Mr Alan Clark: I should like to declare a personal interest in this topic. The Saltwood Estate, which is owned by my family's trustees, borders the area designated for the exit of the tunnel. That means that the land on the Saltwood Estate offers substantial possibilities for "reclamation", which is the fashionable term now used. However, I do not propose to speak on either the commercial or the...
Mr Alan Clark: I am not quite certain what this entails. I take it to be a somewhat gentler form of Women's Lib. Speaking of feminism compels me to mention perhaps my most distinguished predecessor in the Sutton Division, Lady Astor. Out of curiosity I consulted HANSARD to see what Lady Astor said in her maiden speech. She referred at great length to the subject of drink and expressed the view and the...
Mr Alan Clark: I make no apology for returning to Clause 26 and Schedule 5. The Minister spoke about the Home Secretary's long reflection on this matter and said that the present delay was in part due to the consultations with magistrates. However, the Committee should reflect seriously about it. The effect of the clause is to remove completely from magistrates' courts the power of imprisonment for all...
Mr Alan Clark: I speak to Amendments Nos. 32, 33 and 34. The Committee will be aware that the Bill, in addition to its provisions relating to safety, the convenience of administration and the highly important topic on which we divided earlier, has the effect of drastically curtailing the powers of the magistrates' courts. It is to that subject that I shall address myself. In Standing Committee I addressed...
Mr Alan Clark: The number of persons sent to prison for these offences in the last year for which figures are available was 307.
Mr Alan Clark: I am grateful to the Minister for his concession with regard to the most serious offences. I take his point, although he has admitted that if the clause is to be in this form we shall have a situation where magistrates' courts can neither call for the appearance of a defendant or make the various order. The Minister has said that he will think about these matters. I hope that it will be...
Mr Alan Clark: Regardless of whatever provision the Minister may think appropriate to help prisoners to earn more money, may I ask for an assurance that that will not extend to allowing them to profit from the sale of memoirs, recollections, biographies and other scripted items relating to the misdeeds that brought them into prison in the first place?
Mr Alan Clark: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that rumours are circulating in Devonport that naval construction there is likely to be suspended or cut down and that work on oil rigs is likely to be introduced, and that there is considerable disquiet at this prediction, since naval construction is a permanent feature of the industrial scene while the maintenance and construction of oil rigs is both transient...
Mr Alan Clark: The hon. Gentleman cannot give that guarantee.
Mr Alan Clark: I am mindful of the caution you delivered earlier, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but could the hon. Gentleman just say, from the figures he quoted, how many abstentions there were from the voting?
Mr Alan Clark: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the calculations that have led him to think there will be a saving of £10 million are somewhat imprecise, and that in any case this figure is minuscule as a proportion of the total fuel bill? Further, does he agree that, other than inducing an atmosphere of torpor and congestion, this is a propaganda exercise? Will he confirm that, whatever his right...
Mr Alan Clark: Mr. Alan Clark (Plymouth, Sutton) rose—
Mr Alan Clark: On all previous occasions when my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have questioned the Secretary of State and his colleagues on this topic we have been told to wait on points of detail for the publication of the defence review. The defence review is now upon us, but the elucidation of the details of expenditure, cost effectiveness and savings is remarkably obscure. For example, it is hard to...
Mr Alan Clark: I am obliged, Mr. Speaker. I am about to conclude. The resources the right hon. Gentleman has promised to release are essentially human. What about the gunsmiths, drawing office technicians, armourers, electronic engineers and dockyard welders? Are they to learn new trades or variants of a trade? From heavy industry to a light technology and engineering, prosperity and defence are closely...
Mr Alan Clark: I hesitate to add my congratulations to those of my hon. Friends to the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) lest the universal approbation of the Opposition should be embarrassing. Yet certainly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) said, the hon. Gentleman has added further testimony to the care for the countryside which he showed in the debate only two days ago...
Mr Alan Clark: Or craft.
Mr Alan Clark: I have sometimes heard you refer to hon. Members making copious use of notes during a debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I ask the hon. Lady whether the copious notes with which she is refreshing memory reflect her personal conclusions on this subject?
Mr Alan Clark: Is the hon. Lady seeking to introduce the principle that, if a qualified person is ill, restrictions on those who are less qualified to perform expert attendance are undesirable? Would she care to extend that view to any other profession or calling?
Mr Alan Clark: Surely the question of extradition need never arise, because the right hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Stonehouse) owes the security of his position in Australia, as I understand it, to the fact that his illegal entry there was, it was later discovered, legal because of his privileged status as a Member of this House. It is his exercise and enjoyment of that privilege which affords him...
Mr Alan Clark: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the allocation of grants by the Voluntary Service Unit.
