Fifty per cent. of my constituents are Loyalists—[An HON. MEMBER: "Forty-five per cent."] Correction—45 per cent. I apologise. It was not my intention to mislead the House. But I do not care who elected me. I represent the people of my constituency. I have pointed out, on both issues, how we have got nothing.

With respect to Her Majesty's loyal Opposition, I consider that I am in a better position to interpret Loyalist opinion in Northern Ireland than they and to say what I believe Loyalist opinion in my constituency to be. It is notable that no Loyalist Members here tonight have interrupted to say that I am misinterpreting their ideas. If Mr. Faulkner and the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) can sit at the same table, can I not speak the same language as the Protestant working class?

What I am attempting to do is to show not that I agree with these things but that it is a fallacy to say that it is not possible for both the Catholic and Protestant sections of the community—they may be called extremists—to think they have been betrayed. I think I have shown that. What is considered important to the Loyalists has not been granted. I will go on to show that what is considered important by the Catholic working class—the extremist working class, if one likes, but the Republican section of the community—has not been granted either. It has nothing.

What have we got? The Social Democratic Labour Party was not represented at the Darlington conference because it felt that it could not take part in any discussions on a final settlement without there being a firm commitment to end internment. Just like the Council of Ireland. The constitution is not a firm commitment, nor is it a commitment to say "End internment—at some time when violence stops." A date has to be given is there to be a date given—that date must be very soon—when detention without trial will be stopped?

As for the Republican section of the community, it was told, when internment was introduced, by its elected representatives not to pay rent, not to pay rates and not to pay arrears. I myself was out-voted at a meeting where I suggested to the assembled people that they ought to save their arrears, that they should go around and appoint on each estate somebody responsible for collecting the rent money and paying it into a bank and that it should be used to fight legal cases over people who might face eviction, court orders or summonses, or that it might be used to support families of persons detained without trial and with no other means of support.

But I was out-voted by the new-found moderates who at that time said "Spend the money, eat the money, drink the money. There will be no payment of the arrears."

Where are we now? A total of £3½ million has been involuntarily paid back under the Emergency Payments (Debt) Act out of family allowances, supplementary benefits, unemployment benefits, out of teachers' salaries, caretakers' and nurses' salaries and the salary of anybody who works for a Government Department. That was all very well when the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was responsible—[AN HON. MEMBER: "This is negative."] It is not negative when people are losing money. What will happen now? [Interruption.] It is all right for some hon. Members to mutter, but it is a fact of credibility.

The same individual who told us to pay no rent, no rates and no arrears is now in a position to see that it is carried out. He is the Minister-designate for Health and Social Services. Will he carry out the promise and put an end to this involuntary taking of money from people's health and social service payments? That is a fair question to ask—will he have the power?—and I ask it of the Secretary of State. Will that Minister be empowered or have it in his jurisdiction to grant an amnesty to the rent strikers as, in opposition, he demanded of the Government?

That is a fair question. It is not a personal attack on anyone but a straightforward demand of a man who made a promise and who is now in a position to fulfil it. Can there be a measure of good faith even that far—to obtain an amnesty for rent strikers?

With the greatest will in the world, I cannot see how the Minister-designate for Housing will reach his declared target of 20,000 houses a year unless someone starts talking realities. Every last one of the Housing Executive offices in my constituency is up to its eyes in debt that they inherited from the old councils—not debt that they created themselves. There is a housing shortage everywhere. There is land that can be bought, there are unemployed builders who could work, but there is no more credit in the banks for local executive areas which are already £1 million and more in debt. They would have to borrow again at the same interest.

Though the Minister for Housing—I challenge the Opposition to show that it is negative to ask these questions: they are constructive—