QUEEN'S SPEECH DEBATE
17th November 1999
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase). His was a thoughtful speech and it is sad that such contributions are rarely broadcast on BBC or ITN, which prefer the hurly-burly of Prime Minister's Question Time rather than saner, more intelligent contributions. I am not sure whether I can continue in that vein.
Earlier today, I was speechless when I was called to Abingdon Green, as one is from time to time, to appear on Sky News with the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). With a Liberal representative, we were commenting on the Queen's Speech. I was quite prepared to say what I thought about it. It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman is not here because he started by saying that the Queen's Speech was rather thin. He said that it contained measures on e-commerce that he did not think that many people would be grabbed by but that the important issues of health and education were not addressed. I did not know what to say because he had taken the very words from my mouth. A growing number of Labour Members now speak the truth and their own minds. He ceremoniously dropped a large Labour briefing of about 100 pages, including questions and answers, on to the grass and said what he truly believed.
At the general election two and a half years ago, a song was sung: "Things Can Only Get Better". I wanted to give the Government the benefit of the doubt. I thought that at least things might stay the same, but they have got worse. What have we heard in this Queen's Speech? There is the Freedom of Information Bill, with 21 exemptions on issues that prejudice the Government. In the White Paper, there were only seven such exemptions. Not satisfied with that, the Home Secretary has powers at any time to use a statutory instrument to increase them further. That is very sad.
Both in the previous Parliament and in this, I have spoken in favour of a freedom of information Act. Some hon. Members will know that I was brought up for a while in the United States of America. Its freedom of information legislation creates difficulties for the Government but also a transparency by which democracy is well served.
Mr. White: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fabricant: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, who also spent some time in the United States.
Mr. White: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the Government's response to the Select Committee report that set out some of the concerns that he started to raise? The Government responded very positively to those concerns, including some of those that he mentioned.
Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman says that the Government responded positively, but they have increased the number of exemptions. I do not think that that was positive. They are making the operation of Government more opaque with their Freedom of Information Bill. That is unfortunate.
I also said in the previous Parliament and in the current one that, in principle, I am not against a minimum wage. One operates in the United States, but with many exemptions and regional variations. There is not a national minimum wage in the sense that we understand it in the United Kingdom. If the Labour party is looking towards the United States of America, it should not pluck headings like "minimum wage" or "Freedom of Information Bill" and then degrade the legislation when it is translated into an English environment. They should learn from the United States and see where United Kingdom legislation could be improved if it echoed that which operates in the United States.
There are some good points in the Queen's Speech. One item caused me some surprise. It will be made unlawful for public bodies to discriminate on racial grounds. I and Labour and Conservative colleagues were surprised that it is lawful for public bodies so to discriminate. That loophole needs to be closed. I am pleased that it will be.
We all applaud the general principle of stamping out abuse in the social services. I only hope that that does not mean in practice that people with disabilities who are on the margin will be prevented by the Government from claiming disability benefit that they previously could have claimed. Where there is genuine abuse, it should be stamped out because it deprives those in genuine need from accessing money from the social services and social security budget. It all depends on the fine print. I suspect that hon. Members on both sides of the House will examine that closely when the Bill is published.
Another good point is mandatory drug testing in the criminal justice system. We all know that drugs pervade many of our prisons. If mandatory drug testing means mandatory drug testing of prisoners, I will applaud it. There has always been a problem with that because it has been the general view of the European Court of Human Rights that prisoners have the right to refuse drug testing and invasive examination by doctors. I applaud the Government, if -- and it is a big "if" -- they are going to resist that and allow the testing of prisoners.
Mr. Brake: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it appears that one effect of mandatory drug testing in prisons has been to shift prisoners who were using cannabis on to much harder drugs because cannabis stays in the system much longer?
Mr. Fabricant: If that is the effect of such examination, it is detrimental. Some day, in many, many years' time, perhaps there will be a sensible debate about cannabis, but we will not get into that now.
I also welcome the interesting prospect of a measure on commonhold. The danger with such legislation is that if it is too one-sided, it could drive leasehold property off the market. I well remember the Rent Acts of the 1970s and how they drove rented property from the market and much increased the cost of acquiring property. However, if the Bill is introduced sensibly, I suspect that it will have the support of the whole House.
So far I have been positive and embracing, but let me say now that the majority of the Queen's Speech will be disapproved of not only by most Opposition Members but by the country. It is wrong to clobber the driver yet again. Three new taxes are being introduced: a congestion tax, a motorway tax and a parking tax. I wonder whether the parking tax will apply to us in the House of Commons. Will we be taxed for using the car parking facilities in the Palace of Westminster?
For many people, including those in rural areas such as the constituency that I have the honour to represent, there is no alternative to the motor car. There is an answer to congestion on our major trunk roads and motorways.
That answer is not achieved by simply imposing tolls. That answer involves modern technology. The Transport Research Laboratory and the sister body in the United States have proved that it is possible to increase the density of traffic on existing roads sixfold. That would require an act of vision by the Government and sadly, the Government are not a Government based on vision. They are a Government based on soundbite. If some of the new technologies were introduced, we would find that it would not be necessary to build roads such as the Birmingham northern relief road or to increase the width of the M1 or the M6. If the new technologies were slowly introduced, we could increase the amount of traffic on existing roads sixfold.
Such an increase would allow more than the population of Britain to be on the road simultaneously. If every person over 16 drove, the amount of traffic would increase only threefold. So there is huge capacity if we use current available technology. That is an exciting prospect, but the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has not even begun to explore it, let alone include it in the Queen's Speech.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East mentioned chapter 11. I have been looking at my notes on the insolvency Bill. Unless my notes are incomplete, it seems that the Bill will not contain any provision such as chapter 11. When a company gets into difficulties -- small companies often do as a result of cash flow problems -- it is difficult for it to trade out of difficulty in the short term. Here again, Britain could look to the United States. Under chapter 11, a receiver is appointed not to liquidate a company but to protect it, if it is viable, and allow it to trade out of difficulties.
