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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard) indicated dissent.
Mr. Bermingham: The Home Secretary shakes his head. With respect, he has not the experience that I have of this legal sector and of cases that I have attended. Cases involving persecution are a minority, but we must have provisions for dealing with them.
To sweep a broad brush across all those matters, saying,
"We will do this," is not always the right way to do things. That is why I ask the Home Secretary, before he rushes into legislation, to listen to the people who know, because hurried legislation is often bad legislation and bad legislation leads to injustice.
We have a place for and a history of protection, and of taking in the persecuted and oppressed from all over the world. I say that as someone who came into this country at the age of seven. I was not born and bred here: I was born in the Republic of Ireland. I am probably one of the few surviving hon. Members who were born there, but, even in my community, I have seen the division and discrimination. There seem to be some people in this land who do not appreciate the fact that all human beings are equal in the eyes of God--whichever God one follows--and I ask the Home Secretary to look carefully at the proposals.
I hope that the Home Secretary has had time to read The Times today, particularly the comments of the Lord Chancellor on page 4 about the problems of fixing minimum sentences. I have listened to the arguments in favour of the long brush. The Home Secretary knows my views only too well in respect of mandatory life sentencing and so on.
There comes a time when we must stand back and look at the division of functions within our society. I make no secret of the fact that my view has always been that Parliament legislates, bureaucracy administers and the courts adjudicate, and there is a clear distinction between the three. Therefore, when we look at these matters later in the year, we should look carefully to ensure that one area does not stray into another--that politicians do not stray into the land of the courts, that judges are left to sentence and review sentences, and that the various agencies such as the Parole Board and others are allowed to fulfil their function in full.
We must not go for the popular gimmick, the quick decision, because something has happened. The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 is a classic example. It is a disaster, but regrettably it is not be reformed at the moment. If one legislates in a hurry, one repents at length.
I hope that I have kept within my time as usual. I raised those points because there comes a time when Parliaments must stand back and think. I hope that this will be one Parliament which, in one Session, will think about the matters that I have raised.
Sir Anthony Durant (Reading, West):
I wish to mention education, asylum and the construction industry. Some of us, including my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich(Mr. Cann), have been locked in Committee on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill for some 60 days, so our presence has not been very noticeable in the Chamber. I am taking this opportunity while the Committee is not sitting to say a few words before returning to deal with that Bill.
I want to talk about direct grant schools. I am worried by my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) who was critical of the push for direct grant schools in his area.
Sir Anthony Durant:
All right, grant-maintained schools.
I have experience of Prospect school in Reading, which I have supported. It was in a humble area, mainly council estates, rather than a smart area. That school has now become a city technology college and it is doing extremely well. It has a dynamic head. The Labour party fought the project all the way and behaved extremely badly at all the parents' meetings. My opponent fought the proposals all the way and I am glad that the parents threw my opponent out of the meeting because he behaved so badly.
Consequently, there is now an excellent school in which the attitude is remarkable. The children are enthusiastic and want it to succeed. They believe in it. The head has raised £500,000 from local businesses and has got them involved in buying equipment, and so on. It is becoming a dynamic school in an area that is not reputed to have high standards in education. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden is over-nervous about grant-maintained schools. I believe that they are excellent and I want to see more of them. I support the Government's developments.
I support vouchers for nursery schools. I have always strongly supported nursery education. It assists the child, it helps single parents and mothers who have to go out to work and it prepares children for full schooling. I have only two nursery schools in my constituency and, therefore, I welcome the idea of vouchers that can be used in private sector schools. There are some good private sector nursery schools where people could put their children if the vouchers existed.
Berkshire has refused to be part of the experiment and I regret that because, until now, it has been go-ahead on education. I condemn the county for that action--
[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) may laugh at Berkshire refusing to take part in the experiment. The Liberal Democrats have powerful influence on Berkshire county council. It is no wonder that he is laughing.
I want to deal now with the asylum Bill. As a Member of Parliament dealing with individual constituents I am concerned about the time the process takes. If people come into this country and stay here for two or three years while their case is considered, that makes it much more difficult to ask them to leave. They will have set themselves up and become established; they will have found work or be claiming social security; they will have created a home. That means that it is much more difficult to take them away and send them back to their original place. That is why we must speed up the process.
I am chairman of the all-party construction group, which, funnily enough, meets tomorrow. I am worried about the state of the construction industry, because it is very flat. There is very little growth, particularly in the housing sector where there is very little movement. There are some areas of good news around the country where there is a stimulus, but it is very patchy. The industry needs a stimulus. I am saying this now in the hope that Ministers will tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer that I asked for a stimulus. Although they cannot commit themselves here, they can pass on my information to the Chancellor before the Budget and we might get some help for the construction industry.
The National Federation of Building Trades Employers said that, unless something happens soon, a further 100,000 people could be laid off in the construction industry. A total of 500,000 have already lost their jobs in the industry and I am concerned about that. I believe that there needs to be a concentration on private sector investment in construction work for the Government. It does not seem to have got going. It is a good idea and it is popular, but nothing seems to be happening. We should press for that.
I welcome the housing legislation, but I am concerned about some of the homeless aspects. Homelessness is on the increase. There were 1,157 homeless people in Reading last year but that has increased by a further 280 this year. I believe that one of the reasons for that increase is the break-up of marriages, which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten). I have looked at the reasons for the sudden increase in homelessness and it is a fact that violence in the home and the parting of husbands and wives are creating more homeless people; therefore, I listened with great care to my right hon. Friend. Some homelessness is caused by loss of tenancy or perhaps inability to keep up with the mortgage payments, but mainly the cause is the break-up of marriages.
There is mention of the Latham report in the Queen's Speech. It is a valuable report and I am pleased that parts of it have been introduced. Michael Latham was a colleague in the House. He produced a useful report on the construction industry. We have started by looking at debt and the payment of subcontractors. I welcome that, because subcontractors suffer from the long delay in obtaining payment from the main contractor. It is a move in the right direction and it will be interesting to see the wording in that Bill.
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