Mr Ian McCartney (Makerfield)

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the parliamentary Session. You have taken a great deal off my mind, and, at the end of this speech, you will have taken a great deal of pressure from my kidneys. I also want to remind you of a promise that you gave me some 14 years ago when, as a young Labour party trainee organiser. I was asked to organise an industrial visit for you in Carlisle. Later that evening, in the Labour club, you told me, with your arm around me, that if there was anything at all that you could ever do for me I had only to ask. Fourteen years on, and the start of this speech, I intend at some time to hold you to that.

It is a great pleasure for me to represent the constituency of Makerfield. Makerfield is an important and traditional part of the south Lancashire coalfield and an important part of the Wigan metropolitan borough council. Before I deal with the major issues of the debate. I should like to take the opportunity to thank two former hon. Members of the House for my being here. Their contributions were radically different, but because of them I am here making my maiden speech.

The first person whom I want to mention is Michael McGuire, who, from 1964 represented the former constituency of Ince and the constituency of Makerfield. During most of that time he enjoyed the support and understanding of his constituency party. For 24 years he carried out his duties in a way which brought him personal credit. The fact that in later years he fell out with his party can in no sense detract from that. It would be churlish in the extreme not to recognise that for most of that time he had the support of his party and in a genuine sense I wish him and his wife every success in his chosen new career.

The second person whom I want to mention was the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie, my father. Over the years he has treated me as a father usually does, giving me sound advice which I usually did not take—right hon. and hon. Members know that that is a trait that I have learnt from him—and he has always been an encouragement to me. It is a little disappointing that he is not present in the Chamber this evening as a Member. I also want to wish him and my mother, Margaret, every happiness in their retirement.

Makerfield is one of those constituencies in the northwest of England which is still suffering from the ravages of industrial decline, the legacy of the industrial revolution and the exploitation of the coalfield and the textile industry and the heavy engineering industry. Despite the sensitive and radical way in which the local authority in Wigan has tackled those problems, over the last eight years the authority has been dragged back by the Government's actions.

What I found appalling in today's debate, and in previous debates, is the complete insensitivity of Conservative Members to the plight of working people—not only in the north, but in every part of the industrial heartland of Britain. There is a real lack of recognition of the problems facing working people, not only because of the industrial decline brought on by the Government but because of the major effect on the community produced by poverty and the crushing disability that it brings to working people and their families. The major attack by the Government has been on those people in the front line—Labour local authorities.

I make no apology for being a Socialist member of a local authority. I think that it is time that the people in this country recognised the important role that local authorities play in a democratic local structure, and in developing caring policies to ameliorate unemployment, to deal with inequalities in society and to stabilise it. Democracy is a very fragile thing. It is not just about Members of Parliament, but about real people in communities. One of the major reasons that we have a stable democracy is the role that local authorities have played since the industrial revolution, and the way in which, after the first world war, people came first in their hundreds and then in their thousands to town halls up and down the country and put forward persuasive changing attitudes to policies on housing, social services, transport, education and training.

Those radical changes in policies were significant in terms of where we are today. The people who put them forward did so not out of books, but out of recognition and understanding of living in communities deprived of opportunity—deprived by Conservative Governments and business people whose interests were merely to take profits from communities, and to hell with the people who have to live in them. It is essential, in this and in future debates, that we recognise and understand the importance of local authorities not only in tackling the problems of unemployment and deprivation, but in tackling in a real sense the feeling of alienation among working people, women and the unemployed. If anyone fails to recognise that alienation, he walks about blind. He fails to understand—Conservative Members often do not want to understand—what is happening in the nation today.

In my constituency, which is a microcosm of the northwest, unemployment in two of my wards is over 20 per cent. In the ward that I represent—Abraham Ward—nine out of 10 school leavers last term did not go in to a real job. Car ownership is among the lowest in the country. We have the largest incidence of one-parent families out of Manchester, the largest number of single-person households and the lowest income in the borough of Wigan—itself a low-income area. Probably worst of all, we have the highest dependency rates of families living on one income. On council estates in the Wigan area, between 65 and 74 per cent. of all households are relying on a single income to maintain the family. That income is usually supplementary benefit or some other form of benefit. Twenty-three thousand families in Wigan each week live on supplementary benefit, and we have the largest live load of sickness benefit claims in the United Kingdom.

This is the last school week in Wigan before the summer break, and we have 50,950 pupils. Of those, 10,187 are on free school meals. That represents 42 per cent. of children who go to school and take meals. So far in this financial year, the authority has paid out £440,000 to 13,857 young schoolchildren for clothing grants because their families live on or below the poverty line.

In a recent speech in Wigan, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) talked about young workers living in a "hamburger economy". That is certainly true in Wigan. Even if there is the opportunity of a job, the jobs available are menial and pay less than £1 an hour. Training is almost nonexistent, except for the training schemes run by Wigan metropolitan council—the youth training scheme, the youth technology scheme, the scheme for young workers in the co-ops, the scheme for small businesses to employ young people, and subsidies for the private sector to take young people on. Those are all through a Labour local authority initiative. Why has it been done? Because the private sector which is represented on the Conservative Benches has given up. It is not interested in investing in jobs in Wigan or the north-west. It sees its role as investing in the City; investing in a fast buck; investing in money instead of people and jobs.

What does that mean for our people? They are denied access to the nation's wealth, and denied opportunities that abound for those gentleman on the Conservative Benches every day of the week. They are rarely seen in the Chamber. Between 8 o'clock in the morning and 10 o'clock at night, when they turn up to vote, where are they? They are in the City, stripping the nation of its assets. This is an unrepresentative Parliament. [Laughter.] Conservative Members may laugh, but they are stripping my people of real opportunities and jobs. That is the typical face of Toryism : they sit and laugh with their feet up on the Benches. The tragedy is that in my constituency people have their feet on benches because they have never been given a job opportunity.

I want to ensure that I do not use unparliamentary language, so I shall use two words. I want to talk about the abuse of the whipping system. I was shocked and surprised when I came here. Over the past week—the relationship has been either pimpish or impish—Conservative Members have been asking me, cajoling me and writing to me: "Please will you be a pair? I do not want to be here after 10 o'clock." The reason is that they do not want to come and represent their constituents; they want to come and represent the interests of business, and when they are not here, they are representing those interests in the City of London. The Opposition should be exposing that type of scandal to their constituents.

I do not mind a whipping system that gives people time off for parliamentary duties. But I object to its being used for people to go into the City and the law courts to earn their coin, while we are sitting here at 10 o'clock watching them voting in the Lobbies and having a go at working people in all forms of legislation.

We must recognise that local government is one of the most emancipating features of modern Britain. In all aspects of our activity, it is local authorities that keep the nation together, and that must be recognised. If the National Health Service is the jewel in the crown, local government must certainly be the crown.

In the Gracious Speech, the Government have proposed a set of legislation that is desperately trying to undermine the work done by Labour local authorities. As a Socialist and a member of the Opposition, I am certain that Labour councils up and down the country will continue in a logical way to represent the interests of our people. I want to ask Conservative Members a number of questions, and they should ask themselves these questions. Do any of their children have to be sent on a youth training scheme? Do any of their children have their dole cut for refusing to be exploited by JTS? Do any of their married sons and daughters have to live on deprived housing estates, surviving on less than £50 a week? Will any of their children be sharing textbooks bought by the PTA at a local raffle? How many of their parents died last winter of hypothermia because of the cuts in benefits for working people?

This Government will not inflict poverty and hopelessness on their own people, and we must ensure that they do not inflict it any longer on our people.

See this speech in context