John Maples: It is a special pleasure to make my maiden speech during a debate on London. My constituency is in one of the inner London boroughs, and my constituents identify much more with London than they do with Lewisham. I do not know why my constituency is called Lewisham, West, because it does not contain any of Lewisham but is made up of Forest Hill, Sydenham and Catford. They are suburban areas on...
John Maples: While considering the question of human rights, will my right hon. and learned Friend consider whether he should advise the Government to sign protocol 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which seeks to write into the convention the abolition of the death penalty? In view of the overwhelming majorities by which certain motions were rejected in the House last week, that would seem...
John Maples: The hon. Gentleman speaks of the loss of jobs in London. Would he agree that one of the major causes of job losses in London is the appallingly high rates, particularly in his borough, which suffers from one of the worst levels?
John Maples: While my hon. Friend is considering matters that have been referred to the Office of Fair Trading, will he consider the outstanding action against the Stock Exchange? Can he confirm that any settlement of that action will deal at least with the points raised by the Director General of Fair Trading over minimum commissions, broker-jobber relationships and membership restrictions? Can he...
John Maples: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing the abolition of minimum commissions. Does he agree that that was only one of the three major problems of the Stock Exchange that were making it uncompetitive in many international markets, the other two being the outside ownership of member firms and the broker-jobber relationship? Very often, the broker's costs were far in excess of the...
John Maples: Is my hon. Friend aware that under its present powers the GLC has instructed its officers to report by the end of the year on the implementation of a lorry ban in London? Will my hon. Friend examine those powers and the powers of her Department to ensure that no hasty or premature decision does irreparable carnage to the city's economy?
John Maples: When my right hon. Friend is considering Grenada, will he also consider our aid policy in general in the Caribbean, and ensure that one of the objectives of that policy is to ensure that the Marxist takeover that took place in Grenada does not happen elsewhere?
John Maples: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the financial implications of the proposed local government reform is that the ratepayers of London will no longer have to pay for the political excesses of the GLC?
John Maples: One hopes that the breakdown in the talks will be temporary. However, has not every position adopted by the Soviet Union and every offer made by it, when unwrapped, effectively mean that it will continue to deploy several hundred SS20 warheads but that there will be no American deployment of cruise or Pershing 2s?
John Maples: The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) referred to the comment of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in his autumn statement that the British economy was now characterised by a winning combination of rising growth and falling inflation. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not find time in his wide-ranging diatribe to give at least a grudging welcome to those two...
John Maples: Does my right hon. Friend agree that many local authorities could make substantial savings without affecting services by a combination of better management and the elimination of frivolous political expenditure? Is he aware that in my authority, one of the bad 16, we not only employ a borough artist but we spend £130,000 a year on sexism awareness training?
John Maples: Does the hon. Gentleman not think it reasonable that a working 17-yearold should be assumed to contribute £3 towards the rent, and that a working 20-year-old should be assumed to contribute approximately £8, which is all that this amounts to?
John Maples: The figure is £3.
John Maples: I join in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss) on his maiden speech. He stated the problem of low-spending shire county authorities extremely eloquently, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has taken the strictures on board. The problem of low-spending county authorities has been stated by many hon. Members during the debate. I...
John Maples: I obtained my figures from written answers to questions to the Lewisham borough council. I was referring to expenditure related to the retail price index and not to an artificial index of local authority costs. During the same period, GLC spending has risen in real terms by 65 per cent. and ILEA's spending in the past 10 years has risen by 550 per cent., of which 280 per cent. is a real rise.
John Maples: I will not give way. During the period when the real spending rose by 280 per cent., the school rolls in London fell by 27 per cent. God knows what is the increase in unit costs. This year, when school rolls are falling by a further 4 per cent., the proposed increase in expenditure is 8·5 per cent. Those authorities are not only making no effort to reduce expenditure but are actively...
John Maples: I defy anyone to tell me why my constituents should pay taxes to subsidise those groups. Perhaps the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) could explain why my constituents should subsidise the gay arts sub-group.
John Maples: The relationship between rates and the electorate is not democratic—only about one in three voters pay rates. As the hon. Gentleman is not a London Member, he may not realise that when people voted for a Labour-controlled GLC in 1981 the Labour group was led by a nice man called Andrew McIntosh—but 12 hours later the voters of London found that he had been hijacked by a junior people's...
John Maples: I shall not give way, as the hon. Gentleman is a professional apologist for the GLC. Most of the GLC's current activity is directed towards opposing its abolition. It spent £850,000 on that last year, and has voted to spend a further £1 million in the first three months of this year. County hall has become a giant propaganda factory. It is financing the campaign against the Police and...
John Maples: That is true of almost every borough in inner London except Westminster and Camden. It is not a substantive point. Taxes are paid on a London-wide basis. We all know that Westminster and Camden subsidise all the other boroughs because most of London's rateable value lies in those two boroughs—