Commons Sitting of 4 December 1975

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  NORTHERN IRELAND

    Royal Ulster Constabulary
    Rev. Ian Paisleyasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he is satisfied with the integrity of the RUC.
    The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Roland Moyle): Yes. Sir.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: Is the Minister aware that at its annual conference last week-end the Social Democratic and Labour Party reaffirmed its non-support for the Royal Ulster Constabulary? Is he also aware that recently, after the brutal murder of two RUC personnel in East Tyrone, a prominent cleric, Father Denis Faul, speaking on television, said that the RUC was a terrorist organisation and that he would not give any information to the police about such matters? What steps will the hon. Member take to counteract the propaganda that has been launched against the integrity of the Royal Ulster Constabulary?
    Mr. Moyle: The Government have full confidence in the integrity of the RUC. We feel that people should give the constabulary any information that they have about any crimes which have been committed. The police try to serve the public generally. I welcome expressions of public support for the police.
    Mr. Fitt: Is the Minister aware that at the conference to which reference has been made by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) successive speakers appealed to their constituents and to the minority in general throughout Northern Ireland that, if they were aware of any crimes being
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    committed, particularly terrorist scheduled offences, such as murder, maiming, hijacking and robbery, they should make their information available to the police forces? Is he also aware that at this time the RUC would not be prepared to enter difficult areas, because they could be putting their lives out on a limb, in view of the availability of arms to terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland, and that the SDLP does not intend to put the life of one policeman in jeopardy in those areas?
    Mr. Moyle: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his view about the constabulary. I confirm that policing in some areas in Northern Ireland is a problem that will take some time to solve.

    Detainees
    Mr. Beithasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many persons are currently serving detention without trial in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many persons were held in detention without trial in Northern Ireland on 1st January 1975; and how many are currently so held.
    Mr. Watkinsonasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about the numbers of persons presently in detention in Northern Ireland.
    The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Merlyn Rees): Seventy-three persons are currently held in detention, of whom 26 are serving prison sentences.
    Mr. Beith: Will the Secretary of State note that we on the Liberal Bench, at least, support his policy of ending detention not because we have any illusion about there being a cease-fire in operation but because detention has proved to be more valuable to the IRA than to the forces of law and order?
    Mr. Rees: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support. I should also point out that since detention was introduced the level of violence has been consistently higher than before, and that there is no direct correlation. Last year I personally detained a large number of

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    men—I think about 400—under interim custody orders. That was done not because I believed that detention would end the violence, but because it undoubtedly dampens down any great escalation of violence. We might have to return to it again. This year more than 1,260 people have gone through the courts. I believe that that is the method that we should use, rather than of detention.
    Mr. Hooley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I fully support his policy? I believe that it shows great credit to his political courage. Is he further aware that if the same political courage was shown by some of the stupid bigots on either side in Northern Ireland the situation would improve?
    Mr. Rees: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's general support. I realise that it is easy for us to say this here, but, as a Government and Opposition, we must find a way of allowing people to get away from locked views which have a historical and cultural base. That is what we are trying to do, on the political side.
    Mr. Neave: If the Secretary of State persists in releasing these detainees, does he intend to make the law on proscribed organisations more enforceable? We applaud the success of the RUC, but does the right hon. Gentleman recall describing some of the detainees on 5th December last year as
    "the organisers and members of assassination squads"?—[Official Report, 5th December 1974; Vol. 882, c. 2074.]
    How many of the 73 people whom he intends to release fit this description, or are bomb experts? On 9th July last did he not say that detention could not be ended until violence was checked? Why has he changed his mind? Is he not aware that the long-term objective of the IRA is to terrorise people in the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Rees: I have great experience in locking people up. I have not simply read the Act; I have dealt with every case individually. In many cases the people concerned were not directly involved in the carrying of the bombs; they were involved in the organisation of the attack. I have detained 400 of the
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    2,000 people who have been detained. If one wanted to put inside those who were involved in some way—and this is not just on the minority side—the figure would be not 2,000 or 5,000, but 6,000 or 7,000. For every person who is detained, like dragon's teeth, someone else joins the organisation.
    Mr. Neave: How many?
    Mr. Rees: The point is that detention does not solve the issue. Those who were put away by me or by my predecessors were no different from the other 1,800 or 1,900 detainees. Every one has been involved in some way. It is not the law that I shall detain these people until the campaign is over. The commissioners released 400 people last year; that is the law. It was the UDA that claimed responsibility for the bomb in Dublin, not the Provisional IRA. Therefore, both sides of the community are involved. [Interruption.] If I took the advice of the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) I should need not two camps, but six, or even eight. Of the 73 to be released, all have been involved in violence in some way.
    Mr. Neave: They are assassination squads.
    Mr. Rees: No, they are not assassination squads. One has to be very careful if one says that men, on both sides of the community, are assassins and killers. I said that a large number of them were. To apply that description to the last 50 would be extremely dangerous.
    Mr. Watkinson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is widespread support by Labour Members for his decision to end detention without trial, but that if we are trying to promote the rule of law in Northern Ireland it is only right that people should be brought before the courts and tried? Will he say what progress has been made to improve rehabilitation facilities in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Rees: Rehabilitation for anyone who has been in prison is a matter for the prison authorities, whatever may be the paramilitary organisations to which he belongs. Whether they are in gaol because they were sentenced to imprisonment—which is the case in respect of 1,500—or whether they are detainees,

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    they are not interested in rehabilitation. To be frank, rehabilitation of the normal sort is not relevant to the nature of those who are put away.
    Mr. Mates: Is it not true that whatever the merits or otherwise release from detention—and the arguments are balanced on it—it is something that clearly, the right hon. Gentleman will pursue to the end? In view of that and of what the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) said about policing in the Catholic areas, will the right hon. Gentleman take the most robust steps to press the leaders of the minority community to keep their part of the bargain, namely, that when detention without trial is ended—this has been a running sore within the minority community—they will do all in their power to urge full support for the forces of law and order in Ulster?
    Mr. Rees: The hon. Gentleman's knowledge of the streets of Belfast is greater than that of those of us here who are not from Northern Ireland. In recent months, one of the reasons for the greater degree of success of the police and the security forces in obtaining evidence to put before the courts is that the minority community has been giving that evidence to the police. This is due to a lowering of tension, in relation to detention. In the past, a crowd could always be gathered in the Falls or in the Springfield Road, and one could always collect money for "our boys". That is not now happening. To that extent there is a greater amount of support for the police and the security authorities than ever before.
    The question of outward support for the police is difficult. Many other matters are involved. The majority of the minority, who are men of responsibility, want to support, and are supporting, the police. We have to unlock the door politically and give these people, together with other sections of the community, responsibility for dealing with law and order.

    Security
    Mr. Gowasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, whether he will make a statement about the security situation in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Molyneauxasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what
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    further action he intends to take to eliminate terrorism and to restore the protection of the law to all parts of Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Merlyn Rees: In recent months, the security situation has been dominated by sectarian and interfactional strife. The House will recall the activities of the UVF, particularly in October, and the more recent feuding between the Provisional and Official IRA. The House will also be aware of the activities of the IRSP. But recently there have been rather more shootings, bombing attacks and booby traps, for many of which the Provisional IRA have claimed responsibility. The incident that has attracted most attention was a shooting incident near Crossmaglen, in which three soldiers in a covert Army observation post were killed and one seriously injured. Three days later, two members of the RUC were shot dead in an ambush west of Dungannon. There have been a number of incendiary attacks in Newry and elsewhere.
    The police, assisted by the Army, have met with success this year in bringing suspected terrorists before the courts. Between 1st January and 1st December, 1,136 people were charged with terrorist-type offences, including 130 with murder and 541 with firearms and explosives offences. All of these cases are being dealt with by the courts.
    The Government believe that it is in this way, through the rule of law, that we should aim to bring peace and normality to Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Gow: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Opposition support his objective to end detention without trial as soon as possible, as long as it does not endanger the security of Northern Ire land? Is he further aware that in view of his assurances that the rate of the release of detainees from the Maze Prison will be related to the level of violence in Northern Ireland, we are gravely disturbed about his present policy, which aims at releasing the remaining 73 detainees before Christmas—
    Mr. Rees: Fifty.
    Mr. Gow: Yes, apart from the conviction point. Finally, does the Secretary of State acknowledge that those remaining 50, who are also not subject to a prison sentence, include a hard core and

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    thoroughly dangerous element consisting of men who, when released, are likely to resort to terrorism and violence?
    Mr. Rees: I am grateful for support for the general principle. Some prisoners still have substantial sentences to serve. The term "hard core" is a difficult one to use in connection with the remaining 50. About 200 terrorists are released every year, having been through the courts. No one seems to be concerned about recidivism on their part. It is the younger element—those under the age of 19—who seem to return to violence more quickly. The men whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned as being a "hard core" element may not come within the general definition of "hard core". I do not have a list which shows that these "hard core" are the worst offenders. The same applies to those released from prison. I shall end detention. I shall get these people out, and I shall ensure that the members of the minority community, who have been hooked on this for four years, make the decision for themselves. Will they support the forces of law and order? That will be the supreme test.
    Mr. Molyneaux: Will the Secretary of State seek an early opportunity to correct the impression given in a report of a recent speech of his, which seemed to imply that he felt that the responsibility for dealing with certain forms of lawlessness did not lie with the Security Forces? Does he agree that lawlessness and violence in all their forms are part and parcel of the same problem, and that if we had clear evidence of the determination of Her Majesty's Government to deal with violence at its source, the message would very quickly get through to all the other troublemakers, which could have quite a dramatic effect on the community in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Rees: I do not know, frankly, to what the hon. Gentleman is referring. Our responsibility for dealing with this matter is complete. The hon. Gentleman knows the Province of Northern Ireland better than most of us. If it were simply a question of the number of soldiers or of police, it would be a relatively easy matter. What we find in many parts of Northern Ireland is that the support of violence—the open house and the hiding of weapons—takes place on a large scale. It
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    is becoming less. The only way that we shall defeat those on both sides of the community who are involved in violence—people who live by the bomb and the gun, by the easy money, and by getting money from pubs and illegal drinking houses; which is the stuff of which all this is made—is by realising that the Security Forces by themselves cannot achieve the objective, and that we must have support from the community. It is the nature of Northern Ireland that that support is not available—sadly, perhaps, but that is the case.
    Mr. Fitt: In regard to the overall security situation in Northern Ireland and the eventual ending of detention, does my right hon. Friend recall that it is not only he who has released internees but also his predecessor from the Conservative Party? On taking over in Northern Ireland, his predecessor found it possible to release hundreds of detainees who should never have been detained in the first place, and at that time a certain degree of hysteria was emanating from the Loyalist representatives in the House because of the fact that Loyalists were interned in Northern Ireland. After their release there seemed to be a change of mind on the part of the Loyalist representatives.
    Will my right hon. Friend take it from me that I am in total agreement with the call that he has just made from the Dispatch Box? Now that we have got rid of the running sore and cancer of internment, my colleagues and I will do everything in our power to involve the minority population in the attempt to eject the gunmen from their midst.
    Mr. Rees: My hon. Friend has developed what I said earlier—that I am carrying out the law. A large number of people were detained by my predecessor. It had to be. That is the law that we operate. It is not a case of locking up people for a determinate sentence. That is the fact of the matter, and it is absolutely right. In those days detention was taking place at the same time. What I am basing my policy on is the fact that 1,200-plus people have gone through the courts, large numbers of them for murders. That is the balance I am endeavouring to achieve. I believe that it is right to end detention, and it is my aim and the Government's aim to do so.

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    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support. The advice that I would give him is this: he should not feel that I am not getting support from members of the Loyalist community and the Unionist community for releases from detention. The people of Northern Ireland understand what is going on. They understand their community. I am sure that I am right, and I am backed by a large amount of support, not only on my hon. Friend's side of the community.

    Foyle Fisheries
    Mr. Dunlopasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he expects to publish the promised report of the official survey carried out in the Foyle Fisheries in autumn 1973.
    Mr. Moyle: The experts have submitted their draft report to the Foyle Fisheries Commission and it is now in the hands of the printers. The Commission hopes to be in a position to submit the report to the responsible Ministers in Belfast and Dublin by early January. The question of publication will then be a matter for them to decide jointly.
    Mr. Dunlop: Is the Minister of State aware that the two Canadian experts who carried out this survey found that there had been gross overnetting and overfishing in the area of the Foyle and that a large amount of this was being done from the Republic side? Is he aware that the experts' recommendations have not been carried out? Will he give an undertaking that the recommendations will be carried out, and an assurance on the early publication of the report?
    Mr. Moyle: I cannot give an undertaking that the report will be published until the relevant Ministers in Belfast and Dublin have seen it, but I see no reason why the report should not be published at that stage. The investigation was set up because there had been a deterioration in the Foyle salmon fisheries. We shall have to await the publication of the report before we can decide what to do.

    Excluded Persons
    Mr. Clemitsonasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many persons who have been excluded from
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    Great Britain under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974, have subsequently been imprisoned or interned in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Merlyn Rees: None has been imprisoned for terrorist-type offences, and none has been detained.
    Mr. Clemitson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that this provides very strong further evidence that the most effective way in which to combat terrorism anywhere in the United Kingdom is by normal police methods and proper court procedures?
    Mr. Rees: I certainly believe that where there is evidence that can be put to a court, that is the best way to proceed. In Northern Ireland there is a particular problem.
    As for the other matter that my hon. Friend raises, when people return to Northern Ireland, having been away for some time, whatever their connection it does not follow that they immediately become involved, or become involved in such a way that the Northern Ireland police have evidence of their involvement over there. That is what the RUC is concerned with. It is the question whether they then become involved in Northern Ireland that will determine the success of our policy of exclusion from Great Britain.
    Mr. Hugh Fraser: Is not one of the great weaknesses of the anti-terrorism legislation the fact that Northern Ireland is being used just as a dumping ground for those suspected of terrorism here?
    Mr. Rees: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will consider the facts of the matter. The operation of the legislation over here is not for me, in Northern Ireland. What matters in relation to people who have been involved, or might be involved, and who have Northern Ireland roots—I appreciate that this is distasteful to people in Northern Ireland, with their feelings on the matter—is their connection with organisations, and so on. In the Government's view it is better for them to be excluded rather than to operate in the hole-and-corner way in which they operate here, which is much more difficult to deal with than it is for me, in Northern Ireland.

    South Armagh
    Mr. Rostasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is Government policy concerning house searches, screenings and road-stops in South Armagh.
    Mr. Alexander Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will consider raising the military profile in South Armagh.
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what progress has been made during the current year in securing the effective and continuous enforcement of law in South Armagh; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. McCuskerasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he is satisfied with security in South Armagh; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Goodladasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he will make a statement on the Government's policy on military ground patrols in South Armagh.
    Mr. Miscampbellasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is Government policy concerning military ground patrols in South Armagh.
    Mr. van Straubenzeeasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he is satisfied with the liaison between the Army and the RUC in South Armagh.
    Sir Nigel Fisherasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps he is taking to ensure that the Queen's writ runs in South Armagh and that troops can enforce law and order effectively in that part of Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Merlyn Rees: Violence in South Armagh has continued unabated, and the Provisional IRA cease-fire has not been observed there. The Security Forces have responded to the violence and have received good co-operation from the security forces of the Republic, but the task is made difficult by the terrain, the
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    proximity of the border and the limited assistance given by the local people.
    The police, supported by the Army, are meeting with success in bringing before the courts the people thought to be responsible for this violence. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said in the House on 24th November, 30 people have been charged with terrorist-type offences in South Armagh since 1st August, including two people charged with murder, six with attempted murder, 14 with firearms offences and eight with explosives offences. In addition, about 300 persons have been charged under the ordinary law, for various offences.
    The detailed security measures to be taken on the ground, including the number and types of patrols and road checks, are matters for the operational commanders. I give them my full support.
    Mr. Rost: When will the Government realise that the country is becoming increasingly angry about our Security Forces being required to risk their lives because they are still having to fight with their hands tied behind their backs? How much more United Kingdom territory will have to be surrendered to enemy occupation before the Government realise that they have a war on their hands?
    Mr. Rees: I think that the hon. Gentleman assumes that South Armagh is a built-up area, with thousands of terrorists available to shoot. I do not think that he understands the nature of the terrain or the nature of the border. [Interruption.] I think that there are others who do not understand, either. Within South Armagh, with the small number of people involved, to suggest to the Security Forces that they should treat the area like John Wayne, with the American cavalry, would be absolute nonsense. They have to deal with this situation with the expertise that they have, and I have full confidence in what they are doing down there. They are not outgunned; nor are they outmanned. When the hon. Gentleman criticises in this way, he does it with a lack of knowledge. The only people who are pleased with this sort of thing are the members of the Provisional IRA.
    Mr. Fletcher: Will the Secretary of State accept that Question No. 8 was tabled before the most recent Army tragedy in South Armagh?

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    In view of the right hon. Gentleman's reply, will he say whether the composition of ground patrols in South Armagh is being reviewed by the Army? Will he also comment on the report in The Times, today, in which Mr. Cooney, the Minister of Justice in Dublin, said that the Irish authorities would have provided cover had they been told of the men's vulnerable hillside position during the recent trouble in South Armagh? Are those facts correct? If so, it would appear that we were for some reason denied the co-operation which is essential to our men in South Armagh.
    Mr. Rees: In reply to the hon. Gentleman's first point, the operational use of patrols and covert hiding places for observation must be a matter for the Army, and I am not prepared to become involved in it. The decision how to do it is for people down the line. If, sadly, it sometimes goes wrong, that is a matter which they must consider. It is not a question of the Army being stupid, as is sometimes made out, although I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman had not done so.
    This was a covert hiding place, which nobody could see, established for a particular purpose. There would have been no point in telling anybody else that it was there. To have had, across the border, a police car keeping guard on a covert patrol would rather have defeated the purpose of the patrol. The fact that the Irish authorities were not told about it was not due to a feeling that they would not co-operate. On the contrary there has been co-operation between police and police—Garda and RUC—over the past year. Co-operation between the RUC and the Garda grows and grows every day. It is not between army and army; it is between RUC and Garda. I have nothing but praise for the co-operation that we get on the border. The fact that shots come from across the border and that these soldiers were, in fact, shot from across the border, is something that we must take into account, but there is certainly co-operation.
    Mr. Madden: Will my right hon. Friend say whether, in his opinion, the security position in South Armagh and in other parts of Northern Ireland—and, indeed, throughout the United Kingdom—would be improved by the introduction
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    of capital punishment for those found guilty of acts of terrorism? Does he agree that all the available evidence points the other way?
    Mr. Rees: I cannot give my hon. Friend accurate figures, but between 300 and 400 members of the Republican forces in Northern Ireland have been killed, and that has been no deterrent. Given the nature of martyrdom, in the Irish sense of the term, the death of 300 or 400 has not deterred. To go back to capital punishment in Northern Ireland—and that is my responsibility—would be a retrograde step, and I say that for the same reasons as were given by the previous administration.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: When the right hon. Gentleman said, on a previous occasion, that there was a substantial and permanent military presence in what he called the bandit country of South Armagh, did he mean that effective forces were available, trained and equipped to deal with the undoubtedly difficult problem of this rural borderland no-go area? Will the Secretary of State tell the House and the country today that the Government seriously mean to liberate the oppressed people of South Armagh from the tyranny of terror?
    Mr. Rees: In reply to the hon. Gentle-man's last point, the people of South Armagh look not to the North but to Dundalk for their amusement, their religion, and other things, and it is one of the areas in the North—perhaps the only one—that seem not to be a part of the North. I make no other comment about that. Liberation, in that sense of the term, is, I believe, the wrong word to use. What I say to the hon. Gentleman is that the General Officer Commanding is satisfied with the weapons that he has. If he wishes to extend the scope of the weapons available to his soldiers, I shall consider his proposals. [Interruption.] It seems to me that if some of the noise that we are hearing at the moment were related to the sadness and the reality of the situation, the House might do better.
    The IRA has used home-made mortars. There is no substantive evidence that they have been employed in South Armagh for more than a year. It certainly is not true that the IRA uses these mortars with pinpoint accuracy. The

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    RPG7 rocket has not been used in South Armagh for more than a year. In the hands of the IRA it has proved to be an unreliable weapon, usually used for publicity. There is no certainty that the IRA has even one Browning machine gun in working order. While it is true that an AK47 Kalashnikov weapon was found in Tyrone, there is no evidence that we are outgunned in South Armagh. We are operating in the sort of country in which large forces are not required, and where what is needed is the sort of approach that the Army is using.
    Mr. McCusker: While the Security Forces may not be outgunned, the statistic which impresses me is the evidence that 14 of their members and 12 innocent citizens have been killed in South Armagh, as opposed to one terrorist. Other statistics may be impressive to some, but that is the statistic which impresses me. It gives little consolation to me or to my constituents to know that the spearhead battalion, brought in to reinforce the Security Forces in South Armagh, has been withdrawn.
    Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me how I can accept his comment that part of my constituency is bandit country, when he writes and tells me, a few days later, that the situation is not one of rampant and unchecked lawlessness? When am I to believe him—when I hear him on the wireless or when he writes to me?
    Mr. Rees: I have just given the House the figures for arrests on serious charges. One active service unit of the IRA has been broken up recently. It is not something that I particularly wanted to say loud and clear, and although it is time it was said, it would be much better, from the police point of view if it were not. [An HON. MEMBER: "Where are these men?"] The men are in prison. However, I think it is better, on this sort of occasion, not to talk about it but to leave it alone. I have got to defend the Security Forces, and it is right that I should say so.
    The shootings, of course, are terrible. The hon. Gentleman comes to see me, and he has every right to do so. On the previous day another hon. Gentleman from the other side of the community came to see me about the terrible deaths in the murder triangle on the other side
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    of the fence. It happens on both sides, and our job is to deal with both sides. South Armagh is different, and the method of dealing with the situation there may require to be different. But the problem is not only in South Armagh. There are Republican killers; there are Loyalist killers. And we have to deal with both.
    Mr. McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us are amazed that a part of Armagh now known as South Armagh has been discovered by Members of the Opposition in the last few months? Is it not a fact that South Armagh has been a continuing problem, in terms of the division of Ireland, from the 1920s right through to the present day and the present troubles? We on the Government side of the House, while deploring the loss of life, whether it be among the Security Forces or among civilians or terrorists, will support my right hon. Friend in all his efforts to ensure that law and order, in Northern Ireland runs in South Armagh, based upon evidence, trial, judgment and conviction. We must ensure that the rule of law remains supreme in our country.
    Mr. Rees: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend said. South Armagh is different from other parts of Northern Ireland, where sectarian murders are affecting the other side of the community. There is a particular problem in South Armagh. The fact that I defend the Security Forces and have given facts to the House about the Army not being outgunned and outmanned does not mean there is not a problem. Hon. Members who have been there know the nature of the border area. The three soldiers were shot from across the border, and we have to put our minds to the weakness in the border area.
    Press speculation about criticism of the Government in the Republic is not true. Whether it be the case of civilians travelling across from the South, one of whom was killed near Newry, or anything else, we have to put our minds to these problems and find a way through them. The Army has my support. It does not need large numbers of troops and police; it needs the support of the community, and support on both sides of the border.
    Mr. Miscampbell: I accept that the troops may not be outgunned, but will

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    the Secretary of State give an undertaking that he will keep sufficient troops in South Armagh to ensure that if patrols get into difficulties they can be reinforced and rescued immediately?
    Mr. Rees: The answer is firmly "Yes". In terms of reinforcements and methods involved, and how this may look in Press reports, I have confidence not only in the GOC but in the commander of the battalion in South Armagh, and all of his men. I know them, I was down there only a few days before the soldiers were shot. I have been advised that when men are shot, or other incidents occur, they do not always happen according to the textbook. My advisers have been in the war and know it from first-hand. I know it only in a different context.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Will the Secretary of State accept that only he has the necessary knowledge to settle the question of the timing of the release of further detainees from South Armagh? Does he agree that the strategy that he is following in relation to detention has its roots very deep in preparations made by the last Conservative Government, upon whom changes of this kind, as I know, were urged by, among others, some of the toughest and most professional policemen in the Province, including one of great distinction in Armagh? In those circumstances, will the right hon. Gentleman understand that he has a much wider measure of steady support from the Opposition Benches than he might suppose, for the strategy that he is following?
    Mr. Rees: I am grateful to the hon. Member. I know that he was involved in the detention process. I am also grateful for what he said about the nature of the people in Northern Ireland who are opposed to the use of detention. In Northern Ireland there is large support all round, and not just from the minority community, for ending detention.

    IRA (Arms Supplies)
    Mr. Martenasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the supply of arms into Northern Ireland for the Irish Republican Army.
    The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Stanley Orme): The majority of modern weapons recovered by the Security Forces in Northern Ireland are clearly identifiable as originating in the United States. The American authorities are aware of this, and we are in regular contact with them to find ways of stemming the flow.
    Mr. Marten: As one who knows the terrain and understands the difficulties, and also has experience of how terrorist organisations work, may I ask the Minister whether he agrees that it is now time to issue clear instructions to the Army to close the United Kingdom land frontier with the Republic by means of barbed wire and landmines, in order to stop the gun-running that goes on across the border?
    Mr. Orme: The advice that we have received from the Security Forces is that that would not be workable. We are dealing with a border more than 300 miles long, with dozens of roads and regular crossings. Weapons do not necessarily come across the border; they are imported, in large numbers, from the United States. The Government are taking every step to see that this is checked, and the hon. Member will have seen that we had some success a short while ago at one of our major ports.

  CBI AND TUC
  Ql. Mr. Lawsonasked the Prime Minister when he will next be meeting the CBI and TUC.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) on 25th January.
  Mr. Lawson: When the Prime Minister meets the TUC and CBI will he tell them, if he can still remember, what happened at Rambouillet, apart from the disastrous encouragement that the venue gave him to try to play the poor man's de Gaulle in Rome? In particular, will he say whether the Heads of Government did or did not endorse the use of import controls by the United Kingdom?
  The Prime Minister: I have reported to the House on Rambouillet, and the

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  TUC and CBI know the principal conclusions that came out of that meeting. The Heads of Government were not asked to endorse or disendorse our policy on import controls, because we are still studying the matter. There will be international consultations when our studies are complete.
  Mr. Noble: Does my right hon. Friend accept that when he met the leaders of textiles unions recently, the TUC General Council listened very carefully to him saying that a statement on import controls would be made in days not weeks? Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is now a grave danger that imports will be greyhounded into this country in anticipation of such a statement and that, whatever the statement says, delay is extremely dangerous?
  The Prime Minister: This was one of the risks of public discussion and questions on this matter. We are working hard on the problem and, although there are certain difficulties about proceeding immediately, we intend to proceed with very great urgency.

  INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
  Mr. Wyn Robertsasked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Secretary of State for Industry and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject of industrial strategy.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Roberts: As the Chancellor of the Exchequer's stated policy is to reduce public expenditure and the Government's deficit borrowing to make room for investment, will the Government not seriously reconsider their nationalisation programme? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that public ownership in itself is not productive investment? It can be inflationary and it will certainly increase Government debt.
  The Prime Minister: I have little hope of seeking to educate the hon. Member in these matters. I refer him to what I said on this specific question in the debate on the Gracious Speech.
  Mr. Mike Thomas: Will my right hon. Friend attempt to continue the education
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  of hon. Members opposite by explaining to them that there are differences between good public expenditure and bad public expenditure? [Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: These noises may be very good for the lungs, but they take up time.
  Mr. Thomas: Will my right hon. Friend wipe the smiles off the faces of Opposition Members by explaining that on the Government side we are quite clear there will be no cutting of good public expenditure for the sheer ideological sake of it?
  The Prime Minister: There is no difference between Government money provided in subsidies to the shipbuilding or aircraft industries when they are privately owned and the same money being supplied under public ownership. [Hon. Members: "Compensation."] If hon. Members opposite want to make a case for lower compensation, they are free to do so.
  This is a matter which the House must debate in detail in dealing with the legislation. My hon. Friend is absolutely right on the general issue that he raised. Those who talk about cutting expenditure generally have the duty—I have been pleading for them to exercise it for a year—to tell the House what they would cut.
  Mrs. Thatcher: When are we to have more details about the industrial strategy? At the moment all we know is that it is not a strategy but an approach, and no one is being very industrious in working it out. At the NEDC meeting yesterday the Government were asked for more details about the strategy, so when may we know—or has it already gone the way of the National Plan?
  The Prime Minister: Apart from the little crack at the end, the right hon. Lady is being perfectly fair. She may recall that when the original statement on the NEDC meeting of 5th November was made to the House we said that in December we would carry the matter further—that was done this week, under the chairmanship of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and that we would begin to identify the various sectors at the meeting in January. I know that the right hon. Lady is a little impatient on this matter, but I am sure that she will be satisfied that progress is being made, particularly since nothing was done on

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  this subject in the three and a half years before we came into office.

  MINISTER OF STATE, CIVIL SERVICE
  Mr. Jasper Moreasked the Prime Minister if he will dismiss the Minister of State for the Civil Service Department.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
  Mr. More: Will the Prime Minister tell us what the present position is in respect of personal advisers appointed by or to Ministers in his Government from outside the ranks of the Civil Service? How many such appointments have been made since the present Government took office? Have any been made from those people previously associated with the National Union of Students? What justification is there for saddling the public purse with expenditure in excess of £200,000 annually in aid of an exercise which, patently, is providing "jobs for the boys"?
  The Prime Minister: We are follow-by the rules which were recommended by the Fulton Report on the Civil Service. That was exactly what was done by the last Conservative Government on these matters. I do not remember the hon. Member asking questions about these matters then. He would do better to table Questions on a particular appointment by a particular Minister to the Minister concerned.
  Mr. Wrigglesworth: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the deep concern in the Civil Service over the deliberate campaign of misrepresentation and distortion that has been levelled at it in recent weeks? Is he further aware that the proportion of civil servants per million of the population is half the figure in Germany? Does he realise that the average level of Civil Service pensions, which has been so much under attack, is £17·50 a week, as opposed to some of the way-out figures quoted by Conservative Members?
  The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has put a perfectly fair question. As he said, there is a campaign at present about this issue. Manpower in the Civil Service, like Government expenditure, follows
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  policy decisions taken by this House. Those who say that they want to cut either expenditure or manpower should have the courtesy to tell the House what they would cut.
  Mr. Pardoe: Will the Prime Minister confirm that the Minister referred to in the Question is responsible for an organisation called the Civil Service Pay Research Unit, and that that alone is sufficient reason for his instant dismissal? Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that this unit is responsible for the grotesque and indecent increases in Civil Service pay over the last few years, and will he ensure that the reports of this extraordinary body are made available for hon. Members, so that they may see how it reaches its disgraceful conclusions?
  The Prime Minister: The appointment of this unit goes back to the Report of the Royal Commission in the 1950s. It has existed under successive Governments, and it is, I believe, of great value. It does a dedicated job. It tries to establish comparability with workers in private employment, so that civil servants are, broadly, paid the same rate for doing the same job. Over all these years the public service has usually lagged behind private industry. That is what the Priestley Commission was dealing with.
  On pensions, I do not know whether the hon. Member raised this question at the time they were introduced. I do not remember his doing so.

