Mr James Lamond: How can the House take the Secretary of State's argument seriously when hon. Members have had lectures from him over the years about the need to make local councils more accountable and the need to make trade union officers more accountable through votes and political influence? It is now suggested that a major change in the national health service cannot be put to the consumers of whom he...
Mr James Lamond: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he next intends to meet representatives of national health service junior doctors to discuss their terms and conditions of service.
Mr James Lamond: Is not the Minister's answer a little unconvincing when we recall that her Department has found time wholly to reorganise the health service, to disrupt the relationship between the general practitioner and his patients and to pull the rug from under the national health service hospitals, while this simple problem, which has been known about for years, has still to be tackled? Junior...
Mr James Lamond: Before the Minister becomes too complacent about the statistics, may I ask him to bear it in mind that within the figures are concealed sectors such as textiles and clothing, which have been faced with massive reductions in the number of employees? For example, Courtaulds has recently been closing mills in the north-west of England. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman see that those who...
Mr James Lamond: Is the Minister, in his determination not to allow any economic refugees from Vietnam to come to this country, keeping in mind the fact that in the German Democratic Republic right now there are more than 50,000 refugees from Vietnam on long-term work contracts? If Germany becomes united, presumably those people will be able to move into the Federal Republic and perhaps even into this...
Mr James Lamond: Will the Minister clear up the points raised earlier by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin)? Why are pensioners' savings over £3,000 deemed by her Department and other Departments to give them a return of 20·8 per cent. per annum, when nowhere can that percentage return be found with safety? Should pensioners look for another Barlow Clowes in order to achieve it? Can the...
Mr James Lamond: I imagine that it is with some sorrow that the Patronage Secretary is proposing a guillotine motion. Guillotines thwart the very purpose of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman has based his proposal on the suggestion that the debates on this Bill have been over-long. I am sure that he was present last night when, within 10 minutes of the end of a fairly lengthy debate on new clause 1, it was...
Mr James Lamond: Is the Minister aware that in January there were 7,500 unemployed men and women in Oldham, that the number has increased since and that it is likely to increase even more unless his Department puts pressure on his colleagues to ensure that the multi-fibre arrangement is renewed and textiles are protected?
Mr James Lamond: I am especially anxious about the case of someone who has one former employer still in business. Is the Minister saying that there is nothing hard and fast in the regulations and that he can re-examine the matter, perhaps with a view to disregarding short periods of employment with one employer who is still in existence or to ensuring that if a period of employment represents only a small...
Mr James Lamond: My hon. Friend's point is also correct in the case of byssinosis victims. A general practitioner diagnoses byssinosis; the consultant does the same; the panel turns down the victim; he dies; the post mortem is byssinosis. I wonder whether the panel believes that it must turn down a certain percentage of cases, just to show that it is doing its job. However, it ought to remember that before...
Mr James Lamond: The Powerloom Carpet Weavers and Textile Weavers Union and the General Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trades Union have also played their part in obtaining compensation in the courts for my constituents.
Mr James Lamond: I, too, welcome the uprating of the lump sum compensation and the opportunity to debate the regulations on the Floor of the House. I should like to pursue one or two questions concerning the effect of the regulations on those who suffer from byssinosis. You will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker—and certainly my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Mr. Walker), who has just vacated...
Mr James Lamond: The Leader of the House announced that on Monday we shall debate a proposal to renew the regulations covered by the Pneumoconiosis Etc. (Workers Compensation) Act. That Act also covers sufferers from byssinosis, which is a disease prevalent among textile workers. Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that a simple renewal of the regulations will not be enough to meet the complaints of...
Mr James Lamond: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much has been spent so far by his Department, by district health authorities and family practitioner committees to prepare for the implementation of the National Health Service and Community Care Bill.
Mr James Lamond: How is it that the Government can cheerfully find £85 million to set up a monstrous bureaucracy of accountants and clerks who will be busy pushing accounts and receipts across a table to one another, but cannot find one tenth of that to help to overcome the tremendous hardship that people are suffering as a result of the ambulance workers' dispute?
Mr James Lamond: When those of us who are inerested in textiles attended a debate on 12 January—which was a Friday, by the way—to discuss the multi-fibre arrangement, all who spoke, regardless of party, emphasised the need to continue protecting the textile industry. What was the point? The Secretary of State came to the Dispatch Box yesterday and made off-the-cuff remarks which appeared to dismiss any...
Mr James Lamond: The Minister seemed strangely reluctant to give the House the actual exports figure. Was that because Britain is in considerable deficit with the countries of the European Community? If so, did the Minister hear the Secretary of State a few minutes ago discarding the multi-fibre arrangement, contrary to the sentiments expressed by the Minister in a recent debate? That must result in an even...
Mr James Lamond: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 8 February.
Mr James Lamond: Has the Prime Minister had the opportunity of looking at the front page of the CBI News for this month, where she will see a graph of investment intentions for next year which is plummeting even faster than the Tories' support in Mid-Staffordshire? Will she read the article inside by the director-general, who asks the Government to do certain things, including reducing interest rates,...
Mr James Lamond: When the Soviet Union was alleged to be strong and in full command of the Warsaw pact, we were told that it was impossible to contemplate disarmament. Now that the talks at Vienna are going very well and President Bush is negotiating troop reductions with President Gorbachev over the heads of NATO, why does the Secretary of State for Defence still say that we need the strongest possible...
