Mr Richard Hornby: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary took pains at the start of the debate to make it clear that this did not represent the final decision on the Channel Tunnel, but rather an opportunity for providing funds for further study of its operation and construction. Nevertheless, we should not be tempted into taking this step too lightly. Experience on many other matters suggests that, although...
Mr Richard Hornby: I welcome the opportunity of saying how much I enjoyed serving as a member of the Younger Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Kenneth Younger, a former Member of the House. He was always rigorous in his examination of the problems that the committee had before it, and always patient and anxious to make the work of the committee agreeable. The House owes him a considerable debt. The...
Mr Richard Hornby: That was the next point I was coming to. That is a form of pragmatism, but in defence of the view we have advanced in the report I have argued that the method we have proposed is both likely to be swifter and more certain of its interpretation, particularly in the early years. Pragmatism can emerge by case law. It will take time. It will particularly take time in a matter which is the subject...
Mr Richard Hornby: I propose to take up that point at the conclusion of my speech. One of my anxieties about the general right is that it would be a slow remedy and in its early years it would be an uncertain one, not least because no one, including the Younger Committee, has arrived at any satisfactory and sure definition of what is meant by privacy. Thirdly—here I come to the mass media—I believe that it...
Mr Richard Hornby: That is a correct statement of fact. It is important that the Press Council should go that far. I would prefer it if it went that far as to the full membership of the council, because it is hard to believe that the viewpoint of the industry and the special needs of understanding it cannot be maintained by a 50 per cent. membership having an identity of professional status against the laymen...
Mr Richard Hornby: I will give my hon. Friend my own view on this matter of a broadcasting council. It is this. One can go a long way too far in putting tier upon tier of supervisors over a particular body. We have the statutory IBA. There are the Governors of the BBC and they have appointed their complaints commission. It seems to me that, having appointed people statutorily to do a particular job, they should...
Mr Richard Hornby: Has the case to which the hon. Gentleman referred been sent to the Press Council?
Mr Richard Hornby: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider what he said about the publication of the report of the Select Committee on the Anti-Discrimination (No. 2) Bill, particularly bearing in mind that the Committee decided to organise its proceedings in such a way that its report could be available to the House in advance of any publication by the Government on the subject? Are not those proceedings in...
Mr Richard Hornby: If we are talking about complacency, any complacency around lies in the Opposition motion, in putting detail before the major issue of the fight against inflation. I am not for a second arguing that these details, concerning the materials that go into buildings—in the words of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), the expense, the difficulty and the quality—are not...
Mr Richard Hornby: No one could say that the Government, in successive attempts to deal with the problem—and whichever party has been in power—have been short of advice. Most of the advice has been conflicting. I would begin by saying that I, and most, I suspect, of my colleagues on this side of the House, and, maybe, many Members on the other side, can only deem it tragic that this degree of intervention...
Mr Richard Hornby: Surely it is one thing for Japan, a relative new comer to African markets, to break sanctions and quite another for a country with a colonial past and long traditions of friendship to think that it can go along with political practices which are out of sympathy with these countries and at the same time suffer no change to its considerable trading position.
Mr Richard Hornby: I want to intervene briefly at this point, having made a speech in the main debate last November—
Mr Richard Hornby: Amendment No. 419 has been advanced as a protection of the rights of Parliament at a time when it is being suggested by the opponents of this Measure that our rights are being eroded by the Bill. I believe this to be a total misunderstanding of the situation. The House took a major decision on this matter last year. That decision having been taken, the problem now before us is how best to see...
Mr Richard Hornby: If—to quote the words of the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice)—there has been prejudice and one-sidedness in this issue, has it not come from the leaders of the unions concerned, who have consistently ignored the effects on the public before the full processes of consultation in the industry have been exhausted, and who are now threatening at pistol point to subject the...
Mr Richard Hornby: For information, I think that I am right in saying that in a very large number of appointments the number of suggestions or alterations received from ambassadors has been eight, and that on three of those occasions only has a change been made.
Mr Richard Hornby: I should begin by declaring an interest as a member of the Executive Committee of the British Council. I have seen some of the Council's work both at home and abroad. In passing, we should remember that important work is being done by the Council in this country no less than overseas, particularly in its dealings with the exchange and reception of students and so on; so when I was invited...
Mr Richard Hornby: The two cases are by no means parallel. I am always chary of encouraging governmental interference in the media of communications. Then again, the relationship on the ground is not of the same kind. The B.B.C. representative is never a cultural attaché. He is never housed within the precincts of the overseas post. I think that my hon. Friend is making a totally false and misleading...
Mr Richard Hornby: My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) said he was speaking as a doctor rather than as a politician. There is nothing in these regulations that should worry him as a doctor. [Interruption.] The milk is there for children under seven, and if he and his colleagues in the medical profession are prepared to make the necessary provision, the meals are there, too. It is...
Mr Richard Hornby: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what improvements he is planning in his Department's Occupational Guidance Service.
Mr Richard Hornby: I welcome that statement, but would not my hon. Friend agree that at a time when skills are changing fast and when, under any Government, employment problems are likely to be obstinate and serious for some time to come, this is a subject which needs very careful examination? Will he bring forward at the earliest possible date the information which he is collecting on the subject with a view...