Sir Desmond Swayne
MP for New Forest West · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Just how confident is the Minister that this was not a cyber-attack? How confident is he of the resilience of the system in the event of such an attack, and how confident is he in the willingness and ability of the Government to retaliate in the event of such an attack, as the best form of deterrence?”
“I join that long list of UK Ministers who have raised, at the very highest level in Israel, the most egregious practices in the west bank, designed specifically to prevent a two-state solution, only for Israeli policy to double down. Accordingly, I congratulate the Secretary of State.”
“I am delighted by the reprieve—the New Forest was to be split, and part of it swallowed by Southampton. Will the Secretary of State accept my representation that we want the integrity of the New Forest to remain, and the last thing we want is for it all to be swallowed by Southampton?”
“To address one of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, that takes account of the fact that there may be different levels of need in different areas.”
“Yes, essentially today we are putting these services on a statutory footing. Of course subsequent Governments can change statutes, but this Bill makes it an explicit decision of this House and Parliament, rather than a fiat by Government decision.”
“I will address exactly that point shortly. If a child is not developing properly and is not sleeping, feeding or communicating, parents need to know that they have somewhere to turn.”
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“Under section 10(2) of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, the Minister has the power to set aside the requirement on the New Forest primary care trust to balance the budget. I urge her to take the opportunity to do so this year, so that we can examine the case that has been made and ensure that an enormous opportunity for the new hospital in Lymington is not lost through the closure of the facilities in Milford and Fordingbridge. Their closure would place a huge burden on the new hospital that it would not be able to discharge, with financial and on-going consequences for the primary care trust.”
“The hospitals in Fordingbridge and Milford are near the centres of population and, more particularly, near the centres of elderly population. That is an important factor in the New Forest, where public transport is largely non-existent. The hospitals have a good standard of facilities, supported—as my hon. Friend has pointed out already—by extraordinary efforts by leagues of friends. They have an excellent record of clinical and rehabilitation care and infection control. Both are next door to local GP practices—a very important factor—and they both have parking, which Southampton hospital, Bournemouth hospital and the new hospital at Lymington do not have, which is another important factor.”
“It is bad enough that beds are being blocked in acute hospitals, but if we lose the beds now available in the community hospitals in Milford and Fordingbridge in my constituency, for example, we will place an enormous burden on what is held out as the great prize—the new hospital to be built in Lymington. Lymington holds out an enormous opportunity because it allows the possibility of bringing back some of the acute care that is now delivered in Bournemouth and Southampton, with huge financial savings for the New Forest primary care trust. However, if we close the beds in the New Forest community and cottage hospitals, we run the risk of that opportunity completely disappearing, at great financial cost to the New Forest.”
“I have deep reservations about the work that went into that and I have received representations about it from general practitioners in the New Forest. It simply does not take into account the fact that the typical stay in an acute bed in Southampton or Bournemouth is a week, whereas in the New Forest community or cottage hospitals it is four weeks, because of the emphasis placed on rehabilitation. Add to that the completely inadequate arrangements for transferring patients from acute care back into the community—let us say in a rest home or a care home—and we have a recipe for absolute disaster.”
“What I really resent is being told that less means more, that all this does not represent a cut at all, as it is part of a new, improved model of working and an improvement in the service. We are even told that these people do not need to be in hospital as they would be much happier at home. Teams are to be provided, we are told, to go into people's homes to care for them so that they do not have to go to hospital. Anyone who has a domiciliary care package funded by social services in Hampshire will know that the staff to provide those services simply cannot be had. The notion that the cash-strapped New Forest PCT will be able to provide the services is utterly fanciful. The hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) referred to the bed survey.”
“I thank my honourable, indefatigable and great Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) for his persistence and generosity. What on earth is happening? We are told that we are spending ever greater amounts on the national health service. We know that we are paying ever greater amounts in our income tax and national insurance contributions, but why are we not getting our share in south-west Hampshire? How is it that we are now being told that the New Forest primary care trust may not be able to honour the decisions of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence when it comes to prescribing and that either all or most of our community hospital beds are to be closed?”
“As the water table is significantly lower in the United Kingdom than in parts of mainland Europe, is it not the case that there has never been a threat to biosecurity arising from on-farm burial? Given the picture that the hon. Gentleman painted of carcases rotting and awaiting collection, it seems that we now have the worst of all possible worlds, with much less biosecurity and significantly greater costs.”
