Christmas Adjournment

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning). She usually ends such speeches by inviting hon. Members to visit her constituency during the recess, although I am not sure what she would want us to look at. Perhaps it would be Mr. and Mrs. Dyke's central heating, or the theatre that is about to close down. I shall have to give it a miss on this occasion. One place that I shall not be visiting is Cheshire, and certainly not in the company of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, for fear of what my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) might do to us if we were to arrive together. I have only a few points to make in this Christmas Adjournment debate: two are local issues, and two are of national interest. The first is a matter that has already been raised by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith)—the closure of post offices. He gave a good account of the closure programme, which will also affect my constituency. There have been 52 post office closures in Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire, and one that I am particularly worried out is the post office at Willow Brook road and Bushby road. I went to that post office last Friday to accept a petition from Mr. Shah and the local residents, which I will present to the House at 7 o'clock tonight. I hope that hon. Members will want to stay for the presentation of the petition. In it, local residents express their grave concern about what might happen to local facilities if the Willow Brook Road post office closes. A lot of elderly people use that post office, as well as a lot of lone parents, and mothers who cannot go into Leicester city centre to access postal services. This post office is of vital importance to the local community. I know that all hon. Members can make a case for keeping their local post offices open, but I want to ask the Minister to make a special plea, through her good offices, to the Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. McFadden) to re-examine the case. I invite him to come to Leicester over the Christmas recess—Wolverhampton is not that far from Leicester—to visit Mr. Shah and the local residents and to hear for himself their real concerns about these proposals. I have faith in the system, and I know that we have Postwatch, but I am worried because every time we have written to Postwatch or the Government about a post office closure, the closure has still taken place. On this occasion, I hope that the Minister will come to my constituency. The second point that I want to raise relates to a site at the junction of the A46 and the A6—the road that leads from Leicester to Nottingham. It is a large landmark site that has been occupied for more than 60 years by GE-Thorn. One in every two light bulbs in Europe were once made on the site. A decision was made last year to close GE in Leicester, after it had operated there for more than half a century, resulting in more than 400 employees being made redundant. At the time, the local people accepted that the proposed redundancy package was quite impressive, and although they wanted to keep their jobs, they were happy to go along with the package on offer. My concern relates to the fact that the site has remained empty, and that GE has no plans to market it. It is an important local community resource, and I am worried that it will become derelict. The company replied today to my letter of 15 November—I do not know whether it knew that I was going to raise the matter in the House today—to say that it would look into the marketing of the site. I hope that it will do so quickly, so that the site can be used for housing or other amenities for the people in Rushy Mead. I know from discussions that I have had with Ross Wilmot, the leader of the city council, that he is keen to ensure that something is done about the area. My two final points concern national issues. The first relates to the announcement made today in a written statement by my hon. Friend the Minister for Borders and Immigration concerning the proposed changes to visitors visas. I was watching a parliamentary programme last week when I saw the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons jump up to the Dispatch Box to reply to an hon. Member who was complaining about the number of Government announcements being made to the press before they were made to Parliament. She replied that she had no examples of that happening, at which Mr. Speaker said that he had a number of examples. Here is yet another example. All over the weekend those proposals were trailed in the national newspapers, and they were trailed yesterday on television, yet we have only just had the written statement. I believe that there are some good things in these proposals, but I am a bit concerned about the proposal to introduce a bond system. We tried it seven years ago and it was not particularly successful, though I appreciate that the emphasis will now be on the sponsor in this country rather than the applicant abroad. That is welcome, but my problem, which other Members will share, is that where many people are coming to a very big wedding—as in Leicester, where 20 or more relatives often attend them every weekend—how is the sponsor going to be able to pay for 20 bonds, if they are to be set at the level of £1,000 each? That is a lot of money. Although I welcome the fact that the Minister for Borders and Immigration has sought so carefully to ensure that there is proper discussion and debate about these issues—the consultation period will last three months—I worry about one or two aspects of the bond system. I hope that the Government will listen to local communities and to hon. Members who have large immigration case loads and hear what they have to say about their experiences. I do not support the removal of the right of appeal. I think that a robust independent judicial appeal system is vital for the success of the visa regime, but I have no particular problems with reducing the length of a tourist visa from six to three months, as three months is plenty of time to visit relatives in this country. My last point concerns police pay. As the Deputy Leader of the House will know, following an evidence session with the Home Secretary last week, the Home Affairs Select Committee took evidence from Jan Berry, the chairman of the Police Federation and the chief constable of Nottinghamshire, Steven Green. We listened carefully to what the police had to say about the Government's approach to the issue of police pay and I am on record as saying that the Government have made a mistake in not paying the full award as recommended by the police arbitration tribunal, from 1 September. I cannot understand why that is not being done, as it is very clear from what we heard earlier today that the 2.5 per cent. is within the budget of every local police authority. I understand from the hon. Member for Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr (Adam Price), whom I have just met in the Tea Room—I source this piece of information—that the chief constable of Gwent in north Wales has decided to honour the agreement and intends to find a means of backdating the payment to 1 September, which I think is a very good thing to do. However, I should say that the chief constable of Nottinghamshire said that he could not do that because he did not feel that it was legally possible. Why are the police a special case? It is because for the last police strike, we have to go back to 1918. That is why the law was passed then, effectively preventing the police from going on strike again. They are one of a very small group of public sector workers who cannot go on strike, so if the Government go through a process of arbitration for those public sector workers, it is extremely important that they should be bound to accept the outcome. Those familiar with the Home Affairs Committee will know that there are very different personalities on it from the different wings of the various parties, so it is often difficult to achieve unanimity in such a short time. On this occasion, we have had only two evidence sessions, yet at 1 o'clock today the Select Committee unanimously resolved to write to the Home Secretary to ask her to meet the pay award in full. We said that we did not accept that the police were in the same position as other public sector workers, because they cannot withdraw their labour in pursuit of any pay claim. We felt that it was incumbent on the Government to honour the recommendations of the independent tribunal, and we said that this was a question of trust. We need the police to carry out their proper functions. Members will have received many e-mails and letters from members of the police force who are planning a very big demonstration in January next year to lobby Parliament. I believe that they are also going to Redditch to lobby the Home Secretary in her constituency. This is a problem that we do not need at the moment. The money is there and this Government have had very good relations with the police over the last 10 years. Law and order is at the very heart of our domestic agenda, and there seem to be no reasonable grounds why this claim cannot be paid. I understand and accept the Home Secretary's argument that there must be an overall pay policy, but this will not breach such a policy because the money is, as I have explained, already there. Let us send a very clear message that we value the work of the police. It is important not only to our law and order agenda but to our counter-terrorism agenda. We have rightly found an additional £15 million to put into counter-terrorism, so it is quite possible for the Government to honour this commitment. I realise that the Minister is not going to stand up at the Dispatch Box and announce that the settlement will be paid in full—if only that were the case! She will not say that, just as she will not say that Cheshire will not be divided or that Mr. and Mrs. Dyke's central heating will be inspected tomorrow. What I would like her to do, however, is to pass my strong message back to colleagues, especially those in the Treasury and the Prime Minister, who I hope will meet the Police Federation shortly. That would be the right thing to do at the present time. As I wish everyone a very happy Christmas, I believe that this provides an opportunity for the Home Secretary to become Mother Christmas.