Mr John Stanley (Tonbridge & Malling)

One of the problems about finding one's way around the new constituency which I represent is that virtually none of the places is pronounced as it is spelt. I should be representing the new constituency of Tonbridge and Malling. In fact, I am proud and privileged to represent the constituency pronounced "Ton-bridge and Mauling". We have within our constituency delightful places such as Ightham, pronounced "Item", Wrotham, pronounced "Rootam", and Trottiscliffe, pronounced by some quirk "Trossley" I await with interest seeing how the reporters of the OFFICIAL REPORT manage to reproduce that passage. I convey my apologies to them in their place up aloft.

I also apologise to my predecessors in the constituency for the dismemberment of their previous constituencies by the Boundary Commission to bring my own into being. My constituency represents what was formerly the right-hand side of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) united with the head and shoulders of the constituency of the former hon. Member for Tonbridge, Mr. Richard Hornby, now regrettably retired from the House. I take this opportunity of thanking my two predecessors in my new constituency for the exemplary service they have provided for my constituents over many years.

My constituents waited with great expectation for a passage in the Budget speech which never came. They were waiting in particular for the Chancellor's statement on the Channel Tunnel project. Regrettably, he chose to leave it to the Secretary of State for the Environment.

My constituents are deeply apprehensive about the project, with every good reason. We lie athwart the route of both the high-speed main railway line to the proposed Channel Tunnel terminal entrance and the main motorway to the terminal area.

I hope the Secretary of State for the Environment will bear in mind at least the following three matters before making his statement. I hope he will bear in mind, first, the total inadequacy and insensitivity of the supposed consultations which are taking place between British Rail and the local authorities about the route of the high-speed line. All that British Rail has done so far is to publish a large map showing a big black line running right across a large segment of the Kent countryside and going through a number of Kentish towns.

I shall hold up a copy of the map for the benefit of the Minister. If he could see it more closely he would see the line streaking—if I may use that word in a decorous sense any longer—through the town of Tonbridge. Underneath this thick black line there are many houses, not least in the town of Tonbridge itself. British Rail has been totally uninformative about its plans for the houses underneath the black line. I hope that the Secretary of State for the Environment will press on British Rail the need, as a matter of great urgency, to clarify what the line means in terms of housing loss along the line of the route.

Secondly, most of us in Kent are far from convinced about the need to incorporate a vehicle ferry service into the Channel Tunnel project. We are largely hostile in particular to the provision that there should be a lorry ferry service. That service will provide less than one-fifth of the revenue of the Channel Tunnel but will produce a substantial increase in lorry traffic passing through the county. We in Kent are deeply sceptical about the proposal, and in my constituency we are very hostile to the incorporation of any form of lorry ferry service, in particular, into the project.

I should be grateful if the Financial Secretary would pass the third point on to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, as it originates with her. When the right hon. Lady was in a previous incarnation as the Minister of Transport—of which we all have vivid memories—she undertook to the road haulage interests that the Channel Tunnel would be operated on the basis that there would be no discrimination between road and rail, and that provision has been incorporated into a treaty concluded between the British and French Governments. I hope that the Government, in reviewing the project, will also review the treaty and that provision in it, because most of us in Kent believe that there should be positive discrimination in the operation of the tunnel facility—if it is ever built—in favour of rail, particularly where freight is concerned.

I now turn to less parochial features of the Budget. The Chancellor has said that he will concentrate above all else on protecting the most vulnerable. I am sure that that is an objective with which we would all be in sympathy and would all applaud. The right hon. Gentleman has identified three priorities—food, housing and pensions. Indeed, he has provided armour for the British people in these three areas. He has asked the British people to nut on the helmet of higher pensions, admittedly strapped with higher national insurance contributions; to put on the breastplate of empty speculatively built houses to be purchased by local authorities; and to take up the shield of food subsidies, which predominantly, appear to be represented by a penny off the "pinta".

The House wishes to see how pertinent is the armoury that has been provided. Let me consider pensions first. Both sides of the House welcome the announcement to increase the level of pensions for existing pensioners. I hope that we are moving rapidly towards a situation—it has already been reached in the care of the handicapped—in which pensions move out of politics—except perhaps at election time. I am sure that there will be no suggestions or symptoms of sour grapes from the Opposition that the pension increase will operate two months before we should have made an increase. Equally I am sure that the Government will not be self-righteous about the fact that they have increased pensions now, particularly as their record when previously in Government was outstripped by that of the Conservative administration.

