Commons Sitting of 27 November 1975

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MOTORWAYS
Address for Return
of the Report by George Corderoy and Company to the Department of the Environment on the findings of an investigation into aspects of the measurement and financial control on the Gloucester—Cheltenham section of the M5, and the Report thereon by the Department of the Environment.—[Mr. Carmichael.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Prisons (Rooftop Demonstrations)
    Mr. Stephen Rossasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is satisfied that all possible steps are taken at Her Majesty's prisons to prevent inmates from gaining access to rooftops in order to demonstrate.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): Precautions are taken in every prison to prevent inmates from gaining access to the roof, and these are kept under continuous review. Any case where the precautions are found to be insufficient is specially investigated to see what further measures are necessary.
    Mr. Ross: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that answer, but I am not entirely satisfied with it. Can she confirm that at the recent demonstration at Wormwood Scrubs prisoners got on to the roof by way of scaffolding, and can she also confirm that that was precisely the way in which prisoners got on to the roof at Parkhurst in my constituency a year ago? Does the hon. Lady not think that
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    further precautions should be taken? As this is an expensive exercise, with the throwing down of slates, which cost a great deal to replace, does not she think that prisons should be roofed with rather less expensive materials?
    Dr. Summerskill: It is the case that scaffolding was erected inside D Hall of Wormwood Scrubs for essential building work and that three prisoners used the scaffolding to break through the security mesh on a window which would not normally have been accessible. Although precautions will continue to be taken and new measures introduced when necessary, building repairs will still sometimes have to be carried out, and every effort will be made to see that this does not make it possible for prisoners to gain access to the roof.
    Mr. Lipton: Is my hon. Friend aware that short of having one warder to watch each prisoner for 24 hours a day it is impossible to guarantee that, now and again, something untoward will not happen?
    Dr. Summerskill: That is true. My hon. Friend is quite right, in that there is a great shortage of staff. Every effort is made to see that when building work is going on there is special surveillance of the prisoners. Special security measures are taken, such as seeing that all interior doors and doors giving access to the roofs of prisons are secured, and special wire is used to protect vulnerable areas.
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: As scaffolding is not erected where it should be, and is erected where it should not be, and by using it prisoners gain access to roofs, will the Home Office ensure that in future when prisoners do gain access to the roof they are cleared off quickly, with fire hoses, instead of being allowed to remain there for a long time to do immense damage, for which taxpayers and not the prisoners themselves have to pay?
    Dr. Summerskill: In 1975 there have been only six incidents, throughout our prisons, of prisoners being on the roofs. The object is to ensure that there is no threat to security, and that there is no danger to the staff or prisoners. The practice of leaving the prisoner to come down voluntarily has proved successful in every case.

    Charity Commissioners
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to send an official reply to the Committee which reported some time ago on the work of the Charity Commissioners.
    Dr. Summerskill: We are studying the recommendations made in the recent report from the Expenditure Committee, but would prefer to defer our reply until we have also seen the report of the committee set up by the National Council of Social Services to study this subject from the standpoint of the voluntary organisations themselves.
    Mr. Hamilton: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that this was an all-party report, unanimously agreed to by the subcommittee and the full Expenditure Committee? It is clear, is it not, that there are considerable abuses within the charity field, not least of which is regarding public schools such as Eton and Harrow as charities? If there are to be cuts in public expenditure would not that be a good place to start, since it would save considerable sums of money for taxpayers at central level and for local ratepayers who have to foot half the rate bill for these expensive and exclusive educational establishments?
    Dr. Summerskill: I agree with my hon. Friend. This was a unanimous report, and a valuable one, with more than 20 separate recommendations, so it is important that we give it careful study.
    Mr. Steen: Is the Minister aware that her right hon. Friend could save many neighbourhood and community self-help organisations which are threatened with extinction as a result of the no-growth phase of local government expenditure next year, by supporting the setting up of non-profit-making voluntary bodies that would have the advantages of the financial awards enjoyed by charitable organisations?
    Dr. Summerskill: That is obviously one of the points concerning our whole examination of charity law which we shall take into consideration before we make final decisions.

    Deportees (Prison Conditions)
    Mr. Atkinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfid with the conditions in prison of those awaiting deportation; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): In general, yes, although efforts are being made to improve them.
    Mr. Atkinson: Does my hon. Friend not agree that the time has come to draw aside the curtains which heavily veil this dark corner of our society, where men and women are whisked away for long periods and locked up either in Holloway or in Pentonville for up to five months at a time, without trial and without appeal? Should we not do something about this in order to gain much more respect for our kind of society and our way of dealing with such problems?
    Mr. Lyon: I am very concerned—I am glad that my hon. Friend shares the concern—about the amount of time that people spend in detention awaiting deportation while their cases are being reviewed, but one difficulty is that we take the most careful note of representations made to us, particularly by Members of Parliament, which frequently takes a long time. In the case with which my hon. Friend is most concerned—that which lasted five months—he knows that I investigated his representations at great length.
    Mr. Lane: To put the record straight after the wild question of the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson), will the Minister confirm that great care is taken by those responsible, whether in Harmondsworth, Pentonville or Hollo-way, to see that, at a time when it is unavoidable for individuals to be kept in detention, conditions are made as civilised for them as possible?
    Mr. Lyon: I know that the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is difficult to describe the conditions in Pentonville or in Harmondsworth as civilised. I should like a situation in which we did not need to use either, but, as long as we do, we certainly do our best to make the situation tolerable.

    Terrorism
    Mr Arnoldasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is satisfied with the existing arrangements for co-operation between the police and security services in the hand ling of information received from the general public to combat terrorism.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Roy Jenkins): Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Arnold: But it is not the case that outside the metropolitan area there is no formalised procedure? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a further extension of such co-operation to the regions would be in the public interest?
    Mr. Jenkins: I have no reason to think that such co-operation is not equally good outside the metropolitan area and within it. The formalisation of relationships is not necessarily always a guarantee of their success, but I should not wish to go further, because I think that the hon. Gentleman and others will recognise that it has long been a practice for the House not to have detailed discussion of security matters.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we were very glad to hear the Under-Secretary of State say, last night, that chief officers of police would have all the necessary funds to reward those giving information about terrorism?
    Mr. Jenkins: I take note of what the hon. Gentleman says. What chief officers of police think desirable here will be available to them. I should point out that the point of view taken by the hon. and learned Member for Ruislip-North-wood (Mr. Crowder) is rejected strongly by nearly all chief officers of police.
    Mr. Peter Morrisonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will bring forward legislation to reintroduce capital punishment for those who are found guilty of acts of terrorism.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: No, Sir.
    Mr. Morrison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is respect for his personal point of view on this matter but that, due to the deterioration in the situa-
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    tion in this country, the overwhelming majority of people, including erstwhile abolitionists, believe that a return to capital punishment for terrorism is not just desirable but essential?
    Mr. Jenkins: It is in no way a question of my personal point of view. As it stands at the moment, it is a question of the decision of the House, taken, I believe, with great responsibility in the early aftermath of the worst of the incidents that we have had—the Birmingham incidents—and taken by a very large majority—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—that is undeniable—and taken, I believe, because the majority of the House took the view, as I still do, that this is not a matter in which one should allow old prejudices or traditional views to sway one. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"] I should have thought that that was a sensible point of view. I was putting the point of view against any view that I had previously held. I believe that in present circumstances one should consider, in the hardest and most objective way possible, whether the return of the death penalty would reduce the danger from terrorism. It is my judgment that it would not so do.
    Mr. Christopher Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the recent quashing of the verdicts in the Confait case is an uncomfortable reminder that guilty murder verdicts in our courts do not always correspond to the truth and that this scandalous case should cause us to go slowly in returning to a penalty which is quite irreversible even if it is discovered that a mistake has been made?
    Mr. Jenkins: I know that some hon. Members believe that particular considerations apply to terrorist charges, but in the two periods in which I have been Home Secretary I have certainly had to deal with an uncomfortably large number of capital decisions in which there was doubt, or in which doubt was shown to exist. This is bound to give one cause for doubt about such an ultimate penalty.
    Mr. Fairbairn: Leaving aside the question of the death penalty, which involves immense difficulties regardless of the crime for which it is considered appropriate, will the right hon. Gentleman nevertheless give confidence to the public by invoking the fact that life imprisonment, which is the penalty prescribed under Section 3 of the Felony Treason Act 1848

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    as appropriate for these very crimes, shall be imposed in such cases and shall mean life imprisonment and nothing less?
    Mr. Jenkins: I shall certainly reiterate the words that I used a year ago and say that, while no Home Secretary and no Parliament can bind their successors, is is certainly my view that anyone imprisoned for life or for a long term for terrorist offences, who believes that life will be nine years or anything like it, or that an early amnesty is in prospect, is gravely mistaken. In my view, people who commit such crimes should expect to serve very long periods indeed.
    Mr. Gowasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is satisfied with the measures taken by his Department to combat terrorism.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: Yes, Sir. The police are, of course, our main defence against terrorism, and they know that they have my fullest support in their efforts to combat terrorism and detect those responsible for terrorist outrages. As I said in the House yesterday, I am always willing to consider additional measures which are both practical and effective.
    Mr. Gow: Is the Home Secretary aware that many of us who are convinced abolitionists in respect of non-terrorist murder believe that murder by terrorism is a uniquely evil crime that requires a unique punishment? Secondly, in view of the widespread respect in which the Home Secretary is held in the country, will he consider making a ministerial broadcast urging on all the people the importance of giving the police any information which may assist them in tracking down terrorists?
    Mr. Jenkins: I note the views that the hon. Gentleman expressed in the first part of his question. He will know that he had an exchange on the matter earlier this afternoon. I do not think that there is anything that I can usefully add. As for the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I made a ministerial broadcast a year ago, in the circumstances then prevailing. I would certainly always consider making another ministerial broadcast if I were persuaded that it would be helpful. I will, of course, consider the hon. Gentleman's proposal.
    Mr. Bates: Does not my right hon. Friend think that the use of capital
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    punishment in these circumstances would simply turn miserable murderers into martyrs?
    Mr. Jenkins: I deployed a whole variety of arguments to the House a year ago, and I shall deploy them to the House again, if necessary. My hon. Friend's point is, perhaps, one of the arguments which convinced me that we should exacerbate and not cure this problem by a resort to capital punishment.

    Firearms Control
    Mr. Scottasked the Secretary of State for the Home Office Department whether he will set up an inquiry into the workings of firearms control.
    Dr. Summerskill: The controls were examined in 1971 and 1972 by a working party under the chairmanship of the then Chief Inspector of Constabulary, whose findings were incorporated in the 1973 Green Paper, The Control of Firearms in Great Britain—Cmnd. 5297. We see no need for a further inquiry at this stage.
    Mr. Scott: Does the hon. Lady accept that although there was some controversy about the shotgun recommendations of that Green Paper it also contained a number of sensible and universally welcomed suggestions for tightening up firearms control and making the job of the police much easier? Is there any excuse for delaying this still further?
    Dr. Summerskill: We certainly see the need for some new legislation to control the situation regarding shotguns, but there are still many controversial matters to clear up and at the moment there is no parliamentary time for specific legislation.
    Mr. Farr: Does the hon. Lady agree that if a standing advisory committee were set up to advise the Home Office on firearms matters it could be doing a lot of useful work now? It could be receiving suggestions from the public, the police and other authorities, and it could pave the way for a better attempt at legislation the next time.
    Dr. Summerskill: An advisory committee might be indicated if new legislation were to give my right hon. Friend flexible powers to alter the way in which the controls operate. Then there could be continuing consultation with the

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    police and other interested bodies about the exercise of such powers.

    Legal Aid Applications (False Declarations)
    Mr. McCrindleasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many convictions were obtained for the most recently available year for the making of false declarations and other frauds to obtain legal aid.
    Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I regret this information is not available: the criminal statistics do not distinguish frauds in relation to criminal legal aid applications from certain other types of fraud.
    Mr. McCrindle: Is the Minister aware of the very real disquiet which has suddenly become evident among the public in this matter? Does he understand that some members of the public cannot quite appreciate why seemingly well-heeled individuals should be able to obtain legal aid while others, who are, on the face of it, much more deserving, fail to do so? At the very least, will the Minister recognise that there is a need for re-educating the public if the legal aid system is not to fall into disrepute?
    Mr. Lyon: I try to do my best, in my replies to letters on this subject, to educate members of the public in this matter. There is a distinction between civil and criminal legal aid. In criminal legal aid the application has to be decided quickly and, therefore, there is not always an opportunity for the Supplementary Benefits Commission to do the exhaustive investigation of means that always takes place before a civil legal aid application is granted. However, if later examination shows that there has been any kind of false representation about means, the matter can always be remedied by the court when it make an award about the contribution that the accused has to make to the Legal Aid Fund.
    Mr. Ashley: Will my hon. Friend consider handing over the whole of the legal aid system to an independent commission and thus take it out of the hands of the Law Society, because that body is not particularly well suited to handle the legal aid system? Its primary concern is to defend the interests of solicitors and lawyers.
    Mr. Lyon: I shall think about that interesting suggestion, although it does not really come within my ambit. Civil legal aid is dealt with under a scheme administered by the Law Society, and that society is responsible to the Lord Chancellor. However, the criminal legal aid system is dealt with through the courts, and for that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is responsible. From time to time we have considered the possibility of setting up an advisory committee on criminal legal aid, but for various reasons that has been rejected. I shall certainly consider my hon. Friend's suggestion.

    Prison Sentences (Appeals)
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications he is now considering for appeals to be heard against allegedly unfair sentences.
    Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: On the assumption that my right hon. Friend means cases in which representations have been made to us alleging wrongful conviction, I regret that this information could not be provded without disproportionate effort.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Minister aware that there is intolerable delay in considering appeals? For instance, in the Confait case the Catford boy's family and friends had to wait two years before an appeal was heard. Is my hon. Friend not aware that these delays cause considerable anguish to families and friends? What is being done to improve the speed with which these appeals are considered? In particular, what is being done to speed up the appeal of George Davis?
    Mr. Lyon: My hon. Friend seems to be labouring under some misapprehension, and to have confused an appeal to the Court of Appeal with a representation to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that there has been a miscarriage of justice. The Davis case is subject to the normal laws relating to appeals to the Court of Appeal. The appeal has not been heard. It is sub judice, and the first time that my right hon. Friend would have any right to make any representations about it would be after it has been heard by the Court of Appeal.

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    It took a long time for the Department to consider the various representations made about the Confait case because we exhaustively examined every detail of it. Although I cannot give an accurate estimate, the Department receives about 4,000 representations a year in respect of cases of alleged wrongful conviction. That is bound to put a strain upon the staff of the Department.
    Mrs. Knight: Will the Minister confirm my observations, which are the result of the large number of letters that I have received from persons currently being detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, that over 90 per cent. of prisoners believe that they have been given an unjust sentence? Will he accept my sympathy at the administrative problems involved?
    Mr. Lyon: I am bound to agree with the hon. Lady. I remember that when I was at the Bar I never had a client who did not think that he had been wrongfully convicted.

    Ian Brady (Hunger Strike)
    Mr. Whiteheadasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what instructions Ian Brady has been force-fed whilst on hunger strike in prison.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: The responsible medical officer has decided, on the basis of his professional judgment, that Ian Brady should be fed artificially. The use of force has not, I understand, arisen.
    Mr. Whitehead: Does my right hon. Friend accept that most hon. Members thought that after his courageous decision in the case of the Price sisters, the practice of artificial feeding as a response to hunger strikes was ended? As this man knows that his crime means that he cannot be released from prison for many years, if ever, cannot it be made clear to him that his requests for better treatment in prison must be considered on their merits and in terms of his own protection from other prisoners, and that the response to a hunger strike will not result in artificial feeding?
    Mr. Jenkins: His requests for better treatment in prison will certainly be considered on their merits and not in relation to any hunger strike activities.
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    On the wider point that my hon. Friend has raised, in my statement of July last year I made it clear that there was nothing in the Prison Rules or in the expectations of the Home Office that medical officers should feed prisoners artificially when they went on hunger strike. I also made it clear that I could not interpose myself between the clinical judgment of a doctor and his patient. I completed a reply to a supplementary question by saying:
    "Perhaps the best way to sum it up is that I hope in future a medical officer confronted with a prisoner who is going on hunger strike will treat him in the prison as nearly as possible in the way in which a doctor would treat a free man or woman outside prison."—[Official Report, 17th July 1974; Vol. 877, c. 453.]
    That remains my decision.
    Mr. Beith: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that those who supported the announcement that he made believe that it is implicit in that announcement that neither he nor the prison authorities have any obligation at all to prolong the life of someone such as Brady against his determined wishes to be on hunger strike?
    Mr. Jenkins: That is exactly the position. I agree with the hon. Gentleman. But I cannot interpose a clinical judgment between a doctor and his patient, whether the patient be inside or outside prison.

    Police (Complaints)
    Mr. Jesselasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many complaints have been made against the police in the last 12 months for which figures are available, expressed in absolute figures and as a percentage of the total number of police.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: In 1974 the police in England and Wales received 17,454 complaints—that is, approximately 17 complaints for every 100 officers.
    Mr. Jessel: As the number of complaints, which may not all be valid, is so small compared with the total number of police, and as the police have such exacting duties nowadays, would it not be better for the Home Secretary to support the police in every possible way rather than to propose a new and expensive measure which would facilitate and

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    foster complaints against the police, and so pander to criminal elements?
    Mr. Jenkins: No, I hardly agree with the hon. Gentleman on any point. The number of complaints is not small compared to the number of police—17,000 is a large number. What was small was the number of substantiated complaints, which was 1,141. This was the view taken by my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Carshalton (Mr. Carr). We can help to sustain the police, which I am dedicated to doing, by ensuring that justice is not only done but is seen to be done. That has been broadly accepted in this House and is now broadly accepted in the police service. The enactment of police complaints legislation—I hope to get an early Second Reading for the Police Bill—will, seen in perspective, strengthen and not weaken the police.
    Mr. Corbett: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there has been a general welcome at all levels of the police force for his proposal to introduce an independent element into the complaints procedure?
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have my own sources of information within the police force and, broadly speaking, they agree that this is a necessary step forward.
    Mr. Alison: Will the Home Secretary recognise that at a time when good police morale is a vital ingredient of wider public well-being, this morale could be seriously damaged if the impression were given that chief officers were not fitted to play a major rôle in vital matters of discipline in their own forces?
    Mr. Jenkins: That is the reason, as the hon. Gentleman who is the assistant Opposition spokesman on this matter will be aware, why I have been careful to reserve the position of chief officers—I have treated the deputy the same as the chief officer for this purpose—in the initial investigation of complaints, when the chief officer acts as the disciplinary authority.

    Shrewsbury Picket
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has yet replied to the letter from Amnesty International regarding Des
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    Warren, the imprisoned Shrewsbury trade unionist
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: Yes, Sir. I have acknowledged to Amnesty International that its decision was not to adopt Mr. Warren as a prisoner of conscience. It has made no formal judgment on the question whether or not he is a political prisoner. There is, of course, no provision in English law for a prisoner to be treated as a political prisoner.
    Mr. Skinner: Is it not a fact, however, that Amnesty International was more than a little upset about the fact that the Home Secretary had given the impression to the outside world that it had refused to adopt Des Warren as a political prisoner when, in fact, things were somewhat different? Will my right hon. Friend be prepared to have another look at this case and set up an inquiry based on some new photographic evidence that shows quite conclusively that the man who was supposed to have been seriously injured, a man by the name of Grocott, was present at meetings, in perfectly good health, long after he was supposed to have been injured as a result of what, as he said, the pickets had done during the course of the strike concerned? Does not my right hon. Friend agree that if there is new evidence of this kind a full-scale inquiry should take place to establish the facts, based on these new photographs?
    Mr. Jenkins: My hon. Friend has asked a large number of questions. In so far as there was any question of misunderstanding with Amnesty International, it arose directly out of the question which he put to me previously which was based on a direct misunderstanding on his part.
    Mr. Skinner: No.
    Mr. Jenkins: Perhaps my hon. Friend will listen for a moment. What he said was:
    "Is it not about time that the Home Secretary recognised that Des Warren is a political prisoner, nothing more and nothing less…. That is why Amnesty International has taken up Des Warren's case."—[Official Report, 16th October 1975; Vol. 0897, c. 1575.]
    What Amnesty International said was that it had decided not to adopt him as a prisoner of conscience but had made no decision one way or the other about his being a political prisoner. As will be clear from what I have read to the House,

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    my hon. Friend's question on the previous occasion was based on an entirely false premise, and in so far as misunderstanding arose, I refuted the false conclusion that my hon. Friend drew from the false premise. I have made the position clear to Amnesty International, and there is no further difficulty about this matter.
    As regards the further points raised by my hon. Friend, in any case, matters of new evidence which has not been before the courts will always be considered in order to show whether they are something which would justify a reference, but these must be matters of new evidence and not matters of opinion on old facts.
    Sir D. Walker-Smith: I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has just said about new evidence. However, will he confirm that this conviction followed the normal and objective processes of our criminal trial system, which processes would not be available in every other country where they might be wanted but could not be secured by a person charged with this sort of offence?
    Mr. Jenkins: I have made so many statements on various aspects of this case which make it clear that I believe that this is a case where the rule of law and the courts should be upheld that I cannot believe that any further statement of mine would add to the case in any way.
    Mr. Faulds: Considering the hundreds of thousands of genuine political prisoners throughout the world, would it not be heartening if some of our colleagues could lift their eyes occasionally from such parochial, petty and piddling horizons?

    County and District Councils
    Edmund Marshallasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance Her Majesty's Government have given the Local Government Boundary Commission for England about the numbers of members of county and district councils in relation to the reviews of electoral arrangements now being undertaken by the Commission.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: No directions have been given to the Commission on this matter. The criteria promulgated by the Commission in December 1973 as a guide to local authorities when drawing up
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    proposals for revised schemes of representation were:

    members

    County Councils

    60–100

    Metropolitan district councils

    50–80

    Non-metropolitan district councils

    30–60

    Dr. Marshall: Is not the size of a local council a key factor for determining the effectiveness of democracy in local government? Does my right hon. Friend, therefore, agree that the criteria laid down by the Boundary Commission are the best criteria?
    Mr. Jenkins: I would not wish to get anywhere near giving a direction. However, what I can tell my hon. Friend and the House is that I think that the Boundary Commission regards these guidelines as being fairly tentative. It is prepared to consider the matter flexibly and to receive representations, particularly from the larger areas, on the question whether a larger size would be justified.
    Mr. Farr: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the big difference in the expenses and attendance allowance being claimed by district and county councils? In some parts of the country some district councils are claiming thousands of pounds for such allowances, cheek by jowl with councils for which nothing has been claimed. Will the right hon. Gentleman urge some restraint on the claims by some councils?
    Mr. Jenkins: That is entirely a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
    Mr. John Evans: Does my right hon. Friend accept that many councillors who are at present absolutely fed up with being everyone's whipping boy are appalled by the suggestion that there should be any further reduction in their numbers, because of the already arduous work that they do? Does he accept the views of the Metropolitan District Authorities Association that this matter should be postponed? Is he also prepared to accept that the question of boundary reorganisation should be postponed indefinitely, until such time as a decision has been made on the question whether there should be regional councils for England?
    Mr. Jenkins: If councillors were fed up with being everyone's whipping boy, I am not sure that they would remain

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    keen to be councillors. However, it is desirable that they should do so. As I have indicated, the Boundary Commission has expressed the view and, indeed, in discussions with local councils has made it clear, that it is open to representations about the appropriate size of councils, particularly in large areas. I do not think that it would be right to postpone the operation of the Boundary Commission in relation to part of the job which it has not yet completed.

    Sexual Offences
    David Steelasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects the Criminal Law Revision Committee to report on its review of the law relating to sexual offences; and if he will report on his progress in setting up a policy advisory committee on sexual offences.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: The review of the law on sexual offences in England and Wales has only just begun and it is far too early to forecast when the committee is likely to report. I am now setting up the Policy Advisory Committee and hope to announce the names of members shortly.
    Mr. Steel: Following the publicity given to the recent tragic case involving a bishop, does not the Home Secretary agree that pending these reports it would be a sound principle if prosecutions took place only where some member of the public had been offended and a complaint had been made? Does not he feel that the police have better things to do than spend time seeking out these rather pathetic cases of elderly men misbehaving themselves?
    Mr. Jenkins: As the hon. Gentleman will know, while criminal law is a matter for me and, with the approval and support of the House, a matter in respect of which it is for the Home Office to make proposals, the prosecution process is not such a matter. I do not, therefore, think that I ought to fall into the temptation of commenting on the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what discussions he has had recently with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services about the tragic incidents which have hit
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    the Press in recent days, relating to people released—quite wrongly in my view—from psychiatric hospitals?
    Mr. Jenkins: That is clearly an important question, but it hardly arises on this Question. However, we have the benefit of the Butler Report, which has been delivered to my right hon. Friend and myself. This will be of considerable assistance in avoiding difficulties such as those which have come to public notice and which we are all extremely anxious to avoid. We well understand the public concern about these matters. However, as has also been pointed out, it is not possible to proceed entirely without risk without having a position in which we would have, as someone has said, not one Broadmoor but a new Broadmoor built every few years to supplement the existing one. A balance must be struck, and, of course, we shall endeavour to strike a better balance than has been struck by successive Governments and successive Ministers responsible over recent years.

    Rape
    Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has yet received the Report of the Heilbron Committee; and if he intends to introduce legislation to amend the law relating to rape.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have received the Report of Mrs. Justice Heilbron's Advisory Group and hope to publish it before the Christmas Recess. I shall report to the House when the Government have considered the group's recommendations.
    Mr. Ashley: If, after he has studied the Heilbron Report, my right hon. Friend considers bringing in legislation to amend the law relating to rape, will he bear in mind the need to embody three important principles—first, that the woman's name should never be publicly disclosed; secondly, that the woman's sex life is utterly irrelevant to the question whether she was raped and, therefore, should not be used against her in a court; and, thirdly, that an accused man should be required to have reasonable grounds for any claim he puts forward that the woman consented?
    Mr. Jenkins: I think that my hon. Friend will agree that the most useful thing we can do now is to wait and see

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    what are the committee's recommendations on matters such as those he has mentioned. I set up the committee at short notice, and it has done its work.
    Mr. Mayhew: Should it not be understood that unless we wish to depart from the general principle that there is no guilty act unless it is committed with a guilty mind, the law regarding rape should not be amended in the third instance put forward by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley)?
    Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Gentleman also should wait and see what, within a matter of a few weeks now, the committee will have to say.

    Hotels (Fire Precautions)
    Mr. Pardoeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he proposes to take to ensure that the inspection of hotels and boarding houses under the Fire Precautions Act 1971 is completed within the near future.
    Dr. Summerskill: The enforcement of the Act is a matter for the fire authorities, which, within the limits of their resources, are proceeding as rapidly as they can.
    Mr. Pardoe: Is the hon. Lady aware that the inspections and surveys by personnel of the fire departments throughout the country have proved to be far more time-consuming than was supposed when the House passed the Act? Does she agree that we are now a long way behind the schedule which the Home Office wished to follow when it introduced this Act? What steps does she propose to take to speed matters up?
    Dr. Summerskill: The rate of progress in any fire authority is dependent upon the size of the fire prevention staff and the number of premises falling within the scope of the Act. I regret that in the light of current restrictions on local authority expenditure there can be no expectation, in the near future, of increasing the level of fire service manpower for the specific purpose of implementing the requirements of the Fire Precautions Act.
    Mr. Jim Spicer: I accept that there has been a slowing down of the programme of inspection, but does the hon.
    1036
    Lady accept that a tremendous amount of hardship is involved for a large number of small hotels and boarding houses throughout the country? Can she hold out any hope to those responsible for running such establishments that longer-term loans—I stress "loans", not grants—will be available to help these people keep open their premises, to help our tourist trade, particularly from overseas?
    Dr. Summerskill: I appreciate that there are financial difficulties facing hotels and boarding houses, which are already suffering from inflation and rising costs, but there have been tax reliefs and there is a loan scheme. Unfortunately, in the present economic situation it is difficult to justify further financial assistance.

  PRIME MINISTER (VISITS)
  Mr. David Steelasked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to Hawick.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I have at present no plans to do so, Sir.
  Mr. Steel: Having read the Government's White Paper on devolution this morning, may I ask the Prime Minister if he is aware that I am greatly relieved by that reply? May I inform him that he might be well advised to stay out of Scotland for a very long time, until the rage and fury have died down? Is he aware that although many of us expected the powers outlined in the White Paper to be less than we would wish, none of us had any idea that the Government would propose that Westminster should retain a political veto over the whole range of functions devolved to Scotland and at the same time increase the powers of the Secretary of State, and include even those of the Governor-General of Australia? Will the Prime Minister, between now and the publication of the Bill, enter into serious inter-party talks on the inadequacies of this document?
  The Prime Minister: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the speed of his reading but not on the perception that he brought to it. If this is what he feels on a first quick reading, I am very surprised at the squalor of his deal with the Conservatives who took a very different

  1037
  view of devolution when they voted on Tuesday night—[Interruption.] It is a matter for the hon. Gentleman's conscience.
  As regards the last and serious part of the hon. Gentleman's question, our idea in publishing this very full White Paper is that it should promote a national debate—by "national", I mean not only in Scotland and in Wales but throughout the United Kingdom—so that the Government can take account of the views expressed in the national debate as well as in debate in the House in relation to the Bill that will be presented to the House in this Session.
  Mr. Dalyell: As the Labour candidate for Hawick in 1959, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether there might not be more people interested in a railway line for Hawick to Edinburgh than in an Assembly in Edinburgh?
  The Prime Minister: That is certainly possible. I am always willing to listen to my hon. Friend's advice, though I am not sure that he represents a majority either of the Scottish Labour Party or of the people of Scotland on the question of devolution.
  Mr. Peyton: The Prime Minister is awfully good at using words, just off the cuff, which reflect the state of his mind rather than the facts. Will he explain what he meant by "squalor" just now?
  The Prime Minister: As I read some time ago that the right hon. Gentleman's contrived questions to me were based on four hours' pacing round his study on a Sunday evening preparing supplementary questions to the Prime Minister, I certainly understand his envy of anybody who can answer a question without preparation. As for the term "squalor", as he has put a clear question for once I shall be delighted to answer it. It is a matter of opinion, I agree; we may not all agree about it, but I think that the Liberal Party joining to support the Conservatives on Tuesday—since, on devolution, on which the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) is putting his Question, the Conservatives are a long way behind the Labour Party—does represent squalor.
  Mr. Peyton: Does the Prime Minister appreciate that we have all enjoyed once
  1038
  more his characteristic meandering around the point?
  The Prime Minister: That is a less specific question than the last one asked by the right hon. Gentleman, which was easy. The right hon. Gentleman must realise that as the Liberal Party is at least working hard to produce a policy on other matters, it is regretted by some of us on the Government side of the House that the Liberals should join in voting with the Conservative Party, which is not pursuing any policy at all.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: We must get on. Mr. Graham.

