Orders of the Day — Investment

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:20 pm on 20 November 1995.

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Photo of Mr William Powell Mr William Powell , Corby 8:20, 20 November 1995

We always listen with interest and respect to the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) when he speaks on transport issues. I hope that he will forgive me when I say that I do not propose to follow his remarks. However, I listened carefully to his speech, and perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Sir P. Fry), who understands these issues better than I do, will have some observations—if he is called.

The general background to the debate is investment, and I shall speak about that issue as I see it in my constituency. During the 12 or 13 years that I have been in the House, there has been massive public investment in virtually all areas of my constituency. There has been investment in industry under the Industry Act 1975. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field), who has left the Chamber, said that he was pleased that his constituency was now an assisted area.

If there is better news than that of becoming an assisted area, it is that an area is no longer assisted. That has happened in my constituency, and since the announcement, the decline in unemployment has been accelerating. Investment in the private sector has continued robustly to expand, and more and more industry is moving in without any public subsidy provided through assisted area status. That is on top of the expansion of existing companies, which is also happening at a robust rate.

There has been massive investment in roads, and that has brought about an enormous improvement, most of all to the A14, but also to many of the less important roads. There has been no investment in railways but that is because I have no railway stations in my constituency. My constituents use either the excellent rail system in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, that in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, or the one in the constituency of the chairman of the Conservative party, my right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio, the Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney) There has been massive investment in and reclamation of derelict land. There has been massive investment in local authority schools and grant-maintained schools, of which we have some of the best in the country. There has been investment in the city technology college and Lodge park technology school and in education and training in the Tresham institute. I was pleased to be present a few days ago at the opening of another significant expansion of its facilities, which were paid for by the public sector.

I can testify from my own experience that the picture of no public investment is completely untruthful. One could take the matter even further, but I should like to deal with two items of legislation in the Gracious Speech, one of which has been commented upon and the other has not. They are the proposals for legislation about MI5 and for reform of our divorce laws.

I shall deal first with our divorce laws. I rather regret the fact that we need any divorce laws at all, but, man being a fallen person, the reality is that the law needs to be reformed. When I studied law quite a long time ago, the existing divorce law was going through the House. Part of my university course entailed reading and studying what was being said in the House at that time about the proposals that led to the Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Act 1970, the Wilson Act, which has formed the basis of our divorce law ever since.

One of the interesting facets of the 1970 Act was that, to all intents and purposes, it was sponsored by the Church of England. It followed a report called "Putting Asunder", that had been commissioned by Archbishop Michael Ramsey. It formed the basis of the legislation which Mr. William Wilson, who at that time was the Member for Coventry, South, had proposed. Therefore, I read with amusement and some interest Church criticisms of the operation of legislation which it had the primary responsibility for promoting in the first place.

There was substantial discussion before the 1970 Act was passed. I vividly remember the doughty work carried out by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) in opposing that reform. She made a number of predictions, all of which have been fulfilled, about what would happen, because there is a deep truth about the way in which one can draw any divorce laws.

It is that, broadly speaking, however the law is written, one third of people will find it a perfect fit, one third will find it rough justice with which they can live although around the edges there are problems, and one third find it completely unacceptable. All that happens when the law is changed is that people are shifted from one category to another.

Finding justice in such uncertain human relationships is an elusive art. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) underlined, although our noble and learned Friend is being valiant in presenting his new proposals, and although they will meet some of the criticisms about how the existing law operates, the reality is that all that will happen as a result is that a few people will be shifted from one to another of the categories of satisfaction with the law.

Human relationships are not so carefully defined that they are capable of fitting neatly into patterns of this sort. I hope that the new law will be an improvement, but I fear that many people will be disappointed as a consequence of its operation.