Commons Sitting of 13 December 1991

Preamble
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PETITION

  Gipsy Site (Bristol, North-West)
  9.34 am
  Mr. Michael Stern: I am delighted to have the opportunity to present a petition from nearly 1,200 residents of Little Stoke and Stoke Gifford in my constituency and from Stoke Lodge and Patchway in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Cope), who is in his place for the presentation of the petition.
  The petition relates to a proposal by Avon county council to place a permanent site for gipsies and other travellers at Clay lane, which is in the Bristol, North-West constituency, but is bounded by the constituency of Northavon. In the opinion of petitioners it would be a wholly inappropriate, unnecessary and damaging site. Among the claims in the petition are that no such site should be placed adjacent to residential or industrial premises, that it
  "should be a minimum distance of 2 kilometres away from houses",
  that the running costs should be borne by the users, and
  "That! Provision be made for compensation to those residents whose property is devalued … by the imposition of such a site. That! Due consideration should be given to the views of the Electorate, in the same manner as consideration is given to the demands of travellers."
  The petition concludes with the prayer that the petitioners will look to the House for relief.
  To lie upon the Table

  Socialism
  9.36 am
  Mr. David Evans: I beg to move,
  That this House notes the success of Government policies over the past 12 months; congratulates the Government for protecting the interests of this country abroad, reducing inflation and interest rates, strengthening the public services of the country, ultimately making them more responsive to the people who pay for them, having the foresight to initiate reforms which will improve the National Health Service and the education system and for improving social security payments; contrasts all of these Conservative achievements with the abject failure of the Labour Party, despite years in Opposition, to respond with any practical or credible alternative policies; further contends that this is not surprising given that socialism, whether it is espoused by extremist politicians or served up by advertising executives, is a hangover of history; believes that the electorate will reject the Labour Party at the next election because it will not swallow its charade of moderation and that, despite its failure to come clean about its true convictions, it is still abundantly clear that Labour clings to an outdated ideology that stifles individual initiative, blights economic growth and fails adequately to deliver even the most basic of public services; and therefore concludes that a party which is without direction itself has no place leading the country.
  If Keir Hardie had not invented the Labour party, Jeremy Beadle would certainly have done so. Opposition Members surely represent the greatest practical joke every played on the British people. It might even be funny, if the consequences for the country had not been so dire.
  The role of conservativism since the 19th century has been to save Britain from the onslaught of socialism—an ideology which is fundamentally at odds with the free market and individual liberty.
  The Tories have waged war in a battle of ideas. The mould-breaking policies that they enacted in the 1980s have resulted in the leader of the Labour party rewriting his party's history just to keep up with our agenda—a wonderful Tory achievement. He has had to eat his words. In 1983, he said that Labour "wanted out" of Europe, while pledging his undying allegiance to a non-nuclear defence policy. Funny how times change, is it not?
  People change, especially when No. 10 is beckoning. At first glance it might appear that the red flag no longer flies over Walworth road. Do not be misled; that building in south London still represents the last refuge of bolshevism. That is where English Heritage should have spent its money, to ensure that that museum is still there so that my children and my children's children can see where the death of socialism and communism took place. It is a mausoleum to ideas which have long since lost their relevance in contemporary society. The purpose of this debate is to show that all the old socialist dogma can still be squeezed out of Labour's shiny new policy document.
  In contrast, after 12 months in office, the Prime Minister has shown that the Conservative party retains its intellectual vigour and political drive. We can look forward to the 1990s, while Labour can look forward to another decade in opposition.
  This has been a demanding year for our Prime Minister. While he was running the country, Labour has wilted in opposition. For every new policy initiative that he has launched it has served up only tired alternatives. For every percentage point that we knocked off interest rates, it has only jeered and asked for yet another cut and to hell with the consequences. For every patient we have treated on the NHS—we are treating 30,000 more patients a week than in

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  1979—it has tried only to frighten the old, the sick and the less well-off. Good news for Britain is bad news for the Labour party.
  It was once said that a state without the means of some change is a state without the means of conservation. That is the spirit in which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister continues to govern: sensible reforms, targeted on specific problems. The socialist prescription for change would destroy the fabric of our society, as it did in the late 1970s. Do we remember the then Labour Prime Minister saying, "Crisis? What crisis?" Who can forget the pictures on our television screens of the rats running round the rubbish in Leicester square, of the dead lying unburied in our cemeteries or of cancer patients being refused treatment and hospital supplies being refused entry because the National Union of Public Employees and the Confederation of Health Service Employees said so? Who will forget the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) on his way to Heathrow being told, "Come back; the IMF has refused to lend us any more money"? Who will forget the embarrassment of having our name dragged through the gutters of Europe? Who will remember going on holiday and being ashamed to be British? My children do not believe that people could take only £50 on holiday because that lot had made such a mess of the economy.
  The electorate put their trust in a Government to provide them with security. That can take different forms: a guarantee that citizens' interests will be protected abroad and that people will be able to prosper in an economic climate in which their quality of life improves; a society where individuals will have an opportunity to prosper and fulfil their potential; and a community where people will be cared for when they fall ill or face hard times. But, most important, the people must trust their leader, as this nation trusts our leader the Prime Minister.
  Those are the parameters within which Government should operate. The Government have excelled in those key areas in the past year—not the past 12 years, but the past year since my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister took over the country.
  Trust is crucial, but it is rather like a new 5p coin—it can easily be lost, as the Labour party discovered in the past three elections. It failed in all the areas that I have listed, especially running the economy and governing our affairs abroad. Labour fundamentally lost the confidence of the British people and it continues to lose it. I shall try to explain why.
  The United Kingdom sits at the hub of three great international organisations—the United Nations, NATO and the European Community. In the past 12 months, the Government have played a constructive role in each organisation. As a permanent member of the Security Council, the United Kingdom was quick to condemn Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. More important, Britain committed substantial forces to the Gulf to uphold United Nations resolution 678. On taking office, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister immediately had to take up the reins of a vast military operation. We may remember that, during the conflict, the Labour party refused to go into the Lobby to support our troops serving in the Gulf; it abdicated that responsibility.
  After the conflict was successfully concluded, the Prime Minister ensured that safe havens were set up to protect
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  the fleeing Kurds from Saddam. Britain insisted that United Nations officials should attend to the basic needs of refugees and the Royal Marines ensured the security of those refugees camps.
  The United Kingdom was instrumental in pushing for the adoption of Security Council resolution 687, which set up a special commission charged with overseeing the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction—a commitment which has been backed by substantial logistical support from Britain.
  The Government have steered NATO on a course of realignment, as it copes with the changing security environment. It is no coincidence that the United Kingdom, led by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, has been invited to lead the new rapid reaction force—a token of trust from our partners.
  The Prime Minister has successfully negotiated a treaty that marks a watershed in the history of the European Community—a deal which is in the interests of Britain, not the unelected Eurocrats in Brussels. Thanks to the Prime Minister's negotiating skills, Britain is able to choose whether or when to join a single currency. In addition, Britain has ensured that any future defence arrangements are compatible with NATO, while the social chapter, which would have placed unacceptable burdens on British industry, has been dropped. Britain's idea to strengthen the European Parliament's financial control over the Commission has been adopted.
  The Prime Minister has ensured that issues such as immigration are dealt with on a national level, not in Brussels. We all know that 7 million Russians have applied for visas to the west. Britain has a proud tradition of allowing asylum seekers who have been persecuted in their own countries to find refuge here. We shall not support the 75 per cent. of asylum seekers who already live in this country. We must not become the dumping ground for the world's refugees. The Labour party would let them in just like that. It had an amnesty in the mid-1970s and I am sure that, given a chance, it would have another.
  In contrast with what the Prime Minister achieved in Maastricht, the only question of the Leader of the Opposition—if he had gone to Maastricht—would have been, "Where do I sign?" Foresight and statesmanship are in short supply on the Labour Benches. Labour's leader is arrested when he goes abroad, although I believe that the corporal who arrested him was promoted afterwards.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Has my hon. Friend noticed that Labour Back Benchers are in short supply? Does he draw any significance from the fact that not a single Labour Back Bencher is present, which no doubt arises from Labour's embarrassment about a debate on socialism?
  Mr. William McKelvey: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) said that not a single Labour Back Bencher is present. I admit to being married, but I am here and I am a Back Bencher, unlike the Parliamentary Private Secretaries.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): The hon. Gentleman has put the record straight.
  Mr. Arnold: I concede that one of the few hundred Labour Members is here.
  Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend made a good point. Labour Members are embarrassed, but they might be even more embarrassed in the next half hour.
  Successful diplomacy requires the respect of other nations. That is why the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary triumphed last week. Everybody knows that Major and Hurd are in a class above Kinnock and Kaufman.
  Events in eastern Europe have been confusing and worrying, but they are nothing compared with the incomprehension that surrounds Labour's defence policy. For example, since 1988 Labour has churned out more than 20 documents on any subject that one cares to name except defence. It is therefore hardly surprising to find that its defence spokesman does not have a seat in the shadow Cabinet. One must ask what price freedom? It was Richard Crossman who said that the Labour party had adopted
  "their faith in pacifism but it does not face up to the consequences."
  That was reflected in the Labour party's unwavering support for Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the loonies who camped at Greenham common. That stance has been shown to be, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, irresponsible.
  I am still waiting to hear some Opposition Member admit that they were wrong to call for one-sided disarmament at the height of the cold war when Brezhnev was packing his empire with SS20s. If the Government had caved in then, as the socialists wanted, a wall would still divide Europe. The Labour party has been proved wrong again, but it still holds to its peacenik principles. A Labour Government would cut our armed forces by 27 per cent. and the Trident programme would be put in doubt—all that at a time when the Soviet Union is fragmenting and the situation calls for caution rather than gung-ho pacifism.
  Four republics in the Soviet Union, now called the Soviet commonwealth, have a larger nuclear capability than the United Kingdom. However, the Labour party wants to cut our armed forces by 27 per cent. and put in doubt our nuclear deterrent. That is what the Labour party stands for.
  The Leader of the Opposition has said that he would keep nuclear weapons as long as other countries still had theirs. However, he has never refuted the anti-nuclear core of the 1989 policy review document, "Meet the Challenge: Make the Change". That document committed the Labour party to negotiating away our entire nuclear deterrent in return for just a fraction of the Soviet nuclear arsenal.
  Mr. Nicholas Soames: Does my hon. Friend recall that the Leader of the Opposition has already said that he could envisage no circumstances in which he would authorise the firing of a nuclear weapon? Does my hon. Friend agree that, in that case, the right hon. Gentleman has already given away our nuclear deterrent without doing anything else?
  Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend makes that point as only he can. I have no more to say, except that he is absolutely right. We know that the Labour party has given that deterrent away in its heart, its mind and through its mouth.
  Mr. James Arbuthnot: Is my hon. Friend aware whether the Leader of the Opposition has torn up his CND membership card?
  Mr. Evans: I shall answer that question in a moment.
  Mr. McKelveyI am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that, at Question Time, the Prime Minister also refused to give any response to the question whether he would ever press the nuclear button.
  Mr. Evans: The hon. Gentleman may say that, but, if he knew the Prime Minister as well as we do, he would know that, if it came to it, my right hon. Friend would press it.
  Did the Leader of the Opposition give up his CND membership because he thought that there might be a Labour Government and that, as a result of his tax proposals, he would be unable to afford it? Or, although the right hon. Gentleman is still, at heart, a follower of CND, did the PR boys say, "We don't think that that would be a good thing to belong to"?
  The Labour party has officially changed its mind no fewer than six times about whether Britain should be in or out of the Community. Day to day the Front-Bench spokesmen change the policy unilaterally, at will. I cannot believe that the Opposition have the cheek to lecture the Conservative party on this matter.
  Let me put Labour's so-called credentials in perspective. If the socialists had won the 1983 election they would have pulled us out of the EC, because, as the Labour leader said:
  "We want out of the Common Market."
  One cannot make it clearer than that.
  Every member of today's shadow Cabinet who was a Member of Parliament in 1972 voted against Britain's entry into the Community. In the light of that, can Opposition Members explain something about their leader, who fell over on Brighton beach the minute after he was elected and who has been falling over ever since? Did he bang his head that day? He must have done, or how could he possibly say:
  "I have never seen hostility towards the European Community in the Labour party"?
  That is an absolute joke. It is ironic that the Labour party now purports to be the EC's biggest fan. It has almost taken on the status of a groupie. However, all the positive things that have come out of Europe are anathema to socialist ideas. The single market, the dynamo of the Community, promotes competition, choice and opportunity—hardly the watchwords of socialism. It is not surprising that the Labour party voted against the Single European Act in 1986.
  If the Labour party negotiated in Europe on behalf of this country it would be a disaster for the British taxpayer. It believes that the divergence between the economies of the member states is too great and its answer to that is the tired old socialist remedy—spend more money. It would increase dramatically the regional and structural funds. It would pour money into Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, but at whose expense? At the expense of Grantham, Sunderland, Peterborough and Inverness.
  As Britain is one of only three net contributors to the Community budget, it is clear that the Labour party's policy would hit British taxpayers where it hurts—in their pockets. In short, the Labour party, in common with Jacques Delors, sees the Community as the secret agent of socialism. That is not an end in itself, but a method of imposing on the British people the policies that they have rejected in three successive domestic elections.
  The social charter on which the Opposition are so keen would undermine the reforms that we have introduced in

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  the past decade. Everyone remembers that in 1979 the number of days lost through strikes was 29 million; in 1990 we lost 2 million days. The social charter would be a step backwards for the country and a step forward for the Trades Union Congress. The charter would also result in the imposition of a minimum wage policy. It is a socialist racket which would cost up to 2 million jobs, cause higher inflation and reduce growth. It would be a continental disaster for the people of this country.
  The British people know that our Prime Minister protected our sovereignty in the negotiations at Maastricht. The British people have not forgotten that loved ones were lost in two world wars in the name of freedom. They will not forget that the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties were prepared to sign that freedom away. By standing up for this country, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has saved the lion from the talons of the German eagle.
  Our people do not want a single foreign policy, a single defence policy, a social charter or a single currency. The Prime Minister knew that, but the Leader of the Opposition did not.
  Since the Prime Minister took office inflation has fallen from 9·3 to 3· per cent., which is well below the European average. The Government promised lower inflation and they delivered it, something which the Labour party can only dream about. When it was in power inflation averaged 15 per cent. and it reached a third-world level of 27 per cent. at one point. Interest rates have also fallen from 14 per cent. in December 1990 to 10·5 per cent. today. That is good news for the house owner and the business community, but bad news for Labour.
  The record levels of inward investment to Britain are testimony to the underlying strength of our economy. That has been reinforced by record export levels in the third quarter of this year. It is not surprising that we receive more inward investment than any other EC country. Even Jacques Delors admitted the day before yesterday that the United Kingdom has become a paradise for inward investment. That will increase when the Government fulfil their pledge to reduce the standard rate of income tax to 20 per cent.—a goal which was unthinkable when Labour was in power. Who will ever forget the top tax rate of 98 per cent? Who will ever forget the entrepreneurs, doctors, surgeons and scientists who were all leaving because they could not afford to live here? Surely the Labour party has learnt something, but I wonder.
  Labour claims to be economically responsible, but one swallow does not a summer make. Just because we no longer hear the Leader of the Opposition say, "We cannot remove the evils of capitalism without taking its source of power-ownership" does not mean that the old prejudices have disappeared. One just has to look at bit harder.
  Take Labour's plans for a national economic assessment, a so-called partnership between the unions, employers and the Government. That will not mean beer and sandwiches at No. 10. The new model Labour party prefers west end restaurants and gatherings at five-star hotels at £500 a time. Labour Members can afford that now, after 12 years of Conservative Government. They could not do so before. But they still want to experiment with the foolish ideas that failed so comprehensively in the 1970s. Just because one starts calling union leaders
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  socialist partners does not mean that those union leaders will suddenly start acting economically and responsibly. The TUC will look after its own and to hell with the rest.
  Let us recall that 165 Labour Members are sponsored by unions and that all but one member of the shadow Cabinet are unionised. The people know who Labour's paymasters are—the unions. Labour promises a system of financial regulation and credit management. It would impose restraints on bank lending. Labour cannot wait to get its hands on the leaders of the economy.
  The Labour party has collected sociologists and textbook entrepreneurs who apply the economics of the common room to matters best dealt with by industry and commerce alone. The labour trade and industry Front-Bench team wants to run industry, but not one of those people has ever run anything—except perhaps a commune. [Laughter.] That is a fair comment. I shall tell hon. Members what members of that team did before they entered Parliament. Labour's team consists of two university lecturers, one trade union official, a charity worker, a television producer, a social worker and a psychiatrist.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Labour needs a psychiatrist.
  Mr. Evans: Labour needs a psychiatrist! [Laughter.] One has to laugh—even Labour Members are laughing.
  Labour's strategy for industry is to revive the interventionist policies which failed in the 1970s. Labour still believes that Whitehall can run the economy. Labour proposes new rules on takeovers, with a statutory obligation on companies to declare research and development and training expenditure. Labour proposes a national investment bank—can one imagine that? Labour also proposes a national minimum wage, particular training levels for companies, renationalisation of British Telecom and regional development agencies—all that to rebuild the dead hand of socialism.
  It is ironic that Labour, the party that would have rolled over naked, legs in the air, playing dead for the EC, is at odds with the Commission's industrial policy and strategy. The Commission has emphasised in its Green Paper that the role of government is to produce the conditions for low or zero inflation, to remove regulation and controls, to reduce taxes, to promote competition and to remove state aid to industry. Labour fails on all counts.
  Is it that Labour wants in because it thinks that it can get out of its responsibility for governing the country? Is that why Labour is so keen for Britain to join the systems of the European Community? I think so. In 1979 under Labour, every week the nationalised industries were losing £50 million of taxpayers' money—not Government money. In 1979, it took British Steel 13·2 man hours to produce one tonne of liquid steel; it now takes only 4·8 man hours to do so. It is not surprising that in 1979 that company lost £1·7 billion of taxpayers' money. In that single example, we can all see what happens when one brings competitiveness into an industry.
  The socialist policies which I outlined will have a long-term detrimental effect on the economy's competitiveness. Labour's taxation plans, however, will have an immediate effect. The Leader of the Opposition has declared, "We will not increase taxes for the huge majority of the British public. No person earning less than £20,000 a year will be worse off." The problem for Labour is simple: under the Conservative Government, many

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  professionals, especially those in the public sector, have enjoyed substantial pay increases. Therefore, firemen, nurses, teachers and policemen will be penalised under Labour. Recently, the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs Beckett) had to admit that between 10 and 15 per cent. of teachers would pay more tax under Labour's proposals. It is as simple as that.
  Putting Labour in charge of the economy would be like entrusting one's life savings and pension funds to one of the Leader of the Opposition's best friends—someone who, had Labour been in power, would have been guiding the Government on economic matters and looking after taxpayer's money, not to mention pensioners' savings and pension funds.
  Only yesterday I was told that one particular gentlemen had supplied the Leader of the Opposition with a red Jaguar. I do not know whether the money for that came out of our pension funds or out of taxpayers' money. If the red Jaguar is still being driven by the Leader of the Opposition, he should perhaps return it so that the receiver can sell it and pay the money back into the pension funds. I was also told yesterday that that gentleman supplied the Leader of the Opposition with an aeroplane at the last election. I wonder whether the money for that came out of pension funds—we shall have to wait and see.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Would the hon. Gentleman like to tell us the name of this mysterious person who gave him these totally incorrect items of information?
  Mr. Evans: No. If the information is not true, no doubt the Leader of the Opposition will say so.
  Over the lifetime of the next Parliament, the Conservative Government could have at their disposal £16·5 billion from privatisation proceeds, on top of the £21·9 billion which we had already collected in 1987—resources which a Labour Government would not have available to them and resources which could not be used for health care, education, social services and other public services. If Labour ever returned to power, that would surely give a boost to the shares in the channel tunnel, because the brain drain of the past would seem like a tea party compared with the number of people getting out of this country.
  As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has shown with his anti-inflation strategy, he is not afraid to tackle the big problems head on. The citizens charter is another example—a catalyst for a wholesale shake-up of public services. Buses, trains and councils are constantly at the top of the list of the public's dislikes as expressed in opinion polls; privatisation, the extension of competition, contracting-out, compulsory competitive tendering and the establishment of the Audit Commission have all played an important role in improving our public services. The citizens charter, conceived, initiated and endorsed by the Prime Minister, is another important step forward. The charter embodies all that is good about conservatism. It is not a grandiose pie-in-the-sky idea, but a practical programme for action.
  Mr. Arbuthnot: My hon. Friend spoke about compulsory contracting out. I understand that he has experience of that because the cleaning and dustbin collection in Southend, before my hon. Friend became involved, was under Labour control and dustbins were
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  collected for 20,000 houses that did not exist. Compulsory tendering introduced by Southend council put a stop to that sort of shenanigan.
  Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend is right. However, the 20,000 houses were not in Southend but in Lambeth, which was under Red Ted Knight. Before we privatised the service in Southend it was run by the TGWU and there were said to be 237 employees in the refuse department. When I arrived the most that I could find was 190. I will say no more.
  It is long overdue for those in the public service to see people as consumers rather than as a nuisance. Bureaucratic inertia and inefficiency must be wiped away. The Prime Minister's initiative will ensure that people have proper redress for grievances and guaranteed standards of service. That will apply to tenants, parents, passengers or customers of the newly privatised utilities. Only a Conservative Government could conceive and execute the citizens charter.
  As we all know, Labour is in hock to the unions, which is why it has consistently opposed measures such as compulsory competitive tendering which improve services and the pay of people working for those private companies. If tendering were abolished in the health service it would cost £120 million a year. Without it, 15 new hospitals would not be built. Since we came to power more than 500 building schemes in the health service, each costing over £1 million, have been completed.
  Labour has always opposed those measures. Competitive tendering has improved services. I have given the example of the health service and my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot) gave the example of refuse collection and other local authority services. In that area alone, local authorities have made huge savings of about £250 million. We know that the savings in the health service would enable us to carry out many more hip operations and heart transplants.
  We can gauge Labour's consumer credentials by examining its performance in local government. It is a record of absolute shame. The 12 education authorities with the worst GCSE results in English and maths are all Labour controlled. The 20 local authorities with the worst rent arrears are all Labour controlled. We need only look across the river to see how badly a Labour council runs its services, not for the benefit of the consumer but for the gratification of the unions and the perverse priorities of militant revolutionaries masquerading as councillors.
  The situation is no better up north. Liverpool, a city bankrupted by Labour, has 5,733 empty council houses, almost 2,000 of which have been empty for more than a year. More than a quarter of the rent, £16 million, remains uncollected. Labour claims to be the party of the working class.
  Mr. Gerald Bowden: My hon. Friend speaks about rent arears of £16 million. Is he aware that the borough of Southwark, which has been Labour controlled for all of living memory, has uncollected rent of £35·8 million? Does he agree that that is disgraceful?
  Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend makes his own point. I was not aware of that, but it comes as no surprise.
  Labour claims to be the party of the working class, but in Liverpool it cannot manage to put roofs over people's heads. That is the sort of financial mismanagement that results in capping. In April, 57 NHS trusts were

