pi FREE SPEECH Debate on the Address, 12 November Geoffrey
Rippon: (Hexham, Conserva- tive): Some things, however, never change. Hanging on a wall in an appropriate room in my home in North- umberland is a speech by a Mr Rippon who fought Gateshead in June 1832. I thought that this speech might give me some ideas for today, and it has. He believed that 'the banking system might be so improved as to produce great public benefit'. Therefore he would have welcomed the promise in the Gracious Speech of legislation to im- prove the supervision of banks. He 'hoped the day was not far distant when justice would be substituted for law'. No doubt that day will be hastened by the Bill to improve the working of the system of criminal justice. He would have rejoiced, as I do and as all of us must, at the Government's declared determination to maintain firm control of public spending. Mr Rippon wanted 'cuts in all superfluous and unnecessary expenditure'. He thought that 'pensions should not be paid without proof of necessity to persons such as the mother of the Duke of Wellington'. There is only one thing that is omitted from the Gracious Speech that he might have regretted. During his long oration he drew, according to the reporter, im- mense cheers for his spirited attack on the Bishop of Durham, whom he wished to see disfranchised and his dean and chapter abolished.
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