a realistic speech, as well he might have, because he knows that there has been £100 million worth of investment at Liverpool Street and in the new station at Chelmsford. He has seen the work going on. He also knows that, since 1987, 428 new coaches costing about £150 million have been approved for the Anglia and Great Eastern Services. Therefore, despite the complaints that he has made on behalf of his constituents, he knows that the investment is going in.
  I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) was less fair. He might have mentioned the fact that the Uckfield line has just been resignalled, saving his constituents 10 minutes on their journey time. He also might have mentioned the fact that we have ordered 676 coaches for the inner suburban services in Kent—that has been approved or agreed in principle—that platform lengthening is under way and more orders for the outer suburban services will come through shortly. Mentioning those facts would have given a fairer impression of what is going on.
  Mr. Roger Gale: When my hon. Friend next speaks to the chairman of British Rail, will he convey to him that commuters on the north Kent line would have been much happier if the fares had increased after the promises had been fulfilled, rather than now?
  Mr. Portillo: My hon. Friend has been a lion roaring on behalf of his constituents. He has been to see me and I know how seriously he takes the matter.
  In reply to the hon. Members for Southport (Mr. Fearn) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), and my hon. Friends the Members for Sevenoaks and for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), who talked about foreign comparisons, I must point out that the subsidy per route kilometre in the last figures we have was £49,000 in the United Kingdom and £47,000 in France, which is less. I have always said to my hon. Friends that what matters is not subsidy but investment. Let me give the figures for that. Last year we invested £67,000 per km, while France invested £49,000.
  362
  I was asked whether we would use cost-benefit analysis. It was used to justify the Thameslink services, the Manchester Metrolink and the Jubilee line, which will do so much to open up docklands, a new area of London.
  There was great rejoicing at part of the speech by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). Although he will deny it, I believe that this is the first time that he has acknowledged that investment is at a record level. Before tonight I had the impression that he had the greatest difficulty distinguishing between subsidy and investment, but he has now put on record his recognition of the facts. I am sorry that he was unable to convince the hon. Members for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) and for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), who still seem to doubt the truth.
  I was also asked what was our commitment to investment in the railway. I am pleased to be able to announce an increase of £220 million in British Rail's external finance limit for 1989–90. This year's EFL goes up from £415 million—after taking account of grants from the European Community—to £635 million. That large increase will enable BR to press ahead with its investment programme, including plans for the Channel tunnel rail services and the new trains for those services which we authorised in December.
  Investment in British Rail will be £3·7 billion over the next three years. The chairman of British Rail has described that as being about as much as "we can physically manage". It will be financed not just by passengers but by asset sales, the higher revenues that are available, huge amounts of borrowing made available by the Government at preferential rates from the national loans fund and some very small reductions in grant. Today 60 per cent. of the provincial sector's costs are met by the taxpayer, and the passenger pays only 40p in the pound.
  On the London Underground, the enormous increases in investment are directly attributable to an increase in Government grant: it will increase by 115 per cent. over the next three years. The result—if we take LRT and Network SouthEast together—will be a rise in subsidy for public transport in the south-east from £387 million at today's prices to £669 million in 1992–93. Investment in London Underground has doubled over the past five years, since we wrested control from the GLC, and it will double again over the next three years.
  No wonder the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East referred to the role of the Treasury under various Governments. Let me quote from the Labour Government's consultation document of 1976:
  "For the time being, the decision to stabilise rail investment at present levels should form a basic input to railway planning. This level is lower than that envisaged in … 1973 … But the 1973 programme was criticised in the Socialist Commentary Report as being too high … In our present … circumstances".
  said the Labour Government,
  "we … cannot afford more than this."
  Although rail fares had doubled in the previous two years, said Labour,
  "in the present situation … further increases in fares must form part of the long-term strategy. There can be no question of a general increase in Government subsidy".
  That was the Labour party in office. That would be the Labour party again. The fact is that the Labour party has no place in this debate. If it had remained in power the railways would not have the opportunities that they have today. Opportunities derive from economic prosperity. I

  363
  admit that, under Labour's failing economic policies, congestion might be less severe than it is today. But congestion is also the product of economic success. Under this Government the problem of congestion can be tackled by vast new—
  Mr. Don Dixon rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
  Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 212, Noes 259.

