Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Does the Parliamentary Under-Secretary accept that many hon. Members, especially Opposition Members, and indeed many people throughout Scotland, will regard the figures that he has given as absolutely scandalous? Secondly, does he agree that he must look very much beyond even the figures that he has so starkly mentioned today? There are men over 40 who do not see any prospect of ever getting...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: First, might I ask the Chief Secretary, who precisely is paying for those costings? Is he using public money to do his own costings for the benefit of his colleagues and to prepare election ammunition? Secondly, if he is using public money for that purpose, will he note that some of us take strong exception to that? Thirdly, if the civil servants have got it massively wrong, where has that...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress he has achieved in securing wider access for British exports to the Japanese market.
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Will the Secretary of State accept that those of us who represent constituencies where electrical appliances are manufactured are bitterly disappointed at the lack of progress on trading with Japan? It has gone beyond being a normal diplomatic incident. May I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman asks the Foreign Secretary formally to call in the Japanese ambassador and express to him in the...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: It would be churlish and ungracious of me not to acknowledge that the Bill is a substantial improvement on the present system. Although I have a number of serious reservations about it, I welcome the Bill and I hope that it will become an Act in the fulness of time. As the Solicitor-General for Scotland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Millan) and my hon. Friend the...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: I have a great deal of sympathy with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) because of the simplicity it offers. I notice that under clause 16(3) the Lord Advocate may add to or delete from the list from time to time. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows very well that it is a long time since we have heard about an exercise in diligence of this kind....
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: May I support the plea of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and that of the leader of the Liberal party for an early and urgent debate on our trading relationship with the Government of Japan? This is not a party issue in the strict terms of the phrase. There are hon. Members on this side and on the Government side who are frustrated and angry about the whole business. We...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: I wish to intervene briefly in this debate, because the question of Scotland has arisen constantly in these deliberations. At the risk of sounding exceptionally pompous and conceited, may I say that it is a subject that I have been concerned about as a magistrate and as a member of the licensing court in the city of Glasgow for many years. Therefore, as the Scottish experience is of...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: I can only add that the increase in drinking hours, or, to put it more precisely, the spread over the number of hours allowed for drinking, has assisted in Scotland. It has been a positive change. Perhaps the hon. Member for Eastwood has the figures more readily to hand than I have, but so far as I can see, from my contact with chief constables and police forces, and from my experience as a...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Does the Minister accept that in the constituencies of various hon. Members there are electrical appliance industry and other interests which are very concerned that the Japanese people and their Government, while making encouraging noises about their desire to import, nevertheless impose such stringent and sometimes ludicrous conditions regarding the safety of various appliances that they...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: How many of those small firms have been placed on the list set up by his noble Friend Lord Trefgarne for the purchase of equipment?
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Does the Minister accept that, although there has been a reduction in oil revenue, it is still very substantial, and that most Labour Members would much rather that that revenue was spent on building up our infrastructure and on creating more manufacturing jobs than on paying out unemployment benefit?
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Does the Secretary of State accept that, as was pointed out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith), 2,500 fewer people will work in the motor car industry as a result of the arrangements that he has announced? The Secretary of State made passing references to the Albion motor works situated in Glasgow, an area of exceptionally high unemployment. Hon....
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Will the Leader of the House reconsider his decision to timetable the Abolition of Domestic Rates etc. (Scotland) Bill, which is probably the most controversial, important and fundamental Bill of a Scottish character that has come before the House for many years? It deserves our consideration. There is no reason to rush the Bill through, because there is no business waiting to go into the...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Is the Secretary of State aware that the list that he read out of friends who support the community charge is very small indeed compared with the number of ratepayers who forcefully demonstrated during the last municipal elections that they did not like the idea at all? The right hon. and learned Gentleman should drop this pernicious tax. Why are we in Scotland to be punished when the people...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the current level of employment in the west of Scotland.
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Is the Secretary of State aware that, while he might be quite content with the figures in Strathclyde, no one else is? My colleagues and I have sat in this Chamber for the past three quarters of an hour listening to many slick answers on unemployment. Not one answer will give any comfort to the thousands of people in Scotland who are unemployed. As for the right hon. and learned Gentleman's...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent actions have been taken by Her Majesty's Government against the present Government of South Africa.
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Does the Minister accept that many hon. Members who dislike any form of extremism clearly believe that what has been done has not been enough? If we are to show our intense dislike of the fundamental philosophies of the South African Government, clearly much stronger measures will have to be taken than those that the Minister has just announced. That view is shared by many people, not least...
Mr Gregor Mackenzie: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It strikes me that this practice has obtained for a long time. When I was a member of the Government, it also happened. Many of us, whether members of the Government or Back Benchers, have undoubtedly not liked the practice. I suspect, although I shall not ask whether it is the case, that it causes considerable embarrassment to the occupant...