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  established. That is a watershed in the development of the national health service. Although they have been operating for only nine months, patient services have already improved and waiting lists have been cut through greater efficiency and increased use of surgery. In the past six months the number of patients waiting for more that a year fell by 16 per cent. In addition, the patients charter will continue to put pressure on patient waiting times.
  For the first time in the history of the NHS maximum waiting times will be set for people receiving in-patient or day care treatment. If the hospital cannot provide the treatment within the specified time it will be offered elsewhere. For all patients there will be specific, timed appointments. Also from April, 3·6 million people are registered with GPs who have become fund-holders. Practices are given an annual budget and for the first time doctors can back their decisions about which hospitals can provide the right care for their patients and can provide the money for the treatment. The system devolves power to those who have face-to-face contact with the patient.
  Far from privatising the health service, the Conservative party is revitalising an institution which has been in existence for more than 40 years. NHS trusts and GP fund-holders are in the vanguard of a package of reforms that will improve the quality of health care, which remains free of charge at the point of delivery. Plainly, it would be silly to continue to pour huge sums into a service that has become a bureaucratic nightmare, a quagmire. Hospitals and doctors have opted out of the clutches of NUPE and COHSE. That is essential if we are to meet the rising demand for care which confronts the health service.
  Under Labour, medical judgments and clinical priorities had to be made against a backdrop of industrial unrest. Doctors, nurses and managers were not running hospitals; they were being run by COHSE and NUPE and they would still be running it under a socialist Government. A brother from COHSE is a member of Labour's review group dealing with health policy and a comrade from NUPE chairs the committee that oversees it. That is why Labour continues to get its sums wrong. It promised to spend more than the Government, but it does not say where the money will come from.
  In the days when Labour committed itself, it got it wrong. At the last election it said that it would spend 3 per cent. in real terms on the NHS. That is not good enough. We are already spending 3·5 per cent. While Labour huff and puff in opposition, the Government have increased spending by 50 per cent in real terms. That has given the country 69,000 extra nurses and 16,000 extra dentists and doctors who enjoy wage increases rather than the wage cuts that were experienced in the 1970s. While the Government battle with the reality of running the largest employer in western Europe, Labour sits back and hurls abuse. No Labour spokesman has yet shown how the Labour party would ration health care, how it would fix priorities or how it would stop unions and professional lobbyists defending their restrictive practices. Like true socialists, they pledge huge sums of taxpayers' money without saying where the money is to come from and how it is to be spent in the best interests of patients. The £35,000 million that the Opposition have promised to spend can come only from increased taxation or borrowing. I believe
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  that it will come from high taxation. The new wave of reforms is despised by Labour. That is because the new wave of reforms encourages autonomy and initiative.
  Mr. Don Dixon: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I ask who are the people in the civil servants' Box? Is it necessary for the Minister to have three civil servants here to advise him?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Who is in the officials Box has nothing to do with the Chair.
  Mr. Dixon: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This matter was raised when the present Home Secretary replied to the debate on a private Members' day. We found out then that the people in the Box were from Tory central office. Could I ask you again who the people are in the civil servants' Box behind Mr. Speaker's Chair?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: As I have already said, that has nothing to do with the Chair, but perhaps I can add that if they are to occupy that position they must, of course, be civil servants.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does that intervention suggest that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), will be so devoid of facts and challenging arguments that the Minister will not need support in terms of information and the like?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that we had better get on with the debate.
  Mr. Evans: Education will, rightly, be one of the key issues at the forthcoming general election. The Prime Minister has unequivocally stated his objective—to make our schools and colleges more responsive to parents and pupils. Under his leadership, the programme to establish grant-maintained schools has gathered momentum. By freeing schools from local authority control, the Government are succeeding in increasing parental choice, making schools more responsive to local needs and enabling resources to be used effectively for the benefit of pupils. That will result in higher educational standards. A total of £2 billion a year is being spent on further education and sixth form colleges in England and Wales. From April next year they will also be able to function in a new independent environment, where funds come direct from Government. They will be rewarded for each new student who is recruited, which is an incentive for expansion. Sixth form colleges will also be able to admit part-time and adult students and to charge fees or accept training credits for them.
  The message from No. 10 Downing street is clear: education is not just for children. Under new legislation, parents will also receive written reports on the progress of their children. Performance tables will provide information on all schools. Mums and dads will soon be able to make informed choices about their children's education. If a school has a bad record of truancy, they will have the right to know.
  As in other policy areas, Labour's attitude to education is coloured by a pathological desire to wreck any constructive initiatives put forward by the Government. A socialist Administration would sling grant-maintained status straight out of the window. Schools would be returned to local education authority control, which

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  would be refined to meet the challenge of the 21st century. Yet these are the same institutions that consumed funds at the expense of local children. Once again, Labour has responded with a promise to return to the status quo—a return to the good old days when their friends in the town halls dictated policy over the heads of parents and governors. That is a system of which the new commonwealth in Russia would be proud.
  Last month the Chancellor announced that spending on social security would rise to £70,000 million next year, an increase of over 50 per cent. in real terms since the Labour party was last in government. It is thanks to the growth in the economy that the Government are able to bring substantial help to those in need. Pensions and child benefit will be uprated in line with inflation. We all know that prosperity for our nation brings benefits to those who are less well off than ourselves. Half the social security budget is devoted to a full range of benefits available to pensioners. The Government have successfully targeted benefit on those most in need. Labour advocates an indiscriminate, scattergun approach which would spread benefits thinly across the board. In other words, Labour would end up doing least for those most in need.
  Will any of us ever forget the three Christmases in the five years before the previous Labour Government lost office, when they were so mean that they could not pay the Christmas bonus? They took the Christmas pudding out of the mouths of pensioners three times. [Interruption.] I know that they could not pay it because the International Monetary Fund was running our affairs at the time. On the last occasion the receiver had arrived in this country. This House was no longer running the country; it was the receiver, in the guise of the IMF, who was doing that. What did the IMF do? It said to the Government, "You can't even give your pensioners their Christmas bonus." That is what it came down to and the whole world knew it. No wonder the Labour Government got kicked out later that year.
  Apart from pensions and child benefit, Labour can only promise help to people—this is a joke—when resources allow. I have just explained what happened in 1979. There will be no resources. Essentially, the Labour party is engaged in a massive confidence trick. Labour cannot run a successful economy to foot the bill for our social services. It could not even support Arsenal, never mind increase pensions. I am sick and tired of the bleeding heart tendency on the Opposition Benches. They berate our achievements in social security when they can offer only a record of failure and neglect, of pensions ravaged by underfunding and inflation at 27 per cent. Under this Government, pensions have grown five times faster than they did when Labour was in power. Socialists promise the earth, but they only succeed in cheating the needy, the old and the sick.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us of how much pensioners have been deprived during the past 12 years because of the break in the link between pensions and earnings? This Government changed that to a link between pensions and the retail prices index almost as soon as they came into office.
  Mr. Evans: The hon. Gentleman has completely missed the point. It is no good giving pensioners £5, £10, £15, £20 or £50 a week if inflation is running at 27 per cent.
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  The Conservative agenda for the 1990s is exciting. War has been declared on those who obstruct choice or provide shoddy services to the public. Under this Prime Minister, our schools and hospitals will prosper. Britain's interests abroad will be protected and our economy will thrive. What runs through Labour's policy documents is an unstinting attachment to socialism. The Labour party is ashamed to admit to the electorate that it is still red to the core. Its ideology is cloaked in the language of moderation—deceit of the most cynical kind. My purpose in introducing the debate was to highlight the Labour party's continuing commitment to the old dogma—ideas which failed when it was last in government, ideas which will consign it to the dustbin of history at the next election.
  10.30 am
  Mr. Steve Norris: I extend my warm congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) on his excellent introduction to the debate, and especially on the moderate and reasoned tone with which he introduced it. The House owes him a debt for his intellectual and rational exposition of the fundamental case against socialism, spiced, as ever, with his good humour and unique style. It was a great pleasure to listen to him. He has enlivened my day in a way that I had not anticipated when I entered the Chamber.
  This is a serious debate. I want to commence by talking about my history. One thing that has impressed me most over the past eight years since I entered this House is that most hon. Members, of whatever party, believe in creating the greatest good for the greatest number. There is no credibility in the idea that the Opposition are simply devoted to the destruction of British society, as we know it, as an object in itself. They believe profoundly in the philosophy that they espouse. Why, then, has someone who was born in Liverpool just as the war ended, who went to a state school and then to a university funded by the state come to be so profoundly disillusioned with the policies of socialism?
  I believe that that has happened because, in examining what socialism actually means, it became clear that the key thread was a most unattractive trait—the trait of arrogance. If I had to pick one word that, for me, summarised what socialism meant, it would be "arrogance". It is the most extraordinary arrogance to believe in the concept of high taxation. I do not have the slightest doubt about that. Taking my belief that many Labour Members are dedicated to the proposition that they are improving society, they nevertheless have the extraordinary notion that somehow society is better off if they say to the ordinary working man, "Give us your money; we will spend it all on you"—or, with one or two distinguished Labour supporters, perhaps not all—"and you will be better off." The House should note that they do not say, "You spend your money in the way that you think will make you better off"; instead they say, "Let me spend it for you."
  That is the most extraordinary arrogance. It is incredibly patronising to working people to imagine that someone has a God-given right to determine for them the sort of lives that they would prefer to run for themselves. I reject the notion that I have any right to determine the lives of ordinary working people. I simply have a responsibility to debate and ultimately to discharge, on their behalf, the responsibilities that no individual can take

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  unto himself. However, wherever there is the opportunity to take responsibility, it should be for the citizen to discharge the responsibility of running his own life.
  Mr. Robert Maclennan rose—
  Mr. Norris: I am delighted that there is such interest in my remarks.
  Mr. Maclennan: Will the hon. Gentleman answer two questions? As his Government have increased the burden of taxation since 1979, how does he square that with his arguments? Secondly, as he has not advocated abolishing taxation, is not the argument simply about its level? Surely he is prepared to acknowledge that it is not an issue of principle.
  Mr. Norris: I shall deal with both those points later in my speech. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, the ex-leader of the Social Democrat party—
  Mr. Neil Hamilton: The ex-leader of an ex-party.
  Mr. Norris: Indeed. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will wait for that part of my speech.
  As a number of my hon. Friends wish to speak, I shall not dwell on the point about high taxation. Suffice it to say that I believe that the fundamental misconception that is allied to the underlying arrogance of the socialist approach to taxation is the idea that a person is not likely to be prepared to work sufficiently hard to raise capital and build a business. My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield and I know that that is not so. I raised capital by going to the bank and asking for a loan on the strength of the value of my house. I put everything that I had earned until then at risk by investing in a business. I worked seven days a week. If anyone switched off the lights at the end of the day, it was me. If the burglar alarm went off at 3 am, I was the one the police telephoned. All that people do, only to be told by a grateful Government that if they have failed nobody will give a damn, and that if they succeeded the Government will take 98 per cent. of the proceeds.
  What is so desperate about that is that it completely misses the point that if there is to be a successful economy that actually creates wealth, we must give entrepreneurs the ability to create that wealth. We have to create the conditions in which they are prepared to take risks, to invest and to be entrepreneurs. The fundamental mistake of socialism is that, from on high, it extinguishes every vestige of entrepreneurship, of initiative, and of the personal dedication to success that actually makes any economy—not just the British economy—great.
  Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens,)rose—
  Mr. Norris: I give way to the hon. Gentleman. What a pleasure it is to see him here this morning.
  Mr. Bermingham: The hon. Gentleman is so sweet in his compliments; it is a pity that his sanity does not follow his logic. Can he explain how there can be an entrepreneurial economy when the banks crucify almost every small trader?
  Mr. Norris: There is not one Conservative Member who is in the slightest doubt that over the past couple of
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  years business has had a desperately difficult time. However, I want to give a message to every small and every large business man: however bruised they may have been by the recession of the late 1980s, just remember what the Labour party stands for. It is intellectually opposed to entrepreneurship, success and reward. A business man who votes Labour at the next election is a turkey voting for an early Christmas. There is not the slightest doubt about that in my mind; it has ever been thus.
  Mr. Chris SmithWhich party has been in power while presiding over the two worst recessions that this country has experienced since the 1930s?
  Mr. Norris: From time to time I meet, as no doubt the hon. Gentleman meets, people from abroad, whether from other legislatures or just friends. If they have not visited this country during the past 10 years, they always comment on the huge improvement in the fabric of London and of our other great cities. Despite the fact that business has had a tough time during the past couple of years—as I and other hon. Members who have been in business know—there is now an infinitely more vigorous business society and business economy than ever before. It is poised to take advantage of the marvellously low rates of inflation—lower even than those in Germany—that my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, together with their teams of Ministers, have delivered.
  For all the posturing, and for all the clever debating of points that Labour Members may care to adduce, I do not believe that there is one business man who, when it comes to the crunch, will be the slightest bit confused. Despite the vagaries of individual performance, and despite the day-on-day vicissitudes of the market, there is an underlying philosophical difference. There is much in socialism that is about the politics of envy. Socialists believe, "If you've got, I should have it." They believe that one makes the poor richer by making the rich poorer—one of the most fundamental misconceptions that it is possible to have. As my hon. Friend and Member for Welwyn Hatfield said, despite all the fine words, we know that that misconception is still held by Labour Members.
  The arrogance of socialism is not simply present in taxation. It exists in its approach to nationalisation. Since the war, we have seen various bouts of nationalisation under Labour Governments. Thank goodness, the great achievement of the Conservative Government over the past decade has been to return those great industries to the private sector where, without exception, they have performed brilliantly in comparison with the appalling losses that were accruing in the Labour years. As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, these industries are now admired everywhere—for example, British Telecom is gaining contracts throughout the world—and are models of expertise and good management. They are a stark and frightening contrast with the days of the 1960s and 1970s, when they were in public ownership.
  The irony of all this is that the Labour party has come to take the view that the arguments of Conservative Members are right, and claims that it never believed in privatisation in the first place. The House may recall the Leader of the Opposition saying in the Director magazine on 1 September 1991:
  "The vast majority of the Labour party never believed in wholesale nationalisation."
  Labour Members may not have believed in it, but they made a pretty fair pass at bringing it about.

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  The Government have freed the British consumer from the shackles of living under nationalised industries, where that great feature of any socialist economy is present, another great halter round the neck of the Labour party—the belief that the producer of a service is more important than the consumer of it. It is an extraordinary proposition that one should pay more attention to the workers in the service who produce the goods—
  no matter what they produce or how acceptable it is to those who have to buy it, whether at home or abroad—and concentrate solely on the rights of the producer.
  The arrogance of socialism is seen not simply in taxation or in nationalisation but in the fundamental denial of choice and opportunity that is implicit in the concept, "Nanny knows best'. For example, in housing, only as a result of the Government's pressure do we now have, agreed across the board, the right to buy. This is the old story—we need not dwell on it this morning—of how a Conservative Government pressed the concept of the right to buy in the teeth of opposition from the Labour party. Having seen the massive success that this policy has been, not simply by giving people the opportunity to accumulate capital but in terms of management of local estates and the interest that tenants, now owners, have shown in their estates, the Labour party now claims that it was its idea in the first place. It reminds me of those Russian history books that claim that the Russians invented television, penicillin and many other modern developments. They are slightly less in evidence than they were, but are still a rare curio if one can acquire a copy.
  The right to buy is a stepping stone on the road to prosperity for many working-class people who otherwise would never be able to own their own homes. That right was opposed by socialism but introduced and given to the people by the Conservative Government.
  Mr. Gerald Bowden: Can my hon. Friend help me by analysing the way in which the socialist parties in local government have, with one voice, said that they applaud the idea of people buying their own homes, while obstructing such sales by every procedural and technical device?
  Mr. Norris: My hon. Friend has raised a tremendously important point—the fundamentally schizophrenic nature of the Labour party. There is a split between those on the Front Bench, who are desperate to appeal to ordinary working people and to pretend that much of its history and ideology do not exist, and those inconvenient souls who litter the Back Benches and who so often remind those on the Front Bench that there is good, old-fashioned recidivist socialism, and that they have not, for one minute, accepted the concepts about which we have been talking. On the contrary, they are back to the old arrogance of socialism. For example, they believe in the paternalist philosophy and look to the day when we decided that we would not have the state as landlord for one third of tenants as being a dreadful day, when some great social damage was inflicted. In all seriousness they advocate the idea that every sale of a council property should automatically initiate the building of a replacement of that property. That extraordinary proposition is based on the belief that the state should be landlord to one third of the people. We oppose that proposition.
  Another great initiative from the Government is the housing action trust, which is designed not to make profit
  1246
  for local authorities, the Government or anyone, but simply to give proper responsibility for their own lives to the tenants of dwellings. I am glad that it is being accepted nationally not only by Conservative Members but even by Labour Members. Tenants recognise that it is the key to the more efficient management of their dwellings.
  Socialism is arrogant not only in housing but in education. Were Labour to come to power, its belief that nanny knows best would lead to the destruction of grant-maintained schools and the city technology colleges. I wonder how far a Labour Government would go in reversing the local management of schools, one of the most rewarding concepts to be introduced in education since the war. It was entirely the product of the reforms introduced by my right hon. Friend the present Home Secretary in the Education Reform Act 1988, which he so brilliantly piloted through Parliament and which has been such a marvellous success. The Labour party's opposition to the private sector in education and choice is so well known that it hardly bears repetition.
  The one great saving grace for the Labour party has been the existence of that well-known columnist of a number of Maxwell newspapers, Peter Mandelson, and the air brush. He is there, scouring every Labour party document and, wherever he sees the word "socialist" or "socialism", the air brush comes out and the word disappears. We are seeing the sanitising of Labour's policies because the party feels that it must not frighten the horses. It must not use words such as "socialist" which are discredited throughout the world in the wake of events in central and eastern Europe in the past couple of years and by the experience of the last Labour Government.
  We see the reality every day in the House. Often, when I am speaking outside the House, I tell audiences that Conservative Members have a unique opportunity. Every day, we see how unreconstructed the Labour party is. As its Front-Bench Treasury team desperately tries to persuade us of its fiscal rectitude and says that spending commitments will be fulfilled only "as resources allow" —one of the most extraordinarily mealy-mouthed phrases in contemporary political science—other shadow spokesmen go around making spending commitments every day. At the moment, they are worth in excess of £30,000 million a year, and that is for starters.
  The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) asked which Government had had the higher overall level of taxation. I will tell him something that he should know. What the Conservative party has done, and what my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) was so right to do during her 10-year tenure of office, was to ensure that what the nation required to be spent was what the Government would have the guts to raise in taxes. Therefore, during her period of office we were, uniquely, in a position to make massive repayments of our international debt. We entered the recession with the best balance sheet of any of the economies of western Europe and will therefore have the strength to emerge from it.
  I could give people lower taxation tomorrow, but it would be at the expense of borrowing and printing money. My example for that is the Labour Government. Those weasel words that imply that the only important factor is the actual level of taxation are the great lie that Opposition Members, and the party of which the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland was once a member, consistently sell. The burden on a taxpayer is not simply what he

