Mr Ken Lomas: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action has been taken by Her Majesty's Government since October, 1964 to secure the admission of China to the United Nations.
Mr Ken Lomas: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a growing feeling that it is not sufficient merely to be in support of the entry of China into the United Nations, but a matter of supreme importance that this country should make every effort to try to persuade other nations which have so far sought to exclude that part of the world from the United Nations to take a different view, and to do its very...
Mr Ken Lomas: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will use the offices of the United Nations in seeking a solution to the situation in Vietnam.
Mr Ken Lomas: I beg to move, That the Bill be read the Third time. Like the previous Bill this is an entirely non-controversial Measure. It had a formal Second Reading on 9th April and the Committee stage was dispensed with in less than ten minutes. I am sure that the House will appreciate, therefore, that I do not intend to detain it very long but it is right and proper to explain the purpose of the...
Mr Ken Lomas: I have been a Member of Parliament only six months, but I have repeatedly learned in that time that I have been right in believing during my life in the trade union and Labour movement that right hon. and hon. Members opposite do not know how the other half lives. They cannot understand what it is like for people on £12 or less a week to keep wife and family together. We have had an example...
Mr Ken Lomas: The hon. Member talked about what he called "creeping pregnancy" and referred to the wages which were allowed to slip through the incomes policy. The hon. Member must understand that when wages are as low as £9, £10, or £11 a week we are not only concerned as a Labour Party and a Labour Government with an incomes policy, but with social justice. It is elementary justice that these people...
Mr Ken Lomas: This is playing with words again. Our share of the world markets decreased during the time when the Conservative Party was in power. I was saying that the Conservative policy of allowing prices to rise and doing very little about it meant that those who could least afford it were affected most. When we came to power, therefore, we decided that, as a matter of social justice and priority, we...
Mr Ken Lomas: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is aware of the need for a college of music for the Yorkshire area; and, in view of the valuable work already being done by the Department of Music at the Huddersfield College of Technology, if he will seek to develop this department as a regional college of music centred on Huddersfield.
Mr Ken Lomas: Is my hon. Friend aware—I am sure that he is—that as long ago as 1958 the Yorkshire Council for Further Education recognised this to be a regional college of music and, in the interests of the people in the Yorkshire region who are anxious to obtain a musical education, will he further consider the suggestions made in the Question?
Mr Ken Lomas: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will allow tax relief where musical instruments are purchased for use in schools.
Mr Ken Lomas: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that there is a tax relief on musical instruments in many other countries, including the United States of America? Is he further aware that, provided the necessary safeguards are taken to stop abuses, this is something which should be encouraged in schools? I earnestly ask him to bear in mind that this could be done along the lines of the personal export...
Mr Ken Lomas: asked the Prime Minister when he will introduce legislation to compel political parties to disclose their source of income.
Mr Ken Lomas: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, but I hope that he is aware that hon. Members on this side of the House are looking forward, as the whole nation must be, to discovering the names and details of the paymasters of the Tory Party.
Mr Ken Lomas: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I formally ask the House to accept the Bill. It is entirely non-controversial and I believe that it would be acceptable to both sides of the House and prove a benefit to local health authorities and the Ministry of Health.
Mr Ken Lomas: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if she will give an assurance that a minimum income guarantee will be introduced in the lifetime of this Parliament.
Mr Ken Lomas: I did not doubt for a moment what the answer would be, but is my hon. Friend aware that the assurance that the matter is being worked on will give great satisfaction to those who voted Labour at the last election in the certain knowledge that this Government would keep their election pledges, and will she give some kind of undertaking that the persons who are at present outside the insurance...
Mr Ken Lomas: I will follow the hon. and gallant Member for Ripon (Sir M. Stodart-Scott) into a number of the rather queer excursions he made into the subject of doctors' pay and the Health Service. The figures he quoted for the increase in the number of prescriptions being issued by doctors were obviously such that he could not substantiate them, at least not to this Committee. Unless the hon. and...
Mr Ken Lomas: If that is so, there must be a considerable number of doctors earning far in excess of £4,500. The idea of the Review Body was to ensure that doctors in need of help would receive it. The way the medical profession has been behaving in the last few months has been such that, if they were trade unionists on the shop floor or elsewhere, they would have been denounced as irresponsible. Indeed,...
Mr Ken Lomas: If the members of any trade union had received a 14 per cent. increase in pay during the last three years and had violated the agreement within that period, there would have been a tremendous outcry by hon. Members opposite. Not only are these doctors to whom I have referred the Oliver Twists of the Service. They are almost the Dick Turpins. They are pointing a gun at the Minister's head....
Mr Ken Lomas: That is true. We know that it was concocted in a short space of time in a country retreat or elsewhere.