Former MP for Lewisham East
Will the young people be trained exclusively in military subjects? If so, would it not be better to call the programme a recruitment scheme rather than a youth employment scheme? If the young people are to be taught trades, what proportion of military resources will be devoted to the scheme and taken away from training our soldiers? Why did the Minister not consult the trade unions to...
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we agree with the Government that any solution to the Cyprus problem must be agreed between the communities on the island, and that communal talks are the best way of going about that? Is the Minister further aware that a great and growing number of Greek-speaking Cypriots regard the intercommunal talks as a block to progress on the Cyprus problem? Will...
While we all appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's noble Friend the Minister of State's going to Turkey and falling asleep in the middle of a lecture on Anglo-Turkish diplomatic relations, is not something more active required of the Government in the light of what the Turkish Government are doing? Turkey is a member of NATO—in the same alliance as we are—and therefore should not Turkey...
Is it not dangerous for the hon. Gentleman to argue that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) cannot understand how the Metropolitan police work because he is the Member for Sparkbrook when the Home Secretary is the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border? His point might strengthen our argument for a local police force.
I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) that we should bear in mind the contribution to the reduction in petty crime that the proper design of council estates can make. We are all aware of council estates in our constituencies that are conducive to low morale and are hotbeds of petty crime and vandalism. We all know other estates where the residents have...
Yes. In the meantime, we had to pay the price because the Metropolitan police were not sufficiently aware of the problem to take the appropriate action. When it came to the time of the hon. Gentleman's by-election, the police had learnt some of the lessons from the troubles in Lewisham and were beginning to adapt. Even if the heart of the Metropolitan police is in the right place, under their...
That also demonstrates the rigidity of the Metropolitan police in dealing with these problems and the difficulty that Lewisham faced in getting its case over to the Metropolitan police force in its present form.
I should not try to deny the truth of what the Home Secretary has said. I am simply talking about 1977 and 1980, when Lewisham tried to get its case across to the Metropolitan police force as it is organised at present and failed to do so. As the Home Secretary said, there has been a change of policy in the past two or three years. It has taken six years to achieve something that we would...