  TUC AND CBI
  Mr. Grahamasked the Prime Minister when he next plans to meet the TUC.
  Mr. Ashleyasked the Prime Minister when he next proposes to meet the TUC and the CBI.
  Mr. Atkinsonasked the Prime Minister when he next expects to meet the TUC.
  The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friends to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) on 25th November, Sir.
  Mr. Graham: When my right hon. Friend next meets the TUC will he convey to that body the warm appreciation of this House of the determined and successful efforts of the TUC in making its contribution to the counter-inflation policy?
  Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the measures taken by the Government, particularly in conection with price control, are proving equally effective?
  The Prime Minister: I shall certainly convey to the TUC what my hon. Friend has said. I am sure that the TUC has earned the approbration of the whole House for its courage and for the way in which it has contributed to an agreed—not statutory, but agreed—policy on inflation, which now carries the full support of the whole country.
  Mr. Tebbit: Rubbish.
  The Prime Minister: Hon. Members may put it to the test. Nobody knows where the Conservatives stand. They sat on their hands when the vote was taken. Half of them wanted a statutory policy and half of them did not know what they wanted. [Interruption.] I was dealing with a serious question from a serious Member of this House.
  On the question of price control, I refer my hon. Friend to what was said in the Gracious Speech, approved by this House the other evening, and what was said by my right hon. Friends in the debate on Tuesday.
  Sir David Renton: When the Prime Minister next meets the TUC, will he ask it to accept as a principle that men should have the right not to strike as well as the right to strike?
  Mr. Flannery: They also have the right to work.
  Sir David Renton: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the TUC to ensure that its constituent unions do not victimise or penalise those men who prefer to work rather than strike?
  The Prime Minister: I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's concern and, with what I think may lie behind his question. The TUC has no power of direction over individual unions. There is industrial democracy as well as political democracy in this country. The Conservative method of dealing with this matter proved to be a national disaster. I believe the right hon. and learned Gentleman supported it. Nevertheless, he will be pleased to see a significant reduction in man-days lost through stoppages since the present Government came into power.
  Mr. Ashley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government's £6 pay policy could be destroyed if any group of people, whether dentists, dustmen or doctors, were to breach that policy? [An HON. MEMBER: "Or the miners."] Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is the policy not simply of one Minister but of the whole Government, and that any people who challenge the £6-a-week policy are challenging the Government?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. It is, in fact, the policy
  1040
  of the whole Government. Indeed, it is the policy of the House of Commons. However the votes may have been cast, it is the policy of the House. I believe that it is the policy of the whole country. We have made it clear that however strong the case, there cannot be derogations from this. The word "miners" has been thrown across the Floor of the House. I remind hon. Members that the miners' conference, last July, in Scarborough, accepted this policy. The miners had a pit-head ballot of individual votes which showed a three-to-two majority in favour of this policy. This is now the policy of their executive. I might say that they showed much more courage in this matter than the Opposition have. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Oh, yes; they declared their position. On the other hand, I think it is only fair to compliment the official Opposition spokesman in the debate on the health service, who said that the Opposition believe that it is right that the counter-inflationary policy should be observed.
  Mrs. Thatcher: Does the Prime Minister accept that, after the difficult economic circumstances that face us, what our people are most concerned about is the power wielded by a minority of Left-Wing extremists? When he next meets the TUC, therefore, will he tell it that he and the majority of his colleagues will do all in their power to assist the commonsense majority to prevail, whether by means of postal ballots or such other methods as he may suggest? If he does so, he may be assured of our support.
  The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. I know that she would not wish her reference to Left-Wing militants to be taken as referring to the junior hospital doctors. They are currently challenging a wage policy which was accepted by this House and, indeed, by the country. [Interruption.] They are challenging, and the Government and Opposition are resisting the challenge. [Interruption.] I have plenty of time to answer. I cannot answer while an hon. Member opposite who is acting as a PPS is out of control. If hon. Members will allow me to try to remember the original question, I shall endeavour to answer it. I was saying that I welcomed the fact that in this House, on the question of the Health Service—[An HON. MEMBER:"Speak

  1041
  up."] We have all said that the policy must be carried through.
  The right hon. Lady referred to the danger from Left-Wing militants. I have made clear my anxiety about the threat to our community from Left-Wing and Right-Wing militants, with only one group of whom the right hon. Lady tends to associate herself—but only in the United States, and not in this country. [Interruption.] Hon. Members may not like it. I have been asked a long question and hon. Members are going to get the answer in the end. [HON. MEMBERS: "Get on with it."] Hon. Members opposite are shouting. They do not want to hear the answer.
  On the subject of postal ballots, my right hon. Friends and I have welcomed the success of the AUEW ballot, and there are others. I am still not persuaded that it is right to force postal ballots, but the move towards them is something that I very much welcome.
  Mr. Thorpe: Since the Prime Minister will no doubt wish to discuss current political issues with the TUC, will he ascertain for himself that the votes cast last Tuesday were not on devolution but were on the economy and the dock labour scheme? He may have been thinking of the business in another place. If the right hon. Gentleman is to discuss Government taxation policy with the TUC, will he bear in mind that the powers of taxation to be given to the Scottish Assembly are rather less than those which Lloyd George gave in this House. 50 years ago, to Ireland?
  The Prime Minister: With regard to the parallel with the Irish situation, we are deeply concerned with the Constitution and other problems in Ireland. When I referred to the votes on Tuesday, I was not speaking of devolution. I was not sure which was the more pathetic—seeing the Conservatives following the Liberals into the dock Lobby or seeing the Liberals following into the Lobby on economic questions a party which has no policy on any single matter affecting economic policy.
  Mr. Atkinson: Is it not the case that Selsdon woman makes Selsdon man look like a raving anarchist? My right hon. Friend is shortly to travel to Italy. Will he agree to meet trade union leaders there
  1042
  and discuss the rôle of British investment in the motor industry in that country? If we are posing to multinational companies who invest in Great Britain the argument that we should share their capital resources, should not Italian workers who are concerned about Innocenti and Leyland have a share in the British capital that the Government are to invest in Leyland? Is my right hon. Friend prepared to discuss this very important question with Italian trade union leaders?
  The Prime Minister: It would be entirely inappropriate, not to say indelicate, for me to talk about the relationship between Selsdon man and Selsdon woman, so I shall resist the temptation. On the serious part of my right hon. Friend's question, I recognise that he is taking an internationalist approach, in the sense that he says that what is good for our resistance to certain Chrysler proposals is good for Innocenti—
  Mr. Gorst: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that the Prime Minister is now floundering aimlessly, would it not be in order to go on with the Business Statement? It is after 3.30.
  The Prime Minister: Hon. Members opposite have problems in these matters. I represent a party and a Government with a policy, against people who have no policy. This is a serious and international question that I am answering, but I cannot accept that the circumstances are the same here and in Italy. My visit to Rome is for the summit meeting of the Council of Europe, and any discussions with the Italian Prime Minister will be on the fringe of that conference. If he wishes to raise the question of Innocenti, I shall be pleased to discuss it with him, as President Ford was pleased to discuss the Chrysler question with me at Rambouillet.
  Mr. Lawson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is the second time this week that the Prime Minister has not even succeeded in reaching Question No. Q3 on the Order Paper. Will you tell him to stop making such long-winded, repetitious and irrelevant answers?
  Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Member please repeat his point? I did not hear it.
  Mr. Lawson: I gladly repeat it. In view of the fact that this is the second time this week that the Prime Minister has not even succeeded in reaching Question No. Q3 on the Order Paper, will you tell him to stop making such long-winded, repetitious and irrelevant answers?
  Mr. Wellbeloved: In giving consideration to that point of order, Mr. Speaker, will you take into account the fact that the Prime Minister had to suffer today the combined inane antics of the Opposition, caused by their lack of policies, and the fact that hon. Members on the Government side would very much like to hear my right hon. Friend giving his answers?
  Mr. Speaker: That is nowhere near a point of order. This is a serious matter for the House. I have looked very carefully at the record for last Tuesday and hon. Members will see there that the Prime Minister answered 10 different questions. We have a system, which I do not believe any of us finds satisfactory, of having pegs on which one can hang any question to the Prime Minister. The Question reached on the Order Paper is no test of how many are in fact answered. It is not very satisfactory, but it is how we go along.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mrs. Thatcher: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): The Business for next week will be as follows:—
MONDAY 1ST DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.
Motion on the White Fish and Herring Subsidies (United Kingdom) (No. 3) Scheme.
TUESDAY 2ND DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill.
Motion relating to financial Assistance for Herbert Limited.
Remaining stages of the OECD Support Fund Bill and of the Moneylenders (Crown Agents) Bill.
1044
WEDNESDAY 3RD DECEMBER—Supply [1st Allotted Day]: Debate on "Developments in the European Communities April-October 1975", Command No. 6349.
Remaining stages of the Northern Ireland (Loans) Bill.
Motions on the Northern Ireland Orders relating to rates, Bann reservoir, insurance companies, firearms and education.
THURSDAY 4TH DECEMBER—Debate on the Report of the Committee on House of Commons Administration, Paper No. 624, until about 7 o'clock.
Afterwards, Second Reading of the Civil List Bill.
Motion relating to the Arbury Banks Preservation Order.
FRIDAY 5TH DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Police Bill.
MONDAY 8TH DECEMBER—Supply [2nd Allotted Day.]
Mrs. Thatcher: Many of my colleagues are dismayed that we are to have only one day for the Second Reading of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill. We feel that we should have one day for the aircraft industry and one for shipbuilding, otherwise the debate could get very confused.
Will the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friends not to make statements on public expenditure and increased charges in the form of Written Questions, as happened recently with the statement on charges for spectacles and teeth and as happened last year with the increased school meals charges? There should be oral statements in the House.
Mr. Short: On the right hon. Lady's first question, I have looked at this point, and on only five occasions in 12years has more than one day been given for a Second Reading. We did not feel that this Second Reading merited two days and I am afraid there is no other time between now and Christmas to provide a second day. I have noted what the right hon. Lady said in her second question and I will pass it on.
Mr. Thorpe: What time are we to have to debate the disappointing White Paper on devolution—or does the light

1045
hon. Gentleman propose to take it away and have another look at it?
Mr. Short: I heard the right hon. Gentleman comment on the White Paper, in a predictable way, on the one o'clock news. We realise that his support in Scotland has fallen to 4 per cent. and that he is trying to claw it back from the nationalists by outdoing them in condemning the White Paper.
Mr. John Mendelson: In view of the further unemployment figures announced a few days ago and the very large lobby of delegates from many industrial centres at the House yesterday, will my right hon. Friend consider giving urgent priority to a special debate on unemployment? Will he set aside a full day for this subject, without mixing it up with any other subject, and change some of the business for next week so that the relevant Ministers can take part in a debate on this most important of all subjects?
Mr. Short: I understand my hon. Friend's concern on this subject—a concern which is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and particularly by the Government. We are faced with an intolerable level of unemployment, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be announcing shortly a number of measures in this connection. I cannot give any time in the near future for a debate. We have just had a five-day debate on the Gracious Speech, the last day of which was devoted to economic affairs, and a good many hon. Members dealt with the problem then.
Mr. Peter Walker: The right hon. Gentleman is unwilling to have a general debate on unemployment. Since unemployment in the West Midlands has trebled over two years and is higher numerically than in the North-East and Wales and is almost as high as in Scotland, may we have a debate at least on the problems of the West Midlands or on the manner in which regional policy discriminates against that area?
Mr. Short: No, I cannot undertake that. I visited the West Midlands a fortnight ago—[Laughter.] This is not very funny for the people in the West Midlands. I have never seen such discourtesy and ill manners as are exhibited by Conservative Members. They are the worst
1046
mannered and most discourteous Opposition I have seen in 25 years. The Conservative Party is a disgrace to Parliament and it should be ashamed of itself.
Mr. Peter Walker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the House was so keen to give his headmaster-like admonishments to the Opposition that he failed to answer my question.
Mr. Short: I was complaining, Mr. Speaker, about a party which shouts down the Prime Minister and then complains that he has not answered any Questions. The answer to the right hon. Gentleman, who I know is concerned about this issue even though his hon. Friends are not, is that I cannot provide any time next week for a debate on this subject but that I shall certainly bear the point in mind. If we were to debate the motor industry before Christmas—and we might well do so—that at any rate would partially satisfy his wishes.
Mr. Watt: When are we to have an opportunity to debate that pathetic document "Our Changing Democracy"? How many days will be devoted to that debate? I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we shall not need more than half a day because his fellow English Members can go soundly to sleep as there is nothing to trouble them in that document.
Mr. Short: I am glad to hear the hon. Member suggest that we should have only a half-day debate on the White Paper. I shall bear that in mind.
Mr. William Hamilton: Has my right hon. Friend got his priorities right on next Thursday's business, for instance? Surely we could have half-a-day's debate on unemployment rather than debate the Civil List Bill. Will he give an assurance that all the provisions in that Bill come within the terms of the Government's incomes policy?
Mr. Short: The Bill honours the promise by the Prime Minister in this House on 12th February and will enable further increases in the Civil List to be made from grants in aid—
Mr. William Hamilton: Will they be within the £6 limit?
Mr. Short: The Bill deals with the machinery, not the finance, and it fulfils my right hon. Friend's promise.
Mrs. Chalker: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider having an urgent debate on the Butler Committee's Report and the general problems of mental health, which are most serious at present?
Mr. Short: I can understand the hon. Lady's concern about this point. She has always expressed that concern. In the period up to Christmas I shall bear in mind what she has said.
Mr. Stonehouse: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to Early-Day Motion No. 7 concerning the freedom of travel for Dr. Zakharov and the need to implement the Helsinki Declaration—
Mr. William Hamilton: Has he got a passport?
Mr. Stonehouse:—and as the motion has been signed by representatives of every political party in this House, will my right hon. Friend ensure that an early opportunity is made available to consider this subject?
[That this House regrets the refusal of the Soviet Government to allow Dr. Andrei Sakharov to travel to Oslo to collect his Nobel Peace Prize; and calls on Her Majesty's Government to make representations to the Soviet authorities to honour the Helsinki declaration, which they so recently signed and which, inter alia, called for the free movement of individuals and ideas.]
Mr. William Hamilton: Make sure he has a passport.
Hon. Members: Or two passports.
Mr. Short: I cannot offer any time next week, but that would be an appropriate subject for our debate on the Adjournment for the Christmas Recess, whenever that occurs.
Mr. Baker: Is the Leader of the House aware that it is now impossible to hold by-elections for Greater London Council vacancies when they fall due—as they have in my constituency—because the Government have forgotten to table an order postponing the GLC elections from April 1976 to April 1977? Do the Government intend to table this order next week so as to postpone the elections for
1048
a year, or will Londoners be given the opportunity next spring to express their opinions on the most costly and inefficient authority in Britain?
Mr. Short: I do not accept in any way the latter part of the hon. Member's question. I shall certainly look into this matter to see whether my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment can say something about it next week.
Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is great desire in this House, particularly among my colleagues, to have an early debate on unemployment? Is he aware that yesterday 20,000 workers who marched through the streets of London were led not by extremist groups, as was suggested by the General Secretary of the TUC, but by the North-West Region of the Trades Union Congress, supported by trades councils from all over the North-West and by trade unionists nationwide? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the fact that 20,000 workers demonstrate about unemployment does not mean that they are against the Government, only that they want something positive done about unemployment? May I urge my right hon. Friend to reconsider his answers on this subject and to provide time for an early debate?
Mr. Short: I cannot add anything to my earlier reply. I share my hon. Friend's concern. I noted the demonstration yesterday. I also went to see the police who were laid out in Westminster Hall after being injured in the demonstration.
Mr. Amery: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Secretary of State for Defence told us some time ago that the defence White Paper which he produced represented the most far-reaching review of defence since Haldane? Does he realise that the right hon. Gentleman admitted at Question Time on Monday that a further review of this most far-reaching review since Haldane's time was now in progress? Is he aware of the disquiet caused among the Armed Forces at home and among our NATO and other allies abroad? Will he give time for a defence debate before any decisions are taken or any concrete proposals put before the House?
Mr. Short: I shall pass the right hon. Gentleman's views on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I am sure that the review has not had the effect described by the right hon. Gentleman in the Armed Forces.
Mr. Ward: It is a year since the adjourned Second Reading debate on the Road Traffic (Seat Belts) Bill. My right hon. Friend gave repeated assurances to the House that he would use his best endeavours to bring the Bill before the House again before the Summer Recess. Can we have an assurance that it will be brought before the House before Christmas and before the dark nights and the high accident period?
Mr. Short: I cannot give such an assurance for the period up to Christmas. We fought the General Election on a very big programme and we are trying to get that programme through. I am sure that my hon. Friend will support the Government on that.
Mr. Fairbairn: I congratulate the Leader of the House on producing today a White Paper on devolution which bears the unique imprint of his electric mind. May I ask when we may have the opportunity to debate the concept of electoral reform since that document, apart from disregarding every proposal by the Kilbrandon Commission, proposes that the Scottish Labour-held seats should have a weighting in their favour in terms of representation?
Mr. Short: The hon. and learned Gentleman's scintillating adjectives pall a bit. He used that one in a letter to The Times recently.
Mr. Fairbairn: It was the Daily Telegraph.
Mr. Short: I might have known it would be the Daily Telegraph. The answer to the second part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's question is "No".
Mr. Flannery: Is my right hon. Friend aware that yesterday I met a powerful delegation from the working people of Sheffield who asked me to convey to my right hon. Friend a request for a full-scale debate on unemployment? Will he therefore reconsider his previous replies, regard unemployment as the most
1050
important problem confronting this House and, removing something else from the agenda for between now and Christmas, provide time for a full-scale debate on unemployment?
Mr. Short: I shall bear in mind what my hon. Friend and others of my hon. Friends have said, but my information is that my hon. Friend was shouted down by the people he tried to address yesterday.
Sir David Renton: With regard to the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that there should be two days for the Second Reading debate on the Bill to nationalise the aircraft and shipbuilding industries, why did the Leader of the House go back only 12 years for his precedents? Would he care to consider the precedents for the five years before he came into the House? Is he aware that if he does so he will not find a precedent for any Bill to nationalise more than one industry being given only one day for its Second Reading debate? Indeed, he will find at least one precedent for two days being given for a Bill dealing with one industry.
Mr. Short: There is a limit to the amount of research I can do to answer questions. I thought that if I went back 12 years that was reasonable enough. Perhaps I should have gone back further. I imagine that my answer would then have been still more convincing. I considered the matter, but in view of the need to have a Second Reading for the Bill to start it on its course, and as there was no more time before Christmas without sitting during Christmas week, I thought that we could not do better than to have one day.
Mr. Raphael Tuck: In view of the increase in accidents involving three-wheeled vehicles since our debate on the Sharp Report, and in view of the intransigence of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services on the question, will my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House consider giving at least half a day for a debate on this important subject in the near future?
Mr. Short: As I have said, there is no more time for general debates before Christmas. The matter would doubtless be a suitable subject to raise in the debate

1051
on the Adjournment for the Christmas Recess. I hope that my hon. Friend will try to catch your eye in that debate, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Wyn Roberts: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why the Welsh language version of the White Paper on devolution, which, incidentally, is blue, was not available at the Vote Office this morning? The right hon. Gentleman may have noticed that those who were loudest in their demand for devolution are now loudest in their condemnation of the Government's proposals.
Mr. Short: Without accepting what the hon. Gentleman said, I must reply that I do not know the answer to the first part of the question, but I shall look into it and let him know.
Mr. Wigley: Is the Leader of the House aware that the slap in the face to the Welsh TUC in the devolution White Paper this morning, and the fact that the Government have gone back on the commitment in their manifesto for the last General Election to give economic planning and control of the Welsh Development Agency to the proposed Assembly, will be regarded by many people in Wales as an affront? In view of that, will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question asked for the fourth time now, whether we can have a debate on the White Paper before Christmas?
Mr. Short: The Government have not gone back on any promise. I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that the Welsh TUC welcomes the White Paper. This is not the time to discuss the merits. The reaction from the nationalist Bench was entirely predictable. I could have written the comments of all the hon. Members on it before today. The illiterate comments of the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) were also entirely predictable. He has to get that 4 per cent. of votes back again. He is trying to claw them back.
The reply to the hon. Gentleman's question is that there will be an extended debate—not the half-day's debate for which the Scottish National Party has just asked—in the first week after the Christmas Recess.
Mr. Cope: Is there any chance of the House debating the Sandilands recom-
1052
mendations, which are highly important and which have many ramifications in all sorts of areas? The right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Dr. Bray) asked yesterday for such a debate, and I think that the request would even have the support of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who also realises the important ramifications of the Report. At present it seems that the Report will not be debated at all.
Mr. Short: I agree that it is a very important Report. There was an extensive exchange of views about it yesterday, in which my hon. Friends took part. I believe that there would be merit in trying to find time for a debate on the Report in the new year. I do not promise a debate, but I shall bear it in mind and see what I can do.
Mr. Skinner: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider the pleas that we should have a debate on unemployment? Next week we are to consider a number of matters, one of which is a further debate on the Crown Agents, I believe. We could well do without that, because it is only to let somebody off the hook. One of the reasons why a debate on unemployment could assist is that we could perhaps question my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment not merely on matters appertaining to unemployment but also about those who are managing to obtain large wage increases during a period when we are supposed to be subjected to a £6-a-week limit. Does my right hon. Friend know that, for instance, another Tory supporter, Mr. Eric Sosnow, head of United City Merchants, has just awarded himself a £200-a-week pay rise? We should have something to say about that in a debate attended by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment.
Mr. Short: I understand the feelings about the question, but I cannot find time for a debate before Christmas. The debate to which my hon. Friend referred will take place after 10 o'clock on the day on which we shall, I hope, give a Second Reading to the Bill to nationalise the shipbuilding and aircraft industries. That is a late-night debate, so there is no possibility there. I cannot give a day before Christmas, but I shall bear in mind what my hon. Friend and my other hon. Friends have said.
Mr. Peyton: Is the Leader of the House aware that there will be general regret and some apprehension that he should have found it necessary so early in the Session to put down after 10 o'clock such substantial items of business as are down for debate next Tuesday and Wednesday? Secondly, can the right hon. Gentleman yet say when we may expect to receive the Government's answer to the Expenditure Committee's Report on British Leyland? Thirdly, will the right hon. Gentleman make it quite clear that the debate on the devolution White Paper will be extended?
Mr. Short: The White Paper debate will be extended. Perhaps we need to talk about the length of the debate. I shall be glad to talk to the right hon. Gentleman as well as to the two nationalist parties to find out whether they are still sticking to the half-day for which one of them asked or whether they would like a longer debate.
I agree that there is rather a lot of Northern Ireland business on one night. Some of it is not very substantial. We tried hard to obtain the agreement of the Ulster Unionists to sending some of that business to the Committee, but they refused to agree, although I understand that the usual channels agreed. We must deal with that business, and there is nothing for it but to put it on that one night.
I agree that it is time the Government's reply was made to the Expenditure Committee's Report on British Leyland. I share the right hon. Gentleman's view on that, and I shall do everything I can to expedite the reply.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
Mr. Stanley: I wish to raise a point of order arising from an answer I received to a Written Question I put to the Secretary of State for Industry yesterday. I asked:
"what is the total number of staff envisaged for the NEB showing the breakdown by grade; and how many in each grade have been recruited to date."
The Minister refused to answer. Instead, he said:
"This is a matter for the National Enterprise Board."
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I believe that two substantive points for the whole House arise from that reply. First, I believe that it constitutes a clear extension of the topics on which Ministers are legitimately establishing a tradition of not answering Questions. I say that because my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe) recently put a similar Question to the Secretary of State for Employment on the staffing of the Manpower Services Commission. That Question was answered fully and properly and the information he sought was given as a Written Answer in column 752 of the Official Report on 12th November. It seems, therefore, that the answer which I received yesterday marks a clear reduction in the degree of ministerial accountability to the House which has been established so far.
Secondly, I am advised by the Table Office that because a Minister has answered that the staffing of the NEB is a matter for the NEB and not for Ministers, no further Questions to Ministers on that subject can be accepted by the Table Office.
It will be self-evident that if the House accepts without challenge that it is open to Ministers in this way permanently to block Questions about the staffing of the NEB, it is equally open to Ministers on future dates to block other aspects of parliamentary inquiry about the NEB's work in exactly the same way.
I accept that the extent to which Ministers are accountable for bodies for which their Departments have responsibility but which are situated outside the Department is not clear cut. You may feel, Mr. Speaker, that this question should be examined as a matter of urgency by the Select Committee on Procedure. I firmly suggest that for a body of the policy significance of the NEB, which disposes of so much public money, the House should not be satisfied with anything other than total accountability.
Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Mr. Stanley) for putting his point of order. This is an issue for the whole House, not for a particular Government. I dislike blocking answers, but I think that some system of blocking answers has to be used. Its original purpose was to prevent the tedious repetition of the same Question

1055
over and over again. This is a matter which should be looked into, and I have no doubt that those concerned will consider the point which the hon. Member has legitimately put.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): I undertake to look into this matter. Perhaps I could contact you, Mr. Speaker, and the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Mr. Stanley).
Mr. Peyton: I am obliged to the Leader of the House for his reaction to my hon. Friend's valid point. I hope that he will agree to make a statement. I am sure he will recollect that when the NEB was being set up by legislation, Ministers repeatedly said that they could not understand why the House should be so worried about accountability as the NEB would be accountable to Ministers and Ministers would be accountable to Parliament. It would be dangerous if the NEB were to be put in quarantine.
Mr. Short: There is a real point at issue here. If it meets the wish of the House, I shall look into it and either see that a statement is made to the House or make a statement myself.
Mr. Russell Kerr: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are you aware that there will be widespread support throughout the House for the point of view you have just expressed—especially on the Labour Benches?
Mr. Gorst: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. When the Leader of the House is considering that matter, will he also consider the dangerous precedent that is set? If a Minister refused to answer a Question on the ground that an organisation, be it the CBI or even perhaps the TUC, was not his responsibility, in that way he could block answers to any Questions.
Mr. Speaker: The suggestion has been made that the Procedure Committee might look into this matter. The hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) has raised rather a wider point than the one raised by the hon. Member for Ton-bridge and Mailing.
Mr. Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I agree with what
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my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr) said. When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House considers this matter, perhaps he will look back into recent history, when he will see that when Labour was in Opposition Back-Bench Members had difficulty in getting Questions accepted by the Table Office on similar organisations set up by the Conservative Government, not least the Price Commission. Although we complained about it at that time, we want to see a refreshing new look at this matter, and it lies ill within the mouths of Conservative Members to raise it.
Mr. Peter Walker: When the Leader of the House is preparing his statement, will he bear in mind that over the past week Ministers have given detailed information about the NEB? A detailed answer was given in reply to a Question on all the investments of the NEB. It is remarkable that Ministers are answering some Questions in great detail and not answering others. The House has a right to know on what basis that judgment is made.
Mr. Short: I shall look into all aspects. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) can be assured that I shall also look into the record of the previous Conservative Government.
Mr. Tebbit: Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The reason for raising this matter as a point of order is partly that it is for the Chair to protect the House against the Executive and against the Executive's attempts to mislead the House. Would it be in your power, Mr Speaker, and would it not be right if it is in your power, to order that the Question concerned shall be accepted by the Table Office so that it can be placed on the Order Paper? The issue can then be cleanly and easily resolved without bothering the Leader of the House to come forward with a statement which might or might not resolve the matter.
Mr. Speaker: I shall consider the matter. This is a House of Commons matter and I hope that it can be considered as a question for the whole House. The House of Commons took or accepted a certain decision on this issue I think in 1947. The Chair is bound to some extent by what the House agreed and by what

1057
has since been convention and custom. One or two cases have come to me where I have been able to make a judgment and I have certainly not been in favour of blocking answers in those cases. The House should have the fullest opportunity to resolve this matter. May we leave it there?
Mr. Stanley: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am grateful for what you said. In the light of what you and the Lord President said, will you confirm that, notwithstanding the answer I received yesterday, the Table Office will continue to accept Questions on the staffing of the NEB?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has made his point, and the Leader of the House has promised to look into it. That is as far as we can go today.

BILL PRESENTED
  ARMED FORCES
  Mr. Secretary Mason, supported by Mr. Secretary Jenkins, Mr. William Rodgers, Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Frank Judd, Mr. Robert Brown, and Mr. Brynmor John, presented a Bill to continue the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 and the Naval Discipline Act 1957; to amend those Acts and other enactments relating to the armed forces; to authorise the establishment of courts for the trial outside the United Kingdom of civilians subject to Part II of the Army Act 1955 or Part II of the Air Force Act 1955; to make provision for the powers of the courts so authorised in relation to such civilians; to make further provision for the powers of courts-martial in relation to such civilians and to civilians subject to Parts I and II of the Naval Discipline Act 1957; to make further provision as to the disqualification of members of the forces for membership of the House of Commons or the Northern Ireland Assembly; to make further provision for Greenwich Hospital; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed.
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  NATIONAL COAL BOARD (FINANCE) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.8 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This last year has been one of consolidation for the coal industry, following on the tripartite discussions between the Government, the National Coal Board and the unions, which led to the report of the coal industry examination. In the course of that examination the Government endorsed a big investment programme by the NCB, involving capital expenditure over the next 10 years of £1,400 million, and the NCB has been pressing ahead with the implementation of that programme.
  The Government already have on the statute book part of their contribution to confirming their commitment to the industry, notably the Coal Industry Act 1975, which enabled us to pay £100 million to the NCB as a major contribution towards the cost of its compensation scheme for pneumoconiosis sufferers, a scheme which was agreed and arose directly out of the tripartite meetings. The 1975 Act also clarified the NCB's right to work coal, and restored the compulsory powers of the Opencast Coal Act 1958, measures which were essential if the NCB's "Plan for Coal" target of at least 135 million tons a year of output were to be met.
  The Bill before the House today is a further step in the Government's honouring of the commitments made in last year's tripartite examination, but much remains to be done. This is an interim measure and we shall still need to consider whether further legislation should be introduced next year to provide a longer-term framework within which the commitments of the coal industry examination can continue to be carried out. In that connection, the Government, the NCB and the unions have decided to reconvene the tripartite discussions to review the progress in implementing the "Plan for Coal". We had our first

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  meeting on Tuesday of this week, and we aim to meet again. As the sponsoring Minister, I can say that that provided a useful framework for discussion. I was pleased to hear Mr. Gormley say at that meeting that the atmosphere in the industry was better than it had been for a decade.
  But while we shall be looking at the longer-term requirement, there is an urgent need to act now on important matters because, following the tripartite examination, the NCB and the NUM agreed on a new earnings-related pension scheme for miners. This was set up in April. It was recognised in the tripartite examination that the industry could not be expected to bear all the burden of the social costs arising from the past, and the Government undertook to relieve the Board of some of the cost of meeting the deficiency in the scheme in respect of existing pensions. That is what the Bill provides for.
  At the same time, the steadily rising capital expenditure programme arising from the "Plan for Coal" meant that the Board's statutory borrowing limit, set when such a programme was or seemed to be unthinkable by the Conservative Government, was coming under pressure. The aim of the Board's "Plan for Coal" is to provide 42 million tons of new capacity by 1985—22 million tons by expanding existing capacity and 20 million tons from new pits.
  The Board has set in hand about 60 major projects which will yield about 12 million tons of that new capacity, and its proposals for a major new mine at Selby, producing 10 million tons a year, have been the subject of a public inquiry. I understand that the inspector's report is expected shortly.
  All this shows the Board's determination to secure the positive contribution that the coal industry examination envisaged that coal could make to the energy supply of the country. But the financing of this investment plan and the Board's need for further working capital to deal, amongst other things, with fluctuations in stock building, are already presenting the Board with considerable borrowing requirements.
  Clause 1 of the Bill, by substantially increasing the statutory limit on the
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  Board's borrowings, will enable the Board's investment programme to continue according to plan. However, these borrowings are already very close to the existing limit. Pending the enactment of the Bill and in order to prevent a breach of the limit which would otherwise first occur in December, the Treasury has agreed to make payments of up to £50 million in December and an additional £25 million in January from the contingencies fund, to be drawn in tranches as required—and, of course, it follows that the repayment of any sums so drawn will take place when the Bill is enacted.
  Clause 2 deals with the mineworkers' pensions. The pension scheme was established in 1952, and for a small contribution paid a pension of 10 shillings a week. This pension was raised in successive stages to £3·60 in September 1974, and although the contributions had been raised they remained low at an average of 43p a week. The increased pensions were financed by creating a deficiency in the fund which was met by the Board, which made annual deficiency payments. The Government have also made deficiency payments totalling £25 million over the last three years.
  Last April, the Board revised the scheme to bring it more into line with modern practice, and the new scheme was well received by the NUM. It applies to men who were serving mineworkers on or after 6th April 1975. The contributions from the members are a percentage of earnings and there is a matching contribution by the Board. A man will receive a pension of half his final wage at the end of 45 years' service. People who were in the fund before 6th April 1975 will receive their pensions on the basis of the scheme as it was then constituted.
  Broadly, there are four categories of such people—workers who retired before 6th April 1975, widows and dependent children of men who died before that date, and the following, who will have the right to future pensions under the same rules, namely, widows and dependent children of men now in pension, and men who left the industry before April 1975 and have a right to a deferred pension to be paid at the age of 65.
  In the coal industry examination, the Government recognised that the past contraction of the industry presented a financial problem for a viable pension

