| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
4.56 pm
Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire): I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to Madam Speaker and the House for having absented myself for a little more than an hour and a half in the middle of the debate. I warned Madam Speaker that I had a long-arranged meeting with two gentlemen, one from Somerset and one from Yorkshire. I am grateful for being called.
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Members for Peterborough (Mrs. Brinton) and for Keighley(Mrs. Cryer). I entirely endorse the complimentary comments of the hon. Member for Keighley on her new colleague, the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Turner), who made a fine maiden speech. I came in during the middle of it. I also endorse the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) that it was a fine speech, but I did not agree with much of it, so I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is destined for a long and successful career on the Labour Benches.
Yesterday I was in the Gallery watching the Queen deliver her speech. I was shocked that what turns out to be the first page of the speech was entirely devoted to propaganda promoting the supposed achievements of the Government. It would have shown a bit more balance if the Queen had been allowed to state that many of the
economic benefits that the Government claim for themselves were put into effect by 18 long, hard years of horrible decisions taken by the previous Conservative Government. It was not right that the dignity of the Queen should have been somewhat bruised by having to make such a propaganda statement. Labour is spending £1,000 million more on government than the Conservatives did. The Government have plenty of press officers, some of whom are now national figures, and they appear to have a camp-bed fixed in the "Today" programme studio. They have plenty of ways to get their message across.
It was appalling that the Queen had to read out a split infinitive, yet she told us:
The comment about education comes pretty sore to those of us from Shropshire. Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) successfully winkled out of the Secretary of State for Education and Employment the fact that there is a huge disparity in education funding across the country. The average rate per pupil for primary schools in Shropshire is £2,220, against £3,396 in Southwark. Average spending on secondary pupils in Shropshire is £2,837, against £4,377 in Southwark. I offer my heartiest congratulations to all those working in the education services in Shropshire for coming up with such sterling results, given the extraordinary disparity in funding. I shall come back later to the underfunding of rural services and the aggressive switch from rural areas to the inner cities.
I should have liked a commitment in the Queen's Speech to reduce the burden on schools. I visited a comprehensive recently where the headmaster was facing 29 different directives. He said that it was impossible to do justice to more than half a dozen. We want fewer burdens on schools and greater freedom.
I should also like to state my total hostility to the planned introduction of the so-called modernisation project into utility regulation. The process of privatisation should have led to the release from Government interference and into the free market of industries that had for many years been stifled by state control and Government underfunding.
Let us consider telecommunications. The Labour party said that it was absolutely impossible to privatise British Telecom which, as we all remember, gave a rotten service, with public telephones not working and the installation of a new line taking three weeks. All that has changed. There has been a dramatic increase in telecommunications usage, and more people are employed in the telecommunications industry than were employed prior to privatisation. The last thing we want is renationalisation by the back door through the imposition of a regulatory regime.
I am delighted to see that the Minister for Housing and Planning is now in the Chamber, having escaped from the campaign of the right hon. Member for Holborn andSt. Pancras (Mr. Dobson)--
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Mr. Nick Raynsford):
I have been here longer than the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Paterson:
The Minister's comment is invidious. I apologised to the Speaker in writing before the debate and I confirmed at the start of my speech that I had had to attend a meeting.
I should like to draw the Minister's attention to page 57 of the document "A Fair Deal for Consumers", in which the Government announce their intention of appointing
On the main theme of the debate--transport and country matters--we in Shropshire are not well served by rail services in that there is only one direct link to London each day. Recently, I have held talks with the two main train companies serving the area--Virgin Trains and Central Trains--and Railtrack. There is to be a spectacular increase in investment--for example, Virgin Trains is to invest £1 billion in new tilting trains to Wolverhampton--so I have been trying to secure co-ordination with Central Trains and Railtrack to upgrade the track to Shrewsbury and further into Shropshire.