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  pays now in tax but the consequential burdens of printing money that devalues the currency and borrowing money that will impose a future debt on him, on his children and on his children's children.
  The dichotomy in the Labour party remains. On the one hand, there is a manic enthusiasm for spending commitments, and on the other there is the Front-Bench Treasury team desperately trying to persuade us that nothing has changed.
  Mr. Bermingham: Will the hon. Gentleman explain why national insurance contributions were 6 per cent. in 1979 but are now 9 per cent., and why capital gains tax was 30 per cent. then and is now 40 per cent? Why is VAT, which was then 8 per cent., now 17·5 per cent? Why has the average tax burden on the average citizen of this country risen from 32 to 34 per cent. over the past 12 years if the Conservative party is a party of low taxation? But, of course, that question is too inconvenient for the hon. Gentleman to answer.
  Mr. Norris: It might be too much to expect—indeed, it might be slightly arrogant on my part to imagine—that the hon. Gentleman was listening to what I said. As I have been decrying the quality of arrogance, it would come ill from me not to recognise the potential for arrogance of every politician. What the hon. Gentleman has said was precisely the point that I was making. We can compare rates of tax. With notice, no doubt we could compare our lists. I could give him a long list of individual taxes that have been abolished by the Government or are now lower—what about income tax, for example? In all the hon. Gentleman's scouring around to find taxes which are now higher than they were under Labour, he has forgotten the one tax that affects 22 million people—income tax. Were he to put income tax into his equation he might give us a more realistic scenario.
  Mr. Chris Smith rose—
  Mr. Norris: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to finish my speech, as I am about to do? I am explaining to the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) that the burden of taxation is not contained simply in one tax—nor, ironically, is it contained in the totality of direct and indirect taxes imposed upon a citizen on any one day. Realistically, we must take account of the future burden being imposed on any generation of taxpayers.
  Any Government can give people a free ride in terms of taxation for a year or two—even, in view of the Labour Government's record, for six years—but eventually that free ride comes crashing against the buffers and somebody has to pick up the pieces. To everyone who may at some time in the future read the record of our deliberations, I say, "If you credit Labour taxation policy, you will see the train upon which they will embark crashing into the buffers, and only a Conservative Government will have the guts to restore the nation's health."
  I conclude by quoting from a journalist whom I do not see as a particular friend of the Conservative party. Robert Harris said the other day in The Sunday Times:
  "The truth is that Labour—in terms of intellectual activity, as measured by numbers of publications—is perilously close to brain dead in this country."
  I am someone whose family voted Labour for many years, and I myself voted Labour in 1964. But, sadly, I
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  have seen the fallacy of socialism for myself; I have seen it in the community of Liverpool in which I was brought up, and I have had to live through trying to build a business. I see all around me in my constituency and elsewhere the benefits that a Conservative Government have brought in terms of individual freedom and prosperity.
  Robert Harris was right. Socialism is intellectually dead—brain dead—in Britain. That is the lesson, and I sincerely hope that at the next general election the people will be prepared to remember it.
  10.56 am
  Mr. William McKelvey: I see from the Order Paper that this debate was supposed to call attention to the failures of socialism. Despite all his attempts the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans), who moved the motion, missed one failure. Had he mentioned it, I would have agreed with him. There was one stark failure of the Labour Government—
  Mr. Irvine Patnick: Only one?
  Mr. McKelvey: This is the one that I want to talk about. It is the failure to establish a Government in Scotland—a parliament for the Scottish people. I shall outline how such a Scottish assembly would ensure that the interests of the Scottish people are paramount.
  When we have a Labour Government—which will happen as soon as the Prime Minister has the guts to call an election—one of the highest priorities on their agenda will be the establishment of a directly elected assembly for Scotland.
  To discuss the matter we need to reflect on the current situation in Scotland—one in which we Scots have lived for too long. As hon. Members who take an interest in the subject will know, Scotland is a nation full of contradictions. It is the world's fifth largest producer of one of the most precious natural resources—oil. We are a world leader in offshore technology—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I realise that the hon. Gentleman tabled the second motion on the Order Paper, but he is now speaking to the first motion. I am sure that he can use his ingenuity to relate his remarks to that.
  Mr. McKelvey: You may have misheard my opening remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I said that an incoming Labour Government will redress the failure of the previous Labour Government—a failure of socialism which we admit. I shall go on to explain what redress there will be and how it will affect Scotland.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: While the hon. Gentleman is on the subject of socialism and a Scottish assembly, will he tell the House what the impact on the people of Scotland would be in terms of extra taxation? What extra rate of tax will the Scottish people have to pay for that luxury?
  Mr. McKelvey: I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a keen interest in Scottish affairs and is anxious to hear what I have to say. I have spoken for only two minutes on how the Scottish people will feel on the subject. If the hon. Gentleman has the patience and I have the time, I shall try to explain to him what he wants to know.
  As I said, Scotland is a nation full of contradictions. We are the world's fifth largest producer of oil—one of the most precious natural resources—and we are a world leader in offshore technology. Scotland has huge coal

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  reserves and a long history of engineering, which has now been adapted to the frontiers of high technology. It has a tradition of education and training with the potential to match the best in the world. We produce high-quality knitwear, textiles, lace, whisky and much else. In a world in which leisure time is growing, Scotland is one of Europe's leading attractions for tourism, recreation and cultural pursuits.
  Hearing all that—it has to be acknowledged as fact—one would think that we were a most fortunate and well-endowed nation. But the majority of Scots have no share in all that wealth and potential wealth.
  The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield made no mention of the difficulties facing the Scottish people. He said that the Prime Minister had refused to sign the social charter because it would create more unemployment. That baffles me. I have some charts here which show average male earnings from 1980 to 1991. Taking the United Kingdom average as 100 per cent., in 1980 people in Scotland earned 99 per cent. of the average wage paid throughout the whole country. The Scots now earn 90 per cent. of the average United Kingdom wage, yet unemployment is higher in Scotland than it is south of the border. How is it that, although we work for under the rate paid elsewhere, our unemployment continues to rise and is higher than that in the rest of the country? On a parallel graph, if we reduced our wages further, it would mean still higher unemployment. Perhaps the Minister will explain to me why, although we work for lower wages, we have more unemployment. Our economy fails to provide employment for half a million people. So much for the Valhalla that the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield portrayed.
  One million Scots are now on or below the poverty line and nearly another million are on the margins of poverty. Yet the Scottish people have the rights that the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield outlined. It seems that we have the right of equality only to be unequal.
  For the past three decades, Scotland has persistently voted socialist, and there are now only nine Scottish Conservative Members. Not one of them is here today—nor is any Scottish Minister present, although one should perhaps have been here to answer the debate that might have followed this one had there been time. Of a total of 72 Scottish Members, only nine are Conservatives. No one could even begin to misunderstand, therefore, how Scotland feels. Conservative Members wax eloquent about responsibilities and say that they do not want to impose their wishes on others—which they say is what the socialist creed entails. The situation does not augur well for those hon. Members representing constituencies south of the border who marched through the Lobbies to impose that unwanted, obnoxious, unworkable tax—the poll tax—on the people of Scotland a year before it was introduced here. As a matter of fact, it could have been argued in the courts that that process was unconstitutional.
  Mr. Norris: As we are talking about one national group imposing its will on another, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it was Scottish Labour voters who imposed the last Labour Government on the people of England and Wales—with disastrous consequences? The hon. Gentleman will confirm that; it is undoubtedly a fact.
  Will he also tell the House how many Members he would propose to send to Westminster when his proposed new Scottish assembly is set up?
  Mr. McKelvey: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that if the people of Scotland or their representatives could impose their will on the whole United Kingdom, the country would be in a much better state. There would be much less poverty, and wealth would be shared far more fairly. The wealthy have grown wealthy on the backs of the poor and the poor are a much bigger group than they were 13 years ago.
  On the hon. Gentleman's second point, let us first set up our Scottish Parliament. The argument as to how many representatives we send to Westminster will then be a Westminster problem, not a West Lothian problem.
  One in four of our young people leaves school at 16 with no qualifications and scant hope for the future, and hundreds of thousands are homeless. Conservative Members refer to the great repair job that has been done on our great cities and to the advancement and enhancement of London. One has only to walk along the road from here to Victoria station of an evening to see the results of 13 years of Conservatism. In shop doorways from here to Victoria there are cardboard boxes containing human beings. That is not the kind of enhancement of a city centre for which my people, my family or I would argue.
  Millions of Scots find it rather difficult to grasp the fact that we inhabit one of the world's wealthiest countries yet we are some of the poorest people in the United Kingdom. It is only fair that we should redress the balance.
  Many people in Scotland have come to realise that it is not enough just to change the Government. It would not be enough simply to vote in Labour, although it is a fact that, since 1959, the overwhelming majority of Scots have not voted Tory but have put their faith in and cast their vote for the Labour party. The continual overruling of Scottish laws and customs by the Tory Government at Westminster as if Scotland were some forgotten distant colony has led many people to realise that we must change the system.
  I have been here throughout the 13 years of Tory Government and have consistently argued against the role played in Scottish matters by the Secretary of State for Scotland. He has withdrawn from local government its right to manage and withdrawn the funds to enable it to manage properly. He is still determined to stick to the dogma of the unwanted poll tax. He still argues that we should pursue those who were due to pay the 20 per cent., even if they cannot afford to pay it.
  At present, I am pursuing two cases in my constituency. The first concerns an old lady in a nursing home, who is being pursued for the 20 per cent. that she should have paid last year. She has no funds at all. Even her pocket money is captured by the nursing home, which administers her personal needs.
  The other case concerns a person who is in receipt of income support from the Department of Social Security, which has said that, because of the other deductions that it is making from the person's income, it simply cannot make further deductions to pay the 20 per cent. charge levied on the poorest of our people.
  Why is it, now that we know that the poll tax has been a disaster—after all, it caused the demise of the previous Prime Minister—that we must pursue relentlessly a dogma that militates against the poorest of our people? Why could we not have scrapped the 20 per cent? Why not forget the dogma which says that everyone must pay and everyone must be made accountable, and give some relief

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  to the poorest people in our society? The truth is that, after 13 years of Conservatism, the poorest have become poorer and the rich have become better heeled.
  Mr. Bermingham: Does my hon. Friend agree that a society that will send a 71-year-old to prison because she cannot pay the poll tax—in a Conservative borough, I hasten to add—and that will do the same to other elderly people who do not have the means to pay is a society that needs to be condemned, not praised?
  Mr. McKelvey: I could not agree more. My hon. Friend adds emphasis to my point that dogma rules. Conservative Members say that they do not wish to pursue people or insist that their will should be enforced. It makes one wonder about that when one hears of someone of such frailty being pursued and put in prison for failing to pay a tax that everyone recognises was nonsensical from the moment that it was introduced.
  Mr. Gerald Bowden: Does the hon. Gentleman condone the borough of Southwark, which has £35 million-worth of rent arrears, for its failure to collect? Does he feel that that is a proper approach of socialism to outstanding debt?
  Mr. McKelvey: Many things can cause a failure to collect and one of them is the inability of the poor to pay. We must consider these matters and make—
  Mr. Gerald Bowden: What about benefits?
  Mr. McKelvey: If people are paid benefits, the benefit officers make the appropriate deductions, but that is not the answer in the case of people who are so poor that the benefit officers say that nothing more can be deducted. The only response is to clap them in irons, but that will not persuade anyone to listen to reason or to feel that he should be accountable. The truth is, as Conservative Members know, that the poll tax was unwanted. It was an abomination and the Government were advised by the counterparts of those who now sit in the officials' Box not to introduce it.
  The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield talked about how the Government were able to save money. He told us about the chaos that was caused by socialist policies and referred especially to public works departmens. He said that the number of those employed in such departments was cut drastically. It is interesting that there are three advisers in the Box to advise the Minister during a debate on a Back-Bench Member's motion.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: It is astonishing that the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden)—does the hon. Member represent Dulwich? I forget. I should know because I live in his constituency. I do not vote for him, of course. It is astonishing that he should have made a riposte about housing benefit being available to the poor for housing costs and to have given the impression that he was in favour of housing benefit. If the strictures of the Conservative party against the implications of socialism were implemented, there would be no housing benefit. Help from the state to assist the poor is a socialist idea yet it seems to be enthusiastically welcomed by some Conservative Members.
  Mr. McKelvey: As always, my hon. Friend has given me great assistance. I agree, of course, with everything that he says.
  I was saying that the Government treat Scotland as if it were a forgotten colony. That being so, the Scots must take responsibility for their own government. The Labour party is 100 per cent. committed to a Scottish parliament in Scotland that will take over the government of Scotland. The first-past-the-post system will not be used. It will be interesting to observe what takes place.
  One of the responsibilities of a Scottish parliament will be health care. If we had a socialist Government and socialist health policies, it can be said with certainty that we would not have had the undemocratic farce that took place recently in south Ayrshire, where a brand-new hospital has recently been completed at a cost of £31 million. It is extremely well equipped. The management, through the health board, applied for opting-out status. The Secretary of State for Scotland said that there would be a consultative programme. When the right hon. Gentleman made that announcement I asked him and his junior Ministers if they would interpret the results of that process fairly and squarely. I wanted to know whether the application would be refused if the results showed that the overwhelming desire of the people in Ayrshire was that the hospital should remain as it was, under the auspices of the Ayrshire and Arran health board.
  The Secretary of State would not give me a straightforward answer. One of his junior Ministers did, however. I was told that it would be an honest consultative process. He said that submissions would be examined but added that even if there were a massive majority vote against the application, that would not necessarily lead to the opting-out application being refused.
  Under the consultative process, there were more than 700 submissions to the Ayrshire and Arran health board. About 500 were made by way of a written postcard. The Secretary of State decided that he should push those submissions aside. Whether that decision was democratic is a matter of judgment, but responsibility must rest with the Secretary of State. Under a socialist Administration, the consultative process would not have been handled in that way. It would not have allowed the matter to be handled undemocratically. There certainly was a failure to uphold democracy by a Conservative-controlled authority.
  Of the 256 written applications, only nine were in favour of the application to opt out. All the others were against it. They came from churches, consultants, general practitioners and every political party with the exception of the Scottish National party.
  The Secretary of State examined the submissions not on the basis of whether they were for or against, as a socialist Administration would have done, but in terms of "quality". He decided that the submissions made by Labour Members, Labour authorities, churches, consultants, general practitioners, nurses, other employees in the service and other individuals were of a lower quality than those from the 11 apparatchiks who had been placed to argue that opted-out status should be given to the hospital.
  Opting-out has been pursued in Scotland, but in England there have been second thoughts about the process. With some democracy, Ministers have slowed the process and put a stop to such applications in the

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  meantime. Some of the hospitals that have opted out in the south have found themselves in extremely serious difficulties.
  Had there been a socialist Administration dealing with social welfare, it is certain that pensioners would have been about £23 a week better off. That would have been the result of keeping them within the formula that was being used in 1979, when there was a socialist Administration.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: It is argued by Conservative Members that socialism is undemocratic and that the Conservative approach is more democratic, but this is an undemocratic, centralising Government. They preside over the United Kingdom, and in Scotland the so-called local control of national health service trusts was removed. The trusts did not have the right to choose their putative chairmen. The chairmen were approached by the Scottish Office. There was no local democracy.
  Mr. McKelvey: I am indebted to my hon. Friend. I know that he has a wealth of information to offer the House on these matters. I am sure that before I have completed my speech he will have helped me even more.
  There is a catalogue of issues to be dealt with and I have not yet reached the real meat, which is how the Scottish people feel about the Government's policies and actions. I shall take my time and try to remain as calm as possible. If Conservative Members find it difficult to understand what I have to say and wish to put questions to me, I shall respond by trying to amplify my arguments. However, I do not want to take up too much time because I know that there are many hon. Members who wish to speak in this debate. I do not know, but we might get on to the next debate.
  Mr. Soames: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, in the event of a Scottish Office Minister arriving, he has another speech for the next debate?
  Mr. McKelvey: I cannot confirm that. Without embarrassment, I would make the same speech again. There would be nothing wrong with making it again.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I trust that the hon. Member is responding to my appeal and is directing his remarks to the first motion.
  Mr. McKelvey: I am, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but what I would be saying in speaking to the second motion would be not dissimilar to what I am saying now, because similar matters would be involved.
  I could speak for at least half an hour on the deficiencies of the Government's social welfare policy. If we have reached a stage when people who are on benefit but who are subject to deductions are so poor that they cannot afford to pay the previous year's 20 per cent. poll tax, it is clear that there is real, harsh poverty. That has not been mentioned so far by Conservative Members.
  In an intervention the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) alleged that local Labour parties had tried by all manner of means to stop people owning their own houses. There might have been a measure of truth in that in the early days, but that resistance has long gone.
  Councils are concerned—as the Government should be—about the fact that the money that came into the coffers from the sale of council houses was moribund—trapped—and had not been used for the correct purpose, which was to build new houses for people who needed them.
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  Homelessness in Scotland has risen and there are now many thousands of people on the waiting list who cannot be adequately housed, not to mention the hapless wretches whom we see on the streets of London. Many of them—26 per cent. at the last count—were Scots who had travelled south in search of the promised land about which we hear so much. However, they end up homeless, unwanted and uncared for. The Government are responsible for the state of those people.
  Mr. Norris: Courtesy of the Labour Whip, we now know the truth about Labour's defence policy—the Leader of the Opposition merely allowed his CND card to lapse. Is not that what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting about Labour's opposition to the right to buy—Labour has merely allowed it to lapse? The hon. Gentleman said as much. The truth is that, despite the hon. Gentleman's posturing, Labour is trying to have it both ways—it knows the rightness of Tory politics, but cannot get away from its own rhetoric.
  Mr. McKelvey: With regard to the right to buy, there has been an unprecedented number of recoveries. People cannot pay their mortgages and that is another problem not only in Scotland but in the south. I heard on the news only this morning that the Government, in their panic, are trying to push through a measure to protect those with mortgages because a record number of small business men are now unemployed as a result of the Government's policies. We would not be in that state if we had a socialist Government at Westminster and, of course, in Scotland.
  How can the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield argue that there has been an improvement in the transport system? British Rail is in an absolute shambles because the Government have restricted and squeezed its funds. The rolling stock to the south is virtually falling off the bogeys. Socialist Administrations—unlike our Government—put money into transport infrastructure and have a much better system than ours. No one can claim that under its present strictures British Rail's management could run a proper integrated system. It is squeezed for cash. British Rail is instructed to make a profit on what should be a service to take people to and from work.
  I deal now with agriculture in Scotland. If the MacSharry proposals were accepted, between a fifth and a quarter of Scottish farmers could go out of business. All hon. Members will agree that not only in Scotland but in England and Wales there has been a reduction in farmers' income totalling about 26 or 27 per cent. They cannot afford to continue in that way.
  As a socialist, I want the land to be used properly for agriculture. I want the farmers to stay on the land because I am an environmentalist and I believe that if farmers are taken off the land—especially in Scotland—much of it would be laid to waste.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: I should like to emphasise the plight of the farmers and the destitution facing the farming communities, especially in the north of Scotland where in the past 12 to 24 months there has been a rise in the number of suicides. The National Farmers Union for Scotland is very concerned that the farming community is returning to what it was between the wars when the only way that farmers could escape their debts and escape absolute penury for their families was to take their own

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  life. That is a serious matter which should be considered by those who believe that the free market is all that counts in life.
  Mr. McKelvey: Such cases are especially sad. Another sad aspect is that farmers realise that their sons are not prepared to take on the onerous task of running farms, especially the hill farms in Scotland which require hard graft and apparently offer no possibility of making a profit for some years.
  Let me state how a socialist Administration would deal with forestry. We would redress the imbalance that has been created by the selling of forestry land. We would reverse the process and return to the situation that existed in Scotland in 1979—80 per cent. of the land will be Forestry Commission land and 20 per cent. will be under scrutiny to ensure that it is properly managed.
  Mr. Bermingham: Does my hon. Friend agree that growing fir trees is not necessarily the best way to afforestate land and that the sooner we return to a proper environmental approach to forestry—for example, the growing of oak, beech and ash—the better for the whole of our country?
  Mr. McKelvey: I was just about to say that we must put an end to the massive tax dodge in which even television personalities have been indulging: planting firs in Scotland entitled them to a tax back-hander. That process will be abolished, if that has not already been done.
  Mr. Patnick: Cannot the hon. Gentleman read his speech?
  Mr. McKelvey: Yes, I can, but I am considering which matters I could perhaps best leave to other hon. Members who wish to participate and which matters I shall use in the next debate.
  I have merely touched on the attitudes of the people of Scotland. Hon. Members wonder how I am able to argue so vociferously and with such sure footedness about what people in Scotland think about the Government and what they would like to see under a socialist Government.
  On 30 November this year the Glasgow Herald carried out a series of polls in Scotland to discover what type of government or self-government the Scots wanted. More than three out of every four Scots questioned wanted some form of self-government. Support in Scotland for the current parliamentary system under Conservative control was less than 20 per cent. The Scottish National party and the Labour party both claim considerable comfort from the figures and graphs shown in the newspaper, but the figures in the System 3 poll put support for a devolved Scottish Parliament at 43 per cent.—that is for a Parliament in Scotland with maximalist powers. Support for complete independence was 35 per cent. and only 18 per cent. were in favour of no change to the present system. That means that 78 per cent. of the people of Scotland want a different kind of government. They do not want the Westminster parliamentary system and they certainly do not want that system run by Conservatives. The polls have remained fairly static in the past 10 years. The only alteration is an increase in the majority of the people seeking a change. Therefore, the wishes of the people of Scotland should not be treated lightly or disregarded by Conservative Members.
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  Some Conservative Members think that we are a bunch of whingers in Scotland and that we ought to shut up or put up. They are arguing that a referendum should be held and that the Scottish people should be given the stark option, "Either stay as you are or go fully independent." That is a dangerous road to travel. If that were the only option given to them today, the Scots would opt for independence. Those polls clearly show that they are prepared to stay as part of the union, but only as an equal partner, not as some far-flung, forgotten colony which is mentioned here once a month during Scottish Question Time, or when the Scottish Grand Committee meets in a Committee Room here. The Government are putting the brakes on those matters ever being discussed by a Scottish Grand Committee in Scotland.
  The Government must begin to realise the difficulties which exist in Scotland—the problems that we are trying to tackle, which Scottish people feel strongly about. They have been voting consistently for socialist policies rather than for Conservative policies and they feel that their demise is due to the Conservative, non-socialist policies that are being applied.
  I believe, as do all the men and women I talk to, that we should be working towards a Scottish Parliament. The lives of all Scots will be enriched if we take democratic responsibility for our government. I have watched with sadness the demise in the powers of local authorities. The Government have throttled them because they are holding the purse strings.
  Under a socialist Government we shall achieve a directly elected assembly—or Parliament, as I prefer to call it—in Scotland, but that will be of no value if we leave Westminster the power to throttle it by holding back the necessary cash to run it. It would be a big mistake if Westminster thought that it could hold on to those powers.
  The most useful explanation of the application of democracy for Scotland and for European structures that I have read recently was written by a man in Scotland for whom I have a high regard, the chairman of the executive of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, Canon Kenyon Wright. He said:
  "There is a realisation that the Scottish issue and the current European issue are very close to one another. They are both about sovereignty. Both Scotland and the vision of a more integrated Europe, fundamentally question the strange view of sovereignty held in the English parliamentary tradition—namely that power is concentrated in one place and that any proposal to share that power with other levels is somehow a threat"—
  to democracy—
  "The opposition to real power for Scotland and the totally irrational fears of a European super state are based on the same fundamental misunderstanding of what sovereignty is all about."
  To enlighten Conservative Members, the crux of the matter is that
  "we live in a time when democracy itself, as well as the demands of the age in which we live, means that power must be shared at different levels for different purposes. So long as each level is fully democratic and therefore preserves the true sovereignty of the people"—
  that is what is important—not the sovereignty of Parliament but the sovereignty of the people—
  "this is the only way towards a just participatory and sustainable society."
  I support those sentiments 100 per cent.

