Mr George Darling: I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) that this is a very useful report and one which we must accept. But it is the very minimum of what is required. I should like to comment on the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) about trying to get more parliamentary democracy into the Community by strengthening the European Parliament. I...
Mr George Darling: I was coming to the point about the Select Committees that we already have. With my hon. Friend's help I can now make it very briefly One important point relating to Select Committees is germane in this respect. We know from our discussions in this House on subjects with which the Select Committees have dealt how extremely useful are the reports for the purpose of our debates. But, in...
Mr George Darling: Yes. But, with respect to my right hon. Friend, we are becoming increasingly handicapped in putting Questions to Ministers by the proliferation of these enormous Ministries or Departments. For example, the Department of Trade and Industry covers an extremely wide sphere of activity. I do not know what the present situation is. I suppose we usually put down about 80 Questions for oral answers,...
Mr George Darling: As I had some slight responsibility for the appointment of the Crowther Committee, I should like to join the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs and my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) in paying tribute to the work of that committee and particularly to the guiding hand of the late Lord Crowther. His death was a tremendous...
Mr George Darling: Yes, I meant the previous Conservative Government. Therefore, I am pleased to welcome those amendments into this new legislation. But in defence of the previous Conservative Government and of the present one, I must say that we recognised that it was difficult, and in some cases undesirable, to go on amending laws which were basically inadequate and often unworkable. The dangers in...
Mr George Darling: The Minister is suggesting that computers cannot make mistakes. Mistakes are not made deliberately, but they do occur. Dunning letters are sent to somebody who has paid his bills, the computer having said that he has not done so. I suggest that authority should be given to local enforcement officers to enable them to take action on behalf of harassed customers.
Mr George Darling: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept it from me that his answer will give a great deal of satisfaction in Sheffield? Does he agree that these matters must be settled by the local authority, in consultation with all the local interests concerned? Further, does he accept that there is a great deal of public support for what the Sheffield council is doing in this respect?
Mr George Darling: This is a point that frequently crops up. Nobody wants to stop a manufacturer producing shoddy goods if the customer wants to buy shoddy goods, in other words, cheap goods. Surely what the Minister means is that nobody wants the manufacturer to produce goods that will be misdescribed?
Mr George Darling: This is fitness for purpose.
Mr George Darling: One hundred.
Mr George Darling: I think my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) was not quite correct about the genesis of this Bill. I raise this matter because I think it tremendously important, not because I was involved in the genesis, but because of the time factor involved in getting legislation like this into operation. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) said that he wanted to...
Mr George Darling: I shall be brief and confine my remarks to the consumer protection parts of the Bill. I thank the Minister for the tribute that he paid to the Trade Descriptions Act, which was a very good piece of legislation carried through with the help of both sides of the House. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, it developed from the Molony Report. The Molony Committee was set up by a...
Mr George Darling: I disagree with almost every word that has come from the hon. and learned Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve). I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) will not be surprised if I say that I agreed with almost everything he said about the need for the new Clause. I am sorry that it appears that the Government will not accept it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw...
Mr George Darling: I understand our complaint to be against the idea that, for a fairly long period, hon. Members would be permanently paired. I do not know whether I am correctly paraphrasing the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale, but I understand that to be the point. We say that Members are paired for the job which they do, just as we arrange it now for the Council of Europe.
Mr George Darling: Oh, no.
Mr George Darling: Is the Minister aware that the Council of Europe investigation has taken the form of asking the equivalent of the consumer council in each country concerned for an assessment of the effectiveness of that country's legislation? Does he appreciate that the Council of Europe inquiry, which is working under my direction, is having considerable difficulty in getting the information needed from the...
Mr George Darling: I shall explain to the Minister for Industrial Development why we have not drawn attention to the last report of the economic planning council about the implications of membership of the EEC. Our reason is that the report has come in for a great deal of criticism in the area and, until we have made a further investigation of the views put forward in the report, we are not sure about their...
Mr George Darling: The last occasion on which I took part in a debate on the Bill was on Second Reading. I followed the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) in explaining, as best I could, why I could not support the Bill. One of the reasons was that the Government—we still do not have any indication of their views on this—would not face the problem of how we dealt...
Mr George Darling: I am trying to do a job of work there, and I think that even my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) would not object to my going provided I was properly appointed. But if the proposal is to put the Commission and the Council of Ministers under the democratic control of a properly appointed or elected European Parliament it cannot be done on the basis of 36 people...
Mr George Darling: There is another factor to be taken into account. If we are to have party political conflict it is impossible for 16 Labour Members to cover all the activities of the European Economic Community. The situation is even worse for the smaller countries. I have discussed this with representatives of the Irish Republican Labour Party. They will have one or two members among the 10 Irish...