  Division No. 75]

  [10 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Allen, Graham

  Fatchett, Derek

  Alton, David

  Faulds, Andrew

  Anderson, Donald

  Fearn, Ronald

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Fisher, Mark

  Ashton, Joe

  Flannery, Martin

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Flynn, Paul

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

  Barron, Kevin

  Foster, Derek

  Battle, John

  Foulkes, George

  Beckett, Margaret

  Fraser, John

  Beith, A. J.

  Fyfe, Maria

  Bell, Stuart

  Galloway, George

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Blunkett, David

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Boateng, Paul

  Gordon, Mildred

  Boyes, Roland

  Gould, Bryan

  Bradley, Keith

  Graham, Thomas

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Hardy, Peter

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Buchan, Norman

  Haynes, Frank

  Buckley, George J.

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Caborn, Richard

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Callaghan, Jim

  Henderson, Doug

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Hinchliffe, David

  Canavan, Dennis

  Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Home Robertson, John

  Clay, Bob

  Hood, Jimmy

  Clelland, David

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Cohen, Harry

  Howells, Geraint

  Coleman, Donald

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Hoyle, Doug

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Cousins, Jim

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Crowther, Stan

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Cryer, Bob

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Cummings, John

  Illsley, Eric

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Janner, Greville

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

  Darling, Alistair

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Dewar, Donald

  Lambie, David

  Dixon, Don

  Lamond, James

  Dobson, Frank

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Doran, Frank

  Leighton, Ron

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Lewis, Terry

  Eadie, Alexander

  Litherland, Robert

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Livingstone, Ken

  364

  Livsey, Richard

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Richardson, Jo

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Loyden, Eddie

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  McAllion, John

  Rowlands, Ted

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Ruddock, Joan

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Salmond, Alex

  McFall, John

  Sedgemore, Brian

  McKelvey, William

  Sheerman, Barry

  McLeish, Henry

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  McWilliam, John

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Madden, Max

  Short, Clare

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Skinner, Dennis

  Marek, Dr John

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Smith, C. (Isl'ton & F'bury)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk'ds E)

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

  Martlew, Eric

  Snape, Peter

  Maxton, John

  Soley, Clive

  Meacher, Michael

  Spearing, Nigel

  Meale, Alan

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  Michael, Alun

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Stott, Roger

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Strang, Gavin

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Straw, Jack

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Turner, Dennis

  Morley, Elliot

  Vaz, Keith

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Wall, Pat

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Wallace, James

  Mullin, Chris

  Walley, Joan

  Murphy, Paul

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Nellist, Dave

  Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  O'Brien, William

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Paisley, Rev Ian

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Patchett, Terry

  Wilson, Brian

  Pike, Peter L.

  Winnick, David

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Prescott, John

  Worthington, Tony

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Wray, Jimmy

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Radice, Giles

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Randall, Stuart

  Mr. Ken Eastham and Mr. Allen McKay.

  Redmond, Martin

  NOES

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Brazier, Julian

  Alexander, Richard

  Bright, Graham

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Amess, David

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

  Amos, Alan

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Arbuthnot, James

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Burns, Simon

  Ashby, David

  Burt, Alistair

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Butler, Chris

  Atkins, Robert

  Butterfill, John

  Atkinson, David

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Carrington, Matthew

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Carttiss, Michael

  Batiste, Spencer

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Bellingham, Henry

  Chope, Christopher

  Bendall, Vivian

  Churchill, Mr

  Benyon, W.

