Mr Alan Clark: I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene so early in the speech. 1 hope that he and his hon. Friends who represent rural constituencies will exert pressure on their right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is rumoured to be considering raising the price of petrol by as much as 20p a gallon—or is it 20p a litre? In any event, he is apparently going to raise it by...
Mr Alan Clark: I congratulate the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mrs. Organ) on bringing this topic to the fore in our debates. I was interested in her extended, philosophical definition of poverty. I do not wish to criticise the way in which she presented her case, but, if I may say so, it was a little short on detailed, constructive proposals. The two most interesting suggestions were drawn out after...
Mr Alan Clark: My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) is an exception. I am particularly surprised that no one from the Scottish National party has attended. There is a good case to be made for the way in which the problem of rural poverty is handled in Scotland. The community atmosphere, to which the hon. Lady rightly drew attention, is much more vital and alive in the highlands...
Mr Alan Clark: Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that LCR got the contract by grossly over-estimating the traffic by 50 per cent.? Will he assure the House that taking the project into the public sector is not a euphemism for finding the £8 billion that he admits will be the total cost? The trains are running perfectly well at the moment. The extra money is needed to build a monstrous and vandalistic...
Mr Alan Clark: Only a Liberal could argue for making illegal something that encourages one to remain within the law. The hon. Gentleman said that the detector would make it easier for people to break the law, but surely the whole point is that it gives prior warning and that only a complete lunatic would then proceed to break the law.
Mr Alan Clark: Does the Minister accept that very high hopes were raised in animal welfare bodies—and in a large body of people who care deeply about animal welfare—by his party's manifesto at the general election and that at meetings of the all-party animal welfare group that I attended immediately after the election he continued to nurture those hopes? In fact, nothing has happened save a few measures...
Mr Alan Clark: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would have appreciated the opportunity to set some of the balance right from the Conservative Benches and to have supported the Bill—indeed, I am one its sponsors. I asked your secretary, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether that was legitimate—I had the permission of the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) to speak on the Bill. I was told that under no...
Mr Alan Clark: It is called convergence.
Mr Alan Clark: I am glad to hear the Minister draw attention to the tourism industry in such a sympathetic way. Will the Scottish Parliament have complete powers of decision and arbitration over interests that sometimes come into conflict with the tourist industry? I draw to his attention a case with which he is familiar. The Cairngorm funicular railway is totally opposed by all environmental lobbies in the...
Mr Alan Clark: But rail transport and grants are reserved.
Mr Alan Clark: I do not doubt for a minute the humanitarian instincts of the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen), but does the Foreign Secretary agree that he is dealing with the arch practitioner of the human shield technique in military and diplomatic affairs? Were the Foreign Secretary to relax sanctions, only a tiny group of children or the sick, assembled for a photocall for the world's...
Mr Alan Clark: I commend the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) for seeking an Adjournment debate on this important topic, and for the lucid and comprehensive way in which he set out his case. This topic must be approached from several different angles, and I caution the House against treating the defence industries in isolation as an engine of employment. The real importance of the defence industries is...
Mr Alan Clark: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman's very interesting dissertation. I agree with many of the compliments that he has paid the future large aircraft, but it cannot carry a main battle tank, can it?
Mr Alan Clark: In considering disbursement of money from the Scottish Office, will the Secretary of State recall that in the entire county of Sutherland there are now fewer than 2,000 people engaged in agriculture and country occupations while in the city of which the right hon. Gentleman represents a part there are 82,000 registered drug addicts? Which section of society does he think is more deserving of...
Mr Alan Clark: I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Wansdyke (Dan Norris), and I congratulate him on a lucid and informative speech. I also commiserate with him on the ordeal of having to make his maiden speech before a very crowded Chamber. It is bad enough to make a maiden speech when there are, as there usually are, three hon. Members in the Chamber, but to do it on an occasion such as this, before...
Mr Alan Clark: If the hon. Gentleman will excuse me, he might be able to intervene a little later. The 10-minutes rule applies. I must develop this theme because it is an important aspect of civil liberties. The family could lose the dog and the car and be subject to draconian fines purely on the suspicion, not even of a police officer, but of a member of the public who reports the family to a police...
Mr Alan Clark: The hon. Gentleman's statistics cover precisely the period when I was not at the Ministry of Defence. I left in 1992, and it is clearly a tribute to my personal restraint while in office that, from the moment I left, the number of experiments increased. I am ready to defend my ministerial career, but this is not the right time. This is an issue on which there has to be some compromise. The...
Mr Alan Clark: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is this to be a debate or a series of soliloquies?
Mr Alan Clark: My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway) has quite rightly emphasised that the devil is in the detail. I realise that the Minister probably has some arguments in reserve that he will deploy when winding up. He will probably cite the lack of time, the fact that some of the details have to be settled with reference to other parties and the need for consultation—all the usual...
Mr Alan Clark: In coping with terrorism, the House has two principal, but distinct, obligations. Resistance to crude violence, or the threat of violence, must be maintained at all times, but no opportunity should be neglected to utilise and enhance the democratic process to abate that violence. The paradox of the Government's present position is that, by discarding one of their principal deterrent...