  1061
  scheme because of the consequent exceptional ratio of pensioners to contributing members, due to the age structure in the industry, which approaches one-to-one instead of the more normal one-to-five, coupled with the fact that pensioners can make no further contribution to the pension fund or contribute to the industry's performance.
  In order to help the Board with this burden of the past, the Government undertook, subject to parliamentary approval, which I am seeking in this Bill, to assist in meeting the existing deficiency in the pension fund so far as it relates to beneficiaries and prospective beneficiaries under the pre-April 1975 rules.
  There is no precise way of determining how much of the total deficiency in the fund is related to beneficiaries and prospective beneficiaries under the pre-April 1975 scheme, but in making a generous contribution of £250 million the Government have aimed to match the broad order of magnitude of this part of the deficiency. We propose to spread the payments forward over 20 years, during which most of the liabilities to the existing pensioners will be discharged. We are advised that this means a payment of £18 million a year.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The Secretary of State has gone only part of the way to clear up a considerable uncertainty in my mind as to how these payments were to be related to the liabilities under the new pension scheme. It was clear that the new scheme would have to be funded, and yet anyone who retires after April 1975 gets his half-pay pension out of it. Clearly, a substantial amount of payment under the Bill will go to the new scheme. How is this to be calculated? Will it be done on an actuarial basis? Will it be shown in the accounts?
  Mr. Benn: The right hon. Gentleman is quite correct in putting a question of that kind. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who has far more experience in this matter than I have, intends to deal with it in his reply, because we naturally expected that questions about it would be put. It is not possible to do a very precise actuarial calculation, as I pointed out a moment ago. What we have done is to make this contribution—which I think will be
  1062
  accepted as a generous one—on a broad estimate of what it would be right for us to contribute to a deficiency arising from the special problems involved.
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: I understand that this is to cure the deficiency of the fund. Is there any inflation-proofing of the fund in the arrangement?
  Mr. Benn: I do not want to pick the eyes of my hon. Friend's speech. We have taken account of the relevant factors. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will confine myself to that and leave my hon. Friend to deal with the matter in detail. My hon. Friend, who has great experience in the industry and has worked very hard on this scheme, is surely entitled to amplify and describe in greater detail the arrangements made.
  I am sure that the House will agree that the sum of £250 million, together with the £100 million that the Government had already contributed to the pneumoconiosis compensation scheme, is a most generous contribution towards solving the social problems connected with the immediate past of the coal industry. It is prudent to make provision for taking account of the effects of inflation, and there is the possibility that the rates of pension paid to pre-April 1975 pensioners and their dependents may from time to time need to be revised by negotiation between the Board and the union in the light of changes in the retail price index.
  Mr. Skeet: Will the right hon Gentleman—
  Mr. Benn: No. I must get on.
  Mr. Skeet Mr. Skeet rose—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order.
  Mr. Benn: I hope that the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) will allow me to get on. If he had not interrupted, he might have heard me saying that I preferred not to anticipate important passages of what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State intends to say in reply to the debate.
  It is the Government's policy to phase out subsidies to the nationalised industries. In line with this the Government hope that the coal industry will be able to operate without the need for assistance,

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  apart from the social grants. The Government recognise that circumstances may arise in which they will need to provide short-term support to the coal industry. Stocking aid is one way in which such assistance may be given. Section 7 of the 1973 Act enables me to make grants for that purpose.
  A minor anomaly in these powers is that they do not extend to helping the National Coal Board with costs incurred when it delivers stocks to major customers for deferred payment. Such arrangements for the delivery of deferred stocks in excess of immediate requirements are desirable as they avoid the cost of double handling and keep coal moving away from the pit head. Clause 3 of the Bill will extend my powers to make grants towards the financing of such stocks sold but not paid for, although the use of this power, as with the powers under the existing provision in the 1973 Act, would need to be considered against the Board's overall financial position and the level of stocking undertaken by it.
  I know other hon. Members wish to speak in the debate. There is other business in the House today. However, having outlined the main provisions of the Bill, I should not like to allow the Second Reading to pass without using this opportunity of reaffirming what all hon. Members who follow the fuel scene closely know. I emphasise the growing importance of coal in our energy scene and the importance of contributing, as far as we can in debates in the House, to a public understanding of the enormous value to this country of our reserves of coal and the skill and contribution made by those working in the mining industry—and the contribution they will be able to make, with the good will and support of the Government, to the future of our economy.
  It is understandable, but a pity, that when we speak about energy the emphasis tends to rotate around oil. Although the mining industry is highly mechanised, its workers are highly skilled, and there are reserves that will run hundreds of years ahead. That is a vital national resource. The rate of coal exploration is now three times what it was 10 years ago. It will increase still further
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Many Members of Parliament and those working in the industry place a great deal of faith in the Minister's words and actions. I am sure that his words today will be echoed around the coalfields. However, perhaps he should mention the question of securing markets. It is useless to explore, to dig for, and to stock coal without secure markets. Will my right hon. Friend indicate when the next two coal-fired power stations at Drax B and Burton B are to come on stream? Without those two power stations, much of what the Minister said will be irrelevant.
  Mr. Benn: I suppose that I should take it as a tribute to my speech that the points raised by my hon. Friend are those to which I shall shortly address myself. A similar situation occurred a moment ago on the inflation aspects of the pensions scheme. I could brush off my hon. Friend by saying that this matter was associated with Selby and put the matter back on that basis.
  I am building up to the point which I wish to make about coal in our economy. In presenting the Bill I hope to make clear the deep commitment of the Government to the tripartite examination and the part we have played in that. Here I come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). It is not possible to consider the coal industry as if it had an isolated relationship with the Government of the day. Over the past six months I have brooded on the difficult problems of my new Department. I have thought about the proper approach to energy policy to meet this and other energy problems.
  I mentioned earlier the tripartite discussions, which we have resumed, and which I hope will continue, to provide an opportunity for the Minister not only to meet—as I did two weeks ago—the executive of the National Union of Mine-workers and the Coal Board separately. That is sensible and proper. I want to meet them together and to find a forum in which the supply and demand for coal can be discussed. I do not know whether this is known, but I have begun the preliminary discussions for a meeting at which the Electricity Council, the CEGB, the National Coal Board and the unions might sit together and discuss the interrelationship between

  1065
  coal mining and the demand for coal in the generation of electricity.
  That subject has long been a source of discussion, often by means of speeches made in public from one side or the other. I hope that those problems will be discussed in an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence. That involves not only the ordering of new coal-fired stations. It involves an examination of the coal import position as well as the coal export possibilities, which we are exploring.
  At the tripartite meeting both sides of the coal industry were concerned that there should be an exploration of the possibility of conversion from gas to coal burning. That is a sensible subject for examination. The meeting was concerned to see whether other matters might not be looked at again. If I refer to those matters, I do not commit myself. I merely report that those subjects were put on the agenda for consideration.
  Those subjects included other markets for coal, including the domestic market. One of the problems is that houses are now built without flues. Therefore, the possibility of burning coal in those houses does not exist. Various other points were brought to my attention, including the question whether the conversion of fireplaces for burning coal might not be the subject of further examination by the Government. I hope that the House, in allowing me to make these points, will not think that I am making announcements about policy.
  It is not meaningful in energy policy terms for a Minister to hold a self-contained discussion with the coal industry, the oil industry, or any other industry, without regard to the market possibilities which may exist for its products. I have discussed this problem tentatively with the miners and the electricity authorities. I have found that this concept of a broader look at the interrelationship between supply and demand makes sense to them. I hope that I shall enjoy a continuation of the good will which has so far been evident in these discussions.
  The use of coal for petrochemical purposes and other downstream developments of that kind must also be borne in mind as we approach responsibly the task of developing, from our enormous resources of energy, a policy which will win support,
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  make sense and give the maximum assurance of security of supplies for this country, the most economic provision possible of energy for our needs, to take advantage of our resources and to build upon our own indigenous resources so as to promote our industrial development.
  It is sometimes easier to see our problems through the eyes of others. When the OPEC countries discovered the extent of their oil resources, they said that they wanted to build their own industrial society for themselves, using their oil revenues, so as to consolidate the increase in their standard of living. We are an old industrial society with formidable problems, which I shall not go into now. But we want to see strength in our indigenous resources that will allow us to re-industrialise and to build up our own strength. For that purpose my relations with the mining industry—an industry I am deeply proud to serve, not for the first time as Minister—will allow us to look at the matter in that way.
  This is the first Bill that I have presented as Secretary of State for Energy. This is my first opportunity in that capacity to take part in a debate on coal, and I wish to pay tribute to those who work in the industry.
  Mr. Tom Ellis: I am interested in my right hon. Friend's comments, and I agree that we must not look at the subject of coal in isolation. He is aware that the EEC has proposals for a common Community energy policy. Indeed, there are two in existence, one somewhat optimistic and the other a little less so, but in each of which coal plays a significant part. Will my right hon. Friend say whether he believes that our energy policy should play its part in any common energy policy to be adopted by the Community?
  Mr. Benn: If I were to be tempted to go into the wider areas thrown up by my hon. Friend, I might detain the House for too long, but let me make a comment in response to his intervention. As an Energy Minister who had before him proposals prepared by the Commission, I felt that at the beginning of any approach we should seek to arrive at an energy policy within the Community alongside our domestic energy policy. In discussing this subject on a wide-ranging basis, we

  1067
  should be sure that those policies conform to the interests not just of the United Kingdom but of all member countries.
  Therefore, at the first meeting of the Energy Council I suggested that it would be sensible for Energy Ministers to be invited to put in papers relating to their own domestic policies so that we could identify overlapping interests. In that way we could secure firm foundations on which to build a European policy. Where there are divergencies, though not necessarily conflicting issues, further study will be required.
  That is the response I took with me when I visited Paris, Rome, Bonn and Brussels in September and that approach was warmly received. Other member countries have put in their own proposals. An informal meeting—and I emphasise that it will be informal—will take place in Rome in December on energy matters, and I intend to pursue serious and sensitive multilateral discussion in respect of coal and electricity so that we can avoid rigidity in energy policy, whether at home or abroad, and can move forward on that basis to meet our various interests.
  I do not wish to detain the House longer. I hope that the Bill will be supported by the Opposition. The Coal Industry Examination laid the foundations for the future and the continuing tripartite discussions and multilateral discussions will help to ensure that impetus will not be lost. The 1975 Act was the first fruit of that examination, and this measure is another that will help to preserve a flourishing coal industry. I commend the Bill to the House.
  4.34 p.m.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The House listened to the speech of the Secretary of State for Energy with attention, and we all enjoyed his brief reference to a previous incarnation when he was responsible for the coal industry and presided over its fortunes in some of the years before 1970.
  We debated these matters on 24th July last year, and I shall not repeat my arguments put to the House on that occasion, but until a year or two ago we all shared some responsibility for the prolonged rundown of the coal industry. Therefore, in one sense, we can all join in welcoming the new circumstances providing for a
  1068
  rebirth of the coal industry. I hope that we shall all learn from the mistakes of the past.
  The right hon. Gentleman suggested some form of joint examination in regard to the supply of coal and markets, and said that the electricity industries would be primarily involved. Two points arise from that observation. In a few weeks' time the Plowden Committee's Report is expected dealing with the reorganisation of the electricity industry. We must bear in mind the fact that it is not only the CEGB that is involved with the supply of fuels. Area or regional distribution boards are bound to take an interest in this matter because they have to supply their customers with electricity. Therefore, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not firm up the organisation too hard until he has considered the Plowden Report and formulated his reactions to it
  Mr. Benn: Without prejudice to what may flow from the Plowden Report, I should like to tell the right hon. Gentleman that the discussions that are to take place informally before Christmas will include the Electricity Council. I am well aware that not only the CEGB is concerned in such a discussion but, in the ultimate, the consumers are as well.
  Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's intervention and I am sure that the area board chairmen will be reassured by his words.
  Second, we must bear in mind the fact that coal is not the only commodity that is involved in these energy considerations. There should be some way of representing the other suppliers of principal energy resources, notably the oil industry whether represented by BNOC or the private companies, or indeed both. There is a need for more regular interchanges rather than bilateral discussions with the Minister.
  The heart of the Bill lies in its new borrowing powers. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the need to draw on the Contingency Fund. As a former Treasury Minister, I suppose I should know the answer to the question that I am about to put to him, but I cannot recollect any case involving a nationalised industry that has exceeded its borrowing powers and then borrowed from the Contingency Fund. To judge by the Secretary of State's expression, I have no doubt that

  1069
  he is about to tell me that such a case occurred when I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. These are perhaps details which Treasury officials do not necessarily bring to the attention of Ministers, but nobody on this side of the House will wish to leave the Secretary of State in an embarrassing situation any longer than is necessary on that score.
  Debates on Bills relating to borrowing powers are traditional occasions for a wide-ranging discussion, and I hope that I shall be forgiven if I do not confine myself strictly to the Bill that is before the House.
  It is timely that we should now be debating the subject of coal. Despite the new opportunities for coal, it is no secret that there are anxieties about the situation both inside and about the industry. The anxieties within the industry relate to whether the recent build-up of stocks heralds a new rash of pit closures, and a possible reverse in the £600 million expansion plans. Outside there are anxieties whether rises in coal costs in recent months and productivity difficulties might threaten to make coal uncompetitive in some markets. It is true to say that the atmosphere which a year or 18 months ago was almost euphoric, has now given way to a more realistic state of affairs in which some of the optimism has evaporated. People must recognise that the industry has ahead of it a fairly stiff task.
  The coal industry faces a combination of industrial recession, inflation, soaring energy costs world-wide that in turn reflect on mining costs, as well as pressures to save energy via the Government's propaganda campaign; and it also faces problems as a result of reduced demand as an effect of higher prices. These matters all tend to create a new situation, and it is a situation to which the industry must adapt.
  The final Report of the tripartite examination contained many wise words. The Report was published in November last year, almost exactly a year ago, and paragraph 10 contained a comment which I shall quote. After examining the future demand patterns of coal, the Report talks of the
  "even greater opportunities for coal—always providing that sufficient output can be achieved with assured continuity of supply at a cost
  1070
  which can meet the long run competition from other sources of energy."
  That was in November of last year. Yet by July of this year Sir Derek Ezra, Chairman of the National Coal Board, had this to say in the introduction to the Board's annual report:
  "through last year's coal price increases, the competitive advantage over oil has been very largely eroded."
  I shall want to look at some of the detailed figures later on, but this is an indication of the measure of the change, even in the past year.
  When we bear in mind that the Coal Board's profit on its mining activities, as opposed to its ancillary activities, was one-tenth of 1 per cent. of its turnover—almost exactly one penny a ton—and that that was struck after revenue subsidies of £68 million—something over 50p a ton—the House will realise that in spite of the sixfold increase in oil prices this is an industry which will have to work hard to fulfil the promise held out for it in the tripartite examination. It is therefore timely that we should have this debate about the industry to discuss some of its problems.
  By a chance encounter yesterday—I hope that the Under-Secretary will forgive me for referring to this—I was introduced to a leading member of the Scottish National Union of Mineworkers. I mentioned that we would be discussing this Bill today. That gentleman said, "You will be agin' it, won't you?" I said, "No. On the contrary we shall be supporting it and giving it a fair wind." He said, "Ah. You have changed your mind." I said, "Of course not."
  I want to put on record the view which I expressed 18 months ago during the Committee proceedings on the last borrowing powers Order—the view to which my party subscribed in its manifesto at the last election—namely that we wholeheartedly support the commitment to the "Plan for Coal". I remain convinced that this is an industry which has an esential rôle to play in the energy strategy both of the United Kingdom and of Europe. I welcome what was behind the question asked of the Secretary of State by his hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis).
  Our coal resources are huge—many times those of the oil resources so far discovered and, to hazard a guess, many

  1071
  times more than those ever likely to be discovered. We have a skilled and sophisticated mining industry. British mining equipment and techniques are marketed all over the world. Nuclear power, though vital to meet the growth in electricity demand—certainly up till the end of the century—and vital for the part it will play in conserving fossil fuels for suceeding generations, cannot possibly replace coal for many years to come. It is important that everybody should recognise that.
  I would like to draw to the attention of the House what is the most recent analysis by the Goverment of the energy supply prospects for the next 15 years. It is necessary to dig for this information. It is in Annex C of the Memorandum submitted by the Department of Energy to the Energy Resources Sub-Committee of the Select Committee on Science and Technology last March. It is published on pages 188–213 of the Committee's First Report for 1974–75, House of Commons Paper 487.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer), who was the Chairman of the Sub-Committee, is unfortunately not present today. Not the least valuable function of these Select Committees is the evidence which is made available for the first time.
  Annex C is entitled:
  "Energy Review 1974: Policy Framework and Forecasts."
  It is the result of a computer study intended to produce a whole range of forecasts based on a wide range of alternative assumptions about growth rates, energy prices, policy choices and so on. The heart of it is Table 1 on page 200 which sets out the ranges of supplies between 1972–73 and 1990 of the various energy sources.
  The figures show that in 1972–73 128 million tons of coal were consumed. In 1975 the range was 119 million tons to 133 million tons. Regrettably, the figure will be nearer the lower end of that bracket. For 1980 the range is much wider, 107 million tons to 154 million tons. In 1990 the range moves from 77 million tons to 196 million tons at the top end.
  A sample projection, which is stated clearly as being for illustrative purposes
  1072
  only—and I do not want to read more into it than is intended—appears on the next page and gives much more specific figures. In 1973 there is a figure of 131 million tons, in 1980 it is 130 million tons, in 1985, 135 million tons and in 1990, 150 million tons. These are much more specific examples because, as paragraph 9 says, they are based on the NCB's "Plan for Coal".
  The first point to make is that all of this was based on a computer study carried out in the summer of 1974, nearly 18 months ago. If the Government were asked to produce a similar study now, would the figures be the same or would they have changed? We have had further substantial delays on nuclear plant and with North Sea oil. There are changes in oil prices and there is evidence of the effect of much higher prices for energy generally on the level of demand. I ask the Government whether they will consider publishing a 1975 survey—an up-dated version of Annex C.
  Do the Government intend to publish regular annual reports of this nature? They are extremely helpful to those who seek to discover how Government thinking is moving and how we are fitting into a developing Government strategy for energy. The right hon. Gentleman is always preaching the virtues of open government. I can only commend to him the view that this would be a welcome move towards that. What Annex C shows is the continuing rise in opportunities for coal on many of the assumptions, provided that it remains competitive.
  At this stage I wish to read a passage from the Government's evidence to the Sub-Committee which comes in paragraph 11, when it is said:
  "If coal's present price advantage over oil were to be lost, there would of course be a substantial shift of demand away from coal; and if the threshold of competitiveness between oil and coal for power station fuelling (which requires coal to be significantly cheaper than oil) were to be breached, total coal demand could drop to 80–90 million tons."
  I think that is right. It undermines what the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) was seeking to argue—that there should somehow be an assured demand for coal. I do not think that that is realistic if expressed simply in that way. It has to be on the basis of competitive pricing, about which I will say more later.

  1073
  At this stage what I seek to do is identify the Opposition with the commitment embodied in the "Plan for Coal" and the thinking behind Annex C, namely that the long-term future of coal is assured if the necessary conditions of cost and security can be met.
  Another reason for long-term confidence in the future of coal—the right hon. Gentleman referred to this briefly—lies in developments in the utilisation of coal which are most exciting. There are not only improved combustion techniques, which is important enough, but also the upgrading of ordinary coal to metallurgical coke, the use of coal as a source of material for industry, gases, hydrocarbon liquids and solid materials ranging from rubberised sheeting and graphite electrodes to such sophisticated products as carbon fibres.
  It is not too strong to say that the coal conversion industry is enjoying a rebirth. I listened to Dr. Pierre Rousseau's fascinating coal science lecture a month ago when he spoke of the new world-wide interest in coal processing. He pointed out that all the processes in use today are basically the same as those which were in use 30 years ago. They are based on the technology of 30 or 40 years ago—Fischer-Tropsch, the Lurgi process, and so on. There have been few major innovations in the last 30 years, although one has been made in this country—the development of the Lurgi process to produce synthetic natural gas, as in the plant at Westfield.
  Today all that is changing. Some of my hon. Friends and I had the good fortune to visit Stoke Orchard, the coal research establishment, on Monday. I was greatly impressed with the range and quality of work being done there. Half of it is financed by the National Coal Board. A third of it is financed by the European Coal and Steel Community. I hope that I shall not be thought guilty of making a political point when I say that I hope that the Secretary of State will bring that to the attention of his committee, which is the successor to the Common Market safeguards campaign. The balance of the expenditure is met by industry, including, interestingly enough, the oil industry.
  I should like to say a few words about the question of fluidised bed combustion.
  1074
  It is not too strong to say that the work at Stoke Orchard represents a major breakthrough. Only a week ago the 10-nation agreement of the International Energy Agency provided for international collaboration in developing coal technology with a major project of fluidised combustion for Britain. Mr. Leslie Grainger said:
  "These agreements represent a great breakthrough in the advance of coal technology and also in international collaboration. It is the biggest-ever international programme involving coal producers and users and we are determined to see rapid progress in the technology of using coal as a real contribution to solving energy problems at competitive prices."
  That optimism is fully justified. There are three factors about fluidised combustion. It has a much higher thermal efficiency. It can raise the thermal efficiency of power stations from 30 per cent. to 40–42 per cent. which is significant in terms of fuel usage. It can give improved pollution control because the sulphur can be fixed into the limestone in the fiuidised bed. But, perhaps most significant—and this was something which I learned for the first time at Stoke Orchard—it largely eliminates the economies of scale in power-station building. One can achieve broadly the same measure of overall efficiency on a small power station as on a giant power station.
  What does this hold out for the future development of coal-fired electricity? Surely it is that it will make small local stations just as viable in producing electricity as the giant stations, but with this critical advantage: the small local stations are most easily adapted for using the waste heat, for district heating schemes to supply neighbourhoods around the stations. It is exceedingly difficult to see how one can develop the effective use of waste heat in a 2,000 mW power station, but with a small 100 mW station it becomes feasible.
  I should have thought that there was everything to be said for linking the development of fluidised bed technology with Dr. Marshall's study on the combined use of heat and electricity. I was a little surprised to learn that Stoke Orchard is not involved with Dr. Marshall's study; yet, with fluidised bed technology there is the opportunity of making a reality of something for which many of us, particularly my hon. Friend

  1075
  the Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost), have been arguing for some time.
  Mr. Richard Kelley: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the fluidised bed combusion system is being explored by an organisation which has nothing to do with the European Coal and Steel Community? Does he hope that the benefits which may accrue from the research and development taking place in this field will be open to a much wider range of organisations than the ECSC?
  Mr. Jenkin: I think that I have pointed out that the £10 million project is being financed by the International Energy Agency. Perhaps that meets the hon. Gentleman's point
  Another crucial process at Stoke Orchard is the super-critical gas extraction process. This is real "third generation" coal technology with a promise of a major leap forward in coal processing as a source of gaseous and liquefied hydrocarbons as raw materials for industry. We have been told that there is a project to build a pilot plant with ECSC help. We shall watch with interest how the project develops.
  For all those reasons, it is right that we should look to the future of the industry with confidence and I hope that my words will be noted not only in Hobart House but also in Euston Road.
  I wish however to emphasise the three cautionary provisos in the Final Report: the achievement of sufficient output; an assured continuity of supply; and at a cost which can meet long-run competition from other sources of energy. I should like to examine the prospects for the industry under those heads and to make a few comments on the Bill.
  It is no secret that the level of productivity in the past five or six months has been a cause for concern. The latest issue of Energy Trends, which came out a couple of hours ago, shows that over the past five consecutive months output per manshift has been lower than it was in 1974. There has been some improvement in the last month and it is now only a few decimal points down on October 1974. But that is not all that satisfactory and I know that the Under-
  1076
  Secretary of State is paying careful attention to this matter. It was stated in the Final Report:
  "We appreciate the technical and other difficulties, but the extra output from even a modest increase in the average machine-running time per shift would have a real impact on the fortunes of the industry".
  That accords exactly with what I have been told by mining engineers and miners at the coal face.
  I hope that those who have worked in the industry will forgive me for saying this—and it is easy for people who have not worked in it to make these points—but I think that I recognise all the difficulties. Mining is arduous and uncomfortable work, and safety plainly must have a very high priority. But I find it difficult to believe that it is not possible to work out a proper incentive scheme based on the output either at each coalface or at each colliery. Such a scheme might well have the desired results mentioned in the Final Report.
  Many of us regretted it when such a scheme did not find favour with the industry, because the national scheme has turned out to be very much second best, and there may be two or even three quarters when no bonus at all will be paid to the miners. I noticed that Mr. Scargill is still voicing opposition to a local scheme because, as he says, it would be
  "based on man against man and pit against pit".
  I say with respect to Mr. Scargill that there is no limit. It is a question not of sharing a finite cake but of giving people the incentive to get a little more machine time and to produce the coal which could transform the economics of the National Coal Board.
  I hope that another attempt will be made to devise a scheme. I realise that this is a matter for the industry and not for the Department, but it will be helpful if the Under-Secretary of State can tell us what is going on.
  I was interested in what the Secretary of State said about Selby. If work is to start in the spring, a decision on planning must be made in the next few weeks. There are other prospects. Coal has recently been discovered under the Forth. I gather that coal has been found at Cotgrave, in Nottinghamshire; and that a new thick seam of tophart coal has been

  1077
  found in the Belvoir Vale. The resources are immense, and they need to be developed.
  I should like to make a point about the exploration industry. At the time of nationalisation, there were 27 coal exploration firms in business. Today there is only one British firm.
  One knows the reasons for this, but perhaps the Government could urge the National Coal Board to look favourably at encouraging the one remaining British firm, which is now facing competition from foreign firms, especially Canadian and German firms. We really need a British capability in this field.
  I hope that we shall get more information at some stage about the "Plan for Coal". It is all very broad and general at present. In the case of previous borrowing powers Orders or Acts we have had from the NCB a substantial body of information about the plan, the timing of the investment, and where the main projects are. It is a matter for regret, and unfair for the industry, that we are asked to consider this Bill without that sort of information before us. I hope something will be said on that fairly soon. But broadly we support the plan.
  The second requirement of the Final Report was "assured continuity of supply". I have no doubt that Ministers, from the Secretary of State downwards, are losing no opportunity of stressing the damage to the confidence of customers if there are interruptions in supply. The unhappy events of 1971–72 and 1973–74 have cast a long shadow. One recognises the forces at work within the National Union of Mineworkers, just as they are at work within many other unions, and one can only hope that the wiser counsels will prevail.
  I read with a little irony this report in the Daily Telegraph this morning:
  "Moderate miners' leaders in Yorkshire said last night that any settlement with the junior doctors which contravened the Government's ani-inflation pay code would spark off a pay revolt throughout the coalfields.
  I do not want to hark backwards, but those are words which fall strangely from a union which demanded two years ago to be treated as a special case. The union said that its claim would not break the Pay Code at all. Instead, it brought down a Government by insisting on the demand for special treatment.
  1078
  The main difference today is that there is now an Opposition which is making it abundantly clear, as the Prime Minister acknowledged this afternoon, that it will offer no comfort or support to those who seek to break the pay policy. Would that it had been so two years ago.
  The truth of the matter is that
  "ludicrously excessive pay demands forced through by brute force can wreck the industry."
  Those words were said earlier this year, according to a Guardian report of 22nd May 1975, by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Industry.
  There are plenty of voices now arguing that we cannot risk being held to ransom again, and ought to get out of coal as quickly as possible. Nothing does more to undermine the efforts of those of us who stand out against that view, including Her Majesty's Opposition, than threats of industrial action being constantly bandied about. It can only destroy the faith of coal users. I hope this view will gain currency in the coalfields.
  The talisman of our support is that we supported the pneumoconiosis scheme, and we support the pension fund scheme, where we have, since 1973, acted in support of the principle of support from the Exchequer.
  My next point goes a little wider than the Bill but I hope that perhaps the Under-Secretary of State will comment on it in his reply. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) asked a Parliamentary Question on 11th November 1975, and from the Written Answer, reported in the Official Report at cols. 619–20, it appeared that in one year the nationalised industries' pension schemes were having to be helped to the tune of nearly a quarter of a billion pounds—£247·8 million. That is a staggering sum in a single year. It is the direct consequence of inflation, and my hon. Friends will want to know a little more about the Government's thinking on this business of subventioning nationalised industry pension schemes.
  I turn now to costs, and this is the key question. At the time of the Pay Board's Report, coal was 3p per therm into power stations, and oil was between 6p and 7p per therm. The most recent figures I have received from the Central Electricity Generating Board show that fuel oil has gone

  1079
  up from 6p or 7p to 8·8p per therm, and coal from 3p to almost 7p per therm. Even those averages conceal the realities, because there is now a significant overlap between high-cost coal and low-cost oil.
  Sir Derek Ezra made the point when he spoke to the National Union of Mine-workers' conference at Scarborough, and said that
  "The average effective price advantage of coal over oil delivered to power stations has now been eroded from 44 per cent. to little more than 10 per cent. by a virtual doubling of the price of coal."
  That was in The Times of 9th July 1975.
  There lies the nub of current anxieties. Oil will go up a bit as a result of the 10 per cent. OPEC price-hike. Coal will have to go up, probably in March, to meet the effects of the £6-per-week pay rise in January. But is it right that there should be further subsidies when the Government have said that they are trying to cut out subsidies? Here we have what is bound to be an extension of the stocking subsidy.
  This again, as the Secretary of State made clear, came from the 1973 Act, but by extending the subsidy to coal at customer's premises, are we not risking substantially increasing the amount of the subsidy? The total figure for subsidies was £130 million in 1973–74 and £68·2 million in 1974–75. How much of this was for the coal stocking subsidy, and how much is the coal stocking subsidy expected to be in the current year? Perhaps the Under-Secretary will answer these questions when he winds up the debate.
  The Secretary of State said that this was a "short-term fluctuation". I hope he is right. But it cannot be right at this stage that we should go back on the policy of eliminating revenue subsidies—other than, of course, the social costs which we all accept—from the nationalised industry pricing. Is there really need for subsidies of this kind? The public sector borrowing requirement is over £12 billion this year, and there is an obligation on all Departments to try to keep the calls on the public Exchequer as low as possible.
  This is a short but very important Bill, and although the main provision is a substantial increase in borrowing, and therefore a new burden on the Exchequer,
  1080
  it is made pursuant to a policy for coal which has the full support of Her Majesty's Opposition. We shall want to examine the clauses in more detail in Committee, but I would not advise my hon. Friends to oppose the Second Reading tonight.
  5.7 p.m.
  Mr. George Grant: I broadly welcome this Bill. The two main objectives are to maintain the real value of the miners' pension fund and to facilitate the stocking of coal. Men who have 10 years' service in the industry as from 1st April 1976 will have a £1 a week increase, taking it to £4·60 a week. As a Member sponsored by the National Union of Mineworkers, I am confident that in this economic climate the union will also welcome the measures taken in the Bill.
  I welcome the opportunity to discuss the mining industry within the context of the areas covered by the measures in the Bill. I agree with the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin), the Opposition spokesman, when he says that there are anxieties in the mining industry, and that things are not just as cosy as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State seemed to indicate in his speech.
  I am not satisfied with the present policy of the National Coal Board, or, indeed, with that of my Government. I am sure that no Member of this House can feel satisfied that today the British miner is the only miner in the European Economic Community who does not retire at the age of 60 or lower. In the East European countries miners retire at 60, or in some cases at 55, with two-thirds of their wage as pension
  The present miners' pension scheme is quite inadequate. Whenever I ask Parliamentary Questions about the reason why the British miner cannot retire at the age of 60 or even at 55 with an adequate pension, I am told that the substantial amount of money required would be too great and that the number of men involved would make such demands on the labour force that it would be quite impossible for the National Coal Board to accept it. I do not accept either of those premises. At the moment, about 5 per cent. of our male population is unemployed. I ask the House to look at