“Has the Minister experienced the frustration of parents who face almost insuperable barriers in securing a statement only to find that it is so unspecific as to be virtually unenforceable, and their frustration that very few schools provide the adequate resources and capabilities required? There has to be a moratorium on the closure of these schools. Does the Minister agree?”
“I thank the Minister for that response and for those large numbers. He will appreciate that under his regulations horses have a greater need of passports than we do—they require them even to breed. Given that, how many passports does the hon. Gentleman imagine have yet to be applied for and issued? What is the current level of compliance?”
“May we have a debate on the financial situation in which primary care trusts find themselves? New Forest PCT is only one of many trusts that are running a deficit. We really do need an opportunity to examine claims that proposals to close services and withdraw beds represent not just financial savings but, somehow, new models of working needed to improve services—that, in some way, fewer means more.”
“The Secretary of State will be aware that last year's White Paper stated categorically that a decision on the replacement for Trident would need to be taken in the lifetime of this Parliament. Does he agree with that, and does he still believe in the principle that Britain should continue to hold a nuclear deterrent so long as others do so?”
“It is all very well to give someone a statutory right, but to tell them, when they come back and find that they have lost their job, "Sorry, mate, you're on your own," is not a proper response. The point about legal back-up is worth considering. It will be interesting to see how my employers react to my mobilised service at the first opportunity that they will have to do so on 5 May. However, I suspect that if they choose to sack me that will be for other reasons.”
“My concern is that if one moves beyond that six-month barrier, and extends tour lengths beyond six months—I know that the liability that one signs up for is one year in any three at present, although there are proposals to change that to one year in any five—that makes it more difficult for employees to return to their careers and to pick up the threads of a civilian life. My advice to the Minister is to stick as close to the six months for the maximum tour length as he can get away with. I was interested in the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway) raised in respect of providing some legal back-up to the statutory rights of personnel.”
“My principal concern is that of tour length. The policy when I was in the Gulf was that reservists were mobilised specifically to serve with a particular formation, and their tour length would be that of the formation. If the formation was going out for a four-month tour, reservists did a four-month tour. The general policy for augmentees, such as staff officers who were mobilised and sent out to a headquarters formation, was that they would do six months. Generally, the tour lengths were four or six months: four with the regular formation going into a roulement or six months for augmentees. Can the Minister tell me, either in his summing-up or by correspondence, whether that policy has changed?”
“There are opportunities, but I wonder about the extent to which the training available, and the qualifications that reservists—and any military personnel—can acquire through courses, can be encouraged to be recognised in civilian life. For example, modules for certain courses could be, by arrangement with certain business schools, made eligible as part of the modules for a master of business administration. More technical and vocational training could be recognised as a contribution to a corresponding civilian qualification. That would provide an incentive for personnel to go into the military and to stay there; at the same time it might also provide a more tangible benefit for employers. That is worth investigating; I know that the Ministry has been considering that, and I hope that that continues and gingers up.”
“We must be particularly aware of and concerned about that. It is all very well asking for larger reserve forces, but when they are as under-recruited as they are at present, that prompts the question of how we shall achieve that. When I joined the Territorial Army, I did it for the money. It was fun, but when I joined the officer training corps at university, I think it was £13 for a weekend, which was money well worth having in the mid-1970s. I am not so sure that in today's society, with relatively high employment and wages, that is the incentive or the attraction that it was, and we must start to look for more innovative ways of recruiting and retaining reservists.”
“Reservists must now inform their employer and authorise their military unit to communicate with their employer about their reserve liability. Undoubtedly, that will be a disincentive for employers to employ members of the reserve forces due to the consequences of that liability. For the mobilisations that we had with Operation Telic, it worked tremendously well, and by and large, employers have been supportive. However, we have yet to see how that will roll forward in future, and whether they will continue to be as supportive. The burden can be shared by a larger reserve force. The larger the reserve force, the more the burden of mobilisation can be spread, and the less frequently the same individuals will be called. At the moment, my fear is that we are dipping into a pretty small pool, and the water is getting muddier.”
