Commons Sitting of 7 November 1979

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

  MINISTRY OF OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  THE VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address as follows:
  I have received your Address praying that the Ministry of Overseas Development (Dissolution) Order 1979 be made in the form of the draft laid before your House.
  I will comply with your request.

PRIVATE BUSINESS
  DUMBARTON DISTRICT COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
    GREATER GLASGOW PASSENGER TRANSPORT ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
      KILMARNOCK AND LOUDOUN DISTRICT COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
        SCOTS EPISCOPAL FUND ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

          STIRLING DISTRICT COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
          Orders for consideration read.
          To be considered tomorrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TRANSPORT

    Vehicle Excise Duty
    Mr. Rostasked the Minister of Transport if he will make a statement on the proposal to abolish the motor vehicle licence.
    The Minister of Transport (Mr. Norman Fowler): I have already made clear that various proposals concerning the future of vehicle excise duty are under examination. The Government will announce their decision in due course.
    Mr. Rost: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that a switch in tax direct to petrol would gain the Revenue about £60 million a year from those at present evading the tax? Will he remind the House of the administrative savings that would result? Does he accept the argument in support of energy conservation that would come from the fresh incentive not only to the motor manufacturers to produce more economical cars but to the consumers who might buy them?
    Mr. Fowler: Administrative savings and energy conservation have been very much in mind in the review. However, the energy considerations have decreased slightly in importance because of the increase in petrol prices since the previous Labour Government's proposals were published.
    Mr. Anderson: Is the Minister prepared to give any weight to the consequent loss of 800 job opportunities in an area of high unemployment? The employment structure of that area already has been threatened seriously by the Government's policy on steel and the withdrawal of regional development grants.
    Mr. Fowler: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have had talks with members of the department in Swansea. I am sure that it is the wish of both sides of the House that administrative savings should be made in that area.

    Road Repairs (West Yorkshire)
    Mr. Fordasked the Minister of Transport if, in view of the serious backlog of road repairs in the West Yorkshire county council area and the consequent cost to the industrial economy, he will take special measures to enable the highway authorities to reduce these arrears of work.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): I accept that there may be a backlog of road repairs in the county, but that should be considered within the normal transport supplementary grant arrangements.
    Mr. Ford: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his reply will be most disappointing to the Conservative dominated authorities of West Yorkshire? They are hoping to recoup the backlog of road repairs by virtue of the fact that they have been seeking strenuously to attract industry from both home and abroad. They are inhibited from doing so by the state of the roads in West Yorkshire. Will the hon. Gentleman please reconsider his answer?
    Mr. Clarke: I have said already that that problem will be considered as part of the transport supplementary grant arrangements. In finalising this year's transport supplementary grant settlement, we realise that many counties face difficulties with highway maintenance. If they make that a priority in their bids, we shall reflect that to some extent in the grants.

    Provincial Rail Services
    Mr. Andersonasked the Minister of Transport what is his policy towards provincial rail services.
    Mr. Fowler: I am considering currently how best to safeguard and develop rural public transport, and I am considering the views recently put to me by the Central Transport Consultative Committee about how best to maintain the existing rural rail network. But I have always made it clear that I can see no case for a further round of Beeching cuts.
    Mr. Anderson: How is "Beeching" defined in this context? Is the Minister saying seriously that the article in The
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    Guardian today is a complete figment of some civil servant's imagination, or that he was unaware of what was being done behind his back by civil servants in his Department? Is the Minister aware that if any cuts on the scale suggested in The Guardian go ahead, they will be fought all the way by the Opposition? We hope to be joined in that by many Conservative Members whose rural constituents would become more isolated if the cuts were to go ahead than they have been for a century.
    Mr. Fowler: Let me make it absolutely clear that the report in The Guardian is untrue. I read it with astonishment. As I have hold the House, I see no case for another round of massive cuts in the railways. I have no list of passenger services for closure such as is printed in The Guardian. There have been no secret talks between my officials and the Railways Board to discuss any such list of closures. I deplore the groundless anxiety caused by such inaccurate reports.
    Mr. Goodhew: Can my right hon. Friend assure me, if there are not to be massive cuts, that at least he will not cut the Watford to St. Albans line, which is a very convenient alternative to those who find the electrification of the St. Pancras to Bedford line, with its bad timekeeping at the moment, rather inconvenient?
    Mr. Fowler: There are no proposals of that kind. The statutory position is that British Rail cannot withdraw a passenger service or close a passenger station without my consent. The House may be reassured to know that the only cases currently in the statutory procedure are the Board's proposal to withdraw the rail service connecting to the Humber ferry when the new bridge opens, and its proposal to divert a service from Kentish Town to Gospel Oak on the North London line.
    Mr. Snape: Without commenting further on the accuracy or otherwise of the article in The Guardian, will the Minister give an assurance that if 900 or so miles of railway line were ever to be cut, he would consider it to be a resigning matter?
    Mr. Fowler: I would certainly consider it to be a disaster, and that is why I have made it clear that it is not the Government's intention to do so.
    Mr. Fry: In order that the House may take a slightly less emotional view of this topic, will the Minister supply details of the subsidy paid per passenger mile to rail as opposed to that paid to bus services? Would it not be a good idea to examine this matter in detail in relation to these rural lines?
    Mr. Fowler: Currently, the Government provide British Rail with more than £700 million a year, which is more than £2 million a day. Last week provision for the support of the passenger railway was reduced by £22 million, of which £9 million was decided by this Government and £13 million by the previous Government.
    Mr. Booth: May we take it from what the Minister said that he has an understanding with British Rail that it will accept the £22 million cut in Government provision without any withdrawal of passenger services? The House is not satisfied that what are called rural passenger services in this context are a minority interest. They cover a vast number of towns and cities. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the report just completed by the Policy Studies Institute into the effects of withdrawal of rural rail services will be available for study by Members of Parliament before any announcements are made about changes in the network?
    Mr. Fowler: I shall look into the second matter raised by the right hon. Gentleman. On the first one, obviously it is a matter for British Rail to decide how it should live within the cash limits. Sir Peter Parker sent me the Board's 1979 corporate review on 25 October. It contains financial evaluations of a number of options drawn up by the Board at the end of last year. They include an option on closing some services. However, as I believe has been made clear before, they were options. Certainly no decisions have been taken, and I have not even discussed the position yet with the chairman of the Board, since it arose only at the end of October.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call one more hon. Member from each side. We shall then have had a good run on this question.
    Mr. McCrindle: Whatever may be the policy about rural services, and I accept
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    what my right hon. Friend said, will he take this opportunity to reaffirm that it is no part of this Government's policy to preside over a still further deterioration of London commuter services, especially when we are faced with a 20 per cent. increase in season tickets?
    Mr. Fowler: It is no part of my intention to preside over the deterioration of British Rail services, and that is central to our policy.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: Is the Minister aware that the cuts already made in Scotland under the Beeching plan left us with services far below an acceptable minimum? Is he aware, further, that the bus services in lieu mostly never materialised, and that where they did they have since disappeared? In many areas, the railway provides the only means of contact, particularly during inclement weather. Will the right hon. Gentleman repel any suggestions from British Rail that these should be cut further?
    Mr. Fowler: I have already made my position clear on proposals for a Beeching type cut, and it is for British Rail, if it wants to put forward suggestions for bus substitution on one or two services, to do so if it wishes.

    Heavy Lorries
    Mr. Bendallasked the Minister of Transport if he will make a further statement on the Armitage inquiry into heavy lorries.
    14. Mr. Iain Millsasked the Minister of Transport what progress the Armitage inquiry into heavy lorries has made to date.
    Mr. Cookasked the Minister of Transport if he will extend the closing date for submissions to the Armitage inquiry on lorries and their impact on the environment.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Sir Arthur Armitage has been receiving written evidence from organisations and from individual members of the public since August. He has asked that it reach him by 9 November if possible, but I understand that he will be happy to consider any evidence submitted after that date, provided that it is received by the end of the year. He is asking for other evidence on specific matters as he sees fit.

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    I understand that Sir Arthur Armitage hopes to present his report to my right hon. Friend by around the middle of next year. We will have the report published as soon as possible after it is received.
    Mr. Bendall: Will my hon. Friend take account of the considerable concern of a large number of people in the large conurbations and other areas about the disturbance caused by very large lorries and the effect that these vehicles have on property in terms of subsidence?
    Mr. Clarke: I am in no doubt whatever about the strength of feeling on the subject in many urban areas and market towns. The problem of dealing with that is one of the matters that are before Sir Arthur Armitage.
    Mr. Cook: Is the Minister aware that the House will appreciate the extension beyond this month of the time limit for acceptance of representations? Does he recognise that it would have been unreasonably swift to have imposed a November time limit on representations to an inquiry which was announced only after Parliament rose for the Summer Recess? Will the Minister give a guarantee that the finding of his Transport and Road Research Laboratory that the damage to the towns referred to is caused by the noise of heavy lorries which creates vibration will be available to the inquiry?
    Mr. Clarke: Everyone is anxious that no evidence should be excluded on grounds of procedure or time. Sir Arthur Armitage has decided to extend the time for that reason. The evidence and information produced by the TRRL and its reports will be made available to the inquiry.
    Mr. Stanbrook: Is my hon. Friend aware that the best contribution that he can make to reducing the nuisance caused by heavy lorries in South-East London is to get on with the construction of the M25 there?
    Mr. Clarke: Motorways have made a great contribution to taking a lot of heavy traffic out of towns and villages. Our number one priority in the national road building programme is the M25. That will have a significant effect in relieving large areas of outer London of traffic which is too heavy for existing roads.
    Mr. John Wells: Will Sir Arthur Armitage be considering in any way the impact of the Channel tunnel project in so far as it affects the inquiry?
    Mr. Clarke: My right hon. Friend has already announced that the Cairncross inquiry will be looking at all aspects of the Channel tunnel project.
    Mr. Crowther: In view of the amount of very proper public concern about the safety of heavy lorries, is the Minister aware that great dismay will be caused by a proposal now being considered in his Department that the routine inspection of heavy lorries and public service vehicles should be hived off to the private sector? Is he aware that this will cause much alarm and ought to be dropped?
    Mr. Clarke: Nothing is being considered in the Department that will reduce the safety requirements imposed on vehicles. Any proposals that are made will bear in mind the need to ensure that the present high standards are maintained.

    Level Crossings
    Mr. Dykesasked the Minister of Transport what plans he has to introduce unmanned automatic level crossings.
    Mr. Fowler: I announced on 25 October my acceptance of the main conclusions of the joint Department of Transport and British Rail working party on level crossing protection. In doing so, I approved new standards for level crossings. That will enable British Rail to bring forward proposals to install new unmanned automatic crossings which are safer, cheaper and more effective than the old gated sort.
    Mr. Dykes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his announcement on that date received a wide welcome from all parts of the community? I pay tribute to the many hundreds of level crossing keepers who do a good job, but does my right hon. Friend agree that all the statistical evidence shows that unmanned crossings are safer?
    Mr. Fowler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right. All the evidence shows that the number of accidents occurring at level crossings should be reduced rather than increased by the measure.

    Sheffield-Manchester Rail Link
    Mr. Hooleyasked the Minister of Transport what proposals have been put to him for major capital investment in the railway line from Sheffield to Manchester via Woodhead.
    Mr. Flanneryasked the Minister of Transport if he has been notified by the Railways Board of any decision regarding the future of the Sheffield-Woodhead-Manchester railway line.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I have received no investment proposals in respect of this line, nor have I been notified of any decision regarding its future.
    Mr. Hooley: Is the Minister aware that this is the most modern of the four trans-Pennine tunnels? It is the only one that is capable of taking modern container traffic, and its electric cable could be renewed for £3 million over a period of five years. In those circumstances, would it not be mad to contemplate closing the line?
    Mr. Clarke: Those are operating considerations which British Rail judges, in deciding how best to deal with trans-Pennine freight traffic. The line is electrified, but not to the same system as the remainder of the network. In terms of the investment that may be required to modernise it, the hon. Gentleman should remember that British Rail has to decide on its priorities. Those may not always be freight lines that are duplicated by other routes.
    Mr. Flannery: Will the Minster accept that editorials in the local press in Sheffield and in other cities have complained that the decision has been taken to close one of the first electrified lines and the first great railway tunnel in the world? Will he also accept that, to the people of the great conurbation of South Yorkshire, that seems to demonstrate a lack of faith in the people in the area—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] I am asking a question. Will the Minister accept from me that people believe that, because of the wretched disgrace of the line from London to Sheffield through Nottingham and Derby, they are being badly treated?
    Mr. Clarke: The press reports on the decision probably emanated from The
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    Guardian, which announced that the decision was taken a fortnight ago. The Board assures me that it is embarking upon a wider process of consultation and that no decision has been reached. I am aware of the discontent that is felt in Sheffield about rail services generally, and I have been in correspondence with hon. Members representing Sheffield constituencies about the Board's proposals for bringing high-speed trains and other improvements to the area.
    Mr. Adley: I understand the emotional attachment that might be felt to the Woodhead tunnel, but is not it strange to hear from Opposition Members, who profess to believe in integrated transport, that they are upset about a decision which is an attempt to integrate the various transport systems between the two cities?
    Mr. Clarke: I hope that we all agree that a decision has to be taken by the Railways Board, whose members are the experts on management problems. It must decide how to provide the best and most economic freight service for the development of the freight railway business as a whole.
    Mr. Marks: When the Minister talked about opposing line closures, was he including the Woodhead line from Manchester to Sheffield?
    Mr. Clarke: My right hon. Friend confirmed that we had received no proposals for closure of passenger services. We are in no discussions with the Board about such closures. The future of freight-only lines is a matter for the Board alone. Ministers play no part in it, and we would not normally be notified of such decisions.

    Coaches (Safety Regulations)
    Mr. van Straubenzeeasked the Minister of Transport whether he is satisfied that existing regulations governing the safety requirements of coaches available for public hire are adequate.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Generally, yes, but my right hon. Friend is preparing certain improvements in relation to future production of new vehicles on braking standards, emergency exits and strength of superstructures.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: I thank my hon. Friend for his helpful reply. Will he confirm that in relaxing bus and coach licensing laws, which I support warmly, he will do nothing to imperil the safety of passengers?
    Mr. Clarke: I am happy to give that assurance. Our proposals will not weaken the quality control that is exercised through the licensing system. It is the quantity side of the system which is too restrictive and out of date for modern requirements.
    Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Is the Minister aware that a large number of coaches for public hire that are used in the evenings, and sometimes return in the early hours of the morning, are driven by people who have done a full day's work in another capacity? Is he satisfied that the safety regulations are adequate in that respect?
    Mr. Clarke: I accept that the hon. Gentleman points out a weakness in the drivers' hours regulations. At the moment, they take no account of that factor. It is difficult to devise a workable system to cover the problem, but we are anxious to have a look at any worthwhile suggestions to improve the matter.
    Mr. Moate: Will my hon. Friend go further than he did in his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) and say that, when he encourages further competition in excursion, express and tour services, he will bear in mind that more rigorous safety standards than apply at the moment are needed? Will he give consideration to improving general safety standards for the protection of the public against sub-standard and badly maintained vehicles?
    Mr. Clarke: The details will have to await the publication of the Bill. However, I assure my hon. Friend that we do not propose to weaken the requirements on operators. They should be capable of maintaining their fleets in a proper condition. The inspection of vehicles to ensure that they are fit for public service will not be weakened.

    Bus De-Licensing
    Mr. Spriggsasked the Minister of Transport what representations he has re-
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    ceived about his proposals for bus de-licensing.
    Mr. O'Halloranasked the Minister of Transport what representations he has received about his proposals for bus de-licensing.
    Mr. Fowler: Since my proposals for relaxing the bus licensing system were published in August, I have received representations from the trade unions, the local authority associations, the bus and coach operators and many other organisations.
    Mr. Spriggs: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his proposals constitute a massive threat to the future of bus services in rural areas? Is it not the case that the inevitable result of the proposals will be the entry of cowboy operators who will cream off the profits on the most popular routes, leaving no cash for the National Bus Company to provide bus services out of its resources?
    Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. The aim of the proposals is to encourage new services to develop. The Guardian leader this morning stated that the best hope
    "for rural areas lies in the liberating provisions of the Government's proposed Transport Bill".
    I agree with The Guardian about that.
    Mr. Gummer: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that his proposals for bus de-licensing will mean that in rural areas small operations will be improved? In my constituency, one area's service is only two buses a month, which come under the traffic commissioners. They force the buses to stop only three times on seven miles of road in the village of Badinghani—they may not pick up more than that number of times altogether. Will he confirm that that sort of service will cease and that we shall be able to provide the community with the service it wants?
    Mr. Fowler: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend's remarks. In many rural areas, the bus services are inadequate and, in some cases, non-existent. We hope that we shall be able to encourage new operators to come forward.
    Mr. Booth: Will the Minister indicate when the Bill will be published with the

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    bus licensing proposals? Does he agree that it would be unrealistic to expect British Rail to be able to make arrangements with the National Bus Company for it to take over feeder services on loss-making routes while a major doubt hangs over any protection which exists for National Bus Company licensing, in order that British Rail can cross-subsidise such routes?
    Mr. Fowler: We have held full consultations with the bus industry and the National Bus Company. The right hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that the Bill will be published during the course of the next two weeks.
    Mr. Temple-Morris: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why there must be change is the restrictive attitude of the National Bus Company, with its near monopoly, in objecting to literally every reasonable and inventive proposal to improve rail transport?
    Mr. Fowler: My hon. Friend puts forward an additional argument why reform is necessary. The bus licensing laws were set down in 1930. It is not revolutionary to suggest that they now need reform.
    Mr. Newens: Does the Minister expect any private operator to undertake an unremunerative bus service? That being so, the unremunerative services will still rest in the responsibility of the National Bus Company. Are we not therefore making it more difficult than ever for the National Bus Company to make a profit and striking a mortal blow at the nationalised service?
    Mr. Fowler: We are certainly not striking a mortal blow at the service. We are allowing county councils to be free to give revenue support to operators to run unprofitable services. The change will be that under this system those councils will have a much greater choice than at present.