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Body, Sir Richard

  Conway, Derek

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Boswell, Tim

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Bottomley, Peter

  Cormack, Patrick

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Couchman, James

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Cran, James

  Bowis, John

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Curry, David

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  365

  Day, Stephen

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Devlin, Tim

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Dover, Den

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Dunn, Bob

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Durant, Tony

  Hunter, Andrew

  Dykes, Hugh

  Irvine, Michael

  Eggar, Tim

  Jack, Michael

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Jessel, Toby

  Evennett, David

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Fallon, Michael

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Favell, Tony

  Key, Robert

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Kilfedder, James

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Knox, David

  Forman, Nigel

  Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Forth, Eric

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Lilley, Peter

  French, Douglas

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Gale, Roger

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Gardiner, George

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Gill, Christopher

  Madel, David

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Mans, Keith

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Maples, John

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Gow, Ian

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Mills, Iain

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Grist, Ian

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Grylls, Michael

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Hague, William

  Moss, Malcolm

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Mudd, David

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Neale, Gerrard

  Hannam, John

  Needham, Richard

  Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Harris, David

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Norris, Steve

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Hayes, Jerry

  Page, Richard

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Paice, James

  Hayward, Robert

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Patnick, Irvine

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Hill, James

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Hind, Kenneth

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Portillo, Michael

  Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Price, Sir David

  366

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Redwood, John

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Thorne, Neil

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Tredinnick, David

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Trippier, David

  Rost, Peter

  Trotter, Neville

  Rowe, Andrew

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Walden, George

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Waller, Gary

  Shelton, Sir William

  Ward, John

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Warren, Kenneth

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Watts, John

  Sims, Roger

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Whitney, Ray

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Speller, Tony

  Wilkinson, John

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Wilshire, David

  Squire, Robin

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Wood, Timothy

  Steen, Anthony

  Yeo, Tim

  Stevens, Lewis

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Mr. David Lightbown and Mr. Sydney Chapman.

  Sumberg, David

  Summerson, Hugo

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 33 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House congratulates the Government on developing a balanced transport policy which recognises the economic importance to the United Kingdom of its rail, road and air network; welcomes the biggest programme of investment in British Rail for 25 years and the massive increase in investment in London Underground which will relieve congestion and meet the increased demand which is the result of the economic success of the United Kingdom; welcomes the demanding quality of service objectives set by the Government; welcomes the £1 billion which will be spent to ensure Britain's rail infrastructure is in place to service the Channel Tunnel when it opens in 1993; applauds the high priority that the Government gives to all matters of safety on transport; and welcomes its recognition of the importance of the environment in transport policy.

