Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I very much endorse the measured and dignified remarks of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. I should like briefly to add to them in two ways. First and most importantly, I want to be a voice for my constituents, and secondly I want to speak as someone who has been a Member of the House from the very start, when Margaret Thatcher became Conservative party leader, and who was here when she was Prime Minister.

Almost everyone agrees that, in 1979, Britain was set on a course that could not go on. It demanded radical change. At times of deep crisis, the whole country rallies behind a unifying leader, whether it is Churchill in wartime or Attlee in peacetime—the latter constructed a peace that broke with the despair of the 1930s. Mrs Thatcher was a very different kind of leader. She was someone who took the fight to her opponents, and who deployed a scorched earth policy to destroy them. That polarised the country, which is why, even today, she is lionised in the south, as we have heard repeatedly this afternoon, but remembered with a very different memorial in the north.

The task in 1979 certainly required a dominant personality to shake this country out of its somnolent conservatism—all hon. Members agree on that. Whatever else Mrs Thatcher was, she was certainly a dominant figure. She dominated, or came to dominate, her Cabinet, and she dominated her party and the country. Her influence was felt across much of the world.

In that context, I recall a story I recently heard while sharing a platform with my very good friend John Gummer, who is now Lord Deben. When he was Secretary of State for the Environment in the 1980s, he complained that he could not get his Department to take climate change seriously. He rang Mrs Thatcher to ensure that he had the necessary support. When he explained the situation, she said to him, “John, you really shouldn’t worry. There are two persons in the Cabinet who are committed over climate change—you and me, so we are in a majority.”

Dominance, however, should always have a counterpart in concern for the victims of radical change. One should never destroy without then building up again. Too many industries and too many working class communities across the north were laid waste during those years without an alternative and better future being constructed to replace what was lost. Many of those communities are still desolated today.

In Oldham, the textile industry was wiped out, and a swathe of the country’s finest engineering companies were simply swept away. Yes, Labour Members agree that change, and even painful change, is often necessary, but we also believe that it should not be bought at the price of tripling unemployment, tripling child poverty and an unacceptable increase in inequality, which is still with us today.

My office in Oldham has received dozens of phone calls and e-mails on this matter from my constituents, as I am sure have the offices of many other Members. I will quote the exact words of one e-mail:

“Despite what her supporters think, a lot of today’s problems result from her policies…the destruction of our manufacturing base, lack of investment in social housing following the sale of council homes, deregulating the banking industry, privatised industries profiteering at our expense. We are still living with the consequences.”

My constituent went on:

“I’m sure a large percentage of the population who lived through her years in power will feel the same”.

She ended:

“I hope that my views will be represented in Parliament”.

Lady Thatcher will undoubtedly be remembered as a leader of great conviction. However, in my view, greatness has to be tempered with generosity and magnanimity if one is to earn a permanent place in the heart of this nation. I conclude by saying simply that the unwavering conviction that Lady Thatcher possessed so magnificently sets an example for every generation in confronting the problems that challenge them. This generation is confronted by very different problems: the straitjacket of prolonged austerity, the lack of accountability in corporate power, the over-dominance of finance, a grossly unjust system of remuneration and the destruction of the public realm. I say genuinely and forcefully that it is to Lady Thatcher’s credit that she has shown that we should not be daunted by problems of that scale and magnitude, but should tackle them head-on and overcome them with the same flame of conviction and resolution that remains her greatest memorial.

Leveson Inquiry

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think that in the last week we have seen two notable successes in that regard. In two cases, there has not been a bat’s squeak outside the House of Commons. I refer to the announcement of the new Governor of the Bank of England, Mr Mark Carney, and to the report that was published today. There has been not a leak, not a sentence, not a word. How different things were in the past.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Lord Leveson states that the selection of the key appointment panel which selects the chair and members of the crucial governing board should itself be independent of both the Government and the industry. Who would the Prime Minister expect to draw up a list of nominations, and who would make the final choice?

