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Industry and the Environment

I can say unequivocally that I agree with the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) on one point: his observation about the first-rate maiden speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Kitty Ussher). Having worked with her before, I know that she will be an asset not just to the House but to the people of Burnley. She has a hard act to follow: Peter Pike was a great Member of Parliament and a great advocate for his community. As she rightly said, he did a first-rate job as Labour shadow spokesman on rural affairs. I will let one secret out of the bag. Peter visited my constituency in that capacity when I was a candidate in 1992. We visited my veterinary school, Leahurst—one of the great veterinary schools and part of Liverpool university. We found ourselves being photographed with a sheep. There was a great argument with the photographer about where Peter and I should stand and about the caption that might end up on the photograph. What made it particularly difficult was that it was a French sheep that came from Yorkshire for infertility treatment at the hospital, but the photographer was sensible about the way it was reported. Peter is a great man. He was a great contributor to the House and I know that my hon. Friend will work hard to follow in his footsteps. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who has had a remarkable career. I do not suppose that he imagined in 1968, when he first became a postman in London, that some years later he would be here as the principal shareholder in the Post Office. He pointed out that the Chancellor has one share, but he has about 50,000. That is a remarkable transformation. When the Secretary of State convenes his shareholders’ meeting and summons the chief officers of the Post Office to meet him, I suggest that he looks carefully at the file that I left with the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), who previously had responsibility for the Post Office, about the way in which two sub-post offices were closed in my constituency. I thought that management’s handling of the social implications of that were very poor. Given the Secretary of State’s real commitment to working to meet the needs of people in disadvantaged communities, I hope that he will review the way in which some of those actions were taken. I hope that we will find a better way forward. I know that the Secretary of State will take seriously the important contribution that the DTI has made in promoting world-beating science. Effective innovation is central to the continued competitiveness of the United Kingdom. A perfectly fair question was raised by the Opposition in business questions about the need to have better science debates in this House, given that the Minister for Science and Innovation, Lord Sainsbury, is in the other place. He has made a remarkable contribution to Britain’s science policy. We need to find ways to promote debates in this House about the way in which the Government intend to continue to champion science and innovation through innovative technologies, not going down the path of proposed cuts that we have heard from the Conservative party, or indeed the somewhat luddite anti-science policy that we have just heard from the Liberal Democrat spokesman.