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4.52 pm
Mr. John Patten (Oxford, West and Abingdon): I warmly support the contents of the Queen's Speech in every respect but one. I warmly support my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment in the excellent programme that she has outlined this afternoon.
I give equally warm support to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. I believe that his tenacity will reap its rewards--and the country will reap its rewards--in future years in more peaceful and secure streets and communities.
The one piece of the Queen's Speech that I cannot support is the proposals that it contains for divorce law reform, which are currently before another place. They are not party political in their nature. Indeed, it is unusual for any Government to legislate on divorce. In this case, it has been apparently done in response to the Law Commission's recommendations.
I regard divorce as very sad for everyone involved-- for husbands and wives, and for their children, too, if they have families. I am sure that no one goes up the aisle or up the steps of the registry office with anything other than a lilt in their heart and a conviction that it is for life. Sometimes, alas, people subsequently divorce and children suffer from the after-effects. For all those people, one can feel only compassion and an urge to try to help.
We cannot hide the fact that divorce is one of the major social problems for the United Kingdom. We are the divorce capital of western Europe. I recognise, of course, that divorce is simply part of how we live now. Whatever my personal feelings, I do not seek to make divorce any more difficult than it now is. Indeed, I cannot recall one constituent in the 16 years that I have been in this place writing to me to seek a change in the divorce laws or coming to see me to suggest that divorce should be made easier.
I am fearful of the effects that any further legislation will have on the number of divorces and thus on the families, children and social fabric of our nation. I note that others are fearful of other things. Some commentators have said that the proposals are an essay in political correctness driven by the Law Commission and put matters of legal process above anything else.
Other commentators have remarked on the oddness of this Government, of all Governments, having come forward with legislation for which there is no popular demand of any sort. There is no demand for it from the ranks of the Government's supporters in the Conservative party and in the country, and it may thus alienate some of our supporters, while cheering only those who will never vote for us.
Yet further commentators believe that it is pretty eccentric that a Tory Government should make such legislation the centrepiece of the Queen's Speech in the last Session of Parliament before a general election, because it may well lead us to expend unnecessary ammunition up and down the Tory Benches which should be spent in proper and reasonable parliamentary battle with the Opposition. Friendly fire along the Conservative Benches is always to be decried.
I am most fearful of the practical effects, on which I rest my case, of the proposed legislation. I do not intend on this or on any other occasion to address the moral implications of stripping the marital contract of all meaning and making it a provisional or probationary contract, save to remind myself of what Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote in his wartime "Letter to a Hostage". He wrote:
The simple, practical fact, which is undeniable, is that every time since the second world war that the House has legislated on divorce, there has been an immediate surge in the number of divorces. This is apparently because the message sent out by the new laws has been perceived to be that divorce is meant to be easier and that the state backs marriage less and less. That fact has been brilliantly demonstrated by the principal of St. Anne's college, Oxford, Mrs. Ruth Deech, in a series of masterly surveys of post-war legislative experience. It is an empirical certainty that, if we legislate again, there will be another surge in the number of divorces.
That certainty will be compounded by the introduction for the first time of true no-fault divorce on demand, which is what the legislation is apparently designed to bring about. In the United States, where no-fault divorce was introduced in 16 states between 1965 and 1985, the number of divorces in those states went up, on average, by 20 per cent. Australia had exactly the same experience when it changed the law to introduce no-fault divorce in 1975, as did New Zealand when similar measures were introduced there in 1980.
To borrow and adapt a phrase from my right hon. Friend the Governor of Hong Kong, that is the double divorce whammy that I most fear. As far as I can find, there is no stated Government policy to reduce the number of divorces, yet the national interest would certainly be served by that policy, since all the available evidence from social analysts from left to right and back again right across the political spectrum is that in this country children who are brought up in unbroken homes do better at school, commit less crime, enjoy better health and get jobs more easily.
Among those who carry out the research there is a clear consensus. These are uncomfortable and even harsh-sounding things to say, but they are facts. Uncomfortable they may be, but undeniable facts they are. In these times, however, they are too often judged to be too politically incorrect to be mentioned in polite society. Given that divorce is so easy, those are the real issues against which any divorce reform procedures should be judged.
It is always wrong to proceed with changes in the legal process, be it in on divorce or anything else, in a social and economic vacuum. Without being set in such a context, the proposals will, alas, help turn us from the
divorce capital of Europe, which we are now, to the divorce capital of the world. They will also prime a terrible social and moral time bomb, which in my judgment, and without claiming the benefit of hindsight or the ability to foresee the future, will explode somewhere between 2010 and 2020.
History will judge the proposals to be two things: first, relativism writ large and, secondly, the last and already deeply dated manifestation of the social thinking of the 1960s consensus, as embodied in the Law Commission. By the first decade of the third millennium, there will have to be a new consensus designed to pick up the pieces, which will stress that lifelong marriage is a proper policy for people and Governments of all colours to strive to promote.
The married family is of central importance to the life of our nation. Just as no hon. Member in this Chamber should ever claim to represent the patriotic party, so it is foolish and wrong for any of us on either side to claim to represent the only party of the family. There are those who hold the married family dear on both sides of the House.
Mr. Don Foster (Bath):
Following the Nolan report, the House may wish to know that, until we have clarified our rules, I have suspended my relationship with the two teacher associations with which I was involved.
The Queen's Speech has been an enormous disappointment for many of us. Undoubtedly, it has shown a Government who are not only out of control but out of ideas. The parts of the speech that deal with education show that they are also out of touch. I should have thought that everyone would accept that action to improve the education system is urgently needed. It can be no coincidence that the last of the publications of the national commission on education was entitled "Success Against the Odds".