  1081
  the situation in this light. We have young men unemployed through no fault of their own but because they cannot get jobs. I ask the House to consider what they are being paid and whether it is they who should be put out to grass first. Should we virtually pension off young men capable of doing a job of work or men who have worked 50 years in the coalmining industry?
  More often than not, miners approaching the age of 65 are literally crawling to work. They work in dust. They suffer from bronchitis, which does not qualify for industrial injuries benefits. Many are maimed as a result of having to lift heavy weights in cramped conditions. Their vertebrae and muscles are stretched beyond belief. As a result of crawling around to do their work, their legs cannot carry them. A situation of this kind is a disgrace to the British nation. It is scandalous that we are so far behind the rest of the industrialised world, and it is a state of affairs that should be put right.
  I accept that there are difficulties, and I do not expect them to be dealt with overnight. But, as soon as the position becomes clearer, the Government should put it right. Miners' retirement should be phased so that progressively men can retire at 64, 63, and so on, with the ultimate aim being a retirement age of 55.
  It is sometimes said that other industries would demand the same. I remind the House that today we have local government officers, police, civil servants and Officers of this House who retire at 60. Again I ask, who should be put out to grass first? These are the real issues, and I hope that the Government will think seriously about them.
  If the mining industry were afforded this kind of treatment, this in itself would be a way to recruit men into the industry, where their value would be recognised. However, the worth of a man who works away from sunshine, exposed to geological hazards and doing a job with a high accident rate should be recognised by society.
  The most important factor affecting recruitment is morale, and morale is very important in the mining industry, as it is in any industry.
  I accept that stockpiling is necessary. But, having said that, I invite the House
  1082
  to consider what stockpiling means to men in the industry. Let us not forget that many of them have in the past 20 years seen their industry reduced from a work force of 600,000 to the present figure of 240,000. In my own county, manpower has been reduced from 50,000 to 10,000. Morale is important in the mining industry. However, in my opinion lack of communication has a great deal to do with the present state of morale. There is a lack of trust.
  Recently, I visited my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy to seek his clarification of a report in the Newcastle Journal to the effect that some seven pits in Northumberland were to be closed in the next four years. In fairness to my hon. Friend, he tried to scotch the rumour. I was grateful for his statement that there was no truth in it and that the National Coal Board had made no such decisions. However, my promise has not proved to be good enough for the men of Northumberland, because they have been quite unable to clarify the position at their own collieries and to get assurances about the future.
  In my opinion, joint consultation in the mining industry is a farce. We have a situation where the chairman of a joint consultative committee is a manager. From my own experience and from my discussions with colleagues it is clear that the system has not changed since I left the industry. The manager can tell the trade unions what he wants to tell them. But, in fairness to the colliery managers, it must be said that on many occasions they do not know the position themselves.
  I have seen no evidence that consultation in the mining industry can be described in any way as workers' participation. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has left the Chamber, because I know that he has been a loud, clear advocate of workers' participation and rightly so.
  I believe that this country has to look seriously at workers' participation. The old days have gone. We have to look at the current situation. We must get away from confrontation—the spirit of "they" and "us"—and get down to cooperation. If we cannot achieve better than we have in the mining industry by joint consultation, workers' participation—call it what we may—bearing in mind

  1083
  that 95 per cent. of the men are in one union, what chance have we in industries where there are 30 or 35 unions? I ask my hon. Friend to convey to the Secretary of State that I expect him to scrutinise the mining industry closely. If we cannot achieve more than we have so far, we have little chance of branching out into workers' participation, for which there is an urgent need.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alex Eadie): My right hon. Friend has been compelled to leave the Chamber to attend to urgent Government business, and he intends no act of discourtesy. I am sure that he will pay great attention to what my hon. Friend is saying.
  Mr. Grant: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Before I leave consultation as it applies in the mining industry, I cannot help reflecting that in the early days of nationalisation the men employed as industrial relations officers more often than not had worked in the industry and had come up through the trade unions. Today, the policy of the National Coal Board is to recruit people with academic qualifications who have not had their hands dirtied in the industry. The industry suffers as a result.
  In my view, the tripartite talks between the unions, the National Coal Board, and the Government made a lot of headway and achieved considerable sucecss. They sought to create a new framework for the industry. However, we have not taken one step forward in our search for a national energy policy.
  How can we claim to have an energy policy when we have the ridiculous situation of coal being imported? I appreciate that certain grades of coal are needed for the chemical and steel industries because they are in short supply in this country. But I cannot accept that there is any need—nor has there been for many years—for the Central Electricity Generating Board to import coal for power stations. How can we claim to have an energy policy when we have the ridiculous situation of the Chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board determining which fuel will be used in future power stations? If we are to achieve an energy policy, the
  1084
  Government must spell out more clearly which fuel will be used, and so on.
  I understand that 12 power stations are under construction but that not one is coal-fired. In the planning process there are 20 power stations, not one of which is to be coal-fired. In addition, we have heard about a closure programme for coal-fired power stations.
  When the miners hear about the development of Selby and other areas and projects which have been mentioned today—for example, the extension of opencast mining—what can they think but that these developments mean a further pit closure programme? That is not the way to maintain confidence in the industry. In October 1969 Drax B was announced as a coal-fired power station. We are still waiting for it.
  We must have an energy policy to bring confidence not only in mining but in the whole of our energy industry. The Government must lay down firm guidelines if we are to achieve an energy policy. How can any Government or industrialist expect maximum production with these clouds of insecurity hanging over the people who work in the industry?
  I repeat, we must seek to take the "them" and "us" out of the industry. We must get rid of confrontation. We must get down to co-operation. We must let the workers know what is happening and give them the opportunity to take responsibility within their industry.
  The tripartite talks achieved some success. But, if the warnings which I have given today are ignored, the success achieved in the tripartite talks will soon be eroded.
  5.24 p.m.
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: The hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Grant) has probably misconceived the purpose of Clause 2 of the Bill. It is not to maintain the standards of pensions, but, as the Secretary of State correctly portrayed, to deal with deficiencies in the superannuation fund. This provision was first made in the Coal Industry Act 1973 which the Conservative Government brought in to try to deal with the deficiencies. I accept that Section 5 of the 1973 Act is to be repealed and that the new provision will now take its place.

  1085
  In April 1975 the assets and liabilities of the fund were calculated. An actuarial deficiency of £250 million was found. From my researches I have discovered that the Government are reluctant to pay the fund a lump sum of this amount and propose that the payment should be made over 20 years. The discounted present value of £18 million a year for 20 years has been calculated to be the same as £250 million. In other words, £18 million a year for 20 years is worth the same amount to the fund as a lump sum of £250 million now.
  It must be appreciated that this is to cure the deficiency. It is not intended to contribute towards the inflation-proofing of pensions, about which I asked the Secretary of State. However, there is a provision, subject to review, for increasing the £18 million a year, which can be done by Order in this House. But it will have to be on affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament and it will be subject to further debate. The matter would have to be reviewed carefully by hon. Members in this House and by their Lordships in the other place.
  As I see it, there is no obligation on the mineworkers' pension fund to increase pensions fully in line with the cost of living. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State is listening.
  Mr. EadieI am listening to every word.
  Mr. Skeet: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, if the fund does not raise rates to compensate fully for rises in the cost of living, there will be no obligation on the Government to reimburse the fund fully for the extra expenditure incurred? If the miners were to be fully compensated for the degree of inflation—at its present rate of 26 per cent.—what would be the cost to the taxpayer, over and above the £250 million, which must be subscribed prior to 1994 to deal with the deficiency in the fund?
  I must apologise to the Under-Secretary of State as I shall be abroad by the lime that he replies to the debate. I apologise in advance, but I shall certainly read with considerable interest what the hon. Gentleman may say on this important topic.
  Mr. Skinner: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that he has got some cheek talk-
  1086
  ing about miners having inflation-proof pensions starting from the ridiculously low level of £3 when, in the next breath, he has the gall to say that when the answer comes from the Minister's mouth he will be abroad? It is time he understood that the miners, during the past few years, have been trying to get some of the benefits which they have not had in the past.
  Mr. SkeetI will treat the hon. Gentleman's remarks with the contempt that they deserve. I should explain that I am going on a parliamentary delegation and that some of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues will be on it as well.
  Mr. Skinner: Not me.
  Mr. Skeet: No. It is just as well that we do not send you abroad.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. I am willing to be sent abroad at any time.
  Mr. Skeet: I think that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would be one of the United Kingdom's best ambassadors, but not the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).
  In recent years, we have been disturbed at the low quantity of coal which has been exported. It seems absurd that we should import coal from West Germany at £40 per ton compared with £29 per ton from South Africa, £16 per ton from Australia, £24 per ton from the United States of America and £14 per ton from Poland when production costs in the United Kingdom are as low as £11·98 per ton on 1974–75 figures.
  The Secretary of State spoke about an energy policy for Western Europe—indeed, for the EEC. Most of our export trade in coal, although tiny—we exported 1·8 million tons in 1974 valued at £20 million—has been to West Germany and France. We have exported coal for prices ranging between £12 and £18 per ton. That is very low. If we are to have a comprehensive energy policy, and as we are trying to persuade the Europeans to buy our oil, would it not be useful for the Secretary of State for Energy to go to Brussels to ascertain whether they will be interested in buying some of our coal at a suitable time when we have it available.

  1087
  The hon. Gentleman may care to listen. It may be a point of congratulation to the Board that it has joined International Continental Fuels Ltd. in which Commercial Union has taken an interest to engage in the distribution of international coal. In the coming year about 3 million tons of coal will be dealt with. This should be a money spinner for the Board and I hope that the Government will give further thought and encouragement to this matter.
  Clause 3 deals with the financing of stocks. There has been considerable argument about this. This was started by the 1973 Act and is continued in the Bill. There has been the argument with the CEGB. It indicated that the ceiling above which the Board should finance stocks would be 12 million tons. The NCB responded at 15 million tons. A figure was eventually settled between them of 13·5 million.
  It may be a satisfactory idea to consider having a State stockpile much on the lines of the United States strategic stockpile. This has in fact been recommended by the Federal Government in Germany—to have such a stockpile to avoid Ruhrhohle and other companies being involved in the necessity of laying aside a considerable sum of money for dealing with stocks which may be indispensable in future years. I recognise that one of the reasons for having stockpiles is labour troubles in the industry. We all earnestly hope that there may come a time when they are eliminated from the mines.
  The main point of the Bill is to give the Government additional money to borrow. This is contained in Clause 1. I think that a modest sum has been provided. It will go into capital equipment, but when I see the size of the resources that are available to the United Kingdom I think that the moneys coming forward are very small indeed.
  The total resources of economically workable coal in the United Kingdom in seams of at least 24 inches and at a depth of 4,000 feet work out at 97 billion tons. Coal economically worked at existing collieries, plus potential new mines and opencast, total only 4·3 billion tons. The result of this is rather curious. Thus, the amount of coal that has been developed in the United Kingdom is only
  1088
  4·4 per cent. of the total. At an annual production rate of 120 million tons—and that is a low figure—potential resources would last for 800 years to bring usage of this commodity up to 2785 AD.
  The Board may possibly decide that it is satisfied with its existing programme, but I think that we ought to be satisfied a little more that what it is doing will result in more recoverable coal at competitive prices. I wrote to Mr. Mills of the NCB to find out what his new 10-year programme to 1985 involved. It is apparent that the programme referred to 15 new collieries, and we know most of them—at Royston, Selby, and so on—but he says that a feasibility study is going on at two places, Stafford and a site south of the Trent.
  On the other hand, he says:
  "The remaining 10 are areas in which drilling is in hand to determine whether sufficient coal is present to justify a feasibility study."
  Obviously this is a contingent liability and it might be in the future that the Board will not go ahead with all these schemes. Perhaps the Minister will clarify this matter.
  Mr. Mills also mentioned—and it was referred to this afternoon by the Secretary of State—that 16 major investment projects will produce about 12 million tons additional capacity. I know that 60 per cent. of these are in the East Midlands and Yorkshire, and I welcome that. Only two are in Scotland, and, understandably, two are in Kent, with seven in South Wales.
  Dealing next with the question of accessibility, I hope that the Minister will say a little more about the availability of reserves that are open to the Board.
  Mr. Skinner: Turn over the page.
  Mr. Skeet: The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity later to take part in the debate.
  Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman has turned the wrong page.
  Mr. Skeet: I know which page I have turned. The hon. Gentleman has no leaves to turn over so perhaps he will listen to what I have to say.
  In an interesting article in Chemistry and Industry of 16th August 1975 mention was made of considerable coal supplies underlying the North Sea. The

  1089
  article says that in the southern sector of the North Sea there are seams between 6-ft and 12-ft and that this is the basis for the natural gas formations from which the British Gas Corporation is deriving considerable supplies. The authors indicate that there is a high probability of a large coal basin the western extremities of which are the Nottingham and East Midlands coalfields, while the eastern extremities are the Dutch, Belgian and German coalfields. If the Minister has any information that he can contribute on this matter I am certain that the House will be interested to have it, because it will mean that this country has even more resources available that may be developed in future years.
  May I add two points about Selby? In answer to Questions, and today, the right hon. Gentleman said that the inspector's report has not been received. Bearing in mind that the Christmas Recess is nearly upon us, will the Minister have time to digest it, and will the planning procedure be put through to enable the first phase of Selby to be completed on time? It would be a great pity if the industry could not get 10 million tons by the early 'eighties and it is essential that this scheme should be continued as planned.
  My other point is that in Committee upstairs, when dealing with another Bill, the Minister mentioned an interdepartmental working party. I understand that it has presented its report on mining subsidence. Is a statement to be made on the matter? Is the Minister prepared to make a statement on this tonight? I ask that because this will involve big problems for Selby, and one would like to know whether more emphasis is to be given to producing coal or whether emphasis is to be given to the payment of compensation as a way out of the problem. I mention this because while the Board apparently will safeguard Selby Abbey—a 900-year old church—nevertheless should the Board accept the view put forward by Selby Council it would mean that if pillars had to be maintained under a broader area, coal to the value of about £84 million would be lost. It would be helpful to know the Minister's intention.
  May I prevail upon the Minister to make full use of opencast mining? I know that it is the Government's policy
  1090
  to increase this from 10 million tons to 15 million tons. It has been higher before, as it was in 1958, but I feel that it has three characteristics that are worthy of consideration. First, the coal is very much cheaper to produce. In the 21 years existence of the Opencast Coal Executive, 187 million tons of coal have been produced from opencast mines, leading to a net profit even after restoration of £146 million. This is a factor which the Board cannot ignore.
  The other factor is the contribution to safety. In opencast mining people are not working underground, and therefore the risk of accidents is decreased. Owing to the shortage of anthracite, opencast mining is the key to the problem. If the Government are prepared to authorise more of these pits, perhaps the problem could be overcome. There is a shortage of this type of coal in the market, and as there are adequate resources in Wales and elsewhere, the Government would be wise to push further ahead with this form of development.
  The future of the industry has been touched on briefly. I want to be brief so that other hon. Members can state their case. My right hon. Friend mentioned fluidised combustion systems, their compactness and heat transfer capability and the method of eliminating such things as sulphur and nitrous oxides. But one point that he did not mention was its great value in combined cycles, employing both gas and steam turbines. It can improve the generating efficiency of fossil fuel generating stations from the present 35 per cent. to well in excess of 40 per cent. I could emphasise this more realistically by saying that a 2,000 mW power station could save up to 500,000 tons of coal per year by using the combined cycle system.
  There is also the prospect of liquefaction and of gasification of coal. On the latter I cannot do better than refer to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) on 18th January 1974:
  "It is too early to give a realistic estimate of production costs but on our present information they are likely to be considerably higher than those of North Sea gas."—[Official Report, 18th January 1974; Vol. 867, c. 186.]
  That is a very good estimate, so I do not think that we shall find much coal gasification coming in within the 10-year

  1091
  period, although I am optimistic about the development of fluidised combustion systems. Further liquefaction is not likely within this time scale. I would refer on this subject to an answer by my right hon. Friend in the very next column of Hansard.
  Finally, and of more encouragement to the NCB, is its work in chemicals. Coal can be used in the production of aromatics such as benzine, toluene and xylene. This is some years on and it may participate in acetylene technology. This is a well-known technology which will probably be improved within 15 years. If there is any shortage of oil as it is consumed and used for transportation, we do have the eventual prospect of the coal industry coming into its own.
  That is all that I have to say—
  Mr. Skinner: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Skeet: I am sure that the hon. Member for Bolsover will be glad of the opportunity to get in after I have spoken. It is only right that those who do not come from mining areas should be able to contribute—
  Mr. Skinner: Declare your interest.
  Mr. Skeet: I will. My interest is an interest in the energy situation of this country. I wish to see the best use made of its resources. I have said that before. It is only right that I should do so again.
  I unreservedly support the Bill. Clause 1 is essential. There have been many borrowing requirements Bills in the past. We have proposed some to the House ourselves. There is some anxiety about Clause 2, which will be discussed in Committee, but generally it is designed to help the superannuation fund. I have covered Clause 3 already. I hope that the Bill will receive the endorsement of the House on its Second Reading.
  5.43 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Hardy: I hope that the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) will acquit me of discourtesy if I say that I do not particularly feel that I should follow him in what he said. This is a debating chamber, not a place for conducting complex seminars. Nor should it be seen as a repository of information
  1092
  which may cause some people to imagine that the hon. Gentleman really is an expert on fuel matters. However, I shall be here to listen to my hon. Friend's winding-up speech and perhaps he could comment on one or two points that the hon. Member made.
  As chairman of my party's Energy Group and a Member representing a large number of miners, I welcome the Bill and the speech of the Secretary of State. He clearly maintained the Government's acceptance that coal will continue to be important. That is to be welcomed, and it will certainly be greeted with interest in the coalfields of Britain.
  I was particularly interested in my right hon. Friend's comments on the proposed consideration of the relationships between production and marketing. I hope that this will lead to arrangements which will ensure the adequate use of coal for electricity generation and that other outlets will be developed—perhaps not least the growth in our export capacity. Certainly, British coal should not be available for export when some of our partners in the EEC are buying coal which may be subsidised in a way which is contrary to the practice of the Community so far as the British industry is concerned.
  On the whole, we may have the odd anxiety about the industry's position, but we should all be very pleased that the Government are determined that Britain will continue to have a vigorous coal industry. I believe that that industry and the communities which depend upon it will benefit immensely from the investment capacity which will be enhanced by these proposals.
  I am glad that the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) has returned. A large part of his speech showed a great improvement on the sort of speeches that we have too often heard from his party in the last five years. I cannot go back further than that. I do not mind—we should be churlish to object to—his comment that we need an increase in the amount of coal produced by our existing pits. That is a valid comment, given the vast increase in the reserves and capacities conferred on the National Coal Board since this Government took office. I hope that a greater quantity will be produced.

  1093
  However, the right hon. Gentleman spoiled an interesting speech by his references to the strikes of 1972 and 1974. It is a pity that he referred to them. It should be put plainly and clearly on the record that those disputes were tragic and regrettable but that they were also avoidable. They were unlooked-for and unwanted and I hope that we shall never see that situation occur again. I hope that the miners will never again be driven to the point at which loss of morale and comparative earning power brings them to the end of their tolerance. The Bill will certainly help to prevent that.
  We hear a great deal about investment, and the Bill's main purpose is to increase investment in British industry—albeit in the public sector. One hopes that the private sector of British industry will soon start to generate capital and see to it that investment policies are pursued so that we can make the broad and proper advance that we need. The Bill will certainly help to maintain a high level of confidence in the industry. Britain is beginning to realise, as the miners have always realised, that coal is important. The Government's proposals today and the policies pursued in the last 18 months certainly reinforce that view, which the miners hold very strongly.
  I make annual underground visits to the 11 collieries in my constituency in Rother Valley. In my visits this year to see the faces at Kilnhurst and Corton-wood collieries, the miners to whom I spoke make it clear that they continued to believe that their task is absolutely essential. Therefore, it is essential that the Government should maintain the policies that they have pursued. But I am very pleased that the Government have decided to maintain the tripartite consultations which have been an important feature of the coal industry since the Labour Government took office last year.
  The Government deserve to be congratulated on that policy—not least the Under-Secretary, who I know has put a tremendous amount of work into it. That effort deserves to be rewarded. I know that he has had great co-operation from the leaders of the mining unions, not only the NUM, and also from the Board. I feel—many miners would agree—that the contribution of Sir Derek Ezra to rebuilding vitality and confidence in the
  1094
  NCB deserves the highest possible congratulations. I note that the miners, who are the fairest minded of men, have recognised this by the invitations to Sir Derek Ezra, as Chairman of the Board and the chief employer, to take part in union activities such as the Durham Miners' Gala, and—my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. Kelley) will confirm this—in the Yorkshire miners' summer school. I believe that Miss Vanessa Redgrave, the revolutionary actress, was also present at that summer school, but I cannot comment on how the two got on.
  That is a good sign because an improvement in relationships is taking place in the industry. Despite the bitterness of the historic legacy in our coalfields, I believe that as a result of the efforts of those I have mentioned, not least my hon. Friend the Minister, we could well see—unless there is mischievous comment in the national Press and agitation for party political purposes from Conservative Members—the National Coal Board and the miners of Britain establishing a model in cordial industrial relationships, which is highly to be desired. We have seen developments along those lines and I have evidence of that cordiality developing in my constituency.
  In addition to promoting investment capacity, securing the future and maintaining confidence, the Bill will also contribute towards ensuring that we have the necessary decent relationships in this essential industry.
  7.52 p.m.
  Mr. David Crouch: I do not want to labour the point that the Secretary of State is not present because we have been given the adequate explanation that he has been called away on public business, but his absence is a pity when one has prepared a speech for the ear of a particular Minister. My remarks tonight will reflect on the right hon. Gentleman not so much as criticism but as observation.
  I take objection to the Bill, not so much for what it says as for what it does not say. The Bill comprises four clauses, the first of which says that the Government want to increase the borrowing power of one of the biggest nationalised industries by another £400 million,

  1095
  Clause 2 states that the Government want to make up the deficiencies of the miner's pension scheme by up to £18 million a year for the next 20 years. At least, Clause 2 gives a figure of £18 million and states what it is for, but we are not told about the borrowing requirement. The House is given a bald statement that the Government want more taxpayers' money for a nationalised industry and that the Secretary of State will come and tell hon. Members what it is all about. That is not good enough. The public want to know.
  The Bill is a prospectus which is placed before Parliament. I am not against it and shall speak in favour of it. However, these days we have to change our ideas about how we face the problems of the nationalised industries and how we present the prospectus of the nationalised industries. It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to come to the House and leave a paper on the Table which indicates that much more money is wanted. We should know before hand what that money is for. We can make deductions.
  We have debated Bills in the recent past—not so much Bills which contain specific sums of money as Bills about new and general legislation. One example is the Industry Act, which we debated for many months the last Session. During those debates it was spelled out exactly what was before Parliament. Study could therefore be made before hand, we could come to the debate prepared and not have to hang on the words of the Secretary of State when he explained something. Very often there was a White Paper, a Green Paper, a discussion paper or an explanation in the Bill, so we knew what we were in for.
  I am not making a severe criticism, because what the right hon. Gentleman has done is in line with the current practice of successive administrations. I hope that following the Chequers meeting we shall turn over a new leaf when we deal with the nationalised industries. The Prime Minister was, rightly, very proud that both sides of industry sat together with the Government at that meeting, but it was not the first time that they had sat together. The NEDC, which was founded in 1962, institutionalised the
  1096
  bringing together of both sides of industry. Nevertheless, today the Prime Minister is proudly saying that both sides of industry are sitting together and that both the public and private sectors are getting together.
  The Government's intention is to introduce planning agreements which should be put before industry and the public. They want industry to submit its plans to them and the people, and they want participation and greater consultation. The procedure on this Bill does not follow that admirable precept of involving us in this participation.
  Clause 3 seeks to enable the Government to extend the purposes for which they give grants to the National Coal Board. This has been explained, and I am very glad that it has been explained. Last year those grants amounted to £68 million. I shall comment on them later. I can understand that the Government wish to have increased borrowing power.
  When I came to the Chamber today I had prepared my speech. I heard the answers to my questions as the Secretary of State opened the debate. I wanted an assurance that the Board would use its new investment powers for economic development of the coal industry, which I support strongly, and not for what I regard as social purposes.
  In every nationalised industry there should be a proper division between social purposes and economic and commercial development and opportunity. In the energy industry there is great commercial opportunity today, but in all nationalised industries we seek to separate the social obligation from the commercial operation. This afternoon the Secretary of State gave us this assurance and I am satisfied. I would have asked him why this was not stated in the Bill, because I wanted to be sure that the money was for the development of new coal resources.
  I also wanted to know how much of this extra money would go into the Selby project and how much would go into existing pits. The right hon. Gentleman answered those points. Would it not have been better if we had known those answers before hand? Why do they have to be kept secret? The debate would have been more interesting and perhaps more hon. Members would have been

  1097
  present if we had known something of these expectations beforehand. We receive too few explanations of the objectives of the nationalised industries.
  The Bill is a prospectus for business. Members of Parliament are the peoples' representatives. We have to judge how we value and view that prospectus with regard to the public's savings because those savings are the tax that we take from them. We are the custodians of the tax and it is for us to judge whether we should place those savings here or there, and whether we can tell the public that the prospectus is a sound investment and has our support. We are entitled to know, as also are the public.
  Parliament is rather like a supervisory board of the nationalised industries. I had hoped that the Secretary of State would be present because these are matters that were discussed at length during our debates on the Industry Act. By all accounts the Secretary of State is a believer in participation. The hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Grant) has spoken strongly—and rightly so—about his belief in participation and his hopes that this will develop. He feared that it was not developing fast enough in the coal industry. However, the Secretary of State should recognise—I hope the Minister will inform him of this—that there is a natural desire by hon. Members to join him in his supervisory consultations on the coal industry. We do not want to interfere in the day-to-day management either of the Department or of the NCB. All that we want is to enter into a planning agreement with him.
  I want to talk briefly of my attitude towards the nationalised industries. The Minister will know that I am not an anti-nationalised industry man. However, I am careful about what we do with the nationalised industries and to them; how far we support them and how far we encourage them to support themselves. I must confess that I am getting worried about the present Government's attitude towards the nationalised industries. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) touched on this question. He, too, voiced this anxiety whether the Government were getting their priorities mixed and were forgetting some of their original
  1098
  intentions in regard to the nationalised industries.
  Do the Government want to go on increasing the subsidy to the nationalised industries, or do they want gradually to stop subsidies? Today we are continuing in the old pattern of saying that we must give more and more money to this nationalised industry because it needs that money—because the auditors say that they are not satisfied with the accounts of last year, published in July this year, because there is a deficiency on the pension scheme. All right; that is acceptable. There is an appeal from the chairman that some action should be taken—presumably by the Government and the House eventually—to correct that deficiency in the accounts and to put some money in. But I had thought that the present Government had embarked on a policy of phasing out the subsidies to the nationalised industries and getting those industries, as far as possible, to stand on their own feet. This was the message that I got from the Chequers meeting.
  In order to refresh my memory I brought to the Chamber a copy of the paper read by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at that Chequers meeting. It was appropriately called "An Approach to Industrial Strategy". It is very pertinent today. I should like to read what the Chancellor said in paragraph 3 of the foreword:
  "The Government emphasises the importance of sustaining a private sector of industry which is vigorous, alert, responsible and profitable. It intends that the public sector should exhibit the same qualities."
  That is why, without consulting any of my party leaders, I went on a television programme on the same night and made a statement, together with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). I said that I supported the objective that both the private sector and the public sector should be vigorous, alert and profitable.
  In paragraph 7 of the Chancellor's main paper he says,
  "Such a strategy must involve ensuring that industry, both public and private, is able to earn sufficient profits on its investment to spur managements to expand and to innovate and to provide them with the internal finance on which to base investment."

  1099
  However, here today we are back in our old pattern of viewing the nationalised industries and saying that we must vote more money to them because they have not got enough, because the figures are wrong, because the accounts do not look right to the auditors, and so on. The Bill seems to me to have as its objective a need to pour money into the NCB partly because the auditors do not like what they see in last year's accounts and the need now, therefore, for the NCB to fund its social provisions—I am not arguing against that, but I am making the point that it is there—and partly because the Board does not earn enough to fund its stocks. We must turn over a new leaf here. The Board must be told to earn a bit more.
  I was glad to hear the statistic that was read by my right hon. Friend this afternoon—that coal is now valued at 7p a therm by the electricity generating industry, rather than the 3p of the old days. I have thought for a long time that we were getting some things too cheaply in this country, and that one of them was energy. I am one Conservative Member who has constantly spoken out on the need for our mining industry to earn more money. Coal is a very valuable commodity. It is like gold—a commodity we should treasure. I support the Government intentions and objectives to expand this industry. However, we cannot expand it unless people are prepared to pay the price for it. I do not think that coal is too expensive today. I want to see more coal production, but I also want the Board to make more profits. I congratulate the Board. It has had quite a good year.
  Let us be clear about the grants. We as a nation are big investors in the NCB already. Last year the Government grants totalled a little over £68 million. They are now to be increased by a further £18 million a year. I should not be surprised if we found in next year's accounts that the grants to the NCB are approaching £100 million. Therefore, let us have no illusions about this industry. We must get it back on to a proper footing. The Board will be entitled to a great many social grants that are possible under present Acts, regional grants and so on, but I should like to see the Board able to fund its own stocks. I
  1100
  should have liked to think that it could have even funded—because it was paying its way—the superannuation scheme.
  I am glad that the coal industry is doing so much better. I am proud of it. I am very glad that our miners are digging so much more coal. Deep-mined coal last year was up by 18 million tons over the previous year, and the total output was up to 125 million tons, so we are well on our way to the target of 135 million tons.
  I am glad, too, that the total operating profit was £34 million, as compared with a loss in the previous tragic year of £112 million.
  Naturally, I am very pleased about what has been happening in Kent, that small coalfield in England which has for so long had rather a sad economic record. I am glad that it has shown much better results from three pits, producing 100,000 tons more coal last year, and making a profit from that effort of £½million, as compared with a loss of of over £2 million the year before.
  The value of a ton of coal mined in Kent—this is important—has been doubled, and the profit per ton of Kentish coal is now nearly £2, as compared with a loss of £3 in the previous year. Therefore, the price of coal having risen, if the profits are there it means that high wages—they were high last year, relatively, although perhaps they are not so high now—are justified. We can pay them. But now so much more depends on the coal industry staying well in the black so that it can fund its investment, as the Chequers meeting said that it should. This is reflected very well in the 3p per therm that it used to be and the 7p per therm it is earning now.
  Finally, I want to be a little nostalgic and go back seven years to something that happened in my constituency in 1968 when we closed Chislet colliery, which hurt me and a great many people. I wonder today, given the new economic background for all forms of energy, and particularly coal, whether Chislet, if it were working today, would not be a thriving and viable pit producing coal and making a profit from it, and employing more men. I wish that it was working. If the NCB, spurred on by the speeches made in this House—I wish that the Board was listening, but I hope

  1101
  that its members read Hansard—decided to reopen that highly modernised pit, Chislet, it could be sure of my support and I would be proud to call myself once again a typical miners' Member of Parliament.
  6.10 p.m.
  Mr. Adam Hunter: There is unanimity amongst hon. Members present about the further borrowing powers to be granted to the National Coal Board, and I welcome that.
  The Secretary of State assured us that the Government were interested in Britain's having a successful coal industry. The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) gave a similar assurance on behalf of the Conservatives. About 11 years ago the then Leader of the Opposition made a tour of several pits in England. He was accompanied by four Labour Members and four Conservative Members, among whom was the hon. Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson). Since that day, those hon. Members have taken a continuing interest in the industry. Today marks the culmination of that interest with an assurance from the Conservatives that they are still interested in the long-term future of the industry.
  Clause 1 is very important. It will put into effect the terms of a plan projected by the National Coal Board for the industry's investment. It follows the theme of a speech by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at the National Union of Mineworkers' conference in July of this year when he said
  "The Government has done its part to ensure a strong and secure future for Britain's coal industry."
  I hope that this doubling of the borrowing limit is evidence of an intention to secure this aim and that this is a major step to ensure that the industry will be a successful contender in the energy market with other types of fuel.
  The recently agreed increase by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries of 10 per cent. in the price of oil will alert every responsible person concerned with energy to the fact that the country as a whole appreciates the need for a strong coal industry. Already some of the investment visualised by the Coal Board has gone to help my constituency. Only a few weeks ago in the Longannetmine
  1102
  complex a new development was started at a cost of £3 million. I see from information received from the Coal Board today that a project costing £23 million for a pit in Yorkshire is under way. That augurs well for the industry.
  Both sides of the House agree that new investment is necessary to ensure that the industry gets up-to-date equipment and machinery and the best technology and that it is used for the new projects that will be undertaken as a result of the increased investment in the industry. The extra money is required also to guarantee the maximum efficiency and productivity, not forgetting the safety and health of those working in the industry and mining the coal.
  I was surprised by the seeming assumption by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) that all the borrowing would be made from the Government. I do not see that necessarily the borrowing must be made exclusively from the Government. It seems from the financial effects mentioned in the Bill that other organisations could lend money to the Board.
  In accepting the Bill and welcoming the new borrowing limits I wish to ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary some questions.
  First, where will the Board do its borrowing? My hon. Friend knows that borrowing involves repayment of capital and payment of interest charges, sometimes very high interest charges.
  Secondly, what are the Board's plans in this connection? Will it borrow all the money from the Government? May it borrow from private sources? May it seek loans from foreign sources?
  No matter what the answers to those questions are, may I ask my hon. Friend, thirdly, whether it would not be in the industry's interests and in the nation's long-term interests for substantial borrowing to be made from the Government at special interest rates? I understand that it is the Board's intention, with the support of the NUM, to ask the Government to lend it money at special interest rates. My hon. Friend will surely agree that heavy interest charges resulting from this borrowing would be a massive burden on the industry and would militate against the achievement of the desired aim of remaining competitive with other fuels.

