Rowing Against the Tide - A career in sport and politics (17 page)

Our Labour City Council had fought tooth and nail to block the Right to Buy, but, the Clifton Estate of some 9000 properties, originally with either black or dark green doors, and all having the same depressing aspect, steadily changed both its image, and the conduct of it’s residents. It had a terrible reputation, made worse by the conduct of the pupils at a central comprehensive school. During the three day week in 1973, I was giving a lift to three or four of our staff who lived on the estate, and they were chatting about how the problems of the school and the estate were being exaggerated. Oh said one, there was the time when some of the kids stuffed mattresses down the sewers causing one hell of a stink ! Then again, they had thrown the music master out of a window, happily on the ground floor, and one did admit that her son had had the sleeve of his jacket ripped out. I smiled and said, if that’s meant to be acceptable behaviour, heaven help the future for those living on the estate. All that has changed, new garden walls, porticos, bay windows, rendering, and so driving now round the Clifton Estate, I’m proud to have been part of bringing about that change.

In the mid-eighties unemployment was unacceptably high, and although the statistics based on travel to work areas did not indicate that Nottingham City was that much worse than many other cities, my local colleagues and I knew that the wide travel to work method used in producing the statistics, hid the true state of unemployment within Nottingham City, as I was sure was true in other similar cities. Richard Ottoway, Michael Knowles and I went to see the Secretary of State Lord Young, and his deputy the Minister of State, Kenneth Clarke, our own local Nottinghamshire, Rushcliffe member. At the time, there was a vast area in my patch taken up by disused railway lines and sidings, which had been partly used by the power station, and coal mine, both by then long gone. Efforts had been made in the past to get British Rail to release the land for much needed development, but always they used the excuse that they might need the lines some day, and like many public sector bodies never considered sensible recycling of their tied up assets. Kenneth knew the area well and backed our case for what the Americans call a real estate method of regeneration. Lord Young took up the project and British Rail backed down and divested themselves of the land which rapidly became what is now called the Queens Industrial estate, and employs many thousands more than ever worked either at the power station or the Wilford/Clifton mine.

Later when we returned to the question of unemployment, we obtained agreement from Michael Howard, to fund some research by Trent Polytechnic into the pepper pot effect of unemployment within the City, which showed one percent in some areas, and 40 percent in others. Sadly when the report was completed, we had to face the fact that in one or two areas of very high unemployment, far too many were simply unemployable, and that situation is still with us twenty five years on.

After the 1987 election, I went with John Patten, then Minister of State, to the Home Office. Douglas Hurd was Home Secretary, and was faced with a two part report, resulting from a case in Scotland, that had been commissioned to examine apparent War Crimes committed abroad by people now resident as citizens, or having been granted the right to remain, in the United Kingdom. The report by Sir Thomas Hetherington and William Chalmers was in two parts. The first part set out, without names, the broad picture of what was being alleged, and the second was confidential to just the very top Cabinet Ministers, being evidence that might be used should any person subsequently be charged, and therefore would have been prejudicial if made public. Their main recommendation was very clear, that “legislation should be introduced to give British Courts jurisdiction over acts of murder and manslaughter committed as war crimes, in Germany or German occupied territory during the period of the Second World War by persons who are now British citizens or resident in the United Kingdom”. Douglas’s comment was, and was repeated on the floor of the chamber, that having read the evidence collected, he could do no other than bring a Bill to the House. Many sought to argue that The War Crimes Bill would either be retrospective legislation, or that witnesses would be too old to be credible. Before the Bill started its journey, Douglas moved to the Foreign Office, and David Waddington became Home Secretary. I was honoured to be asked to move up and be his PPS, and I went with John Patten’s blessing, and as a result sat with David throughout the passage of the Bill. There were some excellent speeches from many members, some who had good cause to see that at last justice would be done, and some who were shameful in the dismissive manner in which they sought to oppose. Those who argued that it was retrospective, would not accept that all the Bill sought to do, was to grant jurisdiction to British Courts, to address crimes that would have been crimes under British Law at that time they were committed, and would have been juridical had they been committed by a person subject to British Law. It was not seeking to make criminal an act that would not have been criminal at that time.

Many of the names somehow entered the public domain, and I found to my horror that I had one such suspect in my constituency. I was approached by the local press to obtain my opinion, and I arranged to visit a Mr Derzinskas, a man now in his seventies, who agreed to see me, and allow a journalist to be present. He was Lithuanian, agreed he was who it was alleged he was, agreed he lived in the village named, agreed that the Jewish women were taken away, to where he knew not, and that the men and boys were lined up and shot. He said he was there at the time, but he hadn’t been involved. When we left, I asked the journalist what he thought. Frankly he said he was guilty out of his own mouth, but I said I was sure that the editor would not allow him to write it up, and that proved to be the case. Personally I felt sick, yet I also knew that if he wasn’t charged, then for the rest of his days he would be waiting for the knock on the door, a knock that had terrified millions of Jews and other minorities, during the reign of Nazi Germany.

I expressed my view to David Waddington, that whether anyone would ultimately face trial, was almost irrelevant, but the Bill was important for if the British Parliament simply shut it’s eyes to the horrors and did nothing, we would not be able to hold up our heads again. We also recognised that if the Bill left the commons with only a small majority, their Lordships might throw it out, but as it turned out, it was carried by a massive majority, and a credit to our sense of justice.

