John Redwood

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John Redwood on the Enterprise Bill

David Winnick (Walsall, North): Does the right hon. Gentleman advocate dismantling the national health service?

Mr. Redwood: No. I have set out my views on the NHS at considerable lengthin print and the hon. Gentleman is welcome to read them. I suspect that Iwould be out of order if I wandered too far into the bigger health debateunder the pretext of the Third Reading of this Bill. My point is thatpeopleare not offered a choice in those great public services, which are eitherremoved from the Bill or, in the case of the regulated monopolies andregulated public enterprises, are covered by it but differently fromanything else in the private competitive enterprise sector.

The aim of the Department of Trade and Industry-raising productivity andgetting us up to the standards of the best in the world-is thoroughlylaudable. I also agree that the prime method of sharpening competitionevenfurther, as recommended in the Bill, is the natural way to bring thatabout,because it will happen by the activities of people competing in themarketplace. However, the Government must think again on those parts oftheeconomy that are Government owned, Government monopolies, or regulated inaway that makes them into cartels.

The Government should tell the House why they are deliberately trying tolimit competition in the railways, where it is only just beginning toemerge, by reducing the number of companies offering services. They musttell us why they are not prepared to try out competition in a range ofotherpublic sector areas. They must also tell us why the areas in Britain thatare furthest behind our foreign competitors are practically all inservicesand goods that are supplied by the public sector, usually through amonopoly, a cartel or a heavily hedged-about operation in which theGovernment are directly involved.

It is well known that the Government are the biggest monopoly in thecountryand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the biggest exploiter ofmonopoly in the country through his phenomenal powers to tax, withoccasional support from people in this House. He is certainly not shyaboutproving beyond doubt that monopolies with too much power always overchargeand always deliver a lousy service for the money that they charge. We haveseen that in the huge increase in taxation and the lack of improvement inpublic services.

We should also note-this is entirely relevant to the Bill-that in the mostcrucial ways of improving our productivity and business success, such asourtransport and postal services, the Government do not practise what theypreach: far from it. Instead, they are moving in the wrong direction bygoing towards monopoly cartel and protection and further away from thecompetitive model, which would produce better results.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I am sorry to interrupttheright hon. Gentleman. I have allowed him a little scope, but I must remindhim that onThird Reading we should be discussing the contents of the Bill, and he istending to make remarks that would have been more suitable for SecondReading.

Mr. Redwood: I am very grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker.I welcome the Bill's thrust towards more competition in the privatesector,but I do not like the possibility that Ministers will use the Bill as anexcuse to evade proper accountability to the House on difficult businessissues. I certainly do not like the different treatment for the regulatedbusinesses, because I believe that the Government will use that route todevelop their public enterprises in a less competitive direction, whichwillbe deeply damaging to overall productivity and to the success of thefreelytraded competitive sector, which in turn has to rely on many of thosecrucial public enterprises. For that reason, I do not welcome the Bill. Itcomes too fast on the heels of the Competition Act 1998.

The Bill seems to avoid the obvious point made by my Front-Benchcolleagues,which is that we are, for these purposes, a vassal state. We are primarilyunder a European competition regime, which has been considerablystrengthened in recent years. It is therefore strange to see theGovernmentwandering further away from the European regime in this Bill, so shortlyafter the passage of the 1998 Act, when we were told that it was crucialtofollow that regime in every twist and turn and that that was the solepurpose of the Act. Indeed, we were told that so perfectly had the Actmimicked the European system that we were in sync, and Europe would takemost of the big decisions.

Apparently, that is not so. That shows that old Labour is beginning tocomeback, and it wants certain regulatory and monopoly activities to move intheother direction.