Malcolm Chisholm: Is not the real problem the fact that we are second bottom of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development league in terms of manufacturing investment, which is leading to a decline in the number of manufacturing jobs in Scotland, as evidenced by the announcement last week of further redundancies at Peebles Electric in my constituency? Why could the Secretary of State yesterday...
Malcolm Chisholm: Did the Leader of the House see the research from North Thames health authority last week, which showed that more money is spent on average on the patients of GP fundholders than on those of non-GP fundholders? Has he seen the report in this morning's papers to the effect that a trust hospital in Kent has admitted operating a two-tier system with the tacit approval of the local health...
Malcolm Chisholm: Is one of the rules and regulations that no findings of the Home Office research department should be published if they contradict the views of the Home Secretary? What does the Minister have against evidence and facts?
Malcolm Chisholm: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has to meet representatives of the TUC to discuss his White Paper, "Competitiveness: Helping Business to Win."
Malcolm Chisholm: Why does not the Minister accept the recommendations of the Select Committee report on competitiveness in relation to a training levy, encouragement of research and development and restraint of dividend payments? Will the Minister reply to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) about yesterday's OECD report on training, which showed a dramatic decline in the...
Malcolm Chisholm: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most alarming things that the professors told us on Tuesday was not only that the money spent on research into cancer in Britain was less than that spent in America and other European countries, but that although the majority of funding in those countries is provided by their Governments, only one tenth of British funding is provided by our Government...
Malcolm Chisholm: Will there be anything in the legislation about job seekers from other European Union countries? May I tell the Secretary of State that I was horrified at my surgery on Saturday when a young Spanish woman told me that she had recently lost her job and was being denied income support in spite of actively seeking further employment?
Malcolm Chisholm: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much money was spent last year on cancer research; and what percentage of that was provided by charities.
Malcolm Chisholm: Why is much less money spent on cancer research per million of population in the United Kingdom than in other countries? Why is it that in this country, uniquely, most of the money comes from charities? That makes long-term research difficult. Will the Minister undertake today to give more Government support to research into breast cancer—the biggest single killer of women between 35 and...
Malcolm Chisholm: I oppose the amendment. I first became interested in the subject when two parents came to see me a few months ago to complain about something that had happened to their children at Fettes college in Edinburgh. I shall not go into details of the various incidents but I wrote to the director of social work about one of them, which makes it relevant to our debate. Briefly, the incident involved...
Malcolm Chisholm: I applied for the Adjournment debate a couple of weeks ago because of the clear intention of Lothian health board to centralise all Edinburgh maternity services at one hospital, the proposed new Edinburgh royal infirmary at the southern edge of the city, and also because it planned to break its clear promise to reopen a maternity unit at the Western general hospital, which serves large areas...
Malcolm Chisholm: Does the Minister realise that, in some ways, the centralisation plan was sold under the cover of having community services for antenatal care, yet in the original acute services strategy, it was proposed that antenatal care should be given in the community, so the issue of antenatal care is separate from that of a mega-unit?
Malcolm Chisholm: Does the Secretary of State agree that aggregate external finance to local authorities is to increase by only 0.64 per cent. and that, once transferred community care money is stripped out, the minuscule cash increase disappears altogether? Given that the Government's GDP deflator is 3.25 per cent., does he admit that it is, in fact, a massive cut and will he state publicly that any cuts in...
Malcolm Chisholm: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to secure an indefinite and unconditional extension of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Malcolm Chisholm: How can the Government seriously argue for an indefinite and unconditional extension of the non-proliferation treaty at next year's conference when they intend to break their obligations under article 6 of the treaty by doubling their deployment of strategic nuclear warheads? Is it not an insult to the intelligence of the non-nuclear weapon states to expect them to accept that blatant hypocrisy?
Malcolm Chisholm: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Malcolm Chisholm: I remember listening with incredulity when, in the 1993 Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced the jobseeker's allowance as a measure to help the unemployed gain employment. It was a similar experience listening to the Secretary of State today. The Bill is not about helping the unemployed to gain jobs but about helping the unemployed to lose benefit, helping their partners to lose...
Malcolm Chisholm: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that it is an encouraging trend that the level of business investment last year was only 2 per cent.? Has he taken heed of what the Select Committee said in its report this week—that it does not really accept the Treasury forecast of an 11 per cent. increase in business investment in the year ahead? Is that not a problem area for the economy? Will not the...
Malcolm Chisholm: It is a curious and perhaps unique feature of the Bill that so many of the tax increases that will be introduced in the next financial year are not contained in it. It is bizarre that the tax increases announced in December are not yet included in the Bill. Many of April's tax increases were legislated for in previous Finance Acts, which is unusual. They include the reduction in the married...
Malcolm Chisholm: I am against share options completely; the whole idea of share options is bad.