House of Commons Hansard Debates for 19 May 1992

Adjournment (Spring)

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That this House, at its rising on Friday 22nd May, do adjourn until Tuesday 2nd June.-- [Mr. Robert G. Hughes.]

4.26 pm

Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe) : I want to raise an issue of serious, widespread and growing concern about which this House plainly deserves an oral ministerial statement before the recess. The issue is the Government's refusal to set any date by which Operation Container-- the scheme for keeping prisoners in police cells--will be discontinued. We still await even the announcement of a timetable for reducing the huge number of prisoners now held in police stations.

Operation Container came into being specifically to deal with the shortage of prison accommodation in the Greater Manchester area caused by the destruction of Strangeways prison more than two years ago. The House will recall that Strangeways, built in the Victorian era and destroyed in the riot of April 1990, was seriously overcrowded, even in 19th-century terms, when the riot took place. I saw the conditions in Strangeways, before the disturbances, on a visit to discuss with senior staff the problems caused by the detention there of prisoners who were mentally ill but for whom no accommodation was available in more appropriate places of detention. There were then about 1,700 prisoners in Strangeways ; today there are still 1,638 prisoners held in police stations under Operation Container. Of that total, 233 are held in cells in 23 police stations in Greater Manchester. That number has hardly changed since last November and, despite the daunting stress imposed on our police service by crime figures for which any previous Government would have been heavily censured, it shows no sign of decreasing.

Greater Manchester police are not alone in having to bear the extra burden of acting as gaolers. Other police forces, from Devon and Cornwall to Northumbria and from East Sussex to Cumbria, have also become part of the prison system. In all, 39 police forces are participating in the operation. The full list was given in a priority written reply that I received from the Minister with responsibility for prisons on 11 May, and the cost of Operation Container is both enormous and still growing. Perhaps the Leader of the House could let the House know the total cost to date when he winds up the debate. I shall be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman can also let the House know whether the new Home Secretary will be accepting the Greater Manchester police authority's urgent request for a meeting with him to discuss its concerns about Operation Container. A letter that I received this morning from Mr. R. C. Rees, clerk to the Greater Manchester police authority, states that no effective action has been taken to provide temporary accommodation in, for example, military camps for the prisoners now held in police cells, and that, in his police authority's view, the Home Office is clearly in breach of its duty under the Prison Act 1952 to provide prisons. The letter goes on :

"The Police Authority is also of the view that this failure on the part of the Home Office, and the consequent necessity for the Police Authority to provide accommodation in police cells, is having a deleterious effect on the policing of Greater

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Manchester, in that many Police Officers are being compelled to act as Prison Warders instead of protecting the community from crime".

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : There is also increasing anecdotal evidence in Greater Manchester that, on occasion, there are no empty police cells and that, for that reason, arrests that would be made in other circumstances are not being made.

Mr. Morris : I accept that important point and pay warm tribute to the long, sustained and extremely well-informed contribution my hon. Friend has made to discussion of this important issue.

The letter from the clerk to the Greater Manchester police authority continues :

"It is not yet too late to remedy the situation, even though the Police Authority is actively considering instituting formal legal proceedings against the Home Secretary, unless adequate assurances are given."

Surely that merits an oral statement by the Home Secretary before the recess?

The detention of remand or sentenced prisoners in police stations-- including many in areas of acute deprivation and social stress--is manifestly unacceptable. The position is now deeply serious and the ending of Operation Container is a compelling priority. That is not only my view. In his reply to me on 11 May, the Minister said that the problem of using police stations for prisoners was "regarded as extremely serious and the task of bringing it to an end a top priority".

The reply went on :

"Neither I, nor my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, regard the detention of remand or sentenced prisoners in police cells as acceptable either for the prisoners or the police."--[ Official Report, 11 May 1992 ; Vol. 207, c. 20 .]

Those statements make the Minister's inability to set a date by which Operation Container will end--or even to announce a timetable for reducing the number of prisoners held in police stations--all the more worrying for people in Greater Manchester and elsewhere who know that their police forces, with crime figures as they are now, have more than enough to do without adding to their already heavy burdens.

Notwithstanding the best endeavours of police officers, can security be as good in police stations as it is in prisons? Are the Government satisfied that public safety is nowhere at risk from the long-term detention of prisoners in police stations? Those are the questions put to me, day by day, by my constituents.