    Motoring Offences
    Mr. Muddasked the Minister of Transport what plans he has to reform the system and administration of motoring offences; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Temple-Morrisasked the Minister of Transport if he has any pro-
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    posals to make on the subject of road traffic offences.
    Mr. Dickensasked the Minister of Transport if he will make a statement on any progress which he has made for plans to reform the system of motoring offences.
    Mr. Fowler: A review of road traffic law is long overdue. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I have decided to examine those areas of the law which are of the most practical importance and on which we can expect to make quick progress. We have therefore selected the fixed penalty system and the totting-up procedure for a joint review with representatives of the bodies which administer the laws. Others such as the motoring organisations also have a contribution to make and will be consulted. I am placing a copy of the terms of reference in the Library.
    Mr. Mudd: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, but I wonder whether he could give some indication of the categories of offence that would qualify for the totting-up procedure and how he feels that this would assist in the administration of justice?
    Mr. Fowler: This is how it will assist. Under the important review that I announced, we shall examine proposals, such as the points system for traffic offences which operates in West Germany and Australia, and see whether they are suitable for inclusion in this country.
    Mr. Temple-Morris: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the review is welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House? Is he aware further that such a review—I believe it is evident from what he said—will include a "spot" penalty system? Does he agree that such a system, to be considered in the review, would be much more easily enforceable if everyone was obliged to carry a secure driving licence when driving, which would cut out the present widespread evasion?
    Mr. Fowler: Let me make it clear to my hon. Friend, to whose knowledge in this area I pay tribute, that we do not intend to consider the case for on-the-spot fines. We are examining how the ticket system may be extended. We intend to examine that area.
    Mr. Dickens: Would my right hon. Friend be surprised to learn that, because of the existing archaic system where one offence is similar to another for the purposes of totting up, in my constituency a young man of 21, who has been a member of St. John Ambulance since the age of 9, was denied even an interview for a job as an ambulance driver as he had one minor driving offence on his licence? That is unjust, unfair and unnecessary. Is my right hon. Friend aware of that?
    Mr. Fowler: The review, which is long overdue, will be welcomed by the public, by the type of motorist to whom my hon. Friend refers, and by the police and the magistrates in particular, who are weighed down by the traffic offences with which they deal.
    Mr. Greville Janner: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's statement about the review, as far as it goes, but will the Minister explain why he is not proposing to review the chaotic state of the law on drink and driving, especially in view of the continued tragic part that drink plays in a substantial number of deaths and injuries on the road?
    Mr. Fowler: If the hon. and learned Gentleman looks at the Order Paper he will see that there is a later question on that subject.
    Mr. Sever: Has the Minister estimates of how many offences are committed by drivers of untaxed vehicles and how many untaxed vehicles there are?
    Mr. Fowler: I do not have that information with me. However, I shall provide it for the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Michael Brown: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. Can he confirm that the review will cover the possibility of introducing fixed penalty fines for minor motoring offences such as speeding?
    Mr. Fowler: That is in the fixed penalty area. Where the fixed penalty area should extend to is at the centre of this review.
    Mr. Prescott: Does the Minister accept that in adjusting our laws to the present European requirements, our lorry drivers will be required to work up to 16 hours—five more than under the present regulations? In his review, will he consider
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    the anomalies that exist as a result of imposing a European uniformity in our laws, and the differences in the penalties lorry-drivers face in this country and Europe for the same offence?
    Mr. Fowler: I am prepared to look at the point raised by the hon. Gentleman, but not, I fear, in this review. We have kept the scope of the review deliberately narrow so that we may make the quickest possible progress. I am sure that many lorry drivers in this country welcome the review.

    Commuter Rail Services
    Mr. Fryasked the Minister of Transport what plans he has to improve commuter rail services.
    Mr. Fowler: This is, in the first place, the responsibility of the British Railways Board, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will have welcomed the recent announcement of the Government's intention to refer London commuter services to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
    Mr. Fry: Will my right hon. Friend at least take up with the chairman of British Rail the future of commuter fares to ensure that, when the next increase takes place, the commuters do not suffer disproportionately as they did the previous time the fare increases were made?
    Mr. Fowler: As my hon. Friend will know, I made it clear—I again make it clear on this occasion—that I did not favour the weighting against commuters. The Board must decide the weighting of any fares increase for itself.
    Mr. Joel Barnett: Reverting to the question of commuter rail service cessations or closures, the House was pleased to hear that the article in The Guardian was incorrect. However, it will not be quite so pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman's reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrowin-Furnace (Mr. Booth), which seemed to throw some doubt on it. The difference between options and proposals is not altogether clear. If the options are to close some services, which were mentioned in the article in The Guardian, given what the Minister said about their disastrous consequences, will he say now whether he will turn down such proposals?
    Mr. Fowler: I must say to the right hon. Gentleman that no list of services due for closure has been put to my Department. I must rest on that. The right hon. Gentleman will find that British Rail is making a similar statement today.
    Mr. Bowden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the commuters in my constituency are fed up to the back teeth with the ever deteriorating service? They are reaching the point that, if there is a 20 per cent. increase next year, that will be the last straw. Will he say why the commuters in my constituency must subsidise London commuters?
    Mr. Cryer: Because they voted Tory.
    Mr. Fowler: I understand the concern of my hon. Friend, who has consistently put the point of view of the commuters in the House. I hope that he will regard it as a constructive step by this Government to put the commuter services under the first stringent examination of efficiency by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
    Mr. Flannery: And shut it down?
    Mr. Snape: Will the Minister accept that it is difficult to organise commuter services so that they pay because of the millions of pounds worth of capital assets, which do nothing for 19 hours out of 24, needed to run the hon. Gentleman's constituents to their offices by 9 a.m.? Bearing in mind that the Government believe that people and industry should pay their way, will the Minister tell his hon. Friends to stop squealing? Does he agree that commuter services do not even remotely pay their way?
    Mr. Fowler: I advise my hon. Friends to keep up the pressure on this subject. The efficiency of British Rail is a matter of importance to hon. Members on both sides of the House of Commons.
    As for possible economies, although staffing on British Rail has been reduced generally in the past nine years, between 1971 and the present day, the number of senior officers and management staff employed by British Rail has risen from 7,800 to 9,250, an increase of close on 1,500. That is why we want a review.
    Mr. Costain: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to the fact that a large number of trains are not
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    running because of a shortage of guards? Will he ask British Rail to concentrate on this matter?
    Mr. Fowler: I know that the chairman of British Rail is very much aware of that position and is trying to improve it.
    Mr. Cook: If the right hon. Gentleman insists on a cut in the passenger services obligation which, as he fairly said, was on top of a cut by the previous Government, and if he is to discourage British Rail from increasing fares to certain sections of passengers, how does he expect British Rail to meet that deficit without going for the kind of closures over which the right hon. Gentleman has said he does not wish to preside?
    Mr. Fowler: I will tell the hon. Gentleman exactly. In the words of the chairman of British Rail when he took over the job, an improvement in the efficiency and productivity of British Rail is the rock upon which the future of British Rail is based. I hope that both sides of the House agree.

    Highways Agency Arrangements (Wiltshire)
    Mr. Stoddartasked the Minister of Transport what representations he has received concerning the unilateral decision of the Wiltshire county council to end the highways agency arrangement with the Thamesdown borough council.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Apart from those by the hon. Member, only one letter, forwarded to Ministers by my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Needham).
    Mr. Stoddart: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that members of Thamesdown borough council, both Labour and Tory, are incensed over the cavalier treatment that they have received at the hands of Wiltshire county council? The removal of the agency arrangement will not assist the administration of roads in Thamesdown. Does he not agree that removal of the arrangement is a blatant attempt by the county council to circumvent the hon. Gentleman's own code of practice which he expects to be instituted?
    Mr. Clarke: I cannot get involved in the details of a dispute between one county council and a district council. We are not happy with the present agency

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    arrangements and the disputes that occur. As the hon. Gentleman says, we have set up a working party involving the local authority associations to produce a code of practice in order to avoid these disputes and to make the agency arrangements work more smoothly. I hope that this will soon come to a satisfactory conclusion and that this kind of dispute will be avoided.
    Mr. Charles Morrison: When thought is being given to whether an agency arrangement should be entered into, or continued, does my hon. Friend not agree that the overriding consideration should be value for the ratepayer's money?
    Mr. Clarke: That should be almost the one and only consideration in these matters. But there is a wide range of practice all over the country. A number of disputes have arisen between major counties and some of their districts. We hope to set up a method of resolving disputes that will not give rise to so much trouble and that will enable councils to concentrate on giving value for money.

    National Freight Corporation
    Mr. Jesselasked the Minister of Transport what proposals he has for the National Freight Corporation.
    Mr. Tom McMillanasked the Minister of Transport what is his policy on the sale of shares in the National Freight Corporation.
    Mr. Cowansasked the Minister of Transport what is his policy on the sale of shares in the National Freight Corporation.
    Mr. Fowler: I intend to bring forward legislation very shortly enabling me to change the corporation into a limited company with a view to selling the controlling interest to private investors.
    Mr. Jessel: Have these proposals been approved by the National Freight Corporation board? Will some shares be available for employees?
    Mr. Fowler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am glad to be able to tell him that the board has welcomed my proposal to introduce equity capital to the National Freight Corporation. We will want to make shares available to staff of the NFC.
    Mr. Cowans: Will the Minister explain why, in May, he was talking about a minority private share in NFC, why, in August, he was talking about a majority private share and why, three weeks later in September, he was talking of the whole NFC being sold off to private industry? What guarantee can he give that he will not hive off other subsidiary companies of British Rail, such as Sealink, British Transport Hotels and British Rail Engineering Limited?
    Mr. Fowler: I have always tried to make clear that my concern is to get the National Freight Corporation into the private sector. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman's comments on my previous position are accurate. I have been absolutely frank about what I intended. That remains the aim and intention of the Government.

    Road Schemes (Preparation Times)
    Mr. Adleyasked the Minister of Transport if he intends to bring forward proposals to shorten the preparation times for road schemes.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I have no proposals at present for major changes in procedures, but I am taking some steps to speed up our administrative processes and eliminate some unnecessary work. The main delay is caused by the procedures of consultation and public inquiry, but these are beginning to work better and win greater public acceptance, and I would not wish to reduce the open debate on schemes which they now produce.
    Mr. Adley: Will my hon. Friend try to concentrate his priorities on gaps in our motorway system between motorways and also on stretches of road that have exceptionally bad accident records? Is he beginning to note a swing back in the pendulum from overt insistence on listening to absolutely anyone who has an axe to grind, whatever his motives?
    Mr. Clarke: Those are all factors that have to be borne in mind in assessing priorities. Our main priorities remain the M25 and then the major routes between industrial centres and the ports. Most representations that I receive are from those who want roads to relieve environmental and other problems. We must not conduct the system in such a way that we disregard the wishes of those

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    who want to make representations about the adverse effects that some road schemes can cause.
    Mr. Cant: Does the Minister not agree that delays that have taken place in the West Midlands, where 36 miles of motorway have been built in 10 years, are disgraceful? In view of the fact that each year there is a massive under-spend on road building, will he have discussions with the Treasury to see whether more starts can be made, so that the amount allocated can be spent?
    Mr. Clarke: Delays are often caused by deep divisions in public opinion. In the West Midlands, in particular, great passions are aroused for and against the motorway schemes that are proposed. We are anxious to spend the right amount of money on improving the road system, but various factors intrude, not least the British weather, which make difficult the task of calculating precisely each year the amount that will be spent by the end of the financial year on road schemes.
    Mr. Dykes: Is my hon. Friend aware that residents of Harrow and North-West London are waiting impatiently for the completion of the outer orbital road, particularly because of its beneficial effect in diverting heavy lorries? Will he see whether completion of that project can be accelerated?
    Mr. Clarke: Very good progress is being made with the M25. In a year or two, subject to statutory procedures being completed, long stretches should be under construction all round London.

    Blennerhasset Report
    Sir Bernard Braineasked the Minister of Transport what progress is being made with implementing the proposals of the Blennerhasset committee on drinking and driving.
    Mr. Delwyn Williamsasked the Minister of Transport if he will now make a further statement about the proposals of the Blennerhasset report on drinking and driving.
    Mr. Fowler: I shall shortly be publishing a consultation paper with a view to legislation setting out the Government's provisional views on the recommendations in the report.
    Sir. B. Braine: I welcome my right hon. Friend's answer as a step in the right direction. But the Blennerhasset report was published four years ago. In the interval, thousands of people have been killed or injured on the roads in circumstances where alcohol was a major factor. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the recent warning of the Royal College of Psychiatrists that we are facing a crisis of endemic proportions in respect of alcohol abuse? Will he speed up the consultation process which began under the previous Government and ensure quick and speedy action?
    Mr. Fowler: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend about the seriousness of this question. I believe that this attitude is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The consultation document that we are publishing was not started by the previous Government. It is intended to set out our views with a view to legislation. There are a number of issues, such as the proposal for unrestricted powers to test, on which we want to hear the public's view. It is important that any legislation that arises should be absolutely right. That is our intention.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this committee produced irrefutable evidence that the breathalyser legislation had had no effect whatever upon the incidence of alcohol as a causative factor in road accidents?
    Mr. Fowler: The right hon. Gentleman should also understand that alcohol and drunken driving are a major cause of road accidents. It is incumbent on this Government to take the action that I am proposing.
    Mr. Penhaligon: Will the Minister confirm that the last year for which statistics are available shows that 40 per cent. of drivers killed in motor accidents were at the time over the limit with alcohol? In that light, how can he possibly welcome the sale of alcohol at motorway service stations?
    Mr. Fowler: I confirm the figure that the hon. Gentleman gave. On his second point, given my statement that there is no such proposal—a statement which is in Hansard and which has been made

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    clear—I am surprised that he should be so behind the times as not to understand the position.

  CIVIL SERVICE

    Index-linked Pensions
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Minister for the Civil Service what progress he has made with his review of the computation of the value of the index-linked pension for purposes of Civil Service pay determination.
    The Minister of State, Civil Service Department (Mr. Paul Channon): The Government believe that the valuation of pensions in determining Civil Service pay should be subject to outside scrutiny and that this can best be done by the independent Pay Research Unit Board which reports on the work of the Pay Research Unit. We are in touch with the board's chairman, Lord Shepherd, and the national staff side with the aim of arranging for the board to receive and report both on the Government Actuary's assumptions and on his assessments of the appropriate adjustment for the 1980 pay settlement. Both reports will be published.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer, so far as it goes, but does he accept that the basic problem is that, at present, on the basis of the last public expenditure White Paper, the taxpayer is subsidising a benefit for the public employee which is totally unobtainable from private insurance and that the purpose must be to ensure that the system is fully self-financing and that the £400 million a year from the taxpayer is eliminated?
    Mr. Channon: As my hon. Friend knows, I am responsible only for the pay and pensions of the Civil Service. Index-linked pensions relate to much wider groups in the public sector—including nurses, policemen, doctors, members of the Armed Forces and even Members of Parliament.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: By how much is the pay of civil servants reduced on account of the pension scheme of which they are members? How much will the new scheme cost? Does it show any lack of confidence in the work of the Government Actuary?
    Mr. Channon: It certainly shows no lack of confidence in the work of the Government Actuary, who is now asked to have his work reviewed by the Pay Research Unit Board. Civil servants pay approximately 7 per cent., in a variety of ways, for their pensions—
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: No, 2·6 per cent.
    Mr. Channon: The figure of 2·6 per cent. is but one of the deductions made. The total is about 7 per cent. I do not think that the new system will cost any more—or, if it does, it will be very little.
    Mr. Renton: But is there not a real danger that, if there are to be years of recession and high inflation at the same time, a large gap will develop between those retired people who enjoy inflation-proofed pensions and those in work who have to pay for them? In those circumstances, will the Minister consider discussing with the leaders of the Civil Service unions the possibility of limiting inflation proofing to 10 per cent. a year—which would be comparable to many private sector pension schemes—and of civil servants paying a realistic deduction from their wages for that limited inflation proofing?
    Mr. Channon: I am sure that my hon. Friend is not suggesting that that should be done in isolation. If it were done, it would have to be done to nurses, policemen, Members of Parliament, teachers, and local government officers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] If that is the view of the House, I shall certainly discuss it with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Mr. Straw: Is the Minister aware that the 1974 agreement requires the Government to give six months' notice to the unions of changes of this kind? Can he explain why, instead of six months, he has given only two days' notice? Is this not a cavalier way to run industrial relations with the Civil Service?
    Mr. Channon: I am surprised by what the hon. Gentleman says. We are hoping to discuss this matter in consultation with the national staff side. I cannot believe that any reasonable man could object to an independent assessment of a problem which causes public concern. That is in the interests of the general public and of the Civil Service itself.

