Mr Alastair Harrison: In dealing with a miscellaneous provisions Bill one is al ways in danger of making a very bitty speech. I am aware before I start that this is exactly what I shall do. There are just a few points that I want to raise. I join hon. Members on both sides of the House in welcoming the Bill and look forward to the improvements that can be made in Committee. I generally welcome the objects of the...
Mr Alastair Harrison: I think that the Minister has made a great mistake in bringing the Order forward at this stage without having had the right consultation and without having got it clear. We all admire the right hon. Gentleman's lucidity, but his speech tonight showed considerable confusion in definition, a confusion which is shared by all those who have examined the Order. This includes the manufacturers. It...
Mr Alastair Harrison: Over the last 24 hours and, we understand, tomorrow, we have had a spate of Government statements all of which have been statements of the sort which ought to be debated in full. For instance, the statement on Aden this afternoon should have been debated in full. Time should have been given for it. For instance, we want to know what information and advice the Minister without Portfolio...
Mr Alastair Harrison: Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I welcome the Order. Anyone who was conscious of what was going on or had an interest in the previous scheme which was put forward and, unfortunately, not accepted by the growers ten years ago will welcome that this scheme, even with only 60 per cent. on an acreage basis in favour of it, is being proposed. I am worried, nevertheless, lest the whole...
Mr Alastair Harrison: I hope that the House will forgive me if I strike a somewhat discordant note. I shall try, if I may go so far as to quote one phrase from the White Paper, to begin modestly and remain careful not to trespass on the points of order. I have gained the impression, from listening to the debate and from hearing the House talking with its usual thinness and enthusiasm about the Commonwealth, that...
Mr Alastair Harrison: The granting of diplomatic privilege to an institution which is set up to maintain an non-existent Commonwealth seems to me to be a farce which is going almost beyond a joke. I hope that the Government will think very seriously before they go much further with this. I ask them to consider whether they are not making this country, by giving these powers and exemptions to the Secretariat, a...
Mr Alastair Harrison: Will not my hon. Friend admit that the Commonwealth has ceased to exist completely, and, therefore, we ought to recognise the true realities of the situation?
Mr Alastair Harrison: I am glad to have the opportunity of raising in the House, even at this late hour, the refusal of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to grant loan sanction for the purchase of Braintree Cattle Market. I do not do so from any form of regional partisanship but because I believe that a genuine mistake has been made here which should be rectified. Braintree is an attractive rural...
Mr Alastair Harrison: I have been somewhat alarmed by the complacency of both Front Benches in to-days debate. The Opposition Front Bench was concerned with the achievements of the 13 years about which we hear so much—and I in no way want to belittle those achievements—while from the Government Front Bench we heard nothing but what is being done and how everything, the maximum possible, would be done. When...
Mr Alastair Harrison: Is not my hon. Friend aware of the fact that B.O.A.C. Quantas, and Air India have such an arrangement, and that B.O.A.C. has it with small airlines elsewhere?
Mr Alastair Harrison: The hon. Gentleman is putting forward a very plausible case and has a great deal of sympathy on both sides. He says that the Regulation was laid some time ago and that this dissatisfaction has been going on for some considerable time. He says that there is no political motive at all in any arrangements that have been going on. We would all accept that. But what some of us find rather hard to...
Mr Alastair Harrison: The hon. Gentleman the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. W. T. Rodgers), referred to certain excerpts, which he read, as the cold mutton of Socialism. I was a little disappointed that he started by denigrating—
Mr Alastair Harrison: I am most grateful to the hon. Member. I was going on to say that I very much regretted that he went on to the denigration of what had been achieved in housing for the old people and in schools and housing over the past 13 years, because I think that anybody will admit that a very great deal has been done. Possibly, one should refer to those remarks as the corned beef of the current...
Mr Alastair Harrison: As I think the hon. Gentleman knows, I was one of those foremost in fighting the county council at one stage because of the high-handed way in which it went about this scheme.
Mr Alastair Harrison: I must add my welcome to the Bill which, for a number of years, I have been pressing the Minister to introduce. I particularly welcome it at this time, because I realise that, with a crowded legislative programme before us it has been necessary to recognise the importance of this Measure to bring it before the House at this stage. I was particularly glad when, in November, 1962, we decided...
Mr Alastair Harrison: I very much welcome the Bill and regard it as a logical stage in agricultural support in an era of abundance, in the same way as the 1947 Act—a very successful Act-seemed to be the logical stage in an era of shortage. There are, however, one or two points about the Bill in respect of which my right hon. Friend is likely to have some difficulty. If I may steal the phrase used by the hon....
Mr Alastair Harrison: I am interested to know to which figures the hon. and learned Gentleman is referring. The October recruiting figures were published about a week ago.
Mr Alastair Harrison: I should like, first, to congratulate my right hon. Friend on the way in which he introduced this Order. I was particularly pleased to find that although he did not sound unduly depressed about the recruiting figures, he did not sound over joyous and did not give the impression, which we have sometimes been given during similar debates, that everything in the garden is lovely. Unfortunately,...
Mr Alastair Harrison: I do not wish to detain the House for very long at this late hour, but I should like as one of the members of the C.P.A. delegation that went out to Kenya immediately after the first Lancaster House conference to wish the Government of Kenya every possible prosperity and success in dealing with their problems. I do not think it would be right for us in this House when passing this Bill to...
Mr Alastair Harrison: I am glad to have this opportunity of briefly raising the plight of the oyster industry in the United Kingdom. It is an industry which has suffered considerably in the last few months. This is not the first time that its plight has been discussed in the House. Not only has it been the subject of part of a Royal Commission, but last century a Select Committee looked into the reasons for the...