  REFERENDA
  Mr. Michael McNair-Wilsonasked the Prime Minister what recent consideration he has given to using referenda as a means of discovering the views of the general public about relevant questions of the day.
  The Prime Minister: None, Sir. As I have made clear on many occasions, the Government regarded the holding of a referendum on our continued membership of the European Economic Community as a wholly exceptional procedure for a unique occasion—a procedure which even its former critics now recognise to have been fully justified.
  Mr. McNair-Wilson: Will the Prime Minister consider a referendum on capital punishment? Since 1965 the House has

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  voted on the subject no fewer than seven times. I speak as one opposed to hanging, but I should like the British people to express their view, because we must come to a conclusion on this matter.
  The Prime Minister: I recognise the hon. Member's record in this matter. This is a most serious issue, which the House will be facing in the near future—I think it will be next week. Every hon. Member has to take up his own position on it, and I would very much deprecate any suggestion—which I am sure the hon. Member was not making—that hon. Members are not capable either of representing their constituents on the matter or of fully representing, in debates and in the Division Lobby, their own considered judgments.
  Mr. William Hamilton: Since it is clear that we are not to get legislation on devolution on to the statute book this Session, and since it took a comparatively short time to conduct a referendum on the EEC, will my right hon. Friend seriously consider whether it would be desirable to have a separate and distinct referendum in Scotland, among the Scottish electorate, on the question whether they want complete separation, as advocated by the SNP?
  The Prime Minister: I am sure that they do not. My hon. Friend has always expressed himself vigorously and correctly on this matter. There would be great opposition in this House to a devolution referendum held purely in Scotland. Certainly such a referendum would have to cover Wales and England as well. Everyone in the United Kingdom has the right to be represented.
  I repeat that when hon. Members seek election they seek the right to speak on behalf of their constituents in these matters. That is what we all try to do, in our different ways. Since I have referred to the United Kingdom I should make it clear that, exceptionally, and quite apart from the Common Market issue, successive Governments have, in my view rightly, used the referendum on constitutional issues within Northern Ireland for Northern Ireland.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE (PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH)
  Mr. Grahamasked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library of the House of Commons a copy of his public speech on local government expenditure to the Joint Local Government Conference at Eastbourne on 20th November.
  Mr. Beanasked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of his public speech to the Local Government Conference at Eastbourne on 20th November on local government expenditure.
  The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friends to the reply that I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth) on 25th November, Sir.
  Mr. Graham: In his speech my right hon. Friend drew attention to the increase, over the last 10 years, in the number of people in local government—an increase from 1·5 million to 2·5 million, or 67 per cent. Bearing in mind the imperative need to maximise the use of national resources, will my right hon. Friend tell us of any ways in which effective steps are being taken to monitor the use of labour in local government services?
  The Prime Minister: The figures have certainly risen. It is only fair to say that just as expenditure depends on policy, so manpower depends on policy. Successive Governments have loaded local authorities—in my view, rightly, to a large extent—with very important social duties. I am concerned, as the House is, with the ratio between those who are doing the job and the administrative controllers—the chiefs and Indians question. The real control, however, comes through finance, and the House will shortly be debating the rate support grant, on which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment made a statement very recently.
  Mr. Michael Latham: How did the Prime Minister dare to go to Eastbourne and lecture local government about chiefs

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  and Indians, when the national Civil Service, for which he is directly responsible, expanded by 11,000 between July and October this year?
  The Prime Minister: The increase in the Civil Service over the past few years, under successive Governments, has been much less than the increase in local government. I also informed the conference of the policies concerning a review of Civil Service employment. The hon. Gentleman will know that there is some difficulty about comparability of the figures. The increase to which he referred was partly because there were many vacant positions in the Civil Service which had not been recruited when we took office. Some of those have been filled. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware of the way in which the figures were—how shall I put it?—presented, as a result of transferring a number of services which were previously in the Civil Service such as the Manpower Services Commision, to outside, and then claiming credit for a reduction in the numbers employed.

EUROPEAN COUNCIL (ROME MEETING)
The following Questions stood upon the Order Paper:
Mr. TomlinsonQ7. Mr. Tomlinson: To ask the Prime Minister when he next plans to meet EEC Heads of Government.
MR. MARTENQ9. MR. MARTEN: To ask the Prime Minister when he next proposes to meet the Heads of Government of the Common Market countries.
Mr. Speaker: The Prime Minister, to answer Questions Nos. Q7 and Q9.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): As the House knows, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and I met our European Community colleagues at the European Council in Rome on 1st and 2nd December.
We reviewed first the world economic situation, in the light of the summit meeting at Rambouillet on 15th and 16th November. I found my colleagues in broad agreement with the conclusions reached at that meeting, on which I have reported to the House. The European
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Council also dealt with a number of items of Community business and made satisfactory progress with the arrangements for the Conference on International Economic Co-operation—CIEC. Copies of the working documents agreed at the meeting have been placed in the Library of the House.
There was general agreement with our proposals on financial control in the Community, on which I drew from our experience in the House of the working of our own Public Accounts Committee and the Accounting Officer system, proposals which I had put forward and which will be published shortly as a White Paper. I believe that this represents an important step towards ensuring effective control over voted expenditure in the Community.
The European Council agreed that direct elections to the European Parliament shall take place in May or June 1978, but that any country which at that date is unable to hold direct elections shall be allowed to appoint its representatives, as is done at present. I made it clear that we accept in principle the commitment to direct elections in the Treaty of Rome. This issue was decided by the referendum; Article 138(3) of the Treaty of Rome is mandatory. But I added that we required a further period for consultations with political parties in this House and for consideration of the matter by Parliament before we could adopt a final position about holding direct elections ourselves as early as 1978. The Council will now continue its examination of the matters to be decided at the Community level, such as the number of seats and distribution between countries, and will prepare a draft convention for submission to the next European Council in March.
The European Council agreed on the introduction of a uniform passport which may be issued as from 1978. As far as passport union is concerned, I made it clear that, for our part, the timing would depend on progress with revision of our own nationality legislation, and I could give no assurances about the timing of that legislation. The European Council also adopted a British proposal that Community Ministers responsible for law and order should meet to discuss matters coming within their competence.
Finally, the European Council discussed at great length the arrangements for the

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CIEC. and a compromise agreement was reached which fully safeguards Britain's interests.
On substance, agreement was reached for the first time in the Community on two important elements which have already been agreed by eight member States in the International Energy Agency, including the United Kingdom—namely, emergency oil sharing and the principle of a minimum safeguard price mechanism. The latter point is particularly important. In the words agreed in Rome,
"the Council will decide as soon as possible appropriate mechanisms to protect existing supplies and ensure the development of alternative sources of Community energy, on reasonable economic terms, and to encourage conservation in the use of energy."
In October we made clear in Europe—I did myself directly to the Federal German Chancellor—that we were concerned to get a viable agreed Community position on energy before the conference. We made it clear that it seemed to us reasonable that the nine member States should be represented through the Community where there was a common policy, but that there was every reason why the United Kingdom should be present in its own right, as one of the eight industrialised country representatives at a conference of such far-reaching importance, so that we could put forward our own views where these were not covered by a Community mandate. In November my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs made this clear to the House. What was important, as he stressed and as I have stressed, was that we should have a much more far-reaching, agreed mandate for the Community as a whole.
I believe that the agreement which my right hon. Friend and I were able to secure after lengthy discussion in Rome—very lengthy—namely, that the United Kingdom should have a separate voice both at the Ministerial Conference and in the four commissions which will subsequently be meeting at official level, achieved our purpose. [An HON. MEMBER: "Tell us another."] The Community will be represented by a single delegation, and the spokesman will be the Presidency of the Council with the Commission. But during the Ministerial Conference the United Kingdom and
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Luxembourg—[Laughter.] I am interested in the levity with which the Opposition treat a fellow member of the Community. During the Ministerial Conference the United Kingdom and Luxembourg, the latter in her capacity as the next President of the Council—
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. James Callaghan): Now let us hear the Opposition laugh.
The Prime Minister:—will, in the words agreed in Rome
"be invited to present additional statements"
throughout the meeting, and in the four commissions representatives of member States who will form part of the Community delegation will also be able to comment on specific questions. Both at the Ministerial Conference and in the commissions our statements will be consistent with whatever Community position or mandate has been agreed by us. But in our interventions, both by my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary at the Ministerial Conference and by our officials in the commissions, we shall be able to draw attention to particular problems and be able to make a United Kingdom contribution which reflects our own very different situation and experience.
Therefore, we secured our objective, the economic mandate, including minimum selling price. [Laughter.] I am surprised at the rather anti-national view taken by the Opposition. We pressed to secure a mandate, including MSP and emergency sharing. We have that mandate. We also have the right to speak there, which we did not have before. British interests in the field of energy are safeguarded, and general agreement was expressed by my colleagues at the end of the debate that the resolution of so difficult a problem had enhanced, not endangered, the cohesion of the Community.
Mr. Marten: May I thank the Prime Minister for that brief answer? Will he confirm that the decisions and compromises reached at this so-called European Council meeting are not binding upon the British Parliament? Second, now that the Government—as a result of this conference—have clearly illustrated that they have a policy of appeasement, will

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the Prime Minister suggest that the next meeting should take place at Munich?
The Prime Minister: That question was not up to the hon. Gentleman's usual high standard. I have always had a high regard for him. At the conference in Paris, called by the French Government and not by the Community, we obviously reserved our right and that of the British Parliament on any decisions which might come out of that conference. We were concerned that we should have the right to put British interests on energy. There is no EEC mandate on this and no EEC responsibility under the Treaty. We are in a different position from the other eight members of the Community by virtue of our position as an oil producer. I believe that we have asserted British rights at the Rome conference, including the right to express our separate position. Nothing will be done which in any way inhibits our right to continue as an oil producer under whatever rules are decided by this House.
Mr. Jay: Does my right hon. Friend feel that events in Rome have justified the many promises we have had that essential British interests would always be maintained in the EEC?
The Prime Minister: Yes. An essential British interest is our rights in respect of North Sea oil. My colleagues in Rome were in no doubt—we certainly left them in no doubt—about the volume and scale of Britain's position as an oil producer which by 1980 will far transcend that of many of the most important existing oil-producing countries, for example in the Gulf and elsewhere. We wanted to be sure that there was a mandate on oil agreed by the Community. Up to now eight countries of the Community, including Britain but not France, as members of the IEA have worked out policies that we regard as internationaly essential. The French have never accepted them. The success at Rome is that we now have a Community position in respect of the IEA.
Mrs. Thatcher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in spite of his considerable verbal skill, what he has succeeded in doing is to subject Britain to a series of humiliations
Mr. Cryer: This is what you voted for.
Mrs. Thatcher:—and to antagonise many friends upon whom we rely to help us out of our economic difficulties? Could he not have achieved the same results, about which he now boasts, by co-operating with our friends in the manner foreshadowed in the Gracious Speech when, he will remember, he promised that this country would play its full part in the EEC,
"devoting particular attention to the achievement of a common approach to the world's political and economic problems"?
The Prime Minister: Yes, and that is what we achieved at Rome. [Interruption.] If I understand the right hon. Lady, what she is saying is that she would not have had Britain asserting the right to speak at this conference. If I am wrong, she will get up and tell me.
Mrs. Thatcher: The right hon. Gentleman is misunderstanding me. He could have achieved this through co-operation instead of antagonistic tactics.
The Prime Minister: The right hon. Lady is totally deluding herself. We insisted that it was right for Britain to be able to express her position as an oil producer, also on other commodities on which we have taken an initiative. This is what was agreed. If we had gone tamely along as the right hon. Lady suggests—we saw the Conservatives' record in negotiations—we would not have got what we have.
Mr. Churchill: Great Britain!
The Prime Minister: Yes, we were speaking for Britain. We have been criticised by the Conservatives because we spoke for Britain. There was no sign, no hope, of getting in advance of the Paris conference any agreement on either MSP or energy sharing. [Interruption.] I notice the levity with which Conservative Members treat this. If I had accepted the right hon. Lady's advice, we would not have achieved this.
As for the final part of the right hon. Lady's question, she may be reassured by what I am about to say. At the end of the discussion a number of my colleagues, including the President of France—after an 11-hour meeting, 9½ hours of which were spent on this issue—said that as a result of the Council's discussion on this subject we had, as a Community, come out stronger, not weaker. [Laughter.]

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All right. Laugh at the President of France. Tory Members will not have many friends left.
Mr. Mates: Read the French papers.
The Prime Minister: This is where the right hon. Lady is wrong. She would not have held out; she would have surrendered. It might amuse the right hon. Lady if I read an extract from Le Monde of 4th December. I have it here in French, but for greater accuracy it has been translated. I will read it for the good of the House. It says:
"In any case thanks to Mr. Wilson's excesses—"
Mr. Lawson: Which kind?
The Prime Minister:
"—European energy policy has made in a few hours more progress than it has since the birth of the Community."
Therefore, I say to the right hon. Lady that the Conservative Party is no good at standing up for Britain and it does not even represent Europe.
Mr. Luard: Can my right hon. Friend confirm, as has been stated in the Press, that if the conference decided to set up a commission specifically concerned with energy questions the chairmanship may be held by a British official?
The Prime Minister: This is a matter for the conference to decide. The question of the chairmanship has not been discussed and was not discussed at Rome.
Mr. David Steel: Will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that not all of us accept that lengthy discussions have intrinsic merit unless they are on a point worth discussing? Does he accept that during the whole period of the renegotiation and the referendum we used up a lot of good will and credit among our European friends, who are now totally dismayed, first by the Foreign Secretary's posturing on the energy conference and then by the dragging of our feet on the timetable for direct elections? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that our Community friends now take the view that if Gaullism is dead in France it is alive and well in this country?
The Prime Minister: I suppose that the hon. Member has been reading the Press on this. There were reports on
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Tuesday morning of a most dramatic kind occupying several column inches about a row we had on this subject on Monday. It had never even been mentioned when those newspapers went to press. The hon. Gentleman must not be so easily misled. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that short discussions are better than long ones. One way of having a short discussion is to give in. This we refused to do. [Interruption.] We had to go through all the agonies, including the referendum, because the Conservative Party gave in on every point in the Common Market negotiations.
Mr. Skinner: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that he is having to explain himself out of this difficult mess because he refused to accept the advice of the Labour Party at the time of the referendum and followed the advice of the majority of those on the Opposition Benches? Does he not understand that the only people who can be critical on this issue today are those of my hon. Friends who tried to steer him away from this disastrous course at the time of the referendum? Does he not appreciate that these disasters will occur over and over again until the British people wake up and stop the rot?
The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is displaying less than his usual fairness and objectivity in these matters. The Government carried out what was contained in our manifesto by entering into renegotiation and introducing legislation for a referendum. The referendum was utterly decisive. If there are some who refuse to accept that decision, they are those who do not accept the result of a British national referendum.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: Does not the Prime Minister accept that the better course in these circumstances would have been for him to have honestly admitted a change in policy and a defeat? His attempt to camouflage this abject surrender does nothing to heighten any outsider's estimate of the intelligence of this House. Does he not accept that it is illogical not to press for separate representation at the conference in view of the separate energy situation between the United Kingdom and other EEC countries, particularly when there is at present no accepted energy policy covering the European Community?
The Prime Minister: On the hon. Gentleman's first point, I made it clear in my recent consultations with the German Federal Chancellor that we were not prepared to leave to purely Community representation the representation of British interests if there was no mandate, if there was no Community energy policy. We now have such a policy. We now have a policy which has been worked out by eight of the nine countries, with others, at the IEA.
It is important that we should have that policy. I hope that the whole House will welcome the fact that we have it. We have it because of the stand taken by my right hon. Friend and me at the meeting at Rome. There would not have been any hope of having these matters adopted by the Community but for the stand we took. It is important that we should have not only a voice to disagree with the agreed mandate, which is still to be finalised although we have now given the guidelines to it, but a voice with which we can put forward the special interests of the United Kingdom. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is as weak as the Conservatives in the defence of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: Is not the Prime Minister deluding himself by interpreting this Grand Old Duke of York approach to the energy conference as something other than the most shameful humiliation for himself and for the United Kingdom? Will he say something about the so-called agreed policy? What about the minimum price? Are the reports of a minimum price of $7 a barrel in any way accurate? If so, how can the right hon. Gentleman say that that is in any way consistent with the interests of Great Britain?
The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman's opening words are totally wrong. We secured—as I say, it was not easy—not only the right of British representation, which perhaps he opposes—I do not know [Interruption.] It is clear that the Conservatives oppose it. However, we have got it. If they do not like it, they should say that they object to Britain being at the conference.
As regards the mandate, I have quoted what has been said in Europe on the
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matter. For the first time it seems that the IEA point has been recognised.
As regards the minimum safeguard price, selling price or floor price, whatever it is to be called, we did not attempt to reach any agreement on what the price should be. This is a matter for the IEA. We had the problem that the French are not members of the IEA, but they have gone along with the IEA policy in the way I have described. It will be a matter for the IEA to work these things out. It is true that figures of $7·50 and $7 were mentioned. However, those figures were not discussed and we did not propose any figures. Those figures were mentioned illustratively by individual delegates, but it was not the task of the Rome Conference to decide unilaterally on behalf of the Nine what the selling price should be.
Mr. Faulds: As one who has not always seen eye to eye with the Prime Minister. May I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Foreign Secretary most warmly on having fought so toughly for British interests and, in the interests of European co-operation within the EEC, on having come to such a sensible and pragmatic compromise at the end of the day?
The Prime Minister: The whole House knows of my hon. Friend's commitment to Europe. He has made it plain on many occasions. In the past it has sometimes been a little more unconditional than that of many other Members in different parts of the House. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for correctly perceiving what some Opposition Members, blinded by prejudice, have been incapable of perceiving—namely, that this has been a valuable step forward not only for British interests but for European cohesion.
Mr. Amery: With all respect to the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, I congratulate the Government of finding a Luxembourgeois or petit bourgeois solution to save the face of the Foreign Secretary and to get him out of an intolerable and impossible position. However, I ask a more serious question. The Foreign Secretary made it clear what he thought of the importance of Britain's position as a financial centre because of the City. He said that that was just as

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crucial as our oil interest. However, we have not heard very much about that in the Prime Minister's statement. Perhaps he will enlighten us as to how this interest is to be directed.
The Prime Minister: I resent the right hon. Gentleman's Hohenzollerian contempt for small nations. All nine members of the Community are members of the Community on equal terms. They each have the right to succeed to the Presidency, and Luxembourg will be the next nation to succeed to it. I was not particularly concerned which other country should have the right to speak. I was concerned that Britain should have the right to speak.
I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman, in common with his party, treats this matter with such levity. I always thought that hon. Members who sit below the Gangway on his side of the House were more serious than those sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, but the right hon. Gentleman has disproved that.
The reason why we did not have to come to any decision on the financial question is that the Community has so far not attempted to reach mutual agreement on a mandate on financial matters. There is a Finance Commision which will be of great importance to us, as will be the raw materials one. Here again, we have vast expertise in raw materials as a nation, including those who practise these matters in their day-to-day business. We have agreed that we shall work out a financial mandate progressively. As soon as we see how the conference goes, we shall be assiduous in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman need have no anxiety on that score.
Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that most of my hon. Friends agree that this is not a laughing matter? Is he also aware that 180 of my hon. Friends signed a motion congratulating the Foreign Secretary on his firm stand in getting Britain a seat at the oil conference? Is he aware that there is bitter disappointment among my hon. Friends because of what has happened?
May I make a point about my right hon. Friend's comment yesterday about going for the moon and landing on Snow-don? I should have thought that anyone
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going for the moon and landing on Snow-don would think that that was pretty disastrous. Perhaps it would not have been so bad to land on Everest, but we did not even get on to the lower slopes of Everest. Is my right hon. Friend aware that we feel great resentment about this? Would it not have been better never to have gone for a seat at the conference rather than to end up in the way that we have?
The Prime Minister: In my submission, my hon. Friend is entirely wrong. On aiming for the moon and landing on Snowdon, my hon. Friend has more experience than I have in these matters. But he is totally wrong in his conclusion. We pressed for a seat if there seemed no other way of expressing our interests and no Community mandate. However, we can be sure of this: having got the mandate revised in the way that we wanted, which would not have been possible if we had not taken the stand that we did, and having got the right to speak, I think that our interests are fully protected. When my hon. Friend has had time to study these matters, I am sure that he will agree.
Mr. Kershaw: Is the Prime Minister aware that the most serious aspect of this is that he may believe what he has been saying about having a Roman triumph? When he thinks about it, he will realise that he has made a fool of himself and, unfortunately, of the country as well.
The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinions. However, in all these questions I have not been asked whether we were right to demand the right to speak where our interests went beyond those of the Common Market. The Leader of the Opposition did not address herself to that and nor has any other Opposition Member. If the answer is "Yes", we were right to act as we did. Is the Conservative Party so regretful that we have now got what could not have happened perhaps for many years—that we have now got into a European energy mandate the minimum selling price—[An Hon. Member: "Then what is it?"]—I meant the principle of the minimum selling price—and emergency energy sharing, which until then was supported by eight Community countries but not by France? Are the Opposition resentful

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that where the Community was divided on this matter all Nine are now committed the same way? If they are not interested in standing up for British interests, I understand. But if those are not their positions, they should support and welcome what we have achieved.
Mr. Wellbeloved: However my right hon. Friend presents the outcome of the oil question, it is clear that the achievement falls far short of the ambition. Is he aware that Fleet Street cartoonists will mourn the passing of the British de Gaulle but welcome back the Grand Old Duke?
The Prime Minister: This is the third time in less than 24 hours that we have had the Grand Old Duke joke, which I remember originated in 1958 in this House about a flight over Cyprus.
When my hon. Friend has had time to reflect, I hope that he will address himself to these questions: were we right to press for the right to speak and to change the mandate, and have we got all that? We have got it by the tactics that we pursued. I do not know whether my hon. Friend regrets that we got it or regrets that we tried to get it.
Several hon. Members Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Business Question.
Mr. Marten: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Prime Minister's replies, I beg leave to give notice that I shall seek an early opportunity to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mrs. Thatcher: In the absence of the Lord President of the Council, may I have the unusual pleasure of asking the Government Chief Whip about the business for next week?
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Mellish): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 8TH DECEMBER—Supply [2nd Allotted Day]: Debate on the effects of governmental policy on offshore oil, which will arise on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
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Motion on the European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (No. 3) and (No. 4) Orders.
TUESDAY 9TH DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Bill, and related procedure motion.
WEDNESDAY 10TH DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill.
Motion on the Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts (Continuation) Order 1975.
Remaining stages of the OECD Support Fund Bill and of the Money-lenders (Crown Agents) Bill.
Motion relating to the Temporary Speed Limit Order 1975.
THURSDAY 11TH DECEMBER—Consideration of Private Members' motions until 7 o'clock.
Afterwards, remaining stages of the Civil List Bill and Northern Ireland motions on Emergency Provisions and Various Emergency Provisions (Continuance) (No. 2).
FRIDAY 12TH DECEMBER—Private Members' motions.
MONDAY 15TH DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Dock Work Regulation Bill.
The Government recognise the concern on all sides of the House about the current level of unemployment, and will provide a day before Christmas to debate this problem in the light of the Government's decision on the Chrysler issue and of the further measures they will announce shortly for saving jobs in the coming months.
Mrs. Thatcher: I thank the Patronage Secretary. May I put three questions to him? He knows our anxieties about defence policy, and defence is being debated on Wednesday. Will there be an opportunity for matters rather wider than the discipline of the Forces to be raised, because we are concerned to elucidate some of the rumours which have been reported in the Press recently?
With regard to Thursday's business, in view of the time available will the right hon. Gentleman use his best endeavours so to arrange the business that we have

1945
the maximum time for the debate on capital punishment before the vote at 7 o'clock? I know that many hon. Members will be hoping to catch Mr. Speaker's eye.
With regard to what the right hon. Gentleman said at the end of the statement of business for next week, if there are to be any Government announcements—it seems from what he said that there are to be—will he ensure that they take place well in advance of the debate so that we have proper time to consider them?
Mr. Mellish: On the right hon. Lady's first question, by means of discussions with your good self, Mr. Speaker, and those concerned with the debate, we shall do what we can to facilitate this being a debate which will meet the wishes of the House.
On the timing of Private Members' motions until 7 o'clock, I shall do what I can. But this also requires the co-operation of other hon. Members. They will not help matters, especially next Thursday, if they go on talking as some of them do, because they will delay other discussions.
As for the right hon. Lady's third question, I assure her that every effort will be made to comply with her request that any Government announcements are made in good time to enable them to be debated properly.
Mr. John Mendelson: Although I accept my right hon. Friend's announcement that the Government recognise the widespread feeling behind the demand for a proper debate on unemployment, and his further announcement that there will be a debate in the last week before Christmas, may I ask for an assurance that the debate will be soon after the last Monday before the Adjournment—in other words, early in the final week—and not towards the end of the week, when it would get mixed up with other matters in the last days when, as you know, Mr. Speaker, business begins to be hurried? Can my right hon. Friend assure us that it will be not later than the Tuesday or Wednesday of that week?
Mr. Mellish: The arrangements for the business in the week before the Christmas Adjournment have not yet been finalised. If my hon. Friend is worried about this
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particular debate becoming mixed up with the Adjournment debates, I assure him that that will not be so. I hope he understands quite clearly that there are many of us, on both sides of the House, who are very anxious and worried about the levels of unemployment. It is important that we have a debate which is positive and not negative in the sense that we express all our sympathies but nothing is said about what is to be done or attempted to be done. We hope to have a debate which will really serve the purpose which I, my hon. Friends and many other hon. Members have in mind.
Mr. Peter Walker: Concerning the debate on unemployment, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it would not be satisfactory to either side of the House to have one day to debate the whole of the Chrysler decisions and unemployment generally? Both sides want to debate the general issue of unemployment.
Having heard the answer which was given to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in reply to a question about defence, I am not clear whether next week's debate will be one in which we can raise the general principles of defence expenditure.
Mr. Mellish: To deal with the right hon. Gentleman's second point first, I am willing and prepared, following the representations made by the Leader of the Opposition, to discuss with you, Mr. Speaker, and with the authorities of the House how best it can be arranged so that the motion which is tabled will enable you to allow the debate to go wide. I have taken on board the principles involved, but how it is to be done I cannot yet say.
On the first matter raised by the right hon. Gentleman, we had better await any Government decisions regarding Chrysler and the rest before any other questions are asked about the way that the debate should take place. Unemployment must surely be subject to decisions taken by the Government on the great issues of the day, such as Chrysler, before the debate can take place.
Mr. Les Huckfield: I appreciate what my right hon. Friend has just said about the Chrysler situation, but will he accept that it was as

1947
long ago as 29th October that Mr. Riccardo first announced the possibility of Chrysler pulling out from this country? Will he impress upon his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry the urgent need to make a statement about Chrysler as soon as possible?
Mr. Mellish: Yes, of course; that is understood. However, my hon. Friend must clearly understand, as I know he does, the issues which are involved. Thousands of jobs are involved as well as the whole question of the future of this great firm and this great industry. Surely it is right that the Government of the day, who are having discussions, should completely finish those discussions before they make a final statement in the House about a matter so grave. I hope that no hon. Member will accuse the Government of delaying about this matter. We have been trying to discuss with the owners of this firm how best the matter can be dealt with.
Mr. Cyril Smith: May we assume that one of the other unemployment matters to which the Patronage Secretary has made reference will be a statement on import controls? Will he also confirm that it is the Government's intention to have Christmas Day on 25th December?
Mr. Mellish: It is not for me to say anything about import controls now. It will be for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry, or the appropriate Minister, to make a statement in the House. That being so, I shall say nothing about that matter. I have clearly indicated that the Government are prepared to find time for a debate on unemployment when they have announced certain measures which I know they have in mind.
Mrs. Dunwoody: Will the Patronage Secretary be kind enough to ask the Leader of the House to find time to debate as soon as possible the Select Committee's report on violence in marriage?
Mr. Mellish: Yes, I undertake to pass that matter on to my right hon. Friend for consideration.
Mr. Gow: Will it be possible to find time next week, or before the Christmas Recess, for a debate on the deteriorating security situation in Ulster in general
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and on the release of detainees from the Maze Prison in particular?
Mr. Mellish: I cannot promise time for that. There have been a number of occasions when matters concerning Northern Ireland have been discussed. It would be wrong for me to commit the Government to allow time for a debate exclusively on the matters which the hon. Gentleman has raised. However, I know that the ingenuity of some hon. Members in raising certain matters is quite extraordinary.
Mr. McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although we welcome the opportunity to debate the general proposition of unemployment and the Government's measures to deal with it, many of us would regret it if the general unemployment question were overshadowed by discussions on one large industry, such as Chrysler? Moreover, we would regret it if we were unable to talk about unemployment in our own constituencies, in some of which the male unemployment rate is growing to as much as 10 per cent. That has nothing whatever to do with the motor car industry, but it concerns other aspects of Government policy which we wish to explore.
Mr. Mellish: Of course, I understand that. At the same time, if we have a debate purely on unemployment and talk about how sad it is for all our constituents, at the end of the day the Government should have the right to say what they intend to do to overcome the difficulties. Therefore, it is right that the further measures which the Government have in mind should be announced. The Opposition can then consider them. Thus, when we have a debate on unemployment it will be more realistic.
Mr. Peyton: I should like to refer first to Chrysler. We are still awaiting, and have been awaiting for a long time, the Government's answer to the Expenditure Committee's report on British Leyland. The Lord President of the Council suggested that the two matters should be debated together. It now appears that the subject may widen into a general debate on unemployment. I do not think that is desirable, because the Expenditure Committee's report on British Leyland is very important and the Government's answer should be a weighty one. Indeed, we hope to see

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that answer very soon and we hope that there will be a discussion on it next week.
Second, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will remember the undertaking given by his right hon. Friend the Lord President last week when he said that he would look into the question of answers concerning the National Enterprise Board. The right hon. Gentleman said:
"I shall look into it and either see that a statement is made to the House or make a statement myself."—[Official Report, 27th November 1975; Vol. 901, c. 1055.]
So far that promise has not been fulfilled.
Mr. Mellish: On the first point concerning Chrysler and the Expenditure Committee's report on the motor car industry, I point out that one follows the other in the sense that the Government must come to a decision shortly about what they intend to do about Chrysler before they go on to comment about the Expenditure Committee's report on the car industry as a whole. I should have thought that that point would have occurred to the right hon. Gentleman. That being so, it follows that, as no decision has yet been reached on Chrysler, the other matter cannot be dealt with either. I take on board what the right hon. Gentleman has said.
On the question of whether there can be a separate debate on Chrysler, a debate apart from unemployment, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will certainly have to consider this matter when he returns. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that there is the question of the time factor between now and the Christmas Recess. However, what the right hon. Gentleman has said will be noted.
Regarding answers about the National Enterprise Board, the right hon. Gentleman referred to what my right hon. Friend the Lord President had said. He will not be surprised to hear me say that my right hon. Friend the Lord President had better answer that question too.
Mr. Madden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the crisis in the textile industry is still growing? Does he appreciate that the three statements we have received over recent months about this industry have been strong on sympathy but weak on positive
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proposals? When will the statement promised by the Prime Minister to the textile unions—which we hope will be made within days rather than weeks—be made? Can my right hon. Friend assure us that it will be clear and positive and will set out import controls to safeguard employment in the textile industry?
Mr. Mellish: I know only too well that my hon. Friend and many other hon. Members associated with the textile industry have been making strong representations. Their genuine and deep concern is respected not only by myself but by my colleagues in the Government and certainly those who have to deal with this industry. I have already said that any matter concerning import controls is for the Minister concerned. I know that the Ministers regard this as vitally urgent and that statements will be made as quickly as is practicable. I do not want to commit them to saying that a statement will definitely be made next week. However, I assure my hon. Friend that Ministers are alerted to the urgency of the situation and that a statement will be made as soon as possible.
Mr. Hastings: Does the Patronage Secretary recognise that what is of interest to us is not only the general scope of the debate on defence matters but a clear statement of the Government's intentions in view of recent rumours about yet more defence cuts? Will he recognise also that these rumours have caused deep apprehension abroad as well as in this country? Can we count on a statement being made?
Mr. Mellish: The hon. Gentleman must be careful how he balances that argument. On the one hand there is a demand from the Opposition for cuts in public expenditure, and on the other hand a warning to the Government not to cut defence expenditure. I have told the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition that I shall do what I can and discuss with the House authorities how we can best formulate a debate of the kind the hon. Gentleman wants. That is all I can do.
Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Will the Patronage Secretary say when the House will be able to debate the White Paper on devolution, how much time will be given for the debate and what form it will take?
Mr. Mellish: The debate will certainly come soon after the Christmas Recess. The amount of time to be allowed has still to be discussed through the usual channels. It is on record that one Scottish National Party Member said that the party wanted only half a day. I do not know whether that view is shared by the hon. Gentleman.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker: Mr. Gow—an application under Standing Order No. 9.
Mr. Madel: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you allow us a few more minutes on business questions? Some hon. Members have Chrysler plants in their constituencies and would like the opportunity to make helpful suggestions and not to score party points. You allowed a longer session on Prime Minister's Questions, and I appeal for another 10 minutes on business questions.
Mr. Speaker: I have to exercise my discretion as best I can. We have quite a lot to do today. If the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Madel) has helpful suggestions to make about Chrysler, I suggest that he sends them to the Minister. In business question time we deal with the next week's business.

