Mr Michael Foot: I am the only Member who was present in the House to hear Aneurin Bevan make his Second Reading speech which introduced the national health service and also heard him, from the same Bench on which the hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Morris) sits, deliver his resignation speech about charges that were imposed. I was hoping to have discussed some of that history, especially because the...
Mr Michael Foot: These shameful unemployment figures are far higher than those at any time in the post-war period when a Labour Government were in power. How much is the latest increase in unemployment due to the abandonment of effective regional policies by the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessors which has meant that, for Wales, the slump goes deeper and it will take us longer to get out of it? Does...
Mr Michael Foot: As you have just reminded me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will be caught by this damned 10-minute rule. I should like to spend half a minute of my precious time protesting about it—not because of its application in this case, because that is what has been agreed by the House, but because, having spent part of my parliamentary time on the Front Bench and a considerably longer period on the Back...
Mr Michael Foot: Can the Prime Minister tell us whether his proposed citizens charter, will deal with the growing menace, freshly illustrated today, of buck-passing Ministers in bank scandals?
Mr Michael Foot: Like the other Members who have spoken in the debate, I am strongly in favour of swift action to deal with dangerous dogs. As my hon. Friends have explained and will no doubt explain further during the general discussion, we have been in favour of such action a good deal longer than the Conservative party. If proper attention had been paid to some Opposition speeches on the subject, the...
Mr Michael Foot: I certainly know, and I have told hon. Members who want those simple history lessons explained to them the reasons why there have been differences of view about the nature of guillotine motions. However, I have always made it clear that it would be dangerous for the House if we agreed to them. Governments would like it and more and more of them would be introduced in the extremely improper...
Mr Michael Foot: The hon. Gentleman is as wrong with his arithmetic as he was in giving dancing lessons. I do not hold the record; it is held by the Government, who have introduced more guillotine motions than any Government in history. They should be a little careful, because some of the very Bills that were guillotined are the ones that are causing the greatest disturbance and trouble in the country today....
Mr Michael Foot: Owing to my longevity and the constituency that I have the honour to represent, I think that I have had more exchanges with medical experts than any other hon. Member, and some of those exchanges have been of a personal character. One of the Secretary of State's mistakes—it is difficult to select one from all the others—is that he does not take account of how the Government, in preparing...
Mr Michael Foot: I shall give way in a moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston properly emphasised the fact that greater resources must be allocated to the NHS. I was very glad to hear him blow out of the water all the false figures about what happened under the last Labour Government. The Government have been peddling those figures throughout the country for six or seven years, so it is good that...
Mr Michael Foot: If the right hon. Gentleman wants to learn some history, he should go back further still— [Interruption.] We now have the Minister learning a thing or two. If only he had listened rather earlier, the Government would not be in such a fix. He has made the great discovery that the Treasury has always been against the NHS, even in 1947–48. The Treasury was against the NHS then and we had a...
Mr Michael Foot: When the right hon. Gentleman sees what an almighty botch his fellow Ministers are making of the national health service in England, will he work on the simple principle "Go thou and do otherwise"?
Mr Michael Foot: indicated dissent.
Mr Michael Foot: The essential part of the debate happened at the beginning. It was the question put by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) to the Leader of the House about whether there was a precedent for a guillotine motion to be introduced without any effort having been made to see whether there could be consultation with the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman had to answer that there...
Mr Michael Foot: I shall just make this point, and then I shall give way. A report of what was said about the guillotine motion states that most hon. Members condemned it although some liked the proposals. It may have been the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), who has just given us such a high constitutional view of the matter, who prompted The Independent to report: Most Conservatives, however,...
Mr Michael Foot: Who are the other claimants? I promised to give way to the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold).
Mr Michael Foot: I have attended many more debates than most of the youngsters on the Tory Benches put together. I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what happened on that occasion. During a debate with the previous Leader of the House about the five guillotine motions that I introduced—I say this to the present Leader of the House—I said that, if the House would like a full debate on the five issues and the...
Mr Michael Foot: I gave way to the hon. Gentleman, but he did not make the best use of his opportunity. The best way to solve the problem—and I should be happy to fall in with it—is to approach the Leader of the House and ask for a debate on all general questions. I should then do my best to allay the hon. Gentleman's fears.
Mr Michael Foot: As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) says, there is a slight difference, although I am not sure that the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) could see it. I have always advised people to look at the list of names on the back page of the Bill. The list reads as follows: Presented by Mr. Secretary Heseltine, supported by the Prime Minister Mr. Chancellor...
Mr Michael Foot: We are all fascinated by this part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. Why, as he felt so strongly about the poll tax, did he not resign over that issue rather than over the much less important issue that he gave as his reason for resigning?
Mr Michael Foot: I wish to confine my remarks to the question of sanctions, especially in the light of what the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said at the end of his speech, when he stressed that sanctions need to be kept at the centre of our debate. I believe that that is absolutely right. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) put that issue in its...