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  If I get the opportunity I shall return to expand those powerful concepts, but I do not want to take up time on that matter during this debate.
  The assembly will take over key responsibilities for the government of Scotland. Much of the power over Scottish matters would be wrested from Westminister. That has to happen. It will be vital that local government powers and responsibilities are restored and extended to take the workload and to strengthen local democracy. We have to reverse at a stroke the present Government's 13 years of corrosive, dogmatic obsession with stripping the people of Scotland, England and Wales of their democratic rights, through the ballot box, to elect district and regional councils of their choice, without the threat of the withdrawal of cash by Westminister. With the Conservatives in power, consideration would never be given to electing a representative body by any other system than that of first past the post.
  Parliament in Scotland will be elected by a form of proportional representation. The work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, for about two years, especially in those areas which the executive members have been considering, has involved a great deal of work and heart searching. It is a credit to the Labour party that it has been able to sit down with other political parties and has been able to accept some form of proportional representation as a method for electing that Parliament.
  The test of time will determine whether that socialist initiative will be acceptable, whether it will be a success or a failure. In the pursuit of some form of proportional representation it is interesting that women, who make up more than half of our community, will have fair and equal representation in a Scottish Parliament.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: The direct consequences of proportional representation will be fewer Members of Parliament from Scotland in this place and, proportionately, fewer Labour Members in any Scottish convention.
  Mr. McKelvey: That is another matter. I am arguing about a democratic situation and I am not insisting that my party must have the majority of seats, irrespective of whether there is a democratic form of election. If the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) is saying that I should discard any form of democracy, because it will move against the party that I represent, let me tell him that I am a democrat. If that is a consequence of some form of proportional representation, I am prepared to bear it.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: I think that we are all democrats. The difficulty is, what is one's priority? Is it representative democracy, in which one Member of Parliament is solely responsible for his constituency—the smallest electoral area possible—or is it an alternative, arithmetic representation of political parties? One cannot have both. I know which I would go for—representing the people.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that we shall not lose sight of the motion before the House.
  Mr. McKelvey: We are discussing socialist alternatives and Conservative dogma. We have not tried proportional representation. We are not slow to try experiments in Scotland. After all the Government stuck the poll tax in Scotland a year before it came here, despite the fact that we are supposed to be a union. I think that that was unconstitutional, but apparently the courts were not able
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  to decide. In Scotland we were forced to accept a different taxation system from that in England and Wales and that should not have been allowed. Conservative Members representing English and Welsh seats showed no democracy when they marched through the Lobby triumphantly to impose a series of taxation measures in Scotland, measures which they know nothing of, and could not care less about. There was nothing democratic about that. If proportional representation results in fairer representation in any form of Parliament, it is a step forward for democracy, but time will tell.
  Mr. Gerald Bowden: Did the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues from Scotland go into the Lobby for the Division on the abolition or retention of the Inner London education authority or the Greater London council?
  Mr. McKelvey: I honestly do not recall. Hon. Members know our system in Parliament. Very often I do what the Whip tells me to do—[HON. MEMBERS: "Often?"]—I always do what the Whip tells me. We all know the position. It is one of the weaknesses of this place that one is not free to argue as an individual. I stood as a member of the Labour party. I am duty bound, therefore, broadly to follow its manifesto.
  Mr. Bermingham: Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Members for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) and for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) are shedding crocodile tears about electoral size? The Boundary Commission's redistribution in England in 1983 meant that seats in, for example, London ranged in size from 48,000 to 103,000. Are the 103,000 people less worthy than the 48,000? Both constituencies have only one Member. Surely the electoral system, as gerrymandered by the Boundary Commission, is a disgrace?
  Mr. McKelvey: Of course it is. One of the difficulties with having more than one Member of Parliament for each constituency is the division of their tasks, but that could easily be overcome. I would rather have two Members of Parliament who applied themselves to a constituency than one Member of Parliament who had several outside jobs that prevented him from giving 100 per cent. attention and accountability to it. All hon. Members sometimes shed crocodile tears on that issue.
  Four-year fixed terms for the Scottish assembly would free Scottish people from doubts about elections. Economic forecasts would not be a major factor in calling elections to the Scottish Parliament. An executive would be drawn from its elected Members.
  Unlike Conservative ideas, the prominence of socialist membership——
  Mr. Soames: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is quite plain that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey) is speaking to the second debate, calling
  "attention to the future Government of Scotland; and to move, That this House acknowledges the sovereign rights of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs."
  His speech has nothing to do with the implications of socialism.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) was in the Chamber when I made that point to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey), who is linking

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  his remarks to a wide motion. I am sure that he will continue to do so and will not go into detail more appropriate to the second motion.
  Mr. McKelvey: I do not wish to incur your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker; nor do I wish to impinge on my speech for the next debate, if I get the opportunity to make it. But these matters are dear to us in Scotland.
  The hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) misses the point: the nation is divided, not only between rich and poor and north and south, but, in effect, a socialist Scotland and a Conservative England. Therefore, the frailties of socialism, if there are any, should have been highlighted by the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield. I am seeking to argue against the motion and to promote what is good in Scotland and what will be better under a Socialist Administration.
  I am prepared to argue for proportional representation. It is not my fault that the Conservative party in Scotland refuses to participate in the constitutional convention. It is not my fault that the Secretary of State for Scotland denies the right of a Scottish convention to exist and refuses to discuss the matter with it. Only recently, the Secretary of State has done a U-turn and is now prepared to hold a debate in the House on the future government of Scotland. At least we shall then hear the Conservative view and Labour Members will be able to express their views on the frailties, or otherwise, of a socialist-led Scotland.
  Nobody can deny that Scotland is socialist. Of the 72 Scottish seats 48 are Labour. The Scottish National party claims to be socialist. It has five Members, including one of ours who went over to it. In total, we carry the wishes of two thirds of the Scottish people. The socialist Administration in Scotland, particularly on the regional and district councils, are being prevented from carrying out socialist policies by Government dogma.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The word "Scotland" does not appear in the motion. The speech of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey) is highly irrelevant and has taken up nearly an hour of the House's time. Many hon. Members wish to speak about socialism.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman should leave this to the Chair.
  Mr. McKelvey: The fact that the word "Scotland" does not appear in the motion condemns the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield, not me. If I had not had so many interruptions, I would have finished, because I wish to make only a couple of further points.
  The polls show that Scotland does not accept the Conservative style of administration. It would be a sad day indeed, if, because of their dogmatic opposition to a socialist Administration, Conservative Members were prepared to leave us almost as a colony.
  I have dealt with some of the difficulties that we have in socialist Scotland, which we shall try to overcome. I hope that the election is held as soon as possible so that the people of this country—particularly the poor, the down-trodden and the business men who have suffered from a record number of business failures—can decide
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  whether they have had enough of this Government. The sooner the election is held, the sooner we shall be able to discuss the question of socialism.
  Mr. Chris Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have just received the inflation figures, which were published 20 minutes ago by the Central Statistical Office. They show that the headline rate of inflation has risen from 3·7 per cent. last month to 4·3 per cent. this month. Does not that give the lie to the motion, which refers to "reducing inflation"? It would appear that the Government are presiding over rising inflation.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman can legitimately make that point, if he so wishes, when he catches my eye. I call Mr. Gerald Bowden.
  Mr. Maclennan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I must express my surprise that you have thought fit to call three Conservative Members and one Opposition Member in a debate that has lasted for two hours and twenty minutes when other hon. Members on the Opposition Benches have sought to catch your eye. If there is some reason for that, it would be extremely interesting to hear it as it is a departure from convention.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: This is a matter for the Chair, but I did note that the hon. Gentleman did not rise earlier in the debate.
  Mr. Maclennan: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hesitate to contradict you flatly, but I regret that you did not see me rise earlier in the debate. I have been here seeking to catch your eye from the beginning of the debate.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that what I said was correct.
  Mrs. Alice Mahon: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith)——
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Is this a point of order?
  Mrs. Mahon: Yes. The Prime Minister promised the country that he had licked inflation. Has he contacted you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to make it known that he will come to the House to explain why, yet again, something he said has not proved to be true?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: There has been no request for a statement of which I am aware.
  11.50 am
  Mr. Gerald Bowden: I am sure that it will be a disappointment to those on the thronged Opposition Benches that I intend to return to a discussion of the motion on the Order Paper. After the agreeable digression about the highlands and islands and the bogus points of order, I can understand why the Opposition do not want to discuss the issue of socialism.
  I had great sympathy with what my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) said. He made no attribution of bad faith to the Opposition. I agree with my hon. Friend that we, from whatever party we are elected, come to the House by and large with the belief that we are

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  here to try to improve the lot of those whom we represent. I do not believe that the way in which we discuss issues in the House reveals any bad faith or deliberate corruptness.
  At this moment we are witnessing the collapse of socialism throughout eastern Europe. That collapse is also manifest in this country. Those of us who have taken an interest in the way in which the flagship of socialism, the Daily Mirror, has represented its cause are concerned about the way in which voices are heard in the House.
  Mr. Ian Taylor: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you are all right. Do you need the protection of the House?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Bowden.
  Mr. Bowden: The two current political theories on government suggest that it results either from a cock-up or a conspiracy. It is clear that socialism has collapsed because of both those factors.
  Those of us who have lived under a socialist regime in local government recognise that, although the highest ideals may have prompted people to accept socialism as the modus operandi for the provision of local government services, it is subject to corruption and inefficiency. That means that the way in which those services are provided serves as a disadvantage rather than as a benefit to those who receive them.
  At my advice surgery tonight, as on every other Friday night, there will be about 30 people who have come with a grievance or complaint. The vast majority of those complaints will be about Southwark's services, particularly relating to housing performance. The failure of that socialist-run local authority to provide services to meet the needs of the people is one demonstrable example of the failure of socialism at a practical level.
  I recall the words in scripture which suggest that "By their lights you shall know them". One knows that the lights of socialism burn dimly in those authorities where socialism is put into practice. If one wants a practical judgment of socialism, one need only study the London boroughs, especially the London borough of Southwark which I know best, to see the failure of that theory when put into practice.
  Reference has been made to the failure of some authorities to collect rents. It is scandalous that about £35 million of outstanding rent is due from Southwark tenants. Those arrears do not result simply because of a failure to pay or an inability to pay through poverty. Properly organised provisions exist to ensure that those who do not have the necessary financial resources to pay are supported. The failure to collect the rents and to guarantee good management within the housing department means that a heavier burden falls, unjustly, upon those who are called upon to make up the deficit. The failure to collect the £35 million means that a heavier burden falls on all the other right-thinking and responsible people of Southwark who have made their payments.
  To allow such staggering rent arrears to accrue is one aspect of the overall failure of local authority housing provision. Another is the inability of local government to bring empty properties back into use swiftly. Practices within local authority direct labour departments—they may or may not be corrupt—have often led to an empty property, habitable or not, being boarded up immediately or being subjected to a maintenance provision. Many people on the housing waiting list would willingly take an
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  undecorated property. They could work on that property and decorate it according to their style. Instead, those properties are unnecessarily refurbished by the local authority. Empty properties should be brought back into use immediately, but the restrictive practices that direct labour departments of local authorities enforce are equivalent to socialism in action. They limit the opportunities to reduce housing waiting lists.
  Today, we have heard mention of the right to buy. That provision has given people the opportunity to obtain independence from a local authority landlord who puts many heavy restrictions upon them. One notices immediately the sense of independence that is apparent among those who have purchased their homes. They are no longer subject to those restrictions and can make the improvements that they want.
  The right-to-buy policy has been grudgingly adopted by the Opposition because they know that it touches a nerve of popular appeal. However, although the Labour party has accepted it in theory, it has done all that it can in practice—certainly in Southwark—to inhibit those who wish to purchase. However, new provisions have been enacted to ensure that local authorities act promptly to deal with right-to-buy applications; they are penalised if they fail to do so. That has forced the Labour party to find other tactics to frustrate those who want to purchase.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will speak in the debate. He should be aware of the way in which local authorities project high maintenance charges with a view to frightening off those who might think of purchasing a property. We know that the work envisaged in the estimate of charges would never be done, but those astronomical figures frighten off potential purchasers.
  Housing is just one aspect of the failure of socialism in local government. That failure is also apparent in the provision of social services. My borough of Southwark has a scandalous history of failure in the provision of such services. That has happened in many homes for the elderly. In one or two cases, a calculated and systematic regime of cruelty has been inflicted on those who have been incarcerated—I use that word advisedly—in such homes in the care of Southwark council. Those incidents have been subject of a ministerial inquiry at the homes involved have been closed.
  Mr. Bermingham: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thought that there was a convention that we do not attack people who cannot reply. The hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) has used the word "corrupt" several times with regard to Southwark council. He is now using the word "incarcerated". Of course, incarceration is the criminal offence of false imprisonment. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to attack people personally, let him have the courage to make his remarks publicly outside, were he can be sued.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a matter for the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden). He did not say anything that was out of order.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. On the issue of corruption in local government, some of us are prepared to talk about corrupt Tory councils outside this place. As the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) is talking about corrupt councils, I wish to refer to the corrupt Westminster

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  city council, which sold off three cemeteries for 5p a piece. Its successor, another Tory council, now has to buy them back for several millions of pounds. The result is that people in Westminster and taxpayers generally have to foot the bill for the corrupt activities of the Tory-controlled Westminster city council, and I shall say that outside this place.
  Mrs. Teresa Gorman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. These are not points of order but matters for debate. If the hon. Member wishes to raise a point of order, I shall hear it.
  Mrs. Gorman: Further to the earlier point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As a member of Westminster city council when that deal was done, I want the House to know that it was done for the perfectly legitimate reason of reducing the cost of running a very expensive loss-making operation for the council. There was no suggestion of corruption and there has been no question of prosecution. To say that there has been is an absolute and outright untruth.
  Mr. Skinner: That is very revealing. The hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) was involved as well—a Tory Member of Parliament.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must not forget the hon. Member for Dulwich, who has the floor.
  Mr. Bowden: I shall check the record, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I think that I did not personalise my remarks at all. In a debate such as this, with such an enticing motion on the Order Paper, I expected to see the Opposition Benches thronged with hon. Members wishing to defend the ideology that brought them here and justifying the basis on which they sought election, but those Benches are denuded.
  Southwark is one of the most interesting councils in as much as the area includes three parliamentary constituencies—one held by a Conservative, one by a Liberal Democrat and one by a Labour Member. If Southwark's socialism needs defending, the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman)—who represents the socialist interest in the House—might attend to make that point.
  Mrs. Mahon rose——
  Mr. Bowden: The Opposition Benches may not be strong in numbers, but the sanctimonious tendency is here in strength.
  Mrs. Mahon: The hon. Gentleman talked about ideology. I wonder whether he would like to comment on the ideologies that prevail in countries such as Brazil, where millions of street children are shot because the capitalists send out gangs to murder them because they make the place look untidy, or the Philippines, where in Manila alone there are 25,000 child prostitutes and millions of people live below the poverty line.
  If we are having a discussion about ideology, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will give a more balanced view and point out that capitalism is failing millions of people, not least in this country. Yesterday, in my constituency, a 79-year-old lady collapsed and died as she queued for free food from the EC. Hundreds of people queued in the
  1264
  freezing cold. I raised that matter last night on the Adjournment. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that his party's ideology has been a success for people over the past 12 years?
  Mr. Bowden: I understand why the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey) wished to divert our attention to Scotland and why the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) wishes to divert it to Brazil. What one sees near home is far too embarrassing for them to debate.
  During a quiet evening when I was in the Chamber, I found myself thumbing through the debates in the other place. I was particularly struck by a debate on 31 January 1991, when the deputy leader of the socialist Opposition raised the matter of corporate governments. I should like to direct the attention of the hon. Member for Halifax to that debate, which dealt with what the duties of non-executive directors of companies should be—[Interruption.]
  Mrs. Gorman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I know what the hon. Member is about to say. We would be well advised to take notice of what is happening in the Chamber.
  Mr. Bowden: To return to the tranquillity of the debate in the other place on 31 January, Lord Williams of Elvel and Lord Donoughue referred to corporate governments and the duties of directors. It is interesting that they both represent the socialist interest in the other place and that both have been identified as directors of the flagships of socialism, the Daily Mirror and the Maxwell group of companies.
  Yesterday evening, I had the opportunity to remind Lord Donoughue of his words. He said, "Most of the recent highly publicised corporate scandals"——
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Member quoting the words of a member of another place? It is not in order to do so unless that member for is a Minister. I remind the hon. Member that it is not in order to criticise members of the other place other than by way of a motion.
  Mr. Bowden: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was not quoting. I was paraphrasing, not criticising. Indeed, I was complimenting Lord Donoughue on his foresight at such an early stage in the year in drawing attention to an issue that bears heavily on socialism in action, the socialists who control companies and contribute to the socialist party in the House and in the country at large—"By their deeds ye shall know them."
  If I may paraphrase, Lord Donoughue said, "Most of the recent highly publicised corporate scandals could have been avoided or exposed at an earlier stage by alert and truly independent directors." Both Lord Donoughue and his colleague, Lord Williams of Elvel, were directors of just that independence and quality. It is interesting that, with the collapse of those great empires of socialism in eastern Europe, we have also seen the collapse of the great commercial socialist empire of Maxwell. We do not take pride in a failure, because we see within it the essence for the failure which we are trying to identify in this debate.
  Mr. Skinner: He was a crook.
  Mr. Bowden: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is referring from a sedentary position to me as a crook or to some other person, but I shall willingly give way so that he can clarify the matter.
  Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman obviously did not catch what I was saying. I was referring to the fact that Maxwell was a crook. I was one of those who from time to time highlighted that fact both in this place and outside it. It was no surprise to me when the house of cards came tumbling down.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: It was a surprise for that gullible gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition.
  Mr. Skinner: I have nothing to say about the hon. Gentleman's comment.
  The Daily Mirror supported the Labour leadership. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) is aware that from time to time I was attacked in the Daily Mirror because I stood up and acted like a socialist.
  Mr. Bowden: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his clarification. I would not say that Mr. Maxwell was a crook—merely that he was a socialist in the way he conducted his affairs. That seems to be evident from the debate.
  We are discussing a rather wider issue than the simple matter of two ideologies. We are examining the way in which they provide for the needs of a country and the way in which, in delegated form, local government and local health and education authorities make provision for people's needs. It is demonstrable that when socialism is in charge of those matters the provision of the services is less efficient, less attractive and more expensive. That issue is fundamental whatever Labour's cosmetic changes and irrespective of the way in which it tries to disguise or put a fig leaf over its socialism. With the advent of an election, Labour cannot disguise the basic fact that, in practice, when socialism provides services it does it less efficiently and more expensively. Over the past 12 years we have demonstrated what conservatism in practice can do, and I know that the electors will make the right choice.
  Several Hon Members rose——
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), may I say that I regret any misunderstanding that may have arisen between the hon. Gentleman and me and apologise to him. However, I remind the hon. Gentleman and the House that it is the sole prerogative of the Chair to decide which hon. Member to call.
  12.11 pm
  Mr. Robert Maclennan: Your remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker, show your characteristic courtesy. I regret anything that I may have said which has given offence.
  The debate has certainly not thrown a great deal of light on the nature of socialism. The hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) failed to discharge the burden of proof that the troubles faced by the country have anything to do with socialism. We have never really seen socialism in this country and some people may take comfort from that. Others, including, perhaps, the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), regret it. Socialism has not characterized
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  the behaviour of the Labour party in government although individual members of Labour Governments may have been inspired by socialist idealism.
  The debate was initiated by the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) and he treated socialism and Labour as synonymous. No doubt that was intended to shower pejoratives on the concept. The House does not normally deal in abstract philosophical concepts but rather with the way in which the country is being governed and the impact of that on the country. It is remarkable that the three speeches from Conservative Members have wholly failed to acknowledge the plight to which their party has brought the country.
  Mr. Bermingham: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Conservative speeches have been cant and rubbish? There was not an intelligent remark in any of them.
  Mr. Maclennan: I thought that they would have taken the opportunity to engage in serious discussion about political ideology, but, bearing in mind the Conservative Members who participated in the debate, perhaps that was too much to hope for.
  The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) said that his friends who come to this country from abroad would be struck by the enormous progress that has been made over the past 12 years. His experience is different from mine, because most of my friends from other countries are struck by the relative decline in our standards of public provision over the past 12 years. They are struck by the squalor of our cities compared with other western European cities and by the evident poverty of sections of our community who are forced to lie out in the streets in freezing weather. They are struck by all the signs of a country in which mammon reigns and where the divisions between rich and poor are increasing, to the discredit of the Government who have presided over it.
  I do not know whether that is a denial of socialism. Socialism has little to say that is relevant to the world in which we live. It may have had at some time, but not now. I am more interested in what drives the current Labour party. I ask myself whether it is socialism and what is meant by socialism. I recall the reasons that drove me to leave the Labour party. I certainly did not feel that it was about to be taken over by some form of eastern European-style socialism. It was rather the disunity, the dogmatism and the unwise trade union domination which dogged the Labour party in government, in which I served, and in opposition when many of the policies pursued by the last Labour Government were rejected and reviled.
  Mr. Skinner: When the hon. Gentleman came here he came as a Labour Member. Even if he did not profess to be a socialist at that time, the only way in which he could become a Labour Member was by taking socialist money. To win marginal seats, such as that of the hon. Gentleman in Scotland, socialists had to put their hands into their back pockets and provide money. That was how the hon. Gentleman became a Labour Member and served in a Labour Government. Then he joined the gang of four and another party. That borders on—I was about to say hypocrisy, but I do not think that I am allowed to say that.
  Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Gentleman wants to fight battles of yore which he and I fought 10 years ago. The

