HC Deb 24 October 1973 vol 861 cc1434-44

12.3 a.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Acton)

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department has mentioned the alienation of the public from the State. Adjournment debates are times for dealing with grievances in a way similar to that of the Ombudsman. The alienation in the case of the Ordnance Survey affects many learned societies in this country, not just the general public. This is the second debate on the topic this evening and deals with matters which are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment. My only regret is that my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) who had hoped to debate a statutory instrument is no longer able to do so.

This, again, is an example of the alienation, because it is difficult enough to get a statutory instrument debated let alone voted on. The procedures of the House in this respect are very much wanting. I am sorry that it has not been possible to have that debate.

The history of the Ordnance Survey is founded on the Army. Any State will want surveys of this sort. As I understand it. the arrangements, certainly up to last February, were that the survey costs were carried by the nation as a whole and the cost of the maps was taken as the cost of publication because the survey as such would be needed in any case. This assumption, which has meant that about one-third of the income of the Ordnance Survey has come from publications, has been entirely upset by the statement of the Secretary of State in answer to a Written Question an 19th February, at column 32. This relatively brief statement has upset the course on which the Ordnance Survey embarked in 1938 as a result of the Davidson Committee recommendations.

That committee heard evidence from over 80 officials bodies before it came to its conclusions. It has been said by the Secretary of State, in a letter, that his statement—a review of the operation of the Ordnance Survey—was subsequent to suggestions in the Fulton Report. I think they may stem from the White Paper of 1970, because the Fulton Report was concerned with non-political matters relating to the internal efficiency and accountability of the Civil Service. I believe this review, from what we know of it, goes well beyond that. It deals with the nature, quality and costs of the operations of the Ordnance Survey, and inevitably the future quality of its services to the public.

This review has been conducted confidentially; its membership has been kept secret and we do not know precisely its objectives or its full recommendations. We do know, however, that virtually no consultation took place on the review. All we have is the statement in answer to a Written Question on 19th February. It is a strangely worded answer. It states that Government decisions are aimed at providing a better base than hitherto for fulfilling its —that is the Ordnance Survey's— 'national role and meeting its customers' needs with increased effectiveness and efficiency."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th February 1973; Vol. 851, c. 32.] That meant the cutting off of the 2½ in. map and the tertiary levelling. But that was not in the statement. That came from the Director General later, and the Secretary of State for the Environment did not have the guts to mention that in the snippet of information which we got on 19th February.

The wording of the statement is very curious. It means that the review was aimed at providing a better base than hitherto for fulfilling its national role and meeting its customers' needs with increased effectiveness and efficiency. We are not told what are the objectives of the review, let alone anything else. This is a very strangely worded review indeed, particularly as there was no consultation before it took place.

The consultative conference which should have taken place the previous November was cancelled, and when it was called again later it was to receive the conclusions of the Government and of the Director-General. The 2½ in. map and the tertiary levelling were to be messed around or axed, and now they have been put back. This has been largely due to the many protests by learned societies which ought to be have consulted. For instance, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, the Institute of British Geographers, geologists, geophysicists, university departments of geography and surveying, all have protested.

That is why the Director-General, behind whose skirts the Minister hid, dropped these proposals. We do not know what other proposals may come up as a result of the review. Perhaps certain scales will not be available. Perhaps updating will be held back. We do not know the position about the second edition of the 2½ in. map. The basic situation has remained the same. The review is secret.

In his reply to a letter from the Royal Society, the Minister went out of his way to state that the new policy remains. He said: Under the new policy, this national role will be clearly defined". He went on to say that, in the public interest, certain services might be continued … even though the revenue from sales and other income may not cover costs. In such cases, Exchequer support will, if necessary, continue, and in deciding this, the Government will have regard both to the nature of the requirements of the private sector as well as to those of the public sector. But it is permissive—it will happen "if necessary". It is the Secretary of State who will judge, presumably on the criteria of the review.

In other words, although the Royal Society is to have a group to look at this in its reply to the Minister the Society said that it could not represent all users, and there is existing machinery which the Minister conveniently bypassed in the initial stages—we are now back to square one. In an organisation which gets only a third of its income from sales, the policy, which the Minister states in his letter of 2nd October, is to maximise their receipts within the scope of Government policy, to seek to cover the relevant costs from payments from users.…. has untold implications. We do not know what they will be. As I said, something could come at any time. The implications are unknown, I suspect even to the Secretary of State. Until the Director-General has looked closely into this, he himself may not be aware of all the repercussions.

No doubt the Minister for Local Government and Development, who I am glad to see here, will say that there will be consultation. But the consultation is in the terms of the secret review. It will not be ab initio consultation about the rôle and services of the Ordnance Survey. It is entirely within the structure of this unknown review, because it is on the results of the perhaps widespread consultation that the Minister will take the next steps. This of course is bad government, in any Government. I would say this if it were one of my right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench.

