Below is the text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary written question on Crown Agents, published on 21st July 1981.
Mr. Major Asked the Lord Privy Seal when the 1980 report and accounts of the Crown Agents Holding and Realisation Board will be laid before Parliament.
Mr. Neil Marten The report and accounts will be laid before Parliament on 23 July. Published copies of the report and accounts will, as soon as they are available, be placed in the Library of both Houses.
The text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary written question on the Friendly Societies Bill, published on 14th July 1981.
Mr. Major Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if any explanatory material is to be made available to right hon. and hon. Members to assist their consideration of the Friendly Societies Bill at Second Reading.
Mr. Lawson Yes. Notes on clauses and a Treasury press notice are available in the Vote Office.
Below is the text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary written question on Starter Homes, published on 8th July 1981.
Mr. Major Asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if local authorities are responding to the development of starter homes for first-
Mr. Stanley Yes, the response by local authorities to our low-
During the present financial year informal inquiries indicate that 82 authorities intend to make land sales for private low-
Below is the text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary written question on the National Enterprise Board, published on 22nd June 1981.
Mr. Major Asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will make a statement on progress on achieving full overlap of board membership between the National Enterprise Board and the National Research and Development Corporation.
Mr. Michael Marshall In addition to Sir Frederick Wood, who is chairman of the two organisations, my right hon. Friend has appointed Mr. Lawrence Tindale and Sir George Macfarlane as members of the two organisations. Further appointments will be announced in the normal way.
Below is the text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary written question on the International Energy Agency, published on 17th June 1981.
Mr. Major Asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement about the meeting of the governing board of the International Energy Agency at ministerial level on 15 June.
Mr. David Howell The governing board of the International. Energy Agency met at ministerial level in Paris, on Monday, 15 June 1981, under the chairmanship of Senator The Honourable J. C. Carrick, Minister for National Development and Energy of Australia. I represented the United Kingdom.
The meeting considered short-
Ministers emphasised that, although the oil market at the moment was soft, it was essential to avoid complacency. The market was fragile and vulnerable to sharp changes as a result of a small incident. Continued market stability depended upon significant levels of supply being maintained from several major producing countries. Present stock levels, allowing for moderate seasonal stock-
Ministers expressed the determination of their Governments that the agency should be equipped to respond to future supply disruptions in order to prevent them from again resulting in sharply increased prices and severe economic damage. They agreed that officials should continue, as a matter of urgency, to examine a range of measures to deal with such disruptions. The next step will be in-
Ministers agreed that it was essential to press ahead with the restructuring of the IEA energy economies, which was the only sure way of reducing dependence on imported oil. While there was general satisfaction at the progress which had been made, it was recognised that enhanced efforts were needed in a number of areas, particularly coal and nuclear power.
The importance of economic pricing of energy was recognised. Ministers agreed on the need to carry forward earlier IEA decisions on this subject. There was a widespread view that this further work should centre on the following elements:
(i) where world markets exist, now only for oil, consumer prices should reflect the world market price;
(ii) where world markets do not exist, consumer prices should normally reflect the cost of maintaining supply of the fuel concerned in the long term;
(iii) those subsidies of consumer prices and other interventions which discourage conservation, high levels of domestic production and substitution away from oil should be avoided and a thriving energy trade should be developed;
(iv) electricity tariffs should not prevent utilities from raising the revenues needed to provide capacity to meet future requirements;
(v) in considering tax positions proper weight should be given to energy policy objectives;
(vi) energy prices should be characterised by transparency so that consumers and producers can make economically efficient decisions.
The governing board at official level has been instructed to take up this question as a matter of urgency using the above elements and the discussion between ministers as a starting point.
I am placing a copy of the communiqué issued at the end of the meeting in the Library of the House.
Below is the text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary written question on Statutory Sick Pay, published on 17th June 1981.
