Mr Ian Stewart: Yes, but I am under pressure of time.
Mr Ian Stewart: The hon. Gentleman is a decent chap, and I do not want to pin the blame on him, but if he wants his party to be taken seriously he has to persuade the leadership of the Labour party to stop its spokesmen saying in every debate and at meetings throughout the country on health, education, transport and everything else that they have massive spending priorities for an incoming Labour Government....
Mr Ian Stewart: One problem with the policies advocated by Lord Keynes was that they were always applied in one part of a cycle but not in the other part. Lord Keynes never said that one had to stimulate the economy with extra borrowing and public expenditure not only when it needed to be given a stimulus but also once it was growing at a satisfactory rate. That is why the so-called Keynesian approach to...
Mr Ian Stewart: When my right hon. and learned Friend was suggesting that the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith), the shadow Chancellor, had had a bad week last week, had he noticed that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not even been allowed to sign the Opposition amendment?
Mr Ian Stewart: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the best way to provide improved employment prospects is to get inflation and interest rates down, as the Government have done so commendably in the past 18 months? The worst thing to do would be to impose swingeing increases in personal taxation of the sort advocated by the Labour party, because that would undermine the incentive and...
Mr Ian Stewart: As the future of manufacturing investment depends on confidence in future economic performance, does my right hon. Friend think that anyone contemplating what will happen to his income will feel more confident if he is threatened with slow torture rather than immediate amputation?
Mr Ian Stewart: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Labour party implemented even a fraction of the spending priorities that it has been spreading around over the past year or two, to the tune of £30 billion or £40 billion extra expenditure, it would not only have to face the problem of raising taxation, but would have to resort to massive borrowing, which would increase interest rates and...
Mr Ian Stewart: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on sticking with his policies of getting inflation down and keeping control of public expenditure, despite the background to the economy in the past year. Will he confirm that reducing the proportion of GDP that goes on public expenditure to its present level, which is much lower than in previous recessions, gave room for the reductions in personal taxation...
Mr Ian Stewart: In recent years it has usually fallen to my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw) to follow the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) to speak on behalf of Conservative members of the Public Accounts Committee and to thank him personally for the great contribution that he makes to the working of that Committee. I am one of the most junior members of the...
Mr Ian Stewart: In principle, the assumption should be that such an arrangement would be welcome in whole areas of Government or Government-funded activity. I see no reason why health services should not be among them, for the reason that the hon. Gentleman gave. The impression that I have gained from my relatively brief membership of the Committee is that many of our inquiries raise not only particular...
Mr Ian Stewart: My hon. Friend makes a fair point. That applies at all levels and in all functions in public services of this nature. The lines of accountability and responsibility are often not clearly set out in hospital management structures, so some things are not controlled in the way they should be. It is also true to say that because hospitals have such widely different practices the amount of...
Mr Ian Stewart: I am not sure that I can, but I am aware of the problem that my hon. Friend raises. In the private sector the chief executive or the finance director, or both, of a company that finds its accounts in that condition would not survive in post. It would not be wise to adopt that approach to the same sort of situation in the public service because, as I said, there are many other dimensions....
Mr Ian Stewart: I was about to refer to that, but I am glad to have it from the Chairman of the PAC. From time to time it may appear as though there are advantages in opening up more widely the work of the NAO and the Comptroller and Auditor General. For the time being the effective veto, as the right hon. Gentleman described it, will preserve the position satisfactorily. From fairly limited experience of...
Mr Ian Stewart: Does my hon. Friend agree that, whatever measures of convergence between the economies of European states are used, they are still such a long way from a degree of convergence that could support any form of economic or monetary union as to make it dangerous to talk about practical steps in that direction in the near future? Will he ensure that that reality is reflected in the British position...
Mr Ian Stewart: I am particularly glad to follow the right hon. Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) in his concluding remarks, in which he made several important points. He referred also to the rapidly changing background against which the decisions that we are debating today must be taken. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his Ministers, and the Army Board in particular, had many extremely...
Mr Ian Stewart: When did the right hon. and learned Gentleman, or any Labour spokesman, suggest that it was necessary to take monetary action to control inflation? If he cannot point to any such occasion, how does he think his own economic policy could be credible in the context of reducing inflation if he ever became Chancellor?
Mr Ian Stewart: rose——
Mr Ian Stewart: I declare an interest as for most of my working life I have been either a manager or a director of a bank, except when I was a member of the Government. My reasons for wanting to speak in this debate are not so much because of that connection as because in 1978–79 I was the Opposition spokesman on the then Banking Bill and in the last Parliament I was responsible for introducing the Banking...
Mr Ian Stewart: The new clause states that a report should be: sent to the Treasury and the Bank of England". Does that also imply that the report should be made public at the same time?
Mr Ian Stewart: Having introduced the Banking Act 1987, may I, through my hon. Friend, commend the Bank of England on the way in which it conducted its role on the international scene in bringing this unfortunate matter to a head? Does my hon. Friend recognise, however, that there are genuine concerns about the fact that a bank whose management and business have widely been known to be in a mess for such a...