[The Prime Minister]

That is a very important question. In his report, Lord Justice Leveson gives a number of alternatives. He clearly prefers his model, but I think that the independence of those either judging an independent regulatory system or appointing people to it is absolutely vital. That is why I am concerned about the role that he puts forward for Ofcom. As I said earlier, the chair of Ofcom is appointed by the Secretary of State, and in my view that makes the two of them too close. In everything that we do, whether via legislation or by means of other backstops, we need to ensure that the people involved in this and the people judging this are properly independent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Q11. Since the Prime Minister denounced aggressive tax avoidance as “morally repugnant”, why are his Government now actively promoting aggressive tax avoidance by cutting the tax on multinationals that open a finance company in a tax haven from the current 23% to just 5%? How can we be one nation when the Government are on the side of the tax dodgers?

[The Prime Minister]

I think the right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood what we are doing. We are introducing a general anti-avoidance rule—something that he, in 13 years of Labour Government, never managed to do. We will do it in three.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have to say, on the argument made by the Labour party, that if its Ministers had resigned every time one of their special advisers had got something wrong, we would have had a new Government virtually every week.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Is it not obvious that the real reason the Prime Minister is so reluctant to refer this matter to the independent adviser on the ministerial code is that, if the Secretary of State were forced to resign as a result, the Prime Minister would find himself on the front line and having to answer for every future revelation about the covert links between the Murdoch empire and the Conservative party? In those circumstances, is it not inappropriate that the Prime Minister, who has a vested interest, should take this decision, rather than Parliament, based on a substantive motion and a vote in the House?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman could find any sort of complicated, circuitous explanation he wants, but he could always go for the simple one, which is that, having consulted the Cabinet Secretary and listened to the views of others, the best way to find out the facts is to allow Leveson to run its course. That does not in any way excuse me from exercising my duties under the ministerial code. That is the answer. Sometimes the simple explanation is actually the right one.

Party Funding

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I look forward to the Leader of the Opposition expressing wholehearted enthusiasm for that, but somehow I do not think it likely.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

How many private dinners with the Prime Minister or the Chancellor that involved party fundraising have there been since the election? What was the total sum raised? Will the Minister require in future that all private dinners or meetings with Ministers involving party fundraising will be officially recorded on the official register?

[Mr Maude]

The Prime Minister announced this morning that, as leader of the Conservative party, he is committing the Conservative party to going to an unparalleled degree of openness about engagement with the major donors. We look forward to hearing the same commitment from the leader of the right hon. Gentleman’s party.

EU Council

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support but would repeat the point I made last Wednesday. Of course Britain has a key interest in being in the European Union. I do not believe that the sort of options that other countries have outside the European Union give them anything like the influence that we have, because it is not just the markets we need open; it is a say over the rules of those markets. That is what membership of the single market gives us in this country.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Is it not utterly bizarre that the Prime Minister has marginalised this country and recklessly thrown away Britain’s international influence, from Washington to Beijing, solely to protect the City from regulation when it is urgently in need of some regulation? In any case, his veto cannot protect the banking sector from any future EU finance directives. Is he not therefore ashamed that never before has so much been thrown away for so little or, indeed, needlessly for almost nothing?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman clearly wrote his questions before coming to the House and listening to my statement. As I set out in the statement, we were not seeking special protections for the City; we were seeking a level playing field. Indeed, in some ways, we were asking to be able to have more regulation here in the UK, not least because of the shambles of RBS. Let us be clear: the Financial Services Authority report today names only three politicians as culpable—Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister and the shadow Chancellor, who was the man partly responsible for this complete shambles that we now have to clear up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. While we believe that the logic of a single currency drives the eurozone towards greater fiscal integration, that poses particular threats and risks to those of us who want the single market to work properly. At the European Council this weekend it is important to argue for safeguards to make sure that the single market remains robust and properly protected. That is what we must do in the short term. Of course in the longer term there may be further moves towards further treaties and so forth, and at that stage there may be opportunities to bring further powers back to Britain—and there may, indeed, be opportunities to hold a referendum, but I do not believe the right answer is to hold a referendum willy-nilly in this Parliament when we have so much to do to get Europe to sort out its problems.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

On a statutory register of lobbyists, will the Prime Minister also ensure that so-called think-tanks—whose propaganda is clearly aimed at manipulating both Ministers and the public for their own ends—are required to reveal who ultimately funds them, so that we all know whose interests they really represent?