  1103
  It must also be borne in mind that there is an assumption that new investment will mean greater production. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be the first to agree that there is no point in increasing production without an assurance of markets for the coal produced.
  Clause 3 seems to have been drafted to cover such a contingency. It illustrates a lack of confidence in the industry's finding markets in the near future and presupposes that markets will not be available. That is why the Government are prepared to allow money to be spent for huge stockpiling of coal in future.
  Other Government action is necessary and it must run parallel with the investment prospects inherent in the implementation of Clause 1. The Government should also take an interest in the consumer. They should exhort coal consumers, large and small, to make some investment in coal-consuming plant and installations either in the domestic industry or in power stations. Power stations are the greatest consumer of coal. Last year they consumed 71 million tons. The Board's plan for the future is that power stations will consume much more coal.
  Many coal-fired power stations have gone out of existence. The efficiency of many more of the older coal-fired power stations has been falling in comparison with power stations using oil and gas. Thus, if there are fewer coal-fired power stations and if other coal-fired power stations are working at reduced efficiency, less electricity will be generated and less coal will be used. The Government should step in and support every effort to build more coal-fired power stations, thus assuring the consumer that the price of coal compares favourably with the price of oil.
  I wish to relate an experience somewhat in contrast with what the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford said. I visited a paper mill in my constituency. I discovered in conversation with the manager that the management had decided to consider a change in the fuelling of the plant. At that time the mill was using coal, but because of high increases in coal prices, the management decided to make a study and find out whether it would be economic to change to another fuel.
  1104
  After a careful study had been made—and I saw all the relevant papers—it was proved conclusively that coal, despite the increase in price, still had the competitive edge over oil. I am sure that when the management realises that there is to be a 10 per cent. increase imposed by the OPEC countries in the price of oil, it will appreciate that it certainly has the right fuel policy for its mill. The Government can do a great deal to make industry in general realise that coal can serve its needs and at the same time be economic.
  I welcome Clause 2 very much, although I am a little doubtful about one part of it. It would seem to me that the increase in the existing pension will produce a pension of only £4·60. Any further increase given to these pensioners later on, apart from those in the new scheme, will be based only on the cost of living, and I feel that this is wrong. Mine workers who have been employed in the industry for many years are entitled to a better pension than £4·60 a week. There are men who have retired from the industry after having worked for 51 years, and I do not think that anyone can say that such a pension is a generous recognition of their work.
  I am pleased that the Secretary of State is to reimburse the Board for certain expenditure incurred in meeting deficiences in the scheme. I am even more pleased to see in this clause a commitment by the Secretary of State to increase the benefits beyond the present level. But I should like an undertaking from the Government that they will do their best to make sure that existing pensioners will get a better pension than £4·60 a week.
  I come to Clause 3. I have listened to certain of my mining colleagues on the subject of the stockpiling of coal, about which we are very concerned. It was always assumed that only in part of Wales was there any concern about heavy stockpiling, but I have been assured by some of my colleagues that stockpiling is taking place in some of the Yorkshire pits. It is feared that one day there will be unemployment in the industry in Yorkshire. I sincerely hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State can deal with that subject.

  1105
  During the referendum campaign, those who supported the proposition that we should remain in the Common Market said that to do so would be a great boon to British coal mining, because we should be enabled to get contracts for exporting coal to other EEC countries. I know that the Coal Board is trying to get contracts for exports to the EEC countries, and I should like to know whether any progress has been made in this direction. A solution to many of our problems in coal mining would be to increase our exports and, of course, to install more coal-fired power stations in this country.
  6.24 p.m.
  Mr. John Hannam; I welcome the speech made by the hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Hunter) and particularly his acknowledgement of the fact that Opposition Members are among those who have a real interest in and support for the future prosperity of the coal industry.
  It is interesting to observe that on an occasion when we are dealing with so vital a commodity as coal not one representative of the Scottish National Party has participated in the debate. Possibly those hon. Members feel that with coal there is not so much "up for grabs" as there is with oil. It is certainly notable that they have not spoken in a debate of vital concern to Scotland. I speak as a keen supporter of the coal industry. I believe that the future possibilities for the industry are immensely favourable. We have enough coal reserves in the United Kingdom not only to sustain increased home demand in the future, but to provide opportunities for sharply increased exports.
  During the coal and energy debates in recent years I have consistently stressed the need to maintain the competitiveness of this indigenous fuel. I am concerned about the erosion of the price lead which coal has had over oil at our power stations, despite the vast increases in the price of oil, the price lead having declined from 44 per cent. to 10 per cent. It is, therefore, essential that we improve productivity to regain that price lead for coal, although I support the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) that we have had our
  1106
  energy too cheaply and that we must be prepared to pay a fair price for this fuel.
  We have seen welcome increases in the numbers going into the mining industry in recent months. Unfortunately, that has been accompanied by a fall of about per cent. in productivity as against what was a declared need for an increase of per cent. I fully understand the reasons for what I believe to be a short-term decline in productivity. It is obvious that a great deal of training of new staff is taking place, and this must result in a temporary hold back in what I hope will be gained from increased productivity in the future. I think we must agree with Sir Derek Ezra, the Chairman of the National Coal Board, who said at the annual conference of the National Union of Mineworkers at Llandudno last year:
  "If we are to remain competitive and go on providing real improvements in earnings, we must do it out of increased productivity."
  That must be the key objective.
  Coal imports, which have increased rather dramatically recently, should be replaced by exports. We should be concentrating on building up an export business. Every extra ton of coal we produce saves the country between £25 and £30. Therefore, the challenge is obvious.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury welcomed the fact that the Coal Board had gone back to a good profitable situation. If we get the stability of cost for which we hope, and if we get an upturn in world demand in the next year or two, the vast investment in the coal industry could produce substantial dividends not only for the country, but for the miners themselves. I understand—and I should like the Minister to confirm this—that in the next five years £100 million will be spent on research into mining exploration and general coal research such as liquefaction and other chemical processes.
  In February and March of this year we were engaged in considering the Coal Industry Bill. That Bill embodied some of the recommendations of the tripartite inquiry into pensions provisions, pneumoconiosis compensation plus the opening up of opencast mining opportunities for the National Coal Board. I believe that these are all part of healthy progress towards the development of the industry.

  1107
  The prospect of the United Kingdom providing half of the coal in the European Community's production is very exciting, but again we have to accept that if we are to achieve that sort of target, we must concentrate on producing the right sorts of coal at the right prices. We have also to avoid large imports of fuel. This may mean that we shall have to adjust some of our techniques of coal consumption. Perhaps the Minister will develop that theme when he winds up the debate.
  On 10th November I asked the Under-Secretary for figures of coal exports this year compared with those of previous years. He was not able to give me the exact details, but he assured the House that they were above average for the previous five years. I have since done some research, and the figures show that in 1974 we exported 1,499,000 tons. During the first nine months of this year we had already exported nearly as much. With exports of 1,432,000 tons up until September, there has been a substantial improvement, but the problem is that imports are increasing at a similar rate. Last year we imported 3,460,000 tons and in the first nine months of this year we had imported 3,481,000 tons.
  Why are we getting these increases in imports at a time of falling demand? It does not seem to make sense. Is it because we are still suffering from a lack of certain coal-washing facilities, or have there been increases in industry's demands for certain types of coal? I hope that we can curtail these expensive imports, which seem to cost twice as much as we get for our exports.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is my hon. Friend aware that in a reply given to me it was stated that we had imported 25,000 tons of anthracite from Vietnam last year and it was believed that this year's imports would be 50,000 tons? Does he think that this is a matter to be looked at?
  Mr. Hannam: My right hon. Friend's intervention underlines the confusion. At a time of falling demand, we have substantial increases in the imports of certain types of fuel.
  My right hon. Friend asked some relevant questions earlier about the
  1108
  advanced technologies in coal production that we hope to see introduced. I should like much more information presented to the House when we consider Bills such as this. When the Labour Government introduced the Coal Industry Bill of 1965, they said that such Bills should be accompanied by a White Paper so that hon. Members would know the exact details of the money they were being asked to approve. This approach would help us a great deal and I regret that we have not had the necessary advanced information to enable us to discuss this Bill in detail.
  The Secretary of State referred to an overall examination of the coal-burning situation. I hope that he will keep the House informed of the Government's thinking in these matters. He referred to the increased use of coal-fired generating stations and the increased use of coal for domestic and industrial purposes. The whole House is in agreement with the general terms of the Bill and other measures to support the industry, and I hope that we can be taken into the Government's confidence when discussing various ideas and proposals. The 1965 Labour Government's policy of publishing a White Paper with the Coal Bill, ought to be adopted again.
  We are being asked to agree to quite large subventions of money through increased borrowing powers and increased grants and pensions. The hyper-inflation that we have experienced in this country has been the main cause of this increase. The inflation-proofing of miners' pensions puts them in a very advantageous position and provides a healthy inducement for people to come into this important industry. However, I share some of the reservations of the hon. Member for Dunfermline about the treatment of older pensioners.
  I support the Bill and every other effort to strengthen our coal industry. We can take advantage of the tremendous export possibilities of coal in future. The competitiveness with oil must be maintained and I hope that that objective will be shared by both the management and the workers in the industry.
  6.35 p.m.
  Mr. John Cronin: The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) made a very thoughtful and helpful

  1109
  speech, despite the interruption of his right hon. Friend the Member for Wan-stead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin), and I share his concern about coal imports.
  I have the privilege to represent the South Derbyshire and Leicestershire miners and in welcoming the Bill I am sure I have their full support. I think that they are among the most moderate and co-operative miners in Great Britain, though there may be other competitors suggested by other hon. Members.
  The Bill is a continuation of the sympathetic attitude adopted by the Government towards the coal industry. The industry deserves a good deal of help from the Government, because the miners have been underpinning the Government's whole economic policy this year. They had a ballot and gave the lead in agreeing to the £6 a week limit on wage increases. The Government owe a tremendous debt to the moderation of the NUM.
  Clause 2 authorises the Secretary of State to reimburse the National Coal Board for meeting deficiencies in the miners' pensions scheme. I understand that the sum involved is £250 million, though the Bill only mentions £18 million a year. I wonder whether this sum is adequate. The pension scheme is in considerable difficulties. It has a ratio of contributors to pensioners of about one to one compared with the average ratio in pension schemes of about six to one. I doubt whether £250 million will be adequate.
  My information is that the outstanding deficiencies in the scheme total about £400 million. In referring to the new pension scheme introduced in April, the Secretary of State said that miners would receive half their average wages of their-last years after 45 years' work in the pits. This is a big improvement on the previous pension scheme, but it is far from generous. I do not know whether hon. Members realise what 45 years in the pits can be like. The majority of people who work for 45 years in the pits are not much good for any industrial work of a similar nature afterwards.
  We ought to have a more generous pension scheme and I have some sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Grant) who indicated in
  1110
  very forthright terms that the scheme was still not adequate even after the improvements. I hope that the National Coal Board, the Government and the unions will get together to improve the scheme still further.
  In the last Coal Industry Bill, we set aside £100 million to provide benefits for pneumoconiosis cases. It seems probable that this sum will not be adequate. The giving of that sum has prompted a good deal of research into the number of pneumoconiosis cases, and it is now quite clear that the numbers are very much higher than expected. It is clear that £100 million will not go very far. I hope that the Government will consider increasing the sum, although I accept that the giving of £100 million was a generous gesture. Not only have many cases come to light which were not known before, but many cases which were well known had been considered.
  About 10,000 miners commuted their weekly benefits under the old Industrial Injuries Acts. Most were forced to do so because of their adverse circumstances, living in a part of the world where there was no other work, or because they were bringing up young families. There is a strong moral case for giving benefits to these miners. There is an equally strong case for helping the pre-1970 widows, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will consider that. There is also a good case for expanding the categories of industrial diseases for miners. It is high time that bronchitis suffered by miners was regarded as an industrial disease.
  Clause 1 increases the borrowing powers to help increase production, as proposed by the NCB. It was heartening to hear that it is thinking in terms of an additional 42 million tons a year. That will make a tremendous difference to our economy, but the miners are entitled to ask "What is in it for us?" I am certain that the miners I represent wonder about this. They have behaved with great moderation on wage increases this year. It is essential that no one should exceed the £6 limit this year. However, I hope that when the economic climate justifies it, the Government will agree to miners having much higher wages. The United States and the Soviet Union, for example, pay miners very much more, and there miners have a higher standard of living.
  T
  1111
  When I was in Australia recently I spoke to Mr. R. F. X. Connor, the Minister for Minerals and Energy, who is known as the "Strangler" because of his somewhat forthright views. He told me that in the Australian mining industry the average wage was AS 194, or £120, a week. He said that with production bonuses the face workers could expect to receive A$ 240, or over £150 a week. When we hear the NUM talking of a target for the future of £100 a week, we realise that it is not nearly as large a figure as it might seem at first.
  I welcome the NCB's intention to increase production, but I hope it will pay some attention to the environment. Opencast work has caused very severe loss of amenities to the neighbouring population. I have particularly in mind the village of Heather in my constituency. It is a pretty little village with a twelfth-century church. But suddenly the NCB has commenced opencast working, and now it has become a place of noise and dirt, suffering from a severe loss of amenity. There is a case for paying some form of compensation to people who suffer such loss of amenity. It should be paid by the Coal Board, the local authority or by the Government directly.
  Clause 3 empowers the Secretary of State to give grants towards the cost of stocking coal. This is clearly desirable, but it is not very psychologically helpful to the miners. Current large coal stocks appear to be a psychological stumbling block to productivity. It is desirable to have stocks for exports. They are window dressing for potential customers. But there is no doubt that coal stocks are interfering with productivity. The stocks will disappear rapidly if there is a long spell of cold weather, or if there is an increase in economic activity when the recession fades away, as we expect next year. There is here a failure of communication by the NCB, and possibly by the Government, in not reassuring miners that coal stocks do not mean they must produce less.
  Miners have other anxieties, and several hon. Members have spoken of the pit closures of the past. These have, of course, done psychological damage. Miners are worried about the present recession, the 26 per cent. drop in the use of coal by industry and the 21 per cent.
  1112
  drop in the use of domestic coal. They also see pressure on all sides to save energy, which means that less coal is used. There is also the erosion of the competitive advantage of coal over oil.
  It is important to reassure the miners that there will be a real increase in coal markets. It is no use having increased production without increased markets. It is all very well to say there is to be an increase of 42 million tons, but that has to be sold. There should be research into new uses for coal. The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford made a useful contribution on the subject of additional uses for coal. More research should be done here. It is important that the NCB should take a more aggressive attitude in world markets. We should be selling more coal abroad, and we must pursue markets for exports.
  The most immediate and simple thing for the Government to do is to start a programme of building more modern coal-fired power stations. There is a very strong case for that. As the programme stands there will be a rundown by the mid-1980s in coal consumed by power stations. It is therefore relatively urgent that more coal-fired power stations should be put into operation in the next two or three years, before the rundown in the mid-1980s.
  It is important that miners should have clear ideas about the future of the coal industry. No doubt the Under-Secretary will reassure us tonight. I know that he commands great confidence among miners and that what he says tonight will be read with great interest. There is still no clear-cut energy policy for the next 20 years. Miners are prepared to continue their arduous, dangerous and nationally important work, but they want clear leadership and definite indications about the future of the industry which the Government must provide at the earliest opportunity.
  6.50 p.m.
  Mr. Jim Lester: As one who has taken an interest in the mining industry for many years and who calls himself a miners' Member, having 5,000 miners living in the constituency, I give a general welcome to the Bill, which builds on the Conservative Act of 1973. We all recognise the need for a stable investment programme so that the new

  1113
  seams and deposits which are being discovered can be brought in in time to replace the shortfall that must inevitably come about as the others are worked out, and it is right that we should have a proper policy of financing stocking.
  The point that I want to press is the European energy equation. Our coal industry is a vital part of it, and therefore it is reasonable that the strain on the British economy caused by this extension of public borrowing should be helped from that direction. As the hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Hunter) said, the National Coal Board has power to borrow outside this country, and I believe that Europe is one of the areas to which it is entitled to look.
  We cannot get the miner to get on with the first essential of any successful policy to do with coal, which is safely, efficiently and competitively to produce it at the lowest possible pithead price, unless he has an idea of the eventual use of his product, unless he knows where it is likely to go. For some years, we have talked about additional coal-fired power stations, but that idea must be related to demand. They cannot be built unless there is a clear demand.
  The situation in this country, certainly in the medium term, is that demand for energy will not increase at anything like the pace that we originally imagined. But we could regularly export steam coal to Europe, where there is an existing demand and market. I was encouraged to hear what the Secretary of State said. Now is the time to think through a European strategy, from which we are in the best position to gain. The new stations being built in Europe can benefit us materially, and we should encourage their building. I hope that the Secretary of State will maintain the momentum of which he spoke, and that he will give that matter as high a priority as domestic use.
  In spite of Clause 3, it will take years for miners to get out of the habit of stock-watching, whether at the pit or at power stations in the United Kingdom. Europe is an extra market which is important and immediate. It is a two-way movement. We have the security of investment, which can help out over national peaks and troughs, and at the same time we have a market which we
  1114
  can use quickly. That must only help attitudes, as the Minister knows. We recognise the amount of time that he has spent reassuring the coal industry and the amount of time he has spent below ground.
  It is vital for the public that production figure should start to improve. The coal industry has been given a great deal of realistic and sensible help. It is important that it should now start to show the public that it is responding to that help. We know the reasons given for the present disappointing production—holidays, training new staff and so on. The industry must take to heart that much has been done and that we want to see the productivity figures start to improve.
  I believe that productivity can be helped mainly by a revival of productivity agreements linked to local production. I appreciate that this is a difficult time to talk about such agreements, because we have an incomes policy which is likely to last for three or four years. We could use the time to try to work out a sensible local policy. I am sure that we shall not see the high production and high income that we want in the industry unless we can achieve that. I speak with the knowledge of the 1 million ton-plus pits in the Nottinghamshire field.
  How are we to monitor our investment in research and the commercial application of its results? We have a great deal of knowledge in this area. We do not want to see it become yet another area in which British technology has a great deal to offer but in which we lose to other people because we do not apply it commercially quickly enough. Poland in particular has made great strides, and she is probably in front of everyone in the world in terms of future coal technology. The Americans are starting to invest huge sums in the future use of coal in their country. This is a time when the British industry has a great deal to offer in exporting the results of its research and so on.
  In the coal industry there is always a long lead time between investment and plant. There is also a long lead in terms of people in the industry. As the industry's new pattern emerges, we cannot start soon enough to put to the miners the sort of changes that there will

  1115
  be over the next 10 to 15 years, and to help them understand the sort of industry in which they can expect to work over that period.
  Attitudes will need to change as the new technologies come in. Getting the energy balance right is critical to this country's future. The Bill should help to ensure that coal plays a major part.
  6.57 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Rees: I must first apologise that other duties have prevented me from hearing the whole debate. None the less, I have heard a great part. It is particularly pleasing for me to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester), because I, too, can claim the privilege of representing a coalmining seat.
  The Secretary of State for Energy was at his blandest and most moderate today. I welcome the fact that he eschewed the note of self-congratulation that has sometimes marked speeches about the coal industry from the Government Benches. I also congratulate him on resisting the temptation to discourse at length on the splendours and miseries of this historic industry.
  One naturally understands the factual basis for the Bill, and, with some reservations, I too welcome it. But I very much regret that the right hon. Gentleman has not shared with the House his thinking on the long-term structure of the industry and particularly of the National Coal Board. That matter is especially relevant to the coal industry in east Kent, where our coalfields are very much part of the local scene. They are an important source of employment for us. We are pleased that the quality of our coking coal has been recognised at last. On a more parochial note, we are gratified that Tilmanstone pit has been found to be the second tidiest, the second most elegant, in the country.
  However, we are disturbed that the east Kent coalfield has lost its identity as a separate part of the National Coal Board, and has geen thrown in with the South Midlands area. I have no doubt that there are good, tidy, bureaucratic reasons for this. But we in East Kent will regret the loss of those on the headquarters staff
  1116
  who have made a great contribution over the years.
  If I may coin a phrase, we shall in future feel ourselves a little out on a limb, part of a rather remote structure. This may well satisfy the Secretary of State, and even the Under-Secretary. It may satisfy the planners in Hobart House. I suggest to the Under-Secretary, however, that possibly it overlooks the personal needs and aspirations of those who work in East Kent.
  I should like to think that the Secretary of State has moved a considerable distance from the views he held between 1964 and 1970. I should like to think that he, like, perhaps, the majority in the House, no longer thinks that the big is necessarily good or beautiful. The trend in future must be to consider how we can break up large structures—whether in the private or public sectors—into more manageable units, so that those who work in such units can feel a definite sense of identity with their industry.
  I wish that the Secretary of State had told us what thought he and the National Coal Board had given to this problem. Over the years, I have had a certain reservation about the administrative qualities of the Secretary of State, but I am bound to say that I have never found him to be short of ideas. He is a fount of imaginative ideas. I do not agree with all of them. Has he allowed his imagination to play over the future of the National Coal Board in the same way as we know he has over the future of the private sector? We know that he believes in worker participation and I suppose that most of us on both sides of the House believe in this to a greater or lesser extent. No doubt during this Session we shall have the opportunity to debate precisely what form such participation should take.
  What thought has the Secretary of State, or the Under-Secretary, given to the possibility of worker participation in the nationalised industries? Perhaps it should be in the Bill. Perhaps an amendment ought to be tabled. Will the Under-Secretary tell us about the plans for worker co-operatives in the coal industry? What about some form of equity participation?

  1117
  These are the matters we shall no doubt be debating in the forthcoming Session in respect of the private sector. The public sector is now larger and more remote, I suggest, than most industries in the private sector. We should be failing in our duty if we did not, even if only briefly on this occasion, debate the structure of the NCB and consider whether it could not be broken up into more manageable units, whether a greater sense of participation and identity could not be given to those who work in all nationalised industries.
  Let us consider whether some form of equity capital cannot be given to those who work in the nationalised sector. Let us consider whether, perhaps, a share option scheme might be apropriate for the NCB or the British Steel Corporation. That suggestion might evoke an echo from the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). We have to look ahead. We must not regard the form and structure with which the Board was endowed after the war as immutable. I shall await with keen interest the constructive comments which I have no doubt the Under-Secretary will be making.
  There is one other point about which I must express some reservation. We are all in favour of those who work in the industry having a satisfactory pension at the end of their working lives. In the tempestuous days of 1972–74, when I was lucky enough to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, during debates on the coal industry, I expressed the wish that the NUM had concentrated a little more on such benefits as a proper pension scheme rather than focusing all of its aspirations and enthusiasm on raising the basic wage. I recognise, and I recognised then, that there was a case for raising wages in the coal industry but possibly more consideration could have been given to pension schemes—to other fringe benefits that should have been available.
  Now we hear that a worthwhile scheme has been introduced. It is to be properly funded and a contribution will have to be made by the State. There is, however, one point which deserves closer consideration and which has been raised by other hon. Members. I refer to the inflation-proofing which these pensions will enjoy. This point was finally elicited from the Secretary of State by my hon.
  1118
  Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet)—the right hon. Gentleman had evidently not read on to the relevant passage in his speech when he was interrupted—that these pensions are to be inflation-proofed and there is to be a degree of comparability with the Civil Service. In general terms this is fine.
  The country will want to know, however, whether it is right that employees in the public sector, which is increasing as the years go by, should be put on a quite different basis from employees in the private and the self-employed sectors. We are now becoming two nations—one with an inflation-proofed pension and one without. There is concern about this gap that is opening up. Comparability between the nationalised industries and the Civil Service may be fine, but what of those who cannot achieve that?
  I am sure that the Under-Secretary would be the last person who would want to push through this House a policy, not necessarily applying only to the NCB, which would be divisive to this degree. This is not sufficient to lead me to vote against the Bill, but I hope that the Under-Secretary and his colleagues will pause for a moment to consider whether something more should be done for those in the private sector and for the self-employed so that they do not lag too far behind. Otherwise the envy that on certain occasions and in other spheres has been felt on the Labour Benches may be reflected on these Benches. By all means be fair, but let us be fair to all and not simply to one sector of the community.
  Those are the only points I wish to make in this important debate. I hope that the Under-Secretary will respond with his usual generosity to the speeches that have been made by my hon. Friends. I hope that he will throw away the speech he has so evidently prepared and deal point by point with the issues that have been raised. These points are made with a genuine concern for the great industry whose future we are debating and which we wish to perpetuate and improve. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will not say that this is just a money Bill, but will tell us that underlying it there has been deep, imaginative and constructive thought about the NCB and the future of those who work in it and for it.
  7.8 p.m.
  Mr. Tom Ellis: I must begin by apologising to the House for having missed part of this debate. This was due to important reasons connected with a vital document published by the Government today. I am glad to have caught your eye, Mr. Speaker, because, in common with most hon. Members who have spoken today, I warmly welcome the Bill. I do so primarily because it reflects the turn in the fortunes of the coal industry, with which I have long been connected: I was an employee in the industry for a number of years.
  I am satisfied about this turn in the fortunes of coal which has become so clear since "Plan for Coal" was discussed and prepared in 1973. For the first time since 1959 we are as a country committed not simply to stabilising the industry but to expanding it. I regret that, as far as I can make out, we are the only Community country committed to spending money to increase the capacity of our coal industry. Commissioner Simenon has confirmed this for me.
  We do not yet have a common energy policy. I referred to this briefly in an intervention in my right hon. Friend's speech. It is important that we succeed in getting such a policy. One thing that is clear in the Commission document on this subject is that there is an absolute determination to reduce our dependence as a Community upon non-indigenous petroleum products for our energy requirements.
  I welcome the statement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and previously of the National Coal Board, about the intention to increase the capacity of the industry by 42 million tons by the mid-1980s. This follows from what I call not so much the Coal Board's plan as the coal industry's plan. An interesting point was made by Mr. Parker, the Director of the NCB's planning unit, in an article in the Board's quarterly magazine Coal and Energy. He said that the original plan for coal, the Coal Board's plan, when it was in the process of being formed, was examined by the coal industry tripartite examination and endorsed by it, and it became not simply the Coal Board's plan, but the coal industry's plan.
  To that extent, it was a precursor of the planning agreements about which my
  1120
  right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has often spoken and which I hope will be extended not simply to large industries, such as the coal industry, but to all industries. It was a very good example in embryo of the sort of thing which, I am sure, my right hon. Friend had in mind.
  Incidentally, I congratulate certain people who saw the light before the Yom Kippur war. They came round to an appreciation of the importance of coal in our economy, but they should have realised it long before, and I pay tribute to the one man above all others, Mr. Schumacher, the Board's economic director, who in 1960 and 1961 spelled out fairly conclusively the vital importance of retaining the existing capacity when the policy was to close many collieries that should not have been closed.
  I am happy that for the first time for 15 years the National Coal Board's capital expenditure trend has turned upwards. The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) said that he was concerned about the lack of a substantial improvement in productivity. I share his concern. However, the energy industry as a whole, and not simply the coal industry, is inflexible. The provision in the Bill for stocking is to take account of the lack of short-term response to market trends within an industry such as the coal industry.
  However, productivity is not simply tied up with the type of wage arrangement in an industry. There are other factors. Greater capital expenditure is one of them. One might say as a rough measure that whatever happens to the coal industry depends largely on the capital expenditure which was made 10 years before. Only within the last three or four years has the coal industry begun to invest capital on a reasonably substantial scale for the continuing pits. Therefore, only from now shall we see the development of increasing productivity on a scale that we all wish to see.
  Stocking is tied up with the inflexible nature of the industry. Let me say in passing that I understand that there is provision in the European Coal and Steel Community arrangements for stocking 60 million tons. It will be helpful if my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary

  1121
  of State can say what proportion of the 60 million tons is in this country. There is no doubt that the provision to assist with meeting the cost of stocking will substantially help the coal industry.
  I wish to make a point, not to the Minister, but to the National Coal Board, because it relates to a matter which concerns the industry. The Board's accountancy procedure for allocating costs of stocking should be examined. When a colliery stocks coal, the costs of the stocking are allocated to that colliery. This is an unfortunate arrangement and does not give an accurate assessment of the reality of the situation.
  There is a colliery in my constituency that produces coal for the steel industry. It is a viable colliery, which has been making a profit, but in the past six months it has been stocking coal to the extent of 5,000 or 6,000 tons a week. If the stocking charge, allowing for transport, degradation, and picking up, is, say, £3 or £4 a ton, there is charge on the colliery of up to £20,000 a week. It is only because of industrial unrest at steel works in other parts that the demand for steel at the local works has increased and the colliery is selling the whole of its output. Overnight it has become a profitable colliery, whereas previously it was a loss-making colliery simply because of the Board's accountancy procedure.
  I have two small points to make. First, I echo what the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford said about the recent lack of performance. It is disconcerting that there is a fall in output of 15 million tons annually from the pits which have been in production continuously for the past 10 years or so and whose output had risen in the 1960s by 30 million tons. Their output increased in the 1960s as a result of investment made in the 1950s. Now, largely as a result of the lack of investment in the 1960s, their output performance is not as good as it was seven, eight or nine years ago. This is worrying and I therefore hope that substantial investment will take place and that the benefits will accrue fairly soon.
  Secondly, it is vital that we reduce the real cost of producing coal. There is a distinct trend. In recent years the cost of production has risen, but it is
  1122
  more than an annual matter, leaving aside the 1972 disturbances. If the costs of a major primary commodity are increasing, in principle we are doomed to move from a primary to a tertiary economy. I am overstating the case, but this is the basic principle, and it gives cause for concern.
  Whatever else happens, we must get the wage determinations right. The other cause of our troubles, apart from the lack of investment, was the failure of the Board, following its introduction in 1963 or 1964 of a centrally determined system for paying piece workers' wages, to ensure, despite the warnings of many people, including myself, that the wage rates were right. We therefore had the unfortunate business which occurred in 1972.
  The hon. and learned Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees) spoke about the coalfield in his area. I wish to make a plea for what one might call the coal outposts. The National Coal Board is interested in the Selbys of this country, but there are other areas, such as North Wales, where there are two collieries in which it is important that a coal presence should be retained. It would be a tragedy if we were to lose the skills of men in two collieries in an area which still has reserves of coal. I am glad that the Board has included the area in its drilling programme.
  I hope that a certain amount of the investment which is being made in areas such as Selby will be diverted to areas such as mine if for no other reason than that the North Wales National Union of Mineworkers sends a moderate representative to the union's national executive. That would justify the maintenance of a coal presence in North Wales.
  I warmly welcome the Bill, and I trust that the coal industry will go from strength to strength.
  7.20 p.m.
  Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: When the hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Hunter) told the House of the visit which he and I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) undertook, to see some of the mining operations in the East Midlands, in 1964, he also reminded me of the fact that it was 10 years ago almost to the day that I was

  1123
  standing at this very same Dispatch Box winding up for the Opposition in the debate on the 1965 Coal Industry Bill. That measure is relevant to the Bill we are discussing this evening.
  The atmosphere in the House today is very different from then. Very few Members who have spoken this evening were present in the House in 1965, or, indeed, Members of it. The 1965 Act not only set very substantial borrowing targets for the industry but also produced some very violent surgery upon it. Those Members who were in the House at that time will remember the great bitterness and unhappiness which was quite naturally expressed by all Members from mining constituencies.
  The debate today has been very different because the morale of the industry—which in 1965 was hitting rock bottom—is now rising. Of course, it is not perfect—nothing is—but the situation is very different today from what it was then. We had the energy crisis of 1973–74, and on both sides of the House we learned some bitter lessons, which have done us no harm but have perhaps taught us to regard this industry in a totally fresh light.
  The year 1965 also saw the collapse of the production target of 200 million tons, upon which Lord Robens had built his whole concept of the industry. It is a remarkable story that we are here 10 years later talking about an industry with a fresh life in it and with an exciting future. Member after Member has drawn attention tonight to the new techniques now being employed in the industry.
  My right hon. Friend went into some detail about the visit he and I undertook earlier this week to Stoke Orchard. The work being done there is very exciting, but none of us will forget that much of the work on using coal in various forms has been going on since the beginning of the century. My criticism of Stoke Orchard would be that we are not spending enough money on research. It is interesting to compare the amount of money invested in research in the nuclear industry in the last 10 years with what has happened in the coal industry. The Secretary of State will know—it is not his fault, and perhaps nobody's fault—that about 12 times the amount of money is spent on the frontier technologies of
  1124
  nuclear power as opposed to what is spent on the coal industry.
  Nevertheless, having said that, I think we can look forward with some confidence to the future of the industry, and the Bill is yet another milestone on the road.
  However, I must straight away tell the hon. Gentleman who is to wind up that we on this side are not entirely happy with the amount of information provided for us concerning the important clause dealing with the borrowing powers. I remind the House that when the original figure of £750 million was set up in 1965 we were supplied with the most detailed information about how that money was to be spent.
  In the White Paper, Cmnd. 2805, "The Finances of the Coal Industry", we were given some very encouraging comments in 1965 on how borrowing was to take place in the future. Paragraph 18 reads:
  "To avoid incurring fresh capita] debt in respect of its mining activities, the Board intends after the capital reconstruction to aim at generating from its own earnings the funds needed for future colliery investment."
  Those were rather brash comments. Nevertheless we are tonight looking at another £400 million to be added to that £750 million, taking us to an ultimate target of £1,400 million.
  It is important that there should be a very clear indication how this money is to be used. When the Secretary of State tells us, as he did this afternoon, that we are having to fall back on the Contingencies Fund, things are obviously serious, and we shall have to probe this situation a good deal more clearly in Committee.
  Mr. Benn: Following what the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Wood-ford (Mr. Jenkin) said about that, I consulted the advice I have, and I was not going to cite a previous case in his period at the Treasury, but the Contingencies Fund we are considering relates entirely to the timing of the Bill and must not be disconnected from the fact that the Session began late. I hope he will not read too much into that.
  Mr. McNair-Wilson: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for clearing up that point. It is one that he raised himself.

