Mr Jack Ashley: Before the Minister and other members of the Government try to score too many party political points in relation to figures such as those, may I ask him to find time to read the letter in The Independent today, which is an account by a patient in a leading London hospital casualty department which is filthy, hot and overcrowded? Is the Minister aware that that is the reality facing many...
Mr Jack Ashley: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is absolutely no reason for rejecting compensation for non-haemophiliacs who have been infected with HIV as a result of contaminated blood transfusions because they face exactly the same critical, fateful illness and suffer the same appalling consequences? As they are dying regularly, may we have an urgent debate on the matter next week?
Mr Jack Ashley: I echo the tributes to the Army, its leadership and its training; they are superb. In the time at my disposal, however, I can choose only one theme. I shall concentrate on disabled service men and ex-service men. I welcome the Minister's comment about the three Grenadier guards whose solicitors are to meet representatives of the Ministry. I regard that as half a step forward, but only half a...
Mr Jack Ashley: Despite the Minister's soft words, is he not saying that the soldiers must go to law and fight their case in the courts and that the Ministry of Defence is not prepared to give them an ex gratia payment?
Mr Jack Ashley: Is the Prime Minister aware that he is caught in a Catch-22 situation because he is opposing both the social charter and majority voting? If he maintains his objections to the social charter, his European colleagues will evenytually insist on majority voting on it, but if he accepts majority voting, that will enable them to implement the social charter that he so dislikes. Therefore, why does...
Mr Jack Ashley: Is the Prime Minister aware that when considering the future of Britain the volatility of a couple of Prime Ministers is a trivial sideshow compared with the potential volatility of £84 billion sterling hot money as a result of the Government's incompetence? How far can the Prime Minister say that he is confident that there will be no sterling crisis before the next general election?
Mr Jack Ashley: Is the Leader of the House aware that the position of ex-service men who are disabled by alleged negligence is far worse than was described earlier? Hundreds of ex-service men campaigned for the abolition of section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947, which prevented them from suing for negligence, but, when the law was changed, they were denied the right to sue because the Government would...
Mr Jack Ashley: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what are the latest steps that he has taken to improve the employment prospects of disabled people.
Mr Jack Ashley: Notwithstanding those steps, is the Minister aware that disabled people suffer from serious discrimination in the jobs market, although they are entitled to the same protection under the law as has been enjoyed by ethnic minorities and women for the past 15 years? The United States has introduced wide-ranging and effective anti-discrimination legislation; when will we follow suit?
Mr Jack Ashley: Does not the Minister agree that the issue is far too important to provide an excuse for making cheap party political points? I deplore the attempt to do so by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash). A fresh start is necessary in Staffordshire, and that requires, first, the resignation of the chairman of its social services committee, Mike Poulter; the architect of pindown, Tony Latham,...
Mr Jack Ashley: I hope that the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities will not leave now because I wish to talk about the air of sweet reasonableness that he adopted. He had an air of calculated, warmhearted consideration for local authorities. I have never heard a Minister talk through his hat as much as the Minister did a moment ago. The Minister said some fine words about Stoke-on-Trent and...
Mr Jack Ashley: I am afraid that the Minister has misunderstood even what I said, let alone the policy. The implication was that his hon. Friend was the soft man and that he was the hard man. Far from flattering the Minister, I was insulting him. I am sorry that Stoke-on-Trent has been included in the Government's proposals. The authority has never been extravagant or profligate. The Government's object is...
Mr Jack Ashley: May I warmly welcome the Minister's announcement? It is an advance. I add my congratulations on the efforts of Lord Allen, Lord Carter, Mary Holland and the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley). Will the Minister carefully monitor the whole proceedings to ensure that none of the mentally handicapped or deaf-blind people who are deserving will be excluded?
Mr Jack Ashley: This is a remarkable debate. We have heard the Minister eulogising the independent living fund and his supporters saying how marvellous it is, yet the Government intend to kill the ILF stone dead. How on earth can any Government operate like that? If the ILF is as good as the Government make out, it is absolutely crazy to kill it, and the Minister knows full well that the reasons that he...
Mr Jack Ashley: Is the Minister aware that it is necessary to take into account the views of disabled people if community care is to be effective, yet the Government have acknowledged that they are dropping the advocacy parts of the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 and sections 1, 2 and 3? That is damaging to community care and to disabled people.
Mr Jack Ashley: I do not think that I have ever heard so much nonsense in all my life. The attack that the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) has just made on my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was nonsense. I am amazed that the right hon. Gentleman should have changed his attitude so radically. From condemning his Government, as he has been doing all these years, he has...
Mr Jack Ashley: I am absolutely incredulous at the Minister's speech. Does he deny that the report to which he referred said: There may well have been small hazards of leukaemia and multiple myeloma associated with participation in the tests"? Will he deal with the new evidence which I have raised and which was brought forward in a television programme, bearing in mind that the Americans are paying their...
Mr Jack Ashley: The spectacle of the British Ministry of Defence fighting British ex-service men with the same determination it shows to enemies of the country is disgraceful. Nuclear test veterans have been victims of not only radiation but hostility, miscalculation, dogmatism, meanness and complacency by the Ministry of Defence. Tonight, I want the House, and the MOD, to consider new evidence which...
Mr Jack Ashley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent discussions he has had with chief constables about the law and domestic violence.
Mr Jack Ashley: I welcome the setting up of domestic violence units, but when will they be open at night, when many women need them? When will there be enough of them to give access to those who require them and when will social workers be attached to them?