An operation that was described as "temporary" after the Strangeways riot has now come to look more and more permanent. Indeed, the overall position today is worse than when the Strangeways riot occurred, as police authorities are placed in the de facto position of running a prison service by reason of the Home Office default. Police officers are losing their rest days, police stations are changing their character and, in fact, the fundamental purpose of the police service is undergoing extra-statutory change as it takes on duties it was never meant to discharge.

I went recently to Brownley road police station in my constituency, where four prisoners were being held. They cannot have a shower there, so they have to be transported under escort from the police station for a shower. Exercise and catering provision are other difficult problems, quite

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apart from the general effect on the work of dedicated officers in a very busy police station of turning it into a gaol for prisoners, some of whom have completed their entire sentences in police cells. Councillor Stephen Murphy, chairman of the Greater Manchester police authority, has spoken with admirable restraint of a "real deterioration in policing" in consequence of Operation Container and of his disquiet that costs of well over £3 million incurred in the investigation, for prosecution purposes, of incidents both during and after the disturbances at Strangeways have not been met by the Home Office. The chairman points out that many police officers have been involved in this work. Yet the Home Office refuses to provide additional finances to cover the authority's costs. This also is unacceptable, not least to Greater Manchester's poll tax payers. Why should they have to suffer this imposition?

I am sure that the Leader of the House will accept that the problems created by Operation Container constitute a very important matter for Greater Manchester, the north-west and for the country as a whole. There is no party animus locally about the extreme urgency of the need now to have the problems resolved. That can only be assisted by an early meeting between the Home Secretary and those who have to deal with these problems at the sharp end of Operation Container. I ask the Leader of the House for a helpful reply when he responds to the debate.

4.37 pm

Sir Anthony Grant (Cambridgeshire, South-west) : I listened with great interest to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), because I have a prison in my constituency. I am happy to say that it is an extremely good and modern establishment. I know that the House always listens with the keenest interest to the right hon. Gentleman, because he renders a great service to this place. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will pay attention to the right hon. Gentleman's contribution.

Before the House rises for the spring Adjournment, I want to talk about the problems of woodlands in Britain generally and in Cambridgeshire in particular. It is a matter of great importance to all who value our heritage and want to preserve the best in our environment.

I cite first Brampton wood in Cambridgeshire, which comprises 330 acres of woodland on the edge of my constituency. It is primarily in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Many people in both of our constituencies are worried about the wood's future, and we have been inundated, not surprisingly, with correspondence.

I can best describe the wood by using the words of one of my constituents, Mrs. Pamela Timbrell. She wrote that there

"are a wide range of wild flowers--some endangered--a diverse collection of beautiful native trees, squirrels and species of deer in a truly wild and natural setting. It is indeed a place of fragile and magical beauty."

Another of my constituents, Mr. Barry Dickerson, the county recorder of lepidoptera, which for the benefit of old Etonians means that he is the recorder of butterflies and moths, has recorded 515 different species of butterflies and moths in Brampton wood. The wood is owned by the Ministry of Defence. It has been found to be surplus to its requirements, and in line

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with its normal policy it is selling it by competitive tender to the highest bidder, in order, not unnaturally, to obtain the best return for the taxpayer.

The people of Cambridgeshire have always supported the Ministry of Defence presence in their county. Quite sensibly, we have tolerated aircraft noise and so on, because we know the importance of the MOD activities to the defence of the realm. Cambridgeshire has a great history of defence of this country.

The future of the wood after its sale is uncertain. Such woodlands cannot just be left ; they have to be managed if they are to retain their beauty and provide enjoyment for nature lovers throughout the county and the country. The wood is designated as a site of special scientific interest, but that does not ensure that it will be properly managed. After all, I understand that 2,000 acres of SSSIs have been damaged during the past 12 months. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Forestry Commission cannot compel the appropriate management of woodlands.

The Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire Wildlife Trust is keen to buy the wood. It would preserve it, look after it, and ensure that it is developed in the best possible way, preserving the flora and fauna inside it. However, the trust needs time. The MOD should, if possible, sell the wood to the trust. Will the MOD at least give the trust time to submit a suitably competitive bid, which it wants and intends to do? Alternatively, will the MOD give time to allow suitable safeguards to be put in place to preserve that beautiful wood? We now have a new heritage Ministry. I am not quite sure what it does, but I should not be surprised if it were extremely interested in this problem. The Secretary of State for National Heritage should become involved in such issues. Of course, other Ministries are involved. The Department of the Environment must be interested, if the environment means anything. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food should be interested because it has forestry responsibilities. I ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to get those Ministries to work together rather than in separate penny packets, so that we can save something that is really worth while in our society. I know that both my right hon. Friend and our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister take the problem seriously. I want to discuss the slightly broader issue, because British woodlands as a whole are at risk. I am sure that many hon. Members will have read the Observer supplement last Sunday. It certainly made stark reading. It is only a short while before the great Rio summit on the environment is held. It is ironic that, during the past 50 years, Amazonia--the place we are always told has devastated its forests--lost 10 per cent. of its forests, yet over the same period Britain lost 45 per cent. If those figures are true, they are very stark. It is worrying for the British environment and for a country that has been so notable for its woodlands and its forests. It is also ironic that the Government subsidise new afforestation where people plant dreary conifers, which do not attract wildlife. They certainly do not create the woods that we want in our beloved country. While providing subsidies for those boring conifers, the Government run the risk of destroying existing much better, much more beautiful and much more lush woodland through the highest-bidder policy that the MOD is pursuing.

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The matter is urgent, both nationally and locally. It is no good making lots of money, having wonderful machinery and new technology and creating wealth if, in the process, there is not a countryside in which it is worth living. I am sure that the Government would not wish to be known as an Administration who appreciate the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

Several Hon. Members rose--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse) : Order. Many right hon. and hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. I hope that any hon. Members who are fortunate to catch my eye in the early part of the debate will take that into consideration. It is only a three-hour debate, and I wish to call as many hon. Members as possible.

4.45 pm

Ms. Liz Lynne (Rochdale) : I know that, as this is my maiden speech, I shall be treated with courtesy and gracious listening, but it is none the less a fairly daunting experience. I feel very privileged to be a Member of the House. Indeed, I believe that all of us, being Members, are so privileged. I suspect that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would agree that in the light of that privilege and that honour, our behaviour, countenance and manner should reflect that.

I represent Rochdale and I realise that I have a very hard act to follow. My predecessor, Sir Cyril Smith, was a character in his own right. Loved by most--not all, but most--he was a tireless worker for his constituents. He is outspoken and he never hesitates to say what he thinks or believes. Before he came to the House in the famous 1972 by-election, he had been councillor, alderman and mayor of Rochdale. His service to his beloved Rochdale spans some 40 years. I know that the House will wish him a long and happy retirement. I, for one, owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

The Rochdale constituency comprises the old county borough of Rochdale. Within 15 minutes, we can be out of the township into the hills or on to the moors, yet it still embraces commerce, industry and all the inner-town facilities. Rochdale has a proud history. It was a great textile town, but sadly that is fading, although new industries are growing and thousands of small businesses now make a valuable contribution to our economy. Rochdale also has great companies with worldwide reputations.

Regrettably, however, unemployment is still above the regional average. While Rochdale does not have people sleeping out in cardboard boxes to any great extent, homelessness is still a serious problem and a social evil.

John Bright and Gracie Fields are famous Rochdalians. The Co-operative Movement was founded in Rochdale, as was the Workers Educational Association. In 1994, when it is reasonable to expect that I shall still be the town's Member of Parliament, Rochdale will celebrate some great events- -the 800th anniversary of Rochdale parish church, the 150th anniversary of the Co-op, the centenary of the Rochdale canal and the centenary of the children's Moorland home. People, however, are the great wealth of Rochdale --its population, its voluntary organisations and its societies. Drama, music, church, community--just name it and we have it.

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We are a close-knit community, which is why the death of Conrad Cole, a young soldier from Rochdale, in the so-called friendly fire incident has affected Rochdale greatly. It does not seem likely that, under international law, the pilots can be extradited. Because of that, I urge the Government to use their special relationship with the United States to press for a further and fuller inquiry and for the results to be released to the parents and all interested parties.

It is perhaps not surprising that Rochdale has always been concerned about the people within its community. It has been deeply involved in the issue of community care. The first local authority home for the elderly was opened in 1950, the family group homes by 1960 and schemes to help pensioners with decorating and gardening were introduced in 1963. In the 1960s, a youth-helps-elderly scheme was pioneered at a time of severe weather conditions. It is therefore wholly appropriate, I hope, that my maiden speech as Member of Parliament for Rochdale should be concerned with community care. Therefore, I ask that before the House adjourns we should debate the pressing issue of community care.