Mr. Major Asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has new proposals concerning statutory sick pay; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Patrick Jenkin As I announced in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney) on 12 February –
My Department is today publishing a consultative document which seeks views and comments by 4 September on two new options, each of which relates the compensation more closely than under previous proposals to individual employers’ statutory sick pay costs. My Department will be consulting a number of organisations on these options and the document is available to the public. Copies are available to hon. Members in the Vote Office and a copy has been placed in the Library.
The Government recognise the importance of devising a fair and workable method for compensating employers for the statutory payments they will be required to make, and will take full account of views expressed in formulating the measure they will bring before Parliament in the coming Session. It is the Government’s intention that a scheme of statutory sick pay should operate from April 1983.
An annex to the consultative document puts on record some other changes to the Government’s proposals for statutory sick pay, which have been made in the light of the comments received on the April 1980 Green Paper, “Income During Initial Sickness: A New Strategy,” Cmnd 7864. The annex also discusses the question of the provision of medical evidence during incapacity.
Below is the text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary written question on Youth Service, published on 16th June 1981.
Mr. Major Asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he expects to receive a report from the review body examining the youth service in England.
Mr. Macfarlane I understand that the review group aims to report to my right hon. and learned Friend in summer 1982.
Below is the text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary written question on Health Services, published on 4th June 1981.
Mr. Major Asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what further decisions he is able to announce about the future administrative structure for health services; and if he will make a statement.
Dr. Vaughan I am pleased to be able to announce that my right hon. Friend has made decisions on the recommendations of a further two regional health authorities for restructuring the National Health Service within their regions. Subject to the necessary orders being made in due course, the following district health authorities will be established in the East Anglian and Oxford regions, and will come into being on 1 April 1982.
Further announcements will be made early next week and we hope to have all of them announced by the following week apart from inner London which will be completed shortly after.
East Anglian Region | Resident population (1982)
Cambridge | 235,000
Huntingdon | 125,000
Peterborough | 189,000
East Anglian Region | Resident population (1982)
West Norfolk and Wisbech | 174,000
Norwich | 439,000
Great Yarmouth and Waveney | 182,000
East Suffolk | 303,000
West Suffolk | 216,000
As a result of these changes, the present three area authorities and seven districts will be reduced to eight new district authorities.
Oxford Region | Resident population (1982)
Kettering | 255,000
Northampton | 280,000
Oxfordshire | 520,000
Milton Keynes | 130,000
Aylesbury | 130,000
Wycombe | 260,000
West Berkshire | 420,000
East Berkshire | 345,000
As a result of these changes, the present four area authorities with seven districts will be reduced to eight new district authorities.
Below is the text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary written question on RAF Alconbury, published on 31st March 1981.
Mr. Major asked the Secretary of State for Defence whether there are any proposed changes in the deployment of the United States Air Force aircraft to RAF Alconbury.
Mr. Pattie Yes. Her Majesty’s Government have agreed to a request from the United States Government to station TR1 reconnaissance aircraft at RAF Alconbury. The role of the aircraft will be to provide timely tactical reconnaissance information in all weathers about the deployment and movement of enemy forces at a tune of crisis or war. This will reduce the likelihood of surprise attack and enable NATO commanders to deploy their own forces in the best way to resist aggression. Basing a TR1 force in Europe will enable it to be readily available for use at a time of crisis or war. The deployment of these aircraft will involve additional construction work, at an estimated cost of about £40 million over a five-
Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments during the National Health Service debate, held in the House of Commons on 31st March 1981.
Mrs. Dunwoody I must frankly say that I am not too delighted to be moving a matter of some considerable importance in what will be a foreshortened debate. I warn the Minister that if it is his intention to come to the Dispatch Box and to give us his normal, rather smooth, but not tremendously straightforward, appreciation of the reasons that he is putting forward for increasing the charges, that will not be acceptable.