    Retired Civil Servants (Employment)
    Mr. Cryerasked the Minister for the Civil Service what representations he has received regarding the limitations placed on retiring civil servants joining the boards of companies with which they have been dealing.
    Mr. Channon: None, Sir.
    Mr. Cryer: Does the Minister accept that there is considerable concern, of which there are many examples, about the way in which senior civil servants—permanent secretaries, deputy secretaries and so forth—have under Governments of both parties been able to move sweetly from the Civil Service into lush jobs in private enterprise? Does he not agree that senior civil servants retire on lush pensions, that the least they can do is stay retired, and that, especially when handling contracts worth millions of pounds or handling huge quantities of money, they should not, as is possible, pave their way when in the Civil Service, either in the Ministry of Defence or the Department of Industry, into the board rooms?
    Mr. Channon: The last Government reviewed the rules relating to business appointments and provided that whenever a civil servant within two years of leaving the service proposed to go to a firm with which he had special relationships or extensive contractual dealings, certain procedures had to be followed. Those rules were laid down by the previous Government. I have received no evidence which would lead me to believe that they should not be tried further before any change is made.
    Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Why is it that business men who continually complain about the incompetence of civil servants are so anxious to recruit them when they leave the Civil Service, unless it is to buy information which they could not otherwise get?
    Mr. Channon: I think that that suggestion is reprehensible. If the hon. Member is suggesting that there is any evidence of impropriety in the present practice, I might point out that the rules were laid down by his own Government, when I believe he was still in office, and
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    that we have had no reason to change our minds about them.

    Whitley Council
    Mr. Strawasked the Minister for the Civil Service when next he will be meeting representatives of the Civil Service staff side of the Whitley Council.
    Mr. Channon: I am meeting them constantly, Sir.
    Mr. Straw: When the Minister next meets the representatives from the staff side, will he let them know what decisions the Government have reached in their consideration of 10, 15 or 20 per cent. cuts in the work of the Civil Service? Will he accept that the Government's failure to make decisions in this area is damaging morale even more within the Civil Service?
    Mr. Channon: I certainly accept that decisions have to be made in the near future. The Government have always said that we would be making a statement in the autumn. We still intend to do so.
    Mr. William Clark: When the Minister nexts meets the Whitley Council, will he point out the difference between pension schemes within the Civil Service and pension schemes in the private sector? Is he aware that to obtain Inland Revenue approval a private pension scheme can contain an inflationary element of only 5, 6 or 7 per cent.? Are we not creating two types of employee in the case of pensions if the rest are inflation proofed?
    Mr. Channon: As my hon. Friend knows, this matter goes far wider than the Civil Service. I have already taken note of the views of the House.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: As the implications of the cuts of up to 20 per cent. are so great for the Civil Service and for all of us, will the Minister give an undertaking that he will not issue a statement as a written reply but that he will come to the House and tell us exactly what cuts in jobs and services there will be?
    Mr. Channon: When the Government have reached their decisions, they will be announced in the most appropriate way. I will take note of the hon. Gentleman's views.

    Professional and Technical Civil Servants (Pay Dispute)
    Mr. Peter Lloydasked the Minister for the Civil Service what steps have been taken to resolve the pay dispute with the professional and technical civil servants.
    Mr. Channon: An initial hearing of the Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal took place on 25 and 26 September. After receiving the tribunal's opinion, I met representatives of the institution on 18 October. Detailed negotiations are now in progress at official level and a fully considered response to the IPCS's latest representations has just been made.
    Mr. Lloyd: I congratulate my hon. Friend and the IPCS negotiators on making some progress in a dispute which has had more than its fair share of disagreement on the fundamental principles on which a settlement should be made. My hon. Friend referred to the advisory opinion of the tribunal. Can he now give an assurance that, if it is agreed that the dispute will be referred back to the tribunal for final adjudication, the tribunal will be able to take into consideration evidence from earlier settlements which gave awards well above the median?
    Mr. Channon: The tribunal will be able to consider any evidence that the IPCS or the official side cares to put before it.

    Civil Servants (Political Activity)
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister for the Civil Service what proposals he has to enable civil servants, other than those who are in the position of giving direct policy advice to Ministers, to take part in party politics.
    Mr. Channon: The existing rules for civil servants already allow this to a certain extent. Changes recommended by the Armitage committee which reported under the last Administration are now under discussion with the staff side.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is it not deeply wrong that hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens should be debarred from political activity when they are far from giving policy advice to Ministers?
    Mr. Channon: I note the views of the hon. Member. This matter is being dis-
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    cussed with the staff side and I will bear his views in mind when we come to consider its recommendations.

    Ministers' Private Secretaries (Accommodation)
    Mr. Stevensasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will take whatever steps may be necessary to ensure that Ministers, including junior Ministers, are provided with working space for their private secretaries within their ministerial offices.
    Mr. Channon: I assume that my hon. Friend has in mind secretaries who assist with constituency or party political work. Successive Governments have taken the view that it is not appropriate for facilities provided at public expense to be used for such work.
    Mr. Stevens: Does my hon. Friend accept that the work of constituency and private secretaries is seldom in any real sense political, and that by taking the view that they should not be allowed to work in the same offices as their Ministers the work of those Ministers is greatly obstructed? Will he instruct the Civil Service accordingly?
    Mr. Channon: I understand the views of my hon. Friend. However, it is a point of principle that facilities which we provide at public expense should not be available to hon. Members, or their secretaries, for work that is not public but is either constituency or party political.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (SECURITY)
Mr. Bowden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise a matter involving the security of this House. You will have observed earlier this afternoon that a number of badges, which contained very dangerous pins, were thrown into the Chamber. No one would have regarded that as funny if the pins had got into his eyes. Is it not unreasonable that the faithful custodians of this House, many of whom have given a lifetime of service in the Armed Forces and who are no longer young, should have to deal with thugs and hooligans who behave in this way? Will you kindly look at this situation and see whether the custodian force can be reinforced?
Mr. Speaker: A Committee of the House looks at these matters. I shall see that the point raised by the hon. Gentleman is referred to the responsible people.
Mr. Rost: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would you consider it desirable that, as part of an investigation, the Serjeant-at-Arms be instructed to find out who issued the relevant tickets to the Strangers Gallery, in view of the possible risk to security?
Mr. Speaker: I am quite prepared for that to be done, though I must tell the House that on one occasion I signed for a visitor to come in and he misbehaved.

RHODESIA
The Lord Privy Seal (Sir Ian Gilmour): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement on Rhodesia.
In my statement of 24 October I described the proposals that the Government had put to the constitutional conference for the holding of elections in Southern Rhodesia and the administration of the country in the pre-independence period. The full proposals that the Government tabled on 2 November have been placed in the Library of the House. We have also published today, as a White Paper, the summary of the independence constitution accepted by the parties at Lancaster House.
At Lancaster House we have now achieved provisional agreement on a constitution, and have made considerable progress towards agreement on the interim period. I hope that we shall soon be able to proceed to negotiations for a ceasefire and the arrangements for monitoring it. The conference is, therefore, moving towards a conclusion. We must be able to act without delay to implement the final agreement for which we are working with all parties. Any delay in putting a settlement into effect would cost further lives and could place the settlement itself at risk.
The purpose of the enabling Bill that the Government are introducing later today is to enable us to implement the interim arrangements without delay. It will enable the Government to make the independence constitution, to introduce parts of it before independence to allow elections to be held, and to provide for the appointment of a Governor with full powers. Existing legislation is not adequate for these purposes.
The Salisbury delegation has accepted the proposals that the Government have put to it as a basis for a settlement. The Patriotic Front has also accepted the principles of a British Governor and new elections. We are therefore very close to a settlement that is fully consistent with the communique of the meeting of heads of Commonwealth Governments in Lusaka.
In these circumstances the Government believe that it would be wrong now to take the positive action of renewing section 2 of the Southern Rhodesia Act 1965.

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But as the House will be aware, the great bulk of sanctions—those relating to direct trade and the transfer of funds—depend not on section 2 but on orders made under other Acts, and they will continue until they are revoked. These sanctions will be lifted as soon as Rhodesia returns to legality with the appointment of a Governor and his arrival in Salisbury.
The Bill that will be placed before the House enables the Government to take whatever action is necessary in relation to Rhodesia, depending on the state of progress at the conference. This includes the power to continue those sanctions at present imposed under section 2. But, given the position now reached, the Government find it difficult to envisage circumstances in which this would be necessary.
While the Government would have preferred to give both Houses more time to consider the Bill, the timing of the introduction of the Bill has been related to the progress of the conference. It is essential that the Governor should be in a position when, as we hope, agreement is reached to give effect to a settlement without delay and for elections to be held as soon as possible. A great deal of progress has been made in the talks. We were glad to hear this morning that President Kaunda will be coming to London tomorrow. This will be a most timely visit. His presence will, I am sure, assist our progress towards a peaceful settlement.
Mr. Shore: The Lord Privy Seal's statement reports further progress at the constitutional conference, and we greatly welcome that. The prize of peace, a properly elected Government and lawful independence must certainly not be allowed to elude us after so many difficulties have been surmounted.
Will the Minister confirm that the discussion of the ceasefire—the last and perhaps most difficult stage—has yet to commence? Does he concede that agreement on the other issues is still contingent on the outcome of that discussion? Will he, therefore, explain to the House why he needs to introduce this Bill at such a critical stage of the Lancaster House conference? Does he agree —it is a matter of common sense—that it would be far better for the House to
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debate such a Bill, which will inevitably lead to fierce argument, after and not before those negotiations are concluded? The House understands the need for an enabling Bill without unnecessary delay. Why does the right hon. Gentleman seek to push this Bill through in a single day and, moreover, within 24 hours of its publication?
I turn now to sanctions. Does the Lordy Privy Seal really believe that his decision not to renew section 2 is likely to promote agreement and good will at the conference? Is not the opposite more likely? Is this not a blatantly political move, designed not to assist the conference but to appease his own Back Benchers?
How does this decision square with our international obligations to the Security Council? Will it not be seen by the international community, whose support the Government have, rightly, so far claimed as essential to a solution, as a substantial change in British policy? In the light of all this, may I renew the plea that we have already made to the Minister and to his colleagues? With agreement, as he says, so close, and in the light of the visit of a very important President and neighbour from Zambia, will he please reconsider the timing of this measure and postpone its introduction until at least Monday of next week?
Sir I. Gilmour: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he said about the progress that we have made so far. I regret that that welcoming tone was not carried through to the end of his question. We are proceeding now because we have to take account of the progress that we have made during the constitutional conference. We have progressed far towards a conclusion.
The 1965 Act is not sufficient for our purposes. We need new legislation. In those circumstances it must be right to introduce the legislation now. When the conference ends we must be in a position to make the arrangements to appoint a Governor and to proceed with the interim arrangements for governing Rhodesia. That is logical and right.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about sanctions. I made a careful statement about them. The right hon. Gentleman must realise that circumstances have

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changed considerably since they were imposed in 1965. They have changed considerably since we debated this subject last year. Sanctions must be related to the situation that they were designed to remedy. Since last year we have had the May elections in Rhodesia, the Lusaka agreement and the Lancaster House conference, which has lasted for nine weeks. In those circumstances, and when the Salisbury delegation has agreed to all the proposals, which are in accordance with the Lusaka agreement, for us to say that we should renew section 2 would be a gratuitous insult.
The idea that this somehow will not help the Lancaster House conference is erroneous. The bulk of sanctions will continue until the Governor arrives in Salisbury and until Rhodesia returns to legality.
Mr. Shore: It has always been understood that the two acts should go together—that is, that sanctions should lapse when there is a return to legality and the Governor takes up his power in Salisbury. I question the wisdom of putting these two events on a different time scale. They should be kept together.
Apart from sanctions, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that there is no reason why the House should not debate this constitutional Bill, with its enabling powers to introduce a constitution, in the ordinary way, without undue delay? I should certainly hope to see it through well within the next week.
Sir I. Gilmour: We do not know what will happen in the few days before 15 November. Perhaps the events will not be separated. I can see that we are putting the House to some inconvenience by the timing. I do not deny that, but it is not unique. Labour Members will remember that a Labour Government introduced the 1965 Act on a Friday and that it was passed through all its stages in one day—the following Monday. The Opposition should not take too high-minded an attitude to the timing. We accept that we are putting the House to some inconvenience but we believe that the issues are so important that we are fully justified.
Mr. Rippon: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement and congratulate him
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and the Foreign Secretary on the progress of the talks. My right hon. Friend referred to this as being an enabling Bill. Can he confirm that the House will be able to monitor and, if necessary, debate the progress of the Bill, step by step? I welcome my right hon. Friend's assurance that sanctions will end as soon as the Governor takes office. It would be absurd to impose sanctions against ourselves. At what point does my right hon. Friend envisage that the Government will be able to go to the United Nations with a request to lift the resolution on mandatory sanctions?
Sir I. Gilmour: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. Of course the House will be kept fully informed of everything. This is an enabling Bill. Under it, in accordance with precedent, we shall be able to create the independence constitution, which will be introduced by Order in Council. However, that will not introduce the independence of Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe. That will be done in a subsequent Act, which we shall introduce when circumstances allow, preferably later this month. I cannot give a definite date. It is important to recognise that two Acts are involved.
Mr. Arthur Bottomley: I welcome the progress made in trying to find a solution to the Rhodesian problem. Our thanks are due to all involved. Would it not be polite to the President of Zambia to meet the wish of my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) that the debate be postponed until next week?
Sir I. Gilmour: I am grateful for what the right hon. Member said in the first part of his question. He will have heard what I said about the President of Zambia in my statement. We look forward to important discussions with him. I do not think that the President of Zambia will expect to be involved in debates in the House. The timing of the debate does not have any particular relevance to the timing of his visit.
Mr. Amery: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his decision not to renew the sanctions order next week. Will he confirm the Foreign Secretary's assurance that although we want to see all parties committed to the agreement we shall not leave a veto on agreement in the hands of the Patriotic Front?
Sir I. Gilmour: It was said at Lusaka that no party should have a veto. That is still the position. I emphasise that we are working for a full agreement by all parties at the conference. That is our major objective.
Mr. Robert Hughes: Why is it necessary to rush the Bill through tomorrow? The right hon. Gentleman says that the Bill will be necessary following an agreement. Is he aware that the House would pass such an enabling Bill in hours if there were an agreement? Is he saying that the purpose of the enabling Bill is to allow the Government to proceed to conclude a separate agreement with the Salisbury delegation and to go ahead even if there is no general agreement?
Sir I. Gilmour: The hon. Member asked the same question as his right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore). My answer is the same. Of course the object of the Bill is not to make a separate agreement with the Salisbury delegation. If we had wanted to do that I dare say that we should not have gone through nine weeks of the conference, we should not have had the Lusaka agreement, and we should not have spent many hours a day on the important objective of trying to gain agreement with all parties. That is still our objective.
I know that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) follows these matters closely. We told the conference on Friday that legislation was imminent In the paper that we produced on Friday we said:
"The authority of the United Kingdom Parliament will be sought for the appointment of the Governor, the making of the Independence Constitution and the holding of elections under it. Legislation will be submitted to Parliament as a matter of urgency so that the Governor may, without loss of time after his arrival, take the steps necessary to allow elections to be held."
This Bill is to enable us to bring peace to Rhodesia. It has nothing to do with a separate agreement.
Mr. Whitney: I congratulate my right hon. Friend and my right hon. and noble Friend on the statement this afternoon and on what they have achieved in the talks so far. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Opposition's attitude is an extraordinary manifestation of go-slow tactics? We have been told that two months is insufficient time for the Patriotic
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Front, which we were previously told would be welcomed with open arms by all the people of Zimbabwe. Now the Opposition seek to deny the Government the speedy opportunity to restore Rhodesia to legality. Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this shows yet again the Opposition's total failure to comprehend the reality of present-day Zimbabwe?
Mr. English: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Clearly, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney) was not aware that we have been forbidden to receive the Bill, which is in the Vote Office. I have been told by the Vote Office that instructions have been given to it that the Bill must not be given to any Member until after the statement and questions upon it are over. [HON. MEMBERS: "Disgraceful."]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am listening to a point of order, and I want to hear it.
Mr. English: I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to exercise your right, as the person with power to give orders to the Vote Office, to order it now to issue to us the Bill, which is in its possession, so that we can make sensible comments to, and ask sensible questions of, the right hon. Gentleman, whose Department is clearly frightened that we might ask relevant questions.
Mr. Speaker: There is a very simple explanation. No Bill can be published before it is presented to the House. If hon. Members will look at their Order Papers, they will see that it is—
Mr. English: Why is it not available?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must not shout whilst I am speaking. If he reads the Order Paper he will see that presentation of the Bill follows statements, as is invariably the case.
Mr. English: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that if the right hon. Gentleman wished to make a statement after the Bill had been presented we should, in accordance with the normal customs of the House, allow him to do so.
Mr. Speaker: Let us continue with questions.
Sir I. Gilmour: I should like to revert to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney).