  1267
  reality is that those who elected me have seen fit to re-elect me twice since that battle was fought. I can only assume that they did not think that my action was mistaken.
  Mr. Soames: I know the hon. Gentleman extremely well. When he changed his party those who sent him to Parliament supported him in great numbers. On this occasion the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is wrong.
  Mr. Maclennan: I have always rather admired the hon. Member for Bolsover. I know that he does not reciprocate and I do not expect him to. I admire him for his outspoken adherence to his beliefs. My beliefs have taken me down a different path, but I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that they are sincerely held. I shall leave it at that.
  What is the democratic socialism that inspires the Labour party? Perhaps a clue was given about this time last year when the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) published his autobiography. It was something of a best seller just before Christmas last year and I was struck by its reference to the words of a Polish democratic socialist, Lesjek Klakowski, who has chosen to live in this country. He defined democratic socialism as
  "a positive will to erode by inches the conditions which produce avoidable suffering."
  That creed has sustained embattled dissenters in eastern Europe when the going was rough and perhaps it has also sustained people in the Labour party. However, for me, that approach is too gradualist, too determinist.
  A positive will to erode by inches the conditions that produce avoidable suffering will not bring about the changes that are needed in this country, in the time scale that is necessary, if we are to avoid the fate of being a third-class economy and a third-class democracy.
  As a description of the approach of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East, it is faultless. In a memorable passage in his book he also said:
  "In a parliamentary democracy change can he achieved only through working inside a party. This means accepting its constraints and its disciplines. It means acquiescing in policies that you dislike until you can persuade your party to change them."
  I do not know whether the hon. Member for Bolsover always acquiesces in policies that he dislikes, but I certainly recognise that the right hon. Member for Leeds, East did.
  I do not believe that politics can be compared with the race between the tortoise and the hare. That description of political change and how it comes about in this country, is, in my view, unhistorical. When reform has come it has not come by tittuping little steps, taken and then held firm. It has come in great waves. It has come twice in this century—in the reforming Governments of Asquith and Lloyd George before the first world war and, for the second time, in the post-war Labour Government of 1945 to 1951, which introduced the national health service and an altogether more secure position for people living in poverty than had been their lot in the 1930s.
  There are some who think that there has been a similar change in the 1980s under the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher)—the change in the balance of power between the trade unions and the state. I doubt whether it will be seen, in the eye of history, that any such historic change occurred. The right hon. Lady's achievements seem to me to be likely to be passing ones.
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  They certainly do not appear to have prepared the country for the challenges that we face as a result of the growing union in western Europe.
  Labour party strategists appear to me to be unnecessarily conservative. They seek to reassure the public that by change they mean little more than not doing the unpopular things that have been done by the present Government. For some people, I suppose that the mere relief that would flow from the end of this present Government might be regarded as enough to support the Labour party, but in its day-to-day handling of the political challenges that face it, too often the Labour party relies upon the negative. I do not think that it has put its alternatives clearly enough before the country.
  When the country was faced by the last challenge of empire—Hong Kong—the Labour leadership was swift to condemn the Government's paltry and counterproductive proposals in refusing to allow Hong Kong citizens to come to this country, but they made no policy statements about what they would do in those circumstances. When the stock market collapsed on Black Monday, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson), sought to boost demand to forestall a possible recession. It transpired that he was wrong in his predictions of what was going to happen. Although the Labour party attacked him, it was in almost exactly the same position as he was when he took his decision. Opposition for opposition's sake is understandable, but it does not exactly inspire the nation and does not give the impression that the vision of spokesmen on economic matters in the Labour party is any greater than that of the right hon. Member for Blaby.
  As Labour has wobbled a little ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls, we have heard from time to time a somewhat triumphalist note from the Labour party. We have heard voices that sound as though they believe that all will be right in this country if the ins are out and the outs are in and the quango chairmen are changed. I doubt whether that will win the Labour party the election. I also doubt whether, if it did win the election, a Labour Government would produce a striking improvement in the quality of government or in the economic success of this country.
  The causes of freedom and democracy require a more radical change than is contemplated by the Labour party in opposition. If the Labour party in opposition is not prepared to be radical, how much less radical is it likely to be when in government, judging by the experience of previous Labour Governments? I remember, just anecdotally, all that was said by the Labour party in Opposition about how it would tackle the land question in the highlands and islands. The hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) will remember that, too. He will recall that nothing was done to tackle the land question by the Labour party. The position remains as it has always been: that the decisions of those who own large tracts of land are taken without let or hindrance, sometimes unwisely and not in the interests of those who live in the community. The Labour party has had plenty of opportunities in government to tackle that question, but it has not chosen to do so.
  Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman was a Minister.
  Mr. Maclennan: Others were, too, and others had greater power to do something about it.
  Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman played a blinder, didn't he?
  Mr. Maclennan: I published a Bill. The Highlands and Islands Development Board of the day, after four years of sitting on the proposals, adopted them and put them to the Labour Government in their last months when it was too late for legislation to be enacted. However, that is anecdotal and by the way.
  If there is to be more effective government, delivering what the people of this country seek in the way of economic and social improvement, whichever Government are returned to office will have to tackle the unsuitedness of our constitutional arrangements to deal with the problems that we face. We need a modern constitution that defines the powers of government, gives individual citizens redress against the abuse of power and decentralises government to levels appropriate for taking decisions that affect people, both in the nations of Scotland and Wales and in the provinces of England—thus matching, perhaps, the experience of other countries much more successful than ours, such as the Federal Republic of Germany, which has decentralised provincial power and which is much more open than our Government are. With freedom of information legislation, the quality of debate is much more informed. Ministers can discuss with parliamentarians the realities, not the slogans that tend to characterise exchanges here between the two Front Benches.
  The development of the Committee system in the past 10 years in this House has been a modest step in the right direction, but it has been hampered by the secretiveness of the Government. I read today that the Ministry of Defence has refused to reveal the details of any of the discussions that have taken place about the changing structure of our defence forces and has backed out of giving the sort of evidence on defence to the Select Committee on Defence which would enable it to take a serious view of what this country should do, in view of the markedly changed conditions in eastern Europe. There is also a markedly changed position in the middle east. However, we are still faced with the old confrontations. It is time for the power of the Government to be more defined and for the absolutism of this place to be curbed. It is not operating either efficiently or equitably, and nor does it protect citizens from abuses.
  We must spread power throughout the country. We must rely, to a greater extent, on a definition of those powers and make them justiciable in our courts, as have other countries, so that we can defend the fundamental rights and freedoms of our people. This country is peculiar in not having an enforceable Bill of Rights to override the contraction or limitation of those rights by abuse. Until we have that, we shall continue to allow citizens' rights to be eroded.
  I am not persuaded that the Labour party is ready to tackle those out-of-date parts of our parliamentary constitution. For that reason, I doubt whether it is yet fit for government. If it does show a willingness to embrace the necessary reform measures—not least those that will elect a more representative House of Commons—the public will view it with a different eye and it may, indeed, he a great radical party once again.
  12.30 pm
  Mr. Nicholas Soames: I am sure that the House will forgive me if I do not take up the remarks of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), who is always worth listening to and who represents one of the most beautiful—indeed magnificent—constituencies in the country. It has a splendidly independent electorate, who will rightly continue to return him to the House with an increased majority. Although what he had to say was of great interest, I do not intend to follow him, because I want to deal with the question of socialism.
  You and I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will have many fond memories of the last debate on this subject on 15 December 1989, under a motion in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton). Unfortunately, now that my hon. Friend has taken vows of poverty, chastity and obediency, he is unable to contribute to our debates. On that day in 1989, our late and greatly lamented hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne, Mr. Gow, gave us a small tour—as he always did on Fridays—of the anniversary list in The Times. He drew some specious connection between that list and the House.
  The House will wish to know that today is not only the anniversary of the birthday of the Aga Khan, but the anniversary of the death of Maimonides, an early socialist philosopher in Egypt in 1204. It was our great good fortune to be in this House when our late hon. Friend discovered in The Times that our right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development—to whom he always referred as the deputy Foreign Secretary—shared her birthday with the Emperor of Japan. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, called our late hon. Friend to order and said that he had to make some connection between that event and the subject for debate. Before you do that again today, I shall move on.
  The socialist movement and ideal have collapsed and they are everywhere in terminal decline. The fact that there are only four Labour Members of Parliament present today to debate the demise of socialism shows what a parlous state the party is in. Of those four, only the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) actually means what he says.
  During the debate in 1989, my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton buried socialism with a stake through its heart, and at the crossroads of world affairs. He said that everywhere in the world socialism was in retreat. In 1989, the eastern European countries were just beginning to see the light of common day—Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
  The collapse of socialism in Europe has continued apace. The revolutions in eastern Europe in the autumn of 1989 have been followed by the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and the creation in the past few days of a new country, Ukraine, an independent state of the same size as France and a united Germany put together. It is an important power with vast resources and, unfortunately, a battery of nuclear weapons. This year, Sweden, which is often cited as a model of democratic socialism by the left in western Europe, has turned away from socialism after decades of rule by the left.
  The Labour party in Britain has not been insulated from these developments and, in its policy reviews, has attempted to rid itself of some of the old socialist

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  shibboleths. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton pointed out two years ago, the Labour party has spent the past 10 years in implacable opposition to all the changes, of whatever sort, that the Government have introduced and on the basis of which the extraordinary transformation of Britain has taken place. If matters had been left to it, we would be stuck in the world of the 1970s, of corporatism, failure and decline.
  While no one would suggest that the Labour party in Britain shares the socialist policies pursued in eastern Europe or the Soviet Union, it is worth remembering the words that my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) used in that debate two years ago. He said:
  "The common thread that binds all Socialists is their belief that the state and the Government have a crucial role in determining policies and economies in society. Like it or not, that is the pre-supposition of all Socialist programmes, whether they be communist or Fabian, British or Romanian."—[Official Report, 15 December 1989; Vol. 163, c. 1335.]
  Mr. Skinner: On the basis of changing minds, perhaps the hon. Gentleman should include the fact that a couple of years ago he went through the Lobby to vote for the dreaded poll tax—a degree of centralisation over local government the like of which we have never seen before. Two years later, having got rid of Mistress Finchley, the hon. Gentleman went through the Lobby to support getting rid of the poll tax. Nobody has changed his mind more than the Tory party over that.
  Mr. Soames: I am not sure that that is quite the case, but the hon. Gentleman is correct to draw attention to the matter. As a distinguished ancestor of mine once said in the House, "I have regularly had to eat my words and have generally found them to be a wholesome diet."
  Look at the Labour party today. Doubtful of its mission, for the very reason that the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, it has changed its mind on almost everything. It is no longer confident of its principles because, as far as I can see and everybody is able to tell, it has none that matter. It is drifing to and fro in the tides and currents of British political life. It is wrong on economics, on political conceptions and, thank God, in its estimation of public opinion.
  Mr. Chris Smith: In the tests of public opinion that have taken place in the past two and a half years—in Mid-Staffordshire, the Vale of Glamorgan, Langbaurgh and Monmouth—the people of Britain have spoken clearly about which party they want to see in government.
  Mr. Soames: That may be true, but the hon. Gentleman can only whistle in the wind about by-election results.
  What of Labour policy? It seems to me to be a succession of formulae, designed to enable people who differ profoundly to persuade themselves that they are, in every respect and in each regard, in total agreement. Labour's policies are not only unsatisfactory but in a lamentable state of deficiency. The intellecutal left in Britain is completely clapped out and impoverished. As Robert Harris, who is no friend of the Tory party, pointed out in The Sunday Times:
  "The truth is that Labour—in terms of intellecutal activity, as measured by numbers of publications—is perilously close to brain dead in this country."
  Mr. Skinner: We have had that already.
  Mr. Soames: It is worth repeating. That view echoes those of many socialists who have made similar statements in recent years. They show that the failure of socialism in many countries has left the democratic socialists in western Europe with few ideas and models for inspiration. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Patten), the chairman of the Conservative party, said at the party conference:
  "Socialism, a clapped out relic of the industrial turmoil of the last century, hobbles on its Zimmer frame into the sunset. Unelectable if they embrace the principles of socialism, a cause despised abroad, they want to claim at home that it has nothing whatsoever to do with them."
  Let us be plain about what remains at the heart of the new, glossy, red-rose modern Labour party. There remains at the core of it an extremely disagreeable and dangerous body of people who regard success prosperity and patriotism as major obstacles to their wicked and subversive objectives. They may cut off a few Militant twigs in Liverpool and Coventry, but the roots are strong, vigorous and virile, and they extend through every constituency in the land. Those people are a powerful and sinister influence in the Labour party.
  What of the leader of the Labour party—the fount of socialist inspiration in this country? In an article the other day, George Wills wrote:
  "Neil Kinnock started as George Lansbury, and is trying to become Harold Wilson—without the integrity of the one, or the intelligence of the other. Underneath the pulpit cant, he is a trifler and an opportunist. Rarely has mouth depended so little on brain. A Kinnock Government would be a lurch into frivolity—"
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I counsel caution. The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with putting words into the mouth of another which, if he used them himself, would be deemed to be unparliamentary.
  Mr. Soames: I am not quite sure whether I understand that, Mr. Deputy Speaker,
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman cannot seek refuge in quoting words which, if he had used them himself, the Chair would have deemed them to be unparliamentary. He is dangerously near to doing that.
  Mr. Soames: Oh.
  Mr. Skinner: You are just beginning to get through to the hon. Gentleman now, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Soames: Indeed. The article says:
  "A Kinnock Government would be a lurch into frivolity, at a crucial moment for NATO and for Britain's economic prospects. We would quickly discover that we had never had a Prime Minister so … intellectually ill-equipped for the job."
  Amusing and articulate the right hon. Gentleman can be, but he is scarred with more than a streak of left-wing envy—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has disregarded what I said. It should be clear to him and to the whole House that if any Member sought to impugn the integrity of another and make discourteous remarks about him, those remarks could easily be attributed to any man in the street. The hon. Member could then claim in his protection that he was merely quoting the views of others.
  Mr. Soames: I am not attempting to impugn anyone's integrity, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was merely quoting a newspaper article about the Leader of the Opposition. Amusing and articulate as the right hon. Gentleman can be, he is scarred with more than a streak of left-wing envy and spite. We have only to see the Labour party in the House to realise how cosmetic are those much-vaunted reforms both as to policy and to structure.
  Now we come to the issues. What about Labour industrial policy? There is a vital connection between confidence and industry's willingness to invest. In my constituency—an area which over the years has benefited enormously from the encouragement of the enterprise economy, although it is having a difficult time now in the recession—a number of big, important companies are delaying investment decisions out of pure fear of a possible Labour Administration. That is being repeated throughout the length and breadth of the land.
  Industry has always accepted the Conservative Government's priorities because they have always been made plain. They are the encouragement of enterprise, the control of inflation, improvements in industrial competitiveness, and a radical increase in incentives. All that would be put at threat by a socialist Government. There would be burgeoning bureaucracy, inefficiency and political extremism—those are the hallmarks of Labour economic policy. What is good for Britain is bad for the Labour party, yet the language of socialist denunciation sounds daily more idiotic and out of place.
  What of Labour's programme of public expenditure? Whichever way one adds it up, it amounts to a substantially more costly programme. To attempt to increase provision simply by increasing state spending, financed by higher taxation or borrowing, may be tempting in the short run, but would soon involve reversing the economic policies that have brought us the steady growth without which we would become less competitive, poorer individually and, in the long run, less able to pay for public services—quite apart from our lack of ability to compete in the rest of the world. To my mind, the electorate is unlikely to be seduced by promises of higher public expenditure and by a raft of promises that cannot possibly be delivered without substantially higher taxation.
  What about law and order? Can we ever trust the Labour party with the solemn care of law and order? What of its record on law and order during the miners' strike?
  Mr. Skinner: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Paul Boateng: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Soames: No.
  Mr. Skinner rose—
  Mr. Boateng rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Mr. Soames.
  Mr. Soames: The crucial question is this: how much does the Labour party care for the law and how much do Labour Members value order when it stands in the way of something that they themselves want? Inconvenient colleagues are betrayed and dropped out of the side door. Trivia, irrelevance and implausibility are the hallmarks of Labour policy on law and order.
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  On defence, Labour has not even a credible hint of a policy. The Leader of the Opposition has already said that he could countenance no circumstances in which he would use the nuclear deterrent. The whole point of the nuclear deterrent, which is that it must be credible as to its use, has been thrown out of the window at a stroke.
  Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman has the cheek to talk about law and order when his Government are refusing to prosecute B & Q and many other big traders who hand over money to the Tory party. In addition, when the Government were elected 12 years ago, there were three prisoners in every cell. Now we have had God knows how many Home Secretaries, there are three prisoners on every roof, and the IRA is running Brixton prison. The Government were supposedly elected to set the people free but the prisoners got out.
  Mr. Soames: I knew that it would be a mistake to give way to the hon. Gentleman. The House will wish to know that today is also the anniversary of the birthday of Dr. Johnson, who once said that one should never make way for a fool. I regret having done so.
  We avow ourselves against socialism. We are against its uniformity, its ugliness, its ordinariness, its complexities, its limitations, its rigidity, its institutionalism, its banality, its ready-made ideas, its hypocrisy, its routine, its severity, and its prejudice. Above all, we are against it because of its incompetence and inefficiency and because of the great harm that it has done over the years to the economic and industrial standing of our nation.
  Socialism has been a melancholy story of indecision, miscalculation and ineptitude. From the Labour party we hear nothing much but a judicious blend of prejudice, ignorance and, from Manchester, Gorton, menace. Never before has the Labour party approached the electorate with such self-seeking, superficial and ignorant views and it will not win.
  When Pope Innocent X saw the terms of the treaty of Westphalia, he called them
  "Null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust. damnable, reprobate, inane and empty of meaning for all time."
  Such is socialism, and it is dead as a result.
  12.48 pm
  Mr. Gerald Bermingham: This morning, we have been entertained by three Conservative Members who, with cant, venom and spite, raised their voices against socialism without even knowing what it meant. Innuendoes and allegations have been made, often without any foundation or a single ounce of truth, as the hon. Member for Luton, North will certainly learn to his cost before the day is out.
  Mr. David Evans: Who?
  Hon. Members: Welwyn Hatfield.
  Mr. Bermingham: That just goes to show: there are so many Conservative seats around London with empty voices speaking for them that it is easy to get mixed up.
  The fourth Conservative Member to contribute to the debate was the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr.Soames). It is probable that he has not, since his prep school days or his first year at Eton, used so many big words in one speech. He had to read them, of course. He would not have been able to remember them. What did they all mean at the end of the day?
  Mr. Boateng: Precious little.
  Mr. Bermingham: That is right. I thank my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Skinner: The hon. Member for Crawley is educated beyond his intelligence.
  Mr. Bermingham: It is necessary to have some intelligence to get a first.
  I shall not speak for long but, first, I shall refer to the motion. It would be a good idea if someone did that. It is in the name of the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans). The first part of it reads:
  "To call attention to the failures of socialism".
  We have not had a socialist Government for about 12 years, but what was happening in the economy at that time? I recall that the secondary banks went bust in 1974, but that was when a Conservative Government were in office. We must never forget that. I recall development companies going bust. That happened when a Conservative Government were in office. I remember security houses buying out companies and breaking them up.
  Mr. Boateng: That happened under a Conservative Government.
  Mr. Bermingham: Yes, another Conservative Government.
  Mr. Boateng: Those are their successes!
  Mr. Bermingham: Indeed.
  As I have said, we have not had a Labour Government for 12 years. But what have we had during the past 12 years? I intervened in the speech of the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) and posed three questions. The hon. Gentleman told me that the Conservative party was the party of low taxation. Either every economic commentator has it wrong and the hon. Gentleman has it right, or he has it wrong and the economic commentators have it right. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), who sits on the Opposition Front Bench, will confirm that overall average taxation has increased in the past 12 years.
  Mr. Chris Smith indicated assent.
  Mr. Bermingham: In 1979, the Conservative Government told us that they would never touch value added tax. It was 8 per cent. in those days. It is now 17·5 per cent. Unless I am unintelligent that means that VAT has increased.
  I seem to recall that in 1979 capital gains tax was 30 per cent. It is now 40 per cent. I accept that certain death duties have been reduced, but property prices have risen to meet the lower levels of duty. I understand that national insurance has increased from 6 to 9 per cent. Those are all examples of taxes increasing. Over the same period the level of taxation overall has increased.
  The unfairest increase in tax of them all is that of VAT. That is because it hits the ordinary person in the street. It is a tax on what people buy. Whether someone is a rich man or a poor man, he still has to buy food, clothes and furniture. He still has to put socks on his feet and to wear shoes. I suppose that the difference is that rich men buy more shoes than poor men. Rich men buy more clothes than poor men. In my constituency, there are people who
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  cannot afford to buy clothes in the shops. They have to go to bring-and-buy sales or jumble sales. Those are the places where they get their clothes.
  There were about 20,000 people working in the glass industry in my constituency 12 years ago. There are now only 8,000. The rate of unemployment in my constituency 12 years ago was 6 or 7 per cent. The most recent figure that I have seen—it is the product of all the adjusted, moveable and variable methods that the Government use nowadays to calculate unemployment—is 10·4 per cent.
  All these events have taken place under a successful Conservative Government, so this Administration would have us believe. I dread to think what would happen to St. Helens under an unsuccessful Conservative Government. I know what would happen to it under a successful Labour Government. We would not have unemployment standing at 10·4 per cent. We would start building things again—houses, for example. It is a little, old-fashioned idea to build houses.
  Mr. Arbuthnot: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that under every socialist Government since 1929 unemployment has doubled, except for one socialist Government under which it increased by 50 per cent?
  Mr. Bermingham: That may be historically correct, but the hon. Gentleman must, in turn, remember that just before the 1979 election about 1 million people were unemployed. I understand that now about 2·4 million are unemployed so unless my arithmetic is terribly wrong, the second figure is almost 250 per cent. of the former. Does the hon. Gentleman call that success? Those figures are the fiddled figures—according to the straight figures there is an underlying trend of another 2 million who do not have a job and who are no longer registered. Hon. Members may laugh, but I can take them round St. Helens and show them people who have been out of work for 10 years or more and who are no longer on the register because they have been "retired early". It is a bit sick to retire people early in their 40s and 50s—it is a sign not of success but of abject failure.
  Before the hon. Gentleman intervened, I was saying that we shall begin to build houses again. Hundreds of thousands of homeless people are sleeping rough. I do not disagree with the right to buy and I can tell the Minister that Sheffield city council was building starter homes for sale in the 1970s. They were built with public funds on public land and were sold locally, so the Conservatives should not tell us that we do not know about the right to buy.
  It would be nice if local authorities were allowed to use their money to build houses again, whether to sell or to rent or to help the housing associations. All those options are fine but when one starts to build houses one needs glass, piping and bricks—Ibstock Brick and Pilkington are in my constituency—and we need to get those industries going again. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—
  Mr. Chris Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) in his important speech, but I have just received some important information which should be raised on a point of order.
  In his introductory speech, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) made an accusation against my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. He