I hoped that in the Queen's Speech the Government would find the mechanisms to reduce the odds for all schools. Earlier, the Secretary of State was fond of quoting the chairman of Philips. She would have done better to quote the recent world competitiveness report, which showed that our education system is 35th out of 48. Indeed, she mentioned recent league tables, but she will be aware from the analysis of such tables that we are even a very long way from the targets that the Government set themselves.
What has been the Government's response? What is in the Queen's Speech? There was certainly not a commitment to boost significantly investment in education and training, which there should have been and to which the Liberal Democrats are committed. Instead, we have a series of gimmicks and, amazingly, their sole purpose seems to be to draw attention to the areas in which the Government have been least successful in their education policies.
The three Bills proposed in the Queen's Speech fail to tackle the real issues. In one way or another, each is significantly flawed and will disappoint not only parents, teachers and governors, but everyone who wants our
country to succeed in the increasingly global market and who believes that, if we are to do so, it will be only by investing in the skills, training and education of the people.
It is also clear that the Government are rushing in all three Bills. For example, they are proposing legislation on student loans while they are still in the early stages of consultation about their proposals. What is more, in their consultation document, they suggest a number of different propositions. They are not even clear about the direction in which they intend to go. It is fairly clear that they have not thought through their proposals.
The House may wish to know that the consultation on the proposals for allowing grant-maintained schools to borrow money against their assets ended only yesterday. Clearly, the Government are rushing in again. So often, in recent years, they have rushed in with legislation and have had to make significant changes even while it is going through its various stages.
The third proposed Bill concerns nursery vouchers. When the Secretary of State made her statement, we were promised that the proposals that would eventually come before the House would be based on the outcome of extensive trials. As the House is well aware, only four local education authorities throughout the entire land have sufficient confidence in the proposals even to be prepared to be involved in the trials. Yet again, there is a real possibility that failed, ill-thought-out legislation will come before the House.
The three education proposals in the Queen's Speech are rushed and gimmicky legislation, which will fail to address the real issues that face the nation and every education service. As the House is well aware, the former Prime Minister, now Baroness Thatcher, advocated the introduction of nursery education for all three and four-year-olds more than 22 years ago. Yet 22 years later, we are getting nursery voucher proposals from the Government. I happen to agree with Baroness Thatcher that nursery education for all three and four-year-olds is what this country needs--especially parents who want that for their children. I also agree with her that it makes not only sound educational but sound economic sense.
To fulfil the dream that Baroness Thatcher and the Liberal Democrats have, we need a properly funded system that will truly provide high-quality early-years education for all three and four-year-olds. The Government are offering a scheme that is both bureaucratic and cumbersome and will do absolutely nothing for three-year-olds. Indeed, it could harm the existing provision for them. The scheme will not in any way expand provision, as no extra money is being made available within it for the development of much-needed new premises or to train the necessary additional teachers and ancillary staff.
In effect, the scheme is a total con trick. Amazingly, just before the next general election, people might receive through their letter boxes a voucher with a large sum of money--£1,100--written on it, but immediately after the election, they will find that in many parts of the country there is nowhere to cash it in. It is a con trick.
The Government are drawing attention to a policy that has failed. The opportunity for schools to opt for grant-maintained status was introduced in 1988. Since then, only one in 24 of our state schools have chosen to opt for
grant-maintained status, despite the bribes that have been on offer by the Government and the various inducements and pressures that have been put on the governing bodies of our schools.
The Government are now consulting on yet another set of proposals, including a fast-track idea for Church schools to opt out without parents even being involved in a ballot. So fast track is it that the Government did not even take their own advice on the length of time that they should consult on the issue. They wanted the consultation to take place in a matter of just a few weeks, against their own Department's advice. They have already had to rescind that and agree to extend the period. It was hardly worth doing so, because I suspect that nearly all the responses that the Government received, even from senior officials in Church organisations, have been against that proposal.
I was interested to hear the speech of the right hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten). He told us that there was only one aspect of the Queen's Speech with which he disagreed. I hope that, if it is proposed to have a fast track with no parental ballot on whether Church schools should be grant-maintained, he will vote against that idea, because he has spoken eloquently in the past about the vital importance of parental choice and involvement in making such decisions.
In the legislation for grant-maintained schools, even if that idea is not added, will be a set of proposals to allow those schools to borrow money against their assets--the buildings, land and so on. What does not seem to have become apparent to the Government is that borrowing money is easy, but paying it back is difficult. I hope that some thought has been given to what will happen to a school that defaults on repayments. Will we see the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State present at the very first repossession of school buildings by a mortgage company?
If so, what will be done to ensure the continued education of the pupils in that school?
I question the set of proposals in relation to the Student Loans Company. The Government propose to transfer the risk partially into the private sector, removing some of it from the public sector borrowing requirement. I have no objection to that in principle, but the problem is that they are transferring a cock-eyed system that does not provide adequate support for students. They are not transferring a system that is equitable and fair. It will not provide secure recovery to the lenders.
The Government, in their own consultation, describe a default rate of more than 20 per cent. as "catastrophic", yet the default rate on their own scheme is well in excess of that. I cannot see why anybody in the private sector would be interested in taking on the proposal that the Government have on offer. We shall have to wait to see the outcome of the consultation, as we do not yet know the details of the proposal. Sadly, neither do the Government.
"Politics are meaningless unless they serve a spiritual truth".
I think that he was right.
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