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It is only right to say—I hope that the Opposition will not take this amiss—that the Opposition's attitude to this matter during the past three months has been extremely helpful, and we are very appreciative of that attitude. I have already said that I see that there is a procedural difficulty, to which any Opposition could object, but I hope that the attitude that they have displayed over the past three months will continue for the next week or two.
Mr. James Callaghan: I am grateful for what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, but is he aware that he has not given us any convincing reason why the Bill must be debated, in all its stages, within 24 hours of its presentation? That is the grievance. I think that it will contain matters of substance.
Nobody can suggest that the right hon. Gentleman must take important decisions about the future governance of Rhodesia by Saturday. That is simply not true. Therefore, what we are saying is that there should be time for reflection and time to consider these matters. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman again that the House as a whole should have time to consider these matters, even though Conservative hon. Members may not wish it.
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman one question? It is the view of a number of us that what he does on sanctions may be very much misunderstood and may lead the Government into great difficulties. I can understand that he may not want to renew sanctions for a 12-month period, in view of the advanced stage that he has reached, but will he not consider what I would hope he would have considered already? Why not renew sanctions for a shorter period? For example, why not renew them for three months, or even one month? [Interruption.] I understand that hon. Members on the Government Benches below the Gangway are not open to argument, but there are international complications here that are of great significance.
I do not want to see the Government bitch this matter at the end of the day. That is why we are putting to the right hon. Gentleman that he should not alter the balance on sanctions at this eleventh hour. If he asked for a renewal for a
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shorter period than 12 months, we should certainly be ready to concede that, and, of course, should not insist that it should be for the period for which the order has been renewed in previous years.
Sir I. Gilmour: I am grateful to the Leader of the Opposition for what he said.
On the question of timing, I am sorry that evidently I did not make myself clear in answer to the Shadow Foreign Secretary. We have reached a crucial stage of the conference. At the same time, the existing legislation is not suitable—it is not sufficient—for our purposes. Therefore, we must legislate. Equally, the existing legislation, which is not sufficient, runs out next week. Therefore, there is a considerable hurry.
I see that theoretically there is a point for debating the Bill on Monday rather than on Thursday or Friday, but the right hon. Gentleman will know why we do not want to do that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why is it?"] We must be certain of getting it through.
On the question of sanctions, of course, a balance must be struck. The Leader of the Opposition said that he did not want us to alter the balance of sanctions, but in our judgment—in view of what has happened, and as the Salisbury delegation has done everything that has been asked of it in pursuit of an agreement at Lusaka—to take the positive action of renewing sanctions, as opposed to running on the great bulk of sanctions that will run on anyway, would be a quite unjustifiable slap in the face for it. As I have said, the bulk of sanctions will continue. Of course, it is a matter of judgment.
I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the order is renewable for less than 12 months. I can see that it could be cancelled within that period. The ex-Patronage Secretary knows these procedural matters very well. I think that the order can be renewed only for 12 months. I take the point made by the Leader of the Opposition, but in our view it would be altering the balance of sanctions against the Salisbury delegation.
Some hon. Members and some people outside the House are inclined to forget that in the very intricate and delicate negotiation that is taking place at Lancaster House we are negotiating with

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two parties. We must secure the agreement of both. Many people seem to think that our problem is only to get one party to agree. We must get both parties to agree. That is the major difficulty of this negotiation. That is what is informing all our actions in this matter.
Mr. Stoddart: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I listened to the Lord Privy Seal very carefully, and I believe that he committed a breach of privilege of the House and treated the House with contempt. He said that he was introducing the Bill tomorrow in order to be certain of getting it through. Whatever does he mean by that? I can well understand that Tory Members laugh at democratic procedures, Mr. Speaker, but I have always understood-I hope that you will confirm this—that a Government present a Bill to the House for debate and decision, and no Government should be so autocratically minded as to present a Bill in the certainty that it will go through. I believe that the Government have committed a grave contempt of the House.
Mr. Speaker: Since I have been here, many Governments have assumed that as they have a majority—normally—they will get the business. I did not feel that there was a breach of privilege in what the right hon. Gentleman said.
Mr. Russell Johnston: Is the Lord Privy Seal aware that all reasonable people in the House will wish him well in solving the problem? Nevertheless, he must be sharply aware of the fact that a great many people feel that he is being less than fair to the House in forcing it to deal with this matter so quickly. Can he assure us that there is no connection between the fact that sanctions are included in the Bill—and section 2 sanctions are only a small percentage, about 15—and the fact that the Government feel there would be a problem in dealing with the matter a week tomorrow? That is the crux of the matter. I am sure that the House will welcome the Lord Privy Seal's assurance on this issue. Could not this Bill have been presented before, or could not more time have been given to our deliberations on it?
Sir I. Gilmour: I am grateful to the hon. Member for his good wishes. As I
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explained, the legislation existing at present is not sufficient for our purposes. We need other legislation. The Bill that we shall introduce will provide power to do everything that we would wish to do in Rhodesia, including the imposition of sanctions, should that be necessary.
On the point about the inconvenience caused to the House, I should make it clear that this is a four-clause Bill and the fourth clause is merely an interpretation clause. Therefore, it really should not exercise hon. Members' minds unduly. We should be able to get right on top of it tomorrow.
Sir John Eden: Timing is all important in these matters and it must be for my right hon. Friend to judge what is right. Surely it makes sense, however, in the light of all that has been achieved in these long and complex negotiations, to maintain the momentum towards independence and legality. Therefore, is it not absolutely right for my right hon. Friend to seek to have in his hands the powers to enable him to proceed expeditiously when the opportunity arises?
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there are still some issues outstanding, and can he give us any information about them? In the light of the history of sanctions and in view of all that has been agreed to by the Muzorewa Government, would it not be very wrong to make any attempt to reimpose sanctions against that regime?
Sir I. Gilmour: Of course we wish to maintain momentum; that is very important. I hope that all parties at the conference will agree with that. On the question of the matters that are still outstanding, the Salisbury delegation has agreed to our interim arrangements and the Patriotic Front is still considering them. We discussed them yesterday and we are doing so again today. There is a certain difference of philosophy about this, but I hope that the Patriotic Front will signify its agreement fairly soon. After that we shall go on to discuss the arrangements for the ceasefire. That is the main outstanding matter at the conference and it is almost the most important.
Mr. Ennals: Is not what the right hon. Gentleman has just said one of the most profound reasons why we should not debate this issue tomorrow? Does he

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recall that the last time he made a statement to the House, which I read when I was in Salisbury, Rhodesia, he asked that he should not be pressed on a number of the very difficult questions that he has just touched upon? Does he not think that at a time when the Lancaster House conference is at a crucial stage and when there are delicate issues still to be determined, for this House openly to discuss those issues is very unwise? Having said that the Opposition Front Bench had been helpful, surely the right hon. Gentleman must be aware of the strength of feeling that exists among Members of the several parties on the Opposition Benches. Will he consult other right hon. Gentlemen on his own Front Bench in order to get this Bill before the House without the sort of controversy that has resulted from his statement today?
Mr. Dykes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Should not the leader of the other party also sit on the Opposition Front Bench?
Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.
Sir I. Gilmour: I know that the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) has been in Rhodesia recently and that he met a great many people there. With respect, I believe that he has slightly misunderstood the position of the enabling Bill that we are introducing. That Bill does not affect the details of the transitional arrangements that we are debating now at the Lancaster House conference. I do not think that what the Government propose in any way cuts across anything that I said in my statement the other day.
Mr. Higgins: I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on the great progress that has been made so far. In view of the importance of upholding the rule of law, will he give us an assurance that the Government will take steps to ensure that we are at no stage in breach of our international obligations? Will he also confirm that it would not be the Government's intention to use powers under their proposed Bill in the absence of a general agreement, because that could be very dangerous?
Sir I. Gilmour: Of course it is the aim of the Government to remain fully in
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accordance with their international obligations. No doubt that is true of all Governments. I have explained the situation about sanctions fairly carefully. This is an enabling Bill, designed to put into operation the results of an agreement at the conference. That is our aim, and in that objective I am sure we have the support of the vast majority of the House. If we fail in those endeavours we shall have to think again.
Miss Joan Lestor: Is the Lord Privy Seal aware that both the Lusaka conference and later Sir Shridath Ramphal, of the Commonwealth Secretariat, said that agreement at Lancaster House must be reached not only on the constitution but on the interim period. Since agreement on the interim period has not been reached, particularly in relation to the length of time before the election and on the security forces, will the Lord Privy Seal say whether he intends to proceed with his Bill if that agreement is not reached?
Sir I. Gilmour: I have already explained to the House that we have contingent agreement on the constitution and we are now discussing the interim arrangements. Then we hope to move on to the ceasefire. It does not need the Commonwealth Secretary-General—whom we all respect—to point out that we have not reached agreement. That is common ground. Our Bill is an enabling Bill, which will allow us to proceed with the future government of Rhodesia. At present there is no legislation that enables us to do so. That is why we seek the agreement of the House to proceed in this way.
Mr. Tapsell: May I put it to my right hon. Friend, speaking as someone who has consistently and strongly supported the policy of sanctions during the past 14 years, that against the background that my right hon. Friend has described I believe that the Government are right to take the limited decision not to continue section 2? Does he recognise, however, that a major diplomatic task lies ahead for us in explaining to the rest of the world—and particularly to sections of the Third world—the good faith that lies behind the decision? In explaining this, will he ensure that the full resources of the external broadcasting services of this country are brought fully into play?
Sir I. Gilmour: Naturally, we shall endeavour to put our case across by all means available to us. My hon. Friend has touched on a matter that is not strictly germane to our proceedings, but I am grateful to him for what he said about sanctions. I take his point that the reasons for what we are doing should be put across to all our friends, and, indeed, our enemies, such as they are, in the world today.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order, I propose to call four more hon. Members from either side. There is a Business Statement to follow, which is linked with this matter.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: As the Minister's statement is made on the assumption that an agreement will be reached, will he confirm that the agreement by the Patriotic Front so far has been contingent upon total agreement about the package? If that is not finally forthcoming, does the Bill mean that the Government can proceed to independence irrespective of the assent of the Patriotic Front?
Sir I. Gilmour: I certainly confirm—I have said it many times; it hardly needs confirmation—that the Patriotic Front's agreement to the constitution is contingent on agreement to the rest of the package, just as the agreement, which I hope will soon be forthcoming, to the interim arrangements will be contingent on agreement to a ceasefire. That is common ground. We hope that all parties will agree. If they do not agree, as was said in Lusaka, nobody can have a veto. That, I think, is generally agreed. If we fail in our endeavours, which I very much hope will not happen, we shall certainly have to consider how we should proceed.
Mr. Emery: Does my right hon. Friend realise that many people never expected this conference to attain anything like the success that it has already achieved? He and the Foreign Secretary deserve congratulations for having brought the conference to its present stage. Therefore, if his advice is that this piece of legislation is necessary tomorrow, most hon. Members should support him in reaching that conclusion. Would my right hon. Friend mind pointing out to certain Opposition Members below the Gangway that in November 1965 the Southern
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Rhodesia Act 1965 was pushed through this House by the Labour Government of the day in one sitting.
Sir I. Gilmour: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I appreciate what he said about the conference. I believe that it is widely agreed that, while we still have some way to go, as we certainly concede, the conference has achieved a great deal. We all hope and pray that we shall bring it to a successful conclusion. As my hon. Friend said, there are certain precedents for what we are doing.
Mr. Hooley: Is the Lord Privy Seal aware that in November 1978 the Lord Chancellor made it perfectly clear that all the powers required for an interim period—which is what we are now discussing—were contained in section 2 of the 1965 Act? Is he also aware that even if that section were to lapse there are sufficiently wide powers in the 1961 Act to enable the Government to effect reasonable and sensible interim arrangements? In those circumstances, why are the Government asking for a new blank cheque? Does it mean that they wish to go ahead in the absence of real agreement?
Sir I. Gilmour: The hon. Gentleman has got it wrong. Present legislation would not entitle us to produce an independence constitution or to introduce, prior to independence, part of a constitution. Nor could we, without amending the constitution of 1961, introduce a Governor with executive powers. I believe that the House would agree that to approach future legislation by amending the 1965 Act or the 1961 Act would be an extremely muddled and retrograde way of proceeding. It must be better now to look forward rather than back.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Will my right hon. Friend accept the good wishes of the House for trying to overcome the intransigence of the Patriotic Front in the same way as the Government have overcome the intransigence of the Rhodesian Front? Does this country now recognise the Salisbury regime? If we do not, why are we lifting any sanctions before we get the Governor in or produce independence?
Sir I. Gilmour: I would not like to refer to intransigence either by the Patriotic Front or by the Salisbury regime. I hope that both parties are

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negotiating in good faith, although it is true that there have been certain delays, which I hope will soon end.
I think that I have made it clear that the vast bulk of sanctions, which do not depend on section 2 of the 1965 Act, will come to an end only when legality is restored to Rhodesia. It follows that the present regime is not legal and that we do not recoginse it.
Mr. S. C. Silkin: We welcome the emphasis that the right hon. Gentleman has placed on the need to obtain the agreement of both parties and not merely the agreement of one. In the light of that, will he give an assurance that, assuming that the legislation is passed through the House this week, none the less no powers under it will be exercised until the agreement of both parties is achieved?
Sir I. Gilmour: To do that would be to give a veto to one party or the other. That would be contrary to the Lusaka agreement and to common sense. If we were to do that, we would never obtain any agreement. I appreciate what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said at the beginning of his question. I repeat that our objective is to obtain the agreement of both delegations so that we can restore peace and security to Rhodesia.
Mr. Hastings: I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his team on what they have achieved so far. My right hon. Friend spoke of having elections as soon as possible after the arrival of the Governor. Does he agree that any unnecessary delay over these elections would increase the risk of confusion and intimidation? Many of us are aware, sadly, of the consequences of that in the past. The Foreign Secretary is reported to have recommended a period of eight weeks and no more. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that in no circumstances will the British Government agree to a day more than eight weeks?
Sir I. Gilmour: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. After the attainment of agreement, elections should take place as soon as possible. As we all know, electioneering is a very divisive process. After a war, such as that in Rhodesia, the last thing that a country needs is to
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be divisive. Our proposals are that elections should take place eight weeks after the conclusion of a ceasefire.
Mr. Spearing: As the Bill will give a blank cheque for legality to Rhodesia—if it does not, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would say so—why does he think that he can get the Bill tomorrow but would find it more difficult next week? Has he had consultations with the Commonwealth countries at the Lusaka conference concerning his intention to present a Bill tomorrow? If they objected, would they not only be agreeing that the work of the Prime Minister in Lusaka had been undone but that the likelihood of a ceasefire would decrease and the likelihood of civil war increase?
Sir I. Gilmour: The hon. Gentleman is not right about blank cheques, and I do not think that we ever said we would get the Bill tomorrow. We will start debating it tomorrow, and we hope to get it as soon as possible, but we are certainly not pre-empting any of the debating procedures of the House.
I do not think that it is the usual procedure to consult the Commonwealth about legislation to be introduced into this House. As I explained earlier, we adumbrated our intentions at the constitutional conference on Friday, when we put our proposals on the table, and the Commonwealth observers at the conference are kept in close touch with what we are doing.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I welcome part of my right hon. Friend's statement, particularly in relation to the Government's assurance that they will not seek to reintroduce sanctions, but is he aware that he and my right hon. and noble Friend are presiding over the destruction of a multi-racial democratic Government in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia? If the official Salisbury delegation has agreed to everything that the British Government have requested, will he please give specific reasons to the House now why he and the Government are not prepared to lift all sanctions immediately?
Sir I. Gilmour: Talk about destruction, and so forth, going on in Rhodesia does not bear serious examination. We are not seeking to destroy anything. We are seeking to build up a multi-racial society in Rhodesia based on a constitution that

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gives genuine majority rule with safeguards for the minority community. We are seeking to bring peace to that country. I would have thought that my hon. Friend would have the sense to welcome what we are doing. I have answered his question about sanctions two or three times before. Sanctions will be lifted when the Governor arrives in Salisbury and Rhodesia returns to legality. Surely that is perfectly clear.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Speaker: Statement—Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Mr. English: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May this statement be deferred until after the 30-second introduction of the Bill so that at least one Cabinet Minister can be questioned when we have read the text of the Bill?
Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that I must follow the normal procedure in the House. Statements come first.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short Business Statement.
The business tomorrow will now be proceedings on the Southern Rhodesia Bill. The business previously announced for Thursday will be postponed until next week.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: We have already discussed the problem of timing in the Rhodesian context, about which there is a great deal of concern among Labour Members because we did not get a clear answer. As to timing in the House, this is an important Bill that we have not yet seen. The hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) said that the 1965 Act was rushed through the House. However, that Act was introduced on the Friday and not discussed until the Monday. Throughout the rest of today the Opposition will have to meet to discuss a Bill that they have not yet seen, and those discussions will include important matters such as the role of the Governor and the question of elections. The House does not see the need for hurry, but for reasons that have not been explained the Government take a different view.
Despite all these problems, we are expected tomorrow to discuss all the matters that have been discussed at the conference. There will be discussions on the date of the elections and the role of the Governor. Amendments will be tabled relating to sanctions. Being the sort of chap that he is, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) will table amendments that match what he has said