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  said that he had been informed that Mr. Robert Maxwell had made available to my right hon. Friend a red Jaguar car and a plane during the election campaign of 1987. The hon. Gentleman will recall that I challenged him at the time about the veracity of his allegation. It appears that he was merely repeating an item which appeared in The Sunday Telegraph last Sunday. I understand that my right hon. Friend has taken up the matter through his solicitors, has pointed out to The Sunday Telegraph that there is no truth whatsoever in either of the allegations and that The Sunday Telegraph will be putting the matter right this Sunday.
  In those circumstances, I hope and trust that the hon. Gentleman who made the allegations at the outset of the debate will now have the courtesy to withdraw them immediately.
  Mr. David Evans: If the allegations are untrue, I withdraw them. There is no problem.
  Mr. Smith: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member must accept the undeniable fact that the allegations that he and The Sunday Telegraph made are completely untrue. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not qualify his withdrawal but will withdraw the remarks.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is not for me to judge where the truth lies, but I think that if the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield, (Mr. Evans) were to make a less qualified withdrawal of his remarks, it might avoid the necessity of having to return to these matters again.
  Mr. Evans: Unreservedly I withdraw the remarks.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I thank the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Bermingham rose—
  Mr. Don Dixon: Although the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) withdrew his slanderous remarks unreservedly, he has not had the courtesy to apologise to the House for telling what was obviously a blatant lie. I raised a point of order earlier, when you were not in the Chair, about the—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] He has already accepted that it was a lie and withdrawn it. I raised a point of order about the number of civil servants in the civil servants' Box for private Members motions.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. On the second and lesser matter, we do not refer to people who are outside the Chamber—I am not aware of their existence. What is more important, I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) was suggesting that the substance of the newspaper article amounted to a blatant lie, or whether he was saying that the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) uttered a blatant lie. If it was the latter, the hon. Member for Jarrow must withdraw.
  Mr. Dixon: Could I put it this way, he repeated a lie which appeared in The Sunday Telegraph. When your predecessor was in the Chair I raised a point of order because during a debate on private Members' motions some time ago, the present Home Secretary had someone from Tory central office sitting in that Box and we had to get them shifted. That is the reason I raised the matter this morning.
  On a further point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Immediately after that Member made his speech—[HON.
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  MEMBERS: "Honourable Member"]—there is nothing honourable about him—he immediately went to see the civil servants from the Department of Trade and Industry. He happens to be a Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Minister at the DTI. I wondered whether the DTI were feeding Tory Back Benchers with this sort of—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Those are not matters for me. We really should move on.
  Mr. Bermingham rose—
  Mr. Boateng: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It pains one to have to mention this issue, but one is bound to say that if there were a case of a member of Conservative central office sitting in the civil servants' Box, feeding Tory Members with lies—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not prepared either to contemplate or to rule upon any hypothetical matters.
  Mr. Bermingham rose—
  Mr. Alan Meale: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon). Would it not be appropriate for the hon. Member involved to apologise to the House for the error of his ways because—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) made an unqualified withdrawal of the remark that he made. That should satisfy the House.
  Mr. Bermingham: Would anyone else like a point of order before I continue?
  We need houses, and building them would put people back to work, thus increasing the number of people with jobs, which would increase the general wealth of the country. That would mean more moneys would be available for taxation, even if it were to stay at the old 1979 rate. One of the interesting aspects of income tax is that the higher it goes, the less people pay. I am not in favour of high taxation, as my party knows only too well.
  If there is greater wealth in the country greater tax revenue would be available and we would be able to do many of the things that we want done. We would be able to have schools with books in them, hospital beds and operations. It would not be a case of people waiting months for a hip operation, as happens in my constituency. How do you tell a 65-year-old woman that she cannot have a hip operation for 18 months because there is no bed available, and expect her to have quality of life? That is what happens. We all know from our postbags and surgeries that that is happening throughout the country. Waiting lists have got longer. I concede that efforts are being made to reduce them, but how is it being done? One can get the operation next week if one can pay for it.
  An 85-year-old constituent informed me that she was told that if she paid £3,000 she could have a hip operation; if she did not, she would have to wait for a year. It is surprising what a letter from me to the area health authority did on her behalf—I do not claim any credit. Suddenly, the waiting time went down and she did not have to pay. That is the sort of land we live in.
  One of my favourite gripes is banks. We are having to pay exorbitant rates of interest. The present base rate is 10·5 per cent. By the time that one pays the bank back it

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  is not 10·5 per cent. because some banks, for example Lloyds, run a "privileged" account with interest at 1·4 per cent. per month. Even on my arithmetic that is nearly 18 per cent.—on a base rate of 10 per cent. Other banks, such as Barclays, are running at 2, 3 or 4 per cent. over base, depending on their agreement with the customer. How can small seed-corn industries invest when the effective repayment rate is about 15 or 16 per cent? Such companies must pay those interest rates and then start to repay the capital. With such rates, companies cannot afford to invest, which explains the decline in investment.
  I am glad that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is here, because my next point is a personal gripe. The Conservative party is the party of privatisation. "It will work better," it said. About 18 months ago, in an magnanimous gesture—an inspirational move, they thought—the Government sold four skill centres to a man, but not for money; they gave him £2·1 million. One of those skill centres is in St. Helens and it employs 28 people. Within 18 months, that man had gone bust. We shall probably never know where the £2·1 million went to. The skill centre that we needed in St. Helens has gone—and the money with it.
  When the centre was privatised, civil servants were told, "Your pension and rights will not be touched." That has not been honoured. Magnanimously, although they have not gone far enough, the Government have said that if the workers receive no redundancy from the liquidation they will help a bit. That is not good enough. There is a moral duty on the Government. The local authority wanted to takeover the skill centre. Luckily, with the help of the St. Helens Trust and others, moves are being made to enable it to do so. I pay tribute to the local authority and the St. Helens Trust. That is the true cost of privatisation.
  Local authorities bought land for the water companies when they were responsible for running those companies before 1974. The money that was realised when the water companies were floated did not go back to the people but went into sustained Government spending. The real profits will be made when the water companies start to sell that land for housing, tourism and development. The people will not see the benefit of that. Those who could afford to buy shares will see the benefit, but they are not the ordinary people who are finding it difficult to make ends meet and who stand in the dole queues in St. Helens and queue up at the jumble sales for clothes.
  Twelve years has taught me one thing: 12 years ago, the rich had a lot, but 12 years later they have a hell of a lot more. Twelve years ago, the poor had something, but 12 years later they are very much poorer. The motion is not an attack on socialism. It does not even discuss socialism. It tries to justify 12 wasted years, and I say to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, "Your time is up mate. Put your card in and we will see how you do in the dole queue after the election, when your party has the courage to call it."
  1.8 pm
  Mr. Chris Smith: I should begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) on his success in drawing first place in the ballot. I cannot congratulate him on the risible content of the motion or on the intellectual vacuity
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  of the speech that accompanied it. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman put the record straight on one extremely important matter that he mentioned in his speech.
  Let us consider the motion piece by piece. It says:
  "That this House notes the success of Government policies over the past 12 months".
  I am immediately tempted to ask the obvious question, what on earth has happened in the past 12 years, according to the hon. Gentleman? We have had a Conservative Administration not just for the past 12 months, but for twelve and a half years.
  They have been years of unparalleled failure in our economic and social life. Let us consider one or two of the basis facts of those years. Growth under the Conservative Government has been lower than it has been under any Government since the second world war. Between 1979 and 1991, the average annual growth rate was 1·75 per cent.—the lowest average figure achieved by any post-war Government. The growth rate has not only been lower than it has been under any previous Government in Britain, but lower than that of all of our European competitors. Between 1979 and 1991, Britain has become sixth from the bottom of the growth league of the 24 OECD countries.
  The Conservatives have caused the two worst recessions since the 1930s. Manufacturing investment is now lower than it was when the Conservatives took office and is still falling. Britain has the worst manufacturing investment record in the European Community. The level of unemployment is now more than double what it was under the previous Labour Government. The interest rates achieved under the Conservatives have reached record levels. Under previous Governments in the post-war period interest rates were at 12 per cent. or above for 26 months only. Under this Government interest rates have been at 12 per cent. or more for 60 months. Therefore, we have had those high interest rates for twice as long as the rates reached by all the other post-war Governments.
  Since 1979 the top 1 per cent. of taxpayers has received more than twice as much through income tax cuts as the bottom 50 per cent. That is the record of twelve and a half years of Conservative Government. Therefore, we will take no lectures from Conservatives about economic success or failure.
  Let us consider the motion on its own terms. Let us lay aside some of the things that have occurred in the past 12 years. Let us consider what has happened in the past 12 months—the period of the John Major premiership. Unemployment has risen by 768,000 which means that 3,000 people have joined the dole queue every working day. Since November 1990, 45,000 businesses have failed, 200 per working day. In the past year, 85,000 homes have been repossessed, 300 per working day. The gross domestic product has fallen by 2·3 per cent. Manufacturing output has fallen by 5·3 per cent. and manufacturing investment is down by 12 per cent.
  That is the record of the past 12 months. I am extremely surprised that the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield failed to mention any of those basic underlying indicators of failure and incompetence on the part of the Government when he introduced his motion.
  Mr. Den Dover: I appreciate that the past 12 to 18 months have been difficult for the economy and that unemployment has risen nationally. Is the hon. Gentleman aware, however, that in Chorley, in Lancashire, in the past

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  two months the level of unemployment has fallen—even when that level has been seasonally adjusted? Does not that show that the high interest rate policy has squeezed inflation out of the economy and has brought about the first signs of improvement in it?
  Mr. Smith: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman decided to join our discussions. He ignores the fact that unemployment is still rising. The signs of recovery which he pretends to see are few and far between. No doubt—I raised this point earlier—he will be aware that the inflation figures, which show a rise in the headline rate from 3·7 to 4·3 per cent., reveal how tawdry is the Government's claim to have conquered inflation. It is clear that they have done no such thing. The underlying inflation rate is rising, not just the headline rate.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will the hon. Gentleman please tell the House when, under the last Labour Government, inflation was brought down to that level?
  Mr. Smith: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wants to tell me what happened to inflation when the Conservatives took office in 1979. There was deliberate inflation, created by increases in gas and electricity prices and the imposition on the British people of a near doubling of VAT. I shall not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman about inflation, given that the Government raised inflation, then savagely squeezed it out of the economy and then allowed it to rise again.
  Mr. Arnold: I intervene again to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he will specifically answer my question: when, under the last Labour Government, did inflation fall to anything like the levels about which he is now complaining? Indeed, will he tell us the lowest levels that they ever reached?
  Mr. Smith: As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, when Labour left office in 1979, inflation was at the European average. Under the Conservative Government, it has been consistently above the European average. Only in the past few months has it been brought down to approximately, in headline terms, the European average. It now appears to be rising again.
  The Conservatives subjected this country to a recession at the start of the 1980s, followed by an unsustainable boom and then a recession at the end of that decade. The pattern is familiar—it is exactly the same pattern as the Maudling dash for growth, the Barber boom and the Lawson credit explosion. Each time the Conservatives have had the stewardship of our economy, they have gone from boom to bust. If they are permitted to have that stewardship again, that is precisely what will happen again.
  The motion proclaims that the Government have reduced inflation, whereas it appears to be rising, and reduced interest rates, whereas interest rates have been consistently higher under this Government than any previous post-war Government. Instead of proclaiming those untruths, the Government should be turning their attention to the real needs of our economy—for a proper framework of macro-economic stability, coupled with the supply side measures on training, research and development, investment, infrastructure and regional policy which we have been advocating consistently.
  After making a fool of itself on the economy, the motion
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  "congratulates the Government for protecting the interests of this country abroad".
  Let us consider the outcome of the discussions at Maastricht and the deal that the Government have brought back. It is a bad deal for Britain. It has left this country isolated on the issue of economic and monetary union. This is the only EC country that has not yet decided whether economic and monetary union is desirable. The uncertainty that that will create in the coming years will be bad for our economy, for inward investment and for the forward-planning needs of business and industry. 'The Government have forgone any realistic chance of securing the location of the new central European hank in Britain.
  Mr. Neil Hamilton: Big deal.
  Mr. Smith: It is a big deal. The location of that bank in Britain would have substantial advantages for our financial services industry, which is a vital sector of our national economy. Under the Conservative Government it is almost certain that that bank will not be located here and in the long term that will have adverse effects on our financial services industry. It is clear from their response that Conservative Members are not at all worried about that dire prospect.
  At Maastricht the Government rejected the social charter. That means that they have deprived British workers of rights that will pertain to all workers in the rest of the Community. In the past couple of days the Prime Minister has talked much nonsense about the social charter being some sort of licence to strike, a return to what he claims would be the bad old industrial relations days. Of course it is nothing of the sort. The Prime Minister should have read the charter.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Has the hon. Gentleman read the comments of his socialist colleague, Mr. Delors, who says that, as a result of Britain's rejection of the social charter, this country will be paradise for Japanese investment? Would he care to comment on the thousands of jobs that will result?
  Mr. Smith: For once Mr. Delors is wrong. The hon. Gentleman should read the social charter and the annex 4 document which has been agreed by the remaining 11 members of the Community and which our Government rejected. That agreement specifically rules out areas of concern which the Prime Minister appears to be claiming are included in paragraph 6 of article 118 to the annex. It states:
  "The provisions of this Article shall not apply to pay, the right of association, the right to strike or the right to impose lock-outs."
  The Prime Minister is wrong in trying to claim that the social charter covers such items. It does not. They are specifically excluded. What is included in the social charter is a range of items that I should have thought any self-respecting Government would wish to endorse. It includes equality between men and women with regard to labour market opportunities and treatment at work. It says:
  "The Commission shall have the task of promoting the consultation of management and labour at Community level and shall take any relevant measure to facilitate their dialogue by ensuring balanced support for the parties."
  The social charter also includes items relating to the improvement of the working environment to protect workers' health and safety. Moreover, it includes the provision that

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  "each member state shall ensure that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work is applied."
  Those specific items are included in the social charter: consultation rights for employees, an equal balance between partners in industry, equal pay for equal work as between men and women and the right to equal treatment for women workers. Those are the provisions which the Prime Minister said were so outrageous that he had to object, throughout a 14-hour negotiating period, to ensure that Britain did not benefit from them.
  I make it absolutely clear, for the benefit of the House, that a Labour Government will join the other 11 Community countries in signing the social charter. What this Government have been about is not protecting the interests of the British worker; they have been about selling the rights of British employees down the river.
  The motion applauds the Government for initiating
  "reforms which will improve the National Health Service".
  Which reforms is the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield talking about? Is he talking about the one in five acute beds in national health service hospitals that have been closed since 1979? Is he talking about the fact that there are 300 fewer national health service hospitals now than there were in 1979? Or is he referring to the fact that hospital waiting lists have grown by 50 per cent., with a quarter of all patients waiting for treatment for over a year? Or he is, perhaps, referring to the opting out of hospitals which has been encouraged so assiduously by the Government—the opting out of hospitals which neither the patients nor the local communities affected want to happen? Or is the hon. Gentleman talking about the charge now levied for eye tests, which has caused the number of people having eye tests to drop by a full third, almost certainly meaning that 200,000 people have serious eye conditions which, as a result, have gone undetected? And for what purpose? The Government have saved £90 million as a result of that change, the equivalent of one and a half year's worth of private health insurance tax relief. What an appalling state of priorities for the Government to adopt.
  It comes very ill from the mouth of the hon. Gentleman when he says that the Government's reforms will improve the national health service. The Government's reforms are damaging it. The evidence is there, in the daily experience of people throughout the country.
  Mr. Dover: The hon. Gentleman has concentrated on the reforms during the past year or two. One of the most fantastic reforms, which occurred about eight years ago, was the reorganisation of the health service. Lancashire area health authority was abandoned on that level, doing away with costs and bureaucracy. Chorley and South Ribble health authority then came into being. It comes under the regional health authority, but could opt out. That reform means that we now have local control; we are not the poor relation under the old Preston health authority or the Lancashire area health authority. Our spend has gone up from £5 million to £53 million over those eight years of local coverage and that is what the people want. The reform giving power to local people in response to local wishes has been a super deal for the Chorley area.
  Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman referred to local control and response to local wishes. I would take it a great deal more easily from him if there were a Government in
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  office—which there is not—who considered local wishes in relation to the opting out of hospitals. I know of no case, when local people have been consulted through a ballot, referendum or opinion test, where they have supported the opting out of hospitals in their areas.
  The motion congratulates the Government on "improving social security payments". I invite the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield to tell that to my constituents who are living on income support. They come to my surgery week in and week out saying that they find it impossible to live on the benefits that have been so meagrely made available by the Government. I invite him to tell that to the pensioners who, because the link between pensions and earnings was broken by the Government in 1979, have seen the value of their pensions drop by £14·55p for a single person and £23 for a couple. I invite him to tell that to those applicants who have to go to the social fund to apply, like Dickensian supplicants, for cash-limited funds so that they can afford the basic necessities of life. I invite him to tell his story to the homeless people who are camped out on the streets of our capital city in the middle of winter, many of them consigned there because of the Government's restrictions on benefit payments.
  Let us consider what has happened to the poor in this country during the past 12 years. In 1987—the last date for which figures appear to be available—2,890,000 people, 5 per cent. of the population, were living below the supplementary benefit level. We must remember that that is the basic minimum that even this Government accept that people need to have for the bare minimum of a decent existence. Five per cent. of the people of this country were living below that basic minimum threshold and that included 490,000 children—4 per cent. of all children.
  In addition, 10,200,000 people—19 per cent. of the population—were on or below the supplementary benefit level. They were either at or below the basic minimum. Twenty-one per cent. of all children were also at or below that level. Those are the actual figures that the hon. Gentleman should take into account. For his motion to refer to improving social security payments is an insult to the millions of people for whom social security payments manifestly have not been improved under this Government.
  The text of the motion, like the speeches from Conservative Members, is imbued with a fundamental misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what democratic socialism is all about. It is about three important fundamental principles: first, a recognition that the market system is fallible and needs to be tempered by regulation and enabled by Government assistance; secondly, an understanding of the place of the individual in society and of the fact that the dignity of the individual and the welfare of the community as a whole are totally interdependent and each must enhance the other; and, thirdly, a realisation that opportunity must be available to all, not just to the few.
  Let me dwell for a moment on these three important principles, starting with the market system. Conservative Members have spoken about what has happened in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. They appear to be labouring under the benighted notion that what persisted in those countries was some form of socialism. It was not. It was state centralism in the same way as much despotism round the world has been. The 1980s have seen the end of two competing ideologies. The ideology that the state can and should run everything has been shown comprehensively