NORTHERN IRELAND (DETAINEES)
Mr. Gow: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 to discuss a specific and important matter which should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the release by the Secretary of State of detainees from the Maze Prison."
I do not think that I need address you, Mr. Speaker, on the question whether this matter is either specific or important. I confine myself to its urgency. There are four reasons why it is an extremely urgent matter.
First, the Secretary of State has said all along that the question of releasing detainees should be related to the level of violence. The level of violence in Ulster has recently increased, and in my opinion that in itself justifies a revision of tie policy laid down by the Secretary of State.
Secondly, the Secretary of State said that the policy of releasing detainees will
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be completed before Christmas. That gives us only three weeks to release the remaining detainees. That, again, gives an element of urgency to the matter.
Thirdly, there is the question whether those released from detention are themselves involved in violence after release. On Monday of this week it was reported after an explosion in Belfast that one of the men whose bombs exploded had been released by the Secretary of State in March this year.
Finally, a moment ago I asked whether the Patronage Secretary could find time for us to discuss this matter before Christmas. He confirmed that we could not do so under the normal procedure. That is an additional reason why the House should have an opportunity to debate a matter of supreme importance to the whole country, particularly Ulster.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) was good enough to give me ample notice of his intention to make this application. I have listened carefully to what he said, and I have also had regard to what took place in the House earlier today. My decision reflects not the importance of the subject but the procedural aspects. I do not think it appropriate for such an application to succeed.

CHRYSLER LTD.
Mr. Les Huckfield: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 to discuss a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely
"the continued uncertainty regarding the presence of the Chrysler Corporation in this country".
The matter is specific and important because it has been the subject of negotiations between the Government and the Chrysler Corporation for nearly a month. As long ago as 29th October Mr. Riccardo made a statement in Detroit about the possibility of pulling out of this country.
The matter is urgent because many of my constituents who work at the Chrysler plant at Ryton in Coventry do not know whether they will have a job to go to in the new year. That applies also to the Chrysler works in Stoke and Linwood

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and to the dealers and component manufacturers. It is also urgent because many dealers do not know whether to continue as Chrysler dealers or make arrangements to seek alternative franchises. Neither do they know whether they will be guaranteed continuity in the supply of cars.
In total, the matter is urgent because, unless a statement is made soon, the confidence which we need for the continued operation of Chrysler in this country, from the point of view of workers, dealers and, most important, potential customers, will collapse.
Mr. Speaker: Again, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) was good enough to give me notice of his application. I have listened carefully to what he said and also to what the Patronage Secretary said earlier.
I do not for a moment dispute the urgency and importance of the matter, but I must have regard to what has been said and whether I now think that there should be a debate this evening or on Monday afternoon on this matter. The answer must be "No", although I accept the importance and urgency of the matter.

COMMITTEE OF PRIVILEGES (REPORT)
Mr. Lipton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I give notice that if the Report of the Committee of Privileges comes up for discussion in the House, of which no mention has been made by my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary—
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Mellish): I was not asked about it.
Mr. Lipton: I was not given an opportunity to ask a question about it. May I give notice, Mr. Speaker, that I propose to put down one or two amendments to
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the motion, because it deals with a wishy-washy document which raises important issues?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, at this day's sitting, Mr. Speaker shall put any Question necessary to dispose of Proceedings on the Motion relating to House of Commons (Administration) not later than Seven o'clock.—[Mr. Pavitt.]
Mr. Powell: In order that what some people consider to be an unnecessary and undesirable practice may not become a binding precedent by dint of repetition without objection, I again draw attention to the fact that the necessity for a motion of this sort has not yet been considered—as I believe it is the view of the Leader of the House that it deserves to be considered—by the Select Committee on Procedure in relation to the general methods of business in the House. Again, I am assuming that we shall not be drawn into a precedent and that there is no question that we shall not have an opportunity more ample to consider the desirability or necessity of motions of this type.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Mellish): I give the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) the assurance which he has a right to request. We do not wish to adopt this practice each time. The alternative is not to have such a motion and, if necessary, apply a closure motion. That practice is also objectionable.
In considering the business for today, one finds that a large number of hon. Members wish to speak on the second Order that will come before the House and not so many on the first Order. The House tries to do the best it can for hon. Members. I take the right hon. Gentleman's point and I give him the assurance which he has a right to request.
Question put and agreed to.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (ADMINISTRATION)
4.28 p.m.
Mr. Arthur Bortomley: I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the Report on House of Commons (Administration) (House of Commons Paper (1974–75) No. 624).
I should like to thank my fellow hon. Members for their co-operation and assistance in making it possible to present a unanimous report, all those who gave evidence to the Committee, and the Joint Secretaries, Mr. Ryle and Mr. Townley, who gave me all possible assistance. I should also like to thank you, Mr. Speaker, and the House, for the honour of entrusting me with the inquiry.
Historically, the administrative services of the House of Commons have grown spasmodically. If the House found it needed a service, it was provided. For example, the appointment of a Clerk to the House dates from 1363. The Serjeant at Arms has looked after accommodation and housekeeping since 1812, although a Serjeant was first appointed in 1415. The Library research services have significantly developed only since the war, and the services of the Administrative Department are modern developments.
There has been no overall planning, although separate departments have been reviewed. The great value of Sir Edmund Compton's review was that, for the first time, all the services and departments were looked at in relation to each other. In the past there has been no overall control and no single authority for the development and deployment of the resources of the House.
Mr. Speaker, the Clerk and the Serjeant at Arms have been largely autonomous authorities. For example, they have been separate employers. It is for that reason that our principal recommendation is the creation of a general authority for controlled development of the House of Commons administrative services generally. We therefore recommend that they should be combined into a unified service. This is the heart of our Report, and all the rest flows from it.
We thought that the Compton Report, based on a single chief officer, and a structure based on a hierarchy, was too
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rigid and bureaucratic. The Report also failed to recognise that Members of Parliament would wish to have a voice in directing their services and appointing their most senior staff. We think the Compton proposals would gravely disrupt the services provided for the House. We saw the solution as one that would draw on the established and operating departments, their loyalty and experience, providing greater flexibility for adapting to the changing needs of the future. Our hope is that we have offered a good starting arrangement. How it works out will largely depend on those hon. Members and officers who will operate it. This means that both the quality and the attitudes of our staff, at all levels, will be of great importance.
The best people should be able to rise to the top in the service of the House of Commons. We believe that, as part of the unified service, the House of Commons will be imbued with a single sense of common purpose. We recommend that there should be an effective House of Commons Commission as a central authority and common employer of all the staff, under Mr. Speaker's chairmanship. We suggest that the Commission should be composed of five members—the Leader of the House, Opposition representatives, and senior Back-Bench Members. The Leader of the House would speak for the Commission, and the House itself in the Cabinet, and would also be responsible for defending the decisions of the Commission in the House.
The Commission would not take away the ultimate authority of Mr. Speaker, but would advise him, in particular, on the appointment of the most senior staff in the employ of the House. The Commission would plan major developments in the services and control the Estimates of the House. It might, perhaps, one day be responsible for accommodation as well as staff.
The Services Committee would continue to express the views of Back Benchers, and it could also advise the Commission on many matters. We recommend the establishment of a Board of Management, the Chairman of which would be the Clerk of the House. His rôle as Accounting Officer for the whole of the services would be of growing importance. The Clerk of the House

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would be required to see that the departments worked together and provided agreed answers to common problems. The departments would get on with their day-to-day work without centralised interference, and heads of departments would report directly to Mr. Speaker. The staffing arrangements would be those of a unified service with common recruitment, promotion methods, training arrangements, improved staff consultation, and so on. So far as possible, all senior appointments should come from within the service, including that of the Serjeant at Arms.
During the last war I was Deputy Regional Commissioner for the South of England and one of my responsibilities was to amalgamate the county and borough police forces. Most of the chief constables came from the Armed Forces. The late Herbert Morrison was Home Secretary at the time and I suggested to him that, probably, in the changed situation, someone should be appointed from within a police force as chief constable. As it is said that in the Army every private carries a field marshal's baton in his knapsack, so a policeman should have the same opportunity for promotion. In the event, Herbert Morrison agreed, and made a significant change in appointing for the first time a civilian as head of the Metropolitan Police.
We recommend that in achieving a unified House of Commons service the time has come to depart from the system whereby the Serjeant at Arms is appointed from the Armed Forces. We do not feel that the privilege of a separate appointment can any longer be justified, but I should emphasise that in coming to this conclusion we are not in any way passing judgment on those who have held the office of Serjeant at Arms in the past. We are concerned solely with the issue of principle involved and with the need to ensure the unification of the House of Commons services. The possibility of a civilian being appointed as Serjeant at Arms or Deputy Serjeant at Arms has been accepted in the past. For example, Mr. Erskine held the office of Deputy Serjeant at Arms before the last war.
Mr. David Steel: The right hon. Gentleman moved on rather fast from the point at which I wished to interrupt, and I apologise for returning to it now. He is, perhaps, being a little too modest as
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Chairman of this Committee. Those of us who served under him are grateful for what he has done. But I suggest that he is not sufficiently stressing the significance of the rôle and structure of the new Commission which we have proposed. Perhaps not all hon. Members are aware that this would represent the abolition of the old 1812 Commission and a major extension of control over their own services and future here in the House of Commons. That is not something which should be lightly regarded. It is as important as are these staffing matters.
Mr. Bottomley: I hope some of my colleagues on the Committee will take part in the debate. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who was able to contribute so much to the work of the Committee, for what he has just said, which I warmly support.
Mr. Robert Cooke: Before the hon. Gentleman completes his remarks on the subject of the Serjeant at Arms, I take it he is complaining about the situation in which a senior distinguished officer from one of the three Services is sometimes imposed on the House from outside, in the post of Serjeant at Arms. I hope that his remarks are not directed towards other distinguished officers who are now serving in the Serjeant at Arms Department, and is not attempting to rule them out from any chance of promotion in the future.
Mr. Bottomley: The idea of the unified service is that anybody in the employ of the House will have the opportunity of reaching the highest ranks.
A matter of some difficulty arose from Sir Edmund Compton's recommendation that the Serjeant at Arms should be divested of his responsibility for accommodation and housekeeping. That may have been appropriate within the organisation proposed by Sir Edmund, but after very careful consideration we concluded, for reason set out in detail in our Report, that it would not have been satisfactory or necessary within the organisation that we propose.
In particular, we believe that it would be inefficient to separate the responsibilities for security and housekeeping. As the Serjeant at Arms pointed out in speaking of these matters, they are dealt with by the same staff and are inextricably intertwined. We believe, therefore

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that the Serjeant should continue to be responsible for accommodation. However, he would be required to work under the Commission as a member of the Board of Management within a unified service.
If the recommendations are to be accepted, some parts will require a short Bill. As a Committee we recognise that there is a need to end a long period of uncertainty. There are some senior appointments that have to be made. It is necessary to consider, plan and improve the services of the House of Commons.
It is for these reasons that, in presenting the Report and recognising that it will be noted, I urge upon the Government the need for it to be implemented as soon as possible.
4.42 p.m.
The Minister of State, Privy Council Office (Mr. Gerald Fowler): I do not wish to speak at any length at this stage, and hope that I may intervene later in the debate, with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to deal with the recommendations in detail.
The Government are exceedingly grateful to my right hon. Friend and his Committee for the very detailed work that they have done. It was an exceedingly difficult task. This is one of those matters on which everybody will argue until the cows come home, and there are 635 views in the House on the way in which the House of Commons should be administered. The Committee has produced a splendid Report and the Government are exceedingly grateful to the Committee for it.
4.43 p.m.
Mr. John Garrett: I wish to comment on the Report, as someone with some professional experience of the organisation of bodies in the public service. In general, I welcome the Report. I believe that the recommendations, if adopted, would be a great improvement on the existing situation. But I have misgivings concerning two areas. The first is the relationship of Back Benchers to the administration. The second relates to arrangements for personnel management in the proposed unified service.
It is a pity that the Committee seems to have been innocent of modern developments
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in personnel management in the public sector in this country.
Authority for directing and controlling the services for the House is clearly vested in the Speaker, and it is proposed that he be advised and assisted by a House of Commons Commission under his chairmanship. Membership of the Commission would consist of the Leader of the House, a representative of the Official Opposition Front Bench, and three senior Back Benchers. This Commission would be advised by the Services Committee, which is broadly representative of Back-Bench feeling, to which complaints by Members about particular services could be reserved. The Services Committee and its Sub-Committees might also have direct access to heads of departments, but would have no direct executive authority over them.
The Report says that the proposed Commission would not obviate the need for a Services Committee, but it does not say why not. I should have thought that there was every case for the amalgamation of the proposed House of Commons Commission and the Services Committee. They should surely have the same aims—the development and improvement of House of Commons services. At the very least, I should have thought that the Commission—apart from the Speaker and Leader of the House—should be elected by the Services Committee.
I believe that the Commission, as proposed, could be insufficiently responsive to Back-Bench attitudes and requirements. The Commission could well have sub-committees, as the Services Committee does. One of them could be a small executive committee, which could meet rapidly and at short notice. The need for such a body is mentioned in the Report.
In general, as far as I can see, this part of the Report takes no cognisance of the requirement for greater involvement of the people whose activities are affected by the policy-making institution concerned. In other words, insufficient power is given to Back Benchers in the proposed Commission.
At the next level down, we have the proposed Board of Management, advised by a Staff Board which the Committee itself recognises as superfluous. I agree

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with a Board of Management under the chairmanship of the Clerk of the House as Accounting Officer and therefore liable for expenditure on these services, but I strongly regret the absence of a personnel manager on the Board.
I also see no adequate refutation of the recommendation in the 1967 Treasury O & M report that Hansard should be a separate department. It seems to me to be quite distinct from other departments of the House.
I would never have thought, seven years after the Report of the Fulton Committee, that I would see a reorganisation in the public service involving the creation of the post of Principal Establishments Officer, which, in general concept, is a throw-back of a decade or more. What is more, it is combined with the post of Principal Finance Officer.
The Fulton Committee savagely attacked "the establishments concept" and "establishment work" in the Civil Service, pointing out that establishments work was primarily concerned with cost control and the control of numbers employed. This is far removed from modern ideas of personnel management—the development of the ability of the individual employee.
The whole idea of establishment work was primarily conceived at the time of the "Geddes Axe" in 1919, as a means of controlling numbers and not as a means of allowing scope for the abilities and skills of staff. Establishments work is a byword in the Civil Service for rule-bound, inhuman bureaucracy, and has nothing whatsoever to do with personnel management. In the proposed organisation, nobody is concerned with personnel management, but everybody is concerned with staff matters.
The Speaker is ultimately responsible for staff policy. The Commission lays down staff policy, the Board of Management co-ordinates staff policy, the Head of Administration has a special responsibility for staff policy, the Accounting Officer is accountable for the cost of staff policy, the Staff Board advises on staff policy, and the Services Committee is concerned with the effects of staff policy. But who sees staff policy from the staff's point of view? What is more, who will actually manage the important technical
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developments that the Committee sees as required in the personnel management of the administration? I have in mind the revision of grading, for example, and the unification of the service.
This, after all, is a business employing about 1,500 people, and it should have a focus for personnel management within it.
The Committee seems to have been wholly unaware of the movement for the reform of personnel management—the creation, one might say, of personnel management—in our Civil Service. What is needed is a professional personnel management concerned to supervise re-grading, to set about unifying the administrative service, to introduce a staff appraisal scheme, design training, career development and succession systems, and to adjust the organisation to all the changes in labour relations and human relations legislation that the House is introducing.
That personnel manager can only report to the Clerk of the House as Accounting Officer, because the Clerk of the House carries the can for staff costs. The personnel manager must have functional or technical authority over all departments, in the sense of laying down staff policies and procedures to ensure that each department provides uniform treatment, and training and career opportunities, for staff throughout the unified service.
In terms of personal management the Committee took a bold leap from 1900 to about 1945, but its recommendations in this field must be looked at again in the light of all the debate that has gone on since the Fulton Committee's Report nearly 10 years ago on the management of people in public administration.
4.50 p.m.
Mr. David Steel: I intend to be brief. I had not decided to intervene in the debate until I heard the speech of the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett). I accept that the hon. Gentleman has professional qualifications in this matter, but we must start, as the Committee started, from the standpoint that we are not dealing with a business employing 1,500 people, nor are we part of the Civil Service. If we were either

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of those things this place would be a great deal easier to administer. There is no one master, for one thing. There is no one chain of command. There are, and should remain, 635 employers, and that in itself makes a fundamental difference between the administration of this House and any other area of the public service, or any other business of a comparable size.
I may have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman, but I thought that he was a little confused. I thought he was criticising the Committee for not having recommended the abolition of the Services Committee, but in the next breath he said that the Commission should be elected by the Services Committee which he had suggested should be abolished.
Mr. John Garrett: The hon. Gentleman misunderstood me.
Mr. Steel: I may have done, but that was what I took from what he was saying.
The hon. Gentleman made a valuable point when he referred to what he felt, in the Report, was a lack of access or control by Back Benchers. I think that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. The fact that we decided not to abolish the Services Committee means that we are sensitive of the fact that although the new Commission is a major step forward from the present control of the House there is still a need to retain the Services Committee for the day-to-day airing of grievances by Bank Benchers, if nothing else. That is an important function of the Committee. I was a member of the Select Committee on Services when it was first set up in 1965 or 1966. After some time I found that I was the longest serving member, and I decided that it was time to go. I have considerable experience of the Services Committee. Its most valuable function, which could not be carried out by the Commission, is to be a sounding board and a complaints channel for Back Benchers, and to deal with all the matters which may at first sight seem trivial but which are of great importance to every hon. Members.
I hope that, on reflection, the hon. Gentleman will feel that he is wrong to bring too much professional expertise to this matter, and to talk as he did. He used the phrase "personnel management" at
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least six times. Unhappily—or, perhaps, happily—the House of Commons is a unique institution, not comparable to any business.
Mr. John Garrett: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this must be one of the few institutions in which a charge of technical expertise is thought to be derogatory? Does he also agree that he misunderstood what I said? I said that the Services Committee and the Commission should be amalgamated, recognising that some small executive-type committee could perform the functions proposed for the Commission.
Mr. Steel: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that last point. An amalgamation of the Services Committee and the Commission would lead to far too large and unwieldy a body to carry out the functions that we have proposed in the Report. That will remain a matter of opinion. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think that I am being derogatory about his professional expertise. I agree that it is the last thing that we should deride, but he started from the misconception that because the House of Commons employs 1,500 people one can treat it as though one has a parallel with the organisation and neatness that surrounds any business or any part of the public service.
4.55 p.m.
Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: I intervene also as one who served on this Committee. It proved to be an interesting Committee, and brought to light a large number of issues and problems of which not even those who had been in this House for a long time were fully aware.
This is a valuable Report, and I am rather disappointed that the motion that we are debating merely asks us to take note of it. I felt, believed and hoped that, following the fairly lengthy period that has elapsed since it was made available, it would have proved possible for the Government to declare their support for the proposals in the Report, even though it might have been necessary to consider minor alterations of some sort or other.
I think that we would welcome a general declaration, so that preparations could be made for some of the major

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changes that are proposed. I support what has been said about the importance of making it clear that we must regard this House as wholly different from a department of the Civil Service, for obvious reasons. The job that we require the staff here to carry out is a very different sort of job from that done in other departments. The job of the staff here is to service Members, as has been said, and not to carry out certain principles of responsibility, as it were, that are common in Civil Service departments. Indeed, I think that the weakness that we all felt in the Compton Report—which in other respects produced some valuable and useful information—was that it seemed to try to imprison this place within a form of control that might have been far more suitable for an ordinary Department of State in the Civil Service.
The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) arises to some extent out of a misunderstanding. It is important that if we accept the general idea of having a new Commission to replace the old Commission—which, by common consent, is completely anachronistic—we must see that it is essentially a small body that will deal with general issues, promote fresh ideas and institute new investigations which the Management Board and the Services Committee, as revised, may carry out.
It would be a body to ensure that the House was able to adjust and alter its procedures to meet the changing times—because what became clear to many of us was that it was useless to try to work out a detailed, complicated and rigid structure for this House when almost certainly within a period of years—none of us knows how many—changes will be required. We may be affected by our relationship with Europe, for one thing. We may be very much affected by any movement towards regionalism. All these are matters that we cannot decide now, and it is therefore supremely important that we devise a structure that can relatively easily be adapted, and can itself encourage change when change is really needed, rather than take on the rôle of providing the House with a wholly new and complete structure that it would be very difficult to alter. That is a point of great importance.
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It is incredible how long the House has carried on with the complete separation of the different departments that serve us. It is urgent that we should review that situation and try to bring about the development of a more unified service. I suggest not a hard-and-fast unified service, as proposed by Compton, but the growth of a unified service. I think that the fairly flexible procedures recommended in the Report offer the best hope and opportunity for that growth to take place.
It is surprising that in the past there have not been more opportunities for a wider range of recruitment and advancement within the House. It would be foolish to exaggerate the possibilities. In some areas there clearly are inevitable limitations. However, we should do all that we can to encourage movement.
I believe that one of the first duties of the Commission and Board of Management should be to investigate the possibilities and set in train new developments in training and recruitment to open up employment in this place. We should direct the attention of Members to the general principles set out in the Report that indicate the broad objectives which we are seeking.
It is right that, as the Report emphasises, the first duty should be to maintain, and, where possible, improve the services to Members. Secondly, overall control over the services of the House must remain with Members. Thirdly, the staff should be clearly seen as distinct from the Civil Service. Fourthly, there is the vital necessity of obtaining and maintaining the good will of the staff. Fifthly, we must preserve special expertise and unit loyalties. Sixthly, it is important that Mr. Speaker should retain direct contact with senior officials. Seventhly, there is a need for co-ordination of the services together with a unified staffing policy. Finally, there must be flexibility in being able to meet long-term changes. All these matters are vital and can be obtained from the kind of structure outlined in the report.
Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South, I think that it would be a mistake to try to combine the Commission and the Services Committee In the way that he proposed. The whole point is that the Commission should be a

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small body, capable of discussing general principles and of handing down a great deal of work to the Board of Management and, indeed, the Services Committee.
I hope that the Government will take an early decision on the matter. I am fully aware that not every hon. Member is wildly enthusiastic about this Report. I find that hon. Members are more than willing to complain about individual problems, but very few took the trouble to submit any evidence to the Committee. That did not surprise me in the least.
This is an important Report. I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate that, if not immediately, the Government will make clear their support for its general principles and seek to put these proposals into effect as soon as possible.
5.5 p.m.
Mr. Roger Sims: I have yet to complete two years as a Member of this House. Therefore, it would be presumptuous of me to comment in detail on some of the proposals that have been put before us. I speak from limited experience, so I do not intend to criticise the Report in detail. [Interruption.] However, I am grateful for hon. Members' comments.
The Compton Report is extremely impressive, and the Committee's examination and alternative proposals are interesting and valuable. The account makes us realise the size of the organisation and appreciate the dedication of the staff involved in the smooth running of our affairs in this House. The various services that we receive are akin to our personal senses, in that we probably appreciate them only when we lack them. Indeed, we had evidence of that when the printing service was not all that it might have been.
The Report emphasises the special problems of the administration of this place. As has been said, it is literally unique. There is no other body or organisation in the country like it. Therefore, we cannot transfer en bloc the principles and practices of either the commercial world or the Civil Service to our methods and organisation.
Having served for the last 12 months on the Services Committee, I find myself still observing its proceedings as something of a new boy, but perhaps I may
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be permitted to make a couple of observations on it.
It is obviously desirable that we should have a committee in which issues concerning the circumstances under which we all work can be discussed and through which individual Members can air their problems and make suggestions.
Is it necessary for the Services Committee or its Sub-Committees to deal with so much detail? Are the placing of individual lights, the siting of clocks, when and how the taxi bell should be rung, or where a telephone should be installed, matters with which a group of busy Members of Parliament should be concerned? We are all busy. Is it necessary to devote not only our time but the time of officers to discussing such matters?
We are fortunate to have on the Services Committee a number of dedicated and hard-working Members—particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Cooke), who is enthusiastic, experienced and knowledgeable and does an enormous amount of work in the background. However, I feel that some of the decisions taken by the Services Committee and its Sub-Committees on matters of detail could be taken by officers, who would, of course, refer to the Committee or to one of the Sub-Committee Chairmen if matters were likely to be particularly controversial or delicate. Surely one of the members of the proposed Board of Management could be the chairman of the Accommodation Sub-Committee of the Services Committee.
Is it necessary for the proceedings of the Services Committee and its Sub-Committees to be constrained by the Select Committee procedures? I wonder whether it has to be a Select Committee. I confess that my modest researches have not revealed what other kind of Committee—
Mr. Blenkinsop: The Report makes recommendations to get over that difficulty.
Mr. Sims: Yes, indeed. I was about to make that comment. I realise that it is necessary for some matters to be recorded in detail, but surely it should be possible for the Committee and its Sub-Committees to consult the Serjeant at Arms, the Chief Engineer, and other officers without all the formality of literally every word having to be recorded.

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More informal arrangements would be quicker. They would avoid unnecessary expenditure and they would certainly be more efficient. No less an authority than the Lord President of the Council has suggested that the proceedings of the Services Committee might be more flexible. I hope that it will not be thought impertinent if, as a fairly new boy, I support that view.
5.10 p.m.
Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: I speak with two interests in this debate. I am the adviser to the Civil and Public Services Association, which has a substantial membership in this House, and I am also a relatively new hon. Member who, when I first came here, thought that the services that were provided for hon. Members were quite scandalous. I still hold that view. It is outrageous that the services that are provided are so inadequate. That is no criticism of the staff, who provide them under very difficult circumstances. My colleagues and I appreciate the wonderful efforts of the staff in this connection. It is from those two points of view that I speak tonight.
It is a great pleasure for me to speak on the Report of the Committee under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bottomley), with whom I share a lot in common—his is the neighbouring constituency to mine. As Chairman of the Committee he has brought together a slightly disparate group of people and produced a Report that has received the general approval of all hon. Members and certainly of those members of the staff to whom I have spoken. I congratulate him on that, because the proposals in the Report represent a profound reform of the administration of the House—a reform which has fairly substantial implications for the constitutional position of the House and will strengthen the role that it plays in the country in future years.
I also regret the lack of interest shown by hon. Members in the Committee, in its predecessor, and in all matters of this sort, in terms of putting forward positive suggestions. I suppose that I am as guilty as many other hon. Members, but I am heartened by the fact that several hon. Members have come into the Chamber today—indeed, some have already spoken.
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I hope that that is a sign for the future. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that more hon. Members have not submitted evidence to the Committee and are not present today. We hear a lot of criticisms around the Tea Room, the bars and restaurants, about the facilities and the way in which the House is run. It is a pity that more hon. Members have not surfaced.
Generally, I welcome the proposal for a unified service. This is a reform that is long overdue. The proposal for one employer—the Commission—will be easily understood by members of the staff, by hon. Members and, indeed, by the public. The proposals that follow from that, such as accessibility to higher positions by all members of the staff of the House, and transferability from one department to another and from one job to another, are wholly welcome, will bring greater benefits to the House and, I hope, will make the work done by staff in the House much more attractive and interesting.
I also hope—I believe this to be the case—that a unified service will bring about a much greater degree of identification of staff activities. There is a need for a full commitment to the proposals for unification, transferability, accessibility and new recruiting and training procedures. If there is not that full-hearted support among senior members of the staff of the different departments, this will take a long time to get off the ground. I hope that senior members of the staff and also senior colleagues on the Commission will try to ensure that the proposal for a unified service is implemented as rapidly as possible.
I share some of the reservations that have been expressed about the rôle of the Services Committee. That Committee performs a quite remarkable job at present. The way in which it investigates hon. Members' complaints in incredible detail is quite ludicrous. That should be done by an officer of the House, acting as an executive. These are not matters that should be discussed by Committees of any sort. However, the rôle of the Services Committee needs to be made quite clear to hon. Members. It is an advisory Committee. If that rôle is not made clear, hon. Members will believe it to be the same body as it is at present, and will then lose all confidence in it.