I should confess an interest as perhaps the only qualified geographer in the House. Maps are the tools, the stock-in-trade of the geographer. For many years the Ordnance Survey has been run as a proper national service and it has gained a great reputation throughout the world. But this secret review has changed the face of this situation, irrespective of the Government Trading Funds Bill, the Royal Society letters, or the consultations. Unless and until we get a proper review, we shall not know what is in the mind of the Secretary of State or the basis on which this fine public service will continue. We shall know nothing.

This is very strange, because this Government are committed to open government, as they said in their election manifesto and time and again since. We understand an internal review of a Department being kept confidential, but this is hardly an internal review of efficiency. It strikes at the depths and the details of this fine service, which everyone wishes to see prosper.

Therefore I hope that the Minister will tell us that, if he will not be publishing the report, he will have a proper review, on Davidson lines, which all the learned societies and the general public can feel confident is fair, based on the precepts of the Prime Minister, who, in the election, said: I want to see a fresh approach to the taking of decisions. The Government should seek the best advice and listen carefully to it. It should not rush into decisions. It should use up-to-date techniques for assessing the situation. It should be deliberate and thorough. That was the foreword to the Tory election manifesto, signed by the Prime Minister.

It is clear that in this matter the Government have gone completely contrary to that pledge. Unless and until we have a proper survey, carried out on the lines I have described, they will be in breach of the contract which they then made with the British people.

12.15 a.m.

Mr. Sydney Chapman (Birmingham, Handsworth)

I intervene briefly to say, first, how much I welcome the initiative of the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) in raising this subject.

The Ordnance Survey Department is an establishment of which this country can be proud. We have the best maps and the most comprehensive system of scales of any country. I recognise that in a narrower sense we touched on the point of the Ordnance Survey when we considered Lords Amendment No. 1 to the Government Trading Funds Bill two hours ago.

Having said that, I think that the hon. Member for Acton is being a little harsh on the Government. As he said, the Government announced their intention of a review of the operation of the Ordnance Survey in a Written Answer on 19th February. The hon. Member complains bitterly about there being a lack of open government. I look at it, perhaps understandably, from a different viewpoint. The Secretary of State's intention was made clear so that there would be a reaction and to see what that reaction was, from not only the professional institutes which the hon. Member mentioned but also amenity societies, local authorities and, last but certainly not least, Ordnance Survey Department employees.

The whole point is that the Secretary of State has understood the objections and concern of all these interested bodies. I welcome the fact that the 2½ in. scale maps, for example, will be preserved and, perhaps more importantly, the tertiary benchmark system. Therefore, I welcome the development that has taken place. But I see nothing wrong in the object of the Government to see, where possible, that the Ordnance Survey is put on a fairer, economical and more sure-footed commercial basis. and that those interested bodies and individuals—architects, engineers and surveyors, for example—who use the Ordnance Survey for their advantage and benefit should pay the economical fee for the reproduction of the maps.

It is in that spirit that I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Development one question. Although changes are made to the Ordnance Survey Department—they must he made occasionally—before final decisions are taken will he give the reassurance that there will be consultation with the interested bodies and that he will keep an open mind before necessarily changing that department only for financial considerations?

12.17 a.m.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell (Southampton, Itchen)

As has been said. the need for this Adjournment debate arose out of a long answer to a Question tabled by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. S. James A. Hill), in whose constituency the Ordnance Survey is situated. I am sorry that the hon. Member is unable to be present for the debate. Since that answer was given I have been innundated with inquiries from not only Ordnance Survey employees but also members of the public who want to know what the statement meant. I am sure that the hon. Member for Southampton. Test will have had the same experience. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here, for any Member of Parliament, which I learned rather painfully in the previous Parliament. When one is approached by a Minister or his PPS to table a Question so that he can make a statement, one should, before one tables the Question, make sure that one reads the answer that the Minister proposes to give. One can otherwise be in great difficulty.

I want to refer to one section of that answer, in which the Minister details the aims of the Ordnance Survey. The fourth aim is To seek to maximise returns on all products and services subject to any limitations imposed by Government."— Will the Minister go into some detail as to exactly what that means? Obviously I have no objection—no one has—to the Ordnance Survey getting the best deal possible from its customers. But we must remember that basically the Ordnance Survey has been for a long time, and still is, a service to the community. We in Southampton are very proud of it. One of my predecessors in the House, Mr. Speaker King, had an Adjournment debate about this many years ago in an attempt to ensure that the department came to Southampton, and he was successful. We are pleased that the Ordnance Survey came to Southampton. We are proud of it. It has made its mark and taken its place in the community. Anything that went away from the service element and turned it into a purely commercial undertaking would be something we should all regret.

12.20 a.m.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page)

should like to deal with that latter query at once. The point of paragraph (iv) of my right hon. and learned Friend's answer was that it should not be taken to mean that the Ordnance Survey would become too commercialised. My right hon. and learned Friend says: To seek to maximise return on all products and services "— He concludes by saying: subject to any limitations imposed by the Government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th February 1973; Vol. 851. c. 32.] One of those limitations would be that the national service which the Ordnance Survey provides should be maintained.

