Mr Philip Goodhart: I see no reason why anybody working with secret material should be excluded. I am concerned that the Bill will inadvertently make it more difficult to introduce such random taps, so my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds and I have put down these amendments. I commend them to the House.
Mr Philip Goodhart: In his first welcome White Paper, my right hon. Friend referred to the contribution to the greater flexibility of patterns of work that can be made by young workers. The private sector has been much more helpful than the public sector. Can my right hon. Friend promise any action to make the public sector more imaginative and flexible?
Mr Philip Goodhart: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that telephones are tapped on occasion also by those who are hostile to this country? Does he recognise that some hon. Members are concerned that, as a result of clause 7 and some of the earlier clauses, it will be easier for the IRA and the KGB than for the security services to tap telephones in this country?
Mr Philip Goodhart: I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) and to the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment for allowing me to intervene briefly in this important Adjournment debate. I note that home improvement grants provide a notably labour-intensive form of capital spending and also help to tackle the problem of home dilapidation. I note, too, that, thanks to wise...
Mr Philip Goodhart: In moving Second Reading, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said: To most Londoners London is a series of separate local areas with very diverse characteristics. Camden has little in common with Croydon; Hackney has little in common with Harrow; Redbridge has little in common with Richmond."—[Official Report, 3 December 1984; Vol 69, c. 27.] That is correct to an extent, but I do...
Mr Philip Goodhart: I am not arguing for executive powers. The mere impact of debates has an influence on Ministers and the civil servants who prepare Ministers for them.
Mr Philip Goodhart: I am not sure whether it has executive powers or not. I think that it is limited. The debates on some matters may have only a degree of interest. The issue of roads transcends the interests of the individual Greater London boroughs. At least once a week I travel on the south circular road. If ever one wanted a monument to a lack of planning ability on the part of the GLC, the south circular...
Mr Philip Goodhart: rose—
Mr Philip Goodhart: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that a number of small parties, such as the Communist party, the Ecology party and the National Front, are unlikely to get one twentieth but may get one fortieth of the vote in some constituencies? Will my right hon. and learned Friend look sympathetically at the suggestion that half the deposit should be returned when a candidate obtains one...
Mr Philip Goodhart: I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright). He may be surprised to learn that I listened with intermittent agreement. Perhaps that is not entirely surprising, because while Mr. Livingstone has been hiring London's hoardings at the ratepayers' expense and plastering them with contentious political posters, the real argument about the future of the GLC and the...
Mr Philip Goodhart: I doubt it. I agree with Lord Marshall when he says: I share the view of those who maintain that the sum of local needs and aspirations falls short of the wider interests of London as a whole". Lord Marshall is right when he says that a number of issues — such as public transport and traffic — need to be discussed on a Londonwide basis. Indeed, in my view, a gaping gap in the centre of...
Mr Philip Goodhart: I do not accept that the Scottish Grand Committee and the Welsh Grand Committee are wholly ineffective. If the Government were to introduce proposals to do away with the Scottish Grand Committee or the Welsh Grand Committee, I have no doubt that Opposition Members — including Scottish and Welsh Members of the Liberal party—would be loud in their condemnation of the Government's action. I...
Mr Philip Goodhart: I hope that my right hon. Friend, in replying to the debate, will tell us how the Government intend that the Londonwide issues should be monitored, scrutinised and debated. I hope that his reply will be sufficiently forthcoming to encourage me to continue to support the Bill.
Mr Philip Goodhart: In making up his mind about what to do, will my right hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that too many members of the Nigerian high commission staff have a poor record, stretching back over many years, of flouting British laws and conventions?
Mr Philip Goodhart: My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Miller), who knows Hong Kong so well, has called for precise agreements. It is perfectly possible to have precise agreements on such matters as the GATT, the multi-fibre arrangement and the courts of law, but there are wide areas in which it is impossible to have precise agreements. Indeed, it can be difficult to have precise discussions at all. I...
Mr Philip Goodhart: The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) seemed to think that the House should be reassured by his assertions and that, apart from a few loony anarchists, no one in the London Labour movement rejected the need for a police force. I do not think that many people will see that as a very reassuring statement. In my view the hon. Gentleman's speech did not do much to reassure those...
Mr Philip Goodhart: I deplore diplomatic terrorism, but does my right hon. and learned Friend recognise that most of the middle east-related disturbances on our streets are caused by students from certain middle eastern countries? Does my right hon. and learned Friend have plans to screen the Libyan students who are still here, with a view to removing those who have close connections with Colonel Gaddafi's regime?
Mr Philip Goodhart: On the review of the behaviour of vehicles and compliance with the speed limit, my right hon. Friend will be aware that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the most sensible of the road safety lobbies, supports this proposal. However, if it is wrong, if the Minister is wrong and if there is, when the regulations become law, an increase in the number of serious accidents...
Mr Philip Goodhart: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) and to the Minister for the opportunity to add a few words to the debate. I support my hon. Friend's complaints about the closure at night of the accident and emergency service department at Orpington hospital. I share his belief that the saving that will be made is considerably less than £50,000 a year out of a total...
Mr Philip Goodhart: In view of the many criticisms of UNESCO that have been made in recent months, will my right hon. Friend consider transferring part of our annual subscription from that body to the British Council, which can use the money more effectively and more wisely?