The Economy

Part of Orders of the Day — Debate on the Address – in the House of Commons at 9:11 pm on 14 November 1990.

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Photo of Dr Jack Cunningham Dr Jack Cunningham Chair, House of Commons (Services): Computer Sub-Committee, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons 9:11, 14 November 1990

I am sorry that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman's obsession with that subject. Nothing that has been said from the Opposition Front Bench in six days of debate has committed the Labour party to a central bank beyond political control, and the hon. Gentleman is aware of that.

Over the past 11 years, the Government have imposed contentious and ill-conceived changes on the state education system. Standards are declining and schools all over the country, including the Valley infant school in my constituency, are simply crumbling before the eyes of parents, teachers and pupils.

The Government's neglect is widespread. Despite a national outcry, the Government could find only £77 million extra for school building and repairs. That may sound a lot to people outside this place, but when that is set beside the more than £50 million allocated to a tiny percentage of pupils in city technology colleges, it is clear where the Government's priorities lie.

Our great universities are also suffering. In the very important area of science and engineering research, the Government are funding only one half of the alpha-rated proposals going to the Medical Research Council. It is increasingly difficult to recruit postgraduate research students of the right calibre. That cannot be allowed to continue if we are to compete in Europe in the 1990s and beyond. Britain's education system requires sustained commitment, which only the Labour party is willing to provide.

I was pleased to hear the new Secretary of State for Education and Science—the third in 15 months—make a public commitment to the state education system. It would carry more conviction if he and his fellow members of the Cabinet sent their own children to state schools. All those Secretaries of State have been rapidly moved on by the Prime Minister. Even her latest appointment is already being undermined for his rejection of education vouchers. To borrow a phrase of the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East the new Secretary of State is being subverted by some casual comment or impulsive answer."—[Official Report, 13 November 1990; Vol. 180, c. 465.] A Labour Government will increase choice and opportunity and help the one third of children who, in the words of Her Majesty's senior chief inspector of schools, are getting a raw deal under this Government. Those are not our words. We aim to make our young people the best educated and trained in Europe.

Why is it that, after 11 years of the Prime Minister's policies, our great hospitals are closing children's wards? The most famous children's ward in the most famous children's hospital in Britain, and probably in Europe, has been closed. Thousands of sick children have been nursed back to health in the Peter Pan ward of Great Ormond street hospital since it was opened in the late 1930s. That ward is now closed. How bitter that news must be for the millions of people who contributed so generously to the wishing well fund to maintain that hospital and its care for children. So much for caring Conservatism.

The authoritative British Social Attitudes annual report due out tomorrow shows that British people reject the values espoused by the Government. Now, the Government and the Conservative party are irrevocably split and it is shameful that at such a critical time for Britain at home and abroad we are left with a disabled Prime Minister and no effective Government or leadership. Once again, the Tories are letting Britain down.

In the debate on 1979 Loyal Address, the present chairman of the Conservative party, speaking of the Prime Minister, said: it is difficult to find that narrow strip of land that lies between rebellion and sycophancy."—[Offical Report, 15 May 1979; Vol. 967, c. 57.] Contemporary research does not record whether he ever found it. Nor are there any prizes for guessing, if he did, which way he jumped off it. At any event, he is now deeply engulfed in a quagmire of his own choosing, as the failed Tory campaigns continue to demonstrate. The same cannot be said of the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East.

Contrast the two: the Prime Minister in secrecy stabbed him in the back—he in public stabbed her in the front. The right hon. and learned Member, in a speech of considerable courage and stunning candour, confirmed the Opposition's and the country's worst fears. In my 20 years in the House, I cannot recall a more devastating indictment of a Prime Minister of any party. The right hon. and learned Gentleman confirmed many of Labour's accusations and criticisms in the past decade and his words about the Prime Minister support the oft-repeated views of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman's accusation of her misconduct of Cabinet Government, his determination to expose her serious misjudgment of Britain's best interests, illustrate how strongly he believes that the Prime Minister has failed our country. His exposure of the Prime Minister's reckless determination to have her own way at any price explains his own and other resignations from the Cabinet. The Prime Minister clearly puts her own prejudices and desire to dominate before sound policies and good Government.

The Cabinet's divisions over Europe have not prevented the Government from supporting disastrous policies at home. That is why we now have poll tax, private water monopolies, crumbling schools and a run-down national health service. That is why Britain is isolated and lagging behind other western nations. The Tory Government have failed precisely because Cabinet Minister have never had the guts to stand up and be counted in front of the Prime Minister.

There is no doubt that a Prime Minister who regularly talks tough about inflation has been an engine of inflation, or that a Prime Minister who regularly claims to want to create a climate for enterprise has damaged British interests, or that a Prime Minister who boasts about defending British interests has, through impulsive outbursts, seriously damaged them. So far as we can tell, the Prime Minister is the only politician on record who has received directions to the taxidermist from an alleged dead sheep and an alleged dead parrot. As she surveys her Government and a Conservative party split asunder, seething with revolt and destabilised by the blows of the electors, she must reflect on the words of Thomas Wyatt: They flee from me, that sometime did me seek …I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek, that now are wild". Against that background of hopeless divisions, continuing policy failure and manifest incompetence, is it any surprise that we have seen this week a programme from the Government devoid of ideas, courage or Ministers of the calibre to do what is best for Britain? Our country does not need another member of that broken team or that divided party to lead another Tory Government into failure, for they all share the guilt. What people want is a general election. They want to decide who the next Prime Minister will be. As they have shown throughout Britain in 1990, that choice will be a Labour Government, led by my right hon. Friend. That election is the only way to end the present debacle. For us, it cannot come too soon. We are ready to govern. Let the people decide.