Public Sector Operators Not to Be Franchisees

Part of Clause 22 – in the House of Commons at 8:45 pm on 3 November 1993.

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Photo of Nick Harvey Nick Harvey Shadow Spokesperson (Transport) 8:45, 3 November 1993

The Government face this problem for the first time in 16 years entirely because of their own incompetence and obstinacy. Their handling of the Bill has been deplorable throughout its passage. They have tabled so many amendments to their own amendments—tabling them in Committee when the ink was hardly wet on the first lot—that they have almost used up an entire Amazonian rain forest.

There was a time when I believed that, however misguided and inherently evil Conservative Members might be, they at least understood how to run things, and were technically competent. I have come to realise that I completely misjudged them. They stand before the country exposed as the shambolic rabble that they undoubtedly are.

When the public learn of this evening's events, and the passage of this measure from one end of the corridor to the other, they will be in no doubt about who is speaking for the nation. Members of the other place come in without deferring to the Whips, and with no hope of promotion; they do not even need gongs, because most already have them. We have been reduced to observing the spectacle of those people speaking for the nation, not those who speak in this Chamber—the men of straw on the Conservative Benches who depend on the Whips for their prospects of promotion and patronage.

That is the position to which we have been reduced by the Government's shambolic conduct and a ridiculous measure which successive Secretaries of State for Transport have thought better than to introduce. The present Secretary of State, however, has insisted on pushing it through, at a deplorable cost to democracy and to his own electoral fortune. The Government will pay for that at the ballot box.