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today. It looks as though we shall proceed throughout tomorrow and into Friday and beyond. That is no way in which to present an important constitutional Bill to the House.
The Lord Privy Seal suggested that the House should forget party divisions and concern itself with important issues that face the country. This has been done in the past in relation to Irish matters and the like. If during the course of tomorrow the Leader of the House finds that there is no unnecessary fractious delay, will he consider postponing later stages of the Bill until the beginning of next week? It is not the wish of the Labour Opposition to play any party game, but we want to consider all these issues seriously.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his constructive approach to the problem. Of course, as Leader of the House I must balance the convenience of the House against the advice that I receive from my right hon. Friends who are responsible for these matters and the assurances that they give me that they must be in a position to give effect to a settlement at any time. I must attach the utmost importance and weight to the judgment of those who, after all, have been engaged in these negotiations for nine weeks.
Mr. Buchan: The Lord Privy Seal did not tell us; perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am telling the hon. Gentleman.
With regard to the constitutional aspects, I should stress that this is an enabling Bill. The constitutional Bill as such is not before us. The legislation merely creates a situation in which that Bill can be brought forward. Of course, I shall consider any representations that the Opposition may make about these matters, but I hope that we can all advance in a reasonable way because every hon. Member wants a settlement. The prize of a peaceful settlement in Africa is so great that every hon. Member should be prepared to exercise restraint to bring it about.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that today is a Supply day. We
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have yet to deal with a Ten-Minute Bill, which could well be opposed, and on Monday I received a request from the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Homewood) for an emergency debate on the closure of the Corby steelworks. If questions on the Business Statement continue for too long, we shall be very unfair to hon. Members with steel interests who are anxious to have this matter discussed today.
Mr. Skeet: Will my right hon. Friend clarify one matter? I understand that the Government want the Bill to go through all its stages before the weekend. If the debate spills over into Friday and demolishes Private Members' business, will my right hon. Friend make provision next week so that a very good Bill—the Youth and Community Bill—gets its Second Reading?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I very much hope that this short Bill will be disposed of in time to allow Private Members' Bills to proceed—[HON. MEMBERS: "Not a chance."] I cannot give an undertaking in respect of any particular Bill, nor can I make any judgment upon it. However, I am well aware of the importance of Private Members' Bills. Of course, if tomorrow's debate continued for that period and Private Members' time was lost, I would see that it was reinstated next week.
Mr. English: The press forecast this Bill over a week ago. One understands that it got the idea from the private Foreign Office briefings. If that is the case, why did not the right hon. Gentleman introduce it earlier? Will he ask the Lord Privy Seal to make another statement in a few moments' time when the Bill has been introduced? Up to now, cowardice has not been a feature of the Government, and it would be reprehensible if they hid behind a technicality and refused to answer questions on the text of a Bill that we have not yet been allowed to see.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: The question of timing is not for me. But clearly I must be guided with regard to timing. Whether the Bill is introduced earlier or later must depend on the advice of those engaged in the negotiations. Within a few minutes we shall have a full opportunity to look at the Bill, and we shall have a full opportunity to debate it tomorrow.
Mr. Ian Lloyd: In considering these matters, may I remind my right hon. Friend of what St. Paul said about the welcome that should be extended to late Christians? Before giving excessive weight to requests for delay, will he consider carefully the fact that in Rhodesia 1,000 people have died in the last eight weeks and that every hour of delay probably involves another death? Those who ask for unnecessary delay will have blood on their hands.
Mr. St. John Stevas: I think that every hon. Member is anxious to fulfil his responsibilities in a manner that will not cause any greater danger to the people in Rhodesia.
Mr. Jay: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when I asked the Lord Privy Seal only 10 days ago whether there would be a need for legislation he made no mention of a hurried Bill of this kind? Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Government discovered the need for hurry and why they changed their mind?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: This situation has to be kept under continuous review according to developments at the conference. The conference has made very good progress, and we believe it to be essential that the powers should exist so that swift action may be taken when the need arises.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will my right hon. Friend look into the possibility of putting the Private Members' business that is due on Friday above the line on Thursday? The result then would be that if we lost Friday's sitting unopposed Private Members' business could be called over when the House rose on Friday, it still theoretically being Thursday. In that way unopposed business would proceed with the minimum inconvenience to the House.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall certainly consider that most interesting if somewhat complex suggestion. I will not commit myself beyond saying that this is definitely Wednesday.
Mr. Beith: Why did not the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues give him greater warning of the need which they now stress for hurried legislation? If they did not give him sufficient warning, did he
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represent to them that it was an abuse of the procedures of the House to rush through a Bill in such a hurry? Will the right hon. Gentleman prove to us all that it is not a ploy to appease Conservative Back Benchers by having the Second Reading tomorrow and taking the remaining stages next week?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have been in the closest touch with the situation, as has the entire Cabinet. However, it must be a matter for the Cabinet, advised by my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary, as to when is the right moment to proceed with an enabling Bill.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. If hon. Members will co-operate, I propose to call those hon. Members who wish to speak, bearing in mind that there is a long list of hon. Members who are desperately anxious to speak on the subject of steel.
Mr. Harry Ewing: As protector of the rights of all hon. Members, will the Leader of the House assure us that he is not acting under pressure from his noble Friend, and that he is not party to an arrangement whereby unless the Government get the Bill tomorrow the talks will not proceed?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: That is not the case at all. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not a party to any such agreement, and I had never thought of the matter until he suggested it.
Mr. Pavitt: May I remind the Leader of the House that all 635 hon. Members are not engaged in all of the subjects all of the time? Traditionally all parties have had separate groups to consider matters of importance such as the one that we are to consider tomorrow. Did the right hon. Gentleman give consideration in his timing to the possibility of groups of both parties being able to have their meetings in order to consider the legislation?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: Yes, of course I did. I realise that, as my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal said, this is not entirely for the convenience of the House, but in an emergency situation the House has traditionally been prepared to put aside its convenience for the greater good.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Does the Business Statement of the Leader of the House mean that we can table amendments before 10 o'clock tonight and that they will be printed on the Order Paper tomorrow? In view of the acceptance by his right hon. Friend that the enabling Bill will allow Rhodesia to achieve independence before we discuss the constitution, does he agree that in the debate we can discuss all matters relating to the constitution over the next two or three years?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: It is not an independence Bill; it is an enabling Bill. An independence Bill would have to come before the House at a later stage. As to what is or is not in order, that is for Mr. Speaker and not for me. I have tabled the motion on the Order Paper precisely for the convenience of right hon. and hon. Members so that they can put down amendments before the Second Reading. The hon. Gentleman is quite right: that is on the Order Paper, and I hope that it will go through on the nod.
Mr. Buchan: Does the Leader of the House accept that it is not only his duty to announce business but to give a full explanation for it? His right hon. Friend has not managed to convince this side of the House at any rate that there is a need for the Bill tomorrow. Will he give us an explanation? Would it not be more for the convenience of the House to get such a Bill through by agreement next week, unless he can prove that there is sufficient urgency for that to be done tomorrow? There will be no delay in the effective legislation, and there is danger that such a move, far from helping the proceedings at Lancaster House, will hinder them.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: The hon. Gentleman has a point. There would be no discussion if there was not this difficult question of judgment to be made. The judgment that I have made is that if I am advised by those engaged in the detail of these negotiations that the powers are necessary I must follow that judgment unless a contrary case is proved.
Mr. Newens: The Bill raises important issues that could eventually place us in breach of our international agreements, because it may be seen as an ulti-
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matum by one of the parties to the agreement. Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore recognise that hon. Members on both sides of the House will wish to discuss important issues of principle? Will there be adequate time for all hon. Members who wish to participate in the Second Reading debate to express their views? If not, is it not disgraceful to allow such an important Bill to be rushed through without affording that opportunity? Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider postponing until next week at least the later stages of the Bill?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: We must see how the Bill progresses. With the concurrence of the House, it is my intention to provide adequate time for the debate on Second Reading. With regard to a debate on the various principles involved, I hope that all hon. Members will exercise a self-denying ordinance so that we do not jeopardise the progress of the conference.
Mr. Cryer: Is the Leader of the House aware that on 30 October Foreign and Commonwealth officials, in evidence to the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, indicated that a Bill was in preparation and would be presented to the House? If that is so, surely it is not an emergency. The Bill could have been presented many days ago and hon. Members could have made a proper estimation of it. Is this not rushing the democratic procedures of the House in order to appease the Right wing of the Tory Party?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: The hon. Gentleman has made his point with his usual cogency, but I do not think that it is valid. It is surely a prudent protection to prepare a contingency Bill. That is quite different from making a decision to bring it before the House.
Mr. Ioan Evans: On reflection, does the Leader of the House agree that the House has been treated with contempt in the way that the Bill is being brought forward? There has been an illegal regime for 15 years. If there was an enabling Bill being prepared, why was it not announced last Thursday that it could be taken on Friday? There have been broadcasts of the intention to bring the Bill forward tomorrow, although the House was not informed until one o'clock today when notice of the statement appeared on

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the annunciators. We should get away from the ramifications of the Bill and have some agreement in the House on this important matter. Surely, therefore, we should delay the Bill until Monday.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: There cannot be a contempt of this House because one day's notice is what is required; indeed, there are occasions when no notice is required. In "Erskine May" there are at least six examples to that effect.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: It is not clear what the Leader of the House was saying about amendments to the Bill. Can amendments be put down any time before 10 o'clock tonight or before Second Reading tomorrow? As the debate develops, there may be a need to table manuscript amendments. What will be the procedure then?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: Provided that the motion is passed, it will be possible to table amendments straight away. The question of manuscript amendments is for Mr. Speaker and not for me.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: What is the deadline? I understand that we shall be able to table amendments, but will we be able to do so until two o'clock tomorrow, half-past two, or four o'clock?
Mr. St. John-Stevas: Amendments may be tabled until Second Reading. It is for Mr. Speaker to decide whether he will extend facilities further and accept manuscript amendments. I hope that that is right.
Mr. Newens: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman has said that the guidelines for the debate will be a matter for you. He said that he hopes that hon. Members will exercise some restraint in discussing the important principles that are involved. Will you clarify the position, Mr. Speaker, and make it clear that you will be prepared to accept contributions to the debate that deal with the important principles that many of us feel are raised by the introduction of the Bill? If we are allowed to discuss the Bill in only the narrowest terms many of us will feel that it is a travesty of the business of the House.
Mr. Speaker: There is no point in anticipating tomorrow's debate.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no need for hon. Members to get excited. I am making a simple enough statement. I shall select the amendments, and I shall bear in mind the time factor that has concerned the House. That means that I shall remember that hon. Members have not had much time to submit their amendments. Those remarks apply to the Bill's consideration on Report. Its passage through Committee is not my responsibility but that of the Chairman of Ways and Means.
Mr. Newens: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. With respect, I endeavoured to ascertain from you whether you will be prepared to allow the debate to range over the issues of principle. Important issues of principle are involved in the submission of the Bill. It will be a travesty of the proceedings of the House if the debate is so narrowly drawn that we cannot discuss matters that many of us feel are of extreme importance.
Mr. Speaker: I shall make a statement at the beginning of the debate tomorrow on the content of the debate.

BILL PRESENTED
  SOUTHERN RHODESIA
  Sir Ian Gilmour, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Nigel Lawson and Mr. Richard Luce, presented a Bill to provide for the grant of a constitution for Zimbabwe to come into effect on the attainment by Southern Rhodesia, under any Act hereafter passed for that purpose, of fully responsible status as a Republic under the name of Zimbabwe, and to make other provision with respect to Southern Rhodesia: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed [Bill 72].

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, in respect of the Southern Rhodesia Bill notices of amendments, new clauses and new schedules to be moved in Committee may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a Second time.—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]

  HARE COURSING (ABOLITION)
  4.42 pm
  Mr. Kevin McNamara: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make hare coursing matches illegal; and for connected purposes.
  This is not the first time that colleagues and I have proposed the introduction of the Bill. I am conscious of the pressures upon those of my colleagues who wish to take part in the important debate on steel. Therefore, I shall cut short my remarks and refer my colleagues and newly elected hon. Members to the many excellent speeches that have been made by Labour Members on this issue in the past decade.
  Previous Bills have been defeated on Friday afternoons anonymously, and the Labour Government's Bill fell because of the Dissolution in 1970. On the second occasion, their Lordships so mangled the Bill that it became unrecognisable. Apart from the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1976, that was enough surely to seek the Dissolution of the other place. The Bill reflects a Labour Party manifesto commitment to abolish cruel sports, including stag and fox hunting, but the Bill deals only with hare coursing.
  The House will recall the interesting correspondence in The Guardian and Labour Weekly on the policies of the British Field Sports Society in seeking to bring influence to bear upon the Prime Minister to pay little heed to the demand for the abolition of hare coursing and other blood sports. Those of us who saw the right hon. Lady in the excitement of entering No. 10 Downing Street will recall that she quoted at length from the patron saint of animals, St. Francis of Assisi. We
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  look to her to support Bro. Hare and eventually Bros. Fox and Stag. We hope that she will ensure that they are not pursued for the entertainment of mankind. I look to the right hon. Lady's party for support.
  The proposed Bill contains one major clause, which states:
  "If any person causes or procures, assists or knowingly permits or suffers any place to be used for the coursing of the hare by two or more dogs for competition as to their ability, they shall be subject to summary conviction."
  That corresponds with previous legislation introduced by Labour Members and by the Labour Government.
  The Bill is an attempt to prevent the continuing spectacle of a hare being used in a tug-of-war between two hounds to the horror of animals and to the horror of all decent people throughout the world. Animals are on this earth for the use and the service of mankind. They are not here for abuse by man. They, too, have a dignity.
  In view of the pressures on the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I bring my remarks on the Bill to a close.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Kevin McNamara, Mr. J. D. Concannon, Mr. Eric S. Heffer, Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody, Mr. Austin Mitchell, Mr. Frank Haynes, Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours and Mr. Nigel Spearing.

  HARE COURSING (ABOLITION)
  Mr. Kevin McNamara accordingly presented a Bill to make hare coursing matches illegal; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday next and to be printed. [Bill 73.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [4TH ALLOTTED DAY]—considered

  STEEL INDUSTRY
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Before this important debate commences, I make it clear that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.
  Last week the House agreed to a number of changes in the form in which Questions are put on motions and amendments on Supply days. The purpose of the changes was to enable a vote to take place on the substance of an Opposition motion rather than, as hitherto, on the substance of a Government amendment.
  Under the new procedure, when the Opposition motion and the Government amendment have been moved, I shall propose the Question "That the original words stand part of the Question". On that Question the remainder of the debate will take place, and at 10 o'clock it will be put to the House for a vote if desired. If that Question is negatived and the motion is thus defeated, the next Question to be proposed by the Chair will be "That the proposed words be there added"—in other words, that the Government amendment be made. If the Government amendment is carried, there will be no further vote on the main Question or on the main Question as amended.
  4.49 pm
  Mr. John Silkin: I beg to move,
  That this House, noting the restrictions placed upon the British steel industry by Her Majesty's Government's pursuit of an unrealistic financial policy deadline, which also ignores unfair competition from European industries using heavily subsidised coking coal, condemns that policy which will do irreparable damage to the essential steelmaking interests of Great Britain.
  The debate is the third in a trilogy of vital debates that have gone right into the heart of the Secretary of State's responsibilities in the Department of Industry. We started with shipbuilding on Thursday. Yesterday we debated the National Enterprise Board and, to some extent, regional affairs, and today we are
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  debating steel. It seems right and appropriate that we should be doing so. As I said in the debate on shipbuilding, there is a linking factor between all these debates, namely, the interlocking need of British industry to work together and the duty that the Department of Industry and the Secretary of State have to ensure that it is profitable and well run.
  Nothing is so linked to other industries as steel supply. Therefore, the House must ask two questions. Do we want a British steel industry? If we do, what should we be doing to preserve it? The first question seems at first sight to be rhetorical. Every hon. Member would, of course, say "Yes", and so would the Secretary of State. However, his actions and his attitude seem to be the absolute reverse of that proposition. For example, let us consider his precondition for the steel industry—that it should break even in March 1980. His attitude is not that of a man who wishes to see a viable British steel industry but rather that of an inflexible suburban bank manager to the head of a local firm who says that he would quite like the firm to succeed if it can repay its overdraft, as overdrafts should be repaid, overnight and immediately. Perhaps the demand in this case is not for immediate repayment, but by March 1980. If the BSC does not do that, it is too bad. It is threatened with the most terrible consequences if it cannot break even by March 1980.
  I made my next point some months ago, and the more I look at it the more certain it seems to be. The BSC can break even by March 1980 only if it closes one or more of its major works. We should forget about the other closures that are imminent or being considered. It is true that an industry can be made to break even, if that is the test, and it is the test, more or less, in the Prime Minister's amendment. On that test, one would not need until March 1980. I could do it in three weeks, and the Secretary of State could do it in two. We would need only to close it down and its accounts would then perfectly balance and it would have broken even.
  However, is that what we really want to do with the steel industry? The essential difference is between the attitude of a Tory Government, with their suburban bank manager attitude to life, and what a Labour Government believe in.

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  The Labour Government were told some time ago by the chairman of the BSC that he expected or hoped that the Corporation would break even by March 1980. We replied that we were very interested to hear it, and wished him good luck if he could do it, provided the steel was produced. The important factor, however, was that the steel should be produced and the industry kept going. The test was not whether the overdraft could be repaid immediately.
  The implications of a break-even by March 1980 are terrifying. They involve further massive areas of Britain's industrial heartland being laid to waste in the 1980s. As a society we have to resolve one perennial and fundamental contradiction. It is most difficult, but it must be resolved. On the one hand is the need of British industry for a massive re-equipment and a strong market, and on the other the irrelevance represented by an orthodox, knee-jerk reaction of closures and cutbacks.
  An overall plan, a British plan for British industry, is needed. One of the things that distress me about the Secretary of State's attitude to industry is his mysterious ability to compartmentalise everything. He sees industry in unrelated sections—shipbuilding, the Post Office, steel and so on. Nothing is related. There is no great plan, except, of course, the plan of the market place, whatever "market place" may mean, because the market place has been subjected to direction throughout history. There never has been absolute laissez-faire. The Secretary of State would do well to serve a term, as I did, in the Ministry of Agriculture. He would find that there never has been a free market in agriculture since the Bronze Age. It has been subsidised for that length of time. One can never have an unsubsidised, undirected system of industry. Of course, one can try, and it was tried in the 1930s.
  Steel is the raw material of British industry. Perhaps the Secretary of State sees for British industry a different role from that envisaged for it by my right hon. Friends and myself. I have said that the Secretary of State sees industry as being compartmentalised, but he has told us that he would not be prepared to run British industry. He says that his only
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  duty is to make the economic conditions in which industry can run itself.
  What future does the right hon. Gentleman expect the British steel industry to have in the 1980s? I put a point to him yesterday, but neither he nor the Minister of State replied to it. Perhaps now, after 24 hours, they may be in a position to do so. There has been a report that forecasts have been made by the Treasury of industrial production between now and 1983 for particular sectors of British industry. Will the Secretary of State publish the forecasts that his Department is providing as part of the Government's industrial assessment system, and which his officials are alleged to be currently discussing with invited representatives of British employers? Will he confirm that his Department is expecting production in the three big steel-consuming sectors of motor vehicles, mechanical engineering, and metal goods to fall by over 20 per cent. by 1983?
  If that is to be the future for British manufacturing and the steel industry, the cuts in public spending recently announced will be only the first bitter instalment of a frightening bill which the British people must pay for voting Tory last May. Announcements of further redundancies across the breadth of British industry will come thick and fast. Perhaps it is appropriate that this should be the basis given to us by a Tory Party so long dominated by the interests of financial capital, a basis that tells us that we can expect announcements and closures with the effortless regularity of a banker's standing order.
  What should we be doing about steel? It is about time we began to grasp this nettle hard. First, we must reconsider our attitude to Europe and to trade with Europe. A new situation has arisen. I advise the right hon. Gentleman to spend a short apprenticeship in the Ministry of Agriculture. He would find it wonderfully clarifying. I spent three years there, and it taught me a great deal. It is now beginning to teach the Minister of Agriculture a trick or two—and, I hope, a lesson or two as well. We have seen the attitude of the other members of the EEC when their essential national interests are concerned. We have seen it with regard to French lamb. That is not one of the most vital things, but it gives us a clue to what is happening.

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  The French attitude to lamb is somewhat the reverse of a normal public attitude in an EEC member State. The public attitude of members of the EEC differs totally from their private actions when their own interests are concerned. We have to take that into account if we are to be left with any British industry.
  Mr. Ted Leadbitter: As an indication of the gravity of the point that my right hon. Friend is making about the importation of steel, in the port of Hartlepool, steel was brought in recently by a ship bearing a West German flag from a steel producer in Eastern Europe with a Common Market licence. Does not that seem crazy?
  Mr. Silkin: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. A few weeks ago I took part in a programme called "Eurofrauds". I feel that it could be an introduction to a subsequent programme called "Son of Eurofrauds".
  Let us take the matter from the particular to the general. The United Kingdom exported 1 million tons more than it imported from the EEC up to 31 December 1972. On 1 January 1973 we joined the Common Market. Over the last two years, we imported 1 million tons more from the EEC than we exported to it. In other words, 20 per cent. of our domestic used steel comes from abroad.
  Last year, NEDO looked at the import penetration of stainless steel bars. It identified one important factor as being sales by European companies at below production costs. That is what British Steel has to compete with, and that is one reason for its lack of success.
  Mr. Tim Renton: I realise that the right hon. Gentleman has always been fervently anti-Common Market. However, in relation to the statistics that he has provided, does he not believe that some of the faults lie with BSC itself rather than with steel producers in other European countries? Will he confirm what his predecessors in office accepted, that the price stability scheme introduced by Commissioner Davignon has been of considerable assistance to British Steel? Without it, BSC would be in a worse plight today. That fact was spelt out in the previous Government's document "British Steel Corporation: The Road to Viability."
  Mr. Silkin: If I relate that to the sort of steel that we are discussing, the answer is "No". In general terms, the Davignon proposal was of benefit. What was the proposal? I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) is with me—dawn is approaching. The proposal was a measure of protection. It stopped import penetration into the EEC. I suggest that we go one stage further.
  The main threat to our steel industry comes not from outside Europe—certainly not after the Davignon proposal—but from inside Europe. Since joining the EEC, British industries using steel have lost their market share at home and abroad to their foreign rivals. As with the motor industry, multinational companies have supplied the United Kingdom market from plant abroad. The cost of that to British Steel is 2 million tons in lost production. The hon. Gentleman should remember that when he places too much blame on BSC.
  The import of cars alone is equivalent to an additional 1 million tons of steel. On 31 December 1972, 27 per cent, of our new cars were imported—we made 73 per cent. of our own cars. Today, the proportion is 55 per cent., and 38 per cent. of those come from the EEC. The same course is now being followed with trucks and other commercial vehicles.
  One reason for the increase of imports in foreign steel is the subsidies that are given by EEC members to their companies. That is particularly true with coking coal.
  Mr. Tom Ellis: To look beyond the EEC. does not my right hon. Friend believe that an important question that we should ask is why, from 1950 to 1973, before we entered the EEC, our steel production fell from 27 million tons to 25 million tons and yet Japanese steel production rose from 2 million tons to 90 million tons?
  Mr. Silkin: The Japanese bought the know-how from other countries and decided to concentrate on the items which they could produce. They found that they could make electronics and steel and they produced them. They went right at it—with investment.
  We need to use high-quality coking coal, not just to improve the quality of steel production but for the safety of

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  those who produce steel. The problem is that that is expensive. We compete with other countries which produce their steel with highly subsidised coking coal. What can BSC do? No wonder it is in difficulties and looks around saying "If the Government do not help, what can be done? Go abroad". Its plight can be well understood.
  The Federal Republic of Germany subsidises its coking coal 12 times as much as we subsidise coking coal. In France, the proportion is 15 times as much and in Belgium 25 times as much. That has an additional effect. Not only is our steel more expensive because we import EEC coking coal but we have to look around to buy coking coal from abroad. There is a dual effect of steel and other imports.
  Sir Anthony Meyer: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that BSC, making a loss at the rate of £400 million per year paid for by the taxpayer, is not also being subsidised?
  Mr. Silkin: I shall return to the subject of BSC. I should like to come to that point later in my speech. I shall not avoid it but I shall meet it head on, if the hon. Gentleman will give me a little time to do so.
  The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Adam Butler): The middle stump.
  Mr. Silkin: No. that is not the middle stump. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman has not played cricket in years. Indeed, he does not look like a cricketer to me.
  We have to restrain import penetration and we should ensure that the Commission does not get its own way. In the previous Government my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley), the then Secretary of State, spent much time opposing the Commission on some of its more outrageous pro-mainland activities. That is not a matter at which the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues seem to be good. They seem to be good at going to Brussels and saying "Yes" to everything.
  Apart from the question of the EEC, we should ask ourselves what we should be doing to preserve the steel industry. One matter is clear: we should abandon the date of 1980.
  Mr. J. D. Concannon: Does my right hon. Friend agree that what he said about the coal industry means that we will have a problem, with closure of some coal mines, if we continue to import coal?
  Mr. Silkin: Of course, there will be a problem with the coal industry. It is not only a question of our steel industry contracting. We are having to buy not only steel cheaper from abroad but coking coal from abroad. Therefore, we should abandon the date of March 1980.
  Here I want to meet what the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) said. Of course, there will be losses; I accept that. However, can the hon. Gentleman accept this, as apparently he represents a constituency in which steel is produced at the moment? When we deal with and remodel an industry such as steel, how long is the process of remodelling? Is it six months until March 1980, or is it more like 10 years? If it is 10 years—I suggest that is what it is—we must be prepared to accept that there will be losses, as we go along, until we reach viability. A moment ago I spoke about the Japanese. They were prepared to make losses for seven years until they had one of the most powerful steel industries in the world.
  Let us be under no illusions about the matter. I am not convinced that the Secretary of State gives a damn about the steel industry. It is up to him to convince me. If we want a steel industry, we must be prepared to pay for it.
  Sir Anthony Meyer: The answer to the right hon. Gentleman's question is the time necessary to provide the investment. The answer is not endless prevarications and delays in the hope of buying votes in a place such as Shotton.
  Mr. Silkin: Of course, the answer is not endless prevarication. In 1973, when the Conservative Government considered the future of steel, they put a 10-year development plan on it. It was a lousy plan—but that is another matter.
  I referred to the first step that must be taken. The second is financial support and maintenance of employment and output. Here is the way in which we may run the steel industry at sensible levels that are agreed between all the parties involved—the Government, the British Steel Corporation and the steel

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  committee of the TUC. They must work together. It will not be an open-ended cheque. It will be a firm, viable undertaking, as the level of output will be agreed and realistic. That is what should be done. The third step is to preserve a substantial iron and steel manufacturing industry on a basis which will enable it to take advantage when the upturn in the market comes—for it will come. The Government are playing for total suicide—not for the upturn that, as I say, will come.
  I said that we should restrain the growth of imports. However, there is one important matter that I must accept. In the natural sequence of events there must be closures. I accept that. It is regrettable, but there it is. It must be accepted if there is to be a viable scheme. When there is a closure, we must always consult the unions and the men who work on the shop floor. I do not mean the type of consultation of which the Government are so fond, namely, telling people and saying that that is consultation. I mean real working together and negotiation. That is what the Labour Government believed in, and that is what they did.
  This is what is happening now under the tutelage, the aegis, the goatskin of the right hon. Gentleman. The British Steel Corporation calls the unions together and tells them what is happening in Corby and Shotton. It does not negotiate with them. The unions have the facts, the figures and a strong case. Is anything done by the BSC, under the right hon. Gentleman's diktat, to listen to them, to discuss with them, to see whether they may be right? Nothing is done about that.
  We have heard about Corby and Shotton. A few weeks ago my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mr. Jones) made an eloquent speech. He fought an extremely good fight—and rightly—for his people at Shotton. Meanwhile, we are told that the Corby closures will start in six weeks. My hon. Friend made clear—the evidence is there—that the closure of Shotton was a firm breach of a promise given by what we thought was an honourable management supported, we hoped, by an honourable Government. No; it was a false undertaking. It was broken the moment the Government came to office. What will that attitude do for morale?
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  Corby has been described as a one-industry, one-employer and one-class town. Two-thirds of the men in Corby work for the British Steel Corporation. What will be the consequences if the closure, bringing with it nearly 6,000 redundancies, goes ahead without discussion, peremptorily on the say-so of the British Steel Corporation, forced to do that by the suburban-bank-manager attitude of the Secretary of State?
  Unemployment in Corby is already 7 per cent. An independent study by the consultancy firm of Coopers and Lybrand showed that unemployment would still be 27 per cent. even after two years, if the BSC shuts the whole of its Corby works. However, we are told that the BSC will not close the whole of the works. It will not close the tube works. What confidence can Corby have in that? Those people can have no confidence in BSC's word after Shotton, nor any confidence in the Secretary of State.
  Secretaries of State change. If they do not change—as in the case of this Secretary of State—they change their minds. Proposals have been aired for designating Corby as an assisted area to attract alternative jobs. The town's development corporation attracted six firms to Corby in the first half of this . A total of 180 jobs were created, of which 105 were for women. Having decided to cut Corby's throat, the Government said that they might be prepared to breathe new life into the town.
  There is nothing new in that. What is proposed for Shotton and Corby is not new in history. We have seen it all before. We saw it in the 1930s. We saw it at Jarrow, where shipyards were closed and a steel plant was prevented from expanding. Jarrow was murdered. Ellen Wilkinson warned us what happened when the axe fell on a one-industry town:
  "When the industry of a town has been killed it seems as difficult to apply artificial respiration as on a human corpse.… All the traditions of the area seem to cling to the dead industry."
  We need to be reminded of what happened to Jarrow. Efforts were made to attract new industry. A small furniture factory was set up. A couple of works were created to supply metal tubes and castings. Ironically the town's small steelworks was eventually stimulated by the rearmament programme. Special area

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  status was granted. The Jarrow crusaders marched. However, after five years' efforts only 800 men and boys obtained jobs; 4,500 did not.
  We must ensure that Jarrow never happens again. That is why the Opposition feel so strongly. We believe in steel. We believe that it is vital for our industries and our people. When the cold winds of Tory Government, with all their threats and malice, blow, it is our duty to resist. In that spirit, I call upon my right hon. and hon. Friends to support this motion in the Division Lobby.
  Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) asked a question which the right hon. Gentleman said he would answer. He did not manage to give that answer. Perhaps he could give it to us now.
  Mr. Silkin: Further to that so-called point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I answered the question. When the hon. Gentleman wakes up and reads Hansard tomorrow, he will see it for himself.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Whether the question was answered or not, that was not a point of order.
  5.20 pm
  The Secretary of State for Industry (Sir Keith Joseph): I beg to move—
  Sir Anthony Meyer: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Since the Opposition will no doubt claim that they have turned out in force to defend the British steel industry, it might be worth pointing out that while the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) was speaking, there were no more than 19 hon. Members present on the Labour Benches.
  Mr. Les Huckfield: More than on yours.
  Sir K. Joseph: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "believes that the future of the steel industry depends on much improved productivity, efficient use of costly investments, and an early return to profitability".
  The Opposition have chosen the subject for debate. As my hon. Friend the Mem-
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  ber for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) has pointed out, they have mustered only a couple or three handfuls of hon. Members—
  Mr. Donald Coleman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Are you aware that the reason why my colleagues are away from here is that we are having to discuss the Rhodesia question, which that crowd on the Government Benches have brought through so quickly?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Whether hon. Members are present or not present is not a point of order. It is not a matter for me.
  Sir K. Joseph: In choosing this subject, the Opposition have had to recognise, or should have had to recognise, that they were recently the party in Government. The difficult job of the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin), who opened the debate, has been to make a speech criticising the present Government's attitude to steel while detaching himself from the almost identical attitude to steel of his own Government. He carried out the task with a certain amount of dexterity.
  As one would perhaps expect, the right hon. Gentleman concentrated on a few subjects, such as coking coal and imports. He accepted, towards the end of his speech, that when an industry, under the policies of both parties, in successive Governments, is given huge sums of money by the taxpayer with which to create new investment, it follows that there are bound to be some closures. But he did tell the House straightforwardly that during their whole period in office the recent Government, of which he was a member, were grappling with the problem of encouraging and stimulating the steel industry to become competitive and to take advantage of the new investment provided by the plans of both parties when in office.
  From the right hon. Gentleman's speech one would not know of the series of crises that marked the period in office of the last Labour Government as they faced up, with increasing courage—I pay tribute to their courage—to the problems inherent in a vast investment programme and in making the steel industry competitive. The Labour Government, after shirking, flinching and shrinking from the

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  social problems, accepted, towards the end of their period in office, that closures were inescapable if the new investment was to fulfil its purpose. In the end, the Labour Government had to cancel pledges given under the Beswick review to delay the closure of a number of steelworks. I shall not list them. The House will be familiar with a whole series of steel plants, reprieved for a stated period of years under the Beswick review when the Labour Government first came to office, which, in the event, were closed, with a massive loss of jobs. I understand that the figure was 25,000 jobs lost earlier than the Beswick report had pledged though later than originally planned.
  Mr. Ron Leighton: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that during the period of the Labour Government no closure occurred without the agreement of the unions? Ebbw Vale is a good example of how the Government of the day put in new industry so that when steel jobs were lost work was available elsewhere. This was done by agreement. From what I have seen, the right hon. Gentleman proposes, in places like Corby, to act without any agreement, throwing people out of work and on to the dole without any alternative employment.
  Sir K. Joseph: Governments want to get agreement for their policies. It is in a Government's own self-interest, if for no more civilised motive, to get agreement. The hon. Gentleman's party, when in Government, saw that the national interest, in the end, required decisions even when there was no agreement with the trade unions' steel committee.
  Mr. Gerald Kaufman: No.
  Sir K. Joseph: The right hon. Gentleman says "No" from a seated position and prepares to contradict me. On 15 January 1979, he said:
  "Of course, we ask the British Steel Corporation to consult the Trades Union Congress steel committee and workers about potential closures. But we cannot allow even the TUC steel committee to have a veto over a closure if the British Steel Corporation regards that as being necessary, and provided that proper negotiation has taken place.".—[Official Report, 15 January 1979; Vol. 960, c. 1308.]
  Mr. Kaufman: The right hon. Gentleman has done me the courtesy of quot-
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  ing my remarks, and has quoted me accurately, but the fact is that what we laid down to the British Steel Corporation, and what the right hon. Gentleman is now resiling from, was that no closure date for any steelworks should be set until the process of negotiation had been fully carried through. In every case, from Hartlepools to Shelton, that process of consultation was carried through. In no case, as my hon. Friend for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) pointed out, did a closure take place without the agreement of the unions and the work force. In the case of Corby, the right hon. Gentleman is consenting to a closure date before the process of consultation has been properly carried through. In the case of Shotton, he is consenting to a closure when there is a specific pledge by the British Steel Corporation, endorsed by Government.
  Sir K. Joseph: The right hon. Member for Deptford says to his right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) "Well done", but the essential common ground between the two parties, one recently in Government and one now in Government, is that both Governments accept that the decision is for the British Steel Corporation. In the case of Corby, the consultations were started by the British Steel Corporation as early as February this year, before the election, and have continued until this autumn. The British Steel Corporation, which, as the management, has the final decision, decided that the consultations had been carried as far as practicable. It has made its decision. We accept that decision, because, like the previous Government, we leave these decisions to the management of BSC.
  Mr. John Silkin: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's claim that he does not interfere in management. What is his view of a management that proposes to close a vital industry in a one-industry town on a particular date without negotiation when it is told that the facts and figures can be demonstrated to be false but does not even have the courtesy to examine those facts and figures with the people concerned?
  Sir K. Joseph: I do not know to what extent there has been a technical dialogue during the consultations. I know, however, that the cost of maintaining the