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Hon. Members must appreciate that the Commission will be a real and powerful body in the House in future and that the Services Committee will not perform the sort of functions that it has attempted to perform in the past.
It is important that the new Services Committee represents opinions of Back Benchers loud and clear to the Commission. It needs to demonstrate that it is doing so, because hon. Members must have confidence in it if it is to succeed in the rô1e it has been given in the Report.
Finally, I regard as important the comments in paragraph 5.27 of the Report, about good staff relations. Mention has already been made of the need to strengthen personnel management. Unless there are good staff relations in the House, and a much greater degree of consultation than there has been—there is reference to the lack of meetings of the full Whitley Committee in this paragraph—it will be difficult to introduce these reforms and carry everyone along with them. I hope that the greatest number of consultations will take place, so that the importance of good staff relations, as stressed in that paragraph, will be recognised.
The House faces a new problem of security and management, and a greater demand from Members—which will be the order of the day for many years to come. It faces the problem of finding a new rôle in relation to other possible assemblies in the country and to the new Assembly overseas. The reform that has been proposed will help to strengthen the House and thus enable it to provide a better and more efficient service for hon. Members. That can only be good, at a time when we face the problems inherent in the new rôle that the House will play in the latter part of this decade and through into the 1980s.
5.19 p.m.
Mr. John Peyton: My first task is to say a word of thanks, with, I am sure, the full agreement of every hon. Member who served on the Committee, to the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bottomley). He was a chairman who showed great patience and courtesy, not only to witnesses but—and this, I am sure, was more difficult—to his
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colleagues on the Committee. We all appreciate what he did. The fact that there is a completely unanimous Report, which is unusually clear for these days, is in no small measure due to him. I welcome the opportunity of saying this in public.
I should also like to say a strange word of thanks to Sir Edmund Compton, whose Report, though rejected, at least started us and stimulated us into very careful consideration of a series of very difficult problems.
I also express my thanks to the Clerks of the Committee, who were particularly helpful in the work that they did, and the mark of whose careful work is to be discerned throughout the Report.
The unanimity with which the Committee concluded its study has been echoed today by the speeches made by the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) and South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop). In a matter such as this it is particularly important not only that there should have been all-party agreement at the time but that it should survive into the later days and exist now.
The hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) made a very interesting speech. I hope very much that before long he will have a chance to deploy his experience and knowledge, and his concern for these matters, on the Services Committee. I hope that that will not be too unhappy a thing for the Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Chisle-hurst (Mr. Sims) has had this experience already. I was glad to hear that he found it of interest.
I should like to call the attention of the House to one remark in paragraph 2.3 of the Report. The Committee rather shyly concluded that Members were more concerned with the scale of the services provided than with the details of their organisation. The speech of the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough has very eloquently echoed that. The Committee was certainly not made the recipient of a torrent of evidence by individual Members of Parliament—we heard from only one—nor is the House absolutely packed today with the usual queue of would-be speakers wishing to address it on this subject. On the whole, we recognised that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who are Members of the House of Commons are eloquent and

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loud in their complaints about the deficiencies of services but are not prepared, despite what they may be tempted to say from time to time, to exert themselves unduly as to how they should be rectified.
It is hardly surprising, for that reason, that solutions to our administrative problems should be sought elsewhere than here. Nor is it surprising that those in Whitehall—which is, after all, conveniently nearby—should favour arrangements with which they themselves are familiar and tend to ignore the fact that whereas they administer policies the House of Commons staff is responsible for providing services, and a very great variety of services in a comparatively small area. I hope that this Report will discourage those in Whitehall who may feel it their duty to say, or who may be tempted from time to time into the rather enjoyable exercise of saying, how better Parliament could be run.
Parliament is not a Government Department. In my view it would be a very great mistake if we were to produce some new, grand Pooh-Bah of an official in the person of a Permanent Secretary. It would be to transplant a godlike individual from Whitehall to quite alien soil over here. I hope that that idea will make no further progress.
Parliament, I think—here, I speak entirely for myself—is already far too much the creature of the Executive, responding to its pressures and demands, bemused by a torrent of legislation, ill at ease in a sea of statistics and ministerial verbiage, and inundated with information that it lacks the power to digest. I believe that it is highly desirable that Parliament should be kept separate from the Executive and should be free to run its own affair in its own way, even if that way does not always seem too tidy to those elsewhere.
I was very interested to hear the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough making a particular point of the Committee's rejection of the idea that the functions of housekeeping and security should be separated. I should like to say how much I agree with him. On further reflection, I believe that we were completely right in concluding that those who come to a different conclusion on the whole do so because they have not become sufficiently familiar with the problems and have not had the experience that those who have
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had to carry out the duties possess—and it was their evidence that weighed very much with us.
The House of Commons needs not just a figurehead but a champion with real power, and a champion which it has itself produced. I cannot believe that the House of Commons would gain in any way if it allowed the paramountcy of Mr. Speaker to be challenged or undermined. I am particularly glad that the Report leaves the position of Mr. Speaker not only unscathed but reinforced in many ways. I believe, therefore, that it is absolutely right that it is the Speaker who should be the Chairman of a reinvigorated and revived Commission.
Personally, I welcome as a very sensible measure the idea of a Management Board. I also agree with all those who have spoken in favour of our recommendation of a unified staff. This must be good, in so far as it offers increased opportunities and a genuine feeling of unity among the staff. On the other hand, it is right that we should recognise that unification is easier to talk about than to achieve, because the functions and services with which we are dealing are of such a diverse nature.
I do not wish to detain the House for long. I very much hope that all the Officers of the House and members of the staff who serve us so well felt that they got a fair hearing and sympathetic and courteous consideration from the Committee. I hope that the Report which we have produced will be a help to them and to individual Members of Parliament. I particularly hope that the Report will do something to help preserve Parliament from being sucked into the maw of Whitehall, for no better reason than that the Executive today is achieving increased domination over our affairs. I believe that the independence of Parliament from the Executive is something that we must guard as being of particular importance at a time when personal liberties are very much under threat.
As I have said, I do not intend to detain the House. In conclusion, I should like to say how glad I was personally to have the privilege of serving on the Committee. I end as I started by saying to the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, who has had a very long career in Parliament and one that is far from

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closing now, that he can be particularly proud of this contribution.
5.30 p.m.
Mr. Leslie Spriggs: I associate myself with hon. Members who have paid their compliments and extended their thanks to Officers of the House and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bottomley), who was the Chairman of the Committee which had what I would regard as a thankless task. Had hon. Members appreciated his services and those of his colleagues on the Committee, I think many other hon. Members would have been present today. I regret that the Chamber is almost empty—although there may be a reason of which most of us are unaware—on an occasion when we are debating a matter which concerns Parliament as a whole.
My experience in meeting the staff and asking for co-operation is that there has been an ever-ready enthusiasm to help my colleagues and myself wherever possible. I hope that my short criticism will be regarded as constructive. It may be said that I should have sent my complaints in writing, but there is a certain lack of efficiency in various parts of the House and I regret that this is my only opportunity to raise these matters. I do not believe that matters of this sort should be raised in public, but because they go on to the public record they become public knowledge.
I regret to have to say to my right hon. Friend and his colleagues that the services in the Upper Corridor, where many Members are fitted into those prefabricated rooms in the roof over another place, require some attention. I hope, without going into detail, that the toilet facilities will be considered. I believe that from the point of view of personal hygiene and health there is a case for the provision at various strategic points of shower baths for Members who arrive in this building fairly early in the morning and often do not leave until midnight or later. I appreciate that there are some facilities of that sort, but they are inadequate.
We ought to consider the airing of such matters in such a way as to avoid the use of parliamentary time in this Chamber, and I believe that there is a case for bringing Members together elsewhere
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in the building instead of using scarce parliamentary time. I believe that an all-party meeting could be called in a Committee Room, and if the attendance in the Chamber this evening is anything to go by we need not ask for a larger room than Committee Room No. 10 for an hour or two.
My next point is probably more important. I should like the Committee to consider particularly the facilities provided for our constituents who come to Westminster to lobby their Members of Parliament. That, after all, is part of democracy. When the unemployed came last week from the Merseyside and the North-West, however, I went outside to look for my trades council delegates and I found many hundreds of people who had been standing for hours shivering in the cold. I then found that the Grand Committee Room in Westminster Hall was empty, and with the co-operation of the police I managed to fill that hall. But we were unable to get any more of our constituents into the Central Lobby.
We all know why, at great expense and time, people come to lobby Members of Parliament. They do not expect to be shoved into some Committee Room, away from the centre, which is their objective when they arrive here. Still less do we as Members of Parliament expect men and women of all ages to stand outside in the bitter cold. This is a very important point. It has been raised before to my knowledge, and while my right hon. Friend is, I trust, taking special note of these observations, I hope that it will not be necessary to raise this matter again, because if it does become necessary we shall raise "holy hell".
5.35 p.m.
Mr. Giles Shaw: I had not intended to intervene in this debate, and I do so only because of the speech of the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs). I deeply regret that the hon. Gentleman saw fit to raise these matters in the House rather than with the Services Committee, of which I am a member and of which there are many members from the Benches opposite.
In relation to the specific point to which the hon. Gentleman attaches so much importance—namely, the handling of mass lobbies—he should be aware of

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the several hours during which the Services Committee was in session trying to design, with the help of the Serjeant at Arms and his staff and the police and their representatives, a method whereby in safety and security within this building a massive demonstration of that size could be held.
We must recognise, as I am sure the hon. Member will recognise when he considers the matter, that the presence within this building of 5,000 persons would be a total and complete disaster, however orderly such an intrusion might be. We have problems with the security of this place. We have very real problems with the handling and the legitimate right of those who seek to lobby their Members. Nevertheless, I wish to pay my tribute to the way in which the Government Deputy Chief Whip handled this issue and the care with which he personally saw to it that this matter was tackled in very difficult circumstances. I suggest to the hon. Member for St. Helens that he should discuss that matter with his right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bottomley), and possibly he will learn from him the circumstances which gave rise to the procedure adopted.
I wish to turn briefly to the Report which we are discussing. I recognise that the Committee, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Gentleman, has provided what I could call a half-way house in dealing with the various problems. I recognise that there are inadequacies in our present procedure, and I think that there are inadequacies in the Services Committee and in the way in which it seeks to respond flexibly. It is on this issue that I seek the advice of the right hon. Gentleman or of the Minister of State, Privy Council Office.
I am concerned that the structure of a Commission and Board of Management and, indeed, the Services Committee, in an advisory capacity, sounds to me like a fairly long channel of communication. It seems to me that the need for quick, simple and effective decisions on so many matters of administration is one of the criteria we should seek to apply in revising our administration of this House. I should like an assurance that the Government, if they accept these recommendations, as I hope they do, will regard the flexibility and speed with which decisions
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can be taken and consultations can be carried out as one of their main objectives.
The formality of our Committee proceedings is no longer suitable for many of the matters which come up for discussion. Reference has been made to the Select Committee procedure. The reams of evidence with which we have been faced no longer provide a sensible way of discussing matters of real importance. Therefore, I hope that in the matter of improving the services the need for speed of decision will be paramount.
5.39 p.m.
Mr. Gerry Fowler: The hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw) asked for an indication of the Government's attitude. This is the first occasion on which I have spoken from the Dispatch Box when I can say that, in general, I can speak not only as a member of the Government but as a parliamentarian. Almost for the first time, I am also able to agree with every word uttered by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). As parliamentarians we are all concerned about the administration of this House and we want to improve it.
I am grateful to the Committee for its hard work on a Report which takes us a long way towards getting efficient administration in the House of Commons. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bottomley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Harrison) for their work on the Report.
This is where we see Parliament at its best—when its interests are at stake. We are all concerned not with comfort or ease but with efficiency, and not in the sense that it might be understood in Whitehall. I agree that we do not want Whitehall spreading its tentacles into the House. Whoever is in Government will, I am sure, take the same view.
We have a special need here for an administration which can service what is essentially an all-party 635-Member Chamber where everyone counts as equal. It is a very difficult art. We do not have the pyramidical structure that one finds in central Government or private industry. We are not talking about the Prime Minister as a managing director. Servicing 635 equals is exceedingly difficult, but if we implement the broad lines of the

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Report's recommendations we shall be more on the way to getting something that is attuned with the needs of the late-twentieth century in this House.
Mr. Peyton: My observations lead me to believe that, in so far as we are all equal, it is very much an Orwellian quality and some are very much more equal than others.
Mr. Fowler: Since this is a friendly debate and we are not being Government and Opposition, I can say that I agree entirely with the right hon. Gentleman and that it is about time we changed the situation. There are times when I am more equal than he and other times when he is the more equal. I would be happy if we were all totally equal all the time.
The Government's interest in this matter extends only to the repeal of the 1812 provisions and the establishment of a new Commission. The other recommendations would fall to the new Commission when appointed, so I shall not go on at any length about the details of the Report. As an hon. Member I have strong views on some of them, but I shall suppress those views.
There are problems, including one to which the Report gives great attention—whether housekeeping, security and ceremonial functions can be properly amalgamated within the Serjeant at Arms' department and whether it is desirable that the Deliverer of the Vote should be part of the same department as the Librarian. There are a host of problems of that kind concerned with the organisation of particular departments and the administration of the House. These are essentially for resolution by the new Commission when it has been set up.
My task is simply to welcome the Report and to say that we hope it will be possible to make progress fairly rapidly on the broad lines of its recommendations. Once again, I express my gratitude to all those who have taken part in the production of the Report.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Report on House of Commons (Administration) (House of Commons Paper (1974–75) No. 624).

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CIVIL LIST BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  5.45 p.m.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The House will recall that in February this year I made a statement on the Civil List which was principally concerned with expenditure on the Civil List in 1975. In that statement I was able to foreshadow a change in the machinery by which future increases in the Civil List and associated payments might be provided. I indicated that the Government proposed to introduce legislation to change the system for providing for those increases. The Bill now before the House fulfils that promise.
  The system introduced in 1972 by the provisions of the Civil List Act 1972 followed the Report of a Select Committee on the Civil List. The Civil List Act 1972 provided for the payment of £980,000 a year from the Consolidated Fund for the Civil List. That sum exceeded the annual expenditure at that time.
  The Act provided for surpluses to be accumulated by the Royal Trustees and those surpluses were to be applied to meet deficits of subsequent years. At the time when Parliament was considering the 1972 Act, it was expected that the provisions in the Act would suffice to cover expenditure for a period of some five years.
  The provisions in the 1972 Act were designed at a time when experience of and expectations of inflation were much less than they have become in the intervening three years. Among those provisions was a statutory requirement on the Royal Trustees to report to the House, and for any necessary action then to be taken, when it appeared that the Civil List expenditure for the next calendar year would exceed the sums available under the Act to meet that expenditure. The Civil List Act 1972 was not, however, intended to create a system of annual reviews of the Civil List payments, nor is the procedure that it created—the formal reports by Royal Trustees—suitable for the purpose. That is the basic reason

  1981
  for the legislation which is now before the House.
  It is a cause for regret, but nevertheless an unavoidable fact, that inflation has affected the costs of running the Royal Household in very much the same way as it has affected everyone else. Perhaps the best analogy to the Royal Household is with other labour-intensive organisations, if I may use that phrase in this context. It is a fact which is familiar to us all that labour costs have been the chief element in the cost increases suffered by labour-intensive industries and organisations.
  About three-quarters of the expenditure covered by the Civil List is on wages and salaries, mainly on staff engaged in manual and clerical work. Increases which are granted to these staff reflect increases in comparable Civil Service rates negotiated with the relevant unions. Such increases are, of course, in this current period entirely in line with the Government's own counter-inflation policy. There has been no question of any breach of that policy having been made in respect of anyone whose pay depends on the Civil List, and I can assure the House that this will continue to be the case.
  The Government, as the House full knows, are determined to deal with inflation and place the highest priority on succeeding in doing so. We all agree on that. But it would be grossly irresponsible to expect, in considering the arrangements for the Civil List in the foreseeable future, that it will be possible to revert to a system which was based on fixing a basic sum with the expectation that it would not have to be changed for five years. It is therefore desirable to establish a new system which recognises in particular the demands on the Civil List which are created by the labour-intensive nature of the Royal Household. As I told the House on 12th February, the Government had decided to recommend the House to agree to legislation providing that any further increases in provision for the Civil List should be subject to normal House of Commons Supply procedures.
  The House has always recognised that Civil List payments were made by Parliament on behalf of the nation to the Queen and the Royal Household in order to enable the Queen and the Household to carry out the very wide range of
  1982
  official duties which the nation has come to expect of them. That is why, taken together with the degree of inflation recently experienced, the Government propose that additional Civil List payments should be made in a way which is similar to that in which other moneys for other official purposes are provided.
  There is a further point that the House will be ready to understand. Although the Queen has widened the scope of her activities far beyond those of any previous Sovereign, the number of people employed in her Household has been reduced by 44 during her reign. This is the more remarkable since the Queen is Sovereign of 12 countries and travels regularly throughout the world in addition to carrying out an extensive programme in this country.
  The Bill now before the House therefore provides that the Treasury may make payments out of Votes for the purpose of supplementing all or any of the sums to which Section 6(1) of the Civil List Act 1972 applies. These sums, which are payable out of the Consolidated Fund, are for the Queen's Civil List, for annuities to certain members of the Royal Family, for contributions to the official expenses of certain members of the Royal Family and for Civil List pensions.
  The payments to be made to the Royal Trustees under Clause 1(1) of the Bill will be subject to the normal House of Commons Supply procedure in the same way as other expenditure. Payments by the Royal Trustees will be audited by the Auditor of the Civil List, and a statement of those payments will be appended to the Appropriation Account at the end of the year. I am sure that it is right to meet this expenditure in the same way as other voted expenditure and to give it no special treatment, whether more or less than is applied to other voted expenditure. Clearly, the expenditure will be on a cash limits basis.
  The second and only other major provision of the Bill repeals the subsection of the 1972 Act which requires the Royal Trustees to report if at any time they think that the Civil List expenditure for the next year will exceed the sums available for meeting that expenditure. This provision, which, as I have said, was intended to be an exceptional provision, would, at a time of inflation, certainly

  1983
  become an annual requirement should the terms of the Act remain unchanged. This was not the intention of Parliament when the 1972 Act was passed. Some of us here were members of the 1971 Select Committee.
  I hope the House will agree that it is undesirable that the Royal Trustees should be required to report annually. However, it seems right that the Royal Trustees should be required to report at longer intervals in order to review the working of the system generally—this was, after all, the purpose behind the 1972 Act. The Bill does not, therefore, remove the duty on the Royal Trustees to report at least once every 10 years.
  The House will realise that this legislation is concerned only with the machinery for providing increases in Civil List payments. It does not raise the question of the amounts which should be provided using that machinery. The House had the opportunity this year—in February—to discuss the Order providing for increases in payments for the Civil List in 1975. Estimates for increases in 1976 will, when this legislation is enacted, be presented in the usual way and the House will have the same opportunity to discuss and decide those increases as it has to discuss any other voted money.
  However, the House will not expect me to restrict my remarks solely to matters of machinery. I know that some Members are concerned about various aspects of Civil List expenditure. They raised a number of these in the discussions in the House in February of this year. I do not think that many of those points are strictly relevant to the changes in machinery which have been proposed in this Bill. It is, I repeat, a machinery Bill, and only a machinery Bill.
  But there is a wider point that the Government acknowledge. I do not need to describe to the House the extremely difficult economic situation which the country has faced and continues to face and the effect which this has had on the living standards of everyone. Any increases in the Civil List which are provided under the new arrangements will, as I have already suggested, be almost entirely devoted to paying the employees of the Royal Household the going union rate for the job, within the Government's
  1984
  counter-inflation policy. Any cut in the increase concerned, were we by inadequate provision to involve any cut in those pay rates, would lead to those workers being paid less than people doing the same kind of job elsewhere and thus infringe agreements with the trade unions. I am sure that the House would reject any such course.
  Nevertheless, if it is at all possible to defray public expenditure in order to reduce it in any way at this very difficult time, I am sure the whole House will join with me in welcoming this.
  In my statement on 12th February, I was able to tell the House that Her Majesty had offered to contribute £150,000 towards the expenses of the Civil List for 1975. The Government accepted that offer, and I believe that the House warmly welcomed it. That contribution by Her Majesty in support of the Civil List was for one year only, and carried with it no obligation or understanding that the Queen would continue to contribute to expenses for which Parliament provides and has traditionally provided. Her Majesty has nevertheless authorised me to say that for the time being she now wishes to offer a regular annual contribution towards the expenses of the Civil List.
  I am authorised to tell the House that Her Majesty has offered to pay to the Consolidated Fund as from next year a sum which is equivalent to the provision made, under present arrangements, under Section 3 of the Civil List Act 1972 under which payments are made to certain individual members of the Royal Family—the Duke of Kent, Princess Alexandra, the Duke of Gloucester, and Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone. Provision for these payments is now £85,000. The value of the Queen's contribution will inevitably rise year by year with the cost of living, so it is not possible to put a firm figure on it. The sum which the Queen will pay in 1976 will depend on the level of the official expenses incurred, because each of these members of the Royal Family has expenses, and the increase in the payments to be made under Section 3 of the 1972 Act. The figure is currently estimated to be of the order of £120,000. This represents a big change over the situation which existed when the House last debated these matters in November.

  1985
  The Civil List will, on this basis, now be providing only for the Sovereign, the Consort of a Sovereign and for the children of a Sovereign and the widows of those children. I am sure that the House will warmly welcome Her Majesty's offer to make this continuing contribution, which is being accepted by the Government.
  I strongly commend this measure to the House. It introduces no major innovations into the general arrangements by which the nation provides the financial support necessary for the Queen and the Royal Household to fulfil their official functions. Nor in itself does it affect the extent of that support: no changes or additions to public expenditure arise from the Bill itself nor any changes or additions to public sector manpower. It provides for a useful amendment to the means of providing for increases in expenditure when these increases arise in the light of changed circumstances since the original main legislation was enacted, while keeping any moneys voted fully within the control of the House.
  Her Majesty's very generous offer will, I am sure, be appreciated by the House. But the legislation which is now before the House stands and is fully justified independently of Her Majesty's willingness to make a continuing contribution towards the expenses of the Civil List.
  It is right that this legislation should be introduced, in accordance with the pledge I gave in February, which was substantiated in the House by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hope that the House will give its warm acceptance to these proposals.
  Mr. Speaker: Before I call the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, I should tell the House that I have not selected either of the amendments.
  6.2 p.m.
  Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: I should like to make it quite clear that we on the Opposition Benches support the Prime Minister in introducing this measure at the present time. As he said, it is a brief Bill and one with a limited objective. It is virtually a single-clause Bill, in which the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum is longer than the substantive provisions of the clauses.
  1986
  The Bill's limited purpose is to vary the procedure by which we make full and proper provision for the expenses of a constitutional monarchy in the performance of its public duties. We are very fortunate in having the institution of a constitutional monarchy. It has brought this country a stability and sense of continuity that are lacking in some other countries. We are also fortunate, if I may say so without being presumptuous, in the Monarch who wears the crown and the family who help to discharge the heavy round of duties. As well as being founded on tradition, the monarchy now has a strong bond with the people, in that it has the admiration and affection of the people.
  I also believe that we are fortunate to have in this country the person who is the Monarch of 11 other countries as well; although it is something of a general knowledge exercise to try to enumerate the 12 countries mentioned by the Prime Minister. Fortunately, his office was kind enough to let me have a list of them.
  There have been changes in the way in which we make provision. It is no longer possible to provide for a whole reign, or even for a few years at a time. It is interesting to look back to the rate of inflation when we last made provision by Act, which was in 1972. Inflation then rose at about 8 per cent. in the year. For the last calendar year the rate was about 20 per cent., and we do not quite know what it will be over the whole of this year. Whereas we started out to make provision for a whole reign, and then graduated to making provision for a few years, it is no longer possible even to forecast the required expenditure for a few years ahead, as the Prime Minister said. That is why it is necessary to move to an annual statement.
  I understand from the Prime Minister's statement on 12th February that the change to an annual Vote has the full agreement of the Royal Household. I also understand from the Bill that it is still possible to revert to the old procedure under which provision was made by Order. We can do this if we get inflation completely under control and go once again to a stable price level. To some extent, therefore, this Bill presents an alternative procedure which we can use while we have need to do so. If we can ever revert to making Orders, they

  1987
  will derive from agreement between the Treasury and the Royal Household and then be brought before the House in the usual way. It is extremely useful to have these two alternative methods at our disposal.
  The Prime Minister mentioned some of the annuities referred to in Clause 1 and spoke of the contributions to expenses of certain members of the Royal Family not in receipt of annuities, saying that these will now be borne not by the Consolidated Fund but by the Queen. We should say how grateful we are that when these matters have come before the House and the Civil List has been revised we have always been met with maximum co-operation from the Royal Household. The Royal Household has always made a very positive contribution to try to reduce the expenses of carrying out the duties of the monarchy.
  First, in 1972 I believe, the payment to the Privy Purse was forgone, and then last year there was the special contribution to which the Prime Minister referred. This year we have a separate and new measure under which the Queen herself will meet the cost of annuities to members of the Royal Family not covered by the Civil List. Those members of the Royal Family carry out quite heavy duties. They are welcomed by the people as a whole, and it is right that all their expenses should be reimbursed. We warmly welcome the gesture by the Queen that in future she will reimburse them herself, particularly at a time of inflation, when the size of the commitment cannot be quantified.
  The Prime Minister also referred to the £6 pay limit and the fact that the Royal Household has always made maximum economies, in particular in reducing the numbers of staff employed to carry out the duties, although those duties have been increased. I understand that almost all members of the Royal Household have salary scales linked directly or indirectly to the Civil Service scales. It seems to follow that any increases must automatically be within the pay limits settled by the Prime Minister in the attack on inflation.
  As the Prime Minister said, this is a very limited Bill, mainly a machinery or procedure Bill. I think it right that we should make good provision for the
  1988
  Monarch to carry out the duties of the monarchy in the best possible way. I hope that we shall do it expeditiously.
  6.9 p.m.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Those matters which in part we describe today as the Civil List have been among the oldest subjects of debate in this House. In fact, it might be argued that before the private or personal expenditure and the public expenditure of the Crown were gradually distinguished, our debates upon that subject constituted the germ and foundation of the control of the House over Government and over legislation. Even after the separation had been quite clearly made, this provision for the expenses of the Monarch and the Royal Family has been a recurring—and not the happiest or most successful—form of debate in the House.
  However, a method was adopted for limiting the problem and restricting the occasions on which this House had to approach the fearsome task of allocating and defining the financial resources available to the Monarch and the Royal Family. That method was provision out of the Consolidated Fund, initially a provision made once or on very few occasions in the course of a reign.
  In this Bill we are brought face to face much more severely than in the 1972 Act with one of the many destructive consequences of inflation. There seems to be no end to the achievements of inflation as the great destroyer—destroyer of institutions, of human relationships, of societies and of economies. A few years ago its ravages were milder than they are today, but the House was then already finding itself obliged, in pursuance of a Select Committee's Report, to contemplate the possibility—indeed the likelihood—of an annual debate upon an Order placed before this House to supplement the provision in the principal Act.
  In this Bill, despite what the Prime Minister said, it seems that a very great shift is being made. The Prime Minister said that there was "no major innovation" imported by the Bill. I would respectfully dissent from that and dissent from it on the basis of something else which he said. The Prime Minister said that as a consequence of this Bill, if it passes into law, there will be "no special treatment" of the moneys which pass

  1989
  from the Consolidated Fund to the maintenance of the Civil List. That is, indeed, a major innovation. Hitherto the principle has been the vesting of this expenditure directly upon the Consolidated Fund, as the salaries, for instance, of Her Majesty's judges are vested and with a similar but even more important intention—namely, that there should indeed be special treatment of that expenditure, that it should not pass over the hurdles which, very properly, all other expenditure authorised by this House to be made out of the Consolidated Fund has to pass.
  The reason why the Consolidated Fund method, if I may so describe it, is adopted for Her Majesty's judges and a few other persons appears to apply with very much greater force to the expenditure concerned in this Bill. Although the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) has not been called, I hope I may say that I am wholly of the view expressed in that amendment, which seems admirably to take and make the point.
  I have heard comment in the past few days that it is ironical for this House at this time of economic crisis to be spending a half day debating a Civil List Bill. I believe on the contrary that in this debate we are indeed debating the economic plight of this nation; but we are penetrating below the superficial economic phenomena to the psychological and moral causes of our plight.
  Britain is often called—and we have a national habit of gladly repeating the sneering phrases which others use about us—the sick man of Europe. I do not believe we have any organic sickness. It would be more accurate to describe us as the nation which suffered a nervous breakdown and to say that our economic performance—and, even more, the manner in which we conceive our economic performance as it is presented to us—is the symptom of a profound loss of self-confidence and of national pride. I do not believe that the recovery so often heralded, which has as often eluded us, will come until that pride and self-confidence is regained—until we recover from the nervous breakdown which seems to have snapped and broken all of the characteristic reactions of this nation to a challenge.
  When we speak of the pride and self-confidence of our nation, the Crown—the
  1990
  Monarchy—is absolutely central; nor do I know how better one would gauge the state of this nation's psychological health, of its national morale, than by its attitude towards its greatest, its unique, institution. I fear that this Bill—and I make no criticism of the manner in which it was placed before the House by the Prime Minister—by the very fact that it is brought forward and that it is entertained by this House, betokens how much the due relationship between nation and monarchy is impaired.
  Of all the sources of true and proper pride to a British person none is greater than the common possession of the Crown. I use the word "possession" advisedly, in its full and most literal sense. Because our Crown is the product of the history of this nation, because it grows like an oak in the soil of these islands, it is therefore the personal possession of every citizen and subject, however humble, however poor. It is a total misconception, a misconception which permeates the words of the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton)—who breathes upon nothing that he does not reduce to his own level—to suppose that there is anything of class, anything which is restrictive or destricted, about the Crown. Whatever may be said of any other institution, the Crown is the common, precious and hereditary jewel of all British subjects and of all the people of this country.
  To approach that common possession, that symbol and personification, with the attitude, "How ungenerous can we be? How little can we contrive to spend upon it? How much can we clip?"—not of its magnificence, for it has ever been the pride of English greatness not to be magnificent through lavishness, but in more fundamental ways—" How much can we restrict the outward signs and manifestations of what the Crown is to this country? "is a sign that we are still divorced from the pride and self-confidence without which a nation cannot face the world and without which this nation cannot learn to face the world again.
  There is more to it today than even that historic personification, symbolism and treasury of the Crown itself. In these last years we have learned—some of us to our astonishment and incredulity—that

  1991
  our nation could relinquish—what we never imagined it was possible for it to relinquish—its own independence and sovereignty, and that this House could give up its proud, exclusive, all-embracing powers of control over all matters whatsoever within this realm. Here at this juncture, where we are contemplating that which a few years ago would have been inconceivable to us, the Crown appears in a new light.
  It may seem a paradox, yet it is true to say, that the unique quality of this House and indeed of parliamentary government as this country has taught it to the world is based upon the monarchy and would be impossible without a hereditary monarchy of historical, prescriptive origin. I say that for a specific reason. The fundamental principle of the power of this House and the power of Parliament, namely, that no Parliament can bind its successor, that every Parliament can undo what any other Parliament has done—at any rate, until the beginning of 1973—the principle that within this realm whatever Parliament enacts cannot be called in question in any other place or forum whatsoever, does not derive from anything which we have done or could have done in this place. It derives from the nature of that sovereignty which is exercised upon the advice of those who in the last resort are responsible in this House.
  Today we are perhaps the only nation in the world which has a true monarchy. I doubt whether there is any other monarchy now existing which is not itself the creature of a contract, of a constitution, of a settlement. A monarchy which is the creature of a settlement begets a legislature which is the creature of a settlement. Look elsewhere—across the Channel maybe—and one finds that the legislature is not sovereign. If ever from this country representatives are directly elected to go to what is called a European Parliament, they will find that that so-called Parliament can never be what this Parliament was. Above it there will always be a sovereign, and that sovereign will be a written contract, a treaty, a text, interpretable not by that Assembly, amendable not by that Assembly—as we amend and change the law—but
  1992
  interpretable by a separate and independent judicial body.
  The nature of parliamentary democracy as it has grown up in this House, and our pride in the greatness of this House, are inseparable from our monarchy. They are in a sense the gift of our monarchy. Therefore there is in these years something even more movingly apposite, more movingly testing than ever before about the attitude of this House and those whom we represent towards our unique possession.
  Today I fear that we shall fail the test. I was disappointed that the Conservative Party—which used to be the Tory Party—could not find words to interpret the change, and the significance of the change, which is being made by the Bill. "No, no", we were told, "it is only a matter of machinery. In the period of inflation it will be more convenient; so let us do it". That is a symptom and a sign that we are still far indeed from recovering the defiant self-confidence by which alone our nation can raise itself again. I am against the Bill.
  6.25 p.m.
  Mr. William Hamilton: The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has subjected the House to a torrent of what I can only describe as romantic rubbish. I wonder whether he will do what he did in 1968 when the Prime Minister sought to introduce a Bill to reform the other hereditary element in our constitution. Will he enter into an unholy alliance with the Secretary of State for Employment and vote against the Bill? Will he join me in the Lobby tonight and vote against the Bill, although we may be in the same Lobby for different reasons?
  Much of what the right hon. Gentleman said, in my view—and, I suspect, in the view of many of the few hon. Members present—was irrelevant in the context of a Second Reading debate. I agree with him that the principle behind the Bill is a major innovation. The Government cannot pretend that it is a small machinery Bill that will have no effect. On the contrary, it will have a major effect in the sense that every year the Royal expenditure will have to go through the parliamentary hoops of scrutiny and criticism. That is the price

  1993
  which the monarchy will have to pay for protection against inflation, which is the purpose of the Bill.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that the debate on the Bill was in a sense a debate on the economic plight of the nation. Indeed it is, but not in the sense he suggested. There is evidence of a loss of self- confidence and national pride in Britain, which has a monarchy, but not in Ger many without a monarchy, or in Japan—
  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: With a monarchy.
  Mr. Hamilton: Yes, but with a difference.
  Mr. Fairbairn: It is hereditary.
  Mr. Hamilton: No, the monarchy in Japan has undergone a far more drastic change than has ours. The attitude of the Japanese people to their Monarch has gone through a much greater degree of change than has the attitude of the British people to ours. Those nations and others which are republics in Europe and elsewhere are forging ahead of the United Kingdom in every way—in social provision, economic growth and standard of living. Few Common Market countries owe their economic progress in the last 20 years to the fact that they have a monarchy. On the contrary.
  The Explanatory Memorandum makes clear that the Bill is on the lines announced by the Prime Minister on 12th February this year. Presumably, therefore, it was unnecessary to spell out the provisions in the Queen's Speech. I wonder why that was not done? Had it been done, some of us might have had an opportunity to put down an amendment to the Gracious Speech, which would have given us an additional opportunity to put forward arguments in the debate on the Queen's Speech which I, and, I suspect, one or two of my hon. Friends, will put tonight.
  The long statement by the Prime Minister in February was couched in the appropriate terms of nauseating genuflexion to which we have become almost reconciled. I cannot bring myself to read it all into the record again, but I have one or two quotes from it. The Prime Minister said:
  1994
  "It will be necessary to seek parliamentary authority for a further increase in the Civil List provisions next year."
  He meant 1976. He went on:
  "Indeed, it is evident that, in a time of rapidly rising costs and prices, the traditional system of settling the Civil List by legislation at relatively infrequent intervals becomes unworkable."
  Of course it does. The Prime Minister added:
  "The Government therefore propose, with the Queen's agreement, to seek the authority of Parliament to finance future increases in the provision for the Civil List and in the other payments authorised by Civil List Acts from 1976 onwards by means of a grant-in-aid made to the Royal Trustees by the Treasury out of moneys provided by Parliament."
  And so it went on.
  The Leader of the Opposition had some relatively friendly exchanges with the Prime Minister on the matter. They were in complete agreement with the provisions which are foreseen in the Bill. The right hon. Member for Down, South made no attempt at that time to intervene. I do not know whether he was in his seat then, but the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) was there and he made an intervention. He made no attack on the proposals as then envisaged and which are now before the House. He spoke about the Crown surrendering various rights in exchange for the Civil List. In fact, he talked all kinds of nonsense like that, including the statement that the State made a handsome profit out of the Royal Family. But he did not make the point which he makes in the amendment which has not been selected.
  I point out to the Prime Minister that there were other voices in that exchange on 12th February. My Left-wing, radical Friend the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) referred to the effects of Royal immunity from taxation, and we got an astonishing reply to his question from the Prime Minister. This is what the Prime Minister said:
  "I know my right hon. Friend's feelings on this matter. Indeed, he has spoken to me about it. It is true that the Select Commitee did not receive certain information on this matter…".
  Indeed it did not, except that every one of the annuitants—the Queen Mother, Prince Philip, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne and all the others—was 100 per cent. tax-free except for Prince Philip, who happened to be 80 per cent. tax-free.

