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12.3 pm
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire): I cannot speak for the Leader of the House, but I can tell the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton) that he has made a powerful and eloquent plea. He cited among his distinguished supporters the late Lord Joseph, when he was Sir Keith Joseph. I add my voice to those. The hon. Gentleman's plea seems to me to be worthy of support. Let us hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to give him some encouragement when she replies.
The debate has been, as such debates always are, an extremely interesting series of pleas from hon. Members in various parts of the House. In responding, it is difficult to be both courteous and thorough. I shall try to be as thorough as possible, but I shall not deal at length with
the speeches of hon. Members who are not in their places. When hon. Members raise subjects in such a debate, expecting a response from the Opposition Front Bench and, much more importantly, from the Leader of the House, it is important that they should be present to listen to what is said.
As was said by the hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter), who is not present, the Adjournment debate is a useful forum. He expressed the hope that modernisation would not sweep it away, and I echo that hope. I am sorry to have to correct my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), who seemed to think that there could be a vote. That used to be the case because we could vote on whether the House should adjourn, but we have already approved the Adjournment of the House, and now we are merely having a general debating exercise.
We heard from two Derbyshire Members. From the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) we had a plea for a thorough investigation into the circumstances leading to the leak of sulphuric acid from a tanker, but as he is not present, I shall not deal further with that. The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) made an interesting speech about the closure of the magistrates court at Swadlincote. I echo his plea for the operation of magistrates courts committees to be reviewed. As one who comes from a constituency that is likely to suffer in a similar way, I believe that that plea should be heeded by Government. I hope that the right hon. Lady will respond to it.
I refer to the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle), not to deal with his points about the police force as he is not in his place to hear what I have to say, but to endorse what he said about Madam Speaker. She is commemorating today her 25th anniversary as a Member of Parliament. I am sure that I carry the support of every Member of the House in wishing her many happy returns of the day.
The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) appealed for co-ordination. We heard the appeal for the co-ordination of police forces in fighting crime from the hon. Member for Chorley, but the hon. Member for Stafford spoke with commendable brevity and lucidity--the hon. Gentleman is my neighbour and had the great good fortune to inherit part of my constituency at the last election--about the need for the co-ordination of care for a particularly important and vulnerable section of the youth community. I pay tribute to him for his initiative in convening the conference to which he referred. He spoke of the desirability of setting up a Staffordshire forum to assist that group, which seemed a sensible plea that would have my support and, I hope, the support of other hon. Members throughout the county.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) has become a regular participant in these debates. He spoke about the scouts, and he always comes prepared--prepared to talk about not one or two subjects, but generally at least three and, today, four subjects. We all hope that the scouts' tea party will be well attended. Opposition Members may listen with sympathy to his criticism of the operation of the Labour-Liberal Democrat pact on Southend council, but that will not carry the support of Labour Members. He also made an important point about the style of this Government.
My hon. Friend has raised in the House before, and need make no apology for raising again, the subject of the signing of ministerial letters. I know that the right hon. Lady, who is a person of impeccable courtesy, will agree when I stress the importance of Ministers signing their own letters. Unless a letter is sent as a matter of real urgency--when we all excuse the pp-ed signature--it should bear the signature of the Minister concerned. Some 90 per cent. of such letters are sent on to constituents who are worried about the topic that they have raised. They like to feel that, at the very least, the letter has passed before the Minister's eyes. It is a travesty of the system if letters come couched in fairly evasive language bearing the pp-ed signature. I hope that we shall see far less of that in the future. There are some Ministers from whom it is as rare to find a signed letter as it is to find an unsigned copy of a novel by Lord Archer.
We all appreciate that Prime Ministers bear heavy responsibilities. The Prime Minister bears many at the moment, and we wish him well in his journey to Northern Ireland today. We hope that the result for which he is campaigning will be achieved and that it will be a decisive majority. The Prime Minister goes to Northern Ireland with our total good will. However, as I have said before, he appears far too rarely in the Chamber.
When I first came to the House in 1970, it was common to see the Prime Minister pop into the Chamber to sit and listen to what was said in debate. That practice continued for many years. It was certainly very common to see all the Prime Minister's predecessors, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), in the Division Lobby two or three times a week. The Prime Minister has voted in fewer than 5 per cent. of the Divisions that have occurred since 1 May last year, and that is frankly not good enough. It is not acceptable, and I hope that the Prime Minister will heed the advice of those of us who wish to see him more often. After all, he is the Prime Minister of this country and he should attend Parliament as often as his other duties permit. I believe that he is not here as often as he should be--especially in the Division Lobby.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) referred to the discrepancy between the Government's rhetoric and their performance. I agree that there has been a significant discrepancy in that area. I would not be as charitable to the Government as the hon. Gentleman was--but he would not expect me to be. I entirely endorse his plea for a fair deal for the countryside. He talked about the pressures on green-field sites and the way in which structure plans seem to pay no regard to sensitive rural surroundings. I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will use all the powers of his elevated office to ensure that we preserve our green belt. A few months ago, he made the immortal remark that the green belt was a Labour achievement and that it was the Government's intention to build on it. I hope it is the achievement that they intend to build on and that the remarks of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome will be heeded.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) made a skilful speech--he generally does--about the problems for agriculture caused by the strong pound. It was, in fact, a veiled plea for signing up to economic and monetary union tomorrow--but he would not expect me to go along with that. However, I certainly endorse his comments about the need for the Government to make more provision for farmers. He pointed out with real force and
eloquence that existing funds could be made available, and that more could have been done to help the hard-pressed beef farmers in particular. I hope that, in this season of agricultural shows, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food--I am sorry to hear that he has not visited the west of England show--will devote some concentrated thought to that matter and follow it with proper action to assist the farmers of this country who have had a very difficult couple of years.
The hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) demonstrated that there is nothing like a constituency interest to concentrate the mind. He talked about the problems faced by the oil and gas industry and made a plea, which any Conservative Member would have been proud to make, for a continuation of sensitive tax treatment. There is more joy in the Chamber over one taxer who decides that he wants to repent than over a thousand who remain wedded to their previous principles. Let us hope that the Chancellor will heed his remarks.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Clark) made an inimitable--as one would expect--and entirely impromptu speech. My right hon. Friend was stung by his "naming and shaming"--as he put it--by English Heritage. He knows all about that because although he said rather disingenuously that in his diaries, he had never shamed anyone, by Jove, some of those about whom he wrote must have felt a little less than chuffed when they read what he had to say about them.
My right hon. Friend made two extremely important points today which deserve the support of all hon. Members. It is quite unacceptable for unnamed officials to leak pseudo information--or even real information for that matter--of the sort to which he referred. My right hon. Friend told a quite appalling story of how he was quoted as denying something that was never an option as far as he was concerned. He also made a powerful plea for mitigating the burden of value added tax. I have campaigned for that for many years. VAT is particularly iniquitous for those who are charged with the maintenance of our historic churches, for instance. It is not fair that they should bear such a large VAT burden. The Archbishop of Canterbury made a speech last year in which he pointed out that more is paid in VAT on repairs to listed churches than is received in grants. That cannot be right.
Although I have taken the point a little further than did my right hon. Friend, his firm endorsement of the need to preserve our heritage should command our support and respect. I particularly enjoyed his comments about the plastic dome. Would that the building being erected to commemorate the millennium were able to stand the test of the millennium and be around for the next one. Many buildings in this country have stood for a thousand years or more, while I suppose that that trumpery piece of tawdry plastic will hardly last a decade.
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