I have no complaint that the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) has had two bites at the cherry. I am delighted that I have been given the chance to say some nice things about the Ordnance Survey. I endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham. Handsworth (Mr. Sydney Chapman) has said about the services provided by the Ordnance Survey. This is an opportunity to express the high regard in which we hold, and I am sure the House holds, the Ordnance Survey. It has inter national prestige. It maintains high standards as the central national survey and map agency.

The Ordnance Survey will continue to provide a national service in maps and mapping. To serve the public interest it will continue to need a subsidy, but the more it can produce the goods and services which people desire sufficiently to pay an economic price for them, the smaller the subsidy that will be needed. At present the income of the Ordnance Survey is about £4 million a year. It has been in the market as a salesman of its goods for over a century. It earns £4 million in the way I have described, but the Survey costs £11 million, plus about £2 million worth of services which it receives from other Government Departments. At present it must therefore seek from the Exchequer a subsidy of approximately £9 million in money and kind.

I do not think that it is a policy of wholesale commercialisation to say that we want to see whether the Ordnance Survey can earn more. First, we want to consider whether we are spending the money to produce the things which people want or whether we are spending money to produce goods and services which people do not really want.

There is no national body which consults more with its consumers than does the Ordnance Survey. It has four regular annual consultative meetings. It has meetings with the local authority associations, the Government users, the users of large-scale maps and the users of small-scale maps. They are regular meetings to discover what its consumers want and to try to provide what is needed.

In addition, there was the departmental committee which arose out of the recommendation of the Fulton Committee. It is not usual to publish what departmental committees report, but I tell the House that the committee drew attention to the three matters which were later dealt with in the statement from the Director General of the Ordnance Survey—namely, the 2½ in. map series, the levelling services and the large-scale maps.

Mr. Spearing

It was wrong.

Mr. Page

No. It called attention to these as matters which needed investigation, and that is what my right hon. and learned Friend and the Director General of the Ordnance Survey said, that these would be investigated.

The hon. Member for Acton has made much play of the fact that consultative meetings were not called at the regular time that year. The meetings were held back so that they might consider matters which had arisen from that departmental committee. Immediately that material was available, and my right hon. and learned Friend's statement had been made, the consultative meetings were then called and the organisations concerned considered what questionnaires should be sent out, and to whom, in order to carry out the investigation into these three subjects.

On the advice of the consultative meetings, elaborate questionnaires were prepared and sent out to no fewer than 133 Government Departments and organisations of that kind, and 2,292 other bodies. That was certainly full consultation. The questionnaires did not merely ask, "Do you use these maps, and for what purpose?" but also, "If you do use them, are they serving your purpose, and what improvements can be made?". I have summarised the questions, but there were three or four pages of them in each of the three questionnaires that went out, and I consider that that represented full consultation. I stress that 2,292 bodies were consulted, because earlier this evening, by a slip of the tongue my hon. Friend said the figure was 2,900. It was not quite that, but 2,292 represents a large area of consultation. Sending out the questionnaires had the right effect. I think that every right hon. and hon. Member knows that it did, because we all received a volume of correspondence about the use and the desire for the continued production of the 2½ in. map series, and certainly of the levelling services.

Having received all the representations and the answers to the questionnaires, my right hon. and learned Friend decided that he had sufficient information and sufficient results from the review to make his decision in principle on two of the matters, namely, to continue the 2½ in. map series, fully covering the country, and also the levelling services as before.

The Government have given the undertaking that as soon as possible, in the coming months they will publish a review, which will be open for further discussion, showing the background to the statement of aims of the Ordnance Survey which my right hon. and learned Friend announced last February, and, secondly, the outcome of the three studies—the 2½ in. maps, the tertiary levelling and the large-scale maps. In addition, the Royal Society has undertaken to carry out consultations with professional bodies to consider whether the Ordnance Survey has met their needs, and in what further ways it could meet them.

The hon. Member for Acton complained that these considerations would only cover some of the consumers of the goods and services produced by the Ordnance Survey. Of course it will. It was not intended to do any more than that, but further arrangements for con- sultation will be set out when the review is published. I assure the House that we want to be completely open in future. I give my hon. Friend the Member for Handsworth the assurance that there will be no changes without full consultation.

I stress again that the Government have agreed to prepare a review document which will explain more fully the reasons behind the statement of aims by my right hon. and learned Friend, which will summarise the results of the recent consultations on the three specific activities under review and give the Government's decisions on them, and which will outline the continuing arrangements for the Ordnance Survey and establish the needs of the users, including consultations with the proper professional bodies.

If at some time in the future it is decided that the accountancy of the Ordnance Survey should change in accordance with the legislation which has been passing through both Houses, there will be, as provided in that legislation, a further form of consultation to consider that aspect.

I stress again that there is a wide area of service provided by the Ordnance Survey which will need support from the taxpayer. We shall try to encourage the Ordnance Survey to provide maps and to carry out surveys for which the public will be so eager that they will pay the economic price. But this cannot possibly cover the sort of national service which we require the Ordnance Survey to continue to provide for the future, as it has in the past, with very high standards and an international reputation—that is, what we recognise as the outstanding service provided by that organisation in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. James Hill).

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes to One o'clock.