[The Prime Minister]

We are committed to having a statutory register of lobbyists. That does need to be put in place and, as the right hon. Gentleman says, it needs to include think-tanks and other such organisations. It also needs to include one of the biggest lobbies of all—the lobby that owns the Labour party lock, stock and trade union barrel: the trade unions.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I welcome this debate and, like others, I want to talk about corporate governance. The Murdoch newspapers had 37% of the UK newspaper market—slightly less now, of course, because Murdoch had to sacrifice the News of the World to buy time—and by any standards that is far too great a concentration of power, above all in such a sensitive area as agenda setting in a democracy. Worst of all, that power was used not to disseminate information and opinion but to intimidate individuals and pressurise Governments to conform to his will. The need for major reform and media governance is now overwhelming.

Should any one person or organisation control more than one daily and one Sunday paper? I think not. Should the law restricting monopolistic cross-media ownership between the broadcast and print media, which Mrs Thatcher swept to one side in the early 1980s, setting Murdoch on his way to power, be consolidated and strengthened? I certainly think it should. Should a right of reply be instituted here in this country, as in so many other countries, giving space and prominence equal to that of the offending article? How best can new entrants to the media market be encouraged to increase diversity and improve balance in the press? I certainly do not think it should be done by licensing, but more balance would be helpful. The question of how that can best be done needs a lot of examination.

Since self-regulation of the press has proved such an abject failure, how can the right balance be found between statutory regulation, if it is strictly necessary in certain areas, and—most important of all—preserving the freedom of the press to pursue its proper role? We have already seen sanctimonious warnings against any interference with press behaviour, which is exactly what happened 20 years ago when David Mellor, then the Minister with responsibility for the media, warned that the press was drinking in the last chance saloon, since when things have got steadily worse.

Even more disturbing is the continual drip of damning revelations about the shadow power structure made up of the police, News International and No. 10; that is part, I suppose, of the secret governance of Britain. We learned yesterday that a quarter of Scotland Yard press officers had worked at News International, and we learned that the News of the World’s chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, was an official police informer. Of course, it was already known that the hiring by Scotland Yard of Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, was unbelievably casual, with no due diligence at all, as though the Met and News International were symbiotically intertwined. Perhaps most damagingly of all, we now know that Wallis acted as an informal adviser to Andy Coulson, even when Coulson was ensconced at No. 10, so the clean break that the Prime Minister has always said Coulson made from the News of the World was not really so clean at all.

The Home Secretary’s proposals for dealing with the situation are not adequate. Establishing an inquiry into setting up a new code of police-media ethics will not resolve the issue of the recently exposed profound dereliction of duty by police at the highest level, which includes taking bribes estimated to total £130,000 for illegally passing on private information. Dealing with such abject irresponsibility and deep-seated and pervasive corruption requires much more stringent and proactive strategic supervision.

There has been talk about whether the Independent Police Complaints Commission should have more power, but the fact is that the IPCC remains a body for investigating complaints. It is not about proactive strategic supervision. What is needed is a much more powerful new supervisory body that not only reorients the police towards what we all want, which is more reduction of crime, but pursues criminality in high places, where the damage is really done. We need much more profound far-reaching reforms that can prevent the corruption in the power structure that is at the root of this whole scandal.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

It is clear that without UN resolution 1973, there would have been appalling blood-letting in Benghazi. It is also clear that this is not another Iraq, because there is legitimate UN authority for action and there will be no occupying army. It is highly significant that the support has been gained, at least up to now, of the 23 members of the Arab League.