  1125
  Referring again to the borrowing power of £750 million, it must be remembered that the bulk of that money in 1965 was for the writing off of capital debt. The reconstruction of the whole industry's finances accounted for over £500 million of the £750 million. Therefore this will have to be looked at with some care.
  Let us look now at the areas of investment that are obviously likely to come to such borrowings as will be available in the industry. In 1965—I am using this bench mark because I think it is significant and not merely because I was involved with it—we were then, as now, being told that mechanical means were going to turn the corner for the industry completely.
  It was in 1965 that one began to hear it said that the remotely operated long-wall face—ROLF—would transform mining in this country. It was genuinely believed that ROLF would completely transform the whole way of mining in this country. Indeed, people were talking quite confidently about four times the output per man shift as a result of using this equipment. I have seen it operating, as has my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Dunfermline.
  In those days we regarded the future as based on mechanical methods. Once again today the Board is, perhaps, looking into the same crystal ball for its hope for the future. I should like to caution all of us to realise that at the end of the day it will be the people in the industry, and not the machines, who will produce the coal. Of course, new techniques will be valuable and everyone wants to see them developed all the time, but I recall that there were some who believed that at Bevercotes we could have a manless pit, and that dream is not within sight of becoming reality. It is essential, therefore, that we recognise that it is the people in the industry whose confidence we need to win.
  Mr. Tom Ellis: I agree entirely with what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and emphasise that it could be stated as a general rule that the most successful coalfaces are the least supervised coalfaces.
  Mr. McNair-Wilson: That makes the point exactly that I was endeavouring to promote, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that.
  1126
  However, since we are talking about this aspect, and the hon. Member has used the word "coalface", I might add that face lighting and other techniques which can be provided will obviously make their contribution, and we must not run away from the fact that we ought to be looking all the time towards the provision of new mechanical muscle to the arm of the miner.
  We ought to recognise also that although our own industry has done so much to provide the mechanical techniques upon which we are now relying—such as powered supports, to take one example—there are other countries in Europe where different techniques are being considered. I am not trying to draw parallels between the motor cycle industry and the people who make powered supports, but the hon. Gentleman will know perfectly well that in Germany the caliper shield, a derivation of the powered support, is now becoming popular. In America it is being looked at seriously. It would be a tragedy if our own supply industry were unable to meet the requirements of the many export orders which, I am certain, are available to it.
  The key to the success of this industry is its ability to compete effectively with other energy sources. When I say that I know that it will sound like striking a discordant note, but the fact is that the price rises since 1973 by the OPEC nations have provided a wonderful opportunity for the coal industry. The coal industry is still enjoying the opportunity provided by those price rises. If we can keep coal always that much more attractive than oil the markets of which Members have spoken tonight will be available to us.
  A number of hon. Members, among them my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam), my hon. Friend the Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) and my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch), have spoken of the need to export. I agree with them, but we have to be able to export at the right price. It is central to the success of the industry to be able to keep our prices thoroughly competitive with those of sources elsewhere. It is tragic that 30 per cent. of the coal imported by the EEC

  1127
  countries comes from behind the Iron Curtain. It cannot be right to have that situation, bearing in mind the problems of stocking in this country.
  The scenario that we have to examine is, in the years ahead is nuclear power to provide the successful form of generation which some people have claimed? If it is, that will have a reflection on coal and coal production. If it is not, this coal industry of ours will become far more important than at any time since the war, because it will play a major part in electricity generation, since we cannot afford any longer to put oil into power stations unless we have to. It is that scenario and the future of the nuclear programme that will decide the success or failure of the coal industry in the future.
  I do no more than mention the clause dealing with pensions. Obviously we shall have to look at it carefully in Committee. We had an earlier Bill, piloted by the Under-Secretary, dealing with the pneumonconiosis provisions, and it may be that we shall be able to return to these matters when we look at the pension scheme in this Bill.
  I ask only one question on the subject. Is the figure of £250 million over 20 years the final figure, or are the Government prepared to meet any future deficiencies, which is what the NCB would like to see? If that is the final figure, it is one thing. If it is to be what might be described as a rolling programme with other deficiencies being taken account of, it could be very different.
  All hon. Members taking part in the debate have referred to the clause dealing with stocks, and they have done so for one very good reason. It is that stocks in the industry today are at a very high level. They are not at a high level only in this country. They are at a very high level in other coal-producing countries. In West Germany, for example, stocks will be at a level of 80 million tons at the end of this year out of a total production of 92 million tons. In percentage terms that is considerably more than we have. The concern expressed by our own industry is mirrored by the concern of the German industry.
  Perhaps the principal reason for stocks being so high is the fall in demand. The announcement by the Department of
  1128
  Energy earlier today about a 10 per cent. fall in coal demand for September must be, as the hon. Member for Dunfermline said, extremely worrying in the coalfields. These large stocks of coal are building up at a time when demand is falling, and the fear is that this may mean the end of jobs.
  I shall not weary the House with any comments about exports, because my views on the subject are well known, but it is incredible that we should be spending considerable sums of money to take account of the stock position at a time when we are importing coal.
  One striking feature which I saw at Stoke Orchard was the ability to make coke out of non-coking coal. By blending coals it is possible to make perfectly good metallurgical coke. Much of our imports is in coking coal, of which we have moderately small supplies. If the blast furnace route for the steel industry claims to be the future route rather than the direct reduction route using natural gas or whatever it may be, we shall need huge supplies of coking coal, and if the problem of the No. 3 blast furnace at Llanwern is solved it will be to the big blast furnaces that we shall look for output. If we can as a country make our own coke out of what in the past were regarded as non-coking coals, this will be a breakthrough of great importance. The Under-Secretary hinted at it in answer to a Question last week when one of my hon. Friends referred to the shortage of smokeless fuels and anthracite. The hon. Gentleman said that there were now available other fuels which would do the same job. If we can produce our coke from our own coal we ought to shout it from the rooftops. It is not only good for the steel industry. In terms of exports, too, it could be of great significance.
  In the Yorkshire Post on Tuesday 18th November there was a report of an interview with Mr. Arthur Scargill, who said:
  "The Government has asked us to give a year for Britain. Well, loyalty works both ways, and I would hope, if the Government means what it says, it will stop imports of coal immediately.'"
  He also suggested that some of the coal being imported by the Central Electricity Generating Board is more expensive than coal that we ourselves could

  1129
  produce. If that is the case and we are committed to contracts to import coal which is more expensive than can be produced in this country, British miners have every reason to feel as angry as Mr. Scargill was in that interview. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to throw fresh light on the situation.
  Productivity is a problem which has dogged the industry for many years, and it will not be solved by anything that we say here. Indeed, I am not sure that any of the words said by politicians are likely to be of help to those working in this industry. It may be that in all our debates in the past 10 years the words spoken here have done more harm than good.
  The coal industry has embarked upon a new endeavour. It is looking for new coal on a scale on which it has not since the war and probably for the whole of the century. It is obvious that rich deposits exist. When we talk of 11-foot seams we talk of deposits very much akin to those on the American scale. With better pay and conditions and improved markets and opportunities, even if the politicians cannot get across the message about the confidence now existing, I hope that some form of communication within the industry can be set up to do so.
  My one criticism of the structure of the industry today is that the average man who has spent his life in the industry probably feels not much nearer the centre of decision-making than he was when the industry was nationalised in 1947. We owe a duty to the industry to make sure that we improve this.
  In 30 years the great discoveries of oil in the North Sea may be running out. In 30 years the coal industry will still only be nibbling at what may last for centuries. Since the war we have been engaged in pushing forward the frontiers of technology. I gave a comparison between the respective costs of nuclear research and development and coal research and development, and this could be carried into space flight, supersonic flight and the rest. All the studies, study groups and politicians have made terrible blunders. One has been to ignore the fact that coal—a solid hydrocarbon—can transform the nation's economy.
  1130
  Let us hope that this Bill, which the Opposition do not intend to oppose, marks yet another step to the recognition that this essential energy source is there for our use. Let us use it wisely, and, in so doing, let us give once again a feeling of confidence to those who work in the industry.
  7.40 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alex Eadie): A debate on coal is always for me a particular pleasure. Add to that the privilege of having the last word on such an occasion, and my enjoyment is complete.
  This debate has covered a lot of ground. Some of that ground, as has been pointed out, is familiar from past debates, but there is one fundamental difference; debates on coal these days are optimistic occasions, and today's debate has been no exception. I shall do my best in the time available to cover the most important points raised by hon. Members.
  Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend mentions optimism. I have been sitting here most of the afternoon. My hon. Friend knows of the loyalty of hon. Members in the miners' group. We allow some of our hon. Friends to get into the debate and we are prepared to sit back and say little or nothing on the basis that we share opportunities to speak. But I am a little disconcerted by constant references to optimism. I represent 900 miners who work at the Langwith Colliery, which is being threatened with closure in the next couple of years or less. The Board refuses to develop any new seams at that colliery, and that means that a village will be decimated.
  None of this talk in Parliament about optimism is of any use to people threatened with redundancy or transfer yet again in the course of their working lives. I should like an answer to a simple question. Will my hon. Friend in some way demonstrate that Langwith Colliery, Seaham Harbour, Vane Tempest, and all the other collieries about which we are concerned, will be kept open? That is optimism. It would ease the minds of the miners if he were prepared to say that none of these closures would take place.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. The hon. Gentleman is

  1131
  entitled to make a speech at a later date, but not in an intervention.
  Mr. Skinner: I could have made it today if I had wanted to do so.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is perhaps a pity that the hon. Gentleman did not do so.
  Mr. Eadie: I hope that my hon. Friend will allow me to make my speech. In the course of my remarks I shall try to substantiate what I said about optimism. I assure my hon. Friend that those of us who took part in debates on the coal industry long before he entered the House were like undertakers. I suggest that we are no longer like undertakers. The point made by my hon. Friend is being dealt with and will be debated. Indeed, that point was raised by the National Union of Mineworkers, to which my hon. Friend and I belong.
  I shall do my best to deal with all the points which have been made by hon. Members, but I hope that I shall be forgiven for giving most of my attention to what I should describe as the heart of the Bill, Clause 2, which, in my view, epitomises the Government's new deal for the coal industry.
  Few people who have been connected with the coal industry as long as I have could fail to rejoice in the fact of an earnings-related pension scheme for miners. Not very long ago, the reward for a life's work underground was a flat pension of £1·50 a week. But we have come a long way in the past three years. I have reminded the House before that I spent more than a quarter of a century in the mining industry. The pension which I shall get when I retire will be about 8p or 10p a week. My wife and I have not yet made up our minds whether to take it weekly, monthly or quarterly.
  This Government can take full credit for the earnings-related pension scheme. We set up the coal industry examination, from which emerged the National Coal Board and the union's agreement to work out an earnings-related scheme. The Government's commitment to help with the deficiency in the scheme in relation to existing pensioners must have been a major factor in ensuring that a satisfac-
  1132
  tory new scheme emerged. This Bill redeems that pledge.
  The Government put their money where their mouth was on both pension provision and compensation for pneumoconiosis together with the Government's contribution of £100 million towards the NCB's pneumoconiosis compensation scheme, this Bill discharges a longstanding debt of the whole country to the industry and ensures that its future viability is not threatened by a burden of costs which should properly have been met years ago.
  I do not think that I need add anything to what was said by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy about the other provisions of the Bill, except that they are essential to the successful implementation of the strategy which we agreed with the industry in the tripartite examination.
  I turn now to some specific points. Reference has been made to stocking aid. I would describe Clause 3 as efficient and sensible. Section 7 of the 1973 Act provides for aid to the National Coal Board in respect of stocks which it owns. Under the deferred payment schemes with the Coal Board, the electricity boards take ownership of stocks in excess of their current requirements, but do not pay for them until they are used. Therefore, those stocks do not qualify for aid under Section 7 of the 1973 Act.
  Such a situation discourages the NCB from making use of deferred payment schemes, as stocks retained by the NCB and put down at the pithead would qualify for a grant. But stocking surplus coal with final consumers avoids double handling costs and keeps stocks moving away from the pithead. I think that the House will agree that that is sensible and the right thing to do.
  Questions were asked about the pension scheme. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), who, strangely told us that he would be abroad by this time, asked about inflation. There will be an annual review within the scheme which may take account of inflation. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will read that in Hansard when he returns from abroad. Other more detailed questions were asked about the scheme. Indeed, that was the main thread throughout the debate.

  1133
  During the course of the coal industry examination in 1974—two hon. Members who were present at those meetings are in the House at this moment—the Government recognised that the past contraction of the industry presented a financial problem for a viable pension scheme because of the exceptional ratio of pensioners to contributing members, coupled with the fact that pensioners can make no further contribution to the pension fund or to the industrys performance. I think that the House will appreciate the magnitude of the problem with which the Government have tried to deal within the Bill if I give some figures.
  On 6th April 1975 there were 239,272 pensioners, 181,019 deferred pensioners and 255,839 contributing members. Accordingly, the Government undertook to relieve the Board of the burden of the past by contributing towards the existing deficiency in the pension fund. It was agreed that this should be the deficiency in the fund relating, first, to those mineworkers who retired before 6th April 1975 and the widows and dependent children of men who had died before that date and who were at that date in receipt of a pension under the scheme; secondly, subsequent widows and dependent children of such mineworkers; and, thirdly, those who left the industry before 6th April 1975 taking with them the right to a deferred pension under the scheme.
  In view of the lack of precision inherent in the calculation of the deficiency relating to the pensioners of 6th April 1975, the Government decided on a contribution of about £250 million as representing a generous measure of assistance. It was decided that the payment should be spread over 20 years, and we were advised by the Government Actuary that it meant a payment of just under £18 million a year, which was necessary to take account of the interest lost by spreading the payment instead of paying a capital sum.
  Reference was made during the debate to the problems of production and productivity, and it is right that I should give the figures to the House, because they provide some ground for optimism. Up to the first week in November, the Board's deep-mined output was 67·5 million tons for the financial year 1975–76. This compares
  1134
  with 67·9 million tons for a similar period last year. It is expected that total deep-mined output for 1975–76 will be about 114 million tons, which compares with an output of 114·6 million tons for 1974–75. Overall colliery productivity, up to the first week of November, was 44·1 cwt which is identical to the figure for the similar period last year.
  However, after taking account of seasonal variations, one sees that there has been a welcome improvement in productivity recently compared with the summer months. There was admittedly a period when we were very concerned because there was a downturn in productivity, but I am happy to tell the House that there has been an upturn now, and I have a feeling that it will continue.
  The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) referred to progress on the "Plan for Coal". I can tell him that the 60 major projects already approved by the Board will among them involve an expenditure of about £190 million, and this again means a tremendous financial commitment. These projects will provide 12 million of the additional 42 million tons capacity envisaged in the Plan for Coal. Two new drift mines are included. Selby on its own could provide another 10 million tons, but the inspector's report following the public inquiry into the Board's planning application for the Selby mine is still awaited. I hope that that answers the point.
  I now come to the question of the importation of coal. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Hunter) asked about coal-fired power stations and about coal imports, and I think that it will help if I give the figures. I apologise to the House for giving the figures for calendar years from 1971, but they are the only figures that I have. In 1971, imports were 4·58 million tonnes, and exports were 3·44 million tonnes. In 1972, the figures were 5·41 million and 2·25 million. In 1973, they were 1·91 million and 3·45 million. In 1974, imports amounted to 3·71 million tonnes, while exports totalled 3·83 million tonnes.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkins: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why those figures for imports, which are for calendar years, are so different from the figures for imports given in Energy Trends circulated by his Department?
  Mr. Eadie: I am giving the figures that I have been provided with in a background note, but I shall investigate that. I thought it only fair to give the import figures for coal, having been asked to do so. For 1975, the estimated figures are 5·5 million tonnes for imports and 4·10 million tonnes for exports.
  There can be no question of imported coal ousting home production. Although imports are now marginally higher than they have been in recent years, they are expected to fall from the 1975 level as short-term commitments are completed. When we debated this matter last year, we said that there would be a shortage of coal. Contracts were therefore entered into for the importation of coal, and these contracts are now being completed. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline that these are short-term contracts and that they will be exhausted progressively. In addition, my right hon. Friend is considering coal imports and will, I am sure, report to the House if he considers it desirable to do so.
  Mr. Gwilym Roberts Mr. Gwilym Roberts (Cannock) rose—
  Mr. Eadie: No. My hon. Friend has not been present during the debate, and I think it right that I should reply to the points that have been made.
  Mr. Peter Rees: The hon. Gentleman has plenty of time.
  Mr. Eadie: That is true. The hon. and learned Gentleman also was not present for much of the debate.
  Mr. Peter Rees: I accept that, and I apologised for my absence.
  Mr. Eadie: I know that, but, just the same, the hon. and learned Gentleman was not here for much of the time.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) made an interesting speech. I wish that he had done a little more research, because I found one facet of his speech rather fascinating. He said that Vanessa Redgrave and Derek Ezra had spoken at one of the schools in Yorkshire, but he did not tell us how they got on. I wish that he could have told us that.
  The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford said that he had met David
  1136
  Bolton, the vice-president of the Scottish miners. I am sure that Mr. Bolton will be interested to know that the right hon. Gentleman at least remembered him. I thought that the whole House was impressed with the fact that today the right hon. Gentleman became what my right hon. Friend would describe as technologically oriented, because he told us about his visit to Stoke Orchard and he described with great enthusiasm the fluidised bed combustion scheme.
  If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the research and development part of the coal industry examination report, and I presided over the R and D Committee, he will see that that is precisely what we recommended as a worthwhile project. I am pleased to say that part of the recommendations of that committee have been carried out, and this is demonstrated by the fact that, in conjunction with the Board, we have established a project with the International Energy Agency.
  One of the first things that I did as Under-Secretary was to visit Stoke Orchard. People there appreciated, after struggling for years on a shoestring, the fact that a representative of the Government had come to see what they were doing. I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's support. I agree that the subject of coal derivatives is an interesting one. When people run down this country's technology, they should remember that many of the systems evolved in this country are used in other countries—I have seen some for myself. At Stoke Orchard one sees the wonderful new things that can be done with coal. Given the proper approach, we can open up new markets for coal.
  Fluidised bed combustion is an example not only of a new technique for using coal, but of a new opportunity for British industry in manufacturing equipment for this kind of engineering. One firm is already beginning to take advantage of this.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: One point that I left out for reasons of time I should now like to put to the hon. Gentleman. Would he look into the complaint of the firm of Babcock and Wilcox that it is having great difficulty in getting from the NRDC the necessary agreements to enable it to develop, perhaps for export business, fluidised bed combustion plant?
  Mr. Eadie: The right hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know that the Department of Energy is not the Department of Industry. I do not want to be sidetracked, but I think that he will agree that at least one Energy Minister has tried to be helpful to Babcock and Wilcox over this type of plant. I am pleased that the Opposition are giving Dr. Joe Wilson, the Director of Stoke Orchard, their support. The research workers there were in the wilderness for many years. It is much more impressive coming from the right hon. Gentleman than coming from me that we have a fine research institution there, that we should make better use of it and invest more in research and development.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Grant) showed his feeling and compassion for the mining industry. He said that after he and I had met and had been able to give some assurance to the miners in that area, although we issued a joint statement, no assurance came from the local management. I want to look into this. Our statement was factual. If there is any difficulty about the local management's not endorsing it, I shall certainly look into the matter.
  Mr. George Grant: I was not saying that the local management was going against what we had jointly said, but that when it comes down to discussing the problems of individual collieries information is lacking. I was drawing attention to the lack of trust and communication and the failure of joint consultation.
  Mr. Eadie: I shall certainly examine what my hon. Friend said. I just wanted to make it clear that the assurances we gave were based on fact and should have been endorsed in that coalfield.
  The age of retirement in the mining industry is a subject to which the House will want to return. The Government have already made progress in matters connected with retirement, but I hope hon. Members will understand if I do not go into detail tonight.
  In debating this short Bill, I hope that hon. Members have not lost sight of the overall strategy that the Government and the industry have worked out together. The Bill must be seen in perspective as part of a coherent whole. There are
  1138
  four major planks in our policy. First, we are determined that coal should be seen as the foundation of the country's energy policies, to ensure that we at least have stability. But, given the deplorable lack of investment over the years, even maintaining output at current levels will be a mammoth task. Hence "Plan for Coal", a major expenditure programme stretching 10 years ahead.
  Secondly, we are determined that the short-term difficulties should not be allowed to blow the industry off this chosen path. That is why we give hope to the industry tonight. Thirdly, we want to see that the mineworker is accorded his rightful place in society and that a life of exposure to health risks and other dangers underground is properly rewarded when he leaves the industry, and to minimise the unpleasantness that miners still have to suffer day after day. Fourthly, we want to see the coal industry start this new era with no financial millstones from the past.
  Taken together with the major decisions that we took in the tripartite examination and the provisions of the 1975 Coal Industry Act, a coherent picture emerges which measures up very well to those objectives.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills.)

  NATIONAL COAL BOARD (FINANCE) [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That it is expedient to authorise all such increased payments out of public funds and into the Consolidated Fund as may result from an Act of the present Session—

  (a) increasing the limit of the National Coal Board's borrowing from £700 million to £1,100 million or any higher amount up to £1,400 million specified by order of the Secretary of State;

  (b) enabling the Secretary of State to reimburse expenditure incurred by the Board in reducing or eliminating deficiencies in the mineworkers' pension scheme, within the following limits—

  (i) as to the Board's expenditure in their financial year 1975–76, £18 million less the

  1139
  total of any payments made in respect of that year under section 5 of the Coal Industry Act 1973 (contributions towards increased pensions);

  (ii) as to their expenditure in any of the following 19 financial years £18 million or any higher amount specified by order of the Secretary of State for the financial year in which the order is made and subsequent financial years;

  (c) enlarging the purposes for which grants may be made to the Board under section 7 of the said Act of 1973 (stock-piling of coal and coke), but subject always to the overall limit of grant laid down by subsection (4) of that section (£40 million if it is confined to expenditure of the financial years 1974–75 and 1975–76; £70 million if it is extended by order to the next two financial years also).—[Mr. Eadie.]

  MONEYLENDERS (CROWN AGENTS) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  8.8 p.m.
  The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Reg Prentice): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  I would ask the House to consider this motion in relation to the statement that I made on 16th October, which had the following main purposes—first, to describe the current situation of the Crown Agents, coincidentally with the publication of their accounts; second, to reaffirm what my predecessor had already told the House, that the Government stood firmly behind the Crown Agents; third, also to reiterate the confidence that we feel in the new Board of the Crown Agents under the energetic and enterprising chairmanship of Mr. John Cuckney; fourth, to explain to the House the basis of the future relationship between the Government and the Crown Agents and the future status of the Crown Agents, on which I hope to lay a White Paper before the House within a few weeks.
  But, fifth, I want to explain to the House the necessity for the short Bill which is the subject of this debate. Its purpose is to establish that the Moneylenders Acts do not apply and have never applied to loans made by the Crown Agents for overseas Governments and administrations either directly or through companies wholly owned by them.
  1140
  The Bill involves no public expenditure and does not affect public service manpower. The loans whose status the Bill is designed to clarify were made over the years since 1967, in some cases directly by the Crown Agents and in others through a wholly-owned nominee company.
  As I told the House on 16th October, I was informed in August by the Chairman of the Crown Agents that the loans could be contested as irrecoverable and any securities relating to them as unenforceable on the grounds that the Crown Agents were neither licensed moneylenders under the terms of the Moneylenders Acts nor a bank for the purposes of those Acts. It has always been thought that those Acts did not apply to the Crown Agents as servants of the Crown and they have been advised that if this matter were brought before the courts they would have a good defence.
  However, if there were a challenge in the courts, for example by the liquidators of companies to which they had lent money, particularly in relation to loans made through the nominee company, the matter might take a long time to resolve. Assuming that a judgment favourable to the Crown Agents were made on one loan, it still might not cover all the other loans. In the meantime the Crown Agents' financial position, which is already a serious position, could be significantly worsened by the withholding of loan payments and interest due, and possibly in other ways.
  My predecessor and I have already given an assurance that the Government stand behind the Crown Agents, most of whose activities are carried on directly or indirectly for Governments and other public bodies overseas. The amount of lending that would have to be underwritten by the Exchequer—that is, in the circumstances I have just mentioned—and ultimately by the taxpayer cannot be stated with any precision, but I am advised that it could exceed £400 million, without taking future interest payments on the loans into account.
  The main beneficiaries of this would be those property companies, secondary banking companies, and other companies to which the Crown Agents had made loans, or in the case of insolvent companies, their other creditors.

  1141
  Until the point was raised recently, it was always believed that the Moneylenders Acts did not apply to the Crown Agents. But their position is unique. They were established at a time when the prerogative was more often exercised and their status has never been dealt with in legislation or tested in the courts.
  We have, therefore, prepared this Bill to place the position of the Crown Agents and their wholly-owned companies in this limited respect beyond doubt.
  As I mentioned a moment ago, I shall be publishing a White Paper shortly to deal with the more general aspects of the status, structure and functions of the Crown Agents with a view to introducing subsequent legislation to confer independent legal personality on the Crown Agents by incorporating them.
  Mr. Peter Rees: Before the Minister leaves the point of the debts to which the Bill might apply, will he tell the House how many of the debtors to whom this defence might be open are themselves in liquidation, so that obviously people beyond the immediate relationship between the Crown Agents and the debtors are likely to be affected?
  Mr. Prentice: I cannot give precise details of that. The categories may be difficult to define. I spoke of a figure of over £400 million, which represents a total of a wide variety of situations with varying degrees of risk. I was deliberately putting the highest figure on the total. I shall ask my hon. Friend whether, when he replies, he can give further details on this point.
  The legislation that will follow the White Paper will deal with the long-term future. Here we are simply concerned with the current day-to-day activities of the Crown Agents. Until the doubt about their moneylending status is cleared up the Crown Agents may suffer serious loss of income and may be unable to recover capital owing to them—a risk we cannot afford to run.
  In submitting this Bill we are not in conflict with the original intention of the Moneylenders Acts, which was to protect individual borrowers against harsh and unconscionable bargains on the part of moneylenders. Licensing and other formalities were introduced to control their operations and to ensure that borrowers
  1142
  were aware of the terms of the loans. Legislation to repeal the Moneylenders Acts, that is, the Consumer Credit Act 1974, has already been enacted. The present Bill will cease to have effect at the same time as the Moneylenders Acts cease to have effect through Orders to be made to replace them by provisions of the Consumer Credit Act. However, its remedial effect in relation to past loans will continue.
  The main aspect of the Bill which may be controversial is its element of retro-activity. But this does not involve overruling cither a decision of a court or a clear legal proposition. Nor is there anything sub judice to be affected. It is not a retrospective provision in the sense that the House so often finds objectionable.
  Prior to my statement on 16th October, no legal proceedings had been started to challenge the loans, although a liquidator of a company had questioned the application of the Moneylenders Acts to a loan on behalf of the Crown Agents, but he has neither accepted nor rejected the proof of debt.
  Mr. George Cunningham: Will my right hon. Friend say whether that questioning by one liquidator was the trigger that led to the Bill being introduced today?
  Mr. Prentice: It could be described as the trigger, although the whole situation was one that we have had to look at in relation to this point. This is an area of uncertainty which could be damaging to the Crown Agents over a period of delay during which the matter was before the courts. It would not be right to think of this case as being the only case which would necessitate this legislation.
  Some other interested parties have also raised the point in correspondence.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: I was intrigued by my right hon. Friend's reference to the fact that this was not a question of retrospective legislation in the sense that there had been a court judgment which was being reversed, as was the case with some other references that have been made—for instance, one of the oil companies. Is it not a fact that if this legislation is passed, a court will be prevented from making a decision on the matter? In my judgment that would be just as bad.
  Mr. Prentice: I am sorry that that is my hon. Friend's judgment. It is certainly not mine. The purpose of the Bill is to clarify the law on a point about which there is a possible area of doubt. I have submitted to the House a short Bill to ensure that the intentions of the Moneylenders Acts, as we have always interpreted them, will apply in a way that will avoid the public purse being liable for possibly very heavy sums. I do not understand why my hon. Friend objects to that, but no doubt he will explain why if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I do not believe that any of the borrowers in question would have had it in mind at the times the loans were made to avail themselves of the technicality which is the subject of the Bill in order to avoid having to repay what they have borrowed. Indeed, had some borrowers not run into difficulties, the problem facing us now might not have arisen.
  I recognise the House's extreme dislike of retrospective legislation. But I do not believe that so small an element of it will find disfavour with hon. Members when they appreciate that the cost of an uncertainty, to repeat my hon. Friend's point, in the application of legislation would be so heavy a contingent liability on the taxpayers of this country.
  The Bill has only two clauses. Clause I provides that the Moneylenders Acts shall not apply and shall be deemed never to have applied to loans made by the Crown Agents either directly or through their wholly owned companies. It also declares, in subsection (3), that this exemption shall not prejudice any status, privilege or immunity of the Crown Agents or such a company as servants or agents of the Crown.
  As I stated earlier in my speech and in my statement of 16th October, the future status of the Crown Agents will be clarified in the forthcoming White Paper and the legislation that will follow.
  Clause 1(1) is framed so as to cover any period when there was only one Crown Agent, when in order to comply with the requirement that a company needs more than one shareholder the other shares in the companies wholly owned by the Crown Agents were held in
  1144
  trust for them by a member of their staff acting in his official capacity.
  Clause 1(2) is more involved than might otherwise have been necessary because the titles of the appointments made to the Crown Agents by successive Ministers have not been identical. As I have already explained, Clause 2(2) is included because legislation to repeal the Moneylenders Acts has already been enacted.
  I am convinced that we must clarify without delay a situation which could rapidly increase the potential call on the Exchequer for financial support to the Crown Agents to a degree which I feel sure would be quite unacceptable to the House, and the Government have concluded that only legislation such as this Bill will have the necessary effect.
  8.20 p.m.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds): The Opposition's attitude to this Bill is that it is a most disagreeable little document—but it has been moved by a very agreeable Minister. We are very glad to see him present tonight. He has had his difficulties recently. I think that presenting the Bill to the House tonight is not the least among them.
  I should like to start by making it very plain that the Opposition regard the Crown Agents as one of our great British commercial institutions, and that while the Crown Agents have had their difficulties, and may still have their difficulties, we join with the Government in seeking to maintain public confidence in the Crown Agents, at home and abroad. We go along with the Government in continuing to commend the services of the Crown Agents to any and all overseas clients who wish to do business in this country. I make that very plain at the outset.
  I should also say at the beginning that we for our part have a great deal of confidence in the Chairman, Mr. Cuckney, who has been a colleague of mine at the Department of the Environment and with whom I have gone through some difficult times—in the Mersey Dock and Harbour Board legislation and during his period at the PSA. We have much confidence in Mr. Cuckney. I say again that we wish to see confidence maintained in the Crown Agents at home and overseas.