“When I joined the reserve forces, we did not have to worry about our jobs, because we would be mobilised only when there was the danger of the first Russian shock army advancing across the north German plain. We did not have to worry too much about returning to our jobs, because we would be packing our bergens when our wives were reading the Home Office leaflet about how to build a nuclear shelter under the stairs. I always wondered how many people would leave their wives in those circumstances, packing their nuclear, biological and chemical warfare gear into their bergens and leaving their families exposed in city centres. Mercifully, we were never faced with the reality of finding what would have happened in those circumstances. We now have the new policy of show and tell, if I might paraphrase it in that way.”
“Brazier) called for the much greater use of the reservists, and argued for ways in which we should make them more useable. We have done so, and we are using them, so it is difficult to complain on that account. If members of the reserve forces were in any doubt about the commitment that they were making when they joined—if they believed, perhaps, that they were joining the boy scouts—they will have been disabused of that belief by now. Members of the reserve force now know exactly what their membership entails, so there should be no particular problem on that account. There will, however, be a considerable problem when it comes to employers and careers.”
“Undoubtedly, the measure of the effectiveness of the Territorial Army is that its soldiers—the reservists—should be indistinguishable when compared and serving with their regular counterparts. I am broadly satisfied that they are, which is a credit to them and to the regulars with whom they serve. I did, and do, have a reservation about the extent to which we are using reserves in medium-sized operations of low intensity. The ordinary citizen—the taxpayer—is entitled to ask how we can do with a smaller Regular Army and fewer infantry, but expect to call out reservists more often. By and large, however, it is undoubtedly true that the reservists welcome the opportunity to serve and enjoy doing so. That is largely why they join. Many of us will have participated in debates on the reserve forces. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr.”
“I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests as a serving officer in the Territorial Army. I was fortunate to be granted an Adjournment debate by the Speaker about a year ago, shortly after I returned from Iraq and when that experience was fresh in my mind. By and large, I have said what I have to say, and that is on the record. That brief was not dissimilar from the one that I gave to the Chief of the General Staff conference on 2 December 2003. I made it clear in the Adjournment debate that I was broadly happy with the way in which things were going for the Territorial Army, although I had one or two reservations, which I shall talk about briefly again.”
“Has the hon. Gentleman seen the Royal Economic Society report published today, the questions that it raises about the value of technology in education, and the finding that the more pupils used computers, the worse they got at the basics of arithmetic?”
“Indeed, I boasted to colleagues that, were I given a reasonably intelligent Labrador, I could get it a pass at A-level, if it were prepared to put in some work.”
“It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Iain Wright). I thoroughly enjoyed my brief sojourn in his constituency in the autumn and I especially remember the highlight, which was attending a meeting about the local hospital. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that he got a much better hearing in the Chamber this evening than at that meeting, thus giving the lie to the notion that we all behave badly in Parliament and it is all so much better out in the country. It was the other way round. It is an enormous pleasure to be called to speak in the Budget debate, especially on a day when the theme is education. I taught pure economics—economic theory—for the best part of seven years and my results were quite good.”
“If we go back to the Budget of 1992, the prediction for borrowing this year was some £17 billion, and £18 billion for next year. Yet this week, the Chancellor told us that, for this year, the figure would be £32 billion, and £29 billion for next year. We are talking about a mind-boggling £150 billion to be borrowed in the next four years. Those figures no longer have any meaning for us; they are beyond our comprehension. Spending is rising at a faster rate than economic growth and the deficit keeps growing. There are places in the Palace of Westminster where one can have the benefit of Sky television and I am often Downstairs in the mornings when the television is on—”
“I beg to differ. It is basically applied mathematics and the notion of a differential between economists and mathematicians is therefore difficult to sustain. However, my incredulity at the Chancellor's economics is not difficult to sustain—they mystify me completely. I am all at sea with them. He was at great pains to point out that we were in the 50th consecutive quarter of sustained economic growth—the longest such period of economic growth. He is right. If we use that measurement, it is the longest period of economic growth since the reign of Queen Anne. However, one has to count 18 quarters under a Conservative Government. I am concerned, at a time of such sustained economic growth, about the amount of borrowing in which we indulge—it is a worrying phenomenon.”
“The reality is that things were tougher for us, because at that time, we had to address the machines in their own native language. We did not have the interface of the mouse, or the ability to click on an icon. We have been able to pick up these skills quite easily, however, because we were taught the basics of literacy and mathematics at school. That is the importance of school. In so far as technology can aid that process, it is welcome, but when it becomes a distraction from it, it reduces productivity, just like so much of the public expenditure from which we now benefit.”