I grew up in a disabled persons' home, as my mother was in charge of it. A lot of my friends, of course, were disabled. One particular friend and I used to go all over the place together. She was 16 and I was 11 when we arrived there, but what used to make me so angry was that when we were out together people frequently asked me questions and never talked to her first, even though she was five years older. I realised very quickly the sort of discrimination that people with disabilities have to suffer. I was determined to help to change that, not only for disabled people but for everyone, to create an equal and caring society.

I should like to ask : where is the vision, where is the idealism, where is the hope? They are certainly not there for the elderly, or for disabled people, or for the mentally ill, or for the homeless, or for those with learning difficulties. Care in the community was supposed to be the great hope, but what has happened to it? I shall tell hon. Members. It is grossly underfunded and has not been properly thought through. I believe very strongly that community care is the right way forward, but not in the way that it is operating at the moment in many places throughout the country. If we are not careful, more and more people will be left to roam the streets. More and more people will be placed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, with nothing to do all day. More people will be put into flats and bed-sits, without the proper back-up facilities. It is happening already.

We have a very good example of what happened when the large mental institutions were closed. Quite a lot of the inmates were dumped out, to fend for themselves. Many of them can still be seen wandering the streets and sleeping rough. We must not let that continue. We must certainly not let it happen again.

Community care has to be provided with proper resources. That money has to be ring-fenced to stop local councils being able to squander it on pet projects. We need to create a comprehensive disability income scheme so that people with disabilities can be given real financial freedom. We need also to create a new carers benefit that recognises the essential role that carers play in enabling people to stay within the community. We need to take positive action to

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get people off the streets and into real homes of their own. Our aim should be to reduce homelessness by at least 50 per cent. in the next four years.

All the groups of people I have mentioned have to be treated with dignity and respect. For too long they have been ignored ; for too long they have been swept to one side ; and for too long they have been the poor relations. As a Member of Parliament, I hope to make my contribution to improved community care and I am happy that my maiden speech should have been devoted to that cause.

4.53 pm

Mr. James Kilfedder (North Down) : We have just heard a gracious and elegant speech, delivered with passion and compassion by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Miss Lynne). It is not surprising that we should hear such a speech from the hon. Lady because Rochdale produced, as she mentioned, Gracie Fields, who embodied the big-heartedness of that area. I hope that the hon. Lady will enjoy her stay in the House. I am sure that she will enjoy the same friendship that her predecessor, Sir Cyril Smith, who was a large and lovely personality, enjoyed here. I echo what she said about the need to look after the people of this country.

I urge the House not to adjourn, because of the threatened bed closures in my constituency of North Down in the Bangor hospital, the Ulster hospital and the Ards hospital. I denounce the Eastern health board's proposals to cut almost 100 hospital beds in the North Down area. Such bed closures will inevitably have an adverse effect on patient care in the area. There is no doubt whatsoever that waiting lists, which already are intolerably long, will grow longer still. The board has announced that there will be consultations about the closures, but such talks--I speak from many years' experience of statements by the Eastern health board in the past--will, in my opinion, be a sham. They will be a cosmetic exercise to give a semblance of democracy to decisions already made to cut essential hospital beds--cuts which, if implemented, will clearly be detrimental to the people of North Down.

Every year, the North Down and Ards unit of management has imposed excessive expenditure cuts on hospital and social services in the North Down area. The present proposals are the result of a programme imposed on the unit by the Eastern health board to cut expenditure on hospital services by a further £1 million. I have charged the board with discrimination against the people of my constituency and elsewhere in the Eastern health board area. That area takes in the city of Belfast, which receives more than its fair share of money, in proportion to the population of Belfast, the number of hospital beds available in Belfast and the total expenditure of the Eastern health board on the city of Belfast.

