Debate on the Address

Part of Sessional Orders – in the House of Commons at 4:11 pm on 23 October 1996.

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Photo of Mr Paddy Ashdown Mr Paddy Ashdown Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Leader of the Liberal Democrats 4:11, 23 October 1996

I have heard so many of those claims before, including claims against my own county council, all of which were based on complete falsities—and lies, frankly. I cannot answer the right hon. Gentleman's question, because I do not know the answer, but I can give him an undertaking—no doubt it is the same undertaking that he would have given when he was a Minister and was asked a similar question—that I will find out and send him an answer.

Thirdly, our health service is facing a crisis this winter. The effects are already evident in bed closures, axed services and growing waiting lists. We need an immediate year-long halt to national health service closures, until a full, independent audit of facilities and needs has been carried out. But under this Government, that will not happen. In the longer term, we need a strategy to cut unnecessary bureaucracy and concentrate on patient care—recruiting new staff, cutting waiting lists and putting as much emphasis on preventing illness as we currently do on treating it. But under this Government and their legislative programme, that will not happen.

Fourthly, our benefits system is failing. It traps people when it should be freeing them. It penalises work when it should be encouraging it. It requires fundamental reform, and that should have happened already, but under this Government that will not happen.

Fifthly, our political system is in a mess. It is out of date and out of touch. It has lost the confidence of the people it is supposed to serve. We must clean up the mess in our politics and bring our constitution and our political system up to date. But under this Government and this programme, that will not happen. It will not even be started.

Sixthly, we continue to pollute our atmosphere, to destroy our countryside, to clog up our roads in a way that everyone knows is unsustainable and that will damage the quality of our life—and, more important, the quality of life of our children. We cannot go on ducking this issue any longer, but under this Government and this programme, we will do just that.

Seventhly, perhaps the biggest decision of all confronting this country—on this perhaps the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and I will agree—is Europe and the single currency. I see several Conservative Members nodding their heads. Decisions will have to be taken on this, probably within weeks of the next election, but we are not to be allowed even to discuss it, because the Labour and Tory parties are so split that to do so would wreck them internally. That is a monstrous conspiracy against democracy and the people of this country. They have a right to hear this debate and to participate in it.

My party has no doubt that Britain must play a constructive part in the creation of an integrated, decentralised, democratic Europe, and we have no doubt that, if there is a single currency—I think there will be—and if a workable proposition for it is to be made—I think it will be—and if Britain can be a part of that single currency, it should be. But we also have no doubt that the British people have a right to a say in these decisions, and the right way to ensure that is through a referendum.

Those are the things that the Queen's Speech should be about, but it is not. I do not believe in the politics of opposition: of saying what is wrong with the Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "No?"] No, I do not, and we can prove it to the Government time and again. I do not believe in saying what is wrong with the Government but never saying what we would do instead, so we have produced an alternative Queen's Speech, in which are laid out the measures that we believe should have been included in this Queen's Speech.

I make no apologies for the non-parliamentary language in it. It is time we got rid of some of the arcane language of this place. Our alternative programme is written in plain English of the sort that ordinary people understand and want to hear from their Parliament.

I make no apologies, either, for the length of our alternative programme. We have done what the Prime Minister says he will do and made it a two-year programme, and if it means that there will have to be shorter summer holidays to get on with it, so be it. I make no apologies for that, either. I see that I have the ready and enthusiastic agreement of all my colleagues on this.

There is much to be done, and it is time to get started. It is time to get the country back on track, to get going again; but, of course, we all know that that will not happen, because the Prime Minister is determined to hang on. No one knows what he is hanging on for, but hanging on is what he is best at. That is what he is happiest doing and it is what he is for. It is what he says to himself in the Downing street mirror every morning. He says, "Another success, John. Another day you have hung on. They have not got rid of you yet."

The problem is that we all have to hang on with him. The Tories will have to hang on before they can sort out their problems in opposition, and they will suffer. The economy will have to hang on while the Prime Minister piles on more debt to pay for tax cuts, and it will suffer. Our children will have to hang on in underfunded schools, and they will suffer. Europe will have to hang on while Britain decides what to do, and Britain will suffer. The elderly and the sick will have to hang on with a health service that can no longer cope, and they will suffer. The country will have to hang on with a tired, visionless, leaderless, toothless, purposeless, pointless Government, and the country will suffer.

It would be an act of kindness to them and to us now to put the Government out of their misery. The Prime Minister may rest assured that, over the next few weeks and months, we shall lose no opportunity and leave no stone unturned to make sure that that is exactly what happens. When it does, we can get down to starting to rebuild the country again.