Former MP for Wrexham
I rise mainly to ease the mind of the Minister of State, who gets terribly worried about what the Alliance will do—whether it will support the Government or the official Opposition—and does not seem to appreciate that very frequently sensible people might support neither. I can put him out of his misery tonight by saying that we shall be supporting this amendment. Although there are some...
In common with the great majority of Opposition Members, I am fundamentally opposed to the Bill and will vote against it on. Third Reading. Even when hon. Members on either side of the House profoundly disapprove of a Bill, however, they have a duty, if possible, to improve the Bill, both in Committee and on Report. I listened carefully to the Minister's speech. I am grateful to him for...
I had understood that. My reason for not agreeing with the hon. Gentleman is my experience in a whole range of publicly owned industries, not just telecommunications, where subsidies and so on have to be paid through general taxation, and there is an inability to pinpoint the costs of the profit-making or loss-making sectors—the cost centres. The Minister said that until fairly recently the...
Does the Minister mean that if a community council in a rural area felt that the provision of telephone kiosks in its district was not adequate, it could go to court and get a judgment?
I welcome the orders unreservedly. I stress that because I was perplexed by the speech of the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie). He seemed to imply that there was some kind of a conspiracy to facilitate the closure of pits when Mr. MacGregor took over. I hope that I have misunderstood him, but that seemed to be the implication. His logic was a little at fault. Supporting the hon. Member...
I apologise to the House for not having been here until an hour ago, but, with the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price), I have been in Committee. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the eccentricities in the findings of the Boundary Commission. However, they are far fewer than I expected because the boundary commissioners of England, Scotland and Wales were given an impossible task—to...
I wish only to draw the attention of the hon. Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) to the fact that when my hon. Friend the Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth) was a member of the Labour party, he was a member of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform.
May I draw attention to the fact that under the multi-Member system, once having established the boundaries, there is no further need to change them? One need only alter the number of Members.