I do not blame the Belfast hospitals for seeking to obtain as much money as possible. Money spent on patients is money well spent. The fact is, however, that money is being drawn away from the rest of the Eastern health board area to the city of Belfast. Therefore, I call for Belfast to be hived off from the Eastern health board area and established as a separate entity, because the cost of hospital beds in the Ulster and Bangor hospitals is lower than the cost of hospital beds in the Royal Victoria

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hospital or the City hospital, Belfast. I am shocked by the cuts which it has been decided to make in my constituency of North Down. The whole of a medical ward in Bangor hospital is to be closed. That ward consists of 24 beds. Sadly, patients who need operations will have to wait far longer for them. That makes a mockery of the claim that the national health service is being organised for the benefit of patients. The closure of a whole medical ward will create appalling difficulties for Bangor. The population consists of 70,000 men, women and children. It deserves to have a fully operational hospital with a casualty department. Instead, the Eastern health board cuts, cuts and cuts again. I have warned my constituents that, in due course, despite assurances from the Eastern health board to the contrary, the board will seek to close the Bangor hospital completely.

It is an indictment of the undemocratic bureaucracy that governs Northern Ireland that such proposals can be made with no reference to the elected representatives of the Ulster people. The board is composed of people who were appointed by the Minister and who, therefore, are minions of the Government. Representatives of the press are not admitted to meetings and do not hear the deliberations of the Eastern health board. We find out what is happening by rumour ; then, eventually, a statement is made to the effect that the proposal will be implemented following discussions.

The Ulster hospital's orthopaedic ward, with 20 beds, is to be closed. The Ards hospital will lose 52 beds. All those closures will create suffering for patients and relatives, and nurses and other staff will inevitably lose their jobs.

I call on the Government to ensure that the proposed bed closures in the North Down and Ards area are not implemented within the next few months as proposed but postponed until the proposals are fully examined and discussed by the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland. That can be done effectively only by means of a Northern Ireland Select Committee, which could cross-examine health board officials and other witnesses. I have been pressing for the appointment of a Select Committee for some time and I now repeat that demand for the restoration of democracy to the people of Northern Ireland.

If my fair and reasonable demand for the appointment of a Select Committee is still refused, I call on the Government to guarantee to the people of my constituency that the Eastern health board proposals will be postponed until the creation of another Northern Ireland Assembly. We understand from the discussions that have taken place over the past few months that there is a very reasonable prospect of a Northern Ireland assembly being established. The health board's proposals are an ideal matter for such an assembly to discuss, and I do not think that a decision should be made in advance of its creation.

In the name of my constituents, in the name of justice and in the name of community care, I urge the Government to ensure that the undemocratic bureaucratic Eastern health board does not proceed with the proposed hospital bed closures, which would create an appalling state of affairs in my constituency of North Down.

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5.2 pm

Ms. Rachel Squire (Dunfermline, West) : Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech to the House. I begin by congratulating you on your election to your new post--a tribute to your ability and of most welcome assistance to new and inexperienced Members like myself.

I shall refer first to previous--experienced--Members of Parliament for Dunfermline, West and Dunfermline Burghs. My immediate predecessor was Mr. Dick Douglas. During his long career in the Labour and Co-operative Movement, he displayed--shall we say--an independence of mind. That career began when, as a young apprentice in the 1950s, he helped to lead a successful strike in the Clyde shipyards. It is a particular shame, therefore, that he decided to end his career by breaking away from the Labour and Co-operative Movement.

The vast majority of past and present Labour Members of Parliament for Fife have been and are an example of the best that the movement can offer. My special thanks must go to my hon. Friends the Members for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) and for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish). I pay tribute to the ceaseless work of members of the Labour party throughout Fife and especially in my own constituency. My respect and affection for the people of Dunfermline and West Fife grow with every passing day. Throughout the century, they have displayed an unswerving loyalty and commitment to the Labour movement.

I cannot end this part of my speech without paying tribute to an outstanding example of that loyalty and commitment, a former Member of Parliament, Mr. Adam Hunter, who, sadly, died last year. He worked as a miner for 40 years before becoming a Member of Parliament, and subsequently he served the constituency of Dunfermline Burghs for 15 years in a most selfless and conscientious way. He was totally without pomposity and everyone who knew him speaks of him with the highest regard. I can only strive to match a small part of his ability.

That brings me to my constituency. I said that Mr. Adam Hunter had been a miner in the area for 40 years, but the history of coal mining in my constituency goes back much further--more than 700 years, to 1291, when the monks of Dunfermline abbey first extracted coal from Pittencrieff glen. Throughout the constituency, villages developed amid coal mines--Oakley, Saline, Blairhall and High Valleyfield, to mention but a few. Yet now there is only one deep mine operating in the whole of Scotland, at the western edge of my constituency at Kincardine on its border with that of my hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill).

