Mr Neville Sandelson: Will the Minister of State take note that on 12 February roughly 17 percent, of the labour force in the textile industry in Northern Ireland had lost their jobs? Unemployment in the industry is rising all the time and the figure of 17 per cent, amounted to 4,796 jobs. Is the Minister aware that the delay in strengthening the multi-fibre arrangement is having a crippling effect on the industry?
Mr Neville Sandelson: What pressure is the Minister bringing on the Commission to strengthen the MFA, and when may we expect a speedy revision of the arrangement? When will the hon. Gentleman announce to the House some progress in that direction?
Mr Neville Sandelson: I am aware that time is running short and that more right hon. and hon. Members are hoping to speak in the debate. I was grateful to the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) for his reference to me as the Social Democratic spokesman and for the valuable information that he imparted to me about the price per therm of gas. The hon. Member rightly appreciated that I am sadly in need of...
Mr Neville Sandelson: The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr, Fitt) obviously has worked it out.
Mr Neville Sandelson: Is the Minister aware that his statement and his decision to abandon thoughts of a fifth terminal at Heathrow will be warmly welcomed by my constituents and by all the residents in the borough of Hillingdon? Does he take account of the need for developing the road infrastructure throughout the area, even with the construction of a fourth terminal? Will he bear in mind the need for Government...
Mr Neville Sandelson: I do not wish to take up more than a minute or so as almost everything that I would wish to say has been said already, not only by the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) but by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody), who spoke on behalf of the Opposition. I congratulate my hon. Friend on the warm way in which she expressed the feeling of the Opposition...
Mr Neville Sandelson: rose—
Mr Neville Sandelson: Greece, about which the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) spoke so eloquently, is imminently joining the Western Community. The Minister told us that there will be a saving of what I consider to be the paltry sum of £200,000 as a result of cutting out the Greek service. Is he aware of the economic consequences for this country of what might be taken as a calculated insult by the people of...
Mr Neville Sandelson: Since the overthrow of the military regime and the restoration of democratic institutions in Greece, I have been the secretary of the British-Greek parliamentary group in this House. But it is in no formal sense that I express my support today for the Bill. At a time when narrow chauvinism and blinkered self-interest within the European Community are causing intense anxiety to many in Britain...
Mr Neville Sandelson: The Bar.
Mr Neville Sandelson: I meant the barristers Bar.
Mr Neville Sandelson: I wish you were right.
Mr Neville Sandelson: Barristers?
Mr Neville Sandelson: I am impressed with the arguments that my right hon. Friend has adduced this evening. They have stilled a good deal of the disquiet that I expressed to him earlier. However, I should like to ask one question. Why has he fixed on the date of April 1976? Is that not an arbitrary date and an arbitrary exercise of his executive powers in this matter? Why that particular date? Why not go back a...
Mr Neville Sandelson: Is it not the case that it should be subject not to the will of the Government but to the will of the House, and that what the will of the House is must depend upon the particular circumstances and the particular context that we are discussing? In this context, my hon. Friend is perfectly right to suggest that here there is a contrived scheme to defeat the public interest and that the mere...
Mr Neville Sandelson: I, too, am grateful to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend) for allowing me a few moments in which to support his plea. Two or three years ago, I had the macabre experience of flying low over Spandau in a British military helicopter and seeing this human remnant from a bygone political era taking his brief morning exercise within the prison walls. It seemed to me horrifying and...
Mr Neville Sandelson: Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to answer my hon. Friend's question by telling us what different treatment he is advocating in the centres that he thinks should be established?
Mr Neville Sandelson: The right hon. Lady is an outrageous person.
Mr Neville Sandelson: Mr. Neville Sandelson (Hayes and Harlington) rose—
Mr Neville Sandelson: There is a point that is of some importance, though not directly bearing on this measure. It arises out of something that the Minister has just said about the penalty. The maximum penalty that can be imposed on indictment for smuggling quantities of hard pornographic material from abroad, whatever may be its evil content and in what-ever quantity, is a period of three years' imprisonment....