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  new works and the old works falls on the taxpayer. It is no kindness to struggle to defer the necessary increase in the competitiveness of the industry. The only result is to slim the industry even more than if change was accepted more quickly. The result of constant delays is to increase costs. The increased costs lose customers. The customers, once lost, do not quickly come back. The delay of the Beswick closures and the delay that the Opposition now seek to impose on the British Steel Corporation would produce a greater loss of jobs than accepting the closures at a time when the management wanted to carry them out.
  Mr. John Farr: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if certain technical proposals were put to the chairman of the BSC to close Corby on notice of a few months without a proper answer and proper consideration being given to those proposals, that would be a policy that the Government could not support?
  Sir K. Joseph: Her Majesty's Government have two options: either to let the management manage or to seek to impose their own management judgment instead. I am no manager, and my right hon. Friends are not managers. We do not pretend to be. We are carrying on with the same management as was installed and supported by the previous Government. We are giving that management the same cash limits for the current year as were proposed by the last Government. We are carrying on with a process of consolidation and closure and of management prerogative to decide, as was carried out by the last Government. It ill befits the right hon. Member for Deptford to pretend that the policies that he is attacking under this Government are not identical to those followed by his Government.
  Mr. Tom Ellis: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the alternatives facing the Government are not either to manage or to allow someone else to manage the industry but to allow the BSC to manage the industry and then themselves to consider the social consequences of that management?
  Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I shall come to that part of the Government's responsibility in a few moments. First, I want to answer
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  another point made by the right hon. Member for Deptford. He maintains that the difference between the present Government and the Labour Government is that this Government are behaving like suburban bank managers—he is being a bit superior and condescending towards those people—by imposing a date by which the BSC must reach profitability.
  Even that is wrong, because this Government are doing no more than fulfilling what we thought was a commitment of the last Government.
  Mr. John Silkin: No.
  Sir K. Joseph: No doubt the commitment might have been departed from, but this is what my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley), said on 22 May 1978:
  "The BSC must get its finances straight as quickly as is practicable. My hon. Friend will know that in the last financial year BSC, in common with many comparable steel companies overseas, lost money. It lost £440 million. Part of the Government's policy is that the financial objectives of the BSC should be to break even by the financial year 1979–80."—[Official Report, 22 May 1978; Vol. 950, c. 1105.]
  We are now in the financial year 1979–80, and all that we are doing is asking the BSC to break even one year later—by the financial year 1980–81.
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that that is not an instruction and that implied in the decision that he took earlier this year to impose these constraints on the BSC was an instruction that will lead to a great loss of jobs nationally?
  Sir K. Joseph: I have respect for my predecessor. I presume that he meant what he said. I know that the chairman of the BSC planned and intended—and plans and intends, in the present tense as well as the past—to break even by the end of March 1980. That was the declared intention of the BSC board, encouraged and supported by the previous Government. We are adhering to that programme.
  Of course we accept, as the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) rightly pre-supposes, that when the management has made a decision it is for the Government to take account of the social consequences

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  and to take what action they think fit in the light of them.
  I have now to make a statement on the remedial measures that the Government propose in connection with the announcement by the BSC last Thursday of its decision to close iron and steel making at Corby.
  In order to attract new employment for those affected by the steel closure, I intend, subject to the necessary approval of the European Commission—[HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] Once again, we are carrying out the same policy as the previous Government, on which we expect an answer from the Commission within a matter of weeks—to make the Corby employment office area a development area. Firms there would then be eligible for the full range of regional incentives, including regional development grants on buildings, works, plant and machinery and regional selective financial assistance under section 7 of the Industry Act 1972. As a development area, Corby would be eligible for assistance from the European regional development fund towards infrastructure and industrial projects and, as a steel closure area, from proposed measures under the non-quota section of the fund and from the European Coal and Steel Community.
  The Corby development corporation has a substantial advance factory programme in hand and is also making efforts to attract private development. The Secretary of State for the Environment—the Minister of State is on the Front Bench—is making funds available for infrastructure and consolidation for an additional 70 acres at Earlstrees industrial estate. The corporation is investigating the suitability of another 200–250 acres of land at Weldon, in the Corby employment office area.
  It is proposed that the Commission for the New Towns will take over from the development corporation next year, when it would inherit its industrial assets and be given the resources necessary to continue site development work. The commission will be asked to devote priority to Corby within its responsibilities for other new towns. The commission is already participating in arrangements with the corporation and the local authorities to co-ordinate industrial development and promotion in Corby.
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  The Government have also announced recently that they are going ahead with the A1-M1 link along the route that can be completed most quickly. This means that firms in Corby will then have ready access to a high-quality trunk road connecting them to the industrial Midlands and the expanding East Coast ports.
  All these measures, taken together with Corby's favourable location in the East Midlands should mean that the town will prove more attractive to private investors, and this will thus improve the employment prospects of those affected by the closure.
  Mr. Peter Fry: Will my right hon. Friend note that there will be much relief and satisfaction in Corby and Northamptonshire at the fact that the Government have made this announcement? It is the first time that concrete proposals have been brought forward by any Government to assist Corby. But will he point out to the other competing authorities nearby—Peterborough, Northampton, Daventry and other expanding towns—that there is a regional as well as a national obligation towards Corby? Will he ensure that his Department will watch closely applications for firms to move to other parts of Northamptonshire, and will efforts be made to aatract them to Corby, where the jobs are so badly needed?
  Sir K. Joseph: I think that Corby has attractions, even without development area status, and that towns in the neighbourhood may themselves feel anxious about their capacity to attract investment with Corby now having been given, or about to be given, development area status—particularly since skilled labour may be released by the closure, and skilled labour is in scarce supply in many parts of the country.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that for him to make a statement about improving infrastructure, giving incentives and using Government intervention, supposedly to help the people of Corby, is the height of hypocrisy when one considers that only three months ago he told the House and the nation that what this country needed was the dismantling of the regional aids and of Government intervention? Why should the people of Corby listen to him now?
  Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman does me the compliment of attacking me almost as fiercely as he attacks his own side.
  Mr. Skinner: And it paid dividends with that lot as well.
  Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman assumes that we are able to move straight away from the oversubsidised, overtaxed and overspent economy that has existed for some time. He seems to believe that we can move straight from an excessive level of Government intervention to no Government intervention. I never maintained that. I hold out the prospect of much less Government intervention, which will come by a transitional route.
  The Government's regional policy, announced in our manifesto and carried through by me, is to reduce regional incentives by one-third. We do not intend to abolish them; we intend to take them away from areas where economic conditions do not justify them. We wish to concentrate them precisely on those areas where, if they have a value, they can be effective. That gives us the greatest scope and authority to use those incentives—for what they are worth—in an area such as Corby, where people will be released from their existing jobs.
  Mr. Bill Homewood: What is the time scale for the provision of new jobs? The British Steel Corporation intends to close the Corby iron and steelworks in March next year and to pay off the money until November. There is no factory ready for occupation. It is estimated that it will be three and a half years before the first new jobs materialise. Does the Secretary of State really believe that the population of Corby, with 6,000 men out of work, will sit around waiting for him to bring in the jobs?
  Sir K. Joseph: Indeed, I do not. With other possibilities within reach, many people released from jobs in Corby will seek work elsewhere in the sub-region. Surely it is right to assume that. Firms and investors will find Corby an attractive place in which to invest. Places more remote from London may fear the competition that will come from Corby because of the labour force availability and because of its inherent attractions, quite apart from the incentives that will be provided.
  Mr. Marlow: My right hon. Friend mentioned the M1-A1 link. Many people look upon Corby as being almost commercially inaccessible. How long will it be before this link road is in operation?
  Sir K. Joseph: I cannot give my hon. Friend information on that today but I shall write to him.
  The right hon. Member for Deptford accused me and the Government of compartmentalising our views on the economy. Could it not be that it is he who is doing that? He assumes that the Government can, if they wish, and without any ill consequences, continue a subsidy at a given level, or even expand it. The right hon. Gentleman surely knows that if the subsidy to BSC is not reduced the extra money has to come from elsewhere in the economy, thus destroying other jobs and prospects in industries in other parts of the country.
  Continuing a subsidy at the present level is not without consequences. It is not without consequence to carry the costs of all the new steel investment, and Corby as well, on the backs of the taxpayers. The benefit to the country will come only when the steel industry subsidy can be reduced and when the industry can pay its own way. The Government propose that next year the steel industry will be helped by the taxpayer with capital investment and related costs. We rely upon the board of BSC to carry out its own proposals, approved by the last Government, to operate at a profit during the financial year 1980–81.
  Mr. Leighton: Has the right hon. Gentleman got his arithmetic right? Has he worked out what it will cost the State in loss of tax revenue from the workers who, he says, will be released from employment? What will be the cost of paying those workers unemployment benefit? What will be the loss of rates to the local authorities? When the Minister has worked that out, he will find that he has not saved very much money at all. Would it not be far better to follow the Continental example? At Limburg, where the authorities proposed to shut down coal mines and steelworks, they waited until alternative jobs were available. Under these proposals the right hon. Gentleman will make no savings at all but merely cause human misery.
  Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman assumes that everyone who loses his job

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  stays unemployed for ever. That is not the case. The average duration of unemployment in this country—though my figures may not be exact—is from 20 to 22 weeks. As the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Homewood) acknowledges, many people will find jobs within the travel-to-work area. Good luck to them.
  Mr. Farr: It is obvious that my right hon. Friend is being sincere but also that he is not unaware of the situation at Corby in relation to the M1-A1. He said that he did not know how long it would take to build and suggested that the road would be ready fairly soon in order to help Corby. Is he aware that it will not be built before seven years have elapsed and that the Corby steelworks is due to close within seven months? It is really not fair to the House to suggest that the M1-A1 link can be any help before Corby is dead.
  Sir K. Joseph: Does my hon. Friend not realise that the question of improved transport facilities for Corby will be another ingredient in the investment decision-making of those considering Corby? I make no further comment.
  Complaints have been made by the steel unions about the safety of some of the coking coal provided by the National Coal Board. There is an awkward tussle between two great nationalised industries, with the taxpayer looking nervously at the consequences since they may well fall on his plate. I cannot give the House a certain answer about where the right decision lies. Discussions between the two nationalised industries continue, and it is correct to identify this issue as one between them.
  I deal now with the underlying thesis of the speech by the right hon. Member for Deptford. He spoke as if it were possible for the Government, if only they have enough good will, to give a guarantee against unemployment to the people of this country; to guarantee a rising standard of living; to avoid closures and to avoid damage to the economic prospects in a particular town. The right hon. Gentleman spoke as though the conditions that prevailed at the time of Jarrow were still with us.
  Surely he knows that his party presided over an enormous rise in unemployment. His party did not want a rise in unemployment. Did it lack heart because it
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  presided over rising unemployment? Of course it did not. No one on the Government Benches would argue that Labour Members were lacking in sympathy because they presided over a do g in unemployment.
  Employment cannot be guaranteed by the Government. Probably there was never a time when employment, let alone full employment, could be guaranteed by the Government. Surely we have learned from the experience of recent years that employment can be secured only by being competitive in the trading community and by good management co-operating with co-operative work forces to provide goods that consumers at home and abroad want to buy. Only on that basis, within a framework of laws, institutions and safety nets provided by the Government, can we hope to get back to anywhere near full employment. If the right hon. Gentleman pretends either to the House or to the country that it is open to the Government, simply because they care enough, to secure anything like full employment, he misleads himself and the people.
  Mr. John Silkin: I asked the Secretary of State a question yesterday and again today. It is relevant to his argument. I asked him about the 20 per cent. reduction, in 1983, in vital parts of industry. Is that figure correct?
  Sir K. Joseph: I do not know. I have seen the same reports as the right hon. Gentleman. I would not be a bit surprised if many jobs were in danger as a result of the indifference to unit labour costs by many work forces and the combination of inflation and lack of productivity and competitiveness. If work forces insist, through their unions, on being paid far more each year than the extra production that they create, inevitably there will be fewer jobs. Surely the right hon. Member for Deptford does not seek to make a political point about that. All hon. Members, whichever parties they represent, should be united in the view that it is madness, amounting to self-injury, to destroy jobs by wilful indifference to competitiveness.
  I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that in answer to his general question, since it is highly appropriate to the steel industry. Upon the competitiveness of the steel industry and the co-operation between management and work

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  forces depend the security and standards of living associated with this industry
  5.53 pm
  Mr. Donald Coleman: I declare an interest, in that I am a member of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation—the principal union in the steel industry. I do not think that dancing will take place in the streets of Corby tonight as a result of the Secretary of State's announcement. However, I am sure that the people of Corby will ponder on what is to happen to them while they are waiting for the promised great things to happen. The calamity is about to descend upon the people of Corby—not in seven years' time, but now.
  The debate takes place at a grave moment in the history of the British steel industry. The events of the last few days in Corby and London begin a sequence which, unhappily, is likely to continue at the meeting on Friday on the future of Shotton. These events have brought us to the stage where the ideas of the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) and the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), who suggest that bulk steelmaking in the United Kingdom should be abandoned, are a real possibility.
  My purpose is to try to create an understanding of these events. The responsibility for the present crisis rests upon a truculent management in Grosvenor Place and the exponents of masterly inactivity in the Department of Industry who manage to do a great deal by doing nothing at all.
  Let us consider first the British Steel Corporation management. About six weeks ago, at the first meeting with the TUC steel committee to discuss the future of Corby, the BSC management issued an ultimatum. It said that the union must produce alternatives for continuing steelmaking at Corby by 1 November. Imagine that! A management which has totally misread the market, and consequently has over-capitalised, proposes to take the axe to a thriving integrated business and gives the union six weeks in which to save it.
  What did the steel unions do? In six weeks they asked more than 80 questions of the BSC, probing the figures. With that information, they produced an argu-
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  ment that undermined the Corporation's case for ending steelmaking at Corby. The unions demonstrated that viable works were to be shut in favour of a leap in the dark. They showed that the best future for the commercial welded tubes business rested in an integrated Corby operation. The unions expressed the fear, which is clearly confirmed by the evidence, that shutting Corby was another step towards not a viable British Steel Corporation but a de-industrialised Britain evermore dependent upon imported manufactured goods.
  The unions' arguments were forcefully expressed in documents and in words. At a meeting on 1 November the Corporation's negotiators took no notice of the unions' case. The expression "do not confuse us with the facts" sums up the Corporation's approach. The unions offered to participate in a joint working party to explore ways of lowering the costs of Corby, but the offer was spurned. In an intemperate mood, Mr. Scholey issued the closure notice to take effect from January, thus trampling on his own commitment to give a year's notice of a major closure. It ill-becomes "Black Bob", as he is known in the steel industry, to threaten the leaders of the trade unions because of the action that they are taking to combat the closure. Trade union leaders have always shown, and will continue to show, a responsibility in their dealings with this great industry.
  The other head of the hydra is the Secretary of State for Industry. When the right hon. Gentleman arrived in his ministerial seat, he cast an unforgiving Gladstonian eye on the BSC. What did he see? He saw heavy productive industry. What did he think? He thought that that was bad. Furthermore, it was a nationalised industry, and that was even worse. However, there was some hope for it, because the BSC had delivered itself into his hands. It had imposed upon itself a commitment to reach break-even point on the current account by the end of the financial year. Anyone who knows anything about steel knows that that could not have been achieved.
  With glee the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends took BSC at its word. But the right hon. Gentleman did more than that. He imposed a rigorous regime of cash limits. How that is consistent with the Government's philosophy

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  of non-interference has not been revealed. But the effect is clear. BSC feels emboldened to broach again the closure of the Shotton steelmaking plant, despite a previous promise by the chairman that the works were secure until 1982.
  Further, in the discussions about Corby BSC stated that there was no money for modernising the steelworks. Both these plants could be viable, but it would appear that they are to close in pursuit of a mad objective.
  The responsibility of the Government and the British Steel Corporation is to secure the maintenance of an adequate steelmaking capacity, fitting it to our consuming industries' needs. The fear of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation is that the Government and BSC may abandon that responsibility. In the event of a surge in demand, there is a serious danger that BSC will not be able to cope, following the present closures. Someone will meet that demand and further ground will be lost to BSC.
  Worse still, there seems to be a paralysis creeping over BSC's view of the market. The Corporation seems to be content with its market share at home and abroad, even though it provides little more than half of the steel sold in the United Kingdom. It reacts to a weakening of demand but does not appear to be energetically seeking a larger share of that demand. Recently a BSC manager told the Financ Times:
  "We are chasing the market downwards."
  We have a management which appears to be unable to shake off its malaise. We have a Government who are steering towards a fall in output. The combination of those factors means for BSC, at best, a steady share of the falling home market and no progress on exports.
  A third factor compounds the first two. It is that BSC will not retain, and has not retained, the share of the market that was held by works that have been closed. This means that BSC will not be able to load the large major works to optimum levels. It also means that its share of the market will fall further and that a case will be made for further closures. This situation cannot continue. We must retain a capacity to manufacture a full and extensive range of steel products. We must have flexible works which can adjust quickly and efficiently to demand fluctuations.
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  The ISTC executive fears that its efforts may all have been in vain. We want Teesside, Ravenscraig, Llanwern, Port Talbot and Scunthorpe to succeed, but that must not be at the cost of medium-size thriving operations elsewhere. There is room for both. The management of BSC refuses to recognise that, and the Government endorse its blindness. Reluctantly the unions have concluded that the responsibility abandoned by the Government and management has passed to them.
  Right hon. and hon. Members will have read about proposals for industrial action tabled by the ISTC to the TUC steel committee. I trust that everyone has grasped the significance of this step. It is being taken by men who have always been renowned for the responsibility and integrity of their actions. It is intended to bring the industry and the Government to their senses. It is intended to focus public attention on what has been happening to our steel industry.
  The steel unions insist that there should be a full and searching inquiry into the administration of BSC. Some attempt must be made, without preconceptions, to identify what has gone wrong. We can no longer tolerate communities of steel workers paying for the mistaken policies of management. The evidence is in the documentation that has been provided by the unions. There are questions that demand answers, and I shall put some of those questions to the House.
  Is BSC's exclusive big plant strategy right? Is BSC too dependent upon imported ores from unstable sources for iron making? Has BSC the marketing ability to sell what it manufactures? What are the implications of BSC's pricing policy for its market shares? No further major steps should be taken within BSC until these and other issues have been thrashed out. The unions are willing to play their part, but there must be a commitment to serious discussions.
  I conclude by bringing the following three points to the attention of the House. First, everyone concerned, especially the Government, should study the union's documents. Secondly, an inquiry should be established into the running and the record of BSC. Thirdly, I request the Government to announce now that they will take the pressure off the BSC to break