My constituency's history is fascinating. This year, we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of Culross as a royal burgh. Next year we will mark the 900th anniversary of the death of Queen Margaret. I hope, too, that Dunfermline abbey will begin to be recognised as the Westminster abbey of Scotland. [ Hon. Members :-- "Hear, hear."]

The communities of the constituency have a long history of work and welcome. They include communities from Townhill to Torryburn, from Charlestown to Crossford, from Cairneyhill to Carnock, from Halbeath to Limekilns and Newmills. The constituency's communities

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have a long defence tradition and we all owe a great deal to the people who live and work in Crombie, Pitreavie and Rosyth. I am aware that this debate concerns the spring Adjournment. I should like to tell the House of all my concerns, but that would take days, rather than the few minutes left to me, so I have decided to use that time to raise just one issue--low pay.

George Bernard Shaw said, "Very few people can afford to be poor." I should like to think that that comment was history ; it is not. The lowest-paid male manual workers earn less, relative to the average, than they did more than 100 years ago, in 1886. An unemployed married man with four children in Dunfermline was offered a job for 36 hours a week as a radio taxi controller for a wage of £54 a week. It would be comforting to think that that man was an exception ; he was not. It would be comforting to think that low pay was confined to parts of Dunfermline ; it is not. It would be comforting to think that it was confined to parts of Fife ; it is not. There are 900,000 low-paid workers--one in three--in Scotland--and more than 10.4 million in the United Kingdom.

The Government have led the attack against Labour's call for a minimum wage of £3.40 an hour and the protection of wages councils. Will someone explain to me, and to the millions of low-paid workers, why the Government consider it immoral to pay a man or a woman £3.40 for an hour of work, yet moral to charge sick people many of them on low pay and benefits-- £3.75 for half a dozen pills on a prescription? The Government have claimed that the introduction of a minimum wage would lead to unemployment. Given the extent of low pay, we should have full employment now. Instead, the latest statistics show an official figure of 2,695,300 unemployed, and the unofficial figure is much higher. Scotland is one of the parts of the country that have been hardest and longest hit by unemployment. Fife has the second highest unemployment rate in Scotland, with one in eight people out of work, and in parts of my constituency--central Dunfermline, for example--there is already an unemployment rate of 21.4 per cent. The Government have said that they are keen on saving public expenditure. If that is the case, they should promote jobs with decent pay. If they did that, the people of Abbeyview in Dunfermline, 60 per cent. of whom depend on benefits, could instead earn a decent wage and contribute towards national insurance and tax. If the Government do not change their policy on poverty wages, that policy will add to the millions who already live on poverty pensions. If the Government are keen to save on public expenditure, they should ditch the privatisation of the coal industry and the further attacks on local government and the health service. Privatisation will only add to unemployment, increase benefit demands and waste billions more of public money.

If the Government introduced a minimum wage, they could save public expenditure and increase income to the Exchequer. A minimum wage would bring in between £1.3 billion to £1.5 billion a year through tax and national insurance and fewer benefits. Minimum pay would also increase industrial efficiency and effectiveness. That is why 10 of our 12 European competitors have some form of

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minimum wage protection. The evidence that economic efficiency would be promoted by minimum pay has been provided by organisations such as the Contractors, Cleaning and Maintenance Association and the Electrical Contractors Association. I urge the Government to cease immediately any plans to abolish wages councils completely where the highest basic pay rate is a mere £3.08 an hour. Instead, the Government should assist employers to invest in equality and efficiency.

In conclusion, I want to quote Winston Churchill. He said that without the protection of minimum wages

"the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad employer is undercut by the worst."

