Engagements (Hansard, 15 December 1992)

§ Q4. Mr. Gareth Wardell
To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 December.

§ The Prime Minister
I refer the hon. Member to the answer that I gave some moments ago.

§ Mr. Wardell
As Christmas approaches and we witness the crisis of despair among the homeless not only in London but in cities such as Swansea, will the Prime Minister recognise that his vision of a classless society is rapidly receding and that our failure to embrace a growing underclass is beginning to undermine the very basis of Britain's being considered a democracy?

§ The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman may not know that the latest count by voluntary organisations last month found a drop of nearly 60 per cent. in the number of rough sleepers since the Government's initiative some time ago. The hon. Gentleman appears not to have heard about that initiative: with Government funding of nearly £100 million, it is providing new hostel places in central London and 3,000 more permanent places are being provided or planned. More action is being taken to help the homeless now than has been taken for many years.

§ Mr. Trend
Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the Housing and Urban Development Bill, especially the parts that establish rent-to-mortgage schemes? Does he agree that it will create an excellent low-risk opportunity for young people to begin the process of owning their homes?

§ The Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend. We certainly want to continue to expand home ownership for young people and others. [Interruption.] Labour Members heckle, but then they have fought all our reforms of choice and ownership, time after time. They fought the right to buy, and now they are fighting the rent-tomortgage scheme. The fact is that they do not trust people to make their own decisions about housing. They do not want people to be independent of the state, but we do: we believe in independence, home ownership and low taxation. That is why we are here and they are there.

§ Q5. Mr. Enright
To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 December.

§ The Prime Minister
I refer the hon. Member to the answer that I gave some moments ago.

§ Mr. Enright
Is the Prime Minister aware that his right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Thatcher has been gallivanting through the United States of America, rubbishing Her Majesty's Government's presidency of the European Community and making huge sums of money out of it? Will he persuade her to give some of that money to the miners, who have been cruelly deprived—

§ Madam Speaker
Order. I hardly think that someone's travels have much to do with the Prime Minister. I think that we had better move on now.

§ Mr. Deva
I welcome the agreement secured by my right hon. Friend in Edinburgh, which will lead to the immediate start of negotiations for the entry into the Community of Austria, Sweden and Finland. Does he agree that the British agenda is now an agenda for the whole of the EC?

§ The Prime Minister
I agree: that is increasingly the position. We have achieved a significant turnaround in attitudes to the enlargement of the Community. At Edinburgh we won agreement for the immediate start of negotiations with Austria, Finland and Sweden, and for negotiations with Norway before too long. As my hon. Friend will be aware, we also won support for the eventual membership of the Visegrad countries. When I first proposed that in Paris less than two years ago, very few people supported it; now it is Community policy.