  1995
  All their annuities are completely free of tax.
  The Prime Minister went on to say:
  "I think that most hon. Members were able to make a fairly clear assumption about these things. The Select Committee considered the question of tax liabilities."
  Indeed it did. In the Prime Minister's absence we had 48 votes, but he did vote once, and that was when the Labour Party officially voted in the House to establish a Crown Department like any other Department of State, such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the Department of Education and Science and the rest.
  The Prime Minister added:
  "As I have said today, without any question of tax there is a voluntary contribution from the Crown—from the Queen's own resources…."—[Official Report, 12th February 1975; Vol. 886, c. 375, 379.]
  Of course there is. But where does she get it from?
  We get this repeated alibi all the time that the Queen gets no salary. But we know the cost of the enormous tax privilege which the Royal Family gets and with which it has built up fabulous wealth. That is why the Queen can delude the House and the country about her generous offer to sustain these institutions out of her own money. The Royal Family is getting that money because of the completely tax-free position that its members enjoy. They have no death duties, no surtax, no income tax. Nothing at all accrues from the Royal wealth to the State. On 12th February the Prime Minister got more cheers from the Opposition than he got from this side of the House, as he is doing today. It is an interesting exercise.
  I hope the Crown takes note of the interest that there is in it by the attendance in the House on both sides. The Tory Party, I understand, has issued a three-line Whip on the Bill. The sternest disciplinary action will be taken against those Tory MPs who dare not to support the Labour Government on the Civil List Bill. We have talked about the impossibility of a coalition Government. We have got it tonight, and there is no need for a three-line Whip to support it.
  On the Labour side we do not have a three-line Whip because the Government know that they will get support
  1996
  from the Opposition. They will not get my support. My own Chief Whip pleaded with me, as the Prime Minister pleaded this afternoon, that it is only a machinery Bill. Not long ago we had the Ministers of the Crown Act, which was also a machinery Bill. I raised the matter at a party meeting, and what I then said would happen did happen. What is going to happen in this case is quite clear—there will be protections for every member of the Royal Household against inflation. That is the purpose of the exercise and the Crown is willing to pay the price in the form of annual parliamentary scrutiny. That is the deal that the Government have made with the Royal Family, and it is as well for us to understand what is happening. It is true that this is a machinery Bill, in the sense that it is designed to protect all within the monarchical institutions from the effects of inflation. All-round increases will be payable under Clause 1(1). Clause 1(2) repeals Section 5(2)(b) of the 1972 Act, and it is important to understand what that means. Section 5(2)(a) says that the Royal Trustees "may" make a report to the Treasury at any time when the Monarch is in financial distress. That remains unaffected by this Bill. It is the permissive aspect. But Section 5(2)(b) puts an obligation on the Royal Trustees to report if the Civil List expenditure for the next calendar year is likely to exceed the sums currently available. The Bill, by removing that obligatory part of the 1972 Act, is bound to raise certain suspicions in the minds of people like myself.
  I want to remind the House of the annuities currently payable. We are paying £95,000 a year tax-free to the Queen Mother. We are paying £65,000 a year virtually tax-free—it was 80 per cent. and I do not know whether it is now 100 per cent.—to Prince Philip. We are paying £45,000 a year tax-free to the Gloucesters, £35,000 a year tax-free to Princess Anne, and £35,000 a year tax-free to Princess Margaret. All those sums can be raised annually—and presumably will be—under the terms of the Bill, and I want to put some questions on these very points.
  In his statement in February, the Prime Minister made a fair point—he has made

  1997
  it again tonight—about the need to treat the wage-earners and salary-earners with in the Royal Household—
  The Prime Minister: Before my hon. Friend passes on to the question of wage-earners, may I say that he will have heard what I said tonight, which was that in respect of some of those he has listed I had the authority from Her Majesty to tell the House tonight that she herself will henceforth bear those financial responsibilities. It would have been only fair and generous of my hon. Friend to concede that in what he has just said.
  Mr. Hamilton: It would be fair and generous of my right hon. Friend if he said that he was going to treat these people taxwise in the same way as the miners, the steel workers and the rest of the workers of this country.
  The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is on a different point, and it is a point that he has made repeatedly. I do not think I have ever heard him speak without making it. He was referring a few minutes ago to the fact that under this Bill money would go to certain named members of the Royal Family. He knows perfectly well from what I have said that that will not be so. He might have had the generosity to concede that the generosity of the gesture makes what he has said untrue.
  Mr. Hamilton: There is no generosity in this. I repudiate the Prime Minister's claim that there is any generosity anywhere at all in this. What he calls generosity derives—I repeat this and I shall go on repeating it—from the enormous tax concessions that the present Government, and successive Governments that he has led, have refused to tackle, despite the fact that the Labour members of the Select Committee made proposals to this effect. They proposed that these persons ought to be taxed, and very strong arguments were put in the House on this matter when the Bill was in Committee. We were then in Opposition and we did not get the support at that time of the ex-Cabinet Ministers, including the Prime Minister, when we wanted to put the Royal Family on the same tax basis as everybody else.
  Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas: I am sure that the hon. Member wishes to be fair on this matter. Is it not a fact that, apart from the revenue of Her Majesty and part of the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall, the incomes of all the other members of the Royal Family are subject to tax? If they cannot justify expenses in the same way as any other citizen, the revenue they receive from this House is taxed as well, so that it is not accurate to say that if is tax-free.
  Mr. Hamilton: The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) served on the Select Committee with me and he knows very well that for the first time in our history the facts were put on record, and that every one of those annuities is 100 per cent. tax-free, apart from Prince Philip's, which was 80 per cent. tax-free. What Prince Philip's position is today I do not know. The facts are there on the record.
  I want to ask the Prime Minister some questions. There is provision in the 1972 Act of £60,000 a year for the widow of Prince Charles, who is not yet married. That was increased from £30,000 a year provided in the 1952 Act: When Prince Charles was four we made provision for his widow of £30,000 a year, and we increased that to £60,000 20 years later when he was still unmarried. Are we to go through the nonsensical process of increasing it again under the provisions of the Bill?
  I hope that the Prime Minister has given an assurance that in no circum stances will anybody covered by the terms of the Bill get an increase of more than £6 a week while the present Pay Code applies. Will he give that assurance now? Is there anything to stop a private deal being made within the Palace to make sure that some of these annuitants get more than £6 a week? Of course, there cannot be. The Prime Minister cannot give that assurance, and it makes it that much more difficult for us to sell—
  Mr. F. A. Burden: I find it very difficult to follow that argument. If Her Majesty is to be allowed only £6 a week, how will she be able to pay

  1999
  that same amount to the whole of the Palace staff if they are entitled to a comparable amount?
  Mr. Hamilton: The Prime Minister said, as I understand it, that any increase in the annuities will be payable by the Queen out of her own generosity and that, therefore, there will be no additional charge on the Consolidated Fund. I think that was what the Prime Minister said. But, of course, there is nothing as far as I know to stop Her Majesty from giving to those annuitants far in excess of £6 a week. The Prime Minister is one of the Royal Trustees. Presumably he will know whether or not that is the intention. He will know, as a Trustee, whether that would be infringing the Pay Code.
  What representations will the Prime Minister be making in the appropriate quarters to ensure that in no circumstances must anyone within the Royal Household get more than £6 a week? We are asking all the other workers in the country to accept £6 as a maximum. If the Prime Minister cannot give that assurance, it makes it that much more difficult for us to ask our own workers to accept the pay policy.
  I want to ask the Prime Minister some further questions. First, I presume that there will be a Minister answerable in the House for Questions on these matters. Which Minister will it be? How soon shall I be able to table Questions on these matters? Will that Minister be in the rota? It is a very important point. If this is to be brought into the parliamentary arena, I want to be in it.
  Shall I be able to ascertain, by question and answer, by Adjournment debate or by any other method, exactly what increases have been given to the Princesses, the Queen Mother or Prince Philip? I knew that Prince Philip's figure went up from £40,000 to £65,000 in 1972. Will it be possible for me to table a Question relating to any or all of these individuals to ascertain what increases they had in 1976, 1977 or whenever it might be, so that I can be sure that the increases are within the Pay Code, or whatever arrangement there might be at the relevant time?
  My next—and most important—question is this. When will the Government
  2000
  tackle the question of tax liabilities? The right hon. Member for Down, South talked about the unifying force of the monarchy. He says that it gives a great moral lead to the nation. Let it give a moral lead by saying that it is prepared to accept the same sacrifices in terms of taxation responsibility as the rest of the nation.
  The Government ought to do something about that. In particular, they ought to do something about the revenues from the Duchies. The hon. Member for Chelmsford has referred to the Duchies. As he knows, the income from them is completely tax-free. The Prime Minister spoke about the Queen's generosity. Quite apart from any provision in the Civil List, the Queen takes from the Duchy of Lancaster not less, and probably more, than £200,000 a year completely tax-free. Prince Charles gets a completely tax-free income of £150,000 from the Duchy of Cornwall.
  Mr. Ian Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman does not expect the House to follow him in his egalitarian prurience, but he does expect the House to follow what he described as his logic. Leaving aside whether he approves of a constitutional monarchy, when he admits that such a monarchy must require real resources to maintain it is he suggesting that it would be preferable for the country to pay the monarchy a gross income and that out of that tax should be paid at 98 per cent., leaving real resources of 2 per cent.?
  Mr. Hamilton: The hon. Gentleman is following me exceptionally well. That is precisely what I mean, because the real cost of the monarchy is being hidden by these tax concessions. I accept that the Establishment is in no danger so long as we have the present Government in office, but the Government ought to tell the people openly and frankly the real gross cost of the institution of the monarchy and then say that those involved shall be subject to the same tax code as the rest of us. There might then be a better response in the nation to the institution than there is today.
  I know that I am in a minority, though quite a substantial minority in the country shares the views that I hold on this matter.
  Mr. Fairbairn: rose—
  Mr. Hamilton: No. I have had enough of the hon. and learned Gentleman.
  I should like an undertaking from the Government that they will look seriously at the tax position of the monarchy and everybody associated with it, and that as early as possible they will take the advice of a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, our right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Jenkins), and prominent Ministers then at the Treasury, who made the point to the Civil List Committee that all members of the Royal Family should be taxed in the same way as everybody else. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are."] They are not. It is no good Opposition Members saying that they are, because I have quoted figures and facts that are available to anybody who reads the 1971 Report of the Civil List Committee. Members of the Royal Family are treated in a special way. I need not repeat the facts, because they are available for everybody to read, and I want my right hon. Friend to give the House some assurances on these matters.
  Even if nobody comes with me, I intend to vote against the Bill. I hope that the right hon. Member for Down, South will be a Teller with me. If, for different reasons from mine, the right hon. Gentleman does not like the Bill—and clearly he does not—and as I do not like it either, let us join forces and have a showdown.
  Mr. Powell: Will the hon. Gentleman get Tellers?
  Mr. Hamilton: The right hon. Gentleman has a lot of courage. Let him show it by joining me as a Teller. We shall make history. If the right hon. Gentleman has the courage of his convictions he will do as I suggest, and if he does he will be surprised at the support that we get. He will be even more surprised at the support that the Government get from their supporters. He will be surprised at the paucity of it, and there is an indication of that here tonight.
  6.55 p.m.
  Mr. Paul Dean: The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) is well known for the personal vendetta that he conducts against the
  2002
  Queen and the Royal Family. It is usually cheap, nasty and ill-informed, but on this occasion he has done a service to the House and to the Royal Family because he has expressed in words far more effective than those that I shall utter the real dangers that lurk behind the Bill.
  I regret the introduction of the Bill, and I put down a motion declining to give it a Second Reading. The Prime Minister described it as a machinery Bill. The changes proposed may be small in themselves but the implications are great, and in my judgment they cast long shadows into the future.
  I agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that the Bill involves major changes of principle. It means the annual involvement of Parliament, contrary to past practice. It opens up the possibility of an annual wrangle over the Queen's expenses, and only a moment ago the hon. Member for Fife, Central told us about the way in which he hopes to achieve just that if the Bill reaches the statute book. This measure risks getting the Queen and the Royal Family involved in a party political dogfight. In my view this is the thin end of a dangerous wedge. I know that that is not the intention of the Government, or of my right hon. Friends, but I fear that that may be the result.
  We need to find the best way of ensuring that the Civil List meets the rising costs incurred by the Queen and the Royal Family in carrying out their constitutional duties. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said, they are hit by inflation in the same way as anybody else. Their expenses go up, and have to be met.
  We are not talking about pay, which is what the hon. Member for Fife, Central persists in doing. We are talking about the cost of fulfilling a duty, and how that cost can be met, and if we do not meet it either the staff will suffer or there will have to be a reduction in the style and scale of the Royal occasions and appearances, and both those alternatives would represent a policy of despair. It would be bad for Britain, bad for the Commonwealth, and bad for Britain's position in the world, because most of us would accept that the Queen and the Royal Family are the best ambassadors that

  2003
  Britain can conceivably have. Indeed, the Civil List is a small investment on which we get a real and enduring return.
  We know that there is strict control over expenditure. The Royal Trustees said, in their last report in February 1975, that they were satisfied that every effort had been made to secure economies, and two of those Royal Trustees are, of course, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  We know, too, that the Queen has made substantial contributions from her own resources towards keeping down the cost of the Civil List in present economic circumstances, and this afternoon the Prime Minister announced further steps in that direction. The Queen intends to make a regular annual contribution to keep down the cost of the performance of her public duties.
  It is, then, a question of how best we can cater for inflation and still enable the Queen to continue her constitutional duties both at home and abroad.
  I want briefly to explain the arguments, as I see them, against the Bill.
  The first is that it involves a major change of principle, namely, the annual involvement of Parliament. That is contrary to the recommendations of the Select Committee on the Civil List in 1971–72 and, indeed, all past practice regarding the Civil List.
  The Select Committee considered the proposition now in the Bill that any increases needed should be met from an annual Vote and came down firmly against it. The Select Committee, in paragraph 24 of its Report, laid down what it described as
  "the major objectives to be achieved."
  The third major objective is,
  "to avoid annual involvement of Parliament while providing a periodical opportunity for Parliament to review the arrangements to ensure that they were achieving the intended objective."
  The Select Committee went on to consider in some detail the proposal that either the whole of the Civil List expenditure or the increase should be put on the annual Vote. Its comment was absolutely clear and against that proposal. The Committee, in paragraph 27, said:
  "The aim of all previous Civil List settlements has been to make provision for Royal
  2004
  Household expenditure for the whole of a reign, and Your Committee attach great importance, as did their predecessors without exception, to maintaining this position. They feel that it would be quite wrong to allow the inflationary developments of the last 19 years, for which Her Majesty has no responsibility, to result in changes in the provision for the Civil List which undermine the basic principle on which, on all previous occasions, Civil List provision has been made."
  That was the clear recommendation of the Select Committee, of which the Prime Minister was a Member. I suggest that the Bill departs completely from that recommendation. If the Government were thinking of proposing a change of this kind, they should at least have suggested another Select Committee. It is wrong for the Government to bring forward a major change of this kind when, hitherto, these matters have always first been considered by a Select Committee.
  I believe that this annual involvement is contrary to developments in recent years regarding remuneration, allowances and expenses generally. Parliament has often found itself at a disadvantage in trying to deal with these matters in detail. Doctors' pay and allowances, and those of senior civil servants, Ministers and Members of Parliament, are good examples. In recent years, in all these cases we have tended to set up special impartial bodies which can consider the details in a calm atmosphere. The Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Pay is one example. The Boyle Committee on Senior Officials is another. Indeed, we now have a Boyle Committee taking the first hesitant steps towards taking MPs' salaries, allowances and secretarial allowances out of the realm of party political controversy.
  I suggest that in all these areas we have seen the disadvantage of Parliament being directly involved in detailed matters and have therefore tended to give them to special bodies. In this Bill we are moving in precisely the opposite direction, with the Civil List. That would seem to be another substantial reason against these proposals.
  I suggest that there is a better way of dealing with the problem. Three-quarters of the Civil List expenditure is represented by wages and salaries of staff of the Royal Household. Over the years, the rates of wages and salaries have been

  2005
  increasingly linked with the rates paid for comparable grades in the Civil Service. The same goes for pensions. In most cases there is now either a direct or an indirect link, and increases for the Royal Household follow the same pattern as Civil Service increases. Therefore, they are subject, indirectly, to the same Government and parliamentary control, the same discipline, the same pay policy and the same constraints, due to economic circumstances, as are Civil Service salaries. I suggest that we could provide automatically for these increases. There would be effective control by the Government and Parliament.
  In addition, the Royal Household itself exercises strict control over staff numbers and expenditure. It is significant that there has been no increase in the staff of the Royal Household since 1972 and that the rise in expenditure has been considerably less than the rise in the retail price index.
  I realise that the Select Committee also considered and decided against index linking. The Select Committee considered the matter in 1971 in a very different context from that of today. I believe that there have been considerable changes, which may justify a different conclusion from that reached by the Select Committee in 1971.
  The first change is the one that I have already mentioned, namely, that there is now a more direct linking between Royal Household staff pay and allowances and the Civil Service than there was in 1971. The concept of index linking, inflation-gearing and inflation-proofing, which we had hardly begun in 1971, is now a recognised factor in many aspects of our national life. It is much more common now than in 1971.
  I believe that this approach to three-quarters of the expenditure would not only be more effective, but would deprive the hon. Member for Fife, Central of the opportunities that he is longing to try to exercise if we allow the Bill to go on to the statute book.
  I beg the Government to reconsider the matter. The Prime Minister made it clear that there was no urgency for this measure. Additional provision was made for the Civil List earlier this year, so there is no rush. I beg the Prime Minister to consider the speech made by his hon.
  2006
  Friend the Member for Fife, Central. The hon. Gentleman asked some good questions, which need answers. I seriously suggest that it would be far better for another Select Committee to look at the matter and consider the points that have been made in the debate, rather than rush into something which may appear convenient to deal with the present inflationary situation but which, I fear, will set us on a road that will be dangerous and embarrassing, not only for the monarchy but for Parliament.
  7.7 p.m.
  Mr. John Stokes: I apologise to the Prime Minister for having missed the first five minutes of his speech, due to the debate starting somewhat earlier than was expected.
  When I read the Order Paper this morning and saw the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean), I am afraid that in my innocence I imagined that it would be supported by the official Tory Opposition Front Bench. I am bitterly disappointed that that is not so.
  I have always believed the saying, by King Charles I:
  "A Subject and a Sovereign are clean different things."
  There is still something of a mystery about the ancient English monarchy, and it is right that that should be so. It is, after the Papacy, the oldest institution in Europe, and, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said in February, "our most precious asset." That is why it would be wholly wrong, as proposed in the Bill, for us to treat the affairs of the Queen and the Royal Family as if they were just another Department of State or, for instance, a branch of the Department of Trade or Industry, or as being connected in some way with the social services or with tourism.
  I treat with contempt the criticisms of the Queen and the Royal Family that we have so often heard from the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton). He must be completely out of touch with public opinion if he really believes that our monarchy is not greatly revered and respected by countless people of all shades of opinion in this country.
  Mr. Alexander Wilson Mr. Alexander Wilson (Hamilton)rose—
  Mr. Stokes: I shall give way in a moment. It is only right and proper that the dignity of the Throne should be properly maintained in all its splendour and pageantry, and it is more than ever necessary, in these evil and unsettled times, that the monarchy should stand for tradition and for our long and glorious history. It provides an element of continuity in our political and social life, as do the hereditary peers. The monarchy is the focus of loyalty for the Armed Services and for all those who serve in public life. It provides that element of stability which is the envy of many republican nations. The fact that the monarchy is far cheaper than a presidential form of government should not mean that we should have it on the cheap, or deal with it as if it is merely a matter for some minor department. Its servants must be properly paid.
  Mr. Alexander Wilson: The hon. Gentleman criticised my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton), saying that he is selfish in his attitude. Will the hon. Gentleman explain why he used the term "English monarchy" instead of "British monarchy"?
  Mr. Stokes: The monarchy is, of course, the ancient English monarchy, dating back to the year 1000 or earlier. It has absorbed other principalities.
  Above all, it would be unseemly for this House, whose Members obtain their own allowances to cover necessary expenses without any audit whatever, to pry into the necessary expenses that the monarchy needs in order to fulfil its public duties. The Queen, the Royal Family and their Household are not civil servants. It would be unthinkable and appalling to treat them as such. People can sometimes be mean and silly about the royal finances, as they sometimes are about our finances, but it should never be forgotten by critics—least of all by ignorant critics—that the Crown estates are surrendered to the Exchequer at the start of each reign and that the Queen has been far more efficient—in modern jargon, cost-effective—in the administration of her servants than have central Government or many local authorities.
  There has been not an increase in staff but a decrease. Nor have there been any extravagant projects. Furthermore,
  2008
  the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Queen Mother, and so on, set us all a matchless example of the highest devotion to duty.
  I consider the Bill to be a miserable piece of unimaginative legislation, typical of the soulless and bureaucratic times in which we live. I hope that others of my hon. Friends—members of the old, traditional, loyal party of this country—will support me by not voting for the Second Reading of the Bill.
  7.14 p.m.
  Sir Geoffrey Howe: In view of the brevity of the debate that we have had, I rise not to make a long intervention but to reaffirm and to explain to all hon. Members, and in particular to my hon. Friends the Members for Hales-owen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) and Somerset, North (Mr. Dean), the basis upon which my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) invites the House to support the Bill.
  In answer to the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton), I wish to make it absolutely clear beyond peradventure that in so far as I invite the Conservative Party to vote tonight, I do not do so upon the basis that I am inviting it to vote in support of the Labour Government. This is an issue of quite a different kind. It is a vote that we invite Conservative Members to make, if it comes to a Division, in support of the constitutional monarchy, which is the foundation of our way of life and of our pattern of government.
  The hon. Member for Fife, Central in a speech as characteristic as any I have heard him make, and of the meanness and misrepresentation, that he normally brings to this issue, sought to deride those who would vote against him by referring to them as a "coalition". It is not a coalition; it is intended to be a demonstration of the widespread unity, extending through almost every part of this House and throughout the country, in support of the constitutional Monarch and her family, of her importance in this country's constitution, and of our respect for the way in which the monarchy has undertaken its difficult tasks. The hon. Member for Fife, Central said that there was no generosity in this. I regret his failure to

  2009
  acknowledge not just the value of the services of the Monarch and her family but also that to which the Prime Minister referred, namely, the generosity of Her Majesty in agreeing to meet the expenses of those members of the Royal Family who were mentioned by him.
  I turn to the issue upon which my hon. Friends have expressed anxieties. I entirely understand the concern not just of my hon. Friends but of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) at the change that will take place—and undoubtedly it is a change—as a result of the Bill. I share the concern, because it is a consequence of inflation. Indeed, the procedures proposed by the Select Committee were a consequence of inflation.
  Previously, and throughout this century, the provision of the Civil List has been considered only once at the commencement of each reign. The Select Committee intended to secure a situation in which there was one review per decade, and it was on that basis that it made the recommendation which my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North commended as being wise. Indeed, in that context it was wise. It was made in the context of inflation running at 8 per cent. per annum. However, what do we have now? We have a situation in which inflation is running at a much higher rate than anyone could then have forecast—a situation which, therefore, gives rise to the prospect, unless we accept the legislation now before the House, of an annual report from the Royal Trustees, an annual consideration by Parliament of that report, and an annual consideration by Parliament of an Order made in consequence of that report.
  It is against that background that I invite my hon. Friends to consider that this is a more acceptable machinery. In the circumstances of high inflation that we now face, it is more likely to meet their objectives, which I entirely share, than the procedure that was recommended by the Select Committee.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South explained his concern at the transfer of this part of the royal finances—because many other parts have already been on Supply Votes for many years—from the traditional Consolidated Fund basis. However, I invite him also to recognise that the basic objectives of
  2010
  maintaining the monarchy and the ways in which we support it—which are immune from party controversy—are better fulfilled by this method than by any other. I emphasise that the method now proposed is not one which is intended, as I understand the Prime Minister, to replace that originally recommended by the Select Committee. It is put forward as an alternative—one that may be used while we continue to exist under such severe and desperate inflationary circumstances. When inflation is under control, we shall be able to revert to the procedure recommended by the Select Committee. Until that situation arises, I invite my hon. Friends to conclude that the wrangling that they wish to avoid is less likely to arise under the procedure now suggested than under that for which they have been arguing. In other words, in the present circumstances the Bill is the best practicable alternative, and it will be on the statute book only as an alternative to that originally recommended by the Select Committee.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North suggested that the right method might be to adopt indexation—a recommendation that was also considered by the Select Committee. He will recollect that in paragraph 26 of its Report the Select Committee rejected that, for reasons to which he has referred: that indexation, linked, as it were, to the needs of the Royal Household, would be difficult to devise; that indexation would, perhaps, be too substantial a recognition and adoption of the inevitability of inflation, in this context as in any other; and, incidentally, indexation would be incompatible with the cash limits approach that the Prime Minister commended in his speech. I invite my hon. Friend to conclude that as the Select Committee rejected indexation with those arguments, those arguments should still, on balance, carry the day.
  But when the Committee then rejected the procedure now before the House, it was talking in terms of 8 per cent. inflation and not inflation at a rate three times as high as that. That change having taken place, and bearing in mind the important point made by the Prime Minister—that the present Bill has the support of Her Majesty and of the Royal Household—I believe that we must

