Dr Jeremy Bray: I think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I ought to sit down at that point. It is right to leave the provision of equipment to the individual responsibility of Members, to finance under their own office costs allowance. Individual procurement has produced, in recent years, a far faster rate of penetration of new techniques in the House than it would have done if there had been a centrally provided House...
Dr Jeremy Bray: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what provisions he has made in Government expenditure plans for the redevelopment of the Ravenscraig site in excess of those costs that will fall to British Steel and the European Union.
Dr Jeremy Bray: Is the Minister aware that there is a gap between the reclamation of the Ravenscraig site, which British Steel will carry out, and a site with infrastructure on to which developers can move and that that gap must be filled by European Union and United Kingdom Government funding? Unfortunately, European funds cannot be committed until the site is in public ownership and British Steel cannot...
Dr Jeremy Bray: Given the right hon. Gentleman's enthusiasm for analysis, will he tell us what estimate he has made of the effects of the measures that he has announced on either growth or productivity?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 are the only ones that relate to Lanarkshire. We in the county are used to thinking of it as a whole. This applies to travel to work, to education, to health provision, more recently to the Lanarkshire Development Agency, and to the immense task of replacing Ravenscraig and the steel industry, whose loss has left such a big hole not only in Motherwell but in the...
Dr Jeremy Bray: Before the President publishes his White Paper on competitiveness will he read the unanimous reports of the Select Committees on Science and Technology and on Trade and Industry that were published recently? These point out that there are a great many factors other than price competitiveness in the overall national competitiveness scene. Will the right hon. Gentleman take into account the...
Dr Jeremy Bray: Is the Chancellor aware of the danger of the erosion of support for the science base because of the need to support teaching that should be done at undergraduate level and financed by the Higher Education Funding Council and the Department for Education?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Would not it be a poor start for the new research councils if, as a first step, some of their key laboratories were taken from them and grouped under a civil research agency, which would remove them from application and from the science base?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Does the President of the Board of Trade realise that, as the recovery gathers momentum, the new jobs will occur in the areas of high service employment, not in the manufacturing areas of Scotland, Wales and the north? Does he not realise, therefore, that special incentives are needed for manufacturing industry in those regions?
Dr Jeremy Bray: If the Minister has examined the strategic research activities of Germany, Japan and the United States, can he justify the effective closure of all the principal applied laboratories under Government control and, in particular, can he justify the type of review taking place in the National Engineering Laboratory in East Kilbride?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Can the Minister explain why the Commission is acting on beams and sections while maintaining that the principal problem is the excess capacity of strip products?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Does the Minister agree that the real damage done to Scotland involves the loss of control of Scottish companies? Is he aware that the last steelworks in Scotland, the Craigneuk works at Motherwell, is closing today, with immediate redundances? Will the Government do anything to try to find a buyer for it as a going concern?
Dr Jeremy Bray: What are the total funds involved in those initiatives? Will that be new money, or will it come from the existing science budget?
Dr Jeremy Bray: The right hon. Gentleman has emphasised that the objectives identified in the schedules represent operational guidance for the research councils. Why do they differ from the mission statements in the White Paper?
Dr Jeremy Bray: The nature of the debate has changed somewhat from that of Second Reading of a private Member's Bill to a general review of the evolution of monetary policy during this century. I should like to return to the Bill and I commend the initiative of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) in airing what has become a fashionable idea. The hon. Gentleman's initiative appears to...
Dr Jeremy Bray: I beg your pardon, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was unforgivably lapsing into informality. Select Committees cannot possibly act as a short-term check on executive mistakes in the way in which the Bill outlines. Clearly, the Bill argues for the assignment of instruments to enable the Bank of England to formulate and to implement monetary policy and to stabilise prices, and for the Treasury to set...
Dr Jeremy Bray: If the hon. Gentleman shifts his scenario to black Wednesday, does he really think that it would happen quite in the way that he has described? Surely the Governor of the Bank of England would say, "For Christ's sake take this shambles off my hands. Something must be done and it obviously affects your parish. Over to you." That is the reality of the situation.
Dr Jeremy Bray: Does the Prime Minister assume that the benefit of increased jobs from a successful outcome of GATT will accrue automatically? What steps are the Government taking to alert British industry to the special challenges that it will face?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Has the Minister read the recent report by the electronics industry in Scotland, which points out its vulnerability to the fact that it consists largely of screwdriver assembly plants, with little research and development, little marketing and little worldwide product responsibility? Has he further read the report by Scottish Enterprise and its chief executive, documenting the lack of...
Dr Jeremy Bray: Will the Foreign Secretary agree that, after the Tiananmen square incident and the response of the people of Hong Kong and the rest of the world to those events, it was necessary to rebuild the confidence of the Hong Kong people in their future in China? Does he agree that the October 1992 proposals were consistent with that, and that the subsequent developments and the improved atmosphere...
