Mr Alan Clark: He refers to "our boys" being granted an opportunity which has been denied them for so long and says that people who squeal are doing so only because they have something to hide. What are the hon. Gentleman's comments on the propriety of that?
Mr Alan Clark: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Ministry of Agri- culture, Fisheries and Food, the Department of the Environment and the Home Office in combating the threat of rabies spreading to the United Kingdom.
Mr Alan Clark: I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas). I am very glad to follow the theme with which he started his address, because the White Paper that we are debating this evening and which was the basis on which the Chancellor made his speech is, when stripped of its verbiage and all the ineffective hypocrisy that pervades the language, that...
Mr Alan Clark: Perhaps the right hon. Lady is thinking of the unemployment figures in 1936. The unemployment figure in that year was 1·6 million. After deducting all those twilight areas that we have at the moment, where unemployment is concealed by job creation and subsidies, and curious schemes to retain people on the books for doing no work at all, I do not see that the unemployment is concealed by job...
Mr Alan Clark: I was not wishing to comment on women staying at home. It is perfectly possible for these figures to be juggled and jiggled to prove various things, but we must accept that they are net figures issued in the HMSO tables for the relevant years. However, if deflation is what Governments want they can do it overnight. I refer to the nanny-like theme of some of the texts contained in "The Attack...
Mr Alan Clark: If in some happy circumstances another £1,000 million were to be spent on defence, would not that be reflected immediately in the country's employment position?
Mr Alan Clark: asked the Secretary of State for Defence how many civilian jobs he expects to be lost as a result of the decision to cut defence expenditure by a further £100 million.
Mr Alan Clark: Would not the Minister agree that previous cut-backs had a significant effect on the total unemployed? There is great anxiety and apprehension among workpeople engaged in defence industries about what is in store for them. Can the Minister confirm what the Chancellor of the Exchequer let slip yesterday in an aside to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that the trade unions concerned...
Mr Alan Clark: The whole House, indeed the whole country, is familiar with the atmosphere of torpor and congestion that generally pervades the roads following the introduction of these two temporary speed limits. Yet the curious anomaly persists that, although these limits were introduced for one reason, their retention is defended for a totally different reason. They were introduced, we were told, to save...
Mr Alan Clark: I suppose that the idea of the malady of supposed urgency has some substance at times, but I cannot accept that it should be associated with penalties of such severity as are attached to these statutory requirements. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) said, the requirements are not accompanied by warning signs. People put their driving licences on the line, without...
Mr Alan Clark: I hear what the Minister says, but my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) made an important point. As I recall it, on the last occasion this subject was discussed in the House the Secretary of State's predecessor was present but the total time then available to the House was about nine minutes. On this occasion, I do not know whether hon. Members on either side think it...
Mr Alan Clark: On a point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would not wish it to be thought that I was concealing an interest, and, therefore, I too should declare convictions in the past and prosecutions pending.
Mr Alan Clark: Will the Minister give way?
Mr Alan Clark: Does the Chancellor ever ask himself why it is that these recurrent and repetitive statements of his about the value of the pound do not have any effect? Could it not be because all that he has done and all that he proposes to do is to borrow enormous sums of money from one set of foreign bankers to finance speculation against the currency by another set?
Mr Alan Clark: Does it not remain true that there is something here of considerable public concern? That is that where prominent people become insolvent, for reasons that may or may not be disreputable, they appear to be given preferential treatment in certain circumstances. There appears to be some kind of general consensus that they should be allowed to preserve vestiges of the way of life that they...
Mr Alan Clark: There are three categories of evidence and they diminish in significance. First, there is "all the evidence", which my right hon. Friend says she favours publishing—and I agree with her. Secondly, there is "all the admissible evidence" covered by the definition in "Eskine May" which my right hon. Friend read out. Thirdly, there is a still smaller category, which the Prime Minister...
Mr Alan Clark: In the tower.
Mr Alan Clark: It will with oil at 10 cents a barrel.
Mr Alan Clark: What about the direction of labour?
Mr Alan Clark: I as trying to jog the hon. Gentleman's memory. What about the direction of labour?