  Tobacco (Sale to Children)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kenneth Carlisle.]
  10.13 pm
  Mr. John Home Robertson: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the massive problem of illegal tobacco sales to children. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to announce initiatives to deal with that scandal. Hon. Members in all parts of the House are concerned about it, as witnessed by the fact that despite the usual exodus at this time of night a number of hon. Members have remained in the Chamber.
  I have a particular interest in the subject because the legislation which is supposed to ban sales of cigarettes and all tobacco to children, the Protection of Children (Tobacco) Act 1986, began as a private Member's Bill which I introduced. It had two objectives: first, to include products such as Skoal Bandits in the legal definition of tobacco—I pay tribute to the Government for banning that product altogether—and, secondly, to clarify and strengthen the legislation supposed to have banned tobacco sales to children since 1933. The 1986 legislation swept away the condition which used to allow any retailer to justify tobacco sales to children on the ground that he thought that the tobacco was intended for use by an adult. It also gave the courts a mandatory duty to deal with cigarette vending machines used by youngsters.
  My Bill received universal support at that time, including a very strong speech on Second Reading by the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley), the present Minister for Health. Having passed the Bill, we were entitled to expect the legislation to lead to action to deter the pushers who supply cigarettes to children. Unfortunately, virtually nothing has been done to enforce the law and the evil trade is continuing on a massive scale.
  I have repeatedly asked Ministers what they are doing about enforcement of the 1986 Act, but the total lack of action over four years shows that the legislation has been effectively smothered by a tobacco industry smokescreen. The industry claims to be spending £1 million per year advertising the fact that children should not buy cigarettes, but at the same time it is cheerfully reaping the profits from £70 million worth of trade with those very children.
  Of course, catching them young is a long-term investment for an industry which is killing off its older customers at a rate of 300 per day, or 110,000 per year. The tobacco industry needs to attract 300 new customers per day just to replace its own victims, and since we know that 75 per cent. of adult smokers are hooked by the time they are 18 it really has to catch them young—and its £100 million budget for advertising and sports sponsorship is targeted accordingly.
  The industry is running rings around the Government's voluntary restrictions on tobacco advertising. We all know that sports sponsorship is getting the cigarette sales pitch across in an increasingly insiduous manner, even on the BBC's television coverage of snooker, horse racing and motor sports. An advertising executive for Marlborough is quoted as having said in relation to that company's sponsorship of motor racing:
  "What we wanted was to promote a particular image of adventure, courage and virility."
  Yet there is supposed to be an agreement to avoid those very suggestions and implications in tobacco advertising.
  368
  The trade, and the advertising that promotes it, is a national scandal and it is prolonging the agony and the costs which arise from tobacco-related diseases. The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Donald Acheson, recently confirmed that smoking is
  "by far the most important cause of ill health and premature death, and hence of expenditure on health services."
  It is all starting in the corner shops, off licences, supermarkets and service stations which are supplying cigarettes to youngsters without let or hindrance, or even shame, sometimes even in the form of a single cigarette with a match at a price to suit the budget of a school child's pocket money—12p per time.
  In England alone it is reckoned that about 500,000 15-year-olds are smokers, 300,000 of them regular smokers. The teeny-smoker trade is worth a cool £700 million per year to the tobacco barons, but there were just 29 prosecutions in 1988, none of which achieved the maximum fine of £400. The situation in Scotland is probably even worse, but we do not have adequate statistics from the Scottish Office.
  The Government have failed to lift a finger to enforce the 1986 Act. An Act which was passed without dissent in the House just four years ago might as well be a dead letter. Nobody is being deterred, and that poisonous trade is proceeding with impunity. The tobacco industry is treating the will of Parliament with contempt and, far worse, it is conspiring to wreck the health of another generation of young people.
  Mr. George Foulkes: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Home Robertson: Briefly.
  Mr. Foulkes: I always do as my landowner colleague tells me. Does my hon. Friend agree that so many of the tobacco industry's customers die every day as a result of smoking that it has to recruit new smokers? That is why the industry has to have an aggressive campaign to get young people to take up smoking. That is the important commercial message from the industry.
  Mr. Home Robertson: I made the point that the industry needs to recruit 300 new smokers per day just to replace those whom it kills.
  The House will know that a large number of parents are determined to protect their children from tobacco addiction and are joining the recently launched Parents Against Tobacco campaign to confront the tobacco barons with a healthy dose of people power—and not before time. Parents Against Tobacco has attracted strong support from people in every walk of life in every part of the United Kingdom, including at least 160 Members of Parliament. The campaign seeks to mobilise public opinion and to activate public authorities to confront the menace of long-term tobacco addiction leading to bad health and premature death for many of our children. I speak as a father of two young children and as one who is very worried about that threat.
  Parents Against Tobacco surveyed 212 shops and found that 109 sold cigarettes to children under 16. In London, the campaign surveyed 50 shops and found that 36 sold cigarettes to a boy of 10. Local newspapers have been taking up the initiative, and a newspaper in Rugby reported last week that an 11-year-old girl in school