The truth is that successive Governments, of whichever party, have continuously been improving on previous records. As the previous administration improved on the record of the preceding Labour administration, so no doubt the Government will make a further improvement, and we ourselves will shortly be making an even further improvement on what they do.

We have in the post-war period made a steady advance in pension provision. Two major legislative landmarks have been made. The first was the National Insurance Act 1946, which made vast social advances by making pensions available for those at or near retirement age. The second, and equally important, was the Social Security Act 1973, which, for the first time, established on a sound, stable financial footing the provision of pensions for those working now.

I am disappointed in the extreme to hear the right hon. Lady say that she is contemplating a partial unscrambling of the Social Security Act with the appearance of a White Paper, because the 1973 Act is of great social worth. If there is any attempt by the Government to go back to the type of legislation envisaged by Mr. Crossman when he was Secretary of State for Social Services I am sure that it will be bitterly resented by millions of those who have accumulated pension rights, and particularly by millions of trade unionists and others who benefit from occupational pension schemes.

In housing, I confess to being struck with some wonder by the Chancellor's appearance as the fairy godmother of the speculative builders. That is what I suggest is represented by his proposal to make available an extra £200 million that will enable local authorities to buy speculatively-built homes that cannot immediately be sold. I wonder whether the implications of that policy have been fully thought through. Has it been considered whether it is equitable that the speculative house-building industry, having enjoyed substantial profits in 1972 and 1973 and now facing a somewhat leaner time this year, should rather than accept that, have the possibility of being bailed out at the taxpayers' expense?

Has it been thought through whether it is desirable to encourage developers to be put in a position in which, when they have completed a development, rather than try to sell those houses on the open market in the normal way, they will first see whether the soft option of selling to a local authority and retaining their profit margin is open to them. I think this proposal will produce a major reluctance on the part of big developers particularly to set about selling their houses to those young couples who want them

Thirdly, I wonder whether this same £200 million might not be better spent by investing it in the building society movement or by making it available in the form of local authority mortgages to enable young people to buy these houses, which, of course, is the very purpose for which they were first built.

We have two basic housing problems. We have the problem of providing houses for rent, for those who are homeless or for those who have not got the financial option of buying. We also have the second problem, which is the provision of houses for the great majority of young people who are trying to buy their own houses and whose ambition is to buy rather than to rent. I fear that in the Chancellor's housing statement in the Budget he has addressed himself exclusively to the first problem and ignored the second.

Finally, I come to the question of food, and I have to confess to the same degree of wonderment about that as in the matter of housing. I do not want to be drawn on to whether the Chancellor's decision to make £500 million available for food subsidies is right in principle, because one's maiden speech is supposed to be non-controversial, and I trust that I have been moderately non-controversial so far, but if £500 million is to be made available I wonder whether making it available for food subsidies—in particular, the enormous subsidy for milk—is the best way to advance the cause of the most vulnerable.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) estimated that the cost of the milk subsidy would be £310 million, which is over 60 per cent. of the total amount of food subsidies to be made available. I understand that figure is made up of £130 million—the subsidy involved in reducing the "pinta" by a penny—plus the £180 million which would be necessary just to maintain milk at its present price.

If one went into the streets and found six people in the category that we are talking about amongst the most vulnerable, I wonder whether, if they were given an option of stating which items they would like to see reduced in the household budget, they would choose milk. I suggest they would choose rates or rents or electricity or coal or fares or meat products such as sausages, bacon or joints. Those, I suggest, are of far greater concern to the people whom the Government are trying to help. I do not think that milk would feature in the first 10 items that people would wish to have reduced. This is an extremely expensive subsidy, and it is wholly indiscriminate. I wonder whether it is right that every Member of this House should now be having a subsidy on his pint of milk.

Hon. Members opposite in their budgets have tended to produce a conjunction of three circumstances: first, higher taxation leading to a reduction in net earnings; secondly, inevitably as a result of that, they have produced restrictions of choice. In previous Budgets they have usually managed to combine those two unsatisfactory features with keeping down key and necessary items in the household budget. In this Budget they have not merely restricted people's net earnings and restricted their choice. At the same time they have managed to ensure major increases in a number of key items in the household budget. This is a unique and unhappy recipe for any budget. The dish that has been concocted —although satisfactory for one group namely, the pensioners—will not be satisfactory for the great bulk of the British people the longer they have to digest it.

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