  2011
  recognise the Bill as a disagreeable necessity in present circumstances, but better than what is threatening to become the procedure of annual reports and debates on Civil List Orders.
  We must recognise, also, that it is always open to us—and we hope that very soon it will be a practical reality—to revert to the old procedure recommended by the Select Committee.
  Mr. Powell: I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman may have used an expression that he did not intend. He said that the Prime Minister had said that the Bill had the support of Her Majesty. I do not think that the Prime Minister said that, nor would it have been proper for the Prime Minister to say that. I understood the Prime Minister to say that the Bill had her consent, which is a very different constitutional position.
  Sir G. Howe: The Prime Minister will no doubt recollect it. Indeed, his reference to this matter was on 12th February 1975. What the Prime Minister then said was,
  "The Government therefore propose, with the Queen's agreement…"—[Official Report. 12th February 1975; Vol. 886, c. 375.]
  Mr. Powell: Ah!
  Sir G. Howe: It is between the phrase that I used and that of the right hon. Gentleman.
  The Prime Minister: There may have been a misunderstanding because of what I said earlier tonight. I said that I had the Queen's authority—that was the specific point—to announce that she had graciously been pleased to agree that certain payments previously carried on the Civil List should be carried on her herself. That was my reference at the time.
  Sir G. Howe: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not wish to adopt anything other than the phrase used by the Prime Minister on 12th February—that these matters are before the House with the Queen's agreement.
  I turn to the point upon which I wish to comment briefly. It is that to which the hon. Member for Fife, Central continues to return with a total disregard for the facts as set out in the evidence given to the Select Committee and as they
  2012
  actually exist. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I should like to re-emphasise the point.
  As regards the tax position of the monarchy, the Sovereign herself pays no tax. The Duchy of Cornwall, as the estate of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, is exempt from tax, but in fact 50 per cent. of the revenue of that estate is assigned by the Prince of Wales to the Consolidated Fund.
  The sums that the remaining members of the Royal Household receive, whether by specific annuity or specific contributions to expenses, are taxable. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman must cease interrupting in a sotto voce way. On page 109 of the Report of the Select Committee, the position is stated as follows:
  "His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. The Duke is not liable to tax in respect of his wife's income."
  That clearly follows.
  "Otherwise he is taxable like any other subject in respect of his income and his property. Under a Treasury order part of his Civil List annuity is treated for tax purposes as properly attributable to expenses of his public duties and that part is therefore not taxable."
  In the next paragraph, about other members of the Royal Family, the following words appear:
  "There are no special tax exemptions, so they are taxable like any other subject on their income and property. Treasury orders are currently in force attributing each of the existing Civil List annuities wholly or partly to admissible expenses, and to that extent not taxable."
  Those words are plain, clear and explicit. They make it plain to the House, I hope, beyond peradventure, that, with the exception of the Monarch and the Duchy of Cornwall, members of the Royal Family are taxed in the ordinary way and that in so far as they pay no tax on any of the sums receivable by them either from the Civil List or from the Monarch—in so far as any of that is exempt from taxation—it is on the same basis as that of any other subjects in respect of expenses attributable to the performance of their duties. That fact needs to be rammed home until it is accepted by the hon. Member for Fife, Central.
  Mr. William Hamilton: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman try to foresee what the Inland Revenue's response

  2013
  would be to me if I said that my only income was my parliamentary salary, and that I spent all of it on expenses?
  Sir G. Howe: That is not the position.
  Mr. William Hamilton: It is, exactly.
  Sir G. Howe: The position of the hon. Gentleman is as follows: he gets a parliamentary salary; he is entitled to get, and no doubt does get, a contribution towards expenses that he actually incurs; in so far as he pays, beyond that, towards the expenses of his position, he is not taxable in respect of that additional expenditure. In his case, and in the case of millions of people, this is decided by the Inland Revenue by reference to the actual expenditure incurred.
  The Select Committee, of which the hon. Gentleman was a member, recorded nowhere any dissent from the proposition that I have read out—I am sure that the Prime Minister will be able to confirm this—that the only parts of the sums received by the Duke of Edinburgh and the other members of the Royal Family which are not taxable are those parts attributable to the expenses of their offices.
  Surely the House will accept that position. Perhaps one day the hon. Gentleman will accept it.
  I do not wish to say anything beyond that, except to call upon my right hon. and hon. Friends, in particular those who have spoken in the debate, to accept the analysis that I have given.
  This is not a measure which anyone in the House welcomes with enthusiasm. It is a regrettable necessity, in view of the pace at which inflation has been running in recent years. The sooner we are able to revert to a situation that rests upon the basis recommended by the Select Committee, the better. The sooner we are able to revert to a situation that has sufficed in every other reign in this century except the present, under which one review per reign is sufficient, the better still. However, until that time comes, I invite my hon. Friends to support the Bill.
  7.28 p.m.
  The Prime Minister: With the leave of the House, I should like very briefly to reply to the debate.
  2014
  The right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition set out the position of her party. I very much welcome her support and, indeed, the way in which she expressed it. I agree with a great deal that she said, and I think that the whole House will agree.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) dealt with the question in its historical setting. I think the right hon. Gentleman knows that I always enjoy hearing his speeches, and his was most beautifully put tonight. I did not, of course, agree with much of his speech, and I think that he knows that and would not want me to do so. However, after what was an extremely eloquent speech he said that a great shift was being made by the Bill and that there was no special treatment for the moneys voted. What I said was that the moneys voted, if the Bill becomes law, are neither more favourably nor less favourably treated than any other moneys voted by the House; no more scrutiny, no less scrutiny.
  I shall come to my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) shortly.
  The hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) expressed his objections to the Bill. He had obviously thought very deeply about it, and he deployed some of the evidence from the Select Committee. He objected to the Bill because it makes possible an annual debate. That was one of his main points, which is perfectly fair. But we are already in the danger that, under the existing legislation, the 1972 procedure could lead each year to a report by the Royal Trustees. This would lead perhaps to the need for legislation to provide the money.
  I concede that what is being proposed in the Bill is a departure from the recommendations of the Select Committee, but the House has been given the reasons for this. I agree that there is a certain logic in the proposal for a further Select Committee since we are now departing from the specific recommendations of the Select Committee. In fact, we had a very full inquiry under that Select Committee. What has made it out of date is not its conclusions or its deductions or the facts surveyed but the fact of inflation.

  2015
  I submit that there is no other change in circumstances since the Select Committee last met—and a large number of hon. Members here were members of that Select Committee—except inflation. I very much doubt whether the members of that Committee, if they were called together tomorrow for a meeting, would feel that the Bill was wrong, on the ground that the big change is inflation and that what was then proposed and legislated has been changed to that extent. I doubt whether, even if we had a Select Committee sitting for several months, anything new would be elucidated which is not already within the information available to the House.
  I think that the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) was very much on the same point, and I appeal to hon. Members not to press this matter to a Division.
  I now come to my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central, who is completely consistent, assiduous and regular in intervening in these debates. He will forgive me, I hope, if I do not respond to the courtesies which he addressed in my direction in the spirit in which he addressed them. His speech tonight, as always, was well researched, frequently urged, as strongly as in the past—I have not spoken so often on this subject as my hon. Friend has—and well worn. Nothing that I might say in reply would in the remotest degree alter his views or affect his vote in this matter.
  Mr. William Hamilton: That is right.
  The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend agrees with me. This is burned into his soul. He must have had it at birth. It was in his mother's milk. [Interruption.] I am not responsible for his mother's milk. All I am saying is that this is a matter about which my hon. Friend feels very deeply. The whole House recognises it. We respect his right to feel this way. As he said, he represents a sizeable proportion of the population, but no more than sizeable—measurable, let us say, and certainly not a majority attitude. But he has the right to take that view and to express it in this House. Therefore, I shall not occupy the time of the House trying to convert him because it might lead to a rather late sitting, and at the end of it I might not succeed.
  In view of the kind remarks my hon. Friend made about me, as he always does in these matters, I shall make one further reference to him. He referred to "hangers-on" of the Royal Family. I doubt whether there is anyone better rewarded or who is a greater beneficiary from the existence of the monarchy—I would not wish to be so offensive as to refer to a "hanger-on"—through his writings than my hon. Friend.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time—
  The House divided: Ayes 247, Noes 16.

  Division No. 9.]

  AYES

  [7.35 p m

  Abse, Leo

  Budgen, Nick

  Doig, Peter

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Drayson, Burnaby

  Alison, Michael

  Burden, F. A.

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Dunn, James A

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Carlisle, Mark

  Durant, Tony

  Awdry, Daniel

  Carmichael, Neil

  Eadie, Alex

  Baker, Kenneth

  Cartwright, John

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Banks, Robert

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Elliott, Sir William

  Bell, Ronald

  Churchill, W. S.

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Emery, Peter

  Biffen, John

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  English, Michael

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Clegg, Walter

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Bishop, E. S.

  Cockcroft, John

  Eyre, Reginald

  Body, Richard

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Booth, Albert

  Coleman, Donald

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Fell, Anthony

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Cope, John

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Corrie, John

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  Bottomley, Peter

  Costain, A. P.

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

  Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

  Fry, Peter

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Crouch, David

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Bradley, Tom

  Crowder, F. P.

  Garrett, W. E. (Wailsend)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

  Brittan, Leon

  Davidson, Arthur

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  Golding, John

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

  Gould, Bryan

  Buchaan-Smith, Alick

  Dodsworth Geoffrey

  Gourlay, Harry

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Graham, Ted

  MacCormick, lain

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C)

  McElhone, Frank

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Gray, Hamish

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Shepherd, Colin

  Griffiths, Eldon

  MacGregor, John

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Grist, Ian

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Hall, Sir John

  Mackintosh, John P.

  silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Sims, Roger

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Madel, David

  Spearing, Nigel

  Hannam, John

  Marks, Kenneth

  Spence, John

  Harper, Joseph

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Marten, Neil

  Stainton, Keith

  Hastings, Stephen

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Stanley, John

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Mates, Michael

  Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

  Hawkins, Paul

  Mather, Carol

  Stewart, Donald (Western lsles)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Mawby, Ray

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Stoddart, David

  Heseltine. Michael

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Stradilng Thomas J.

  Hicks, Robert

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Tebbit, Norman

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Mendelson, John

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Millan, Bruce

  Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)

  Huckfield, Les

  Moate, Roger

  Thompson, George

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Monro, Hector

  Tinn, James

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Tomlinson, John

  Hunter, Adam

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Trotter, Neville

  Hurd, Douglas

  Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

  Tuck, Raphael

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  James, David

  Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

  Wakeham, John

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Jessel, Toby

  Neave, Airey

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Neubert, Michael

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

  Normanton, Tom

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Nott, John

  Wall, Patrick

  Jopling, Michael

  Ogden, Eric

  Walters, Dennis

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Oppenhelm, Mrs Sally

  Watkinson, John

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Watt, Hamish

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Park, George

  Wells, John

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Parker, John

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Knox, David

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Whitlock, William

  Lamborn, Harry

  Pattle, Geoffrey

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Lane, David

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Latham, Michael (Melton)

  Perry, Ernest

  Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)

  Lawrence, lvan

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

  Lawson, Nigel

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Raison, Timothy

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Rathbone, Tim

  Woodall, Alec

  Lestor, Jim (Beeston)

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Lloyd, Ian

  Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Luce, Richard

  Rldsdale, Julian

  Mr. Thomas Cox and

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Mr. Peter Snape.

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  NOES

  Cryer, Bob

  Newens, Stanley

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Noble, Mike

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Edge, Geoff

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Mr. William Hamilton and

  Madden, Max

  Skinner, Dennis

  Mr. Dennis Canavan.

  Mikardo, Ian

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time.
  Bill committed to Committee of the whole House—[Mr. Harper.]
  Committee tomorrow.

  CIVIL LIST [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to privide for supplementing out of moneys provided by Parliament the sums payable under the enactments mentioned in section 6(1) of the Civil List Act 1972, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of

  2019
  moneys so provided of any sums required by the Treasury for the purpose of supplementing the sums payable under those enactments.—[Mr. Dell.]

  ARBURY BANKS (PRESERVATION ORDER)
  7.47 p.m.
  Mr. Ian Stewart: I beg to move,
  That the Arbury Banks Preservation Order 1975, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th October, in the last Session of Parliament, be annulled.
  Arbury Banks is the name of an early Iron Age settlement, consisting of an area of about 15 acres situated on high ground about three-quarters of a mile south-west of the village of Ashwell, in North Hertfordshire. Originally—20 centuries or more ago—the monument was surrounded by an outer ditch and bank. With the effects of agriculture and weather in the intervening period, most traces of the ditch have disappeared. Nevertheless, around most of the perimeter the bank remains, up to a height of 6 ft. at certain points. Settlements of this type are rare in this part of England, and it was scheduled as an ancient monument in 1923.
  Most of the monument is situated on Whitby Farm, near Ashwell, with a narrow strip of not more than one acre situated on the west side on the adjacent Farrows Farm. It is the part on the Whitby Farm that is the subject of the preservation order and of this debate. It is in the ownership of Mr. Angell of Ashwell, his sister, Mrs. Mack, from Bedfordshire and other members of the family. Since objections to the draft Order had been made by Mr. Angell and Mrs. Mack, the present order is subject to the Statutory Orders (Special Procedures) Acts of 1945 and 1965 and, accordingly, the owner of the land on which the monument is situated is entitled to petition against the Order. On behalf of her brother and two other members of the family, Mrs. Mack presented a petition of general objection to the Order and at the start of this Session of Parliament I tabled a motion signed by a number of hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Sir N. Fisher). All these colleagues have, or have had, personal or constituency interests in North Hertfordshire or on behalf of the petitioners.
  2020
  The case of the petitioners will in due course be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses, but in the meantime a special procedure allows for debate on the Floor of the House on a motion to annul the Order.
  I shall now endeavour to explain why I have felt that this case is of sufficient importance and general relevance to be treated in this way. I should say first that there has been no exact precedent for such a debate on the Floor of the House since the Statutory Orders (Special Procedures) Act 1965 was passed. I therefore wish to express my gratitude to the Clerks of the Private Bill Office for guiding me through the intricacies of procedure, and also to my Chief Whip for obtaining time for the debate and to the Government Whips for agreeing to it.
  The history of this case goes back some five years, and I shall attempt to summarise factually what has happened in order to set my remarks in context. They are based on the report of an inspector who held a public hearing in Hitchin in February of this year. In 1970 it appeared that damage was being done to the bank on the south side of the monument by the uprooting of shrubs and small trees. Soon afterwards, early in 1971, an inspector visited the site and he described the removal of trees and the ploughing which was taking place as
  "a deliberate attempt to remove this section of the bank and finally the whole camp."
  That suggestion is strongly contested by the petitioners. Probably as a result of this, and no doubt influenced by the terms of the inspector's report, an interim preservation notice was issued and a draft preservation order was proposed in 1972. Objections were made to this, and a public hearing was held. The draft order was found to be technically defective and, as a result, had to be abandoned. In the spring of 1973, Mrs. Mack wrote to the Department of the Environment seeking permission to rotovate the interior of the monument, with a view to autumn sowing. Certain correspondence took place at that time between herself and others of the petitioners and the Department, but the upshot was that in September 1973 an interim preservation notice was issued by the Department and in April 1974 it gave notice of a proposed preservation order. Objections to these were lodged by the present petitioners.

  2021
  The public hearing was therefore held in Hitchin in February, and a number of points emerged which are relevant to the case. First, only part of the site is subject to the preservation order. A neighbouring farmer ploughs up to the bank with impunity, while the Angells have scrupulously avoided doing anything to damage the monument since its future was put in doubt. They would like to see parity of treatment for themselves with the other owners. The inspector, in his report after the hearing, made a similar point. He said
  "It is not very satisfactory that the Order as dratted covers only part of the site leaving the area of the ditch (and presumably the footing and side of the bank) on the NW/SW quadrant uncovered. It was explained that legal technicalities would prevent the extension of the Order to this part of the site and I must accept this. On the evidence, however, it is the whole monument which merits protection and not just that part of it within the boundary of Whitby Farm."
  This is an anomaly and is not central to the case, but it is worth mentioning.
  The next point concerns the best method of preserving an earthwork monument of this kind. The soil in this part of North Hertfordshire is only 6 in. to 8 in. deep, and rests on a bed of chalk. Various technical opinions have been put forward, and Mr. Sherlock, an inspector of ancient monuments, emphasised at the hearing that
  "continued ploughing, especially by modern methods, even if it avoided the bank, would do irretrievable damage to the interior features."
  This is accepted by everyone concerned with the case. Mr. Chamberlain, from the Ministry of Agriculture, proposed that the interior of the monument should be put down to grass. That, he said, would be the best means of preserving it. In a telling comment he said
  "This land is beginning to return to natural vegetation and in time the scrub and trees that are beginning to take root…are likely to cause greater damage…than the earlier agricultural operations."
  This is in sharp contrast with the report of the inspector in 1971, who complained about the removal of trees and bushes. Mr. Angell explained that no trees had been removed, only a few hawthorn bushes which had been undermined by rabbits and the wind, and given the
  2022
  shallowness of the soil it is not surprising that that should have happened.
  There is no question in anyone's mind that the petitioners are either incapable or unwilling to preserve the monument as best may be. They have always, in the past, been anxious to protect the site and at no public cost, and they are proud of their association with it. Their attachment and concern for it are grounded in generations of family occupancy of the farm. When the War Agricultural Committee proposed, a number of years ago, to plough out the monument, the petitioners strongly and successfully resisted. Had it not been for that action the monument would not exist even in its present state today. That demonstrates the practical concern of the petitioners for its preservation. In his report the inspector accepted the good will and co-operation of the petitioners in the best interests of the future of the monument.
  I now come to the crux of the whole matter, which is that the intentions of the petitioners have always been, so far as I have been able to understand, entirely at one with those of the Department of the Environment. However, an apparent misunderstanding arose and subsequently developed. I believe that the anxieties of the Department were undue in the first place, influenced by the inspector's report in 1971 with its allegation of a deliberate attempt to destroy the monument. The events of 1973 can be seen in the light of the perpetuation of this sort of misunderstanding. The petitioners assert—and all their behaviour bears this out—that they had no intention of damaging the monument. They quite accept that ploughing would do this, and they asked only to rotovate, which would disturb only the top two or three inches of the soil. It is impossible to sow grass on a field of this kind unless those steps have been taken. The petitioners believe that to cover the monument with grass would be the best way to preserve it, but they cannot see how to do it unless they are first allowed to rotovate. They feel that they should follow Mr. Chamberlain's advice on this.
  The whole case for this Order is based on the false premise that an application to rotovate with a view to sowing grass was the same as the intention to plough,

  2023
  and this is reflected in a comment contained in the 1974 annual report of the Ancient Monuments Board which said
  "We welcomed and endorsed the use of compulsory powers in the following cases"
  the fourth of which was
  "(4) IRON AGE SETTLEMENT, ARBURY BANKS, ASHWELL, HERTFORDSHIRE. As we noted in our Annual Report for 1973, it was essential for the preservation of this important prehistoric site that ploughing should stop and the land be taken out of arable use."
  This seems to me clearly to demonstrate how the original misunderstanding has been perpetuated.
  It so happens that under the previous Government an Act was passed which was specially designed to deal with such cases. I refer to the Field Monuments Act 1972. As was explained on the Second Reading of that measure and in Committee by my hon. Friends the Members for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) and Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre), who were then Ministers in the Department of the Environment, the object of the Act was to secure protection of earthworks where—to quote from Section 1(1) of the Act—
  "in the opinion of the Secretary of State there is a danger that the monument will be injured in the course of agriculture or forestry".
  It was clearly explained in the debates then that the methods of modern farming, including, in particular, deep ploughing, were those which the Department most had in mind.
  At the public hearing, in February, the petitioners offered to enter into an agreement under the Field Monuments Act. In paragraph 37 of his report the inspector drew the attention of the Secretary of State to this offer. No acknowledgement has been received from the Secretary of State. Is he aware of the offer? Has he considered it? If not, why not? If he has considered it and has decided not to proceed with it, I should like to know his grounds. At the very least, the petitioners might have been notified of his thoughts on the matter.
  I hope that I have demonstrated not only that the case for the Order was based on a misunderstanding but that in practice it is unnecessary, and that an alternative procedure, which is available, would be more appropriate. The inspector admitted in his report that there were conflicts of evidence on a number of
  2024
  points. I accept that there was probably a series of personal misunderstandings between the petitioners and officials in the Department. That sort of thing can happen only too easily, but surely it is not too late to put it right.
  In summing up the public hearing, the inspector said in his report:
  "there now seems to be general agreement about the value of the monument and the need to safeguard it…There is, therefore, an assurance of co-operation in the best interests of the monument…Nevertheless, the Department has to take a longer view to a future that extends beyond the good intentions and co-operation of the present owners and occupiers. Given the importance of the site and the potential interest of the internal features, I agree that permanent protection is necessary and can be best secured by making the proposed Order."
  I cannot accept that.
  There are two points to be made. First, it is up to Parliament, and therefore to each of us as representatives of our constituents and responsible for their rights and freedoms, to demonstrate that, just because the machinery of government has been set in motion, it is not necessarily bound to grind relentlessly on its way if it can be shown that the starter need never have been pressed. Secondly, the Government have enough on their plate. The Department of the Environment, the members of the Ancient Monuments Board and the whole system of preservation orders are no exception. They should be used sparingly, and only when necessary.
  There are more than 100,000 field monuments consisting of earthworks in this country. Some of them may be in North-West Durham, the Minister's constituency. Certainly, there is hardly a rural constituency in the land which does not contain earthworks of this kind. It would be impossible for the Department to place preservation orders on 100,000 monuments, or even on the most important 10,000. Therefore, if this procedure is to be used, it should be used only where it is necessary. The Department cannot and must not use its resources of time and money, which are limited, in cases where they are not needed, not only because such use means an infringement of the rights of private citizens but because it will reduce the resources that the Government can devote to what is essential.
  To end on a personal note, I am a member of the Council of the Society of

  2025
  Antiquaries and a member of the Legislation and Government Committee of the Council for British Archaeology and, as such, I hope that it is self-evident that I am concerned as much as any other Member is about the preservation of our national heritage of ancient monuments of all kinds. But there are ways and means of preserving them, and all the evidence suggests to me that in the case of Arbury Banks the right way is not by preservation order.
  8.5 p.m.
  Mr. Richard Luce: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mr. Stewart), who presented the case on behalf of the petitioners excellently. My only interest is that I was the parliamentary candidate for the Hitchin constituency. I was my hon. Friend's predecessor, without having his success in being elected for that constituency. Ashwell is part of the constituency, and I came to know the area well.
  My hon. Friend has put the case clearly. We have here an example of bumbling bureaucracy. There was no need for the confusion and series of misunderstandings that have been going on over the past three or four years.
  I do not wish to enter into an argument about the exact meaning of rotovating and ploughing. Clearly, there is a difference. It seems to me, from what my hon. Friend said, that the Secretary of State has been under the impression that the petitioners intended to plough up the land, whereas all along their intention has been not to enter into any form of arable farming but, as they say, simply to rotovate the first inch or two of the topsoil, preparatory to putting it down to grass. Therefore, they have every intention of preserving the monument, with the full support of the Ancient Monuments Board.
  For those reasons, I support the case so excellently presented by my hon. Friend.
  8.7 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): I thank the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Stewart) for the constructive and helpful way in which he has presented the case for the petitioners, and I acknowledge the support he was given by his hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Luce). I believe that the preservation of
  2026
  ancient monuments is a matter about which all hon. Members are concerned and that the debate is really about how best to ensure that that is done.
  Before dealing with the petition against the order, I should like to say something about the archaeological background and the working of the ancient monuments legislation. The legislation seeks to protect monuments by scheduling them, which obliges the owner and occupier to give three months' notice to the Secretary of State of intention to do work affecting a monument. In the case of field monuments—earthworks and buried remains—cultivation has been tolerated in many cases by the Department and its predecessor, the Ministry of Works.
  There has been a reluctance to interfere with agriculture over the years, while until the last decade or so it was believed that cultivation, such as ploughing to moderate depth, did not do serious damage. It is now known—and we are advised by those who know about these things—that even shallow cultivation is potentially destructive in the long term. It gradually erodes the shape of monuments. It destroys buried ancient structures and, by disordering the sequence of soil layers built up by man's continued use of the ground, removes any opportunity for the archaeologist to study and interpret the history of that particular monument. I am sure that the House will share our concern for the protection and preservation of ancient monuments.
  I turn now to the position when the Secretary of State receives notice of intention to do work to a monument. He has no power to give or refuse consent, or to make any conditions. He either lets the three months elapse, after which the giver of the notice can do what he wishes, or he has to invoke the compulsory preservation procedure of the Ancient Monuments Acts. This consists, first, of the serving of an interim preservation notice, which brings any work to the monument under the Secretary of State's control for a period of up to 21 months. This notice must be followed by a preservation order which, once finally made, has permanent effect. If the interim notice expires or is revoked before a preservation order has come into effect, the monument is not protected, and no further preservation action can be taken for five years. There is an

  2027
  exception to this rule, to which I shall come later.
  I turn to the case of the Arbury Banks Preservation Order 1975. To enable the House to appreciate it fully I must go back a little further in time than the petitioners have done. Arbury Banks is the site of an early Iron Age settlement, about 15 acres in extent, contained originally within a ditch and earth bank. The ditch is no longer visible on the ground but much of the bank survives. The monument was scheduled in 1923.
  The area inside the bank was ploughed for many years by the petitioners' family. This was accepted by the Department until it was noticed in 1970 that trees and scrub—I noted what the hon. Gentleman said about hawthorns and so on, but my information deals with trees and scrub—had been removed from part of the bank by uprooting them. This left the earthworks exposed to erosion and caused the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments to fear that further damage might be imminent. No notice of the work done had been given to the Secretary of State. A letter was sent to Mr. G. Angell drawing attention to the damage and inviting his observations on what had been done. No reply was received despite two reminders.
  An inspector of ancient monuments visited the site in January 1971 and was disturbed by what he saw. He asked to talk to Mr. Angell but the latter refused to see him. The inspector was able to inquire, through Miss Angell, about the letters which had been sent by the Department. Mr. Angell admitted receiving them but said that he was not interested. He ordered the inspector to leave.
  The situation was referred to the Ancient Monuments Board for England—the Secretary of State's statutory advisers—which reported that the monument, including the interior, was in danger of destruction or damage from injudicious treatment. An interim preservation notice was accordingly served. Attempts by the Department to reach an amicable agreement with the Angell family were met with hostility. A draft preservation order was made by the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker). Objections by Mr. and Miss Angell asserted that the interior of the site grew good crops of barley and that normal farming should be allowed to continue.
  2028
  A hearing was held and the inspector recommended in favour of the order. However, a minor procedural defect then came to notice within the Department. Proper notice had not been given in the London Gazette, and, although this had not been prejudicial to the objectors, the order was therefore withdrawn.
  At the end of March 1973 the Department received from Mrs. Mack, who the Department understood, had become a joint owner of the land, a request for permission to rotovate the site. After some correspondence the Department concluded that a fresh formal notice of intention to cultivate had been given. The Secretary of State's power to protect the monument was thereby renewed and a further interim preservation notice was served in September 1973.
  I must unfortunately add that some of the statements in the petition, which we have read carefully, are not in accordance with the facts. In paragraph 3 the petition says that nothing in Mrs. Mack's letter of 25th June 1973 indicated an intention to undertake arable cropping. In fact the letter said:
  "I would like to serve notice of intention to carry out rotovation work in order that the land may be ready in time for autumn sowing. An assurance is given that no encroachment will be made on the banks themselves, nor the soil within the banks disturbed more than is necessary to give a shallow seed bed which is all that is required for corn on this type of land."
  Equally there is no record in the Department, and no personal recollection, of any statement being made that rotovating would be acceptable, as claimed in paragraph 3 of the petition.
  In response to an inquiry by Mr. Angell, representatives of the Department and of the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service met him and Miss Angell on the site in November 1973. In December the Department advised Mr. Angell that neither ploughing nor rotovating was acceptable. Mr. Angell replied asking for the interim presentation notice to be revoked. The Department could not agree to this and proceeded to make a draft preservation order.
  A hearing into objections to the order was held in February 1975. Miss Angell asked at the outset that it should be adjourned as Mr. Angell was now prepared to enter into an acknowledgment

  2029
  payments agreement. The timing of this offer is interesting, since more than a year had been available for such an offer to be made. The Department took the view that a voluntary agreement, which runs for only a year at a time, was no substitute for lasting protection of the monument. In view of the limitations upon the Secretary of State's powers under the legislation, I believe that the House will endorse that decision.
  The report of the hearing recommended in favour of the order while acknowledging the evident concern of the objectors not to harm the monument. The order was duly made in June 1975, and in the letter notifying Mr. Angell the Department expressed its intention of getting into touch with him and the other owners and occupiers in regard to the future maintenance and management of the monument. Attention was also drawn to the possibility of claiming compensation.
  In paragraph 10 of the petition reference is made to a part of the monument in other ownership which is not subject to a preservation order. This land is a strip outside the bank, and the owner has agreed to plough it in such a way that soil is thrown towards the bank, while the bank itself is not eroded. This arrangement was explained to Mr. Angell in letters of May and June 1974 in which he was also told that the Department would be willing, subject to periodic inspection, to allow similar cultivation of the corresponding land covered by the preservation order.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State welcomes the assertions of the petitioners that they are concerned for the well-being of the monument. He cannot agree, however, that a promise by the petitioners to consult him about the future management of it would justify him in revoking the preservation order and leaving the monument without statutory protection.
  Mr. Tim Sainsbury: One question to be considered is in what form the monument would be best preserved. I think we can take it from the evidence of the Ministry of Agriculture expert that the best form of preservation would be for the inside area to be put down to
  2030
  grass. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitching (Mr. Stewart) suggested that that would require rotovation. If this is a delicate issue, will the Minister consider, when the rotovation has been carried out, the area seeded and a form of permanent vegetation established, whether an agreement under the Field Monuments Act such as the inspector recommended in paragraph 37 of his report is appropriate?
  Mr. Armstrong: That is a very fair suggestion, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall consider it. There is no question of trying to lay down rigid regulations and rules. In view of the assurance given by the petitioners of their desire to preserve the ancient monument, we shall consider the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman.
  There is no incompatibility between the existence of the order and the reaching of an understanding about the future management of the monument between the Department and the petitioners. There is no question of bumbling bureaucracy. We are anxious to achieve the preservation of ancient monuments. I emphasise that the order does not preclude cultivation or any other work to the monument. All that the order does is to ensure that the owners must have the agreement of the Secretary of State to whatever work they wish to do to the monument, and we are anxious to achieve that aim.
  I ask the House not to annul the order and leave the monument at the mercy of persons who, however well-intentioned they might be, are not archaeologists and who hitherto have strongly opposed every attempt by the Department to influence the preservation of the monument.
  I am grateful for the way in which the matter has been raised. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern for the preservation of the monument with the reasonable agreement of those especially involved. In the light of what I have said, I ask the House not to annul the order.
  Mr. Ian Stewart: Although the Minister has not given me all the encouragement I hoped for, his response to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) was sufficiently encouraging for me to feel it right to withdraw my motion, bearing in mind that

  2031
  the matter stands referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses.
  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  EUROPEAN SECONDARY LEGISLATION
  Ordered,
  That the Committee on European Secondary Legislation, &c., or any sub-committee appointed by that Committee have leave to confer and to meet concurrently with any Committee of the Lords on the European Communities or any sub-committee of that Committee for the purpose of deliberating and of examining witnesses, and have leave to agree with the Lords in the appointment of a Chairman for any such meeting.
  Ordered,
  That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

  CYPRUS SHERRY
  Motion made,
  That this House takes note of Commission Document No. S/1430/75 relating to Cyprus Sherry.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]
  8.23 p.m.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have no reason to object to the motion. Indeed, I know that I cannot do so and that the House can only divide against it, but this motion is a precedent for European legislation which I hope you will consider.
  The Commission document has been debated in Committee, but the report of the Committee was available in the Vote Office only at 2.30 p.m. today. Consequently the House has had only a few hours to digest the Committee's report and to decide whether to divide on the motion. That means that more than 600 hon. Members have had only six hours to make a judgment on the document. That is wholly unfair. At least two days should be allowed to enable hon. Members to study the report of the debate and the document.
  I raise the matter because I do not wish this precedent to pass without being carefully examined to ensure that the rights of hon. Members are protected and that they are able to obtain the fullest information before making a mature and considered judgment on whether to take
  2032
  the only action they can take, which is to divide the House. The only hon. Members who can come to such a decision are members of the Committee.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): The Chair has listened to what the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) has said on the point of order which he has raised. It is not a matter for the Chair, but the Chair is certain that the Government will have taken note of his point.
  Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Statutory Instruments, &c.,) and agreed to.