It is clear from those discussions that there is a new spirit among railway operators. They will have to live or die by what they provide--Virgin Trains will receive no Government subsidy this year. I hold no brief for the operators, but I am impressed by the way in which they are investing and coping with the enormous jump in demand for their services--the latest figures show an increase of 15 or 16 per cent. They are terrified that the new entrepreneurial spirit and the investment that is being unleashed on our antiquated railway system might be braked, or even stopped, by excessive interference from another regulatory authority.
Nothing in my discussions indicates that the new Strategic Rail Authority will improve services to Shropshire. We are all elected to make the case for our constituents and to approach on their behalf companies that now have market freedom to invest and make their own decisions. I do not want to have to knock on the door of yet another quango, because quangos do not have the habit of serving the customer.
Coming from a rural constituency, I am not happy with the promise to give greater access to the countryside. We already have access to 10,000 miles of footpaths. That is a gross infringement of the principle of private property. The countryside is not a playground for the public. Although the Minister shakes his head, the measure is drafted in that spirit and according to urban thinking. There is no demand in the countryside for greater access. I have received few letters about it, but there is great alarm about the measure's impact. I am delighted that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is present for the debate.
The definition of grasslands, which the measure will cover, must be tightly drawn. The laws of trespass will also have to be redefined. I shall cite the case of a farmer who lives not far from me. A network of footpaths crosses
his farm and he has a lot of stock. He found that gates on his land were constantly left open. To prevent that, he put chains and a weight on the gates. A fit person could easily have pushed the gates open, and, if they were not latched, they swung back. A couple of weeks later, the farmer found that someone had removed the chains, the gates were again left open and stock was running down the road. That is a genuine problem when farming incomes are down by 75 per cent. The whim of urban lobbyists, who push the Government hard, will create practical problems for farmers in my area.
Mr. Nick Brown:
Agricultural production is exempted from the Bill. The Government believe that rights must be accompanied by responsibilities. That should cover the hon. Gentleman's second point.
Mr. Paterson:
I agree with the Minister that rights and responsibilities go together. However, a tragic incident occurred last year when a lady let her dogs loose in a field of cows and she was killed. The Minister may not know that matadors train on cows because their anatomy--I shall not go into too much detail--allows them to turn faster than bulls. It is not necessarily safe to take dogs into a field of cows. The Bill should make provision for controlling dogs. I am glad to see the Minister nodding.
The measure should also provide for compensation because those with shoots on their land and others will suffer loss of income. Land that may look like a playground to urban Ministers is a source of income for many farmers.
Let us consider transport. My constituency includes 98 villages, and 67 per cent. of people in Shropshire drive a private car while 97 per cent. of freight travels in a diesel-powered truck. The Government have done nothing to make movement around Shropshire easier or cheaper. Every business has been penalised and rendered less competitive. That contradicts the second paragraph of the Queen's Speech, which states:
"Education remains my Government's number one priority."
All those people beavering away in the Cabinet Office could have got their grammar right.
"a single cross-utilities panel of perhaps 8-12 members with broad-based expertise amongst its membership in the water, telecommunications, gas and electricity industries."
Why? The lesson of privatisation is that free markets work. They drive down prices, drive up quality and give choice to the consumer. They should be free of Government interference and subject to less regulation. I can see no advantage in having a cross-utility body, given that the only experience the utilities have in common is that of being under state control for years. They used to cost taxpayers £50 million a week in subsidy, but now contribute £50 million a week to the Exchequer in taxation.
"My Government's aim is to promote fairness and enterprise".
The Government make merry about the fact that the Conservatives introduced the fuel escalator. It was introduced at 3 per cent. when only two other countries in western Europe had lower fuel costs than the United Kingdom. We now have startlingly high fuel costs. A fuel distributor in my constituency produced three fuel tankers during the recess and showed how much diesel £3,750 could buy. The tankers were like the three bears--baby tanker took 5,000 litres in the United Kingdom and middle-sized tanker took 10,000 litres in Spain for the same amount of money, while big tanker took an incredible 16,000 litres in Turkey for the same amount of money. Shropshire's businesses are supposed to compete despite there being such a disparity in fuel costs.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |