Mr Alan Clark: The Minister and his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food know perfectly well the level of the prices that farmers are getting for meat, and they know the prices that are being charged in supermarkets: there is an enormous margin. The supermarkets are operating a cartel against the consumer, and it is those same supermarkets that are funding, to an extremely large...
Mr Alan Clark: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. This may be an appropriate moment to congratulate him on his new position. I was in the House when he made his maiden speech from the Opposition Benches, which roughly coincided with my own debut at the Dispatch Box. I was interested to hear the Minister say that it would be his Department's staff who monitored compliance with the new regulations...
Mr Alan Clark: It was memorable.
Mr Alan Clark: That is an interesting and perfectly legitimate response. If that is the case, surely the pet owners—the paymasters—can determine to a far greater extent than if cost were a matter for the right hon. Gentleman's Department when the measures will come into force, and plainly they will want that to happen at the earliest opportunity. Since pet owners can no longer be put off by the...
Mr Alan Clark: The right hon. Lady has told us that, on Monday, we shall debate the security services. As she knows and as many hon. Members will have heard, Ministers frequently take refuge in the answer that they cannot discuss something because it relates to security matters. Would it be in order to ask a Minister whether the assessments of individual Cabinet members and their possible security risk are...
Mr Alan Clark: Would the hon. Lady like to tell the House about her attitude, and her Department's attitude, to the implementation of those guidelines by Essex police? Will she admit that the conduct of Essex police—the brutality with which they conduct their exercises—-has lowered the esteem in which the police are held in general, as well as prompting disgust and a general loss of confidence in the...
Mr Alan Clark: This debate has provided a very good demonstration of the importance of our Wednesday morning Adjournment debates—which allow hon. Members, such as the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt), to cite and bring to the House's attention monstrous cases of victimisation. It is an excellent thing that such issues should be raised in the Chamber. Today's debate has also allowed...
Mr Alan Clark: Although many of us pride ourselves on that gift, hon. Members—Labour Members, too—have to try to cut through it. The hon. Member for Rotherham rightly drew attention to the scandal of the Governor of the Bank of England saying that we must tolerate unemployment in the manufacturing sector in order to control or moderate overheating in the service sector. I have foreshortened the...
Mr Alan Clark: I am listening with great interest and considerable sympathy to the case that the hon. Gentleman is making, but much of his argument in fraudulent. He refers to the fluctuating rate of sterling and compares the industry's performance with that of the United States and of Germany. Over that period, the deutschmark and the US dollar had even higher levels of fluctuation than the pound sterling.
Mr Alan Clark: I support the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) and the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), and I ask the House to oppose the business motion and not to give it any consideration. I am fortified in my contention by the fact that the deputy leader of the Liberal party has decided that his own party should oppose it—despite the...
Mr Alan Clark: I approach this subject without any emotional hang-ups. I do not address it principally from the constitutional aspect: an approach which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) attributed to many of those who contribute a note of dissent to the thrust of what the Government are trying to do. I speak on behalf of humble and thrifty capitalists—of whom I am...
Mr Alan Clark: What the hon. Gentleman has articulated is the Labour party's traditional attitude, over a long period, to the European Community. What does he think altered that? He knows that, although his hon. Friends around him may instinctively feel the same, they will no longer say so. How does he account for that? He has given us—briefly encapsulated—the history of his party; what does he think...
Mr Alan Clark: I am interested in the implication of what my hon. Friend says, which is that the value of the pound must be sustained and is something worth maintaining. Most Labour Members, and many Conservative Members, never cease to complain that the value of the pound is too high. Where does he sit in that debate?
Mr Alan Clark: The Chancellor of Germany.
Mr Alan Clark: Does the hon. Gentleman have any personal experience of the financial markets, or of working in them? If he did, and if he were taking his opinion from those who operate in them, rather than from some columnist who cannot get a job as a consultant and is simply writing in the financial pages of a national newspaper, he would not make remarks which are unsustainable.
Mr Alan Clark: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for including me in the consultation process, and I am naturally gratified that some of the recommendations that I, among others, made have found their way into the document. He did not, however, properly answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples): will the carriers in fact be built? They are the only factor that...
Mr Alan Clark: I am grateful to you for calling me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Although I was not in attendance at the beginning of the debate, I was watching it simultaneously while, rather unsatisfactorily, attempting to conclude a long-standing appointment in my office. I have, therefore, seen the earlier stages of the debate out of the corner of my eye, so to speak. I congratulate the hon. Member for Poplar...
Mr Alan Clark: Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) for raising the matter. The document being prepared by the Under-Secretary of State should consider the need for a total overhaul of leasing arrangements. The guiding principle should be that tenants who generally conform to the terms of their lease, who behave decently, pay their...
Mr Alan Clark: Free tickets?
Mr Alan Clark: The Deputy Prime Minister did not give an intelligible answer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe). One of the provisions in his statement was that LCR should seek to raise additional equity in the financial markets; but what happens if it cannot do so?