Mr. Purchase: I have no special knowledge about whether the Bill will contain a provision such as chapter 11, but if we are to bring about the changes envisaged there will have to be an American-style approach. It will not necessarily be a chapter 11 provision.
Mr. Fabricant: As with so much of the legislation, we shall have to wait and see and read the fine print of the Bill. I hope that there will be some such provision. So many good companies go to the wall as a result of temporary cash flow difficulties. If only they could be protected for six or 12 months, they could survive. TWA, which some would argue is not a good company because it is still making losses, was protected for six years. I believe that United Airlines -- no doubt I will receive a brisk letter from it tomorrow if I have got it wrong -- is still under chapter 11 protection. Nevertheless, it is bad for the viability of business in Great Britain that good companies go out of business simply because they have short-term cash flow problems.
I was sad to see that there was no mention in any depth about the state of agriculture in the Queen's Speech. Three or four months ago, the Prime Minister stood just a few feet from where I am standing and said, "We have lifted the beef ban." As far as I know, not one kilogram, not one gram, or should I say not one ounce, of beef has been exported to France or Germany yet. Not one ounce of beef has yet been exported on or off the bone to Europe. So how the Prime Minister can boast that he has lifted the ban, I do not know. The matter has still to be addressed.
The health Bill is non-existent. I guess that all I can report is what is happening in Lichfield. The Victoria hospital faces, if not closure, having most of its services taken away. This is a good opportunity to give a little plug. I commend the Lichfield Mercury, which in just three weeks pulled together a petition to save our Vic. I have just sent today to the Secretary of State for Health a petition of 15,146 names, which is out of 28,000 adults who live in Lichfield -- more than half the adult population. They sang the song, "Things Can Only Get Better" at the election. Well they ain't getting better on the health front in Lichfield or Staffordshire as a whole.
On the law and order and policing front, things have got considerably worse. I had the opportunity at Prime Minister's questions to bring to his attention the current state of policing in Staffordshire. Due to lack of funding from the Government, in the next three years the Staffordshire police force will be reduced by 250 police officers. That is literally a decimation of Staffordshire police. The Government will have to deal with that. It is happening not only in Staffordshire but up and down the country. If one goes to Lichfield police station after 5 o'clock, one finds the doors locked and shuttered. It has become a nine-to-five business. Things have not got better under Labour.
What about education? I saw a cartoon in Private Eye a few weeks ago that showed the Prime Minister looking at a piece of paper that said, "Education, education, education". The Prime Minister turns to a colleague and says, "Education, education, education -- that's all I hear about nowadays." The promise was made before the election that areas such as Staffordshire and other parts of the country that were not getting a fair allocation in their standard spending assessment would have their allocation equalised with that of Hertfordshire. That has not happened. It was a broken promise. For all the promises that the Prime Minister has made, he now tells us that the Government will not even attempt to achieve a fairer assessment for Staffordshire and other counties until after the next election. I have been told in a written answer that he cannot guarantee when the matter will be considered. He certainly makes no guarantees about the result.
Mr. David Taylor: I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern about the SSA for primary and secondary school pupils in Staffordshire because Leicestershire shares those difficulties, but does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the SSA formula that creates widespread anomalies was produced by the Conservative Government and that the key difficulty is the supplement given to authorities in the south-east to reflect their apparent additional costs, which are in dispute?
Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the formula existed under the previous Government. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was on the Opposition Benches when I was on the Government Benches, but he may recall that I raised the matter with the previous Prime Minister, as I have done with the current Prime Minister. At least I get full marks for consistency. The hon. Gentleman is wrong when he says that the rate for Staffordshire and Leicestershire is not high compared with that for southern England, it is also low compared with that of Manchester and the north-west. I suspect that the problems that he ascribes to the previous Government with regard to the south-east are now the problems that apply to his Government. The Labour Government also want to appeal to the south-east. Many people in the north-west and north-east feel that they are being neglected by the Labour Government for the benefit of the south-east.
At the end of the day, the promise was made. At least I received an honest answer from the previous Prime Minister. He said that the situation could not be changed, and made no promise at the general election.
So that is another broken promise from Labour. I confidently expected something in the Queen's Speech to address that problem. Like so many other important issues that should have been in the Queen's Speech, that one was also missing. That is another example of how things can only get worse.
I do not know why I went to hear the Queen's Speech. I was in my office in Norman Shaw North and I switched on the internet to look at BBC Online. At 9 am most of the Queen's Speech was already on the internet. Parliament is becoming increasingly sidelined. I am trying to be in reasonable mode following the example of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East. Of course, in the past drips of information were released before statements in Parliament, but not in such detail as happens now.
In the not too distant future, we will not be traipsing to the other place through Central Lobby. We will all traipse into Downing street. The Head of Government, nay the head of state, will stand on a balcony specially erected in Downing street -- assuming that the Prime Minister's office is still in No. 10 Downing street, as he has deemed it too small for his operation. We will all have to look up as god himself, the Prime Minister, gives the word down to us. That is the state of affairs that we are fast approaching.
The Queen's Speech was supposed to be about enterprise and fairness. Instead, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby said, it was a thin speech. I am a great admirer of the Her Majesty the Queen, and my estimation rose still higher when she read this empty speech with a straight face worthy of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson). The Queen deserves an Oscar for her performance this morning. The Queen's Speech was sadly not about enterprise and fairness. As ever, it was all about spin and hype.