“It was the fad and fashion of the time. We are the generation that did not have technology in schools but have survived quite well. Often, the argument for the necessity for such technology is, "Oh they'll need it to get a job; they'll need it in the workplace." And of course it is now commonplace for people in the work place to have to develop computer skills. We are the generation who came through before even the Sinclair calculator was invented. We used logarithms and slide rules, and the personal computer was a mystery to us. However, we fared pretty well. I was once the manager in charge of risk-management systems for one of our leading banks, which was at the cutting edge of modern technology. When I took that job, I had not even seen a computer.”
“the evidence so far suggests that computer use in schools does not seem to contribute substantially to students' learning of basic skills such as maths or reading." It goes on to suggest that the relationship is inverse: the more access one has to that sort of technology, the more those basic skills decline. I can suggest one or two reasons for that. I have been in classrooms where I have seen children sitting, looking bored, in front of computer screens, wondering what to do next. If one cannot read what is on the screen, the technology is of no benefit. If one cannot manage the mathematical concepts, the technology is of no assistance. Some of the technology in schools reminds me of the fashion for language laboratories in the mid-1970s when I was at school. I wonder how many of those laboratories survive.”
“Improvement in results has not maintained the same rate of growth as it did under the previous Conservative Government. Crime detection statistics have plummeted and performance has not been impressive. The rate of improvement has been declining. I want to end with an example, which, I appreciate, will prove controversial, as it did when I raised it in an intervention on the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). The Chancellor said that he will increase expenditure on IT in schools by a further £1 billion in addition to the £2.5 billion that he has already put in. I draw hon. Members' attention to the report that the Royal Economic Society produced today. Its conclusions state: "Despite numerous claims by politicians and software vendors . . .”
“People come to our surgeries having somehow found themselves in debt; for all sorts of purposes, they have taken on debt that they simply could not sustain. I wonder whether the Chancellor is so different in his calculations and his golden rule. Why did it take Sir Peter Gershon to identify £20 billion of Government expenditure that could be saved and much better deployed? Since the Chancellor came to office, the public sector has grown by some 583,000 jobs. Those people are not all doctors, nurses, teachers or policemen, and it therefore poses the question what precisely they all do and what they add to the value of public services. Productivity growth in the public services has been reducing, as shown by the reports of the Public Accounts Committee and the Audit Commission.”
“I shall not say precisely where; I shall speak to my hon. Friend privately afterwards. However, one is bombarded with advertisements for loans: "Consolidate all your debt into one easy monthly payment and have that long desired holiday." It is interesting that the Griffiths commission report, which draws attention to the £1 trillion of private debt that has been accumulated and the possible consequences for economic stability, was published today. It makes our Chancellor's intention to borrow appear parsimonious. Nevertheless, there is no prudence in the proposals for Government borrowing. Like the dream holiday that ordinary consumers are tempted to take, borrowing is sustainable and justifiable only if it will generate a greater source of revenue in future and if it is truly investment.”
“Frankly, I felt that the money could have been better spent elsewhere.”
“I know that I am looking very well on it, but I think that I was 16 when the first electronic calculators came along. I certainly recall slide rules being compulsory in exams. There were two questions in our maths O-level that we had to do using a slide rule, and a couple that we had to do using logarithms. Of course I am not saying that technology has no place. I am just saying that I am sceptical. I said at the beginning of my speech that I had taught A-level economics for about seven years. At that time, I could have had the advantage of an electronic blackboard, had I had the will to use it. However, the reality was that it was an extremely sophisticated and expensive piece of equipment that actually produced no advantage whatever over the blackboard and chalk, except that it was more expensive.”
“The hon. Gentleman takes me back. However, in the light of his question, I shall not say where I did teach. Much of the Government's determination to spend money is misplaced. So much is being borrowed, and so much could be better spent. I am confident that our propensity to find savings rather greater than the further £12 billion identified in the Government's Gershon report is entirely realisable. Our determination for Government expenditure to grow by 2 per cent. less than the Government would have it grow is also an entirely laudable and achievable objective.”
“What is the Minister's estimate of the cost of that refurbishment, and what additional value will taxpayers receive compared with the tasks that their Lordships are carrying out in more frugal circumstances?”