The regulations are clear demonstrations of the attitude of the present Secretary of State and the Minister for Health and of the desire of the Conservatives to destroy the fabric of the National Health Service in any way they can. The Secretary of State thinks that that is not a defensible point of view. Let me tell him that when we look at the picture of change over the last two years, we can see certain clear facts.
The Conservative Party does not have the guts to attack the National Health Service head on, so it ceases to provide the right conditions in which the majority of our population can receive good health care. When the Black report showed clearly that there were enormous discrepancies between one social class and another, the Government made it plain that one of the problems arose because the access to good dental care and to good care in the provision of glasses was also lacking.
Why are we praying against these two inadequate sets of regulations? We may be told that the changes in the amounts are small and that there are so many exemptions that they cannot affect many people. The Government are good at tinkering with exemptions to make it look as if there has been some basic alteration, when they are trying to put off the majority of people from seeking proper health care when it is most needed. We ought to be talking tonight not only about the minor changes but about the political implications.
Before the creation of proper ophthalmic services, it was quite common for working class families –
There is at present a concentrated attack on the provision of proper ophthalmic services. One can enter on optician’s premises in the High Street and have one’s eyes properly tested by a qualified optician, and it is not always certain that spectacles will be prescribed. The optician has the early warning system at his command, so that, where there is eye disease, he not only refers the patient to a consultant but is able in many instances to give some indication of the sort of problem that a patient is likely to face.
That service would be materially changed if, by constantly moving away from that type of arrangement, and by changing the law, we encouraged large multinational companies to come into this country, making it easy for people to buy spectacles that are not specially prescribed for them.
The Minister may say that that is ridiculous and is something that I have thought up. But there is clear evidence that American multinationals, which are keen to expand their services in in-
Such practices would be entirely contrary to the sort of ophthalmic service that has been built up since the beginning of the National Health Service. The people who would be most damaged by that sort of change would be the ordinary families. People with a very high income never have difficulty in obtaining private health care. It is the people who are outside the exemption ranges but who are on a low income, who consequently cease to try to obtain for themselves proper spectacles or proper dental care.
It is plain that in social classes 4 and 5 the general level of dental care, even now, is not the same as it is among social classes 1 and 2. That has been made evident time and time again.
When the Government talk about a relationship of 75 to 25 between private health care and the National Health Service, they are really talking about lowering the standards. They are determined that the testing of eyes should go back to being a wholly commercial arrangement. They have not been prepared to increase the fee that is given to the opticians for carrying out proper eye tests. The sorts of changes the Government are suggesting will inevitably result in a reduction in use of the service.
The Government should be considering ways of making the average optician’s practice very much more balanced in terms of the work that he does. At present, the NHS work is a very large part of the optician’s work but represents a very small part of his income. An increase in charges will not encourage people to go to the optician with greater frequency. What is far more likely to happen is that in the future there will be a positive move –
If we return to a situation in which one can go into a department store and buy over the counter by self-
What goes for ophthalmology certainly also goes for dentistry. There is absolutely no indication that the Government are seeking to deal with the provision of dentistry or to encourage dentists to undertake a greater proportion of National Health Service work. In some regions, such as my own in the North-
We should be asking the House to throw out both sets of regulations. Before the Minister intervenes, I should say that this is not because of some political hang-
Mr. John Major (Huntingdonshire) Will the hon. Lady explain to the House how the Government can be damaging the National Health Service and at the same time providing more money for it in real terms?
Mrs. Dunwoody As the hon. Gentleman well knows, when one considers the amount of money provided in the new allocations, despite the brave words of the Secretary of State today, because of the changes taking place in the population what is really occurring is a drop in the level of provision. If he has not noticed that, I can only say that he has not been looking at what is actually happening.
Both sets of regulations clearly demonstrate the attitude of the Conservatives. They think that if one has a privileged income and is capable of paying for good health care, one should enjoy a high standard of care. If, however, one is outside one or two very small means-
We shall be taking very positive action if we throw out these sets of regulations which lower the standards of care available to the majority of our people.