Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I first spoke in the House almost exactly 32 years ago. A Bill on wildlife may provide an adequate opportunity for my swan song. I do not hunt. I never liked riding horses. When I was first asked to mount a pony I was told that after I had fallen off four times I would be a skilled horseman and that I had to persevere until then. I managed to fall off four times in the first hour and I have...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: That is exactly the point to which I am coming. I have first established that we are seeking to abolish not the cruelty of animals but cruelty by mankind. [Interruption.] Let us look at what man does to animals. I do not know why we tolerate the poisoning of rats, which are among the most intelligent of mammals and suffer most if poisoned or gassed. Clauses 5, 6 and 8 allow, with a licence...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: My hon. Friend can speak for himself about his prowess as a shot. I plead guilty to not being at all certain that I could guarantee to kill a fox. As I say, shooting is probably the most cruel way of seeking to control the fox population.
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I give way to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks).
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern). It is undesirable to pay such a price for killing in another way the foxes that are now killed by hunting. If I have a complaint against hunting, it is that it does not kill enough foxes.
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I merely canvassed the four possible ways in which to destroy foxes. As the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that gassing and poisoning are out, we are left with shooting, hunting and trapping.
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I will not give way because I want to be quick. It is probably right to say that of the three remaining methods, hunting is the least cruel. I do not know how the Bill squares with that. The hon. Member for Newham, North-West said that the Bill concerned "entertainment".
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I quoted the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North, who said that hunting was "human entertainment". If the motive of those who want to stop hunting is to do nothing other than to prevent a form of human entertainment, what sort of slippery slope is that? I know many forms of human entertainment of which I personally do not approve and in which I should not like to take part. [HON....
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I shall not follow the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullen), who regards the issue as a capitalist plot, because many of the capitalists among my colleagues appear to be unhappy about their own plot. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on a clear exposition of our position and on setting out his stall so clearly. When the Tory Whips put it about in the summer...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I support much of what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in the first part of his statement. However, now that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made a huge sum of money available to reduce the community charge, if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had put that money into improving the rebate system rather than reducing the total, might not the...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: My right hon. and learned Friend said that interest rates will be kept up as long as is necessary. Does that mean as long as is necessary to get inflation right down or as long as is necessary to maintain the value of the pound in the ERM?
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: On 30 March 1981, 364 economists wrote to The Times and said: There is no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence for the Government's belief that by deflating demand they will bring inflation permanently under control and thereby induce an automatic recovery in output and employment. On that occasion they were wrong. That statement was followed by seven years of low inflation and...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: As the Member in whose constituency is Fairford, may I thank my hon. Friend for arranging for me to visit the splendid airmen and their aircraft? May I say how appreciative the majority of the population are that the Americans have stationed their forces here in order to protect our troops who are at risk in the Gulf by bombing Iraqi military targets?
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the chairman of the Bundesbank, Herr Pail, said the other day that interest rates should be set according to monetary conditions and should not be used to affect the exchange rate? Is he aware that many of my hon. Friends agree with that view and that if we use interest rates to maintain the exchange rate, we are likely to have a wider and deeper recession...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I shall shortly deal with the speech by the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), but I should first like to thank the Leader of the Opposition for one thing only. I thank him for giving us in this debate the opportunity to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The three Opposition speeches that we have heard so far were disgraceful and shameful in their return to...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman, because I am not anti-Community or anti-European per se. I believe that it is necessary to have a free trading area and the central powers to insist on fair and free trading inside that area. I do not see anything wrong with that. However, that is where I stop, and perhaps in that way the hon. Gentleman and I are in the same company. On the...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: Yesterday my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) included in his speech the fact that matters of substance were partially the reason for his resignation, else, he said, he would be the first Minister in history who has resigned because he was in full agreement with Government policy. I must lay claim to that title myself. [Laughter.] I hope that the House...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: I have heard regional policy argued over. I have taken part in debates about it in the House over 30 years. There can be no resolution of these problems. Nobody will ever accept that such a policy is right, and it never does the trick, either. It is very much the worst solution to the problem that I have outlined. All this has nothing to do with inflation. At this point, I pay a warm tribute...
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: rose——
Hon. Nicholas Ridley: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on standing up for the interests of the people of this country and ask her whether she thinks that the eleven are not now both isolated and intransigent in relation to agricultural policy and the GATT round? Does she think that they are deliberately working for the failure of the GATT round in order to achieve their objectives of a fortress Europe? If...