“Is not the essential fact that these alleged Members do not regard themselves as Members of Parliament? They are fantasists. They consider themselves to be the legitimate Government of the whole of Ireland. That is the problem.”
“Was there not any whiff among the security services that an operation of that dimension was in the offing? I understand that the Secretary of State will not be able to answer that question, but were the answer to be "Not much", would he reflect on why that might have been, given the record of the Northern Ireland security services in respect of intelligence, which was formidable?”
“Does not the fact that those who are crying foul about the directive's text are among the small software developers in our constituencies, and those who are enthusiastic for it are the monopolists and oligopolists, give the Minister some unease and pause for thought?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Am I right in thinking that on Third Reading the Secretary of State is confined to the Bill as it now stands, not as it might become?”
“The Prime Minister gave a rather different answer to the leader of the Liberal party, who asked precisely the same question earlier this afternoon. He said that the argument was the need for urgency, but we all know that the police already have the power to lock up people for 14 days.”
“They want quick redress, and I hope that the Minister will take on board the sense of urgency that our constituents properly feel about the matter.”
“I want to highlight something that my constituents who have suffered from the APW situation have put to me. Their request is for urgency and certainty, although I am not sure that the two are compatible. They want to know quickly where they stand, and they emphasise that the ongoing discussions and considerations of Ministers should be expedited. When I face them in my surgery, I question whether it would not be better to wait and let the thing take its course rather than to force a quick decision, because the outcome might be better. Nevertheless, as one would naturally expect, people who are in the middle of their working life, and many are approaching the end of their working life, are worried. They have made contributions, but they suddenly find that certainty has been taken away.”
“My suspicion is that the trustees made the right decision, certainly in respect of what they knew at the time. It was an awful decision to have to take, but I believe that they made the right one. However, difficult questions of public policy will arise if, when the precise terms and arrangements of the FAS become clear, it seems that the trustees would have done better for their members and beneficiaries had they taken the other decision and forced liquidation. As we do not want to provide a perverse incentive, perhaps the Minister should consider the incentives that we need to build into the system to encourage trustees who are put in a similar position to those at APW to come to a decision that is collectively of benefit to the trustees, but also takes account of the greater public good.”
“The withdrawal from defined-benefit pension schemes has been measurable in other Anglo-Saxon economies, and they have not had our tax whammy. We must consider whether pressures would have built up, although perhaps at a slower rate, on company schemes, such as that of APW, anyway, given that people are living longer and causing a greater drain on companies' resources. What happened at APW seems to be of a different order, however. The sharp practice that was involved is breathtaking, and it is intolerable that the trustees should have been put in such a disgraceful position. In effect, a gun was held to their head and a timetable—a guillotine—was set within which they had to reach a decision. We must examine the means by which such pressure on trustees can be avoided.”
“There can be little doubt about what has happened to company pension schemes in the past few years. The volume of assets in such schemes was one of the great success stories of the British economy and the sheer amount of funded pensions was something on which we did much better than comparator economies. That success has almost become a disaster area. I have no doubt that the crisis was precipitated largely by the decision to tax the pension funds so heavily, with a £5 billion-a-year tax, the effect that that had on the savings market, and the knock-on effect on the value of the stock market. In effect, that hit the pensions industry with a double whammy. Of course, there is the question of how far that merely expedited a trend that was discernible elsewhere.”
“What on earth has happened to all the rest? The Chief of the Naval Staff said that instinctively he did not welcome the early disposal of good ships. What could he possibly have meant? For the record, which frigates and destroyers will be decommissioned this year?”
“Let us say that a Christian preacher pursues explicitly the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ and the necessary implications that has for the claims made by the Prophet Mohammed. He adds to that explosive criticisms of elements of sharia law: death for apostasy, stoning for various crimes, amputation and so on. My understanding is that none of that would result in a prosecution in accordance with the provisions. Can the hon. Gentleman assure me that there is not a large number of people in the Muslim community who do not precisely expect that that would give rise to prosecutions? That is the point. We are raising—”
“What has happened to the disappeared young people who are not registered as unemployed, are not studying, not in training and not in full-time education of any kind? That is the key statistic.”
“How will the European defence agency achieve the fine-sounding objectives that the Foreign Secretary set out, when the reality is that our European partners continue to cut their defence expenditure and commitments? Is not it all just posturing?”