Mr Fred Silvester: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on continuing to be the Minister who has done most for regional airports of any since the war. However, will he remember that the two crucial matters for the north about the expansion of Stansted are that there should be no subsidy in that area, so that competition is free, and that the supporting infrastructure will be of a limited nature? Can my right...
Mr Fred Silvester: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the continuing role of his Department's small firms counselling service in the light of the growth of the local enterprise agency movement.
Mr Fred Silvester: Is it my hon. Friend's intention therefore to change the objectives set for the counselling service?
Mr Fred Silvester: I intervene briefly because this subject of the joint authorities as they affect the police relates to part of the arguments against the Bill which I find particularly difficult to understand. I cannot see why such intense opposition has been aroused. Those who support the Bill have been moved by a desire to give the district authorities as much power as possible. That is the fundamental...
Mr Fred Silvester: By simply reasserting powers that already exist, the Bill does not undermine the police.
Mr Fred Silvester: My hon. Friend said that the earlier scheme was devised to support voluntary bodies within one district. Will the new enlarged scheme cover bodies operating in more than one district?
Mr Fred Silvester: One of the disappointing aspects of this part of the package is the delay. As we have already had a Green Paper on the options available for the taxation of married women, why can we not now have a White Paper, which would clearly set out the Government's conclusions, rather than a Green Paper, which implies that the decisions set out in the press release are not final, and that the whole...
Mr Fred Silvester: The average length of speech so far has been 23 minutes. I hope to be rather quicker than that. Mr. Eyre, the inspector, described himself as a "reluctant volunteer" in this exercise, and I think that there is every reason for that. This is clearly a political decision. The method of using the planning inquiry is proving very unsatisfactory. I give my thanks to the Government for arranging...
Mr Fred Silvester: I am sorry to give my hon. Friend such cause for pause, but if he feels that we are under an obligation, are not the Government also under an obligation—before we commit ourselves to a Bill which my hon. Friend has hardly defended with vigour—to provide time for the House, for the first time in history, to make a judgment on whether we wish the European Court of Human Rights to operate in...
Mr Fred Silvester: My right hon. Friend said that the Bill provides for the rights laid down by the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. Will he make it perfectly clear to me and to the House whether, if left to his own good judgment, he would have introduced a Bill of this kind? Does he find that, as presented to the House, the Bill is in the best interests of the education of the...
Mr Fred Silvester: The acoustics may not be perfect, and I should like to be clear about the debate on Stansted. Some of us feel that it would have been of benefit to the Minister in considering the issue if the voices had first been counted on the desirability of allowing for a 15 million passenger expansion at Stansted. Did my right hon. Friend say that there had been no request for an extension of the debate...
Mr Fred Silvester: Will the expected debate on Stansted take place before 31 January, and is there any truth in the rumour that it will be spread over two days?
Mr Fred Silvester: May I thank and congratulate my right hon. Friend on making this decision. It will enable us to consider all questions relating to airports in a saner and more realistic way.
Mr Fred Silvester: As there is apparently now some £5 billion accumulated reserves, can my right hon. Friend explain why we should be asking councils to pursue our policy of selling council houses, when plainly that is no longer of much benefit to them? Will he be kind enough to explain to me why those reserves cannot be used to help the manifest deterioration of the housing stock which is visible in many of...
Mr Fred Silvester: Some of us will recognise the behaviour of councils in the description given by the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) of the London Docklands development corporation, but I shall leave consideration of the river Thames because there is more in England than London and more in this debate than the GLC. The metropolitan counties cover nearly 5 million more people than the GLC, have...
Mr Fred Silvester: May I congratulate my hon. Friend on walking carefully though this minefield? Although the north-west wants more public expenditure, it does not want ineffective public expenditure. I thank him for breaking away from the tyranny of travel-to-work areas in Manchester. However, is not the £10,000 capital limit rather low in terms of the number of jobs that can be provided by capital-intensive...
Mr Fred Silvester: Bearing in mind the Minister's earlier remarks about the Export Credits Guarantee Department, will he confirm that he intends, not to impose a profit target on the department, but to maintain the objective of breaking even, taking one year with another?
Mr Fred Silvester: Will the Minister agree that those who have had a hand in the share issue have stimulated an interest in share ownership which is far beyond that previously experienced? May I suggest that we learn a lesson from the experience? It is not simply the privatisation programme that is important but the use of it to educate people in the holding of shares.
Mr Fred Silvester: Would it not be a good idea to advance the debate on the Warnock report to Wednesday in order to kill two birds with one stone? Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is somewhat naive for him to say that the Civil Aviation Bill debate is unrelated to the Stansted matter? With the best will in the world, our suspicions are bound to be aroused. Why cannot he postpone the Civil Aviation Bill?
Mr Fred Silvester: The Minister knows my views on travel grants. I listened with great care to his speech. He will forgive me if I say that I found it marginally unconvincing that the Government's economic policy depends upon depriving students in my constituency of £100 a year. The basic facts of the matter are simple. We are proposing to give students an increase of 4 per cent. next year. For a considerable...