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  and rightly to bring neither prosperity nor happiness to the people on whom it was imposed. The competing ideology—that the free market can achieve everything and all that one needs to do is to lift off the constraints of the state and everything will be well—has also been demonstrated, where it has been tried, including here and the United States, to have deep fundamental flaws.
  The successful economies of the world in the past 10 years have been those which have found the right mix between private enterprise on the one hand and state assistance and regulation on the other.
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Lilley): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Smith: Ah, the great free enterpriser of the Cabinet wishes to intervene.
  Mr. Lilley: Out of courtesy, will the hon. Gentleman repeat his repudiation of socialism for the benefit of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)?
  Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has been consistent in his opposition, over decades, to what purported to be socialism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, but which has been no such thing.
  The second and fundamental belief to which I referred was the importance of the idea of community. The former Prime Minister was fond of saying that there is no such thing as society.
  Mr. Skinner: I did not catch what was said earlier, but as my name has been mentioned I should put it on the record that I have always taken the view, contrary to the opinions of some Tories, that what took place in eastern Europe was not socialism. People who have been here have probably heard me say that before. There is no problem on that score.
  I shall take the opportunity to raise another important point about what is happening under the authority of the Government. I have just been in the Tea Room and a young worker there has had £29 deducted from her pay by the authorities of the House, supposedly for not clocking in and out properly. Yet that person had been working an extra hour in the morning—coming in at 8 o'clock although she was not due to start until 9 o'clock. People who do not clock in at all—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must realise that that does not arise out of the motion.
  Mr. Skinner: The authorities of the House have deducted £29 from that woman's wages. That is an important matter and it is time that that money was repaid. It is a scandal to treat a low-paid worker in that way.
  Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend has done the House two services. First, he has confirmed exactly what I said about his views and mine—and those of our hon. Friends—on what purported to be socialism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Secondly, he has drawn our attention to one specific consequence of the Government's economic policy over the past 12 years: some people are being badly treated by their employers and frequently receive wages that are far too low.
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  I was talking about the second fundamental principle—the importance of the community. The former Prime Minister was fond of saying that there was no such thing as society and the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) came close to saying much the same earlier in the debate. There is such a thing as society. It is extremely important that the Government realise that and take into account the needs of the community as a whole as well as those of individuals.
  William Godwin's treatise, "Enquiry Concerning Political Justice"—I realise that political justice is a foreign concept to Conservative Members—was written in 1793. It contains these words, which are still relevant today:
  "Democracy restores to man a consciousness of his value, teaches him, by the removal of authority and oppression, to listen only to the suggestions of reason"—
  would that that were true of Conservative Members. Godwin said that democracy
  "gives him confidence to treat all other men with frankness and simplicity, and induces him to regard them no longer as enemies against whom to be upon his guard, but as brethren whom it becomes him to assist".
  That text could stand as a fundamental tenet of the democratic socialism which my party espouses and which will guide a Labour Government.
  Mr. Soames rose—
  Mr. Smith: I shall not give way now, because time is marching on and I know that the Secretary of State wishes to speak.
  The third fundamental principle was the need for opportunity for all. The Government are fond of the idea that one need only look after the people at the top of the tree and somehow the condition of the people at the bottom will thereby be improved. That has not happened; it does not happen. The trickle-down theory, as it is called, is a fallacy. The deteriorating quality of our public services and deterioration in the standard of living of many people are a testimony to that.
  I urge the Government to understand what R. H. Tawney, a great man, who formed much of the thinking of the Labour party in Britain, wrote in his hook "Equality":
  "A society is free in so far, and only in so far, as, within the limits set by nature, knowledge and resources, its institutions and policies are such as to enable all its members"—
  note "all its members"—
  "to grow to their full stature, to do their duty as they see it, and—since liberty should not be too austere—to have their fling when they feel like it. In so far as the opportunity to lead a life worthy of human beings is needlessly confined to a minority, not a few of the conditions applauded as freedom would be more properly denounced as privilege. Action which causes such opportunities to be more widely shared is, therefore, twice blessed. It not only subtracts from inequality, but adds to freedom."
  That is the basic belief of democratic socialists. The widening of opportunity to everyone is what we in the Labour party are all about and what we in the Labour Government will be all about. Those are the fundamental beliefs of democratic socialism, which sees society as a whole as well as a disparate collection of proud individuals. It is a philosophy which understands how our economy can grow, how our public services can be improved and how those least able to fend for themselves can, for once, be recognised as the fully fledged citizens that they are. Government's purpose must be to support all the people, not just a few. That is the philosophy that the British people will support at the coming general election.
  1.46 pm
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Lilley): I commend my hon. Friend for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) for securing the debate and I congratulate him and my other hon. Friends on their excellent contributions to it. My hon. Friend is well known for his kid-glove approach to debating, but his demolition of the Leader of the Opposition was made all the more effective by the delicacy and gentleness with which he approached it. He certainly made it absolutely clear that, if the Leader of the Opposition were ever Prime Minister, we would not have a credible nuclear deterrent in Britain. I can assure my hon. Friend of one thing, however: the Leader of the Opposition remains the credible ultimate deterrent to voting Labour, and we can continue to rely on that.
  A notable feature of the debate has been the conspicuous absence of my shadow, the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown). At his party conference this year, he concluded by urging the Labour party to be
  "confident most of all in our enduring socialist values".
  Today, we have had a debate on socialism and the hon. Gentleman is not confident enough to come and defend his enduring socialist values. I am sure that the whole House will miss the little ray of gloom that he habitually casts on our deliberations and will welcome the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), who is brighter in every respect.
  The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey) made a notable contribution to the debate. It is the first time that I have ever heard an hon. Member filibuster his own motion—in this case, due to come on later today. He refused, in his lengthy contribution, to answer two key questions put to him by my hon. Friends: first, how much would he and his Labour party reduce Scottish representation in the House as a result of their plans and are the Scottish people aware that they will be deprived of that representation, and, secondly, by how much would the burden of taxation on the Scottish people increase as a result of an extra body empowered to raise taxes upon them? I have a great affection for Scotland and, like many English hon. Members, I am proud to be able to claim my little portion of Scottish blood. I should certainly hate the Scots to have to face the proposals without the issues being first clarified.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) made a fine and witty defence of freedom and enterprise as only he can. He drew on his immense experience in those areas.
  The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) excited the debate—I think for the first time in recorded memory. That was when he, an ex-leader of an ex-party, exited with a flounce, only to flounce back a short while later. The hon. Gentleman advanced the memorable argument that anyone who did not propose the complete abolition of taxation could not say that the level of tax was a matter of important political principle. For the Government, it is a matter of great importance. That is why we have striven to cut tax rates and oppose the Labour party, which is determined to raise them.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) made a memorable speech which I shall plagiarise frequently. I shall endeavour to give my hon. Friend credit for his many witticisms, which I shall reuse.
  The hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Bermingham) made an important point when he made the surprising
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  complaint that privatisation proceeds had all been used to sustain Government spending. That is a complaint to which we must plead guilty. We ask ourselves how Labour could sustain public expenditure, let alone increase it, if it is to forgo future proceeds from privatisation.
  The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury accused us of running a pre-election boom. This will be welcome news to many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I shall let my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer know of the dangers of overheating in Islington, South and Finsbury.
  Mr. Chris Smith: The Secretary of State knows that I accused the Government of no such thing. Instead. I accused them of starting the 1980s with a deep recession and with having an irresponsible boom based on credit expansion in the mid-1980s, which was inevitably followed by a further recession. That is the charge that I made. The right hon. Gentleman should address himself to that rather than conjure up a charge that I did not make.
  Mr. Lilley: We can consult the official record. I think that we shall find that the hon. Gentleman said that we always have pre-election booms, and that that was the problem.
  Socialism is in retreat throughout the world. Countries everywhere are turning to the policies that we pioneered in the 1980s—privatisation, free markets and lower taxes. They are doing it for the best of reasons. They have seen the market, and it works. I have seen that in every country that I have visited over the past 18 months. In Poland, I addressed the Polish Parliament on privatisation on the very day that the Polish Government were taking powers to privatise about 14,000 companies.
  In the Guangdong province of China I could see the spectacular developments where free markets have been allowed. Already 2 million jobs have been created, largely by capital from Hong Kong.
  Hong Kong provides the most dramatic proof of the success of capitalism and the failure of socialism. Since the Communist revolution, the population of Hong Kong has increased roughly tenfold. Incomes in Hong Kong are now many times higher than those on the mainland. The only difference between China and Hong Kong is that Hong Kong has no natural resources and a free market system.
  In India, I was again invited to speak on our economic reforms. The Indians were increasingly conscious that the most damaging part of the British imperial legacy was the belief, which was at its apogee in the United Kingdom at the time that we gave India its independence, that the state could develop a modern industrial economy by intervention, protection and state ownership. India, too, is now abandoning that legacy of socialist imperialism; privatisation, liberalisation and lower taxation are the orders of the day.
  In Latin America the pattern is the same. In September I visited Venezuela which is leading the way—it is privatising major industries, cutting taxes, reducing tariffs and moving back into the world economy. As a result, it is one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America.
  Finally, last month I had the privilege of representing this country in St. Petersburg at the official celebrations of the demise of communism. It was a glorious day for the Russian people and, as Major Sobchak said in a moving speech in front of the Winter palace:
  "After 74 years in the darkness Russia is re-emerging into the light of freedom."

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  We all welcome that change.
  The most painful part of the economic legacy of socialism and of communist control is the fearful cost of transition hack to a market economy and bold steps are needed to achieve it. Therefore, it was heartening to hear the mayor of Moscow promising to give flats to tenants absolutely free. Anyone who has seen the quality of Soviet flats would, I think, be bound to observe that the mayor of Moscow probably got the price about right. No doubt some of my hon. Friends think the same may be true of some properties in Labour-run authorities.
  Mr. McKelvey: The Secretary of State has taken us through the highways and byways of the world, but he has not commented on housing conditions in Scotland. When there was a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs and when we visited Scotland, we discovered that about 300,000 houses were almost inhabitable because of dampness but the Government refused to give additional money to deal with that.
  Mr. Lilley: In his earlier contribution, the hon. Gentleman acknowledged that the Labour party had been averse to home ownership, and in the words of one of my hon. Friends, had merely allowed its hostility to lapse, just as the Leader of the Opposition's membership card for CND lapsed. It is in Scotland that the hostility to private ownership by socialist local authorities has been most intense and until recently half the population in Scotland had the state as its landlord. Now the hon. Gentleman complains that the conditions under which they suffer are worse than those in other parts of the country where free enterprise was able to make a greater contribution. I am happy to say that in Scotland the desire for home ownership—long repressed by socialist councils—is now becoming manifest and sales of council houses have been increasing rapidly.
  Western firms can play a part in restoring the Russian economy. I saw in St. Petersburg a splendid example being set by Littlewoods. It has linked up with a Russian clothing company, introduced British design, management and quality standards and opened a Littlewoods store. It is so popular that queues form well before it opens. People in the queue are given a ticket which is itself a valuable object. Demand is so great that each person is allowed to buy only two items and when the doors open, the store is emptied of goods within minutes. Turnover is rising as rapidly as output can be increased—would that more companies from this country followed Littlewoods' example and contributed to the restoration of the Soviet economy from the devastation wrought by socialism.
  The list of countries in which socialism is now in retreat and in which free market policies are on the advance is immense. Countries that are privatising, cutting taxes, reducing state intervention and freeing markets include the whole of eastern Europe, all the republics of the former Soviet Union, all continental Latin America, all North America, most of sub-Saharan Africa, most of Asia and all Australasia.
  Those that reject privatisation cling to nationalisation and want to extend state intervention are a more select band. In the entire world they comprise only Cuba, North Korea, Libya and the British Labour party.
  Mr. McKelvey: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that it is scandalous that the Cuban economy is being strangled by a country the size of the USA? Why does it not lift the blockade?
  Mr. Lilley: The hon. Member's sympathy for his socialist friends does him credit. However, I have made it clear that we shall not enforce, or allow the subsidiaries of American companies to enforce, the American blockade, since we retain our independence in that matter.
  Mr. Soames: My right hon. Friend has done an enormous amount to promote the interests of British companies in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. Does he agree that the great difficulty in those countries, as they emerge from the socialist hold around their necks, and what matters most, is enabling them to manage businesses in a sensible manner, which is completely alien to anything that they have been taught? To assist eastern European countries, we need to supply more management training. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to try to ensure that they receive such training?
  Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend makes a valid and important point. We have estabilished the know-how fund because we recognise that know-how, rather than straight cash, is the important contribution and ingredient that we can offer. Under the fund we have arranged a scheme—especially with St. Petersburg—for about 100 small business men to receive training from Manchester business school, which is very welcome over there.
  There are probably other schemes which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary—who is in overall charge of the know-how fund—would be able to expand upon.
  The Labour party is one of that small band of people and institutions in the entire world which remain wedded to the extension of state control and state ownership. In its policy documents this year, the Labour party has reaffirmed its commitment to nationalisation, its rejection of privatisation, its plans to extend the powers of the state, to intervene in industry and to control more of the nation's income.
  When I say that socialism is alive in the British Labour party, I should explain that I use the word "live" purely in its technical sense. As Robert Harris—a Labour sympathiser—who has already been quoted in this debate has said:
  "The truth is that Labour—in terms of intellectual activity … is perilously close to brain-dead in this country."
  I should explain to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that did not involve any snide reference to the intellectual vitality of the Leader of the Opposition.
  Mr. Harris was talking about the demise of magazines. He went on to say—this should be added to the fund of quotations which have emerged during the debate:
  "It is very odd. Sometimes, in the right light, Labour looks more impressive than it has for a generation: disciplined, talented, responsible, well-presented. And then you stand still for a moment and listen and you can hear … nothing. It is eery. It is like walking down a street built on a film set: the technicians have put up wonderful frontages, but behind them—thin air."
  We are here to debate this important subject and we see row upon row of thin air.
  Mr. Harris was referring to the demise of a series of left-wing magazines, culminating in the closure of Marxism Today. I doubt if many of my hon. Friends read it or regret its passing. "Better dead than read" would be their verdict, I suspect.

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  The magazine went out with a splendid drinks party recently. One cynical ex-Marxist suggested that the Communist party might end its search for a new name by calling itself the "Cocktail party." To mark its demise the magazine also produced a final issue which sent a crisp message to all socialists, "The End."
  That lack of faith in "our enduring socialist values", as he called them at the party conference, did not stop the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East from writing a moving tribute for the final issue. He wrote:
  "Marxism Today … never forgot the value of matching imagination and ideas with rigorous analysis, and that will be its lasting contribution."
  That tells us a lot about the hon. Member's capacity for imagination and rigorous analysis. An especially penetrating example of it was an article contributed to Marxism Today by the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock). He wrote:
  "The … market system never has and never will produce the plenty necessary to meet human need."
  He has since jerked from that extreme position to another, as is his wont.
  Labour's presentation has changed, but its policy proposals remain remarkably similar to those advocated in previous manifestos and implemented by previous Labour Governments. All Labour Governments have nationalised at least one industry. Labour is committed to nationalising the water industry and the national grid as priorities.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Will the Secretary of State tell us what the Conservative Government of 1970 to 1974 did to Rolls-Royce?
  Mr. Lilley: If the only problem with our record that the hon. Member can find occurred between 1970 and 1974, when I was not a candidate for the Conservative party, he is obviously endorsing our position.
  Labour is committed to nationalising the water industry and national grid. Those pledges were spelt out this year in "Opportunity Britain", its manifesto document.
  All Labour Governments have set up a Government body to intervene, invest in and takeover private companies: first, there was the industrial reconstruction corporation and then the national enterprise board. We know the history of the latter, and of the 102 companies that it took into partial public ownership, 35 were liquidated or failed, 38 were sold at a loss and only 29 returned the taxpayers' cash when they were disposed of.
  Labour now promises a national investment bank—an NIB—presumably to take equity stakes, among other things, in private companies. That is nationalisation by the bank door.
  All previous Labour Governments have increased the proportion of the nation's income that is spent by the state. The commitments in Labour's recent documents have been objectively costed at £35 billion a year. That would take public spending back up to about half the national income. Like all their predecessors, a Labour Government would be committed and obliged to raise taxes.
  That all appears in the small print of Labour's policy documents. Voting Labour would lead to the political
  1292
  equivalent of date rape. A Labour Government would do many things to British people to which they would strenuously object, but Labour would then say, "You were asking for this when you invited us back in." We must make people aware of the pledges in the small print of Labour's policy documents if we are to avoid that fate.
  Labour assiduously pretends nowadays that it has abandoned socialism or that socialism is not what we always thought it was. It even claims sometimes to have embraced the market, although that did not come up today. If it has changed, we are entitled to ask what brought about that conversion. There are only two possible explanations: it has been convinced either by the success of our policies in transforming the economy since it was last in power or by the success of our policies in winning three successive elections.
  There is no doubt that our policies have transformed the economy. In the 1960s and 1970s, Britain was bottom of the growth league in Europe. In the 1980s, we were top of that league and that was the first decade for more than a century when Britain grew faster than France and Germany. The transformation was greatest in areas where we had been weakest, such as industrial relations. In 1979, 29·6 million working days were lost as a result of the disputes and strikes that we inherited from Labour's industrial relations regime. In the past 12 months, fewer than 1 million days were lost through strikes and industrial disputes.
  There is no doubt that the transformation is the result of the policies that we have pursued. The transformation of the economy is the result of privatisation, of reducing taxes and of reforming trades union law. Labour consistently denies the facts and the cause. Moreover, had it really been converted to free markets, its policy documents would surely contain some free-market policies.
  The Labour party's counterparts in Australia and New Zealand have undergone that conversion. They have adopted free market policies and genuinely abandoned socialism. However, the British Labour party does not advocate privatisation, because it has voted against every privatisation that we have carried out. It does not advocate cutting a single tax rate; it has voted against every tax cut that we have made. The Labour party plan, quite openly, to raise taxes again. It has not supported a single trade union reform. Instead, it is committed to restoring many of the union privileges that we have removed. We may safely conclude that the Labour party's conversion is simply cynical opportunism.
  Several hon. Members have reminded the House of the threat posed to pension funds by socialists. I do not want to go into that issue in detail, but they are right. The two previous Labour manifestos threatened to divert pension funds for purposes other than seeking to enhance pensions. The previous Labour Government took the Christmas bonus away from pensioners. All Labour Governments have robbed pensioners by resorting to inflation. Under the previous Labour Government, inflation plucked 27 per cent. from the value of people's savings in a single year. The value of pensioners' fixed incomes were cut by a half during the lifetime of the previous Labour Government. If the Labour party wants to see the unacceptable face of socialism, it should look into the mirror.
  The collapse of the Soviet economy has finally discredited socialism. The collapse of the Soviet Union has

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  also surely discredited that other fashionable doctrine, federalism. It has shown that artificial federations inevitably collapse. Nations prefer to govern themselves, not to be governed by each other. How extraordinary that the British Labour party has still not managed to break free from socialism yet it has already half fallen for federalism.
  The collapse of socialism has left an intellectual vacuum in the minds, or what passes for the minds, of our left-wing intelligentsia. The concept of federalism has rushed in to fill that void. The Labour party, unable to make the state supreme within the nation, wants to submerge the nation within a supreme super-state.
  The excellent deal that my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor were able to negotiate at Maastricht would not have been available to a Labour Government. A Labour Government would have signalled their intention to sign any deal on paper. They would have signalled their intention to abandon any power to govern ourselves that might have been requested by our partners. They would have signalled their intention to extend the competence of majority voting into huge areas of our national life. They need not have gone to Maastricht, but could have signed the communiqué when it was telexed to them at the end of the negotiations.
  The great paradox is that the Labour party has always been against Britain intervening in other countries' internal affairs, but now it has carried that to the ultimate extreme, because it is against us interfering even in our internal affairs. The issue of the social charter is not just about whether Labour's policies are better or worse than Conservative ones—the British electorate can decide that. The question is whether other countries of Europe should be able to overrule the decision that the British electorate and Parliament make on such matters.
  We believe that the British people, through their representatives in this House, should be able to tailor policies on such crucial matters to fit our needs, experience and traditions. This issue is vital, since we cannot and will not go back on the reforms that we introduced to trade union law, and which have been profoundly successful in the past 12 years.
  We could not return power to the trade union bosses and go back to the strikes, chaos and inefficiency that marked the Labour party's trade union laws. However, the Labour party want us to hand over responsibility so that we are governed by trade union laws—often foreign trade union laws at that.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Would the right hon. Gentleman care to tell me what it is in the social charter agreement which was signed by the other 11 EC countries that in any way accords with what he just said about new powers for trade union leaders?
  The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones): It is article 118B.
  Mr. Lilley: As my hon. Friend so succinctly puts it, it is article 118B. We believe that the House and the Government should have the right to select and to choose the laws that apply in the British economy. Over the past 12 years, we have amply demonstrated that the laws which we have chosen have done this country a power of good, and we should be reluctant to go back on that.
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  The agreement, which we have negotiated successfully and in accord with our partners, will achieve what Mr. Delors said that it would achieve—it will help to make this country a paradise for investment. I have ensured that that message will go out to all our commercial attachés throughout the world.
  In recent years, we have been successful in making this country more attractive for investment—whether inward investment, domestic investment or investment from other European countries—than any other European country. We intend to retain and to reinforce that position. That is what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and his colleagues achieved at Maastricht.
  The debate has been about socialism—its demise and its end as a credible intellectual force. My hon. Friends' contribution have demonstrated that fact, as have those of the Opposition. The Opposition's paucity—in terms of numbers and of the intellectual content of their speeches—has revealed that the Labour party has indeed, as their friend Robert Harris said, no further intellectual contribution to make to the political debate. The Labour party is certainly not ready to think, let alone to govern. Until the Labour party has re-established its ideas, principles and what it actually stands for, it should not pretend that it will be in a position to take charge of the fate of this nation.
  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield on his motion and on securing this valuable debate.
  2.16 pm
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) on choosing for debate so timely a subject—the implications of socialism. We have come here not to mourn socialism but to bury it, because socialism has been a pernicious creed which has held much of Europe in its iron grip for 74 years. What has been the cost? It has been economic stagnation, massive pollution and millions of dead. With its stablemate, the national socialists of Germany, it laid waste to much of our continent during the middle of the century.
  The peoples of Europe have risen up and we have seen the fall of hundreds of bronze Lenins around eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, but socialism has left in its wake economic devastation, hunger and famine, social disruption and suspicion of one's neighbours. Look at the position in the former East Germany and one finds a country in which the dreaded Stasi kept a file on almost every citizen. There is suspicion between neighbours and between brother and sister in that country. The peoples of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia have fought for their freedom and are now fighting for the success of free enterprise. They have been joined by the peoples of the three Baltic republics who are at last free from that shameful deal between national socialists and communist socialists. The peoples of the Ukraine and Russia are following suit.
  Is not it funny that, when the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) and many of his hon. Friends see the failure of socialism in eastern Europe, they suddenly say, "No, that is not socialism"? But that is not what they said when Labour leaders trooped to pay tribute in Moscow, time and again referring to their brothers and comrades.
  Mr. Chris Smith: The hon. Gentleman is totally incorrect. The position is precisely what I have always said. The hon. Gentleman must not tar me with that brush.
  Mr. Arnold: The hon. Gentleman has just said, "It was not me, sir." As in the case of its association with Robert Maxwell, when failure beckons, the new high-gloss Labour leadership cannot be seen for dust. But some are seen. John Austin-Walker, Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Woolwich and leader of the Labour-controlled Greenwich council, said that he thought that the overthrow of eastern European regimes was very sad.
  The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) has gone even further, explaining that the campaign for socialism will have to be resumed inside the USSR and eastern Europe. Only last month, six Labour Members signed an early-day motion noting that the Bolshevik revolution of 74 years ago represented the aspirations of Russian workers and peasants. Did not that turn out wonderfully for those workers and peasants!
  To this very day the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) defends Cuba and its Castro regime. After all, Fidel Castro is an unreformed socialist, the last dictator in Latin America. Like the Bourbons, he has learnt nothing. He blunders on, his people in poverty and want, with five-hour speeches which are another by-product of socialism. The hon. Member for Islington, North never learns either. In the House he glows with praise for socialist Nicaragua, but the people of Nicaragua gave their verdict on socialism and kicked out the Sandinistas. Not to be outdone, Mrs. Kinnock wrote to The Independent wishing the Sandinistas well just days before they were voted out of office.
  Only a year ago Labour Members told us to look at Sweden as a marvellous example of socialism in action. We did look at it, but more important, so did the Swedish people and at their first opportunity they chucked the socialists out of office. Around the world socialism is in retreat and collapse, but here it is alive and only too keen to do the kicking—kicking the British people in the pocket and then in the teeth.
  Until the general election socialism is being kept carefully under wraps. We know that the Opposition totally rely on opinion polls for policy direction. They know, as we do, that the British people are clearly anti-socialist. Therefore, Labour's publicity machine sees to it that its presentation is definitely anti-socialist. The question that we must ask is whether the Labour party itself is anti-socialist. Let us take a warning from that great sage the right hon. Member for Chesterfield, who said recently that Labour had changed its mind to win the next general election, but could also change it back again after the election. That is a clear warning to the British people.
  With great fanfare, Labour kicked out the hon. Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mr. Fields) to prove that the Labour party was safe in the hands of the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock). Now with even greater fanfare Labour has dispatched the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist), who earned the accolade of Back Bencher of the year. He puts the case for socialism today, as the right hon. Member for Islwyn did yesterday, although he does so in a less long-winded way and with more evident intellectual integrity.
  The socialists are still there in the Labour party. They are official Labour party prospective candidates and
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  Members of the House. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) was and is a national by-word for town hall socialism with all that that has meant in reality and in the minds of the electorate. I presume that he is ready to overthrow the Labour leader with a palace putsch after the general election in the way that he did in the GLC. He should not worry, because the Leader of the Opposition will be overthrown after the next general election when he fails yet again to lead Labour to victory.
  The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) also remains an official Labour party candidate. That hon. Gentleman gloried in the recent problems in Haringey and gloated that the police were given a good thrashing.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Earlier today I had occasion to reproach hon. Members for what seems to me to be growing discourtesy in the House. The hon. Gentleman's remarks are coming dangerously near unparliamentary in respect of one of his colleagues.
  Mr. Dixon: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If an hon. Gentleman wishes to refer to another hon. Member, is not it the convention of the House that that hon. Member should be informed before the debate? Has the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) spoken or written to the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) and told him the he intended to make this scurrilous attack upon him today?
  Mr. Arnold: No, I did not. I assumed that as the debate was about the implications of socialism, a matter very close to the heart of Opposition Members, the hon. Member for Tottenham would be here this morning.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should observe the long-standing courtesies of the House. The fact that he is getting dangerously near to making personal attacks on parliamentary colleagues is a symptom, I fear, of the growing discourtesy in the House.
  Mr. Arnold: I shall press on, then, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and say—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I should like the hon. Gentleman to show some sign of contrition before he moves on. It is not unreasonable that the hon. Gentleman should withdraw his remarks or apologise for his discourtesy in not informing the hon. Member to whom he referred.
  Mr. Arnold: In the circumstances, I certainly withdraw them, on the grounds that I explained just now and, if it is necessary, I apologise for not so informing the hon. Member concerned.
  The British people should be aware that the key question at the next general election will be, "What would socialism cost you?" They will not get an answer to that question from the Labour party. It just keeps on spraying out the promises. The House should be grateful to our right hon. Friends at the Treasury who have costed these sprayed promises at a figure of £35 billion. What would that figure of £35 billion mean? It would mean an increase of 15p in the standard rate of income tax, from 25p in the pound to 40p in the pound. The Labour party has already declared that the top rate of income tax would rise from 40p to 50p in the pound, together with the removal of the upper limit on national insurance contributions. That would mean a marginal rate of 59 per cent.—up from the present 40 per cent.