I had approached Greville Janner, who was a member of the Jewish Board of Guardians and he had agreed not to speak during the earlier stages of the Bill, persuaded on the grounds that we did not want this to be just a Bill about the Jewish Holocaust, but to cover all the atrocities committed during WW11. He however felt duly bound to speak on the Third Reading, and during his speech he referred to the fact that he had lost half his family in the Holocaust. Neil Hamilton sitting just a few feet from me, remarked loudly “The wrong half”. Greville didn’t hear, which was just as well, and he carried on. Because Hamilton had made his remarks from a seated position, Hansard was not obliged to record his outrageous comment, and did not do so. A couple of weeks later, Mark Lennox-Boyd who was Mrs Ts PPS approached me and indicated that she had received a letter from a constituent to whom Hamilton’s remarks had been reported, and would she enquire if it was true, and what action might be taken. Mark wanted to know if I had heard it, and I confirmed I had, since I had been in the Chamber throughout the debate, as had David Waddington. “Oh gosh I can’t just tell her that, can you confirm it with any others”? I agreed to seek out a few members who had been in the Chamber on our side at the time, and duly reported back, confirming my original statement. “Oh dear,” he said, “How am I going to tell her.” I simply said this is up to you, but better she knows the truth, than the matter is ignored and might surface again in the future. Whether Mark told her, I don’t know, but it confirmed my worse fears that we were reaching the point where members only told the PM what they felt she wanted to hear. Sadly that’s a problem facing all long term Prime Ministers, and probably contributed to her sad downfall.

As expected there was considerable opposition in the Lords, again on grounds of retrospective legislation, but also on the grounds of credibility of witnesses. Even with the Bill making clear that the rules of evidence and procedures were absolutely in accord with current legal practice, there were still those who objected, and their reasons were a matter for their consciences. Standing at the bar of their House during the debate, I did not know whether to laugh or cry at the sight of a peer in his mid nineties, arguing that witnesses would be too old to be credible!

The Hong Kong dilemma surfaced and was addressed in the British Nationality (Hong Kong ) Act in 1990 when Douglas was Home Secretary, and the House accepted that whilst most Hong Kong citizens held British Dependent Territory Citizen Passports, they did not cover full citizenship and therefore no right to come to and reside in the UK. These passports at least gave such holders, a document that allowed them to travel anywhere in the world. The view was taken that it would be impossible to issue a possible 3.25 million passports to these holders, even if most would not seek to exercise that right of settlement. A figure, however arrived at, was chosen at fifty thousand, which it was believed would certainly cover all priority persons. As ever, since they did not have to make these difficult decisions and enjoyed the freedom of being in opposition, the Lib/Dem leader Paddy Ashdown demanded unsuccessfully, we grant passports to all residents in Hong Kong.

For whatever reason, since I was PPS in the office and with Home Office approval, I accepted an invitation from the Hong Kong Government to visit the dependency, and test the water so to speak. I was offered first class travel and accommodation, but if I wished to take Sally, would I accept business class? Avoiding the expected handbag, I accepted on behalf of us both! We met the Governor and various groups of lawyers and journalists, and whilst these interest groups where not shy in special pleading, I had to make clear, that whilst I could note their concerns and ensure that all views were reported back to the Home Secretary, as a humble PPS I was only the messenger, On one session, there were so many journalists wanting an interview, that Sally had to line them up in a queue outside our hotel room, and as it turned out, I avoided putting my inexperienced foot in it, and completed my task without mishap. We were treated to one very special treat, a helicopter flight over Hong Kong and the territories, and the dive back over the racecourse was quite spectacular.

Being in the Home Office had it's downsides as well being a fascinating experience, for we began to get threats from an IRA cell in Mansfield - North Nottinghamshire - and my concern was for my family. Of all the issues I had been involved in, I had promised never to be involved in Irish affairs, but non the less it meant we had to install all night security lighting around the house. We went out one Saturday night at about 7.30, returning at around 11, and Sally noticed a parcel pressed into the corner of our front door. It had not been there when we left, and there were no visible labels on the top and two sides that were visible. Sally insisted we called the police, who having inspected, could not discern any sender and decided to call out the bomb squad. Around 2.30am the army arrived with a special van, and a robot bomb disposal machine. We had to get our neighbours out of bed, and the small crowd gathered around the van and on a small TV watched the robot slowly crawl up our garden path, to face the brown paper wrapped parcel. Having inspected the parcel through the TV the officer in charge decided he would have to blow it up. The robot gun used something like a champagne plastic cork and compressed water, and the parcel exploded. We had just had the front door revarnished, and the contents of the parcel which turned out to be leaflets from the Department of the Environment, became a shower of confetti which stuck in tiny bits all over the door. It was a small price to pay for our safety, and our neighbours had a great night out !

My most enjoyable task was as a member of the Transport Bill in 1985 under Sir David Mitchell the minister of state at the department of transport. Fundamentally the Bill deregulated the operation of buses, and was the logical extension to the deregulation of the long distance coaches some few years earlier. For me, this was meat and two veg, applying practical common sense rather than politics, but of course Labour opposed it tooth and nail. Our City transport in Nottingham was a case in point, for it was run by Councillors, in the interest of Councillors in so far as if they wanted a bus to run down such and such a street, it would do so irrespective of any sensible justification. It ran at an ever increasing loss, and whilst most of the buses were old, Labour sought to argue that there would then be little or no new investment, and that it would be only a matter of time when there would be a terrible accident with a steering wheel coming away in a driver’s hand.

I got myself onto the standing committee dealing with the Bill, and was proud to be told by David Mitchell that I probably knew more about the Bill than any other member, and had to take one of his consultation meetings for him. Our County Council also opposed the bill, arguing that they would lose all their rural services. As it happens, when all the commercial bids were in, and the “socially desirable” routes went out to tender, the County found that all their existing routes were covered and that they had a saving of half a million pounds. There were many who opposed it out of political prejudice, and some out of total ignorance. One non-constituent who wrote to me complaining that living in the country they did not have a bus or any other public transport, and the Bus Bill would be a disaster for her. I had to reply that if she didn’t have a bus now, I could not see how the bus Bill could possible make matters worse.