Mr Alan Clark: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am most grateful for your allowing me to raise a point of order that relates to the language in which we communicate in this Chamber. Your predecessor once rebuked me for using the language of the Common Market: I said "faute de mieux", for which he immediately called me to order. The word "referendum" is being scattered about, but, although my hon....
Mr Alan Clark: Not direct grants.
Mr Alan Clark: False information.
Mr Alan Clark: I should like to address the House on the subject of the nine volumes that have been compiled by English Heritage cataloguing 1,500 grade 1 and grade 2 listed buildings that are deemed to be at risk. I must declare an interest as I am the owner of a grade 1 listed building. That building has been identified in the directory. I ask the House's indulgence because not only am I speaking from...
Mr Alan Clark: I named, but did not shame. My right hon. Friend interrupts me with a flippant reference to my authorship, but I do not think that I have shamed anyone in my life, although often perhaps brought opprobrium on my own head, but that is another matter. The House will remember with respect, if not affection, a former President of the United States, Mr. Lyndon Johnson. He ran into difficulties...
Mr Alan Clark: Is there a director?
Mr Alan Clark: They are all apparatchiks, and I do not doubt that they all have huge expense accounts. The House may take the view that the conservation officers employed by local authorities could do most of the work themselves using the Heritage Lottery Fund. They have far greater knowledge and easier access to the buildings within their purview. They could do the work more simply and more cheaply.
Mr Alan Clark: I do not want to engage in extended research into the motives of the officials at English Heritage. However, I could claim to be bitterly affronted that someone to whom I have in the past extended hospitality—if it is the same person—and from whom I never heard again should have suddenly decided that I need to be named and shamed. In addition, that official has spread the extraordinary...
Mr Alan Clark: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it not a convention in this place that when a Minister has misled the House—accidentally or deliberately—he is obliged at the very earliest opportunity to make a personal statement? It would be perfectly proper and natural for the House to draw the inference from the evidence given by the Permanent Under-Secretary in the Select Committee this morning...
Mr Alan Clark: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker.
Mr Alan Clark: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker.
Mr Alan Clark: It is the director general.
Mr Alan Clark: On Monday, the important subject of drug misuse in prisons was raised three times during Home Office questions. The Minister of State, the hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Ms Quin), answered considerately and courteously, and cited statistics to show what the Home Office is doing—on the number of prison dogs and so forth—saying that she hoped that further...
Mr Alan Clark: Exactly. We should never reduce debate to that sort of level. It has only been a couple of days since then, and not only have three Labour colleagues approached me about the subject and endorsed what I said, but I have had telephone calls from magistrates saying that it was perfectly true and something that must be brought out, and police officers have confirmed to me the validity of what I...
Mr Alan Clark: The answer to the second question is none. One does not need to visit a prison to substantiate accusations of that sort. I will certainly send the hon. Lady a dossier of the people who have written to me, and they include former prisoners. I am surprised that she should try to confront the problem so directly. Perhaps I should have said not "encouraged", but tolerated. I will be very...
Mr Alan Clark: Yes; I stand corrected by my hon. Friend.
Mr Alan Clark: Yes. The House must allow the Minister to concentrate her mind on the issue. She is denying accusations on the basis of I do not know what briefing from officials in her Department, but she is setting her opinion—and, presumably, their advice—against that of Sir David Ramsbotham and the expressed opinion, based on experience, of police officers, magistrates and former prisoners. That is a...
Mr Alan Clark: I am sure that we all have much sympathy with the President of the Board of Trade. She is faced with an extraordinarily muddled Bill, and many of the large body of supporters behind her do not like many of its provisions; they have given vent to that feeling in many interventions, to which she responded most graciously. I do not even blame her for running away from the Chamber—she has been...
Mr Alan Clark: I am delighted to have drawn the hon. Gentleman. He says that it is a question of motive; in other words, the judgment is subjective. I do not want to trust the Secretary of State, or anyone else, with a subjective judgment on what Mr. Murdoch's motives are.
Mr Alan Clark: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for enlightening me about an aspect of the Bill that I had not yet observed, but, in the time-honoured phrase that I always use when my constituents ask me whether I intend to support or to oppose any measure, let me say that I intend to listen to the debate.