  OVERSEAS AID
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Statutory Instruments, &c.),
  That the Asian Development Bank (Extension of Limit on Guarantees) Order 1975, a draft of which was laid before this House on 19th November, be approved.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]
  Question agreed to.

  ADJOURNMENT
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Thomas Cox.]

  URBAN AID PROGRAMME
  8.26 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Steen: The urban aid programme is now seven years old, yet urban deprivation in this country is worse than ever before. The idea of the programme was to give extra help to areas in which existing services were under strain. That was the purpose of the urban aid programme back in 1968. The question must be asked: what has the urban aid programme achieved if deprivation is now so serious?
  In October 1968 the first Government circular was distributed. It stated that £25 million, spread over four years, was available for bids from the whole country. In 1972 the Government properly increased that sum, to take account of the rate of inflation, by a further £40 million for the period 1972–76, making a total of £65 million over the eight-year period.

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  It is important to realise that that £65 million was not new money but a first charge on the rate support grant pool. The programme switched Government funds from local authorities in general—which received 56 per cent. rate support—to local authorities which were designated multiply deprived, which were to receive 75 per cent. support. The programme was a switching mechanism to rob the richer local authorities for the benefit of the poorer local authorities.
  Some said, because of the modest scale of the programme, that it was merely a cosmetic—a political response to the heightening public awareness of the seriousness of the colour problem in Britain. Others saw it in more positive terms, as the implementation of recommendations contained in the Plowden and Seebohm Reports, the blacks serving as a barium meal, highlighting the inequalities of the poor.
  Whatever the reason, the fact that the Government were doing something, however modest, was to be welcomed. But why rush to launch it and with such fuzzy objectives and woolly strategy? It was as if the Government felt that they had been neglectful and suddenly woke up to the fact that something needed to be done quickly and with maximum visible impact. The heavy leaning towards capital spending—for example, on buildings rather than services—merely corroborated this.
  The then Home Secretary, in a statement on 2nd December 1968, said that the programme was a modest but important step to ensure that every citizen had a fair start in life and a fair opportunity. Yet if this was the intention, it was a bit of a cruel joke since it provided false hopes, not only because the funds were so small as to be virtually not noticeable in areas of acute poverty but because it signified the Government's failure to involve the deprived themselves in the operation and the decision-making process as the programme unfolded.
  Instead of using the programme as an opportunity for real power-sharing and giving responsibility and hope to those without either, the Government insisted on making the operation as bureaucratic and as one-sided as possible.
  It was to be a Government scheme operated entirely through local government. Fifteen Government circulars have
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  been sent round the country in the past seven years. In the first six circulars there were six times as many bids as funds available. In Phase 7 the ratio worsened. Up to Phase 7, nearly £22¾ million was allocated to capital projects, of which 93·8 per cent. was spent on local authority building programmes. Only £3¾ 1 million was spent on service projects and less than half went to the voluntary and community organisations.
  Up to Phase 7, there was scarcely a mention from the Government that local authorities should pay any attention to schemes submitted by those working at the grass roots. It was as if tenants' associations, community work groups, neighbourhood councils, self-help bodies and voluntary organisations were not worth powder and shot. Although in Phase 7, under the Conservative administration, an extra £3·5 million was injected specially to help such organisations, nothing was done to involve them in the decision-making process.
  It is not surprising that, during these years, those involved at the rock face with urban deprivation became alienated towards the programme. They saw it as a local authority bran tub bonanza in which, at special seasons of the year, a benevolent Government picked out lucky numbers, giving gift tokens to the most deserving of local authorities.
  Attempts by community leaders to attract central Government funds to worthwhile and pioneering projects usually ended in frustration. Even today, local authorities fail to communicate the reasons why one project is preferred to another, and Governments are equally secretive by failing to publish criteria on which they make their selections.
  The Minister will know that successive delegations have come to the doors of the Home Office to try to persuade it to publish criteria. The most distinguished was led by the former Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, who is now the Chairman of the National Council of Social Service. It was made very clear that criteria should be published, and the Government should not wish to conceal the process by which they decide the urban aid programme, but to date this has not been forthcoming. To many, the urban aid programme has just been a capital building programme, especially for those still living within the inner

  2035
  urban area who continue to be as deprived and downtrodden as ever.
  Why should such a brilliant idea have gone sour? There are a number of reasons. Few local authorities have been really prepared to share their power with local people, seeing it as a weakness rather than a strength. The idea of establishing local co-ordinating committees—I am not a man who supports too many committees—made up of those interested in the programme and potential users of it, as anathema to local authorities, whatever their political complexion.
  It was only in Liverpool that such a plan was put into practice, and even that has been savaged, this year, by the city council's determination to put its own schemes first, for the rather shaky reason that they are labour-intensive.
  Perhaps it is worth pausing at this point to outline the rather unique way in which the Liverpool City Council proceeded. It allowed and encouraged every grass-roots community group, self-help group, voluntary organisation, and so on, to submit applications to the urban aid programme funds through the local authority. Discussion took place with the officers of the council and the particular voluntary body concerned, estimates were worked out, the project was planned and it went into the melting pot with the 150 or so other applications. The local authority and the voluntary bodies probably knew that only one-fifth or one-sixth of these would be successful.
  At that point, unlike the normal process, in which the local authority decides which should be in the priority list—because the Home Office leans very heavily on that priority list—in Liverpool the statutory schemes and the voluntary schemes went side by side and were discussed openly with all those submitting applications, in a day-long conference. As a result, at the end of the conference, recommendations were made by the whole meeting as to which schemes were of priority, and the local authority, although not bound by that decision, inevitably agreed to accept the recommendations.
  This programme has been the envy of the "urban aid eye" for years, and, as a result, Liverpool has seen what I may call
  2036
  a flourishing private sector and a flourishing public sector, with both the voluntary bodies and the statutory bodies trusting each other.
  Then, this year, with the threat of very substantial cuts and the prospect of no growth next year, the local authority did something quite inexplicable. It decided that the statutory departments and the voluntary organisations did not actually know best. Instead of accepting the list of schemes and saying that these would be submitted to the Home Office for consideration, the local authority tipped the projects completely on their head and put its own schemes forward in preference to those agreed with the other organisations. Not only was that an unfortunate thing to do; it caused the trust which had been built up over the years to be shattered overnight.
  The rather curious reason advanced by Liverpool City Council—and I am sure that it took the decision in good faith and believed that it was the right one to take—was that the schemes it put forward were labour-intensive. Liverpool has been fortunate, as part of the Merseyside complex, to have had an injection of £4 million for the job creation programme whereby young people are carving out jobs to benefit the community. I think that about £665,000 of that money has been used, and there is a lot left.
  Although jobs in the job creation programme are labour-intensive, some may feel that the local authority rather unwisely did what it did on the basis that the schemes that it put forward were more labour-intensive than those in the job creation programme. Whatever the reasons, the ill-feeling that has been created is such that it will take years to regain good will and trust. People have a basic distrust of the elected representative, and this stab in the back is another twist in that saga.
  It is not surprising that the non-statutory bodies have turned against one another in the chance of getting a crumb of the urban cake. Young community groups have fallen out with one another as they battle for local authority recognition and preference. In the main, their efforts have been to no avail, because local authorities have tended to finance the more established voluntary organisations—those less likely to threaten the local authority's autonomy. Perhaps one

  2037
  can understand that local authorities are cautious animals and do not like to consider the risk of financing non-tried and non-tested schemes, yet the whole purpose of the urban aid programme was to finance innovatory and exciting new projects, and the voluntary organisations that have been supported have tended to be those of an established nature that have been going for many years.
  As a result, a great deal of community talent has gone by the board simply because of the inability of the organisers to submit the right applications. It is easy for a local authority to submit applications on the proper forms. It is difficult for small ad hoc community groups to know how to go about writing the applications, submitting them to the right department at the right time and providing the kind of information that Government and local government officers feel they want.
  If local authorities were really concerned to see people taking responsibility and pioneering new activities they would open their departments to help and advise such groups and help them to prepare applications. This again, as the Minister will know, is a matter which I, when I was Director of the Young Voluntary Force, advanced as a way of encouraging volunteer groups to submit applications, because even now they do not know the machinery of local government or Government. Unless there is a department in the local authority that can advise and help them to draft their applications, some of the most creative work will go by the board, because those who are good on the creative side of the job are not good at submitting applications and dealing with bureaucracy.
  I ask the Minister to consider whether he can, in the next circular, advise local authorities to establish a focal point in each of their town halls—not more staff, but added responsibilities for the treasurer or the accountant—to advise voluntary community groups on how to submit applications under the urban aid programme. The Government could make this gesture at no cost. It is something that most local authorities could do at no cost, and it would show at least some measure of good will between local government and Government Departments.
  2038
  In 1972, the injection of a special fund by the Conservative administration to help non-statutory bodies allowed for some modest developments. That programme has swung full circle, now that local authorities are faced with a no-growth year, and the first to go in their list of priorities will be the voluntary organisations.
  There is a fear not only that the voluntary organisations will be deprived of urban aid money; the rumour among town halls is that some local authorities will not even submit a quota for themselves, because they have to find the 25 per cent. local authority contribution out of their own funds. Therefore, they may reach a stage where they have to choose between running an old people's home and submitting a new application under the urban aid programme, because the urban aid programme, rightly, looks to new developments.
  The Minister may know that some local authorities have not done that, but have used the urban aid programme as another means of rate support grant for things that they would probably have done any way.
  The Minister will also know that in the early days some local authorities told voluntary organisations that if they raised the 25 per cent. themselves the authorities would submit the applications because they would not cost them a penny. That practice is dying out, but it occurred when local authorities were under stress I mention that, because it is perhaps worth repeating to local authorities that the idea of the exercise is not to boost their own operations to do things which they would normally do, or to persuade voluntary bodies to raise cash for themselves and then for onward submission of applications to the Government; it is a partnership between the Government and local government.
  Although one can criticise the Government for not kicking the local authorities in the right direction regarding the urban aid programme, they must take responsibility for alienating the community in their own way. Not only have they not published criteria for determining urban aid applications; they have refused to consider outsiders, other than the Civil Service, on the Home Office decision-making body. Or perhaps there is not

  2039
  one. I have been unable to find out how the urban aid programme is distributed. In fact, I am all for entrepreneurial exercises, but even I have been defeated in trying to find out who makes the decision, how, and on what information. The most one can learn is that civil servants pay high regard to the priority lists submitted by the local authorities.
  It might be an eye-opener, and it would take the lid off, if the processes by which urban aid applications were approved or not approved were open and visible and not carried on behind closed doors. I am not suggesting that anything improper goes on; quite the contrary. A difficult job has to be done and the civil servants who do that consciencious work are probably doing it as expeditiously as possible. But the principle in all community work is that all is visible. Nothing is concealed. I suggest that a lot could be done to improve relationships between the grassroots and the Government and local Government if the decision-making process were visible.
  A suggestion repeatedly made to the Home Office is that independent people—possibly not from those who submit applications under the urban aid programme—could be invited to sit alongside Civil Service officials to see that justice is done and to make their own useful contribution. Until that is done there will be a view and a distrust by the grass-roots that the urban aid programme is a random selection by officials in Whitehall.
  Sizeable injections of money will reduce, and clearly have reduced, poverty. However, it has been a slow process, and although the urban aid programme has helped in one way, other pressures have arisen and increased the problems in another way. More money is obviously important and valuable, but the process by which that money is imparted and passed to organisations is equally important.
  Therefore, I wish to make two points in general terms. First, the amount of money is important—everyone will always ask for a larger slice of the cake—and, secondly, the process by which that money is distributed is important.
  The way in which the Home Office has run the urban aid programme has been
  2040
  as paternalistic to the community as the Victorian factory owners were to their employees. The Government's insistence that the people cannot be trusted is well illustrated. If a successful application is made, the Government refuse to pay the money awarded direct to the voluntary bodies, in spite of the fact that the local authority is a partner in the project and is prepared to inject its money as well. More than once the dilatoriness of local government or Government in paying over the money has caused acute embarrassment to successful applicants, who rely totally on the money for survival and who have built up expectations in the locality, which have consequently been shattered because there have been delays in the payment of the grants.
  For simplicity's sake I invite the Minister to consider whether the whole year's grant could not be paid to the organisation so that it could receive the interest, rather than the grant being paid in quarterly instalments which are usually late and which cause great anxiety and concern to the voluntary body. This would go a long way towards helping voluntary bodies meet their commitments, particularly when they depend so much on urban aid money.
  The urban aid programme has had seven lean years. The decision-making process, which has failed, is still in existence. Will the Government change it so that we can have seven fat years, or are they intent on a head-on confrontation with the community groups? So long as the system makes local authorities both judge and, in practice, jury, the private non-statutory organisations and the self-help groups will continue to be discriminated against. The more progressive the operation at the grass roots, the less the local authority will take to it and put its money where it says its heart is.
  Perhaps these matters were in the Minister's mind when he answered Questions on 4th July 1974 and stated that he was considering a number of points concerning the interests of voluntary organisations. However, all has gone silent since then, and subsequent circulars have merely paid lip service to the importance of funding community work, neighbourhood councils and the like, and have failed to mention the crucial issues of participation in the urban aid process.
  The problem is compounded by the attitude of councillors, predominantly, I fear,

  2041
  those from the Labour Party. Although initially welcoming the urban aid programme, as they saw it, as a means of getting further resources for their areas, they quickly turned tail as soon as the local people found their voice and started to shout, and particularly when they started to criticise the council.
  It is strange that this should be so because since the Education Act, 1944, we have all been exhorting people in every way to become better educated. Not only do we have day release and a year extra at school, but there is every conceivable means of gaining knowledge and educating oneself. There are welfare rights and benefits and one can learn how to improve the system and to involve oneself in the local community.
  However, when the urban aid programme has given money to the people and they start to question the behaviour of local councils, their councillors lose interest quickly and say that they want nothing more to do with the urban aid programme. This is not entirely confined to Labour councillors, but in some of the most deprived areas Labour councillors are used to being the squires of the area and as soon as a new leader emerges, they feel extremely threatened. Those urban aid projects which have developed their own community leaders are ultimately seen as a direct challenge to the council's authority. This in turn has led to distrust between councillors and community groups, with the Government irresponsibly standing back and letting the two war with each other.
  There is a limit to what the Government can do, but the circulars which they issue have a tremendously strong authority, and the Government could, if they wished, advise local authorities of things which they should consider not doing. One would be trying to explain to the local councillor that he should not feel threatened if community groups in his own patch emerge wanting to do things. They may be misguided and not know all the facts, but his job is not to challenge them but to assist them.
  The Home Office has given no answer about the way in which grants to community projects have been cut. In this matter the whole principle followed by the Home Office, as I understand it, has
  2042
  been to sustain community effort and to use the urban aid programme as a method by which to encourage the growth of natural community work. This means that the programmes need to be considered in terms of a three-year or five-year phase rather than as a one-off matter, because no sooner has the organisation got off the ground than it will fall flat on its face if the urban aid programme does not continue to support it. The Home Office would be well advised not to give grant for one year if it has little inclination to give it thereafter.
  The argument may be that it is up to the local authority to determine whether it will continue to support a scheme; but then the Home Office in turn can say to the local authority "For the first year of the grant, we will give this only on the basis that it is a five-year grant. I know of many such cases.
  On the other hand, there are a number of bad examples of community work which has been shattered, probably without any realisation on the part of Whitehall officials, simply because the year's grant has come to an end and the local authority has felt unable or unwilling to finance the whole project thereafter. That has been one of the effects. Even with a five-year grant, the organisation has the problem of financing the scheme after the period has ended. But with a cut after one year the effect is catastrophic.
  I suggest that this is the area in which widespread community alienation, anger, misunderstanding and ultimately disillusionment have set in and that in many parts of the country the community is worse off. A good example of this is the neighbourhood council in the south end of Liverpool. It was granted £18,000 in 1974–75 but nothing in 1975–76. Yet it is a remarkable success story by all accounts. This neighbourhood council, which is on a pre-war council estate, is giving the community a real sense of purpose and confidence. There are voluntary street representatives who see that the elderly are cared for and that the neighbours are in touch. There is a link-up with the local authority services, with weekly meetings between organisers for different areas of the work—housing, environment, youth and so on—all meeting the local authority counterpart week by week.

  2043
  However, perhaps most important of all, the young have developed a high incentive to keep down vandalism and provide a range of social and cultural activities, which they organise themselves. They received a letter from the chief constable saying that for the year in which the neighbourhood council was operating vandalism had dropped by nearly 50 per cent. Thus the local authority was able to give better services, and the police service is better.
  But the neighbourhood council was the clue. It is run by a docker, who is the local chairman. There is a committee made up of local people. There is a community adviser, from somewhat outside the area, who plays a relatively lowprofile, neutral rôle. The project is a most exciting and vivid illumination of how the community will in future have to work. The feeling towards the local authority has only been damaged by the fact the urban aid grant has been cut off after one year.
  It is exciting and rewarding to go there any evening and witness the constructive activity devoted to the young and the old in the community. Last year the organisers ran a fish and chip shop on the estate and raised £1,000 which they distributed at Christmas to the elderly people on the estate. However, they are not complaining about raising money. They are deeply hurt because somebody in Whitehall whom they do not know and whom they cannot get hold of—that is just as well, perhaps—has cut their grant after only one year. One only hears reports. However, even if these are not the exact facts they indicate how they feel.
  Whatever the truth of the matter, the way in which ordinary and deprived people living in a deprived part of the city have taken action is indeed remarkable. Thousands of people have become actively involved. The city council gives due weight to the importance of neighbourhood councils. However, there are not sufficient neighbourhood councils. Much greater emphasis should be devoted to establishing neighbourhood councils in the next phase of the urban aid programme. The neighbourhood councils in Liverpool give to the people a sense of purpose, of confidence and of involvement—they run the show. The most important thing that the Government could now do is to show their confidence in the operation.
  2044
  How could a Government committed to equality and social reform not realise how important neighbourhood councils are? No doubt the Minister is familiar with the recommendations of the Chief Constable of Merseyside which were reported in The Times yesterday. In his report on Kirby the chief constable recommends the setting up of neighbourhood councils on a very local basis to encourage a sense of identity and to foster people's pride in their immediate environment. Why have not the Government backed more of these schemes and why do we have to pay the price of vandalism because of inactivity in this regard?
  Then there is the well-known case of SLAB, which is a derivative of "Arts Lab", on the outskirts of Bristol. This is an innovatory arts and community laboratory outside Bristol which applied for five years of urban aid. This was under the old Gloucestershire County Council. Commitments were entered into. Fifteen thousand pounds was raised from a private foundation to renovate a disused zinc smelting works. It was one of the first schemes in the country. A community centre of workshops and therapy, advice and help centres was built, with the involvement of young people who were some of the drop-outs and unemployables around the outskirts of Bristol.
  The Gloucestershire County Council successfully applied under the urban aid programme, but the following year, on the reorganisation of local government, the SLAB project went into Avon. Unfortunately the Avon County Council, although it applied for the urban aid programme, was turned down after one year. This resulted in considerable bitterness on the part of the hundreds of disadvantaged young people who were told that SLAB would have to continue at a reduced level as the Government could not continue the funding arrangements. Somehow the communication between the local authority, Whitehall and the community had broken down. This breakdown in communication has proved disastrous.
  Perhaps the best example of community alienation can be seen in the Government's disregard of their own community development project, carved out of the urban aid programme and aimed at investigating new ways of meeting the

  2045
  needs of individuals, families and communities, whether native or immigrant, suffering from many forms of social deprivation.
  The community development project was to have a special emphasis on community involvement and citizen self-help. Twelve professional teams have been detailed to different localities thoughout Britain, and with an action research project attached to them they were to produce findings on which the Government would subsequently act. The teams soon discovered that simply to improve co-ordination of existing social and welfare services would at best make only a marginal impact. They concluded that their most valuable strategy was to provide information and resources and give power and resources to community groups so that they could formulate their own demands and press directly for change.
  Community development teams have been at the rock face—or, as it is known in some areas, the coal face—for over five years. They have done a great deal of valuable work, but in some of the areas things have gone wrong. It is totally the Government's fault in failing to take any notice of a highly detailed and, I am told, highly confidential report which stresses the total lack of central management and direction in the community development project.
  Here we have these teams dotted all over the country with virtually no one at the centre to help, advise and direct them, and all the people who were involved at the outset seem to have drifted away. The result is that in the last few years the CDP ship has been virtually rudderless and the motors have been intermittently breaking down. To put groups of highly intelligent young people into areas of the worst deprivation in Britain and leave them there without any support or direction, as the Government did, can only be described as negligent, and part of the damage which the Government have done is not only to the communities in the areas in which the community development is sited but also to the people themselves who were professionally employed to carry out this work.
  Perhaps the most damage and greatest community alienation will shortly be seen in Cumberland, where the county council
  2046
  has decided to discontinue its support following a ham-fisted letter written by the Home Office telling local authorities, in so many words, that the Home Office will quite understand if the county council decides not to continue its support.
  Cleator Moor is one of the most deprived parts of rural England, in Cumberland, and has been neglected for centuries. Here people were for the first time given real hope, encouragement and resources and a real opportunity to do something constructive, and they responded to it. They set up a community information and action centre, a shop-front centre, which helps people with their problems. An information van was provided. It carries the information and action services to Cleator and Frizington. This is the first mobile information service in the county. It has been evaluated by the research teams, and important lessons have been spelt out for the information services throughout the rural areas in Britain.
  There is the Cellar Youth Project. Eight thousand pounds of the project's funds has converted an old cellar under the public offices in Cleator Moor into a modern meeting place for young people. Run by young people, the cellar has a full-time youth worker. Unlike so many youth organisations, it is run by the young. The pride of our youth service is that very few people over the age of 40 are involved. There is the Big Hill adventure playground, an initiative undertaken in association with the church. It turned the Old Green quarry in Cleator Moor into the first adventure playground in Cumbria. It attracted £15,000 grant for reclamation. There is the Impact Housing Association, part of the Community Development Project's programme of work. It established a new independent housing association committed to the improvement of older property and the principle of tenant involvement in management. Launched with a grant from the Community Development Project, the Impact Housing Scheme is planning to improve 100 houses in the next 18 months.
  Then there is Community Industry, which came to West Cumbria through the initiative of the Community Development Project to bring new work into the area. It employs 10 adults and 16 young people who otherwise would be unemployed.

  2047
  The community resource centre provides practical help to many local organisations with community television, slide projectors, display screens and general office equipment. Its services are used by schools, sports organisations, youth clubs and many other bodies. There are a thousand and one other schemes which I could mention.
  The industrial co-operative project has been attempting to create a new industrial enterprise for new employment in the area. The scheme is only a few months old and plans have just been laid for the launching of a West Cumberland co-operative fund aimed at raising £25,000 in the next year in West Cumbria.
  The fact that the Home Office can stand by and let all this perish for the want of £20,000 needs some explanation. Of course, we all know what the explanation will be. We will be told that it is not for the Government to interfere with decisions of local authorities, but perhaps the Minister will explain why he cannot spend £20,000 of the £800,000 that is left in his Department for voluntary services. It is there for voluntary work and it has not been spent. It is the last year of the project and £250,000 has already been spent on it. It is absolute madness not to spend £20,000 from the £800,000 left in the kitty to keep the scheme going for the rest of its lifetime. This would do a great deal to persuade voluntary organisations that the Government appreciate their worth. Or are the Government going to stand by like the Soviets and let a scheme that has been building up for four years collapse?
  The fact that the Government are about to embark on comprehensive community programmes before the lessons of the community development projects have been learned and evaluated makes nonsense of the Government's lofty commitment to every citizen and throws into question whether they really believe in helping to develop the potential of every individual in our country or whether they must control everything themselves. The urban aid programme has done some good, but the alienation of the community that has gone on for some time is the cost we shall have to bear for many years ahead.
  9.12 p.m
  Mr. Eric Ogden: It is not usual for hon. Members to intervene in Adjournment debates, but it is not usual for these debates to come before the House at this time. The Minister may be encouraged to know that I shall not speak anywhere near as long as did the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen). Before anyone criticises any hon. Member from Liverpool, whether Labour or Conservative, I must say that the hon. Member for Wavertree has taken a great interest in this programme—and not only in Liverpool. He has been holding it inside for a long time, and if it has burst out tonight, across the Chamber, I am the last to complain.
  I shall confine my remarks to Liverpool. The Cavern, in Liverpool, is well known, but the Cellar, at Cleator Moor, is unknown to me. Whether it will ever get the reputation of the Cavern is another matter. The hon. Member for Wavertree voiced the concern of voluntary organisations in his constituency and throughout the city of Liverpool. I have no direct knowledge of or any right to speak for Bristol, or any other part of the country.
  Liverpool is blessed with many active and effective local organisations and, for a long time, an understanding grew up between the district councils, the city council and these organisations. Ineviably, programmes put to the district councils or the Ministry have to be judged by someone according to priorities. Those who are not quite so highly placed usually complain about the priority. Every Liverpool member has had complaints, not only from groups who were not at the top of the list, or were halfway down it but from those who had no help at all. The complaints take two forms. First, there seems to be no theme, or any exception to any theme. There seems to be neither rhyme nor reason in the selection. Rightly, those with complaints make them to their own district council representatives, carrying them though the programme and argue them out, complaining to their Members of Parliament, not only on this but other matters, regarding the administration of Liverpool.
  We are being thought of as a court of appeal, so why do we not tell them

  2049
  what they should do. Equally, the decisions ought to be made inside the city of Liverpool. We are not running the city of Liverpool from the Palace of Westminster. There are times when we should, but this is not one of them. The Government may say that they cannot issue a direction, but when a Department has regional officers in direct contact with the officers of the district council, and when central Government are providing the money, at least if the Government cannot direct they can give guidance, to avoid the kind of mistakes that crop up. In that regard I am grateful that the hon. Member has been fortunate in bringing forward his complaint tonight.
  I cannot accept his broad criticism of every Labour councillor. That was a pretty wide blunderbuss, and it is unfair to those who are trying desperately hard in the hon. Member's own campaign.
  Mr. Steen: I was careful to say that it was not everyone, and that it was not confined to the Labour Party, but that it happened in areas of bad deprivation, where Labour councillors tended to be of the old school, seeing themselves as the squires of an area, and had some difficulty in understanding the new trend of community groups and community leaders.
  Mr. Ogden: The hon. Member's approach nevertheless labels everyone in the same way. His approach is the same as that which describes a London restaurant as "used by Members of Parliament" when 99 per cent. of Members have never seen it.
  The hon. Member suggested that the voluntary organisations in the city had had seven lean years, and he hoped that they would now have seven fat years. He must spell out more clearly what he means. I do not think there will be fat years for anyone, or, if there are, priority must be decided in a different form from that being put forward tonight. Certainly the city of Liverpool had strong rate support grant assistance from the Government. After that, the district council cut its rates by 1p, and that did not assist our attempts to get extra help from the Government.
  I support the hon. Member's general claim that this issue has been mishandled. It does not matter who is at fault. I do not accept the sweeping criticism that
  2050
  we could run Liverpool, or the urban aid programme, from Whitehall, because there would be strong opposition to that suggestion in the city. I believe, however, that the Minister's officials could be encouraged to be a little more interventionist and decisive and to risk up-setting the citizens of Liverpool and their district council occasionally, because, in the long term, that would be welcomed by the district council, the urban aid programme and the voluntary aid organisations. Something has gone wrong over the last two years and we want the Minister and his officials to help put it right.
  9.20 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) both for the way in which he has brought the issue to the attention of the House, which is packed by comparison with most Adjournment debates, and for the work he did before he became a Member in showing what community enthusiasm can do and how infectious it is.
  My major reason for speaking in support of my hon. Friend tonight is the total ignorance in most deprived areas of what urban aid is, what urban aid projects can achieve and what some of them have achieved. I used to do work in Tower Hamlets, in which one could find a primary school where one-third of the children belonged to families with an income at or below the supplementary benefit level. That is an example of how deprived an area can be. It is an area where the parents have exactly the same ambitions for their children as all other parents have, but they feel impotent to express their hopes and ambitions and to deal with their fears and problems. They feel that they cannot obtain outside advice, that they cannot imitate successful innovations elsewhere and that they cannot secure all the resources they need, because of ignorance and because of the lack of opportunity to gain the facilities that the urban aid programme is supposed to provide.
  Even in an area of my constituency, the Ferrier Estate, a well-built, large—perhaps over-large—housing estate, where there are families who can provide nothing for their children to do outside their own front room in an outside area,

  2051
  there is a block of flats with about 1,000 families in it, almost the size of a mini-Thamesmead, surrounded by derelict land. Once the parents have a small community association going they do not know how to set about applying for funds so that their own efforts and their own fund-raising, which they are already doing, can provide the facilities that they need for their children, to prevent those children going, as so many do, to child guidance units, juvenile courts and eventually other institutions which cost much more than providing the information on how to get community aid projects going and how to turn the parents' efforts into a successful community for them and their families to grow up in.
  Mr. Steen Mr. Steen rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. The hon. Gentleman has already given us the pleasure of listening to him for 42 minutes. I hope that he will not interrupt others.
  Mr. Bottomley: The real question I want to put to the Minister is to what extent he believes that existing community groups know about urban aid, about its successes, how to apply for it, and how long they have to go on putting in their proposals, how long they have to keep their enthusiasm going, before obtaining the facilities they need to start off.
  What does the Minister propose to do about all this? I accept that in the main it is the local authorities' job, but the Government are responsible for the urban aid project. A wander around many of the deprived areas of London will show how little of the aid has got through to the people who need the encouragement and the resources most.
  To back up a point made by my hon. Friend, I recall that in the borough of Lambeth, in which I live, a number of us decided that we needed a park for children to play in. I made that decision after I had been burgled for the fourth time and after I had asked the fourth set of burglars, who were there when I came home, why they had done it. They said "Your house is much more fun than anybody else's." I asked them why they
  2052
  did not play football, and they replied that there was nowhere to play football.
  A little group of people interested in the community—social workers, police, clergy and one or two embryo politicians like myself—got together, and someone said "We are all interested in the community. What can we do to help it?" Someone else suggested "Let's set up a study group to look into the terms of reference for a working party to analyse the needs of the area." However, I suggested instead "Why don't we get together and build a park for the children to play football in? There's a 20-acre site of prime parkland in the middle of London. Let's get on with that." I was told that the council had no money to do it. I said, "We have got ourselves, and if we can get £100 together we can have six acres made into a temporary play space for children in no time at all."
  We were fortunate in that one of the local churches was willing to put a little bit of money towards the venture. The £100 could buy six acres. Two years later the council came along with £25,000 and put the park out of use to carry out a grander scheme. I have not been burgled since the park was built.
  Then we decided on a neighbourhood council. The local council decided on the same thing at the same time. A councillor called a meeting and the public relations officer explained what a neighbourhood council could do. The councillor asked for all those who were in favour, and we all put up our hands. Then he said "All right, I will select the steering committee." We thought that that was not very democratic and so we said that we would do it ourselves. Eventually he decided that we were right, and the neighbourhood council has gone on to do a variety of things in a variety of ways, with financial help from the local authority. It deserves every praise for that.
  The point is that the urban aid facilities—although known to many neighbourhood councils and the activists within them—should be spreading out further into the community so that within every deprived area people are putting in applications, not necessarily on a grand scale—for example, for a housing association combined with a child-care centre at a cost of about £80,000, something