  1145
  Secondly, we join the right hon. Gentleman in wanting to protect the public purse and the taxpayer from any unintended raids that might arise from a technicality—namely, the technicality that the Crown Agents may not have, or may not have had, the status either of moneylenders or of a bank for the purpose of the Moneylenders Acts. We wish to protect the taxpayer and the public purse against raids that might arise from that unintended technical loophole.
  I appreciate that there is no certainty that the Crown Agents would in fact be unable to recover their outstanding loans, and I also appreciate that they might be able to claim exemption from the Moneylenders Acts on the ground that they are Crown servants. But I accept from the right hon. Gentleman that there could be some doubt about this, and in view of the very large sum involved—no less than £405 million, if I am not mistaken—I give general support to the Government's decision to ask the House to do something which is rather painful—namely, to provide a retrospective declaration that the Agents are not and never were at risk on this particular account.
  Having said that, I know that the right hon. Gentleman will not be surprised if I say that there are a number of aspects of the Bill and, indeed, the surrounding experience which we have had which are unappealing, and that there are a number of others which are disquieting.
  I start with the amounts involved. I wonder whether the Minister who is to reply to the debate would be so kind as to confirm that there are five principal sources of risk. The largest of those is about £200 million, or a little less, to overseas banks and institutions. The second largest is doubtful debts being written down in the 1974 account. The third largest is loans to banks and other institutions in the United Kingdom. The fourth largest is overdrafts of and commitments to overseas principals. The fifth largest is interest received which could have to be repaid if judgment went against the Crown Agents.
  I believe I am correct in saying that the totality of these five outstanding areas of risk is of the order of magnitude, as the Minister very fairly said, of £400 million.
  1146
  I will state the question that I should like to have answered. As far as the right hon. Gentleman can tell, is that the end of the road? Is there any more to come? What is the position, for example, in respect of the Crown Agents' commitments in Australia? Can we be sure, as a House, at least in respect of the legal technicality with which we are dealing tonight—I make no comment on the broader issue of reorganisation that is yet to come—that this is the end of the road, or are there other areas of risk that may yet also have to be dealt with under this particular loophole?
  I turn from the problem of the very large sums involved to the question of retrospection, which was very fairly raised by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I go along with the right hon. Gentleman all the way. It is always difficult for the House to accept a measure that is retrospective. But it is not the first time. I think that the most exact parallel was probably the Ship Mortgage Finance Company measure which provided retrospective exemption from the Moneylenders Acts from 1900 to 1922—or so I am advised—and of course, most of us will remember the Burmah Oil affair, though that is quite different from the point with which we are dealing now.
  I thought that I understood the Minister to say that he justified the retroactive nature of the Bill on the ground that it was just a very small element—rather like the housemaid's baby; just a little one, so it did not matter very much. Of course, it is not a very small element. A sum of £400 million at risk is by no measure a small element—to use the right hon. Gentleman's phrase. My judgment of the painful necessity of accepting the retrospection here turns not so much on the fact that it it is a small matter as on the question of who may get hurt and whether anyone who had a reasonable and lawful expectation of benefit is to be denied that benefit as a result of the Bill. In other words, who would benefit if the Bill were not passed?
  If there were to be a large number of people, I would not find it so easy to accept it, but I rather suspect—I hope that the Minister will confirm this—that in practice there will be remarkably few, if any.
  Mr. Prentice: Perhaps I may clarify this point. The hon Gentleman said that I had attempted to justify the retroactive change by saying that it was a small matter. My view was that the House would not take so serious a view of the retroactive element in a case such as this, where we are simply clarifying the law along the lines that most legal advisers would say was its meaning already, as against a situation in which we might be overturning a legal judgment.
  Mr. Griffiths: I accept that what the Minister had in mind was that it was the smallness of the legal shift that he was talking about rather than the sum of money.
  Mr. Skinner: Notwithstanding our respective stances on matters such as these, does not the hon. Gentleman understand that we are not overturning a court decision? We are laying down instructions. If there had been a challenge, a decision could have been reached in the courts contrary to that which will be the case if the Bill becomes law.
  Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman anticipates me, because I was about to put a point of that kind to the Minister. In any event, the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it is the Minister's Bill, not mine, so I do not feel compelled to answer that point.
  Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman welcomed the Bill.
  Mr. Griffiths: My welcome was qualified, to put it mildly, and I have a number of other qualifications to make yet.
  I wish to put this precise question to the Minister. Does the Bill cut across any legal proceedings that have already commenced—I think he has dealt with that—or of which notice has been given, or of which the Department may be aware?
  Mr. Prentice: It does not.
  Mr. Griffiths: I am grateful to the Minister for giving me that precise assurance at this stage. I turn from the question of retrospection, having said plainly that we do not like it, to deal with a third set of doubts. These arise from what can be described only as a lack of information.
  On 23rd April last the right hon Gentleman's predecessor as Minister gave the House what I can describe only as a
  1148
  somewhat bowdlerised account of the report by the chairman. Some of the items which were not included were critical of the Government. The right hon. Lady said at that time that there was to be an independent inquiry into past events which would be carried out by Mr. Justice Fay, Sir Edmund Compton and an accountant. We greatly welcomed that. The right hon. Lady said that a White Paper would be presented dealing with the relationship between the Crown Agents and the Government. We have supported all these actions—the right hon. Lady's request to the chairman for a full report, the establishment of the Fay inquiry, and the promise of a White Paper.
  We have not yet had the Fay Report. I understand that these things take time. We have not had a White Paper. Therefore, we do not know tonight, when we are asked to make a judgment on the Bill, what the reasons are which caused things to go wrong at the Crown Agents. We do not have the benefit either of the Fay Report or of the report by the chairman. Nor do we have any indication in the shape of a White Paper of the Government's conclusions or of their future intentions for the reorganisation of the Agents, although I acknowledge that the right hon. Gentleman made a full statement several weeks ago.
  I understand that inquiries of this kind and of this complexity take time and that this one is unlikely to be completed before June or July. I am rather concerned that the right hon. Gentleman has not been able to bring forward the White Paper or at least to tell us a little more than he felt able to tell us tonight about the Government's attitude towards reorganisation of the Agents as a whole, because that is very material background against which alone we can judge the Bill.
  Mr. Prentice: The statement I made on 16th October made it clear that we envisaged for the Crown Agents a relationship with the Government roughly analagous to that of a nationalised industry. The details of that are being worked out and will be published in the White Paper. The House wanted to know the basic decision, and I gave that on 16th October. I hope that the House will agree with me that it is better to wait a few more weeks for the White Paper so

  1149
  that careful study can be devoted to the details rather than that we should rush it. There is no hurry to know the details now that the basic decision has been announced.
  Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate what the Minister says, but I think that he himself would have preferred not to have to bring the Bill forward without the White Paper. I think that he would have much preferred, if the financial pressures upon him had not been so great, to have the White Paper and to deal with the Bill then. The Bill is an emergency. That is why we are having the Committee stage next Tuesday. I have an awful feeling—although the official Opposition will not seek in any way to delay the Bill, because we understand what is at stake—that we are to some extent being asked tonight to legislate in the dark and to buy a pig in a poke, because we have not got the full background that a White Paper and the Report of the Fay inquiry can provide and should have provided. The problem is that we have an emergency and we have to deal with it. I understand that, though I very much regret it.
  Mr. George Cunningham: It is very difficult to control oneself when one recalls the total difficulty that everyone in this House, myself included, encountered in trying to extract the least scrap of information from the Conservative Government about the Crown Agents. They would not even tell us how much they had invested on behalf of this or that territory. For the right hon. Gentleman now to be complaining about the activities of the present Government when they are responsible for first exposing and then putting right what had gone wrong during three and a half years of lack of supervision by the Conservative Government is going too far.
  Mr. Griffiths: The House may have observed that I was trying to avoid any polemics. I think I am entitled to say tonight that without the surrounding background, we are in a difficulty in making a judgment on this Bill covering a matter of such great importance.
  However, I merely make the point, and I move on to what I consider to be a third set of questions to the Minister who, at least, I hope, will take them seriously. We are entitled to ask which are the firms, or it may be the liquidators,
  1150
  which are inclined to take advantage of a loophole in the law and to refuse to pay back that which they have borrowed and that which the Crown Agents have loaned in good faith to them. Which are these firms? The Minister had a phrase in which he referred to fringe banks and property companies. We are entitled to ask who they are. Against whom is it that the Bill is guarding us? Are there any foreign firms or overseas Governments among them? I believe we are entitled to ask those questions and I hope that we shall have an answer.
  We should also ask why it is, under any Government, that the legal advisers to the Crown Agents did not pick up this problem before. One regrets that they did not. Why has it suddenly arisen? I think the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) was on to the point. He asked what was the trigger, and the Minister acknowledged fairly that there had been a recent case with which some of us may be familiar which triggered this off. Since we have gone that far, we had better know who or what precisely this trigger was.
  What worries me about the whole matter is that there is a curious double-standard. Any private bank which had got into such a jam as a result of a technicality, it may be, would have been required to face the music of full public exposure in detail. The directors concerned would undoubtedly have been named. Some of them might well have been sacked. There would have been little hope for any private bank or agency to have had retrospective protection and even exculpation by virtue of an Act of this House. There is a double standard. I think it is only fair to say that.
  Therefore, I put further questions to the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. Which of the Crown Agents' companies are covered by the Bill? Does it cover the activities of Millbank Technical Services? Second, against which outstanding loans is the Bill safeguarding the taxpayer against the non-payment of debt? We need a little more precision. To whom were the loans made, for what purpose and on whose advice? It is a question not least of accountability to this House.
  Finally, I ask the Minister one technical question relating to Clause 2. I

  1151
  must tell him that I do not like this clause. In my experience in this House, it is of a most unusual construction. It says:
  "This Act shall cease to have effect…"
  and incidentally ought it not at this stage to say "Bill" and not "Act"? After all, this is the Second Reading of the Bill.
  Mr. George Cunningham: No, the word is always "Act".
  Mr.Griffiths: The hon. Member may be right, but I am not sure that he is.
  Clause 2 says:
  "This Act shall cease to have effect on the first day on which, by virtue of one or more orders under section 192(4) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, all of the provisions mentioned in section 1(1) above have been repealed."
  But an Order under the Consumer Credit Act is subject to parliamentary procedure. We have all been in the hands of drafters of Bills, but what happens if the House rejects such an Order, as it is entitled to do? It is not right to predicate some future action on the assumption that the House will do whatever the Government judges to be wise. That is a most unusual construction and we shall want to come back to it in Committee.
  This is a disagreeable Bill, and the Minister's task is not easy. Reluctantly, we feel that we have to support it, but we do so because we wish to protect the public purse and the taxpayer from any liability that was entered into without the willingness or knowledge of the Crown Agents. We also share the Government's desire to underpin public confidence in the Crown Agents at home and overseas.
  8.42 p.m.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) suggested that we should have had a White Paper before the Bill was presented, and I tend to agree with him. I am not sure that there would be anything in the White Paper that we did not know already—a lot of newsprint has been used in reports of this matter—but I tend to suspect the Establishment and maybe there is something we ought to have read first in a White Paper.
  1152
  I do not expect the Fay Committee to report just yet. I have been pressing the Government for an investigation into a not indistinct matter with which the Leader of the Liberal Party is involved, and that has been going on for a considerable time. I do not expect the Fay Committee to report yet, but no news is good news.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) has made the key point in this debate. There is reason to believe—I put it no higher than that—that if he had been able to extract information on these matters from the previous Government, several of the directors involved in this scandal might have been sent hurrying and scurrying about and some aspects of this business with which we are involved today would not be before us now.
  It could be argued that it is only a small matter and that this is only a small Bill dealing with a small number of isolated incidents, but a hell of a lot of money is involved. It has been one of the most outrageous of the many scandals in the City in recent years.
  Not only has this institution been involved in speculation, competing with many other murky organisations in the same activity, but the people who were behind it in Crown Agents were doing so in such a way that it now appears that they were breaking the law. In the Bill we are seeking to prevent the courts from making a judgment on this matter in respect of any of those people, whether it be Mr. Kenneth Cork of the Stern group or those in the other companies involved whose behaviour could well have resulted in a court case. Dress it up how one may, that is the size of the situation. When Mr. Cork, on behalf of the Stern group, decided to make a few noises about this issue, when the deeds of arrangement were being pushed through on behalf of William Stern, that could have led, had this Bill not been introduced, to a court decision that those involved in this exercise had broken the law because they changed the character of the servicing facilities of the Crown Agents.
  As I see it, the Crown Agents were responsible for servicing territories abroad on the basis of facilities which could be developed in this country on

  1153
  behalf of institutions operating within the old Empire. The Crown Agents took advantage of the property boom during the period of the last Tory Government and turned into speculators. The secondary banks were making fortunes at that time and the Crown Agents directors decided to do the same. They changed their character, their rôle and their responsibilities. They invested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury described as slum empires, many of them in London.
  One of my hon. Friends who is on the Front Bench and who comes from Hackney reminded me today that the Crown Agents invested in many of these properties in and around his constituency. I believe that the people concerned should pay the full penalty for their activities at that time.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Clinton Davis): I had no discussion with my hon. Friend on this topic today, and I am the only Member on the Front Bench to represent a Hackney constituency.
  Mr. Skinner: I was looking at one of my other hon. Friends on the Front Bench.
  Mr. Thomas Cox: My hon. Friend was referring to me.
  Mr. Skinner: Indeed, it was my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) to whom I was referring. He told me that some of these investments took place in his constituency. As we all know, quite apart from the speculation in property empires, slum landlordism and the investment overseas, the net result, following the fall in property shares and the world recession, was that the Crown Agents got their fingers burnt.
  One of the commentators on this matter at the time said that the Crown Agents were the softest touch in the City. Any cheapjack organisation which wanted money during the period of the last Conservative Government would simply go along to the Crown Agents, who would provide it. At that time the amount of money the Crown Agents were handling had escalated considerably.
  That growing amount of money was there to be exploited, and along came London and County, with which the
  1154
  Leader of the Liberal Party was involved, and the London Capital group. We all know what has happened to that company, the company of my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Stonehouse). The Crown Agents were described in the Investors Chronicle as the softest touch in the City. They were using money supplied to this country to provide services of one kind or another, and they were engaged in speculation of the shabbiest possible sort.
  Now we are rescuing those people. I naturally find it more than a little galling when I compare what is happening under the Bill with the situation developing in the town where I live, where my brothers and nine colleagues are being dragged through the bankruptcy court because our Government refuse to introduce retrospective legislation to remove surcharges, other penalties and disqualifications arising from the desire of my brothers and their colleagues to carry out the Labour Party programme as envisaged at the 1972 Labour Party conference. That is why I feel even more strongly about the matter than perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury does.
  As I am not against retrospective legislation per se, I must examine the consequences of passing the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Minister is correct in saying that if we do not pass it, the taxpayer will lose a certain amount of money. He is right to say that there will be some money at stake, but I think that he will agree that it is not very much, or that the prospect is that there will not be much. For example, one cannot expect the Stern group to deliver many of its millions of pounds. One cannot expect London and County or the Stonehouse bank to deliver anything. But I am told that there are some investments which could result in a return of some kind.
  Therefore, I tell my hon. Friends who think as I do on these matters that they must consider the subject of retrospective legislation together with their desire to help the taxpayer. We all know who the taxpayer is. It is not companies such as those involved, because they can provide themselves with chartered accountants who can avoid the major excesses of taxation. By and large, those who contribute the taxation are those who

  1155
  have to work by hand and brain for a living.
  I know that my story is not the same as that told by my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds. I may have coloured it in a different way, but I have told it as I see it. Here was a firm of brokers, no more and no less, which was able to go gladly on its way doing as it liked, partly as a result of the fact that we had a Tory Government and we were unable to extract information. These brokers were saying "To hell with the law. We shall carry on and make money." They did so in the knowledge that, so they thought, the property boom and everything associated with it would last for ever.
  What we are now witnessing is a further de-escalation of that. It is a tragedy that my right hon. Friends—not necessarily the Minister present tonight, but all of them collectively—are propping up the system once again, giving it a fresh tank of oxygen so that it can breathe a little longer. That is what this is all about. It is part of the excesses of the system within which we live, a part that is right out of the sewer.
  Some parts of the capitalist system can be held up and be shown to be in bright, starry colours. Other parts, the worst excesses, will be found beneath the benches, underneath the stones. That is what this Bill is. It is one of the worst excesses, the most ugly of the faces of capitalism. It should not have been an exercise like this at all. It should have been one in which people merely used the money to provide services. That is what makes it ever worse.
  I am not attacking my right hon. Friend. I understand that he inherited this job. There have been a lot of stories about how he got it, but he is there. It is not at that level that I make my comments. My references are related to the analogous matters I raised when the Bill was introduced a few weeks ago. I hope to be able to say a few more things in Committee. We shall be constantly faced with this situation. I say to my hon. Friends that if we have to make a decision, we must make it in the knowledge that we cannot be fundamentally against retrospective legislation.
  1156
  If we want to change society—not as in this Bill—there will have to be many occasions when, if we are to make much progress, we shall have to introduce a lot of retrospective legislation, as we should have done in connection with the Housing Finance Act. This business has been a long tragedy and scandal. Some of those who have left as directors of companies have suddenly appeared as directors of investing companies—a quite amazing spectacle.
  I hope that the White Paper clears up some of the doubts. I also hope that those who have been involved will be brought to justice for the way in which they have handled this matter. I trust that we shall be able to examine this in greater detail in Committee. Despite all the outrage and scandal, we are still faced with deciding whether we should accept retrospective legislation in the knowledge that we may be able to recoup some money for the taxpayer.
  8.57 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Viggers: It is so easy to criticise the Crown Agents although not so easy to do it with the eloquence and individual manner of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I do not know whether he was speaking for the Government—
  Mr. Skinner: I do not like doing that normally.
  Mr. Viggers:—when he said that it was the intention of himself and his right hon. and hon. Friends to tear up the rule book. I was worried by his cavalier references to retrospective legislation. I am sure that they will have been noted in the country.
  The Press and politicians have tended to concentrate on the more dramatic side of the fall in the value of the Crown Agents' investments over the past year or so. The Crown Agents are a unique organisation. Last year they purchased goods worth £157 million for their overseas clients, placing three-quarters of this business in the United Kingdom. They manage nearly £1,000 million for overseas Governments and institutions and provide purchasing services for nearly 100 overseas Governments.
  It would not have been out of order, it might even have been expected, for the Minister in introducing this Bill to

  1157
  pay passing tribute to the important work done by the Crown Agents. I am happy to associate myself with the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths). The goods ordered through the Crown Agents in the United Kingdom provide employment here. The funds they manage are an important part of the complex financial structure that makes up the City of London.
  It would be quite wrong to allow this debate to pass without further tribute being paid to the importance of the work of the Crown Agents and of the skill and expertise of the staff. The respect in which they are held is evidenced by the growth in the use which overseas institutions make of the Crown Agents, and that is important from the country's point of view.
  The Crown Agents have been heavily criticised for investing in property situations. If the Almighty had wished us to have the benefit of hindsight, he would have placed our eyes in a different part of our anatomy. Only one person present is entitled to say that he had the benefit of foresight, and that is the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). One notes the perspicacious comments which he made and the Questions which he tabled many years ago. If what he said then had been followed, it would have been of great value to the Crown Agents and to the country. If I may say without appearing to be patronising, it is only right that tribute should be paid to him.
  Property investments were made by the Crown Agents on a large scale, and history has shown that loans and investments were made in speculative operations. However, at the time of the loans property was widely accepted as being a sound investment, substantially backed by tangible assets—that was what distinguished property as an investment from manufacturing industry—and it was thought that it provided potential exciting capital appreciation. This is why one can, with the benefit of hindsight, believe that an investment in property was not the speculative investment which other investments might have been.
  Anyone who seeks to criticise the Crown Agents' investments in property should ponder whether the Crown Agents should instead have invested in
  1158
  manufacturing industry—perhaps in Rolls-Royce or British Leyland.
  Out of interest, I looked at the comparative figures of the Financial Times index on 24th November 1972 and 24th November 1975, being roughly comparable figures over three years. It fell from approximately 500 to approximately 374—a depreciation of 25 per cent. The Financial Times all-shares index fell by 27 per cent. The property sector fell from 302 to 166, a depreciation of 45 per cent., but the electronics sector and other sectors fell more. The electronics sector, in which I am particularly interested, fell from 246 to 128—a depreciation of 48 per cent.
  It is not fair for anyone, with the exception I have indicated, to say that the Crown Agents were unduly foolish in their investment policies. It is not fair to mount too heavy an attack on them.
  I turn to the specific point raised by the Bill. The Crown Agents have a vague constitutional and legal position which has never been properly clarified. Their position vis-à-vis the Moneylenders Acts is uncertain. The proposal in the Bill is that the Moneylenders Acts shall not apply, and shall never have applied, to the Crown Agents. Nobody knows at present whether the Moneylenders Acts apply.
  The Crown Agents have made many investments and loans over a number of years. The loans were made on a commercial basis between freely contracting parties. Neither the Crown Agents nor the people with whom they were dealing were under any constraint or compulsion. The loan arrangements were intended to be legally binding contracts. One of the loans was of £45 million to the property companies of Mr. Stern. The companies have not prospered and a liquidator has been appointed—a particularly capable and perspicacious accountant, Mr. Kenneth Cork of Cork Gully. I understand that he has questioned the status of the Crown Agents, with particular reference to the Moneylenders Acts. If it should be held that the Crown Agents are subject to those Acts, the loans to Stern could be illegal and therefore void and irrecoverable.
  The point made by the liquidator is fair and valid. This is an issue which

  1159
  should properly be settled by the courts. That is what the courts are for. The Government have intervened because they have involuntarily become involved with the Crown Agents. On 18th December 1974 the then Minister for Overseas Development, the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), quite rightly gave the Government's unequivocal backing to the Crown Agents. That means that if the Crown Agents should suffer further loss the Government must foot the Bill. If the courts decide that the Crown Agents were acting illegally and the Stern loan and the other loans are irrecoverable, the Government must make up the deficiency.
  The Government are therefore interested in this legal question. But this raises a point of the deepest constitutional significance. The Crown Agents were acting freely when they entered into the contractual relationship. How can the House now seek to change the position of one of the contracting parties and thus cause loss to the other party?
  I am deeply worried by the retrospective nature of this proposed legislation. Retrospective legislation should always be the subject of the most assiduous and suspicious scrutiny. But here we have a shabby little Bill shuffling through its Second Reading on a quiet Thursday night. It is for the courts to decide the issue of the applicability of the Moneylenders Acts to the Crown Agents.
  In fact, The Times recently referred to the question, saying:
  "Had the matter been brought before the courts it might have involved a lengthy legal battle. The present Bill—largely a formality—puts the matter beyond any doubt."
  I do not think this Bill is a formality, even though I express no sympathy or support for the general position of the Stern group, or any of the other companies concerned with the Crown Agents, or any of the other people who may benefit if this Bill is not passed.
  It may be argued that logic, common sense and the public interest all require the Bill to become law because it will save the British people £400 million. The amount in question is very large and the arguments are powerful. But hard cases make bad law, and I do not believe that we should arbitrarily introduce retro-
  1160
  spective legislation yet again. It has been done before by this Government. There ought to be other ways of approaching the problem. While I shall not vote against the Bill, I cannot support it.
  9.7 p.m.
  Mr. George Cunningham: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) for his kind remarks about my involvement in this matter over the last few years. I take this opportunity to say that my interest was not self-stimulated entirely, although I had had a bit to do with the Crown Agents in my previous professions.
  I was moved to take an interest by several journalists who had, before anyone in this House took an interest, written questioning articles in the newspapers. I am thinking particularly of Charles Raw, then writing in The Guardian, in 1970 or 1971, a fine exposé of questions to be asked. I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) were at that time also the recipients of representations from people in various institutions who felt that there were questions to be asked which ought to be pursued within the House of Commons.
  I think that the hon. Gentleman was right to pay tribute to the invaluable work done by the Crown Agents in their traditional rôle as a purchasing agency in this country for any overseas Government or administration which wished to use them in that rôle. That was the rôle in which they earned their high reputation over 100 years and more until this business arose.
  I do not think that their reputation in that rôle has been damaged at all by the fact that they have made an almighty botch of their involvement in the financial side. I know for a fact that some Western countries have been interested in the possible use of an agency like the Crown Agents as something associated with their aid programmes to developing countries, and that at that time they looked to the Crown Agents as a model to imitate in their own countries. They have been rather put off by what has happened in the last few years.
  One difficulty in talking of the Crown Agents is that one has to distinguish

  1161
  between the old and the new. One wants to give the old Crown Agents—except in their traditional rôle—a very severe panning. But the new Crown Agents, the reformed Crown Agents, the controlled Crown Agents—self-controlled and controlled by the Ministry of Overseas Development—are a quite different institution under the same name. Therefore, one ought to distinguish between the old and the new institution. I have no criticism whatever of the activities of the new institution, but I think that hardly any criticism is too strong for the irresponsibility of the activities of the old institution in the financial sector.
  The hon. Member for Gosport argued that there was nothing wrong at the time in placing speculative investment in property, that the Crown Agents made tremendous profits up till 1973 or so from those investments, and that they had a lot of that profit to lose before they started eating into the reserves that they did not possess. But what was really serious about their investment in property was the kind of property company with which they got involved.
  I think, for example, of First National Finance Corporation, which then passed on some of that money to small fly-by-night companies whose names would not be recognised except, perhaps, in an area like my own where they brought misery to many thousands of tenants by winkling them out. The empire—the family—of small fly-by-night property companies in my area was centred on a company called Redsprings, which obtained money from First National Finance Corporation, which in turn obtained a large part of its loan money from the Crown Agents.
  It was the involvement of the Crown Agents in that kind of property activity which was so reprehensible. They could have gone into not only safer but more respectable property than that, even if they were going into property.
  The hon. Member for Gosport objected to passing what he called "retrospective legislation". It is important to distinguish between a declaratory Bill, which is what this is, and retrospective legislation proper. In the case of retrospective legislation proper, we make something an offence which definitely was not an offence before. In those circumstances, a person has acted on a certain assump-
  1162
  tion about what he thought was the law, and then we change it—
  Mr. Skinner: That is a bad argument.
  Mr. Cunningham: It is a perfect argument, and it distinguishes this situation completely from what my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) wants the Government to do in respect of Clay Cross.
  We are doing tonight roughly what we did three or four years ago in respect of the search of vehicles in Northern Ireland. There, as a result of a court decision—and in that case there had been a court decision which we were trying to undo—we were obliged to declare that the law was what it had always been understood to be. We did that by means of a declaratory Act. So I do not regard this as retrospective legislation of a reprehensible kind.
  My capacity for surprise is diminished by long service in this House. Even so, the speech of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) takes the biscuit. He asked what the Crown Agents were getting involved with and lending their money to, as if the Conservative Party had no knowledge of what had been going on with the Crown Agents over the years. It was the Conservative Minister for Overseas Development who not only saw nothing wrong in the Crown Agents putting money into enterprises like First National Finance Corporation, but, on his specific authority, permitted the financial director of the Crown Agents to resign from that position and the next day, I think, to take up a position as Deputy Chairman of First National Finance Corporation, in which over the previous five years or so the Crown Agents had been investing—I speak from memory—to the tune of about £8 million.
  The Chairman of the Crown Agents at that time cannot be blamed. He should not have put the suggestion to the then Minister. But he did. Therefore, the Minister took responsibility for permitting that to happen. He might not have been able to prevent it, because the man could have resigned and taken the job and ignored the provisions of Estacode. The point is that the Minister, in effect, let him do it with his blessing.
  The Conservative Party has a great deal to answer for in neglecting pressure from newspapers and hon. Members over

  1163
  the years to look more fully into what the Crown Agents were up to, their relationship with the Government, and particularly the frequently posed question of who pays if they go broke. That question was posed by Charles Raw in his articles in The Guardian many years ago.
  The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds suggested that if a private institution found itself in this situation, the House of Commons would not come along with a declaratory Bill to get it out of difficulty. I do not think that is so. If we discovered tomorrow that, as a result of a doubt about a provision in the law which no one had anticipated, the clearing banks were unable to recover their overdrafts from customers, does the hon. Gentleman suggest that the Government would sit by and not introduce legislation to correct the situation? If we discovered that the building societies could not recover the loans that they had made, would we stand by and say "You knew the law. If not, it is your fault for not doing anything about it"? Of course not. We would take the action that we are now taking concerning public institutions. Therefore, that point is not well founded.
  The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds screws up his face as if to disagree. I question whether he would say that, if either of those events occurred, we would not come along with a declaratory Bill to put the position right. We are not doing it because this institution's losses would have to be borne out of the public purse.
  The hon. Gentleman posed one question which I also was minded to ask concerning the effect of the Bill on any actions which might be taken outside our jurisdiction. The Crown Agents have had considerable activities in Australia, probably in Singapore, and elsewhere. If the Crown Agents had to take any action outside the English jurisdiction—for example, in Austraila or Singapore—would they be able to rely upon the Bill against objections raised in another jurisdiction? I hope that the Minister will be able to answer that question when he replies to the debate.
  Am I right in thinking that the £400 million, the right to recovery of which we are at least notionally safeguarding
  1164
  by the Bill, constitutes almost half of the investment funds which the Crown Agents have had in their hands during the last two or three years? The figure frequently quoted was £900 million—just short of £1 billion. If £400 million is at risk if the Bill is not passed, we are talking of approximately 40 per cent. of the investment funds which were in the Crown Agents' hands.
  The Crown Agents' status has been vague for a very long time, but the House of Commons has from time to time—too infrequently—gently poked its nose into the matter. There was a report in 1909 by a committee—not a House of Commons Committee, strictly speaking—on which some hon. Members served. If some of the conclusions and recommendations of that committee had been more robustly followed up, we might not be in this situation now.
  I want to draw one lesson from what has occurred. Blame attaches to those who were in charge of the Crown Agents during this period. Blame attaches to Governments—it is Governments—who over the years could have done something, because they appointed the Crown Agents and had all the legal powers necessary to intervene if they wanted to do so.
  When a botch of this magnitude occurs in an institution for which, in the end, the House is responsible, the blame lies with the House. If the House had organised itself properly, with a proper committee system, over the years it would have monitored the activities of an organisation such as the Crown Agents and, by questioning, exposed the position long before it was brought to light.
  In the end, with great difficulty, it was possible to persuade the Select Committee on Overseas Development to take time off from its academic studies of rural development, and so on, to investigate this institution, and we spent two sittings investigating it. The evidence that we took on those two occasions has never been made public, and a few months later, I am sorry to say, the Select Committee decided that because the Government, acting through my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark, were making governmental investigations, the House of Commons Committee ought to suspend its activities of investigation.

