Mr Richard Thompson: At this late hour I shall not attempt to make the speech which I had prepared for the occasion. I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden). It looks as though we are probably to get a Channel tunnel by some terms or another. Those hon. Members who have argued against it—I hope cogently—must try to concentrate their efforts on improving the Bill. I do not believe...
Mr Richard Thompson: I intend to intervene only briefly, mainly to comment on the Sixth and Seventh Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts, which relate to the problems confronting Concorde and the financial control of that exercise. Parliamentary control of expenditure as we in the House understood it is at a total loss to grapple with international projects of that kind and on that scale. When...
Mr Richard Thompson: I do not think so, and I believe that the further technological refinement of Concorde which is now in prospect will probably solve the problem. I agree that that is a difficulty which must be overcome. The Treasury Minutes on the Sixth and Seventh Reports give us little cause for comfort or satisfaction for thinking that we have effectively grasped the problem of how to retain some national...
Mr Richard Thompson: I was projecting the Committee's scepticism about this into a wider area. This is the sort of thing which anyone who followed our discussions in the committee came up against constantly—always the argument, "This is high technology. These people know what they are talking about. We are laymen and cannot interfere". All these arguments were introduced and some of the results were grotesque....
Mr Richard Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend say whether his plans for improving the viability of the railway system will include a positive freight policy to encourage heavy freight off the roads, where it is so unwelcome, and on to rail? Does he realise that public sentiment against juggernaut lorries has reached such a pitch that if he does not adopt such a policy he will be compelled to confine the...
Mr Richard Thompson: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is aware of the low standard of accuracy of tyre pressure gauges at garages and filling stations; and if, in the interests of road safety, he will introduce regulations to remedy this.
Mr Richard Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider this question? Is he aware that considerable road safety implications are involved in these days of very high motoring speeds? Does he not agree that wrong tyre pressure settings can prove fatal? Is my right hon. Friend aware that in a survey last July the London borough of Croydon found that 25 per cent. of the gauges inspected were seriously defective?...
Mr Richard Thompson: As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State reminded us, the Bill is about money. I think he hopes that the subsequent discussion can be restricted purely to that aspect of the matter, but it is an old principle of the House that we must have redress of grievance before grant of supply, and if we are to provide the £30 million that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport...
Mr Richard Thompson: I shall endeavour to conform to the wish of the Chair and limit my speech to five minutes, thereby cutting out much of what I had intended to say. I ask my right hon. Friend in his reply to give us more weight on the environmental arguments. I want to know how the greatest pollutant of all, which I take to be noise, is to be muffled and dealt with if we build this high-speed route? What will...
Mr Richard Thompson: Will my hon. Friend consider giving even further publicity to what he has just said? Does he not agree that one of the most useful things he can do is to encourage the people who are handicapped, who form a substantial part of the population, by ensuring that they do not face from the outset a separate career and a separate existence? Does he accept that anything which he can say publicly to...
Mr Richard Thompson: I will certainly endeavour to obey your injunction, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I must declare a double interest in this matter, not of a financial character. If the high-speed rail link which is an essential part of the package is constructed, one end of it will destroy my house and the other end will render large areas of my constituency of Croydon. South uninhabitable. So far, noise has not been...
Mr Richard Thompson: Since I first intervened, in a maiden speech, on defence matters 23 years ago there has been one consistent theme in all the White Papers on defence which have been published. It is the one summarised in paragraph 4 of the White Paper, which issues a grim warning about the growing extent in real and relative terms of Soviet power. In the early days, going back to the years after the war,...
Mr Richard Thompson: Will my hon. Friend not equivocate about this but just quietly withdraw the suggestion about chinless wonders? It does not come well from a Minister who is supposed to be defending the Services.
Mr Richard Thompson: Now, after the pressing matters that we have been debating, we turn to one which to my constituents is the more immediate and equally pressing matter of coal supplies for Croydon B power station. This is a matter which I have raised in this House before, wholly without any beneficial result, but I am hopeful that tonight we may get a little further to a satisfactory solution. Coal for...
Mr Richard Thompson: Is my hon. Friend aware that recent studies in the United States have indicated that by the turn of the century all the work necessary to be done in the North American continent can be performed by 2 per cent. of the population? If those studies are even half correct, the social consequences for other advanced industrial nations are very severe. Can my hon. Friend say whether any long-term...
Mr Richard Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend convey in the right quarters my feeling and that of many other hon. Members who are well disposed towards the railways, and want to see an integrated transport system in which they play a bigger part, of our utter dismay that the dispute should drag on and our increasing reluctance to vote enormous sums of money for reorganisation of the system if it does go on?
Mr Richard Thompson: Do we need another independent commission to advise us—a commission whose findings no Government will implement? Would it not be wiser to encourage schools to teach children to swim and to provide facilities for them to do so?
Mr Richard Thompson: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that we have for years been awaiting a satisfactory outcome from all the trials and experiments? Will he try to prevent the admirals from having too much to do with designing naval aircraft? Does he realise that many of us suffered from this during the war, and will he insist on getting an aircraft not necessarily perfect but capable of taking off from the deck?
Mr Richard Thompson: May I take it from my right hon. Friend's reply that the reprieve extends to the West Croydon—Wimbledon line? If so, may I ask that when these closure matters are considered representations made by transport users' consultative committees will be given more weight and consideration than seems to have been the case in the past? There is a feeling that this is something of a window-dressing...
Mr Richard Thompson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Chrysler Corporation, with 94 per cent. control of its subsidiary in this country, has pretty well all the power which it needs to do what it likes with the company and that if for investment purposes it requires another 6 per cent., and if the consequence of that is to make it easier in this country to raise the funds which must be dedicated to the...
