Mr Leo Abse: The right hon. Member for Down, South, (Mr. Powell) has presented the House with constitutional arguments which prompt him to vote against the order. I am aware, as he has frankly said, that he was a keen and urgent supporter of the efforts that I made consistently during the 1960s to bring in the measure which I finally steered through in 1967. The right hon. Gentleman is on record as having...
Mr Leo Abse: Why is the Secretary of State being so unexpectedly and uncharacteristically coy and diffident about the paper, which he describes as a hypothesis, when he is clearly seeking to assuage the Prime Minister's well-known yearning to dismantle the NHS completely? Is he aware that if that option—as he describes it—is applied to Gwent, it will mean the end of the redevelopment of the Royal...
Mr Leo Abse: Are not the statements of the Home Secretary both on Monday and today a charter for blackmailers and a triumph for the lure of cheque-book journalism? Since Commander Trestrail has had no criminal offence charged against him and, despite the innuendo contained in the statement today, there has apparently been no breach of security on his part, is it not disgraceful that what has occurred is...
Mr Leo Abse: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is the second successive day—presumably yesterday's statement was also supposed to be a security matter—on which the rights of Back-Bench Members have been severely limited. Yesterday, a statement was made and questions were asked, but no Opposition Member was allowed to challenge a statement that some of us believe substituted public pillorying for...
Mr Leo Abse: rose—
Mr Leo Abse: With respect, Mr. Speaker, the issue is when a statement can be regarded as so severe in security terms that hon. Members' rights should be so limited. That was not the case yesterday, and in the judgment of many of us it is not the case today—
Mr Leo Abse: As the Rayner scrutiny report on museums has been published and contains a Philistine attack on the theatre museum and joins the commercial and other penetrating influences that will take away childhood from our little ones by closing the Museum of Childhood in the East End, may we have a debate on that issue before the recess, or, if that is impossible, may we be given a firm assurance that...
Mr Leo Abse: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr Leo Abse: The fact that the amendments are so elegantly drawn and enable the intentions of the sponsors to be clearly carried out is largely due to the considerable help that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Homewood) and I received from the Solicitor-General, who, while maintaining Government neutrality, implemented all the undertakings that we gave earlier. I am sure that my hon. Friend...
Mr Leo Abse: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in said amendment.
Mr Leo Abse: Lords amendment No. 5 rids the Bill of its original clause 2, which sought to enable a widow who, by her own act, caused her widowhood in some cases nevertheless to obtain national insurance benefits which otherwise would be barred to her by the forfeiture rule. Lords amendment No. 6 puts this intention into effect in a much more sophisticated manner. Although the clause is complex, as...
Mr Leo Abse: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr Leo Abse: The amendments simply regularise the position on Northern Ireland. The law concerning the forfeiture rule in Northern Ireland is broadly similar to that in England and Wales. Amendment No. 10 allows corresponding provision to be made for Northern Ireland, but by Order in Council subject to negative rather than affirmative resolution in Parliament.
Mr Leo Abse: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment. The amendment alters the title of the Bill. It arose from observations made by the Lord Chancellor, which were, of course, fully appreciated by Lord Mishcon in the other place. In the other place, it was noticed that the original title "Relief from Forfeiture" could lead to some confusion, because it was too...
Mr Leo Abse: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment. The amendment simply lays down when the Bill, when it becomes an Act, is to come into force. The social security provisions are to come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order", and other clauses are to come into force three months after the Bill has become an Act.
Mr Leo Abse: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr Leo Abse: As this is the last set of amendments, once again I thank the Solicitor-General and, in particular, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer), who has been very helpful to both my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Homewood) and me in giving us the benefit of his guidance, support and assistance throughout the Bill's passage. I also thank my hon. Friend...
Mr Leo Abse: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he has now had discussions with the British Steel Corporation on the future of the Panteg steelworks; and whether he will make a statement.
Mr Leo Abse: Is the Seretary of State aware that Sir Charles Villiers, accompanied by Mr. MacGregor, gave confident predictions to the Seclect Committee two years ago claiming that £150 million invested in stainless steel provided assurances for the future of Panteg? In view of the clear managerial blunders at the top, which are revealed by this decision to reduce the numbers by 300 in an area of almost...
Mr Leo Abse: How many more men from the 1st Welsh Brigade are to be killed or cruelly mutilated, and how many Welsh mothers are to mourn their sons, before the Prime Minister desists from her provocative and deliberate insistence on unconditional surrender and from an insistence that for eternity the Argentine must not participate in affairs on those islands? Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Prime...