  369
  uniform was sold cigarettes in 11 of the 12 shops into which she went. The evidence is overwhelming. It appears that half the tobacco retailers blatantly flout the 1986 Act.
  Parents Against Tobacco has also been investigating the reason why the law is not enforced. A survey of 110 local authorities found that 104 had never taken action under the 1986 Act. Many said that they did not know about the Act and many said that they did not think that it was their responsibility to do anything about it. I understand that they have not received any Government circular to clarify the position.
  Nevertheless, some local authorities have taken local initiatives. My attention has been drawn particularly to the work in Liverpool, Somerset and Enfield and in Hereford and Worcester county. In Liverpool, illegal sales fell by 50 per cent. following an active survey of retailers and the prosecution of some offenders. I have been alarmed to hear that Hereford and Worcester county council's campaign has run into difficulties because the courts insist that photographic evidence of the apparent age of a child is not enough to secure prosecution and the council is rightly reluctant to make children appear in court. I should be grateful if the Minister or the Attorney-General would write to me with some advice on that narrow point about court procedure. Overall, there seems to be intolerable confusion, inconsistency and even perversity in the enforcement of the legislation by the various authorities.
  What about the police? Parents Against Tobacco wrote to chief constables, most of whom said that they had insufficient resources or that they could not give the problem the priority that it deserved. I put it to the Minister that it is up to the Government to take active steps to get the 1986 Act enforced. Local authority trading standards departments are probably the most appropriate bodies to take on the job. They certainly have the best knowledge of the retail trade in their local areas, and those councils which have made it their business to apply the law have made a pretty good job of it. We need clear guidance from Ministers as to who should enforce the legislation and how they should go about it.
  Experience shows that one or two prosecutions against blatant offenders in each area can concentrate the minds of all offending retailers, so we should be able to reduce the scandalous scale of this illegal trade quite quickly. The Minister must accept that the law is useless unless it is enforced effectively and fairly in every part of the country. It may be necessary to amend the law again, to make it easier to enforce it. The maximum fine for this serious crime of endangering young people should be increased from £400 to at least £1,000. We may also need clearer legislation to deal with vending machines.
  We could also help responsible tobacconists—I freely acknowledge that there are many—by providing independent official advertisements proclaiming the prohibition on sales to children and by providing official leaflets to explain the law to youngsters in shops. The tobacco industry's own self-righteous advertising campaign reeks of hypocrisy. The cost of that campaign is just one seventieth of gross takings in tobacco sales to children and no one could take its integrity seriously.
  We can pass laws until we are blue in the face, but it is futile to do so if the Executive refuses to do anything to enforce them. That is what happened in the case of the
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  Protection of Children (Tobacco) Act 1986. We have polling evidence that 95 per cent. of our people want that Act enforced effectively and strictly. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point today.
  There is no need to repeat all the evidence that tobacco is dirty and dangerous and that children should be protected against nicotine addiction. There is ample evidence that laws to protect children from this menace are being cynically circumvented by the tobacco industry and flagrantly broken by thousands of retailers. I welcome the initiative of Parents Against Tobacco to campaign on this issue. Several Ministers, including the Prime Minister, have also endorsed the objectives of the campaign. With all respect to the Minister, it is not good enough for Ministers to issue well-meaning statements—they must support their words with action, starting with action to deter traders who are supplying £70 million worth of cigarettes per year to our children. I ask the Minister to take this opportunity to announce specific Government initiatives to enforce the 1986 Act. There is far more to be done, but let us start by clamping down on a trade which is already supposed to be illegal.
  10.26 pm
  Sir George Young: I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) for selecting this important matter for debate and for allowing me briefly to intervene. I speak as the chairman of the parliamentary wing of Parents Against Tobacco—the local shop steward. I am delighted to see my hon. Friends the Members for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris), for Battersea (Mr. Bowis), for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) and for Hexham (Mr. Amos) and several Opposition Members with whose constituencies, sadly, I am not familiar.
  The position seems clear. Parliament has decided that it is a criminal offence for a retailer to sell cigarettes to a child under 16. That legislation has wide support. Parents whom I know, whether they be smokers or non-smokers, do not want their children to start smoking. There is a degree of unanimity. We have on the statute book legislation that is widely supported but, as the hon. Member for East Lothian said, it is frequently flouted.
  I raise three simple matters with my hon. Friend the Minister. First, I have written to the Home Secretary on behalf of the parliamentary branch of Parents Against Tobacco, asking for a meeting with him. I very much hope that the answer will be in the affirmative.
  Secondly, my hon. Friend the Minister will have seen the PAT manifesto—in particular, the legislation that we propose to introduce at the end of this year if the Government do not do so themselves. We should like an initial response from the Government to the legislative measure that we have outlined.
  The third matter arises from a statement that the Lord Chancellor made yesterday about the use of hearsay evidence from children. That matter is highly relevant to the debate because of the difficulties of getting children into court to give evidence—their reluctance to appear as witnesses and the reluctance of their parents to let them so appear. The Lord Chancellor is proposing to change the rules about the use of hearsay evidence from children. It would be helpful to know whether it is of relevance in bringing prosecutions in the circumstances that were mentioned by the hon. Member for East Lothian.
