Dr Dickson Mabon: rose—
Dr Dickson Mabon: I wish to protest at the way in which the Secretary of State has dealt with the debate. It is novel to have a special share system. If I understand the Secretary of State aright, Amersham International is the only other organisation that has such a system. Of course, that is an extremely bad example. The right hon. Gentleman's invention may prove in the course of time to be both novel and...
Dr Dickson Mabon: I certainly was. I was in Committee for the entirety of its discussions on part I, which was a complete bore. As the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) knows, we had to extract tooth by tooth the various issues arising from the articles of association that we now see in their full form. The House has been allowed only one hour to debate what we are told by the right hon. Gentleman...
Dr Dickson Mabon: I am extremely flattered to be called to speak so early in this debate. I deeply deplore the fact that, in a short debate of this sort, more than an hour—almost an hour and a quarter—has been taken by the two Front Benches. This is not a private debate between two right hon. Members; it is a public debate. Therefore, I hope that many hon. Members will participate in it. The Secretary of...
Dr Dickson Mabon: I am absolutely against political direction. One needs to distinguish between direction politically in a qualitative sense, which is academically unacceptable, and in a quantitative sense, which is what the Government are doing. There should be no diktat from on high from any Government to the UGC over what the budget should be. There needs to be a two-way traffic. The UGC has to try to argue...
Dr Dickson Mabon: Of course, in the short term, the fact is—
Dr Dickson Mabon: It is better than scorpions behind the hon. Gentleman. We oppose the cuts. We support further consultations with the UGC. We would like to know how private industry can be involved.
Dr Dickson Mabon: Why "Oh!"? It is perfectly right to argue these things again. If we are not arguing them again, what is the purpose of the debate? We could send a postcard to the House saying "Yes" or "No". The purpose of the debate—[Interruption.] Some hon. Members apparently cannot even send postcards. The purpose of the debate, I thought, was to try to convince the Government to change their mind. That...
Dr Dickson Mabon: The hon. Member may have seen the articles of association but the Opposition have not. One of the fundamental questions that has not been answered and which must appeal to the hon. Gentleman is: how can a temporary majority be exercised by somebody who owns 0 per cent. of the shares, which is theoretically possible under the Bill?
Dr Dickson Mabon: A voluntary timetable does not necessarily call for a motion to be put forward in Committee. It is agreed between the Whips or between the two Front Benches. I have dealt with many Bills, from both the Opposition and Government Front Benches, on which we have agreed voluntary timetable systems. That is what we are talking about, and that is what we should have done here.
Dr Dickson Mabon: When the Burmah Oil Company got into trouble, its shares fell to the Treasury. The Labour Government subsequently decided to reduce their holding to 51 per cent. That does not represent the selling off of 17 per cent. of North Sea oil assets.
Dr Dickson Mabon: No.
Dr Dickson Mabon: The hon. Members for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) and for Banff (Mr. Myles) have argued that there is no alternative but to support the timetable motion. There is an alternative. The hon. Member for Banff hinted at it towards the end of his speech.
Dr Dickson Mabon: I do not want to interrupt this debate between the nationalities, but so far as I am aware the Lord President of the Council is an Englishman, and the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) is an Englishman, which is not bad going as the debate must finish at twenty minutes to seven o'clock. I had better get on. There is an alternative to the timetable motion. Every Government know that....
Dr Dickson Mabon: That confirms what I believed. The alternative to the Opposition weapon of time is rational argument in a decent compass of time. Anyone who has held a ministerial post knows that Bills are not always perfect or as effective as one would like. They need to be discussed and changed. Even within the guillotine timetable there will be batches of Government amendments, as they will have changed...
Dr Dickson Mabon: Whichever Government are in power, they are entitled to get their business. In the last analysis the House is not entitled to deny them that. Debate on the Bill is not being used to impede other business. We have all seen an innocent Bill filibustered to hold up another Bill, but this Bill is being argued on its merits or demerits. In the 17 sittings so far we have not had inordinately long...
Dr Dickson Mabon: We pleaded for the articles of association even in draft or in part rather than not at all. Tooth by tooth we extracted from the Minister of State and the Secretary of State what they would mean. The Social Democrats and the Liberals do not want the old system to continue of one side doing equally bad things to the other. I remember on one occasion when, through the night, the House...
Dr Dickson Mabon: If the motion goes through—and I hope that it does not—we shall have had 27 sittings, during only six of which will the Committee have seen the articles of association.
Dr Dickson Mabon: The Leader of the House has forgotten to tell us one thing in this chapter of the story. One fundamental piece of information is missing. I am referring to the absence of the articles of association, without which it was not possible to make progress on the first eight clauses.
Dr Dickson Mabon: asked the Secretary of State for Energy how many barrels of oil produced daily from the oilfields in the United Kingdom sector of the continental shelf the British National Oil Corporation handles as a trader.