It is my hope and intention to work towards making that quote relevant only to the past--not to the present or the future. 5.11 pm

Mr. Michael Stephen (Shoreham) : As is customary for those who have the honour of addressing the House for the first time, I wish to begin by referring to my constituency and to my predecessor. I am proud to represent Shoreham, which lies between the south downs and the sea in the county of West Sussex. We have a small port and an airport in Shoreham. In times gone by, we built wooden ships for the Royal Navy and for the merchant and fishing fleets. There was a time when Shoreham relied for its livelihood on shipbuilding contracts procured by its Members of Parliament. However, its Member of Parliament today has many tasks, but none is more important than to safeguard and promote the interests of local industry and commerce upon which the livelihoods of so many of my constituents depend. Shoreham and Lancing are at the heart of the British simulator industry. Men and women of the most amazing technical skill and inventive genius build simulators to train the crews of aircraft and tanks. We also have a company that is equally extraordinary and at the leading edge of technology in the automotive engine industry. It designs engines for motor vehicles throughout the world. We also have a company that builds hi-tech operating tables and other extremely sophisticated equipment for the world's hospitals.

We have a famous public school at Lancing. At Findon we have a racing stables where Grand National winners have been trained. In the places that I have already mentioned and in Southwick, Sompting, Ferring, East Preston, and Rustington, there are pleasant residential areas to which people from all over the country come to spend their retirement years. Pensions are important for me. I have already joined the all-party pensions group and I have become a founder member of the group of 70 hon. Members who are pledged to fight for the Maxwell pensioners.

One of my predecessors as hon. Member for Shoreham was the father of the poet Shelley. However, my immediate predecessor was the right hon. Sir Richard Luce. He was a distinguished Member of this House for 21 years and he was well liked and respected by hon. Members on both sides of the House. He served his country well as a Foreign Office Minister and as Minister for the Arts. He is now vice-chancellor of Buckingham university and I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing him every success in that new appointment.

On policy matters, I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on our policy towards Europe.

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Britain should play a positive role in shaping the future of our continent. We should be good Europeans, but that does not mean simply saying yes to what the others want to do. I believe in co-operation, not federation.

The Government will also receive my support for returning the nationalised industries to the private sector. The private sector should do that which is best done in the private sector. I welcome the citizens charter because it is vital in any organisation, whether public or private, that the people who work in it know what is expected of them and that the people whom it serves know what they have a right to expect. In short, I believe that the citizens charter is the mission statement for the public service.

I would like to raise many issues in relation to the environment, but I shall refer to only one today. It is water. We all now know that water is a precious natural resource, and I would like to see the building regulations amended so that all new buildings are equipped with the means of collecting and storing rain water. Many people in my constituency fought in the second world war, and many others lost their loved ones in that dreadful conflict. We must all be grateful that the cold war has ended, but we still live in a dangerous and unstable world. We must remember the lessons of the 1930s. Countries are attacked because they are too weak, not because they are too strong.

I had the honour to serve Her Majesty in The Life Guards. I regret the need to amalgamate some of our famous regiments, and I respectfully ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence to reconsider the manning levels required for the Army. However, I welcome the Government's commitment to provide our soldiers, sailors and airmen with the very best equipment that modern technology can provide.

I also practised as a barrister for 14 years and I therefore have a particular interest in law and order. In 1987 I wrote a pamphlet urging the Government to ask Parliament to confer on the Court of Appeal the power to increase over-lenient sentences, and I was very pleased when that power was provided by the Criminal Justice Act 1988. As we have seen in recent cases, that does not always mean that a sentence will be increased, but it does mean that a higher court now has the opportunity to reconsider the matter.

I believe that automatic remission of sentences should be abolished, because it is a fraud on the public. If a judge sentences a man to six years imprisonment, our constituents have a right to expect him to be behind bars for six years. I know that judges take remission into account when fixing sentences, but sentences should mean what they say. If judges wish to pass shorter sentences, let them do so and let them see what the public think about it.

I am aware of the need to maintain discipline in prisons, but our constituents do not receive reductions in their income tax for good behaviour. Good behaviour is to be expected in this country, both inside and outside prison, and those who behave badly in prisons should have their sentences increased.

I am not against parole, as opposed to remission, and prisoners should be entitled to earn reduction of sentence. Many people are in prison today because the education system failed them, and more thought and more resources need to be devoted to remedial education in prison. Far too much of the time that prisoners spend in custody is completely and utterly wasted, and it needs to be put to better use.

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Another matter relating to law and order is pornography. The law should be tightened up in relation to printed matter, films, television and the increasing use of the telephone system for pornographic purposes.