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  In the small print of its programme the Labour party has announced eight extra taxes, but we have heard nothing about them today nor have we seen them in the glossy brochures that have been put about. Even so, those eight extra taxes still leave a massive shortfall that would require an extra 10p in the pound on the standard rate of income tax.
  Opinion polls tell the Labour party, the Conservative party and our constituents that health and education are very close to the heart of the British people, but the difference between the socialist and the Conservative approach to these matters is that we are interested in service—as are the public—not in the structure or the institutions of the education service or the national health service. Our education reforms are clear. What should be taught to our children is contained in the national curriculum. How well our children are coping will be shown by assessment and testing. Reports to parents are being made clearly, not by means of the gobbledegook that educationists alone understand.
  What, at the end of the day, can parents do about it? We have seen fit to increase the number of parent governors. We have given schools local financial management and, further, through grant-maintained schools control over the totality of education funds for children. What has been the Labour party's reaction? It dislikes assessment. Why? Because the National Union of Teachers has given it its instructions. It will not allow data to be provided which would enable the performance of members of the teachers' unions to be measured. Why has the Labour party done that? Because the NUT is one of the paymasters of the Labour party.
  In particular, the Labour party opposes grant-maintained schools. In my constituency, the parents of children at St. George's school, Gravesend, voted by nine to one for grant-maintained status so that they could be in full control of the finances and running of that school. Other schools have gone ahead, by similar vast majorities, and have taken control over them. The Labour party
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  dislikes the idea of parents calling the shots rather than the bureaucrats, particularly when the bureaucrats are members of affiliated unions. The House should note the Labour party's decision to destroy grammar schools, which have provided an excellent education for many children.
  Across the House, we share the belief that the national health service should be open to all, regardless of income, and financed out of taxation. The question is how to deliver that. Socialists believe in bureaucracy and they created the largest employer in the world, the NHS—that is, the largest other than the red army and the Indian railways, neither which is an especially helpful comparison—
  It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
  2.30 pm
  Mr. Chris Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. During his remarks, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry made a comment about the social charter which he may wish to reconsider. I challenged him on whether there was anything in the social charter that accorded with the points that he was making. His response was to cite article 118B. I now have the text of that article and it does not justify his remarks.
  Mr. McKelvey: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it be in order for me to move my motion formally?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I regret that that is not possible.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, at the sitting on Wednesday 18th December, the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister relating to the European Community: The European Council at Maastricht may, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business), be proceeded with, though opposed, until 2.00 a.m.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]

  Mr. Frank Brand
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]
  2.31 pm
  Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): On 30 November 1990, a constituent of mine, Mr. Frank Brand, was informed that, in accordance with a decision given the previous day at a summary hearing, he had been summarily dismissed from service as a steward on British Rail.
  The charge was that
  "on Thursday 1st November 1990 whilst working on duty circuit 092, 1703 Paddington to Cheltenham service you issued an ICOBS buffet receipt to 2 passengers in lieu of a travel ticket. This receipt was to the value of £5·00 which you failed to account for in your daily business."
  He was told to return all company property—uniform, travel passes, keys and so on—but he was given the right of appeal. The passengers in question apparently boarded the train at Stonehouse, got off at Gloucester, reboarded after an interval at Gloucester and got off at Stonehouse.
  Before coming to the detail of the hearing and the appeal, I make two general points. The first concerns the extreme improbability of the alleged action. Mr. Brand was a steward with a high reputation. According to his advocate at the appeal, he scrupulously handed back miniature drink bottles, as he did his revenue and copy receipts.
  The catering manager at Paddington complimented Mr. Brand on his professionalism, having received on 14 November a letter of praise from a passenger. The manager wrote:
  "I would like to thank you for your efforts and I am sure that your future announcements will continue to project the same professionalism and create additional sales on our buffet services."
  It is hard to imagine that anyone in Mr. Brand's position, as a British rail employee knowing of the likelihood of inspectors going through the train—as they do frequently on InterCity services—and with ticket collectors at the barriers, would crudely write out a return fare from Stonehouse to Gloucester on a buffet slip. It is also strange that the allegation of malpractice against Mr. Brand came from a woman, without any address being given, who is the mother of one of the two passengers and that her evidence should have been uncorroborated.
  My second general point is that we have no other account of this incident. Everything seems to revolve round a photocopy of the receipt. How were the two passengers on the train without tickets in the first place? Who were they? We have no names, addresses, ages or occupations. They are variously described as youths, lads, students and children.
  At the appeal hearing, the chairman admitted that he had no idea of their ages. Did Mr. Brand lean over the counter of the buffet and say, "You look like two customers who might not have tickets. I have a good method of getting round this"? Or did they come to him and say, "We are travellers without tickets: can you help us"? The transcripts in the case are haphazard and confusing, but, as I understand the story, the passengers were apprehended on the return journey to Stonehouse and discovered with this bogus document. However, the allegation was made by the woman some five days later.
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  If we look at this case carefully, it seems more and more incredible. Would not an official of BR have issued two tickets, the normal practice, and have written "return" on both? In any case, the £5 that British Rail says that Mr. Brand received and appropriated for his own use bears no relation to the fare, which is 85p for a child single or £1·70 for an adult single. We are still not clear whether these were two children or two adults. All that we know that the mother of one of them reported the story five days after the events and, prima facie, I must say that it looks to me as though she may have fabricated this highly implausible story to exculpate the travellers from an attempt to travel without paying the fare.
  Two points should be mentioned before I deal with the hearings themselves. At the summary hearing, there was a great deal of discussion about handwriting, although it was admitted that on a moving train and with different pens, letters and words could vary even when written by the same hand. At the summary hearing, the chairman, Mr. McIllroy, said—this is on page 3—that the colour of the original ink was black. During the adjournment, Mr. Brand's representative rang Gloucester station, where someone said that the original ink was blue.
  One might have thought that, by this time, the sole piece of evidence should have been regarded as important, but apparently it has since been lost. It was also said that, from the receipt book, receipts Nos. 04 to 09 were missing. Were some of these stolen, perhaps by the two passengers in question? We do not know. At the appeal, we heard that only Nos. 04, 05 and 06 were missing. No. 8 was used by Mr. Brand and we have heard nothing again of No. 7. I do not say that this is vital evidence, but it was evidence that the matter was carelessly investigated, and no one seems to have been sure of the facts.
  At all times, Mr. Brand has been desperately eager and willing for a full police investigation. He certainly was in the repeated interviews that he has had with me. The handwriting has been examined from a photocopy only, which could, after all, have been copied from a forgery, yet British Rail places great stress on the handwriting issue. Mr. Barry Woledge, personnel director of InterCity, British Railways Board wrote to me on 16 July 1991. He said:
  "A forensic report has confirmed that the receipt was completed in Mr. Brand's own handwriting."
  Let us see what the forensic report says. It is much more cautious. Mr. M. S. A. Handy, document examiner, has examined receipt No. 409604—the first time that we have been given the number. He says:
  "There are many similarities between these writings and in my opinion BRAND completed the receipt. The evidence is such that I cannot exclude the possibility that another person was responsible, however, I consider it unlikely. It should be noted that examination of the questioned writing has been limited because it is photocopied."
  Mr. Woledge continues to me:
  "This clearly confirms the allegations from the two members of the travelling public".
  The House will note how two lads, children or youths on the Stonehouse to Gloucester train without a ticket have now become
  "members of the travelling public".
  Mr. Woledge says that they
  "were required to pay £5 for travel and for which they received a buffet receipt in lieu of a ticket".
  Prima facie, a BR official seems to have been exerting some measure of compulsion here. Mr. Woledge continues:

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  "We believe that there is sufficient evidence from the buffet receipt and the unsolicited complaint that we received to confirm that an offence has been committed."
  To call the complaint unsolicited is stretching language. The original letter was from the mother of one of the two members of the travelling public found in possession of a buffet ticket. Those two might well have alighted at Stonehouse at the end of their journey and disappeared into the night. A complaint can be described as unsolicited only if a person under no suspicion and unknown and unrelated to any party concerned raises a matter related to his or her treatment.
  Mr. Brand's advocate raised the question of the relevant receipt. He asked:
  "We have not seen the original, we have not had it analysed have we?"
  The answer was:
  "Not a court of law here."
  Presumably referring to something that he had to write out at the hearing, Frank Brand said that the "s" in Stonehouse had a tail on it but on the receipt the "s" had no tail. The chairman replied:
  "We have to agree handwriting can differ".
  Mr. Brand pointed out that on the second handwriting sample there was no tail on the "s". The advocate said that there was no comparison. The chairman replied:
  "At the moment we will have to agree to leave that open".
  Yet in his verdict he referred to colour of ink and style of handwriting.
  Mr. Woledge's letter to me said that Mr. McMillan, the catering manager, had carried out his investigation in a structured manner, yet according to Mr. Brand he had not seen the receipt until the summary hearing.
  There was then a discussion about whether another person might have stolen the receipt book and written out a receipt in a passable forgery while Mr. Brand was clearing up the first-class area. We then learn that on the receipt a figure of £2·50 had been crossed out, but that appeared to be passed over in the hearing. It may seem a minor point, but I suggest that it is more consonant with an amateur offender, such as a boy trying to travel without paying his fare, than with someone out to obtain money by unfair means and versed in that art, as Mr. Brand was alleged to have been.
  There are gaps in the transcript. For example, when Mr. Brand asked:
  "Why was it made out for £2·50 initially and not £5?"
  the chairman apparently replied:
  "The name of the gentleman in charge of the case is Detective Constable Moles".
  That is a non-sequitur. The chairman went on to say:
  "You can confirm for your own satisfaction the colour of the ink".
  How could one do that from a photocopy?
  The chairman said that there had been previous examples of Mr. Brand's paperwork going missing. That is a serious matter. If the allegation were true, some evidence should be produced at a proper inquiry. But, on the contrary, the chairman at the appeal said that there had been no previous irregularities on Mr. Band's part. Nothing further was added at the time.
  When asked if the complainant—who, as I said earlier, was the mother of at least one of the two passengers—had been interviewed, the chairman simply said that a letter had been written asking for a description of the person who issued the receipt.
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  Incidentally, it took the woman five days to make the complaint. Most parents would have been round at the police station within hours if their children had been involved by a steward in an alleged railway fraud.
  What did the chairman mean by saying of the passengers:
  "It is very lucky they did not have anything other than the fare on them, what do you think?"
  How did he know? Were the boys asked to turn out their pockets? Was he suggesting that they might have been parted from large sums of money for that comparatively short journey?
  The chairman asked:
  "What motive would there be for a mother to react in this way?"
  I should have thought that there was every reason, if a child were found carrying a buffet receipt instead of a rail ticket. Let us assume for a moment that that child has snatched two or three tickets from the book while steward's back was turned or while he was clearing up the first-class spaces. There would be every reason for saying that the steward issued the receipt. I do not state that that is what happened. I say only that it is necessary to look carefully at statements made by mothers on behalf of children who have been found breaking the law. Once again, the age of the "children" is germane to the case, but remains unknown.
  Mr. Impey, the senior steward, who presumably knows Mr. Brand and his handwriting better than most people, was then called to give evidence. When asked whether he thought that the writing on the receipt was Mr. Brand's, he replied, "I would say not" The chairman said immediately:
  "I think I should say that I consider Mr. Impey's testament irrelevant."
  Why irrelevant? It may have been biased, perjured or the result of acute myopia, but it was not irrelevant. Mr. Impey would not agree conclusively that the writing was Mr. Brand's
  Some of the comments in the hearing seem meaningless. When the advocate pointed out that the ink on the original was blue, the chairman is quoted as saying, "One factor of receipt". What does that mean? When the advocate asked,
  "were British transport police involved?",
  the reply was, "Their business not ours". When the advocate asked:
  "What about the means of identifying Mr. Brand. Would they be able to identify Mr. Brand? Have they been asked?",
  the reply from the chairman was: "I consider that irrelevant." Then the advocate understandably insisted:
  "Who did issue that receipt? It would have to be a proper identity parade otherwise there would be lying",
  to which the chairman again replied:
  "Irrelevant … they could know Frank from travelling before."
  The press has recently told of several cases in which passengers travelling innocently without correct tickets have been subjected to severe harassment by the inspectors of British Rail—for example, Ian Botham's son. I recall Ian Botham's letter to The Times on the subject. At the very least, the boys should have given their names and addresses to the authorities when the allegation was first made.
  First, however, came the chairman's comment:
  "I find the whole thing strange. I refer to you as a good member of staff, your buffet display is top notch. You got more revenue than others. There is no discrepancy here before on file, so I find it strange. But on the other side to manufacture the story is strange, also. Unless of course a son of yours has tried to travel free and been caught out."

  1303
  After referring again to Mr. Brand's reputation for honesty, Mr. Stevenson added:
  "Your hearing officer was taking his job away due to a third hand account. My son could do this type of writing (i.e. Mr. Brand's)—it is possible. You should reinstate and leave the evidence to the police … In the modern education system people have a bagful of different pens … Mrs. Taylor"—
  we have the name of the woman now—
  "has had ample opportunity to come back to you but she hasn't responded. This was November 1990. If she was convinced she would have responded".
  Nevertheless, the decision was confirmed.
  There is one final point. I have been surprised and very shocked to discover the difficulty that exists in arranging a proper investigation or securing a change in attitude towards an employee in a nationalised industry—British Rail. The reply of the chairman of BR to me on 4 April was curt—two lines of acknowledgement and three of reply. Mr. Watkinson, director of employee relations, simply repeated that the examination had been thorough, the forensic report definite and the hearings correct. He added that Mr. Brand had been employed for less than two years and would not have been eligible to apply to an industrial tribunal. How convenient for British Rail. That fact is certainly no justification for the thoroughly sloppy investigation that it conducted.
  A colleague, Mr. Barry Woledge, replied again on 16 April that further investigations had been carried out and that there was no reason to waver from the view that Mr. Rand intended to defraud the railway. No help or involvement could be afforded by the Department of Transport or of Employment, despite my representations to Ministers at both Departments. Mr. Woledge of BR gave no hard factual evidence arising from his series of investigations and I feel that, at the very least, and in view of the many vaguenesses and inadequacies that I have pointed out, we are entitled to such evidence.
  I am not making a categorical statement on innocence or guilt, but I do not feel that a fair hearing has been afforded. The matter has been passsed on, with general support being given up the line by different members of the same organisation.
  Mr. Brand's last words at the appeal were:
  "Looking you in the eye, I did not write that receipt."
  I would not have taken such trouble over the case if I did not feel that a man's livelihood had been removed by British Rail without any effective means of redress against allegations which beg more questions than they answer and which British Rail made no effort to substantiate satisfactorily to Mr. Brand, his representatives, his union or even his Member of Parliament.
  The gross insouciance of British Rail reflects no credit on any of the management representatives concerned—right the way up to the chairman himself. British Rail should either prove its case—which to my mind it has not—or reinstate Mr. Brand at once as compensation not just for loss of earnings but for the damage done to his character, reputation and family.
  2.50 pm
  The Minister for Roads and Traffic (Mr. Christopher Chope): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) for the close interest he has taken in the case of his constituent, Mr. Frank Brand. I congratulate him on securing this debate today.
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  My hon. Friend has been typically diligent in his pursuit of this matter with British Rail, with both the chairman and the director of employee relations. He has also had correspondence with my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. McLoughlin), the Minister for Shipping and Public Transport at the Department.
  My hon. Friend has set out his concerns very clearly for the House, and set out in detail how this case was handled by British Rail. As he has explained, Mr. Brand was dismissed by BR from his post as a senior steward with InterCity On Board Services—InterCity's train catering division—in November 1990. This followed a complaint alleging that he had issued a buffet receipt to two young passengers in lieu of a travel ticket and failed to account for the £5 received.
  The allegations stemmed from a letter received by BR's area manager at Gloucester in November 1990, in which a woman alleged that her son and a friend, while travelling from Stonehouse to Gloucester, were stopped by the steward and asked if they were trying to avoid paying their fare. They are said to have explained that they were looking for the conductor to buy their tickets as Stonehouse station did not sell tickets at that time of night. The steward is said to have issued the boys with a receipt, made out for £5 and indicating that it was for the journey from Stonehouse to Gloucester.
  On the return journey, the boys were apparently challenged by the ticket collector on the train, who explained that the receipt was not a valid ticket, and that they would have to pay the full fare. The mother asked that the area manager investigate who had issued the bogus ticket. With her letter, she attached the receipt said to have been issued to her son.
  Investigations by BR showed that the only steward on the train in question was Mr. Brand. He was seen by the Gloucester area catering manager. He was subsequently charged, under BR's disciplinary arrangements, to answer the allegations.
  A summary hearing was held, chaired by BR's InterCity catering manager at Paddington. My hon. Friend has commented in detail on the transcript of that hearing, including the statements by the witness, Mr. Farrell; the differences of opinion about the handwriting on the receipt; whether someone might have stolen the receipt book and forged the receipt; unsupported allegations about previous examples of Mr. Brand's paperwork being missing; and the apparent lack of follow-up to the mother's original letter.
  As my hon. Friend has said, the hearing focused particularly on the buffet receipt and whether or not it was written by Mr. Brand. The type of pen and colour of ink used was believed to match that used by Mr. Brand. I undertand that the British Transport Police yesterday found the receipt and now confirm that the ink is black—the receipt had a reference number written on it, 092, the one issued to Mr. Brand for this journey and known only by InterCity staff. This, with the similarities in handwriting, led the BR manager to conclude that he felt convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that Mr. Brand had committed the offence. He dismissed Mr. Brand with immediate effect, reminding him of his right to appeal in writing within seven days.
  The appeal was fixed for 19 December, but was postponed until 16 January this year to allow Mr. Brand

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  to give notice to his union to arrange a legal representative. The appeal was chaired by the business group manager for Bristol and the original verdict was upheld.
  My hon. Friend has set out a number of concerns, including the lack of firm evidence, the way in which the matter was investigated, and the conduct of BR's disciplinary hearing. He has also drawn the attention of the House to the difficulties he has faced in arranging a proper investigation or a change in BR's management's attitude towards an employee. He has made his points in a measured and careful way. He accepts that he cannot make a categorical statement about innocence or guilt, but he feels that his constituent has not been given a fair hearing.
  I know that my hon. Friend will recognise that this case is very much a management matter for BR, and the
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  decision to dismiss Mr. Brand was entirely BR's. But my hon. Friend's points are important ones about fairness in handling disciplinary matters, and I shall of course ensure that they are drawn to the attention of BR. I am sure that BR should take careful note of them. With the rediscovery within the past 24 hours of the original receipt and, I am informed, the two statements from the youths involved, I am sure that my hon. Friend would wish to take the matter further. My hon. Friend the Minister for Public Transport has said that should he wish to have a meeting with him and a representative of BR, he would be happy to offer that opportunity. I hope that that demonstrates that the persistence of my hon. Friend has, if nothing else, at least found the receipt that hitherto had been missing.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at six minutes to Three o'clock.