  10.30 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peter Lloyd): I congratulate the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on securing this Adjournment debate. It is no surprise that he should choose such an important subject, given his long and active interest in these matters and his success in piloting through the House the Protection of Children (Tobacco) Act 1986.
  Selling cigarettes to those who are under age shows a deeply irresponsible disregard for the law, for the best interests of the retail trade and for the health of young people. We therefore stand firmly alongside the hon. Member in condemning those retailers who do.
  Hon. Members on both sides of the House are looking for a positive response from the Government tonight, giving their moral support to the movement, which already has 160 hon. Members behind it, and, hopefully, promising a sympathetic hearing for the legislation that we are determined to introduce.
  The sale of cigarettes to children under the age of 16 has been illegal since the passing of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, and this was extended to a complete ban on all products containing tobacco by the hon. Gentleman's Protection of Children (Tobacco) Act 1986. It is for the police and the local authorities' trading standards officers to enforce the law in this area.
  Mr. Home Robertson: Which of them?
  Mr. Lloyd: Both of them. Both have powers, duties and responsibilities, and I fully accept the hon. Gentleman's contention, to put it at its best, that they are unevenly applied throughout the country. Our overriding objective—and, I am sure, that of the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends—is to see fewer youngsters taking up the habit of smoking, not least because, as he said, 110,000 smoking-related deaths occur in the United Kingdom each year. Surveys show that 75 per cent. of regular smokers start their habit while teenagers.
  But there are some encouraging signs, and I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not mention them, although I expect he is aware of them. Evidence from the latest survey by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys shows that smoking among under-16s is going down. In 1984, 13 per cent. of young people aged 11 to 15 smoked regularly. In 1986 the figure was 10 per cent. and in 1988 it was 8 per cent.
  It is worth noting that, for the first time, the 1988 study used a biochemical test to determine whether the children had actually been smoking—a sort of lie detector—and it is proposed to continue that technique in future, for it will clearly add to the reliability of the data.
  Mr. Foulkes: Can the Minister divide the statistics between boys and girls? Do they show that girls are not smoking any less, which is a worrying factor?
  Mr. Lloyd: It is clear from the statistics—I am speaking from memory, and I will confirm the position to the hon. Gentleman if I am wrong—that girls have in the past smoked less than boys; but the proportion is changing because the number of boys smoking is dropping quite rapidly, but the same, alas, cannot he said for girls.
  The data that we are getting have the basic reliable method of which I spoke, which tells whether the youngster has smoked within the previous seven days. To
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  build on the welcome trend last year, the Department of Health and the Health Education Authority jointly launched a £2 million a year campaign aimed at reducing still further the proportion of teenagers who smoke. The target is an additional one third cut by 1994. Health education to reduce the number of illegal sales to children will be one of the chief means of realising that objective.
  Mr. Home Robertson: The Minister said that the Department of Health had allocated some additional funds to discourage youngsters from taking up smoking. From my point of view and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (M r. Foulkes), that is of limited comfort because none of that money is going to Scotland. It would be useful if the Minister's hon. Friends in the Scottish Office showed the same motivation as is shown by his hon. Friends in the Department of Health, although I appreciate that he cannot answer for them.
  Mr. Lloyd: That is correct, but I will pass on to my colleagues in the Scottish Office what the hon. Gentleman said.
  A further key aim is to stimulate action in schools and among parents to prevent shops selling cigarettes to children. That action is complemented by the tobacco industry's £1 million a year campaign—which the hon. Gentleman mentioned somewhat disparagingly—to inform retailers about the law. Although it is only part of the exercise, it is a welcome part.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) made some telling points and the Government, and particularly the Home Secretary, will want to take them into acount when we produce the further proposals for legislation that we are developing. He mentioned in particular Parents Against Tobacco. That campaign was launched just six weeks ago, and has similar objectives to the Government's. The arrival of the campaign is both timely and welcome. The Government look forward to the powerful reinforcement that it will bring. We shall consider carefully the proposals that it puts forward.
  Well-targeted local influence and pressure brought to bear on traders who would flout the law are likely to be particularly persuasive. Actual enforcement of the law is a matter, as far as the police are concerned, for chief officers, who must decide the priority to place on illegal tobacco sales and have regard to other demands on their forces.
  As I mentioned earlier, the law can and should be enforced by local authorities' trading standards officers. That is why the chairman of the Health Education Authority wrote in 1988 to all local authorities urging them to encourage trading standards officers to enforce the law and to use the councils' powers of prosecution.
  Well-judged consumer campaigns, or perhaps, to be correct, non-consumer campaigns, should have a powerful deterrent effect on irresponsible traders, as will—this goes to the heart of what the hon. Member for East Lothian said—the grass root reminders to local authorities of their powers and their duty to use them.
  The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the law. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health have seen to it that the ministerial group on crime prevention has considered options for strengthening the legislation on this matter.