  1165
  I regard that as a serious reflection on the will of the House of Commons to do the job that only it can do. Too many of our Committtees see themselves as doing quasi-academic jobs which would probably be better done by academics, and not doing the job which only a House: of Commons Committee can do—summoning witnesses, making them answer questions, bringing secret matters to public notice, or at least to the notice of a Committee of this House, if necessary behind closed doors, and so on.
  I remember the occasion on which the Chairman of the Crown Agents, having been hauled before that Committee, refused to answer a question. Imagine what would happen before a Congressional committee if the chairman of an institution such as that refused to answer a question! There would be a motion before the House and he would be at the Bar of the House in no time at all. What happened here? The matter was glossed over. It was regarded as something about which we should not make too much of a fuss.
  If the House of Commons does not do its job of carrying out investigations, we cannot but expect scandals of this kind to occur, so when blame is being distributed among the Crown Agents and successive Governments since 1967, which is when the financial activities principally began, I do not think that the House of Commons can entirely escape responsibility.
  9.23 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Rees: The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) raised many points of great and general interest. Whether, with respect to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the hon. Gentleman, they are entirely relevant to the Bill is perhaps open to question. None the less, they are points that are worth taking up.
  When the hon. Gentleman, with his customary lucidity, was analysing the transactions of the Crown Agents he evoked some sympathy from me, although I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) analysed those transactions with a little more perception and sense of the commercial realities of what has happened. When the hon. Gentleman went on to try to apportion blame, I felt that perhaps he
  1166
  went a little wide. I do not think that the purpose of this debate is to conduct a post mortem into the affairs of the Crown Agents. There may be occasions for that, but I doubt whether this is one of them.
  No doubt the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) would love to rake over these matters. He has a well-known propensity for raking over muck and, if I may say so, a little bit occasionally sticks to his fingers.
  Mr. Skinner: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman explain precisely what he meant by that last remark? Unlike him, I have no business interests whatsoever.
  Mr. Rees: I am not for a moment suggesting that the hon. Gentleman has any business interest. I doubt whether any business would find it worth its while to employ him.
  That is a different question.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. The hon. and learned Member must avoid personalities.
  Mr. Rees: But when the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury went on to evolve the interesting theory that the House should, either through Select Committees or in some other way, supervise the day-to-day business decisions of quasi-governmental organisations—
  Mr. George Cunningham: I did not say day-to-day decisions.
  Mr. Rees: That must be the logic of the hon. Gentleman's position.
  Mr. Cunningham: Not at all.
  Mr. Rees: This again shows the difficulties into which we are being led by the interesting points that the hon. Gentleman raised, but I doubt whether a Select Committee, however constituted and equipped, would have been able adequately to supervise the activities of the Crown Agents. If it were, I doubt whether it would be possible for the Crown Agents or any other governmental agency or nationalised industry to conduct a sensible commercial policy.
  We certainly have a rôle to play, but I doubt whether it is to monitor or check the commercial judgments of those whom

  1167
  Governments of the day entrust with responsibility for governmental agencies. But these are interesting points and perhaps on another occasion it may be possible to develop them in greater depth.
  However moderately the right hon. Gentleman introduced the Bill and however persuasively he argued its merits—and he was both moderate and persuasive—like my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport I nevertheless find the Bill extraordinary, shameless and shabby. I also find it rather grotesque that the ugly and unacceptable face of local government, as represented by the hon. Member for Bolsover, should reprove the ugly and unacceptable face of capitalism as represented by his right hon. Friend, but there are always curiosities in our debates.
  Mr. Skinner: It so happens that I do not adopt double standards in this place. I am prepared to acknowledge that when I advocate retrospective legislation because I believe that it is in the best political interests of myself and my party to do so, I do not run away from that advocacy of retrospective legislation if it happens that I do not like, exactly as much, the contents of that legislation. I understand the general purposes here. All that concerns me is that those who were responsible for this outrage are brought to book.
  Mr. Rees: I have said hard things about the hon. Gentleman and he has said hard things about me, but I would never accuse him of running away from anything. Let me pay him that tribute unreservedly.
  But the hon. Gentleman has said, with perfect frankness, on this as on other occasions, that there are no constitutional principles which concern him. He is concerned to achieve his particular economic, political and social objectives by whatever instruments come to hand. That is a point of view that I find singularly unattractive, although on one or two of the points made by him to-night—not many, but one or two—I am in sympathy with him. Particularly was I delighted and surprised to hear his observations on the true rôle of the courts. Perhaps he and I may find ourselves for once in agreement on one or two points of debate.
  At first sight, the Bill appears technical and of limited interest, but, as many hon.
  1168
  Members have pointed out, in fact it goes a good deal wider than that. A constitutional principle of some importance is involved. The Bill, not only prospectively but retrospectively, alters the legal relationships between not only the Crown Agents but the Crown Agents' subsidiaries and those who have done business with them.
  The right hon. Gentleman will, I hope, forgive me if I say that it was a little disingenous of him to say that the Bill is designed purely to clarify. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, with a slightly Jesuitical argument, attempted to develop the theme that there was some difference between a declaratory Bill and a Bill with retrospective effect. This Bill retrospectively alters the legal relationships between the Crown Agents and those who have done business with the Crown Agents.
  We have heard it described as a declaratory or clarificatory Bill. It is not the first time that I have heard Government spokesmen describe and justify a retrospective measure in those terms. We battled long in this Chamber over a so-called declaratory and clarificatory measure to alter the effects of a judgment of the High Court in relation to VAT, which then, by the chance of litigation, was subsequently reversed by the House of Lords. That demonstrated that we were quite right to defeat that measure.
  Like my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and the hon. Member for Bolsover, I believe that it is the rôle of the courts to clarify and declare. The Minister was wrong to suggest that any question of confidence in the Crown Agents is involved. The Government have said that they stand behind the Crown Agents and will indemnify them. Therefore, whatever the outcome of any litigation—and we accept that no litigation has yet been undertaken—it could not shake the confidence of those who might be contemplating business with the Crown Agents because the solid—if the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to use that word—the massively confident figure of the right hon. Gentleman stands four-square behind the Crown Agents. What more could anyone ask than that? His credit is behind them. There is no question of credit or confidence being involved. The Bill is purely to save a possible charge on the taxpayers of this country.

  1169
  I know—and to do him justice the right hon. Gentleman did not make a great point of this—that a defence under the Moneylenders Acts is unattractive. However, these questions should be decided—and perhaps even the hon. Member for Bolsover will agree this—as questions of general principle and not decided on one specific case. If the right hon. Gentleman believes that the time has come to clarify the whole question of moneylending transactions and if this has not been done in the consumer credit legislation, by all means let him or his right hon. and hon. Friends bring forward a general measure, but do not let us have this one, squalid little Bill to clear up one murky corner of the law.
  If I may correct my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths), this is not a loophole in the law but is something that has been recognised for many years and has been accepted because there are certain social and economic considerations to be taken into account when judging these matters.
  Mr. George Cunningham: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman suggesting that the institutions which borrowed the money in fact borrowed it in the belief that they would not have to repay it?
  Mr. Rees: Of course I am not saying that; far from it. It is not for me to look into the minds of those who borrowed. I do not even know precisely who they are. We have heard that they include the Stern group of companies. The Minister has been unable to tell us, though perhaps his hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to.
  I have said all along that it is an unattractive defence, but it has been accepted over the years and centuries that this kind of defence should be available to people because there is another, general principle, namely, that some people should be protected from the consequences of their own acts. That is the theme which underlies the Moneylenders Acts. All hon. Members may feel that the time has come for a review of that whole area of law. We must not clear it up piecemeal in relation to a series of transactions involving just the Crown Agents and their subsidiary companies.
  The Bill, if enacted, will not just affect the position of the Crown Agents, their subsidiary companies and those who do
  1170
  business with them, but it may also affect the creditors of those who have done business with the Crown Agents and their subsidiaries. Their moral position may be very different from that of those who did business directly with the Crown Agents.
  As the right hon. Gentleman said, the point was first taken by the liquidator of one of the companies. In other words, therefore, it is not true that the Bill is of narrow effect and that it encompasses only a few people who have had transactions with a few Government Agents. The ripples may well spread outward. The Parliamentary Secretary would do a service to the House if he were to consider this aspect in winding up the debate. There may be many more involved than just the Stern group of companies. There may be a whole range of people who have done business with them and whose credit may be affected if the Bill goes through.
  If there is any doubt in this difficult field of law—I recognise the obscurity—let us leave the courts to determine it. Indeed, this as I understood it, was the tenor of one of the points made by the hon. Member for Bolsover. I am very happy, across our mutual differences, to find common ground there. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman might pause to think that if such disparate characters as myself and the hon. Member for Bolsover find common ground, just possibly there might be something in the criticisms that we are levelling at the Bill.
  Mr. George Cunningham: Or else you are both wrong.
  Mr.Rees: That is always a possibility. It is for the House and ultimately for the country to decide. However, as I understood the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, he, too, had his reservations about the Bill, although perhaps he approached the problems from a slightly different angle from myself.
  There are all too many precedents for retrospective legislation. I can recall that distinguished figure, the noble Lord, the Lord Chancellor, in debates under the previous administration referring, as he said, "with a blush" to legislation which sought to overrule the decision of the House of Lords in the Burmah Oil case. It may be that this Bill does not go quite as far as that because there is as yet no decision of the courts in favour

  1171
  of those who seek to resist the claims of the Crown Agents and their subsidiaries.
  None the less, however, this is a short, squalid little Bill and it is, I believe, the product of those who believe that the Government and Government Agents must be protected at all costs. I happen to believe that that protection can sometimes be bought at too great a price. It is no part of the duty of this House to protect Governments or Government Agents from the consequences of their lack of judgment.
  9.38 p.m.
  Mr. J. W. Rooker: I shall not detain the House for long, as I have only one point to make. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will allude to it.
  As a relatively new Member, I have found this to be an interesting debate. The dilemma that faces us concerns £400 million of taxpayers' money. I would be the last person to want to oppose this measure for that reason. On the other hand, the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and the hon. and learned Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees) is worthy of consideration. So far as I am aware, it is not the function of this place to interpret Acts. During the last three or four weeks, the Economist has been running a very interesting series on the British constitution, including the powers of this place and of the courts and the interchange between the two.
  In opening the debate, my right hon. Friend the Minister said that the third line of Clause 1, the retrospective part,
  "and shall be deemed never to have applied"
  was not retrospection in the normal sense but stated what everyone had always understood the situation to be. There have been cases in the past when that has been the situation. One example was the Trade Disputes Act 1906, which was on the statute book for 60 years. Everyone thought that he knew the interpretation in various situations. Then in 1964 we were faced with the Rookes v. Barnard case. That involved a decision of the court which was then amended subsequently by the House.
  That was a case in which an Act had been on the statute book and everyone
  1172
  assumed that he knew the interpretation of it, as in the situation we face tonight. The normal course of events was allowed to take place, in that the courts made the interpretation.
  I would not argue that the sort of action we are taking tonight in retrospective legislation only strengthens the hand of those who seek to impose on this place a Bill of Rights and a constitutional code which would make this place less flexible. Obviously we must be flexible. This is a good example, where taxpayers' money is at stake. We have to weigh the dilemma with which we are faced.
  I as a non-lawyer and a relatively new Member am not happy about the way in which the Bill can receive its Second Reading this week and come up for its Committee stage next week. Every Thursday afternoon at business questions my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council is asked to provide time for the consideration of various important measures. But here is one example of the House being able to act when it wants to act. Why must it always be on legislation such as this?
  9.40 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry for Overseas Development (Mr. John Grant): Although this has been a short debate, a large number of points have arisen. I shall do my best to answer at any rate most of them, although some of them would perhaps be better raised at the Fay inquiry, and it may be necessary for others to be raised in Committee.
  In our recent debate on overseas aid, I was critical of some of the newspaper coverage of the subject. I referred particularly scathingly to the Daily Telegraph. In respect of this legislation, I should like to redress the balance somewhat. I quote from an article by Mr. Kenneth Fleet in the Daily Telegraph of Tuesday. The article was headed
  "Grand chance to save £400 million"
  and Mr. Fleet said:
  "It is not often that Parliament is given the chance to consider a Bill of just two clauses, which could save the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds without cutting defence spending"—
  as Mr. Fleet puts it—
  "or the social services, and on which members can be wholeheartedly in agreement without breaching or even stretching party lines."

  1173
  That is not quite the position, but it is broadly the position, tonight. Mr. Fleet went on:
  "Just such an opportunity arises this week when the Moneylenders (Crown Agents) Bill comes before the House for its second reading.
  The Bill is really a device to regularise a situation already existing in fact but not in law…And it could save us the £400 million which the Agents has still to collect."
  That summarises the situation.
  The question which has been discussed to a greater extent than any other tonight is that of retrospection. It is right that this question has been raised in case in its retrospective aspects the Bill, should be unfair to any of those who have been involved in transactions with the Crown Agents and who may have been considering challenging the Crown Agents to recover their loans. But we have here also to consider what is fair to the taxpayer.
  As my right hon. Friend said, certain inquiries have been made by the liquidators of a company and by other companies, but no legal proceedings have as yet been started to challenge any of these loans. Thus there is no existing litigation for the Bill to affect. Nevertheless, the possibility of litigation is there and would remain if the legal position were not clarified.
  This would bring uncertainty for the Crown Agents and for the recipients of their loans, possibly for quite some time. It could also affect the confidence of the overseas principals, despite what the hon. and learned Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees) said. As the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) said on 16th October, any legislation must ensure the confidence of the overseas principals in the Crown Agents. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) repeated that tonight. I believe that the Bill will in fact help to do that.
  If loans were not repaid, there would be considerable implications for public spending bearing in mind the Crown Agents' current financial difficulties and the Government's ultimate responsibility for their acts. We cannot quantify these precisely, as there is a large number of loans at varying degrees of risk and a wide range of borrowers who would not dream of trying to avoid repayment. Of that we can be certain.
  1174
  However, at a time of utmost restraint on public spending, it would be quite unacceptable to have to take on what is, after all, an entirely avoidable burden by providing further financial support to the Crown Agents to overcome the results of prolonged delay in the repayment of loans or in the payment of interest. There would be a public outcry if property or other companies could delay or avoid repayment of loans made, and no doubt received, in good faith, causing adverse repercussions on public expenditure.
  Let me say in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who has now left the Chamber, that we are not allowing by means of this legislation anyone who has been guilty of a criminal act to get away with it. As a matter of fact, the Director of Public Prosecutions has been considering this situation for some time. I cannot add to what I have said on that point, but that is the situation.
  I now come to the speech of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, who described this as a disagreeable Bill. I do not think any of us finds it very agreeable. Perhaps we can agree on that anyway. On the other hand, he welcomed it in general terms and he expressed his confidence in the Crown Agents and in their present Chairman. I certainly subscribe to that attitude, as my right hon. Friend has done.
  I should like to dispose of the point which the hon. Gentleman made about Clause 2. He suggested that it takes for granted orders to introduce the Consumer Credit Act. I can assure him that that is certainly not our reading of it. We do not believe that is so. If and when Parliament approves the repeal of the Moneylenders Acts, this Bill will cease to have effect. If Parliament withholds its approval, as it is entitled to do, the Bill will continue to be effective. That is the situation in respect of Clause 2.
  I should like to pick up some of the hon. Gentleman's specific points. He read his list of sums based on varying degrees of risk. I was not able to take them down as he read them out, but in fact they are broadly true and his sums add up. The figure is £405 million. How much is at risk we cannot be sure at this stage, but we have to assume the worst. There may be other risks on other accounts.

  1175
  I must say that I was astonished by the hon. Gentleman's remarks about lack of information. He has waived his right of reply and I do not wish to make party capital out of this. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Fins-bury (Mr. Cunningham) has dealt more than adequately with that point.
  I cannot understand why the hon. Gentleman should refer to the Fay inquiry and, one might almost say, the laggardly way in which it is functioning. That is not really so. It is not long since the inquiry was set up and it is working expeditiously.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: It is not for me to suggest that the Fay inquiry is laggardly. I do not think it is. My point is that it is much more difficult to judge the merits of this Bill without the other information.
  While I am on my feet, may I press the hon. Gentleman not to gloss over quite so quickly the possibility that there may be other problems? I should like to know whether this is the end of the line on this problem.
  Mr. Grant: I am not glossing over it. The short answer is that we cannot be sure. We hope that it is. I think that is as much as I can say on that matter tonight.
  I think that the hon. Gentleman was unfair in his reference to the White Paper. It is a complicated situation. My right hon. Friend said that the White Paper would be produced very shortly. I appreciate that it would have been better if we had had the information at an earlier stage, but the hon. Gentleman cannot lay the blame for that at the door of the present Government. The information will appear shortly, and when it appears it is essential that we get the matter right. It has been the actions of the present Government which to a considerable extent have exposed the situation. We are acting in a number of ways, including by means of this proposed legislation, to correct the situation.
  The hon. Gentleman asked me which firms challenged the debts. The answer is that no company has yet done so, but the actual inquiry came from the liquidator of Vehicle and General Assurance.
  1176
  Another question asked by the hon. Gentleman was why the Crown Agents' legal adviser did not pick up the situation earlier. That is probably a point for the Fay inquiry, and I have no doubt that it will be looking into that matter. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds asked about the Crown Agents' companies covered by the Bill. I understand there are only two—Four Millbank Nominees Ltd. and Four Millbank Holdings Ltd.
  Tributes have already been paid to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury and I endorse them. There is an old saying that it is better to give than to lend. It generally costs about the same. In respect of the Crown Agents, it might have been cheaper to give than to lend.
  In his pertinent and forthright contribution, my hon. Friend underlined the need for greater supervision. I agree that it is essential to ensure that there is no repetition of this unfortunate saga and, following a directive from the former Minister of Overseas Development earlier this year, the Crown Agents' lending policy is much more selective. They have withdrawn from property and secondary banking on a commercially prudent basis. They are turning away with a belated shudder from the unacceptable face of capitalism.
  I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury drew a distinction between the old Crown Agents and the new. We have every confidence in the way their operations are now being conducted. As to past shortcomings and apparent financial permissiveness, the committee of inquiry will obviously report on these matters and my right hon. Friend has already made clear that he will report the findings to the House. Funds under management now total about £700 million and, in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury who asked about actions overseas, I can say that the Moneylenders Acts do not have effect overseas.
  I hope that I have dealt with most of the points raised in the debate. There will be other opportunities to come back to this subject quite shortly. I emphasise again that the crucial point is that the Bill's object is to put beyond doubt that

  1177
  the Moneylenders Acts did not and do not apply to the Crown Agents or to companies wholly owned by them. It is important in the interests of maintaining the confidence of overseas principals of the Crown Agents and of the British taxpayer that there should be no doubt about this. Any doubts can be dispelled only by a Bill such as this.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Stoddart.]
  Committee tomorrow.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS MEMBERS' FUND
  Resolved,
  That, in pursuance of the provisions of Section 3 of the House of Commons Members' Fund Act 1948, the maximum annual amounts of the periodical payments which may be made out of the House of Commons Members' Fund under the House of Commons Members' Fund Act 1939, as amended by the said Act of 1948 and by the Resolutions of the House of 17th November 1955, 7th March 1957, 17th May 1961, 9th March 1965, 4th May 1971, 1st August 1972 and 29th November 1974, be varied as from 1st December 1975 as follows:

  (a) for paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the said Act of 1939, as so amended, there shall be substituted the following paragraph:—

  '1. The annual amount of any periodical payment made to any person by virtue of his past membership of the House of Commons shall not exceed £950 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustees, will bring his income up to £1,550 per annum, whichever is the less:

  Provided that if, having regard to length of service and need, the trustees think fit, they may make a larger payment not exceeding £1,750 or such sum as, in their opinion, will bring his income up to £2,350 per annum, whichever is the less';

  (b) for paragraph 2 of the said Schedule there shall be substituted the following para graph:—

  '2. The annual amount of any periodical payment to any person by virtue of her being a widow of a past Member of the House of Commons shall not exceed £475 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustee, will bring her income up to £1,075 per annum, whichever is the less:

  Provided that if, having regard to her husband's length of service or to her need, the trustees think fit, they may make a larger payment not exceeding £875 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustees, will bring her income up to £1,475 per annum, whichever is the less';

  1178

  (c) in paragraph 2A of the said Schedule for the words 'the annual amount of any periodical payment' to the end of the paragraph, there shall be substituted the words:—

  'the annual amount of any periodical payment made to any such widower shall not exceed £475 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustees, will bring his income up to £1,075 per annum, whichever is the less:

  Provided that if, having regard to his wife's length of service or to his needs, the trustees think fit, they may make a larger payment not exceeding £875 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustees, will bring his income up to £1,475 per annum, whichever is the less.'—[Mr. Parker.]

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
  Ordered.
  That the Lords Message of 25th November, relating to a Joint Committee of both Houses to scrutinise delegated legislation, be now considered.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]
  Lords Message considered accordingly.
  Resolved,
  That this House doth concur with the Lords in the said Resolution.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]
  Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
    ADJOURNMENT
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Stoddart.]

  LICENSED PREMISES (VIOLENCE)
  9.55 p.m.
  Mr. Ron Lewis: It may seem strange that I should be initiating an Adjournment debate about violence in public houses with particular reference to individual public house managers. The House will be well acquainted with certain of my views and with the fact that I am a member of the temperance group of the House of Commons. I make no apology for that, for it is no crime.
  Violence appears to be on the increase. Whatever views one might have on the merits of drinking one should always be prepared to support any organisation or person who has a just cause. I have initiated this debate because some time ago I received a deputation from the licensed house managers from my constituency. In 1971 my constituency was

  1179
  the subject of much discussion on the Floor of the House. Although I do not drink I can safely claim that during my 11 years as Member of Parliament for Carlisle I have always been on reasonably good terms with and had a friendly reception from the licensed house managers there as a whole.
  The deputation asked me whether some positive action could be taken or initiative made to try at least to stem the violence on licensed house managers. My constituency in this respect is no different from any other. When I met that delegation I was somewhat shocked and a little dismayed that one of their number was more or less covered in bandages. He had been in hospital at least twice and beaten up at least three times. Another member of the delegation had also spent some time in hospital after violence in his pub.
  Some people may argue that it is the manager's own fault, but I strongly disagree with that. They are at least carrying out a lawful occupation, and it is when they try to uphold the law that they are often attacked. On the whole public house managers are decent people. In any walk of life there is always the exception.
  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 Walter Harrison.]
  Mr. Lewis: I have received a number of letters on the matter, but I have had only one derogatory comment, which was made by a gentleman from Durham who telephoned my agent to say that he was rather surprised that I, with my background as a worker in the temperance movement, should be standing up for a set of public house managers, many of whom encouraged the drug traffic. I refute that allegation. They are doing their job.
  What can be done? After meeting my constituents, I met at the House representatives of the National Association of Licensed House Managers, one of the newest trade unions. We had a good discussion. They were keen that Parliament should take positive action. I under-
  1180
  stand that they have also discussed the question with my hon. Friend the Minister. The associations is a genuine trade union with about 30,000 members, and it is still increasing in size. It is the latest trade union to affiliate to the TUC. If I may do a little plugging, I urge any licensed house manager who is not a member of a trade union to join the association, which is doing what other trade unions do, namely, seeking to protect and help its members.
  I agree with the Association that what is needed is a new law, or at least an amendment to the present law, to deal with the problem of violence in public houses. I also agree with the Association that a person convicted of committing an act of violence against a licensed house manager should be barred by law from entering a public house for, say, six months or 12 months. What is wrong with that? No doubt my hon. Friend will make the usual claim, which we are used to hearing from Front Bench speakers on both sides of the House, that it could not be enforced. I disagree. I believe that such a law would at least be a deterrent. What is wrong with that? If such a law can reduce this kind of violence the Government should take the initiative and amend existing legislation.
  I supported the introduction of the breathalyser. In my view it has helped to reduce accidents. I remember the arguments used against it. I would not say that it was foolproof. If I am convicted of a breathalyser offence there is nothing to stop me from driving in another part of the country where I am not known, though I would do my utmost to make sure that I was not caught again. If we amended the law in the way in which I am suggesting, it would act as a deterrent to those who have already been convicted of violence. Such people would be careful not to be caught a second time. That is my main argument for some kind of legislation to protect licensed house managers and their families. It would cut down the crime wave in licensed premises.
  Yesterday we discussed the question of terrorism. We all know that violence against the person is increasing generally. If that is so, it must be increasing in licensed houses. Many of the victims of violence in licensed houses have been

  1181
  upholding the law, particularly at closing time. This is a matter for Parliament. We make the rules and the courts administer them. If the increase in violence on the football terraces had been dealt with a little more earnestly at first, I do not believe that it would have reached present proportions. This is the main argument of the managers of licensed houses in my constituency and elsewhere. They are anxious that the violence they are experiencing should not increase. They argue that action now will prevent things from getting out of hand later.
  On average, two cases of assault are reported weekly to the headquarters of the National Association of Licensed House Managers. There must be many more which are not reported. The Association has obtained injunctions against persons in two cases. The courts have thus come out in favour of the managers. That is only in respect of a particular public house. It has had a good effect locally, but it is limited. Not long ago the National Association of Licensed House Managers and the National Association of Licensed Victuallers closed their pubs as a mark of respect for the London licensee who died following an incident at his home. They put notices on the doors of their pubs saying,
  "This house, together with thousands throughout the country, will not open tomorrow, the day of the funeral."
  That was loyally obeyed throughout the country.
  It is suggested that a licensed house manager who was assaulted not long ago will never work again. The person responsible for the crime was fined £10, with £5 costs. The manager was carrying out his duties. Another man received an injury to his leg involving the removal of his kneecap. He has received £650 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, the setting-up of which I supported. But this is public money, although people who are injured as a result of criminal activities are entitled to it. In another incident a licensee received a stab wound in the back. Another person suffered an injury to the left eye, necessitating nine stitches, and a broken nose. He has received £200 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. Another person was butted in the left eye and suffered injuries necessitating
  1182
  13 stitches and a partial loss of sight. He has received over £2,000 from the Board. A woman licensee was assaulted by someone who used a bar stool, and she has received £400 from the Board.
  What we want is a law to prevent incidents of that type from occurring. British pubs are unique in that they receive special protection from Parliament. I am not an expert on this matter, and I do not think my hon. Friend the Minister of State is an expert, but we have certain things in common. It can be argued that the existing measures are not sufficient for those who have to operate them and that Parliament should take further measures to afford them the personal protection that they need.
  It can be said that a number of these incidents occur because the licensee upholds the law at closing time. The licensed house manager is caught both ways. If he allows drinking after hours, he can be prosecuted and convicted; or he can be clobbered if he insists that the law must be upheld. Often the public house manager is the victim of the violence, so he cannot win.
  The steward of a club—and, again, I am not an expert on this matter—is in a different position from that of the licensed house manager because the steward is protected by his committee. The committee can say whether a person should ever enter the premises again, but a licensed house manager cannot do that because a licensed house is involved.
  I believe it is high time that the Government got together the various organisations in the licensed trade and in the public services, such as the busmen and—in my own industry—the railwaymen. I am sure that such a move would have the support not only of the whole House but of the whole country.
  Busmen and railwaymen, like public house managers, have been victims of assault and violence—so much so that they have refused to run the buses or the trains. In many cases licensed house managers have closed their public houses long before they should—in particular when certain football teams are playing in their vicinity.
  I believe that it is time that my hon. Friend and his Department took the initative and gathered together all these organisations, trade unions and others, whose members, like the licensed house

  1183
  managers, are victims of thuggery. They should discuss the matter round the table, try to form a common policy for fighting this ever-growing menace, and ask Parliament to give them some kind of protective measure that would act as a deterrent.
  I believe that this is a practical proposition. It will not entirely solve the problem. I should be deluding myself and the House if I suggested that it would. It is a proposal, however, that could go some way towards solving the problem, and act as a deterrent to the would-be violent persons in society—and the quicker we eradicate violence the better.
  10.17 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): I share the concern which has been expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Lewis) about the incidence of violence towards licensees—indeed, the incidence of violence in our society generally. He is quite right to say that violent crime is on the increase. He is right to highlight this particular aspect of it. It is ironic that he and I should be discussing our mutual concern in this regard, since both of us happen to be Methodist teetotallers and not habitues of the public houses of the managers who are his concern.
  I accept the sincerity of the views he expressed. I have seen delegations from the National Association of Licensed House Managers and understand the force of their concern, but we have to put the matter into some kind of perspective. The Home Office in 1972, and again this year, largely at the request of the National Association, took soundings from seven police districts, including the Metropolitan, to try to evaluate what was happening in relation to attacks upon licensees.
  It is difficult to get this information from the criminal satistics, because assaults are recorded generally in one group, and we cannot decipher from our figures whether the victims were licencees or any other occupation. But the report we received from the seven chief officers of police was that, both in 1972 and now, they have seen no greater incidence in the normal pattern of criminal violence against licensees than in relation to other members of the community. What has happened is that violence has increased,
  1184
  as my hon. Friend pointed out, and the number of violent crimes has increased, and so the number of violent crimes against licensees has increased.
  But it is part of a total pattern and not just one increasing problem out of perspective with the rest of the picture of crime. I have to bear that in mind in considering whether attacks upon licensees are so great a problem that they require special measures over and above anything that we do to deal with the upsurge in crime that has taken place over the past 20 years.
  The one added protection that was urged by the National Association and that has been urged tonight by my hon. Friend is that there should be some kind of disqualification procedure relating to those who are convicted of offences of violence against licensees—something like the disqualification from driving which appertains to convictions for drunken driving. At first sight, it has a certain appeal. But I am sure that my hon. Friend will recognise on reflection that it is not practicable, and if it is not practicable, however desirable it is that we should add greater protection to any section of the community that is threatened, there is not much point in introducing it.
  Mr. Ron Lewis: Let us give it a try.
  Mr. Lyon: My hon. Friend asks that it should be tried. In 1902, the Licensing Act allowed courts to blacklist people convicted of offences of being habitual drunkards. As my hon. Friend will know as a Joint Vice-President of the United Kingdom Alliance, the statistics indicate that it has not been very successful in stopping the incidence of habitual drunkenness. In 1972, there were two such blacklistings. In 1973, there were six. In 1974, there was none at all. The result is that we must consider that this kind of blacklisting has no effect.
  If we applied a somewhat similar system to those who were convicted of assault, what would happen? Presumably, the idea is that the police would inform licensees in the district that John Smith had been convicted of an offence. If the licensees know John Smith, they would be able to bar him from their pubs. If they did not know him, it would not make any difference that they had been

  1185
  informed that a certain John Smith had been so convicted.
  In any event, it is not necessary to have a disqualification system if that is to be the only effect. If the licensees know about the conviction of John Smith, either from their local newspaper or from their own sources of information, including the journal of the National Association, they are entitled to bar him. They can bar whom they like from their premises. They have an absolute right so to do. As I understand it, in the South-West, the Association has tried to run a voluntary scheme of this nature, alerting licensees to people who have been convicted of offences of violence. That does not seem to have been any more successful than any other scheme for reducing the incidence of violence in those areas.
  It is suggested that we might get over that by attaching a photograph to a notification. But again it would not be clear even from a photograph who was and who was not a convicted person in this regard. There is all the element of mistake which can come about, as we know only too well from criminal convictions which are based upon identification where the person making the identification has previously seen a photograph. This kind of mistake is all too clear. If a person were barred from a public house because it was alleged that he had been convicted and if the allegation were false, it would open up the possibility of a defamation suit against the licensee concerned.
  We must also recognise the difficulty that comes into the picture from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. That Act made it clear that if a man had been convicted of an offence for which he received a sentence of less than two and a half years' imprisonment, that conviction and sentence could, for all practical purposes, be expunged after 10 years. If only a fine, it may be expunged after five years. Therefore, anyone who had a spent conviction of that kind and who was still on the barred list could sue for defamation. My hon. Friend's proposal is not only suspect in its effect, but it may be positively dangerous in incurring a possible legal suit against a licensee.
  Therefore, as with the rest of crime, including violent crime, the real protection is an increasing certainty of detection and conviction of those who might take
  1186
  part in such crimes. That is primarily the responsibility of the police, and we have done all we can to increase the strength of the police and the efficiency of the individual police officer.
  There is one aspect of the problem peculiar to licensed premises which I should mention. Not many years ago, a judicial decision provided that a police officer was not entitled to enter licensed premises unless he had reasonable cause to suspect that an offence had been committed upon the premises. As a result, police officers stopped their former practice of calling on licensed premises as a matter of routine in the course of their duties. The managers and, indeed, other licensees have urged that we should reverse that ruling so that police officers may again enter licensed premises as part of their routine, as their presence could have a restraining effect upon the passions of customers.
  Unfortunately, as my hon. Friend knows, it is not always possible, even if we desire it, to get time in this House for passing worthy pieces of legislation. A matter of this kind is of relatively low priority compared with the many other claims on parliamentary time. We must wait for a suitable occasion when the matter can be put right. We hope to have an opportunity, but it does not seem likely for some time.
  Meanwhile, I remind licensees, as I mentioned in the letter which I wrote to them, that they are entitled to invite police officers to come into their premises. If they issue that invitation, I am sure that the police forces in their areas will be happy to oblige, within the constraints falling upon police manpower at this time. The police are over-stretched, particularly in our major urban areas. Therefore, it may not be easy for them to respond to such an invitation in every situation. However, they are aware of the difficulty and are keeping a look-out in the hope of restraining these assaults.
  The managers were very concerned that particularly magistrates, but even the higher courts, were not passing sentences commensurate with the kind of violence that has been exhibited in some of these assaults. We have taken up that matter with the Lord Chancellor. We have no power, nor has he, to govern the sentences which should be awarded by any court. But in a major speech, he has drawn this

  1187
  concern to the attention of magistrates. I hope that some of the sentences which have been passed since that time have done something to placate the anxieties of the licensees.
  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me the opportunity of discussing this matter. I am sorry that I cannot be
  1188
  more helpful about the suggestion that he has made, but—
  The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.