Mr Stanley Crowther: The debate is disappointing in that I have not heard any Conservative Member deal with the central argument. They have talked about many other things, but not about the heart of the matter, which is nothing to do with whether people should be allowed to break the law, but about whether one category of people, alone in our official and constitutional structure, should be subject to personal...
Mr Stanley Crowther: The hon. Gentleman does not know what he is talking about. The district auditor levies the surcharge. It is then for the people who have been surcharged, if they can afford it, to seek justice in the courts.
Mr Stanley Crowther: My hon. Friend is right. I am surprised that Conservative Members do not understand how the system works. The Bill tries to remove the injustice of the system. I do not defend members of local authorities who deliberately, as a matter of policy, put themselves outside the law. If there are such members—it has not yet been decided —I am not here to defend them. But I am here to defend the...
Mr Stanley Crowther: The hon. Gentleman is right up to a point, but it goes a little further than that. If the legal officer who advises the council says, "I am not sure ", the councils' action may be illegal or it may not. If the councillors, who genuinely believe that their action is legal, decide to take that action and the district auditor finds them to be acting outside the law, they will undoubtedly be...
Mr Stanley Crowther: I do not wish to pursue the point, but I repeat that the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) is wrong. Our main cause for complaint is the existence of surcharges. Too many hon. Members, too many Ministers —not only in this Government—and too many senior civil servants tend to regard members of local authorities either as potential criminals or as backward schoolchildren. The real...
Mr Stanley Crowther: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Shelton) really under the impression that the Bill has something to do with rate capping?
Mr Stanley Crowther: As the Minister apparently could not answer the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. MacKenzie) about the number of jobs lost, will he take it from me that in the process of returning to profitability the BSC has got rid of 120,000 jobs, few of which have been replaced by other employment in the steel-making areas? Will he guess, if nothing else, how much...
Mr Stanley Crowther: Has the Minister learnt from his discussions that the effect of abolishing the South Yorkshire county council, coupled with the implementation of the last two Transport Acts, will be to treble at least the fares, to cut services substantially and to make some hundreds of the staff redundant in an area of high unemployment? Does he regard this as a mark of progress in a civilised society?
Mr Stanley Crowther: What further closures are intended in the engineering steels sector, since the Govenment are to put money into the new private sector company that will take over next April, and since the Council of Ministers has decided that no state aid will be permissible after January unless associated with capacity reductions? Can the House feel confident that the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows...
Mr Stanley Crowther: Listening to the statistics trotted out by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to prove that some great recovery is taking place, I was irresistibly reminded of the famous phrase quoted by a previous Conservative Prime Minister: lies, damned lies and statistics. I am sure that the Ministers were not telling lies, but they were manipulating...
Mr Stanley Crowther: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that rumours are rife again in south Yorkshire about further closures in the special steels sector? In the past such rumours have all too often proved to be true. As the BSC chairman, Sir Robert Haslam, made it clear at his last meeting with the Select Committee that he expected a further closure in that sector after Tinsley Park, and as agreement has now been...
Mr Stanley Crowther: I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Warren). It may be appropriate for me to take this opportunity, despite our obvious political differences, to pay tribute to his excellent work as Chairman of the Committee. It has been obvious for a long time that British manufacturers suffer from a variety of disadvantages compared with competitors in most developed countries....
Mr Stanley Crowther: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comment. No doubt he will have noticed our recommendation on that point in the report. One area in which China is most anxious to develop is railway transport. There are tremendous opportunities for British industry. After all, Britain used to be the world leader in the manufacture of locomotives and other railway rolling stock. It is not an awful long...
Mr Stanley Crowther: I appreciate my hon. Friend's point. There are many Chinese speakers in the embassy. As to the other part of his question about the extent to which people in Britain are learning Chinese prior to going to seek trade in China, I cannot answer that. However, it is an extremely important question and I hope we can find the answer to it. It has been said many times in this House that Britain,...
Mr Stanley Crowther: The point needs to be clarified. If the closure at Tinsley Park has nothing to do with the Phoenix 2 proposal, will the Minister tell us when BSC first decided that it intended to close Phoenix 2 and when BSC first told the Minister? We now know, because Sir Robert Haslam told me when I questioned him about it, that that proposal was included in the Phoenix 2 proposals submitted to the...
Mr Stanley Crowther: He is not there now.
Mr Stanley Crowther: No doubt the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Sir J. Osborn) will forgive me if I do not comment directly on his speech but, in truth, I do not think there was much meat in his speech. I am pleased to hear the Minister refer to the fact that the productivity of the British Steel Corporation is now comparable to the best prevailing in Europe. That is not the average but the best. It is...
Mr Stanley Crowther: I have quoted what Mr. Bob Scholey told the Select Committee. It is a mathematical fact, is it not, that two plants operating at full capacity are equivalent to three operating at two thirds capacity? He said that he would prefer to have two operating fully. That must mean that they could not take a substantial increase in demand. I cannot quite see the hon. Gentleman's point.
Mr Stanley Crowther: The hon. Gentleman might have a chance to make his own speech. The case that was previously accepted in regard to wide strip mills should be accepted now in that sector of the industry and also apply to the engineering steels sector. In that sector, British Steel's special steels group represents 82 per cent. of present capacity—the rest is represented by the only remaining private sector...
Mr Stanley Crowther: Is the Minister aware that in my constituency the rates levied on industry and commerce could be at least 30 per cent, lower if the Government of which he is a member had not progressively reduced the rate support grant year by year? Will he therefore make representations in appropriate Cabinet circles for the terrible rate burden to be reduced by restoring the rate support grant to its...