  2053
  greatly needed in my area of South London—but applications which require a smaller amount of money and which will galvanise more people into action.
  If we can make more progress towards that aim, as well as dealing with the problem of alienation—I speak about ignorance; my hon. Friend talked of alienation in existing communities—we shall find that the deprived areas will be deprived for a far shorter time than if we keep working away only on existing applications with the Home Office.
  9.27 p.m.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I realise that the Minister has a long list of points to which he must reply and that if I am to have any hope of receiving an answer from him I must keep my remarks brief. It is rare that an hon. Member tables a Written Question, receives an answer with which he is disappointed and then has the opportunity of pressing a Minister to amplify his reply. Hon. Members are no doubt frequently disappointed by written replies, but it is rare for them to be able to press the matter.
  I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the reply that he gave to a Written Question that I tabled yesterday dealing with urban aid. Let me explain why I tabled that Question. In the Manchester area there is great concern about the urban aid submissions which have been made for the next year. The concern, felt particularly by voluntary bodies, is that far fewer submissions have been made than in previous years because of the economic situation. Rumour is rife, and disillusionment is considerable.
  In my Written Question I asked the Minister to tell me what submissions had been made in the North-West, so that I could make a comparison and see whether it was true, as many people believe, that fewer submissions had been made this year than in previous years. Unfortunately, the Minister seemed not to have read that part of my Question, because he did not reply to it. I then asked how many local authorities had reduced their submissions, or made none at all. The Minister told me that only Cheshire had not made an application this year, but he did not tell me which local authorities had submitted fewer applications.
  2054
  There is a fear among local authorities that they might be successful in their submissions and would then be faced with the problem of paying for the service. If they are to carry out the strictures of the Department of the Environment and plan for no growth at all, where will they find the 25 per cent. contribution which they have to make? It will have to come from cuts in other services. The Home Office ought to be examining this problem. If we are asking for no growth from local authorities, we ought to be making 100 per cent. grants for projects worth while and that will make a contribution to urban aid. We should also be spelling out to groups receiving this aid that it is meant to be a priming of the pump.
  One of the sad things is that while a grant is often made for one or two years on the understanding that either the local authority or the local voluntary bodies will take over responsibility for the scheme thereafter, there is an expectation that there will be an annual grant. It ceases to be a pump-priming operation and produces disillusionment, because it is an an ongoing process. I ask the Minister to throw more light on the number of submissions that have been received from the North-West of England and to offer local authorities comfort in their problem of financing schemes.
  9.30 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Irving: My reputation, unlike that of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen), is for brevity, but I congratulate my hon. Friend because he had so much to contribute.
  I have been associated for 15 years with after-care projects and penal reform. I was associated with my hon. Friend in the work carried out in the Bristol area in connection with the Arts Laboratory for deprived youngsters. I am a member of the Gloucester County Council, and I was able to persuade that authority to support an application for urban aid.
  I shall not attempt to chastise the Home Office. I have worked with the Department for many years on after-care projects. Generally speaking, I have found the Department helpful and willing to give almost full support. I am concerned that local authorities are going

  2055
  through a difficult time. The hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) asked whether it was time for the Home Office to have a complete re-examination of Government grants and consider whether it would be wiser to give 100 per cent. grants to projects which meet the criteria.
  I speak with experience as Vice-Chairman for NACRO—the National Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders—and I know the difficulties that exist throughout the country in the provision of after-care projects, lodging houses and homes for ex-offenders and their families and other deprived sections of the community. All those establishments are suffering immense difficulties.
  When NACRO started, about 15 years ago, we were able to raise quite large sums from voluntary sources. Unfortunately, those sources have dried up. Even charitable trusts are finding it difficult to make commitments on the proposals which come to the organisation. I am certain that we have the sympathetic ear of the Minister—
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon)The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) indicated dissent.
  Mr. Irving: The Minister shakes his head, but he does himself a grave injustice. I am sure that he is sympathetic. If he is not, he should be, bearing in mind the position that he occupies.
  I plead with the Minister to re-examine this matter with the greatest possible care. I cannot speak for Liverpool, but I can for many parts of the country where applications are piling up for the provision of accommodation for homeless single people and shelters for the destitute. Unless we can be confident of Home Office support, these projects will fall to the ground.
  Those who live in London know of the miserable and wretched condition of homeless people in this great city. Many night shelters have closed and more are on the point of closing. Unless we can be assured of Government financial support and assistance I fear that there will be a great deterioration in the hostels that remain open and no possibility of opening further hostels in the next four or five years.
  2056
  I add my plea to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree. My eyes sparkled when I heard that the Minister has £800,000 in the kitty. We are not asking for much. When he has given £20,000 to Liverpool I hope that he will give me £100,000 for NACRO.
  9.35 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): The last time the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) and I clashed on this subject, I was somewhat critical of his speech. Tonight, however, I think he has done the House and the country a very distinguished service by a perceptive and revealing speech about the problems of the urban programme which is long overdue and which few hon. Members have his capacity to present.
  But the hon. Member thereby causes me acute embarrassment, because I came to the House tonight to answer an Adjournment debate, which would normally have lasted about half an hour, on the subject that was christened
  "Community alienation through mishandling of urban aid programme funds."
  That might mean a great deal or not very much, but most of the brief I had was about the Liverpool District Council's treatment of the recent application for aid. I can therefore take one of two courses. I can go on for 15 minutes with vapid phrases to cover any embarrassment or I can take a great risk, because this is not my area in the Department. I answer for it in the House but it is not one that I control.
  The hon. Gentleman asked some detailed questions about an administration for which I am not responsible. Nonetheless the programme is part of my thinking as the Minister largely responsible for community relations and immigration. I have therefore given a good deal of thought to what we ought to be doing about it, because those responsibilities are pertinent to the programme.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned the origin of the programme, which was a speech by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in 1968 which followed closely on the famous "rivers of blood" speech. It was designed to indicate a commitment for dealing with the continuing problems

  2057
  of blacks, newly arrived in this country, who were grouped in areas of urban deprivation. Over the years it has widened simply from the black commitment to helpful initiatives on urban deprivation. I believe that it would be better if it were restricted to its original purpose.
  Limited funds are available for the programme and there is very little else in the total structure of public expenditure which is committed specifically to eliminating the problems of black disadvantage, whereas most of the areas which have caused concern in the debate are those where other Departments, or even the Home Office in other areas of its spending, are supposed to provide public funds to help solve the difficulties.
  In talking of the problem of the homeless we are dealing with the general spending programme by the Department of the Environment in conjunction with local authorities. It is to that Department that we should look for initiatives of that kind. The same is true with the problems of educational priority areas. One should be looking to the Department of Education and Science if one is looking to a specific spending Department and specific spending budget for these areas. There are distinctive disadvantages suffered by blacks who have come to this country within the last 30 years, but no part of the total ramifications of public expenditure is peculiar to their problems and not shared by white disadvantaged living in the same areas.
  The problem of housing is common to blacks and whites if they live in a deprived area, but the problem of language is suffered only by new immigrants, and it is to that kind of peculiar extra disadvantage that we ought to be directing our attention within the money available for urban programmes.
  But that has not been the thinking over the years. The thinking over the years has been that tins should be used as the nucleus of experimental programmes to cure the whole problem of urban deprivation. Almost by saying that I condemn what successive Governments have done, because this is a £4 million a year new money programme. The total, as the hon. Gentleman says, is now reaching something like £20 million, but most of that is committed in forward grants which
  2058
  have been made for a period of five years. The new money which becomes available each year is about £4 million, and that will not be enough to deal with the problems of urban deprivation on the massive scale that is required.
  What is required is a new look at total Government spending in both the national sector and the local authority sector, in order to see whether we have our priorities right. It is for that reason that the Government have committed themselves in the comprehensive community programme to looking at the structure of public expenditure, looking for the areas of urban deprivation and at what is being spent at the moment in local authorities, and trying to see whether this can be reconstructed in a way which gives greater scope, even within the same spending programmes, to the urban areas, particularly to the deprived centres of them.
  That is why the CCP idea is fundamental to any total review of the commitment for urban deprivation. Until that is worked out—and at the moment all we have are four experimental programmes which have hardly got off the ground—there cannot really be the kind of comprehensive review of national expenditure which I should dearly like to see, and building into that a specific programme for dealing with black disadvantage.
  Mr. Steen: Is the Minister aware that the community development projects for 1968 were designed to do just what he said should be done now in 1975 in the shape of these comprehensive community programmes, and that the research element—running parallel to the community development project—was designed to evaluate the action side of the work and to present a comprehensive programme?
  Is he further aware that the Secretary of State for the Environment started the four city studies three years ago in different parts of the country solely to develop a comprehensive community programme, that there were then a hundred and one comprehensive action and research projects, and that every successive Minister has said that nothing can be done—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is becoming more than an interruption now. I was afraid of a repeat performance.
  Mr. Lyon: I was about to make the same point, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman took 42 minutes, and it will take me most of the remaining 45 minutes to answer him if he is to repeat the points he made.
  I am well aware of the hon. Gentleman's main point, which is absolutely valid. He could make the criticism not only of this Government but of the Conservative Government. The truth of the matter is that all Governments have avoided the central issue, which in my judgment is one of the most important facing us in politics today—how to restructure Government spending in order to get the benefits to the areas of the country most in need, namely, the urban deprived areas.
  None of us has really faced that commitment. We have toyed with it with various experimental programmes, but the comprehensive community programme is the most enveloping attempt to deal with this problem.
  The community development projects to which the hon. Gentleman referred were a specifically designed attempt to encourage the people of a deprived neighbourhood to use the services available, to find ways of expressing their own needs in their own way, and to put pressure on the authorities. In some areas they have been brilliantly successful in doing that, to such an extent that, as the hon. Gentleman said, they have become something of a nuisance to local authorities.
  On the other hand, the CDPs were not designed to find new resources and they were not designed to find new ways of restructuring the programmes of spending so that a more coherent programme emerged for dealing with the total problem of urban deprivation in those areas. They were designed to teach people how to stand on their own feet and speak for themselves, and they have done that. Now, however, that kind of useful life is coming to an end and, as I have got to the point, perhaps I may reply to the hon. Gentleman about Cleator Moor.
  The trouble with the hon. Gentleman is that he knows an enormous amount about this subject and can make an enormous contribution to our thinking on it, and has done so, but every so often
  2060
  he lapses into party political dogma which spoils the effect of what he is saying. It is not true that all Labour councillors have this squirarchical attitude. It is not true that they are not concerned about community development. Some are not, and need to be condemned, but many are as concerned as the hon. Gentleman is, and the truth of the matter is that in the one CDP that has closed down the decision was made by a Conservative-controlled council.
  It is no good the hon. Gentleman saying that it is all the Government's fault. That decision was made after the Government told all local authorities with responsible CDPs that they were willing to continue aiding them for the full five-year programme if they wanted to put in their 25 per cent. Only one authority decided to close down its CDP, and that was a Conservative-controlled council in Cumbria. I regret that, and I am sorry that the council has taken that view. My hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven (Dr. Cunningham) has been taking a most critical attitude to the decision of the local authority and hopes to put pressure on it to reconsider its decision. I hope that it will reconsider it, because the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that Cleator Moor is an area of deprivation that needs this kind of support.
  The hon. Gentleman made a wider and more incisive criticism of the way in which the urban programme is administered at present, never mind what we ought to do in any future review of it. What we have to consider is what the effect is now. The real difficulty is that the amount of money that is available is far less than the expectations of both the local authorities and the voluntary organisations for dealing with their problems, and every year the circular is well over-subscribed. Usually, as the hon. Gentleman said, there are about six bids for every one that can be financed. This year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) said, the total is down substantially to about £14 million worth of bids, but that will still be a ratio of about three and a half to one of those who will get their bids accepted. I have no doubt that the reason for that is the squeeze on local authority expenditure and the amount of money that local authorities will be able to contribute towards the 25 per cent.

  2061
  I do not think I can accept the suggestion—even if I wanted to, I am certain that the Treasury would not—that there ought to be 100 per cent. funding for the projects, even in this year of economic difficulties, because the whole object of the review of public expenditure as part of the process for tackling the economic crisis is that the economic stringency has to apply not only to local authorities but also to the Government themselves, and all public expenditure programmes are under review. It would make no sense if we were to tell local authorities that they had to consider their expenditure and they therefore took the decision that they could not afford the 25 per cent. contribution, and we made that up from Government expenditure. That would cancel the effects of the review. None the less, it is a painful process for any repicient of Government money whether at local authority or national level.
  I fully understand the anxieties which have been mentioned because of the reduction in expenditure. However, we have received about £14 million worth of bids, which is well over the amount that we shall be able to make available. Therefore, useful work will be done even under the new Circular 14.
  The hon. Member for Wavertree claimed that we had not given any real incentive to local authorities to help voluntary organisations. There is a full paragraph in the circular dealing with voluntary organisations. I shall read it in full for the record:
  "The Government hopes that voluntary organisations will be encouraged to participate in the urban programme. Local authorities are therefore asked to publicise this circular, to consult interested bodies about local needs, to submit schemes to be run wholly or partly by voluntary organisations, and to invite voluntary organisations to discuss proposed projects with appropriate local authority officials before preparing their applications in detail."
  That is the very thing that the hon. Gentleman suggested we ought to tell them. It continues:
  "Since grant aid can be paid by the Home Office only on expenditure incurred by local authorities (either directly on their own services or on financial assistance to voluntary organisations), it is for local authorities to decide in each case whether to seek grant aid on the costs of projects to be run by voluntary organisations. In all cases, approved local authority expenditure will be grant-aided at the rate of 75 per cent. leaving a net cost of 25 per cent. to be met by the local authority."
  2062
  It was on that combination of voluntary organisation, local authority and the Government that the hon. Gentleman centred much of his criticism.
  In the breakdown of the £14 million worth of projects which we have received, the total cost of the proposed capital projects is £11 million, of which £3·8 million is for voluntary projects; that is, between 25 per cent. and 30 per cent. The total recurrent cost of proposed non-capital projects is £3·4 million, of which £1·1 million is for voluntary projects. Therefore, again, about one-third is for voluntary projects.
  A substantial number of the projects which have been put in will be voluntary projects. We shall take due account of that proportion and of the strong hint that we gave in the circular that local authorities ought to back voluntary projects if they can.
  I do not think that at the end of the day either the hon. Gentleman or the voluntary organisations that he espouses will feel that they have done too badly out of the urban aid programme.
  The hon. Gentleman said that the administration of the programme had built up resentment and frustration. All I can say is that as I go round the country I find that this is one of the most popular areas of spending and that the local voluntary organisations find that it is a useful way of helping their initiatives. Those who are refused obviously feel frustrated, but those who manage to come out of the lottery, as the hon. Gentleman described it, feel that it is most useful help from the Government.
  The hon. Gentleman asked why there were no clearer guidelines and, in addition, some involvement of the voluntary organisations at both local and national level in deciding how the money should be spent. The guidelines are to some extent set out in each circular. We indicate the kind of projects which attracted this aid in the past and on which we will be concentrating in the circular. The hon. Gentleman will find that this is set out in some detail in Circular 14.
  We are not precise; we do not claim that we shall take only certain kinds of projects in any one year. If either local authorities or voluntary organisations have interesting ideas to propose which require backing, and those ideas have

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  achieved high priority on the local authority's list, we would normally examine them for new initiatives. This is a sensible way of approaching the matter. We do not do that through any formalised unit. The work is done by civil servants, in conjunction with Ministers, in the same way as any other spending programme is administered by the Government. There is no great magic about it.
  The hon. Member for Wavertree said that he had sought to find out how it was done. It is done in the same way as almost every other spending programme is organised. In addition, it is difficult to envisage how we could build into the decision-making process in the Home Office a committee which would comprise voluntary organisations and which would make the kind of decisions which, in the end, Ministers have to make. Good and bad projects are put forward. If the money were available, all the projects would be desirable. It is simply a question of choice between projects, all of which are desirable. That is the most invidious kind of priority that any Government can be called upon to decide. It is not an easy task.
  Ministers and civil servants spend a good deal of time each year choosing the most desirable projects to push. However, any group of people, whether voluntary organisations or any other group, could come to perfectly respectable decisions that were contrary to the final outcome for each circular. As long as the programme is designed as it is, there is no hope of creating the kind of formal structure that the hon. Gentleman has in mind for liaison between Government and voluntary organisations.
  I seek a more comprehensive programme for dealing, first, with urban deprivation and, secondly, with the black projects, which would bring in the local authorities and thereby the voluntary organisations. The hon. Gentleman must recognise that if voluntary organisations are to flourish in local authority areas, by and large they will work in conjunction with the local authorities. The relationship has to be set at that level.
  The hon. Gentleman is right to say that a most interesting experiment was conducted in Liverpool, whereby this kind
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  of consultation could take place, and that it worked successfully for a number of years. Like him, I deeply regret that this year it did not work. Curiously enough, it did not work because of a decision that was made by the Liberal-controlled city council, which had been voted into power because it believed in community participation. As I know from a recent visit to Liverpool, this has been a matter of the deepest frustration to the voluntary organisations involved in the decision-making process.
  I am sorry that the Liverpool City Council took that view, but the matter was entirely within its discretion. The Government could do nothing about it because, in the final analysis, the urban programme relies upon the local authorities putting forward projects which they deem to be desirable and to which they will contribute 25 per cent. Therefore, though I personally may regret it, I am afraid that there is nothing that I can do about that decision.
  In those circumstances, all I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I think there is a great deal in what he said. We shall certainly look at the existing programme in the light of his criticisms, but for myself I should require a very much more comprehensive reassessment.
  It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. James Hamilton.]
  Mr. Lyon: I think that I am on my last sentence in saying that I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this problem and that we shall keep his criticisms in mind. We shall return to them from time to time to see whether something fruitful comes up.

  RATES (SCOTLAND)
  10.1 p.m.
  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: I am very grateful, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity, on the Adjournment, to raise the question of rates in Scotland. I hope that I am in order, in the absence of a Minister at

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  present, in raising that matter and have your approval, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. and learned Member is in order. Whether he has my approval is quite a different matter.
  Mr. Fairbairn: I have frequently been out of order in my life, and I have frequently been disapproved of. I am anxious on this occasion to be both orderly and approved.
  However, the question of rates in Scotland is probably responsible, more than anything else, for the anger and pain which is reflected in recent voting results. I believe that no political party can ignore the fact that electors will object where they are subject to manifest unfairnesses which a Government are unwilling to correct.
  In raising the matter of rates in Scotland, which is a matter of major concern, and having just listened to a debate on the question of urban deprivation, it is important to consider rural deprivation—although people who live in the country are infinitely more willing to have deprivations which people in the towns would not forbear.
  Nevertheless, may I first say—I hope that the Minister will agree with it—that we are disappointed, but we are not surprised, that when considering anything as important as the British monarchy, which we were this evening, they who so much resent the fact that that is what they wish to destroy were not here to listen to the debate or to vote at the end of it—none of them—and when we are debating the question of rates in Scotland, which is the penalty that almost every Scottish person in town and country has to pay, and which concerns most members of families, more perhaps than any other issue, not one of them has bothered to be in the Chamber? That is the extent of their political interest.
  Mr. Harry Gourlay: Surely the hon. and learned Gentleman is taking a slightly unfair advantage of hon. Members. The subject about which the hon. Gentleman is now speaking was not on the Order Paper for today, and it is quite unfair to challenge hon. Members, either of his side of the House or the Government side, who are not present to hear the debate. It is often deprecated by the
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  Chair that Adjournment debates of this kind are raised without adequate notice.
  Mr. Fairbairn: With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I have so far had no deprecation from the Chair. If the hon. Gentleman and the Minister can have the perspicacity to be here, I do not see why hon. Members of the Scottish National Party should not have the perspicacity to be here. I am delighted, however, to know that there are hon. Members on the Government side of the House who are so concerned with urban deprivation that, in the absence of hon. Members of the Scottish National Party, they are willing to come to their help.
  One of the most dangerous aspects of the present political situation is that Parliament places duties upon local authorities which enable them to increase the numbers of their staff and increase staff salaries without increasing or improving the services they supply. That is what people in my constituency and in all parts of Scotland are frustrated about: in return for the enormously increased contribution they make they get nothing more and, in most cases, much less. People in rural constituencies get fewer buses and fewer services of all kinds, yet in many rural parts of my constituency the rates have increased by as much as 167 per cent.
  Mr. Hector Monro: That is nothing. It is 300 per cent. in my case.
  Mr. Fairbairn: It may be nothing. However, it must be remembered that people in rural areas, who often earn low wages compared with others, or who have worked all their lives and who have retired and who are not on inflation-proof pensions, are asked to pay merely because they had sufficient diligence and sophistication to save and to purchase their own house.
  It must be remembered that education plays a large part in local authority expenditure. The cost of educating one child at a list D school in Scotland is nearly double the cost of educating a child at the most expensive private school in Britain. The cost of educating children in a day school in the State system is infinitely greater than the cost of educating children in a residential

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  school in the private system. This is because there is no proper control over public expenditure.
  Day after day we see advertisements for local authority staff at inflated salaries. A recent newspaper advertisement invited applications for social workers in one region who should be aged 30 and who would receive a starting salary of £6,900 per annum. Is that reasonable and defensible?
  The Government have no proposals for reducing the rate burden on the individual. It is not sufficient for the Governent to ask the Opposition what services we would cut. There is more anger, pain and frustration about this among ordinary people than there is about any other subject. The ordinary citizen cannot pay these desperately high taxes which, together with others, now represent probably 60 per cent. of the income of comparatively poor people. We protest against this situation. Rates, their unfairness and the uncontrolled extravagance of local authorities are as much the cause of public anxiety and disillusionment in Scotland as anything else.
  Mr. Charles Irving: And in England.
  Mr. Fairbairn: And in England, no doubt, but so far those in England have not manifested an emotional absurdity by way of a dustbin of protest in the form of a party like the Scottish National Party. When they do no doubt that party will have a majority in the House.
  We ignore at our peril the fact that we are imposing on individuals and families burdens they cannot bear. It seems unfair to some people that a couple should be able to have a child and put down its cost to their neighbours. It seems unfair that an Asian with 12 children should have a tax-free salary. The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) resents a tax-free salary if it is for royalty, but not if it is for an unemployed Asian immigrant who has never worked in his life and who has 12 children.
  It seems unfair to people that they should bear enormous taxes out of their meagre incomes for services which they do not get. That is the major complaint in Scotland. No doubt the Minister will
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  say that it is all the fault of regionalisation, but it is not. The Government's opportunity is to modify an utterly un-fair increase in all rural areas and in most other areas in Scotland. They have the opportunity to modify it and correct it. They have done nothing, and they are condemned in their failure to relieve everybody in Scotland who is genuinely attempting to provide industry, to work hard and to do his best for his family and his neighbours. It is because those people see this manifest unfairness that there is such resentment in Scotland today. It is not that they are Scottish; it is that they are facing a system which is manifestly unfair and which the Government are utterly unwilling to relieve.
  I hope that the Minister will be, able to say tonight that in order to ensure that the absurdity of nationalism gets no further fuel, the Government will bring forward measures which will fairly relieve the families in Scotland of quite a disproportionate burden.
  10.12 p.m.
  Mr. Hector Monro: I support my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) in his plea for rate relief. This year the rates have escalated astronomically in all parts of Scotland. I think it is right to put on record that the major reason for this is inflation. Under the present Government it has rip-roared away to the extent of 25 per cent. and more, and this is having a devastating effect on the rate burden of local authorities. This is coupled with the fact that over the past two years local authorities have run down their reserves and have cushioned the natural increase which would have taken place in any event in respect of the services which local authorities have been asked to undertake by all Governments for many years but which are becoming increasingly burdensome.
  In an area such as that which I represent, where the rates have increased by anything from 100 per cent. to 300 per cent., I condemn the Government because of the formula of the rate support grant. The Minister knows as well as I do that the formula has been changed so that the rural areas pay disproportionately more than they did before reorganisation, and this is, without doubt, a political ramp so that the urban areas are let off more

  2069
  lightly than rural areas such as mine which bear all the deprivation to which my hon. and learned Friend referred, because in rural areas the services are much thinner on the ground. I hope that the Minister will consider this aspect very carefully in the formula which he may put forward next year.
  I ask the Minister to comment on the ruling given in another place on the question of the sewerage rate. I know that at the moment this affects only England, but all of Scotland has been watching this case, and the people in Scotland feel that if this is so in England it should be similar in Scotland. I know that some authorities are giving cut-price facilities in the way of emptying septic tanks, but this is not a proper alternative to what will now happen in England where those who have not got public sewers will not have to pay the rates on that service. I hope the Government will look at this point very carefully.
  Mr. Gourlay Mr. Gourlay rose—
  Mr. Monro: We are very short of time. There are two issues on which I should like the Minister to comment—the sewerage rate and the gerrymandering of the rate support grant formula which meant a disproportionate amount of additional expense for rural communities.
  Mr. Hamish Gray: Would not my hon. Friend agree that it would be better for the Government to await the report of the Layfield Committee before starting to make wild changes in the rate support grant formula? At the present time, rural areas are suffering unreasonably because the Government have not waited for the report.
  Mr. Monro: That is a very fair point, but I appreciate that local authorities have to announce their rates in the spring and it is very doubtful whether the report could be studied in enough depth to enable the Minister to come to a decision by that time. The Government should be severely criticised for allowing inflation to go on as it has done—it is a root cause of the rise in rates—and for gerrymandering in relation to the rate support grant.
  10.16 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Harry Ewing): I thank the hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) for having given me notice that he intended to raise the subject of Scottish rates if time was available. I wish to place on record the fact that he gave me adequate notice. We have had a short, interesting and important debate. I wish first to spell out some facts of the past year in relation to rates in Scotland.
  The members of the two parties represented here tonight are very much aware of the rate burden placed on Scottish ratepayers, and we are all equally concerned about it. No one has a monopoly of concern. The problem has seriously perplexed me in the past year. It is not long since I was sitting on the Benches opposite, and I remember the industrial dispute which led to teachers in Scotland receiving what was considered to be a relatively substantial increase in salary. I remember the Scottish National Party telling teachers "If only you would vote for us, you could have all you want, and more." Now that party does not have the courage to tell the Scottish ratepayers that such settlements have to be paid for.
  The hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) is entitled to refer to inflation, though that has not taken place only under this Government; it was accelerating at a rapid rate when we came to power. However, there is something slightly immoral about a party that tells ratepayers that it is right that teachers should have an adequate salary and then turns to those ratepayers and suggests that the settlement does not have to be paid for, and that rates should be lower. These two things do not go together.
  There are many other services in Scotland, borne by the rates, in which improvements have been made, quite rightly, over the past year. They have to be paid for, and it is politically dishonest to pretend to people that services can be improved without that having any effect on their pockets. That is simply not true.
  I do not wish to take unfair advantage of the absence of the SNP tonight. In the last two days I have come to understand that certain sections of the Scottish Press have grown rather sensitive to the

  2071
  House taking unfair advantage of the nationalist Members.
  Mr. Monro: Poor chaps!
  Mr. Ewing: I want to place on record the fact that I have had countless letters complaining about rates and saying that the SNP are doing this and doing that, yet when we have the opportunity to debate the matter, albeit for only 30 minutes, the SNP decides not to be here—to absent itself from this important debate.
  I shall leave the SNP and its dreams for a minute. I had hoped that in discussing public expenditure, of which rates are an element, the hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire might at least have referred to the staggering increase in legal aid costs, because I am sure that that is something on which the hon. and learned Member is an expert.
  Mr. Fairbairn: The increases in legal aid do not apply to my half of the profession. Those who instruct my half of the profession do very badly, as the Minister will appreciate if he knows what Section 13(2) is about.
  Mr. Ewing: The hon. and learned Member is saying that he does not pull the teeth; he only makes the dentures.
  I return to the question of local government and the effect that local government reorganisation has had on rate-borne expenditure in Scotland. It was not this Government that introduced reorganisation of local government. Many of us regretted that when the Wheatley Commission was established it had no remit to deal with local government finance.
  This brings me to the point raised by the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray). The Layfield Committee is sitting at the moment. No one knows when it will report, or what it is likely to suggest for the reorganisation of local government finance. In view of that, it would be wise for the House to wait and see what it proposes, and if something constructive and productive should come from it I am sure that that would be given sympathetic and serious consideration by everyone. We are all most anxious to find a solution to the ever-growing problem of the burden on Scottish ratepayers.
  Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: The Minister is correct in saying that we are looking forward to the report of the Layfield Committee. He is dealing with this debate in a constructive way, but, pending the publication of the report, will he urge his right hon. Friends, in the context of the rate support grant, to consider how the burden falls on different areas? Many of us feel that the formula under which the rate support grant is settled could be fairer in the interim period pending Layfield.
  Mr. Ewing: I shall be coming to that point, but before I do I want to deal with the distorted picture presented recently in Scotland over what happened in local government during 1974–75. There have been statements that Scotland did not receive the same degree of additional rate support revenue as England and Wales did. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor), who is not present—I do not say this facetiously—has been one of the most guilty people in making such a statement when he of all people should have known much better.
  The truth is that in 1974–75 the rate support grant included an element for the reorganisation of local government. The assistance given to Scottish local authorities in the past year was 74 per cent. of all rateborne expenditure. I find it difficult to see how a Government can go much beyond 74 per cent. I do not want to be held to be absolutely accurate on this, but, in round figures, of the £1,100 million required to finance local government in Scotland in 1974–75 the Government contributed about £800 million. That is no small amount of the total bill for local authorities in that year.
  In the year that special relief was given there was in Scotland the same degree of relief for every local authority which had rate increases of over 20 per cent. I can name local authorities which received it. The old Stirling town council and the old Falkirk town council in my constituency both received additional relief as a result of the Government's action in early 1974 when we came to power. Therefore, it is not correct to say that the same relief was not made available to Scotland as was made available to England.

  2073
  I come to the present situation. The House will not expect me to deal with the Rate Support Grant Order for 1975–76 which is due to be laid before the House in the very near future and which will itself provide an opportunity for debate. The points raised tonight about how the 1975–76 rate support grant is to be distributed throughout Scotland are the sort of points that hon. Members will be able to raise then.
  But I say immediately that although the views expressed by hon. Members present now, who represent rural constituencies, may hold some validity in their own eyes, opposite views are already being expressed in urban constituencies. Hon. Members representing rural constituencies may find it very difficult to convince those on both sides of the House who represent urban constituencies. In each of the four years for which I have been a Member, the same argument about
  2074
  distribution between rural and urban areas has been advanced when the Rate Support Grant Order has been presented by Governments of both parties. Some change is being made in the year ahead, but that will be a matter for debate on the night when the Order is laid.
  We shall examine the ruling in the other place about the sewerage rate and see what it means for Scotland.
  I am grateful for the opportunity to reply to this debate, and I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for the constructive manner in which it has been conducted.
  The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.