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  They are satisfied that improvement is possible, and they are developing specific proposals to put before Parliament as soon as a suitable opportunity arises.
  Mr. Foulkes: When?
  Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Member for East Lothian will be pleased to hear that among them will be a proposal designed to clarify and strengthen the responsibility of retailers.
  The hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) asked when we shall bring forward proposals. It will be as soon as we have a legislative vehicle to which they can reasonably be attached.
  We have an emerging partnership between volunteers in the community, the enforcement agencies, the law and the industry.
  Mr. Home Robertson: The Minister is being genuinely helpful. Does he accept that, as long as two separate bodies—the police and the local authorities—have overlapping duties and other competing priorities, we shall have the problem that each says that it is up to the other to deal with the problem? Will the Government please give a steer? I suggest that life would be a lot easier if a circular went round local authorities stating that the Government intend that the work should be done by trading standards authorities.
  Mr. Lloyd: The trading standards authorities have the powers. As I said, they have been reminded of that during the past 18 months. There is ample scope for local groups organised by Parents Against Tobacco to remind the local authorities. There will be scope when the law is amended to remind the local authorities and the police what the new law is and what their duties are. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman does not mean that he would like one or other authority to have a responsibility. Clearly, both should have a role. There may be scope to state more clearly what emphasis each should adopt.
  As I said, there is scope for a partnership between the community, the enforcement agencies, the law and the industry. That is precisely the sort of collaboration which we have advocated and developed in crime prevention during the past six years. It is proving remarkably successful.
  I recognise that the number of hon. Members present shows that the matter is of wide and compelling interest. I hope that hon. Members will be encouraged, as I have been, to learn that the strategic approach to eliminating the illegal sale of tobacco to children takes as its model proven and recently tested techniques.
  Mr. Foulkes rose—
  Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman is just in time.
  Mr. Foulkes: The Minister said that he hoped that the law could be changed when a legislative opportunity became available, but he did not say whether the Government intend to find such a legislative opportunity. If a private Member of any party were to introduce a Bill that would give that legislative opportunity, would the Government give that Bill a fair wind through the House?
  That is an important point because, as my hon. Friend has said, it is clear that there are breaches of the law again and again. For about 90 per cent. of the time, the law is being broken. Therefore, I repeat: if the Government believe that a legislative opportunity should be sought to change that position, and if they are not willing to introduce such a Bill, if a private Member of any party were to do so, would the Government give it a fair wind?
  Mr. Lloyd: I thought that it was perfectly clear from what I have said that, not only are the Government developing proposals, but we are looking for an early opportunity to put those proposals into effect.
  Mr. Foulkes: When?
  Mr. Lloyd: If a private Member comes up with a Bill that coincides with some or all of those objectives, of course the Government would not be a dog in the manger and give it other than their support. However, I am not sure that our proposals, which are not yet ready but which are in the process of evolution, would necessarily be successfully put on the statute book by the private Members' process, especially at this stage in the Parliament. I can certainly make it plain to the hon. Gentleman in the remaining minutes of the debate that it is our intention to produce proposals on this matter and to see them on the statute book.
  Mr. Foulkes: Is it the Government's intention to do it this Session? The Government do not have many Sessions left.
  Mr. Lloyd: I doubt whether we should be able to bring forward anything in this Session, for two reasons. First, we are well into it and the legislative programme is well advanced; secondly, the changes that we are looking to make have still not yet been finalised.
  As I have said, I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Lothian for bringing this issue to the attention of the House tonight and for giving me the opportunity of bringing him and the House up to date with the Government's thinking on this matter because all of us agree—in government and in all parties—that this extremely important matter should be dealt with.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordzngly at nineteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.