In the House... Speeches in the House of Commons 1997-8

Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): In view of the large subsidies given to train operating companies, does my hon. Friend think that taxpayers are getting value for money? Does he agree that, with regard to local government schemes, there is a greater burden on council tax payers than there was before privatisation?

Mr. Corbyn: Yes. My hon. Friend is right. Although we are increasing subsidies to rail operators, we are not necessarily getting a better service because of the loose guarantees that were extracted when the franchises were awarded. We look to the new Government to be much tougher with rail operating companies. I hope that, as the franchises come to an end, we can return to public ownership and running of the railways. That is the best way of guaranteeing a decent service and an integrated transport system. Such a move must be at the heart of the Bill.

Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): Will the hon. Lady please tell me whether she has ever seen English morris-dancing?

Mrs. Gorman: I have, and morris-dancers are very jolly, but they do not appear too often.

Mr. Quinn: Having heard the right hon. Gentleman's confidence about the outcome of a referendum on an English Parliament, would he want to sit in that Parliament, and what role would he see himself performing for his constituency?

Mr. Forth: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is yes. I would very much like to be a Member of an English Parliament. I would like to be the Finance Minister of the English Administration. I would like then, on behalf of my constituents in Bromley and Chislehurst, to remove the huge subsidy that my constituents are currently expected to pay to the Scots and the Welsh.....

Mr. Quinn: On the basis of what the right hon. Gentleman said earlier, does he agree that there is a strong possibility that the review would develop into determining a regional identity? I represent part of Yorkshire, which is split up into different counties at the moment, and the mood of my constituents is that a regional identity within Yorkshire would be the logical conclusion of the suggested review.

Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman is correct. If what the newspaper quoted by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has in mind is an open look at what the best arrangements and dispensations would be, I concede that it is quite possible that some regional arrangement might emerge. A word of caution, however. One must not then assume that the transfers that take place--rather invisibly at the moment, and which therefore are broadly accepted--would continue. The warning that I must give to some of my colleagues and to hon. Members on the Government Benches is that they must not assume all that currently exists and simply bolt something ostensibly rather good on to it.
If the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Quinn) were to have a Yorkshire regional assembly, which he seems to crave, I say to him in a spirit of comradeship that he must not expect huge transfers of money--which exist at the moment but are concealed--from my part of the world, in outer London, to his to continue. That is the health warning that I would place on all this.

Reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO