EAST KILBRIDE
Q1. Dr. M. S. Miller
asked the Prime Minister if she will pay an official visit to East Kilbride.
The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher)
I have at present no plans to do so.
Dr. Miller
If the right hon. Lady visits East Kilbride, will she accept that my constituents will expect her to take responsibility for soaring prices and the massive increase in unemployment? Does the right hon. Lady think that abolishing the Price Commission will cause escalating prices to disappear? As a corollary to her attempt to evade responsibility for the total collapse of her counter-inflation policies, does she intend to embark upon another shoddy parliamentary manoeuvre in the same vein, to try to evade responsibility for the increase in unemployment?
The Prime Minister
In answer to the hon. Gentleman's multiple question, I point out that the Price Commission did not keep down prices. Prices doubled during the lifetime of the Price Commission. Nor did the previous Government keep down unemployment. Unemployment in Scotland doubled in the lifetime of the previous Government. The hon. Gentleman knows that a large component a prices is wage and unit costs. We are doing our level best to see that the self-financing productivity about which the previous Government used to talk so much—and seem to have conveniently forgotten now—is brought back into wage negotiations.
[column 638]PRIME MINISTER
(ENGAGEMENTS)
Q2. Mr. Gordon Wilson
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 24 January.
The Prime Minister
This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be having further meetings with ministerial colleagues and others.
Mr. Wilson
Will the Prime Minister take time today to note that in Dundee last week there were four deaths from hypothermia? In the light of that, will she look out the report of 1976, which was suppressed by the DHSS and by the previous Labour Government, which shows that 35,000 people could die each year from hypothermia? In those circumstances, and in view of the increase in gas and electricity prices, will she take the opportunity to express to the House her wish to introduce a generous fuel discount system to help the sick and the aged?
The Prime Minister
I believe, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy said, that out of the increase in gas prices we shall have to make some extra provision for helping old people with fuel costs. I know that hypothermia is a serious medical condition. I am not arguing that it is not serious. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will accept that, under our scheme of helping pensioners with their fuel bills, many pensioners receive far higher payments than they received under last year's scheme. Many people who would otherwise have suffered received payments of up to £50 this year, whereas they may have received only £7.50 last year.
Mr. David Steel
At her ministerial meetings today will the Prime Minister undertake to take the Secretary of State for Scotland to one side and have a quiet word in his ear—or better still, a loud word in his ear—about the fact that, at the same time as his Department is inflicting severe cuts on local government services throughout the country, he is sanctioning capital expenditure on local government offices in my constituency and elsewhere?
The Prime Minister
I have already seen my right hon. Friend George Younger the Secretary of [column 639]State for Scotland. If the right hon. Gentleman has specific points, perhaps he will take them up with the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Mr. Ian Lloyd
Has the Prime Minister's attention been drawn to the quite exceptionally important report of the ACARD committee, under the chairmanship of Sir James Menter, which recommended that the central thrust of research and development and industrial expansion in the United Kingdom should be in the two areas of information technology and industrial bio-technology? Has this exceptionally important report yet been discussed by the Cabinet? Is she satisfied that that thrust is beginning to take place?
The Prime Minister
I know of the ACARD report to which my hon. Friend referred, and the extreme importance of introducing technology in general into British industry. The difficulty is not always in introducing it but in getting it accepted by those who have to work with it. We are very much aware in the Cabinet of both things.
Mr. John Smith
Following the answer given by the Prime Minister to my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller), may I ask whether she is aware that yesterday, by means of a written answer, she reallocated the responsibility for prices questions among most members of the Government? Is it not now the case that the so-called Secretary of State for Trade, responsible for consumer affairs, has no responsibility for price control in general? Does not that mean the end of her counter-inflation policy and a total evasion of responsibility by Ministers?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman's suggestion is absolute nonsense. Counter-inflation policy rests with the Treasury, where it should rest, and with the Cabinet as a whole. [Interruption.] Of course it does. Of course I am aware that there has been a reallocation of responsibility for prices questions. I did just that. With the ending of the Price Commission, questions about prices should go to sponsoring Departments. Is it so astonishing that questions on food prices should go to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food?
Later——
Mr. Cryer
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, relating to the question raised [column 640]by my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith). You may have heard the Prime Minister say that she has taken responsibility for transferring a number of items of business to other Ministers. I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker. In the past you have made statements about the ability of hon. Members to put down questions to Ministers and have prevented hon. Members from putting down general questions to departmental Ministers for oral answer, exercising your right so to do.
Therefore, it is with some consternation that we have learned, through a written answer to a planted parliamentary question, that responsibilities in connection with prices have now been disseminated to several Ministers. Will you now, Mr. Speaker, allow general questions on prices to be put to departmental Ministers to avoid the possibility of a Department transferring a question to another Department because it does not have the responsibility? You will appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that the responsibilities are wide, and were at one stage placed with one Minister. I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker, because I am sure that you wish to stop this sort of deceit and parliamentary humbug, which is preventing hon. Members from asking perfectly proper questions and seeking parliamentary accountability.
Several Hon. Members
rose——
Mr. Speaker
Order. I do not wish to give a ruling on this question. I shall deal with questions as they are submitted.
Q3. Mr. Michael Brown
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 24 January.
The Prime Minister
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I have just given.
Mr. Brown
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Government on their proposals concerning industrial relations reform. Will my right hon. Friend discuss with the Secretary of State for Employment the possibility of tabling as amendment to the Employment Bill, to give effect to a proposal to allow a secret ballot to be held by a trade union when [column 641]a certain percentage of trade union members in a plant requests such a ballot?
The Prime Minister
I shall discuss that with James Priormy right hon. Friend,, because I am aware that there is no such proposal in the Bill. I believe that a number of my hon. Friends are concerned that people should be able to have a secret ballot either before electing their union officials or being compelled to go on strike. I shall consult further with my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Robert Sheldon
Will the Prime Minister now answer the question that she failed to answer on Tuesday? Does she agree with her Chief Secretary that the next three years of the Conservative Administration will be three years of unparalleled austerity?
The Prime Minister
I would not quite agree in those terms.
Mr. Hooley
Sack him.
The Prime Minister
The unparalleled austerity came here in 1976 because the previous Government refused to take the financial steps that they should have taken. We are trying to take those financial steps to reduce public expenditure to a level that the nation can genuinely afford.
Mr. Body
Will my right hon. Friend, in the course of today, if she has not done so already, institute an inquiry as to whether it is true that grain has been exported from the EEC since President Carter proposed a grain embargo.
The Prime Minister
As far as I am aware, no new grain is being exported from the EEC. Indeed, the EEC has agreed that no new grain shall be exported. Whether there was any on the way I could not say, but it is the policy that no new grain shall be exported to Soviet Russia. There is grain going to some of the satellite countries, but no extra grain above that which is usually ordered by them.
Mr. Campbell-Savours
Will the right hon. Lady take time today to consider the great bitterness that exists on the picket lines of the British Steel Corporation, and among all employees of the British Steel Corporation, at her failure to intervene during this industrial action? Does not the right hon. Lady accept that [column 642]she demeans the office of Prime Minister in failing to intervene in this industrial action, when clearly it would be in the national interest to intervene?
The Prime Minister
No, I think that the hon. Gentleman's views are completely misguided. As he knows full well, I saw the unions and the British Steel Corporation. I am always willing to see people who ask to see me when there is something very important at stake. But unless management and unions can sort out their own troubles, if need be through the ACAS machinery, there is little hope for steel in the future.
Mr. Temple-Morris
Bearing in mind my right hon. Friend's consistent efforts while in opposition to discourage strikes, may I ask whether she has noticed today, or at any other time, any appeal from any member of the Opposition Front Bench aimed at ending the present steel strike, particularly bearing in mind its effect on jobs in the public and private sectors of the steel industry and related industries?
The Prime Minister
I need hardly say that I have noticed no effort whatever from the Opposition either to encourage self-financing productivity deals or to discourage strikes. I am very concerned at the number of people who have good jobs and risk losing them by virtue of their own strike action, or who persuade or compel others to go on strike and strike themselves out of jobs.
Mr. James Callaghan
Is the right hon. Lady aware that her policy of “do nothing” in this steel strike is leading to incalculable damage to British industry? Does she realise that the last 12 days, during which Mr. Bill Sirs has been attempting to hold in a strike by the private sector, have been utterly wasted by her and by the Government, and that his executive is meeting this afternoon in order to ratify such a strike, beginning on Sunday, because there has been no intervention?
Is the right hon. Lady further aware that on Monday in South Wales we are likely to see almost a complete stoppage of work as a result of the combination of pay disputes and closures? The elected Government of this country, of which she is the head, have no moral right to sit back while this creeping paralysis spreads across the country. She knows [column 643]that it is the desire of everybody to see this strike at an end, but she must also know, and if she does not she will have some day to realise it, that she has a direct responsibility not merely to meet these people and send them away but to practise conciliation herself.
The Prime Minister
As there is no dispute whatever between the workers in the private sector of steel and their employers, I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will do everything he can to discourage those men from going on strike. If he goes ahead and encourages them, he might be encouraging them on to the dole.
Mr. Joseph Dean
What are you doing?
Mr. Callaghan
It is a little ironic that the Opposition should be asked to take action when the Government do nothing. But if the right hon. Lady wants the facts, I will tell her that it was following consultation between——
Mr. Body
Question.
Mr. Callaghan
I shall defer to Mr. Speaker as soon as he interrupts me. The general secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation persuaded——
Mr. Robert Atkins
Question.
Mr. Callaghan
The House and the country should know the facts, not this farrago of nonsense. Is the right hon. Lady aware that Mr. Sirs used his influence with his own executive 10 days ago to prevent a strike in the private sector at that time? That was what he tried to do, and the Government have thrown away those 10 days. It is time that the right hon. Lady used her influence, as well as asking me to use my [column 644]influence, to stop those people from going on strike.
The Prime Minister
The House and the country should know whether it is the right hon. Gentleman's intention to encourage people to go on strike when they have no dispute with their employers.
Mr. Callaghan
The right hon. Lady asked me a question and I will answer in the form of an interrogative, if I may Does not the right hon. Lady believe that my reputation in the country on matters concerning industrial disputes—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker
Order. We are reaching the end of Prime Minister's Question Time. I think the Leader of the Opposition was in the middle of a question.
Mr. Callaghan
I do not think it is necessary, Mr. Speaker, for me to indicate to the right hon. Lady, who is attempting to divert responsibility from herself, that I have consistently been in favour of trying to secure industrial peace. Indeed, all my efforts on this occasion are bent towards trying to get a satisfactory solution. Is the right hon. Lady aware that she cannot run away from her responsibility in this matter and that she has a responsibility when industrial paralysis is beginning to creep across this country. She must intervene sooner or later and she had better get on with it.
The Prime Minister
Nor can people who strike run away from their responsibilities. Nor can anyone in a democracy run away from his responsibility. I am very concerned about jobs and I can see little point in workers striking when they have no dispute with their employer, or in striking to do themselves out of a good job.
Hon. Members
Resign.