Mr Nigel Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he will reconsider the provision of a new London airport at Maplin, in view of the worsening conditions at Heathrow for travellers and of the increasing problem of aircraft noise for nearby residents.
Mr Nigel Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he will increase the subsidy on fuel for old people who cannot afford to heat their homes because heating costs in Northern Ireland are higher than in the rest of the United Kingdom.
Mr Nigel Fisher: Is the help that is given enough, bearing in mind the discrepancy between costs in the United Kingdom as a whole and costs in Ulster? Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there are cases of genuine hardship among retired and older people who cannot afford to heat their homes properly in this cold weather?
Mr Nigel Fisher: I agree entirely with all that the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) has said about pay. Of course, it was absolutely right to set up the Boyle Committee and absolutely wrong then totally to disregard what that Committee recommended. However, I shall not follow the right hon. Gentleman in any detail, because I want to be very brief indeed at this late hour, especially when many...
Mr Nigel Fisher: I agree very much with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart). I was astonished by the speech of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), who seemed to say that we should not vote money for ourselves. I do not know who else will ever do it. Are our salaries to be frozen for ever because in his view we are responsible for inflation, which in any case is not...
Mr Nigel Fisher: —which took up a great deal of their time. I did not consider that to be a good use of a Member's time. Like other hon. Members, I very much welcome the Lord President's announcement that Ministers' and Members' pay is to be increased by 10 per cent. and that there is to be a further review of parliamentary pay and allowances by Lord Boyle's independent Review Body. I thank him and the...
Mr Nigel Fisher: That is a very interesting figure and roughly comparable with what Members of the German Parliament get today. But in a precarious job, which may be cut short for Ministers by a change of Government or for Members by defeat in an election, our salaries are lower than in any other western country except Eire and Luxembourg, which are not very large countries. That tends almost certainly to...
Mr Nigel Fisher: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that information. I had not realised that. Even the Members of the State Parliaments in Germany get four or five times as much as we do. In Lower Saxony Members get the equivalent of £23,500, in Hesse £26,000 and in Bavaria £33,000. As some hon. Members have already pointed out, the Members of the European Parliament will be paid about £20,000 a...
Mr Nigel Fisher: I know that the hon. Member for Chester-leStreet (Mr. Radice) will forgive me if I do not follow him, because I have promised to be very brief. Last week was a very bad one for the British people and also for the credibility of the British Government. I do not want to enlarge on that, except to say that the Ministers mainly concerned said and did very little. We hoped that when the Prime...
Mr Nigel Fisher: Following the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Gardiner) about the Queen's visit to Lusaka, will my right hon. Friend consider following the precedent set by the Queen's visit to Ghana in 1961? Under similar circumstances the then Mr. Macmillan sent out the Commonwealth Secretary, now Lord Duncan-Sandys, to Ghana to check personally on the security arrangements...
Mr Nigel Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will seek powers to discontinue the payment of unemployment relief to any person who, after being unemployed for three months, refuses to accept any offer of employment made by an employment exchange.
Mr Nigel Fisher: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that when the ruling that I have suggested was tried in Australia the number of unfilled job vacancies fell quite dramatically, to the benefit of industry and of the taxpayer who hitherto had been paying out large sums of unemployment benefit to many people who had not been genuinely seeking work?
Mr Nigel Fisher: I shall respond at once to your request, Mr. Speaker, and be brief in the interests of colleagues on both sides of the House. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) will therefore forgive me for not following him precisely. I shall confine my remarks and criticisms mainly to the matter of fiances and husbands, as that is the most...
Mr Nigel Fisher: Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to intervene instead of lounging about.
Mr Nigel Fisher: That is precisely what the White Paper proposals will do. If the purpose is just to deal with the deliberate evaders, could not the Home Secretary have adopted, first, his own criterion about the parties having met and, secondly, a rather longer period of marriage to show that it is a real and lasting relationship? On the issue of sex discrimination, I appreciate that my right hon. Friend...
Mr Nigel Fisher: That is a valid point and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning it. Having pleased Opposition Members with my approach so far, I now have to say something that will not please them so much. They will understand from what I have said that I dislike the new rules very much indeed. I think that they are racist in tone and are rather contemptible for that reason. I believe that up to...
Mr Nigel Fisher: That is a rather convoluted argument. I realised that the words were the same. I thought that it was quite clever to have chosen them, but I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's intervention destroys my case.
Mr Nigel Fisher: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I referred earlier to the provision relating to grandparents. It is very mean and I feel strongly about it. I acknowledge that the election manifesto is an inhibiting factor for me and my hon. Friends. However, much more important to me is the blow that a defeat for the Government would be to the Home Secretary, for whom I have a great personal...
Mr Nigel Fisher: I have given way several times and I shall not give way again. For me there is a conflict between conscience and loyalty. In conscience, I would vote against the White Paper with enthusiasm. In loyalty, I shall go into the Government Lobby, albeit with a heavy heart. My only consolation is that Mr. Blunt said on television that he had put conscience before loyalty. Perhaps, therefore, I may...
Mr Nigel Fisher: Sir Nigel Fisher rose—