Mr Neville Sandelson: The House always listens with the utmost respect to the hon. Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles). I have no pretentions to being either a professional strategist or a logistics expert. The hon. Gentleman will therefore forgive me if I do not comment on his speech, except to say that I listened with considerable interest to his reference to Soviet nuclear submarine power and the...
Mr Neville Sandelson: I have been following the hon. Gentleman with enormous interest and a good deal of sympathy. There seems to be considerable logic in many of the points and criticisms he has been making. I must ask him, however, whether there are no economic imperatives—as distinct from the defence imperatives that he rightly stresses—arising out of our present situation that might impel even him to place...
Mr Neville Sandelson: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's philosophy. When he talks of rewards, does he think that those rewards should be for the benefit of, for example, the child of well-off parents compared with the child of poor parents, either in the medical sphere or, for that matter, in education? Does he think that the better-off have a natural right, simply through their possession of rewards, and...
Mr Neville Sandelson: I have.
Mr Neville Sandelson: Nor am I.
Mr Neville Sandelson: Has the hon. Gentleman been as clamant in the past on behalf of holiday makers about giving them the opportunity of postal votes at General Elections as he is now in respect of this somewhat extraordinary poll? Does he agree that this is a unique procedure which is seriously undermining parliamentary government and that we do not wish to compound the injury being done to the House by sudden...
Mr Neville Sandelson: I intervene again simply to correct a point on which I think the hon. Gentleman may have misrepresented my views. May I make it clear that in principle I am not opposed to postal votes or some other arrangements being made for the benefit of holiday makers. What I am strongly opposed to is any such arrangements being made for the purpose of this referendum. The Speaker's Conference and...
Mr Neville Sandelson: The point which the hon. Gentleman has made is sufficiently important for me to intervene to say that he speaks for a large number of hon. Members on both sides of the House who hope that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will feel it right and proper to take away this tax, or the major part of it—possibly by other financial provisions in due course—which bears so heavily on the theatre.
Mr Neville Sandelson: rose—
Mr Neville Sandelson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that every London Member on the Government benches, particularly those whose names are associated with the amendment, would wish to dissociate himself from the hon. Gentleman's approach? No Labour Member is more conscious of the needs of the assisted areas and the regions than are the London Members. We are very conscious of those problems, but we are equally...
Mr Neville Sandelson: Is the hon. Member saying that where there is such a vast outlay of public funds information should not be given to the public about where the money has gone?
Mr Neville Sandelson: That is all there is to it.
Mr Neville Sandelson: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the Committee straight out whether it is his belief now that those funds should be irrevocably forfeited by the trade unions?
Mr Neville Sandelson: If we had another Tory Government which introduced a similar Act with the same measures, and then invited the trade unions to register, would the right hon. Gentleman concede that they should retrospectively recover those lost funds? If not, does it not seem to the right hon. Gentleman that there is a total lack of principle in the arguments that he is advancing?
Mr Neville Sandelson: Who?
Mr Neville Sandelson: Will the right hon. Gentleman take it from me that while a majority of residents in my constituency, many of whom live in areas adjacent to London Airport, will congratulate him, on balance, on the decision he has taken with regard to Maplin, there is very deep concern throughout the whole of this area and in other constituencies around London Airport about the whole issue of air noise, air...
Mr Neville Sandelson: rose—
Mr Neville Sandelson: Last October.
Mr Neville Sandelson: I have listened with great interest to what the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) said at the beginning of his speech about the security arrangements at London Airport. One appreciates the secret aspect of many of these arrangements and the fact that by their nature they must remain fairly private to those who administer them, but the hon. Gentleman put a number of questions...
Mr Neville Sandelson: I am grateful to the hon. Member for posing that question. If he will be a little patient and allow me to develop my speech he will find that I shall touch on that theme, and I hope that what I have to say will satisfy him. As I was saying, Heathrow is a massive industrial conurbation, and the travellers who arrive at and depart from the airport merely touch the glossy surface of a vast and...
