Mr Harold Soref: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has for expediting, simplifying and decentralising planning procedures.
Mr Harold Soref: May I call my right hon. Friend's attention to Early Day Motion No. 117? In the light of the immense public interest in this subject, could he afford time for an early debate?
Mr Harold Soref: asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will restrict his consideration of candidates for the chairmanship of the Post Office to those who are prepared to give an undertaking that they will disband the Think Tank.
Mr Harold Soref: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for enabling me to face the House for the first time in debate. In rising to make my maiden speech I ask the indulgence of the House. It is something of an ordeal for anyone to address the House for the first time, as many would testify, but on such a subject as we are now debating, with a great deal of emotion involved, I shall do my best to see that...
Mr Harold Soref: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends to permit the holding of further pop concerts in Hyde Park this year.
Mr Harold Soref: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Would he not agree that the same supervision should be afforded as was provided for in the Private Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Woodnutt) on this subject, especially in view of the increasing hazards to health which were—
Mr Harold Soref: —revealed last week at the conference of the Royal Society of Health, and the increasing identity and coexistence of pop with pot?
Mr Harold Soref: I am extremely grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the generosity of the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) for making time available for me to intervene in this debate, however briefly. This is the first time, certainly in this Parliament, that it has been possible to discuss the B.B.C. in abstract or its overseas work. Nobody would doubt that the war record of the B.B.C....
Mr Harold Soref: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will seek to pay an official visit to Sierra Leone.
Mr Harold Soref: My right hon. Friend will be aware that in this Commonwealth country, for the first time, there has been an invasion from the alien and Communist State of Guinea, that distinguished citizens of Sierra Leone have been thrust into gaol without trial and that the country is in the hands of an army from an invading country, whereas the police and the army in Sierra Leone have had their ammunition...
Mr Harold Soref: Does my right hon. Friend realise that, coincidental with the increased charges, there is a worsening service by the Post Office which is affecting all classes of the community, a not entirely untypical instance of which is as follows: only yesterday, a letter posted at the post office of the House to my constituency—not by first-class mail but by express mail at a surcharge of 20p—did...
Mr Harold Soref: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will stop aid to Sierra Leone owing to its occupation by Guienean armed forces.
Mr Harold Soref: In the circumstances, that country is in a unique position, in that there is an alien, aggressive, Communist invading force there. In those circumstances, can we justify to the British taxpayer the spending of British money to support that country?
Mr Harold Soref: I am sure that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson) will forgive me if I do not spend too much time dealing with his remarks. He referred to the halcyon days of Sir Edgar Whitehead whom he described as a fine liberal man. He will recall that during the time Sir Edgar was Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia there were 4,000 people detained in camps there as the hon....
Mr Harold Soref: I am sure that that settlement is the wish of the majority of the people in this country. This debate has shown, as have its predecessors, that there has been this routine denigration of Rhodesia. This is the staple diet of hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Faulds) made the most obscene reference to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.
Mr Harold Soref: They were disgusting and highly offensive. I would like the hon. Member, when he criticises the company that my right hon. Friend has kept, to say whether he recalls denying an article which appeared in the Sunday Telegraph on 11th May, 1969, dealing with the occasion when he attended in Khartoum a Russian-dominated gathering to spread guerrilla warfare throughout Southern Africa, together...
Mr Harold Soref: The report stated that it was to impose a unified Soviet line on guerrilla freedom fronts, to assume direction in the struggle.
Mr Harold Soref: I am not giving way again.
Mr Harold Soref: I will not.
Mr Harold Soref: Did the hon. Member for Smethwick say that I had fabricated what I read? The extract is available for the Table or anyone else who cares to read it and the original in the Sunday Telegraph is available in the Library. In those circumstances I demand an apology and that the hon. Member withdraws his accusation that I fabricated the passage I read.
