Mr Michael Trend: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the Housing and Urban Development Bill, especially the parts that establish rent-to-mortgage schemes? Does he agree that it will create an excellent low-risk opportunity for young people to begin the process of owning their homes?
Mr Michael Trend: In thanking my right hon. Friend for his full statement, will he bear in mind the fact that my constituents in the royal borough are particularly distressed by the damage caused by fire to the castle? Does he accept that, while the castle is a priceless part of Britain's national heritage, it is to my constituents, and particularly to the good townspeople of Windsor, a familiar friend that...
Mr Michael Trend: Under the new scheme, will the community work aspects be a continuation of the old programmes or will they be a development from them?
Mr Michael Trend: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell) on securing the debate. He spoke of his work, which has extended over many years, as a cockshy. I beg to disagree with him. His Adam Smith Institute text of 1991, entitled "Why Not Work?" is no cockshy; it is the locus classicus of all those interested in the work force, and for many years to come it will provide the...
Mr Michael Trend: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not expect me to deal with that point. Workfare offers the state a shift to, as they say in Sweden, the employment principle. I warmly welcome that. It offers a shift away from financing unemployment to finding employment. For the individual, it offers the dignity that goes with having useful work to do and it offers the opportunity to get something for...
Mr Michael Trend: I am grateful for that clarification. Another of my anxieties is that in some circumstances the workfare scheme could become part of what one might call the Mussolini approach to politics—the building of autostrada and the digging of holes and filling them in. It is a feature of totalitarian Governments throughout the world this century—one thinks of Mao's China or Stalin's Soviet...
Mr Michael Trend: Does my hon. Friend share my welcome for the new training for work programme, which was announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment following the autumn statement?
Mr Michael Trend: rose—
Mr Michael Trend: Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, it refers to points of order made earlier about the events of last night. As a new Member, I have been sitting here brooding on the matter since those points were raised and I seek your further guidance. Was it a matter of parliamentary privilege, in the sense that one hon. Member wished to present a petition and another wished to move the Adjournment debate, and...
Mr Michael Trend: It will not have escaped the hon. Lady's attention that Conservatives are fed up with hearing the parrot-like cries of "poverty". That is too simplistic a solution to a complicated problem. I will put to her another proposition that she may find too simplistic, but it is a black and white one. I recently went to Hong Kong, where the housing is cramped, the working conditions are poor, and...
Mr Michael Trend: It is an obscenity.
Mr Michael Trend: A better state of health is a laudable objective, and for the national health service to be required to focus as much on that as on health care is all to the good. I commend the good sense that informs the views in "The Health of the Nation", but I want to voice a few concerns that struck me as I read it. It will be difficult to strike the right balance between that which the Government, and...
Mr Michael Trend: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Michael Trend: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that working down mines is good for one's health?
Mr Michael Trend: Before the House decides to adjourn for the summer, with its leave I shall bring some concerns of my constituents to its attention. I warmly congratulate the two other Conservative Members who have been called to address the House for the first time today—my hon. Friends the Members for High Peak (Mr. Hendry) and for Havant (Mr. Willetts). Windsor and Maidenhead, the constituency that I am...
