Mr Nick Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East)

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for enabling me to make my maiden speech in this shipbuilding debate. My constituency is a shipbuilding community. It used to be a thriving shipbuilding community. I understand that it is a tradition of the House that maiden speeches should not be controversial but it is very difficult truly to represent a shipbuilding constituency and not be controversial.

In parts of Newcastle upon Tyne, East, male unemployment is over 40 per cent. In parts of the constituency, young people have lost hope of any real future, and it is sometimes reflected in their attitude to the rest of the community.

The average age of my constituents has been increasing for some time, and elderly people in my shipbuilding community are worried. They worry about paying the electricity bill, about rising urban crime, about continued social service and health service provision, and about the loss of bus services. Tyne and Wear seems to be singled out for special cuts beyond those inflicted on other transport authorities. Elderly people worry about vandalism and would like to see a real commitment to a community police service. They worry about the houses they live in and they worry about the long waiting lists for sheltered housing.

Overshadowing my constituency is the threat of yet further job losses in the shipbuilding industry. Those who work in shipbuilding harbour three main fears. They fear that the Government seek to return to the era of casualisation for the work force. They fear a return to the days, which some of the older workers in the shipyards can remember, of standing on the gates to see whether there was work. It is totally unacceptable to them that there should be a return to those days. Already too many of my constituents have endured short-term contract work or nothing at all. At present it is "nothing at all" for most of the men who would like permanent work and are prepared to accept short-term contract work but cannot find anything.

Secondly, and worse, my constituents fear that merchant shipbuilding and ship repair may be lost to our community — indeed, to our nation— altogether. The decent hard-working people who look to the shipbuilding industry for their livelihood expect something better from the Government than the instruction to compete with South Korea. We do not want to compete with a police state, slave wages and rotten working conditions. We cannot and we shall not, and we expect the British Government to protect and preserve a merchant shipbuilding capacity for Britain. At the very least, the Government could show the same determination as other European states. What a wicked thing it was to invest our wealth and our knowledge in such a way that it added to the world overcapacity in shipbuilding and ship repair, distorted the South Korean economy and ensured the industrial enslavement of South Korean workers.

The third fear that my constituents have is that the construction of warships will be held back until parts of British Shipbuilders have been privatised, and that then the orders will be committed to the new private yards. I hope that that fear will not be substantiated, and that the Ministry of Defence will dispel our fears by committing now the two minesweepers allocated to Clelands, and not hold back until 1985. I endorse the appeal that Tyne and Wear county council has made today to that effect and hope that we shall get a positive response.

It is sometimes argued that new jobs will come to communities such as mine to replace the old. My constituents are asking, "If that is so, where are the new jobs?" They will not be found at Parsons, the large engineering works that, together with British Shipbuilders, dominates the employment profile of my constituency. They certainly will not be found at Dunlop, Walker, or the tar works, or Berger paints division in Newcastle upon Tyne, because they have all closed.

The only large employer that is preserving jobs in my constituency is the local authority, and all credit to the city council for that, but increasingly the cost is falling on the already overburdened local ratepayer as central Government withdraws from their commitments to the local community.

I understand that it is traditional to praise the beauty of one's constituency. Parts of my constituency are very attractive, but other parts of it are downright ugly. We cleared away many of the old slums and now we have to clear some of the new slums. Central Government must not be allowed to run away from their share of the responsibility for what happened in the recent past. Central Government have an obligation to help local authorities rebuild their housing stock to a decent standard.

As a city council, Newcastle prides itself on its education service, and it certainly spends its money on that service. When things go wrong, the local educational establishment is protective rather than energetic. A local inspector's report has severely criticised teaching standards in the Walker secondary school. I wish to make it clear that I will not have that issue hushed up.

I understand that it is traditional in a maiden speech to refer to one's predecessor. I cannot claim to have broken the mould of British politics, but I have scraped some of it off. I should like to pay tribute to my former Member of Parliament — I live in the constituency — whom I remember for his consistency, and for his loyalty to his party and to the supporters in his party. I remember him for his charming and kindly personal demeanour and for his willingness to accept—I too hold this view—that it is possible to hold different political views and still be a person of integrity. Although he was always a political opponent, I should like to pay this tribute to Sir William Elliott, the retiring Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North and the retiring Member for the Sandyford ward of what is now Newcastle upon Tyne, East.

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