Mr Richard Page: I appreciate the argument that my hon. Friend is advancing. I think that he will agree that there is a graduation of deprivation into the city centre. There is not a Berlin wall, where it is prosperous one side and chaos on the other. With respect to my hon. Friend, I think that he is a little too concerned about the difference in trading that will occur.
Mr Richard Page: During my brief contribution I wish to speak about the effects of the Bill on the area which I believe controls our future prosperity and wealth. I am talking about smaller businesses and the self-employed. 1 wish to talk about the way in which we need to increase the wealth of this country and not indulge in perpetual haggling about how to cut up the national cake and about who will get...
Mr Richard Page: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what study his Department has made of the recent report by the Small Businesses Administration in the United States entitled " Government Competition: A Threat To Small Businesses."
Mr Richard Page: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. When that report is examined, I believe that it will be found to be an indictment of the activities of the American Government in squeezing smaller businesses. Will my right hon. Friend authorise a similar investigation in this country to see whether our small businesses are suffering in exactly the same way?
Mr Richard Page: Is it not a fact that person joins a company for employment and not to become a trade union member?
Mr Richard Page: Tonight, not surprisingly, I am very much behind the Secretary of State and the new clause. I say that because the clause is very much in line with the spirit that permeated the consideration of the Bill in Committee. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) illustrated that spirit with his knock-about speech earlier today. The Opposition attach so much importance to the mildness...
Mr Richard Page: More confusion would probably be caused if more legal gentlemen got together. I believe that we should take the lawyers to one side and allow the Bill to work in practice. I see this as a twofold interaction; the necessary requirement to make the clause work in practice, and so to make these ugly mob scenes illegal and unnecessary. I should have liked to raise a whole host of other matters,...
Mr Richard Page: rose—
Mr Richard Page: I rise for the first time to address the House as the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West. I am well aware that one cannot make two maiden speeches. However, I wish to follow the format of a maiden speech. I shall understand if Opposition Members decide not to give me a free ride. I hope that they will equally understand if I decide not to follow the convention of being non-controversial. I...
Mr Richard Page: I want to make only a brief contribution to the debate. I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 6 and 8 which are typical of the Second Reading, the Committee stage and today's proceedings. They are a cry for help and information about what the NEB is up to. Page 11 of the Department of Industry guidelines for the National Enterprise Board, published in 1977, deals with the Government oversight of...
Mr Richard Page: I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Trade Union Act 1913 in relation to the application of funds for certain political purposes to enable any member of the union to nominate a political party of his own choice to receive the political proportion of his individual trade union levy; and for connected purposes. In essence, this amending Bill will allow an...
Mr Richard Page: asked the Secretary of State for Transport what further representations he has received on the proposed abolition of vehicle excise duty.
Mr Richard Page: Does the Minister accept the concern felt in some rural districts about the possible cost of these proposals, and will he carry out a full evaluation of those concerns before proceeding further?
Mr Richard Page: asked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he will seek a meeting with the chairman of the British Council of Productivity Associations.
Mr Richard Page: When the Secretary of State next meets the chairman, will he remind him of this country's very low industrial production compared with other industrial countries—some 1 per cent. total improvement over the next five years—and will he ask him whether there is any correlation between that and the fact that we have the highest personal taxation of the majority of industrial nations?
Mr Richard Page: I support the Bill. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, North-West (Mr. Grylls) on devising such an ingenious way of possibly persuading the Labour Party to accept a degree of real help for the unemployed without too much damaging the sacred Employment Protection Act. That Act has been referred to as a tablet of stone and Fort Knox. Labour Members defend it with an enthusiasm...
Mr Richard Page: The argument is not so much about whether one side or another is getting a fair deal. One of the principal arguments is that it costs an employer so much to go to the tribunal. The employee must be given a fair crack of the whip—no one is trying to take that right way—but it is becoming cheaper now for the employer to say to the employee "Do not take me to the tribunal. You know that I do...
Mr Richard Page: I can give the hon. Gentleman specific cases.
Mr Richard Page: should like to know what the Minister's compassion is for the 1½ million unemployed in this country. That is what we are trying to do—to give people a job.
Mr Richard Page: asked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what is the current year-on-year rate of inflation.