Having said that, and recognising that action of this kind invariably involves high risks, there are several issues on which this House and the British people want assurances. First, although the UN resolution is unquestionably strong, it focuses on the protection of civilians, as the Prime Minister declared repeatedly today. However desirable the end of Gaddafi may be, regime change is explicitly not covered by resolution 1973, contrary to the unfortunate impression that the Defence Secretary has given in a number of interviews that I have heard. There is always a risk of mission creep in matters of this kind, but if we are to retain the support of the wide coalition that has been assembled, it is vital that we are seen to keep strictly to the terms of the resolution and that we do not seek to put interpretations on it that suit our convenience.

A second concern is over the planning for the outcome of the conflict, which certainly did not happen in Iraq. As has been said, there could be a quick collapse if the Libyan military turns against Gaddafi, or there could be a long stalemate if the regime not only declares a ceasefire but observes it and holds on to what it retains in western and southern Libya. In either case, it is unclear at the moment—I wonder whether it is clear to the Government—how any intended outcome will be achieved. If Gaddafi is deposed or killed, given the strong tribal structure in Libya, what is to prevent the country from descending into civil war? How will law and order be imposed in such circumstances, particularly if the Libyan military retains its loyalty to the old regime—as some of it will—and refuses to do a deal with the rebels?

On the other hand, if Gaddafi is forced to end hostilities by the overwhelming force of allied air power, which is very likely, and opts to stay put in western Libya, what then? Will the words “all necessary measures” allow us to sidestep the arms embargo and channel arms to the rebels to enable them to carry on the fight, as the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) suggested earlier? The Prime Minister said on Friday that the resolution’s

“very strong language…allows states to take a number of military steps to protect people and harm those who are intending to damage civilians.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 623.]

But that cannot possibly justify arming one side when the other is observing a ceasefire. Equally, using superior allied air power to knock out Libyan army strongpoints if the rebels were to advance on Tripoli would be way outside the essentially defensive context of the UN resolution. In those circumstances, how would the stalemate be broken?

The third problem, which others have mentioned, is that of maintaining the all-important support of the Arab League, and not only during the initial ferocity of the allied onslaught.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Would my right hon. Friend be sympathetic in theory to the idea of a future UN resolution giving authority to an Arab-led UN force, spearheaded by the Egyptians and the Turks, as a peacekeeping transition force to solve some of the problems that he has mentioned after the first episodes have concluded?

[Mr Meacher]

There is nothing to stop those countries joining a coalition now, and I am not at all sure that it requires a further UN resolution. I have to say, I think such a result is unlikely.

The continued support of Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, is critical to the allied claim that this is not just another western war against a Muslim country in the Arab world, but rather action against a tyrant who has lost all regional backing and whose people are rising up against him. There are already ominous signs that Mr Moussa’s support may be wobbling, on the ground that the Arab League saw the UN resolution as an essentially defensive concept. The Arab League must not only be continually consulted but actually listened to, and its needs and demands must be taken account of in allied action.

My last point concerns the precedent that is being set. Of course every case is different, but the western powers and the UN did not intervene when there were arguably much stronger cases for it in Rwanda, in the Shi’ite uprisings against Saddam in southern Iraq in 1991 or in the three-week war and extensive killing in Gaza. As many Members have asked, where will the new doctrine this time around lead?

The argument about selectivity and the application of moral principles has been widely voiced in the middle east. If protecting civilians against a dictator who is seeking bloodily to suppress demand for democratic reform is the prevailing policy, how can that doctrine not be applied to interventions in Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria or elsewhere? That question has been asked repeatedly, but it has not received an answer.

Those are all difficult questions, but I submit that it is better that they be faced up to now, before the initial jingoism—an unpleasant sensation that is being pushed in some of the media—perhaps gives way to dismay and disarray in the weeks and months ahead.