In Britain today, unemployment gives us all cause for concern. I will not say when the recession will end, because, as Groucho Marx once said, "It is dangerous to make predictions, especially about the future." However, I do know that the recession is temporary. Many people in our constituencies risk losing their homes because they cannot pay their mortgages. If they are on income support, they get their mortgage interest paid, but if they are on family credit, they do not. I have urged my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security to consider paying mortgage interest to people on family credit. That would be expensive, but when the taxpayer is helping a person to maintain and preserve a capital asset, I see no reason why the taxpayer should not get his money back when the recession ends and the property eventually is sold. For that purpose I suggest a legal charge upon the property.

The great majority of my constituents are Christian people. They believe that religious education in our schools should be predominantly of the Christian faith. They believe also, as I do, that everything that the Government do should be guided by Christian principles. Those principle are shared by the other great religions represented in our country today. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will never forget those principles, and I wish him every success in the years to come.

5.21 pm

Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South) : I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen). I am sure that he will make an able representative of his constituency. He and I have in common an interest in law and order, although I suspect they are slightly different aspects. I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not follow the tradition to a great extent and get carried away with a eulogy, because I do not want any thunderbolts to come down from heaven and consume me in the next 10 minutes. As it happens, before the recess we should spend a little time discussing an aspect of law and order which I should like to think would be of interest to the hon. Member for Shoreham, but I am prepared for the possibility that it is not.

Two years ago, after a statement by the Home Secretary the day after four innocent people had their convictions quashed for the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings, the right hon. Gentleman set up a judicial inquiry under Judge Sir John May, a very distinguished judge, to consider not only those convictions but the seven other convictions that related to the Guildford and Woolwich case--those of Mrs. Maguire and her family, which have also been quashed. That inquiry seemed at the time to be urgent and there was an awful lot of curiosity about how it came to pass that those people were ever convicted of those offences. Two years and eight months have passed since that inquiry was set up, and it seems to have ground to a halt.

I cannot say that I am all that surprised. The history of judicial inquiries is not a happy one. Judicial inquiries into miscarriages of justice normally end by re-convicting those who have just had their convictions quashed. It became

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clear early on that Sir John May was not willing to be party to a whitewash and that he was conducting a rigorous inquiry. From that moment on, it also became clear that Sir John May would never be permitted to report. The years have ticked by and there is no sign of a report. I understand, although I have not spoken to him, that Sir John is considerably frustrated about the situation.

The reasons why I have never believed that he would be permitted to report are not all that difficult to work out. The Guildford case is distinquished from the other big celebrated miscarriages of justice in that all those concerned--it is possible to demonstrate it and I attempted to demonstrate it in my evidence to Sir John May's inquiry--must have known that they had got the wrong people. They chose not to face up to that for fear, perhaps, of the consequences for their own careers or for fear that the roof of the legal system might fall in. It is quite easy to demonstrate that. We have only to look at the cast of characters involved to see why there will be no report from Sir John May.

The judge was Lord Donaldson, now Master of the Rolls--the judge, I believe, in both the Guildford and Woolwich trial and the Maguire case that followed. The senior policemen involved--many police officers were involved --were Sir Peter Imbert, now the Metropolitan Commissioner, Commander Bill Hucklesby, who became very senior in the Metropolitan police before he retired, and Commander Jim Nevill, who was also extremely senior in the Metropolitan police. They helped to capture the IRA unit called the Balcombe street. There was a big siege at Balcombe street, which many people will recall--it lasted a week.

From that moment on, it must have been obvious--indeed, it was obvious-- that those were people who carried out the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings. They were prepared to confess to it. They were able to describe it in enormous detail--such great detail that it was not possible to pretend that they had not been involved. The script had to be rewritten, and it was rewritten on a fairly spectacular scale. The problem was that the Balcombe street people insisted on owning up. When they came to trial, they all got up in court and said that as members of the Provisional IRA they would not normally recognise a British court, but on this occasion, since innocent people had been convicted for offences for which they were responsible, they proposed to plead not guilty to the enormous list of charges in front of them, and invite their barristers to participate in the proceedings only in so far as it would draw out the enormous amount of fraud and perjury that had been committed. As a result of that dramatic new evidence, the Guildford and Woolwich defendants were entitled to a retrial. That posed a very serious problem for the authorities because there was a serious danger that the truth would emerge. Had they owned up at that stage, we could have said, "Oh well, it was a mistake," and perhaps it was up to that point, although I do not necessarily accept that either. But that is not what happened. A little-known

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