Mr Peter Trew: Can my hon. Friend say whether any conclusion has yet been reached about the relevant noise generating qualities of concrete roads as opposed to tar roads?
Mr Peter Trew: I welcome this opportunity of raising the subject of the recycling of waste materials. We are beset on all sides by a shortage of materials. The world's natural resources are limited and are gradually becoming depleted. There is, however, one resource which is not only growing but growing at an alarming rate. That resource is waste material, of all descriptions. Rubbish is the world's only...
Mr Peter Trew: Second, they result in a substantial saving in imports, because many of the materials that they replace we import from abroad. Third, they provide a partial solution to the disposal of refuse, which is potentially such a great blight of the environment. There are two main groups of activities in recycling. The first comprises those well-established recycling activities—the collection and...
Mr Peter Trew: Since the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) and I will never agree on the Housing Finance Act, perhaps it will be better if I do not comment in detail on his remarks. I wish to say something about mortgages, and I must declare an interest in housing development and construction. We have become accustomed to building societies being flush with funds in some years and being able to...
Mr Peter Trew: On a point of information. Is the hon. Member the official Liberal Party spokesman on Kent?
Mr Peter Trew: The hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) was commendably honest in saying that his party failed from 1964 to 1970. I venture to predict that it will fail again if it goes to the country with the banner under which it temporarily achieved unity at Blackpool. If we are, over a period of time, to reduce inflation, quite apart from any monetary or budgetary policy—to which I shall...
Mr Peter Trew: It has been denied? Nevertheless, on the calculations that one can make for oneself, based on the rate of inflation, I believe that it is not far off the truth. I believe that, by the continuing process" of the buoyancy of the revenue and the tailing off of public expenditure, without further action from the Chancellor the deficit would eventually disappear, and that is an outcome which I...
Mr Peter Trew: We debated the "lump" at length on the Second Reading of the Labour-Only Sub-Contracting Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller). However, I do not wish to rehearse the arguments that were employed on that occasion. I begin by declaring an interest in the construction industry. The term "the lump" is applied to two different types of activity—labour-only...
Mr Peter Trew: My hon. Friend the Minister of State did not refer to the—
Mr Peter Trew: By leave of the House, may I—
Mr Peter Trew: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The object of the clause is to make it possible to base share incentive schemes on the shares of unquoted subsidiary companies. The matter was discussed at length in the Committee consideration of last year's Finance Act and was touched on again this year. In the present situation, in which it is not possible to base incentive schemes on...
Mr Peter Trew: I listened with interest to the argument put forward by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary. I am sorry that he does not feel able to accept the clause, but I am at least pleased that he accepts the need for something to be done. He has given a fairly firm undertaking that he will try to do something next year. I endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and...
Mr Peter Trew: As my right hon. Friend was kind enough to refer to me, may I express my appreciation of the Government's having made it possible to extend share option schemes to shop floor schemes? This, coupled with the ending of the discounting penalty, will increase the flexibility and value of these schemes.
Mr Peter Trew: Surely what matters is not the amount of tax collected but the rate of taxation? Is it not a remarkable coincidence that under Labour Governments tax rates rise and under Conservative Government they fall?
Mr Peter Trew: If in his next ministerial broadcast my right hon. Friend touches on exports, he may care to point out that in 1970 nearly one-quarter of our visible exports were contributed by the 25 leading manufacturing companies. Ought we not to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition on continuing to disown his party's proposals for nationalising such companies?
Mr Peter Trew: Will my right hon. Friend say what proportion of the retirement pension is now spent on food compared with the situation three years ago?
Mr Peter Trew: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) I welcome the placing of some of these State activities on a commercial basis. I certainly think that there might be scope for extending the practice. I listened with great interest to what my hon. Friend said about financial incentives. He mentioned the Royal Dockyards. If I have read my naval history correctly, I...
Mr Peter Trew: I have listened with interest to the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) and I shall touch on one or two points which he raised. First, I declare my interest in the construction industry as a director of a building company. While I cannot compete with the 40 years that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Idris Owen) has spent in the industry, I have nevertheless spent...
Mr Peter Trew: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), I want to raise the question of representation on the Thames Water Authority. A large part of North-West Kent, most of which lies in my constituency, has been included in the London-based Thames Water Authority with the result that the 150,000 people living in that area will have no elected representation on the...
Mr Peter Trew: Would my hon. and learned Friend not agree that, with the widely publicised plans of the Labour Party for the public ownership of land, property enjoys even less security than capital?