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  even on the revenue account by March and say that they are prepared to fund sound investment projects at Corby and Shotton.
  Some right hon. and hon. Members have experience and knowledge of what happened in the Rhondda and other valleys of South Wales during the days of depression. We know what happened in those communities. We know of the misery and hardship that was brought to them when industries upon which they depended closed and unemployment stalked those valleys. We do not want to see that happening in Shotton or Corby. That is why we raise these subjects with the Government and BSC today.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, I should tell the House that I fully appreciate that this debate is of great importance to many hon. Members, and that I have a long list of speakers. If hon. Members make speeches lasting half an hour, I shall be able to call very few.
  6.8 pm
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I wish to make some observations on this subject because my constituency adjoins Corby and some of my constituents work there, and because in my distant past I had some experience of steelmaking and other industries.
  I was pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced that Corby would be given development area status. That in itself is a case for moving the deadline forward from 1981 and taking the pressure off. There is no prospect of development area status bringing any relief to Corby in months or even within a year. It will take a good deal longer than that.
  My right hon. and hon. Friends may not appreciate the background. For many years Corby has been dominated by one industry. I mean "dominated", because the British Steel Corporation has not encouraged new industry to come to Corby. In many cases it has discouraged it, because new industry would have taken away from the corporation some of the skill that it required in the steelworks and plants.
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  The right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) said something about Jarrow. At the CBI conference yesterday, Sir John Methven said that we should get away from the complex about Jarrow. I was born and brought up in Jarrow, and I was not simply a spectator of what happened. My father was out of work for two and a half years in one stretch and was out of work after that on a number of occasions.
  The right hon. Gentleman was right to say that the problem started because of the closure of a steelworks, followed by the closure of a shipyard. As we approached the war, and as the war began, the country needed the extra steel production, so the Government started up something which was not as big as the original plant but which was necessary to provide the tools of war. They also expanded the shipyard in the neighbouring town of Hebburn, which is really part of Jarrow, being only half a mile away.
  I should be untrue to the whole of my background in politics if I did not warn the Government that, although some of us on the Conservative Benches realise that they have the job of trying to make British Steel a going concern and to balance its books reasonably, we believe that the question is "How quickly?" If a train has been running on the wrong lines for a while, it takes a little time to get it back on the right lines. Therefore, my hon. Friend the Minister should consult British Steel to see whether there is a better way.
  My right hon. and hon. Friends cannot throw up their hands and say "This is a nationalised industry." They have an almost greater responsibility than if it were a private industry. They cannot say that the Government have nothing to do with it. They know very well that we cannot put down questions on some matters connected with nationalised industries. The Department has a day-to-day involvement in what is going on.
  I want to try to be practical. There are three possibilities, or variants on them, that my hon. Friend the Minister might consider. First, there must of course be a cutback in production, but it could be carried out for part of the year. Between the wars the steel industry frequently did not operate for a month or two during the year. Although the

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  people of Cor by would like to be in work all the time, my guess is that they would prefer to be in work for nine months of the year and out of work for three months than to be out of work for 12 months in the year. I ask my hon. Friend to consider that possibility and to seek agreement with the unions on it.
  It will not help for the unions to indulge in militant strikes. Sensible discussions are required. The unions should base their strategy on achieving a compromise rather than on causing a clash.
  The second possibility is to phase out production over four years instead of by 1981, with a reduction in output in each year until production ceases at the end of the fourth year, if it must cease.
  The third possibility is a review of total steelmaking as between what will be produced at Redcar and what is likely to be produced at Corby while the recession lasts. I do not assume that the recession will last for ever, but I would rather there was a phasing out of Corby on the basis of lower production at Redcar than that production should be maximised at Redcar, resulting in a dead town overnight, with all the resultant social problems. I remind my right hon. Friend that those problems will have to be dealt with not by BSC but by him.
  Mr. Leadbitter: The hon. Gentleman is developing a very thoughtful approach to a serious problem. As he has referred to the unions, will he be more emphatic by suggesting that it is important that their point of view about policy and production be taken more into account by BSC? In the past, BSC has made decisions before carrying out consultations.
  Mr. Lewis: I am entirely in favour of the unions having discussions with the management over the whole matter, because there must be agreement. It is of no help if the unions are completely obstructive and give management the impression that they are not realistic. I hope that in any discussions they will be realistic.
  The Government have increased their defence budget. We need strong forces and the hardware to back them. Last week we passed a Bill to increase by about £200 million the amount of money made available to British Shipbuilders.
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  British Shipbuilders uses steel. In time of war, or the threat of war, we could not be sure of securing ships built abroad or built with foreign steel. We are an island, and we might not be able to get them or the steel here. We should need the maximum amount of hardware from our steel plants to support our forces.
  Therefore, in deciding upon our steel production units it is sensible to take into account two matters. The first is the possibility that trade will improve and that we shall need rather more production than we are advised now. The second is that we should have a reservoir so that we may increase production if, unhappily, we find ourselves in a war situation such as I have described.
  There is not a steel-producing country in the world that is not subsidising its steel production—not one outside Europe and not one inside Europe. I understand that over the past five years British Steel has had about £250 million in losses met by the Government. It is unrealistic to expect to turn that amount into a profit by 1981. Because of the social consequences, my right hon. and hon. Friends are not justified in sticking to that target.
  We all want the losses of British Steel to be minimised. I want realism to go with that. I should like it recognised that we are facing foreign competition which is unlikely to be under the same pressures as British Steel. British Steel was put under some pressure by the Labour Government and is being put under a little more pressure by the Secretary of State.
  Much has been said about U-turns, but I am not asking for one. U-turns on motorways are dangerous. Governments from time to time must make S-bends, and I would like an S-bend on the Government's steel policy so that there is some give that would facilitate an agreement rather than "aggro" and indifference, with their consequences.
  6.21 pm
  Mr. David Watkins: The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis) has made a thoughtful contribution to the debate and has rightly expressed the gravest misgivings about the Government's policies. He pointed out, quite rightly, that his constituency

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  adjoins Corby. I assume that there are a number of people in his constituency who would be affected by the proposals for Corby. I believe that it was Dr. Johnson who said that nothing concentrates a man's mind so wonderfully as the knowledge that he is to be hanged in the morning. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join us in the appropriate Lobby tonight and avoid that possibility.
  The hon. Gentleman is right to criticise the Government's policy, because the sole criterion of that policy is that the steel industry must make profits quickly, regardless of the practicability of its doing so, regardless of the consequences for the industry, and regardless of the areas in which it is located.
  The Secretary of State made play, as he was entitled to, of increases in unemployment during the period of the previous Labour Government. However, that Government, faced with a world steel crisis, tried to do something to alleviate the effect as much as possible. The opposite is now the case, as the Government are planning deliberately to increase unemployment. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury made that point plainly in the public expenditure statement that was laid before the House on Thursday 1 November. It is clear that the steel industry has been particularly selected as an area for massive redundancies, because there can be no other consequence from that policy. Already the consequences of the constraints placed upon the steel industry can be seen.
  Sir Keith Joseph: Why does the hon. Gentleman think that his Government and the present Government used so much taxpayers' money for new investment if it was not to get higher output per man? The consequence of that must be what his right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) calls "remodelling".
  Mr. Watkins: I shall come to that later, but that is not the point that I have just made. I was trying to say that whereas the Labour Government recognised the need for modernisation and attempted to do something to alleviate the consequences of unemployment, this Government, by contrast, are deliberately planning to increase unemployment.
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  That was demonstrated by the statement on public expenditure last Thursday.
  The only way that the BSC can exist in the financial straitjacket imposed by the Government is by paying off more and more people. I warn the Government that anger and resentment are building up within the steel communities that could have the most explosive effects if they persist in their policies.
  I took a deputation to meet the chairman and other executives of the British Steel Corporation on 30 October. That deputation comprised members and officers of Derwentside district council and Durham county council. The purpose of that meeting was to express grave concern about Consett. Consett is another of those one-industry towns, totally dependent on steel. We were told that Consett is not safe until it is profitable and that BSC can guarantee absolutely nothing. We were also told that we must talk about profitability and not about numbers employed. That is the effect of the Government's straitjacket into which BSC is being forced. What a message to take back to a works that has recently suffered 400 redundancies due to the shutdown of its plate mill and 1,500 steel redundancies in the last 18 months. Everything now indicates another 700 to 1,000 redundancies ahead unless there is a change of policy.
  Returning to the remarks of the Secretary of State during his intervention, I accept that the world steel market is crucial to the situation in Britain. Neither the home nor the international outlook is good, and all the signs are that demand will decrease still further during the next two years. Inescapably, there must be some contraction in output because of that. If for no other reason than the neglect of generations of steel masters before nationalisation, there must be modernisation. Both those factors—the contracting market and the need for modernisation—mean that jobs are threatened. This is no time to reduce Government support for the industry. On the contrary, there is every conceivable reason for increasing that support, especially in those areas where the social consequences will be most serious.
  Mr. Barry Porter: If it is so obvious that Government support should be increased,

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  would someone care to explain—if not the hon. Gentleman, perhaps someone else at a later stage—why the previous Government did not increase their support? Why did that Government pursue exactly the same policy? There is no significant difference now.
  Mr. Watkins: If the hon. Gentleman had listened to the debate, he would not have had to ask for explanations about issues that have already been explained on numerous occasions, including since he joined the House. Is the hon. Gentleman anxious to intervene again?
  Mr. Porter: No I shall return to that when I speak.
  Mr. Watkins: I shall turn to the problem of introducing new industries into steel communities and speak first about BSC Industry Ltd.—the wholly owned subsidiary of the British Steel Corporation. The purpose of that company is to attract alternative employment into those areas most heavily hit by the contraction of the steel market. BSC Industry Ltd. was introduced into Consett by the Labour Government as part of their attempt to alleviate the situation. It is clear that the resources of BSC Industry Ltd. are insufficient to attract new industries on the scale needed. Without substantial Government funding to provide sites, buildings and infrastructure, BSC Industry Ltd. cannot do the job with the resources at its disposal. The company's budget for this financial year is £10 million for the whole of the country, and next year's budget is in doubt. If the Government's policies are any indication, that budget is likely to be cut rather than increased.
  The Secretary of State announced with a muted flourish that Corby was to be made a development area, as if he had suddenly discovered a solution to the dangers facing that town. Consett has been a special development area for a number of years. Even the right hon. Gentleman has not dared to cancel that in his recent cutbacks. However, in that special development area, even with maximum possible assistance being made available, only about one new job has been created for every four lost. This is a measure of what the Secretary of State has announced for Corby. It is just a drop in the ocean. Far more is needed.
  Mr. Leadbitter: My hon. Friend has raised an important matter. We have BSC Industry Ltd. in Hartlepool, and for two years we have had steel closures. The present level of male unemployment is 16 per cent., and the assistance has not produced the promised land. A factory was opened at a cost of £3·5 million two and a half years ago, but it closed. It had a second go recently, but that, too, fizzled out. This is what happens to promises of development after closures in my area. In a place like Corby, which is entirely dependent upon one industry, there will be much graver problems.
  Mr. Watkins: My hon. Friend has emphasised my case. The total effect of the Government's policy, irrespective of the home and international market, will be to produce an ever-smaller steel industry with no prospects of resilience and with no alternatives in the steel areas.
  In conclusion, I point out that sooner or later there will be an upturn in demand. I accept, realistically, that that upturn is likely to be later rather than sooner, but when it comes, as a consequence of the straitjacket into which it has been forced, the British steel industry will be so crippled that it will not be able to meet the required demand. Steel towns will be places of dereliction and the country will be dependent upon imports to a dangerous degree and at the mercy of steelmakers abroad, over whom we have no influence whatsoever.
  6.33 pm
  Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: It is a pleasure to speak after the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins). He and I have spoken in many steel debates over the years. I should declare an interest, in that I am associated with a company making melting electrodes. Fortunately, this area of steel production—Sheffield Arcs—makes a jolly good profit. Therefore, it is not all gloom.
  What worries me about the speeches that I have heard so far in this debate and about the Opposition motion is that hon. Members seem to be for ever looking for scapegoats in the steel industry. When I was in the Iron and Steel Federation in the early 1960s the great scapegoat was the private steelmaker. Yet, in 1964—my last year in the federation—the private steelmakers produced more bulk steel

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  than has ever been produced by the nationalised steel business, despite the fact that we now have, as the Labour Party would say, "the commanding heights of the economy" in our grasp. Unfortunately, the steel industry is not among the commanding heights. It is an extremely vulnerable section of the British industrial scene.
  It is no use hon. Members coming here and trying to beat the Government, management and the private steelmakers until they recognise that if there is no demand for our products there is no point in producing them. Even today we are stockpiling steel that we cannot sell.
  There are four major problems facing the steel industry. I hope, equally, that there are four solutions. The first major problem concerns the new technology that we all saw in the first converter at Linz in 1948. This has transformed steelmaking in this country. Labour Members were as keen as the Tories were in demanding that we should invest in the new technology and that we should build giant plants equal to those of the Japanese and others. Investment came forward and the plants were built, but the sad fact is that they are now operating at only 67–70 per cent. of their capacity.
  Surely it must be right to use that investment to the full. Inevitably that means that the older, uneconomic plants must be phased out. I am not hardhearted. I realise the problems. The solution is to buy out the people in the old plants. There is no way round it. I hope that at the Friday meeting at Shotton, and at the other meetings that will take place, this will be seen as the most sensible solution. Ageing plants should not be kept going, because they will make the rest of the industry uneconomic as well. Generous compensation should be given to those who have given their lives to the industry. We must recognise that the steel industry has changed its shape and technology and that it will require a different pattern of activity in the future.
  Obviously we must spend money to provide different types of employment. In towns such as Consett, which I visited frequently in the early 1960s, life revolves around one industry. It does not make sense to promise those who are in uneconomic plants that there is any future
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  there. That would be a grave disservice both to the industry and to those employed at these plants.
  The second problem is the energy crisis, which came in 1973–74 and led to the recession. This led to the change of plans by the British Steel Corporation management. It is only fair to remind hon. Members that in the famous statement by the chairman of the Corporation about Shotton in 1977 he made the situation clear in his penultimate paragraph when he said:
  "In view of our commercial objectives and of our proposal for the development of Port Talbot on the above basis, we have decided to remove any proposal or date for closure of iron and steelmaking at Shotton."
  As we know, the development of Port Talbot to a capacity of 6 million tonnes never went ahead. As a result, the £800 million that was to be spent was not so spent. Once that commitment disappeared, the promise about Shotton fell to the ground, because the two were interrelated.
  We are talking about a much smaller market for steel. The British motor car business is declining. Shipbuilding and heavy engineering are declining, as is the building of pressure vessels. Therefore, we have a smaller home market to operate. Regrettably, the quality of some of the products is not as good as it should be. I am not suggesting that individuals in the industry are not doing their best, but we must face the facts. We must cosset and look after the existing customers if we want to ensure that the recession does not destroy the industry altogether. I am sure that the BSC can look after its customers and find new ones on the basis of operating the most modern and efficient equipment within the business.
  The third problem is the cheap steel that is coming from the Far East and elsewhere. These are problems affecting us at a number of levels in the Western world, and they are not likely to go away.
  The right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) could have been more generous in his remarks about the Davignon intervention, and might well have pointed out that as a result of Davignon and our membership of the EEC we have been able to restrict and attain quotas of imported steel from Korea, Japan and elsewhere.
  Mr. John Silkin: I was not particularly generous, for the simple reason that I did not see the advantage to our country, under the Davignon plan, of preventing steel coming from Third world countries and then being deluged by European steel.
  Mr. McNair-Wilson: I am hardly surprised at the right hon. Gentleman's attitude to competition within the European Community, but I do not believe that he, in his heart of hearts, feels that living in protected markets, producing products that cannot compete with others, is the best way forward for Britain or her industry. We must make certain that our steel is every bit as good as anything that comes in from Germany or elsewhere, and I am certain that it can be.
  The fourth problem that we face is that of rising costs. I will not go over the coking coal argument; we are all familiar with it from what we have seen in the press and heard from our friends in the industry. Price differentials are very steep. Beyond that, there is the worry about the long-term availability of the product. The industry must plan ahead. While I wish that the National Coal Board was able to provide a comparable product at the right price, I would be even happier if I felt that it could also provide it on a long-term basis. Whether we like it or not, the bulk of our good coking coal comes from Durham and South Wales and, unfortunately, it will be necessary to go deeper and deeper to get at it.
  The NCB is trying to provide plans that will be available to the British Steel Corporation. I hope that a deal can be done. But we must recognise that if we are to operate big new investments for large blast furnaces, which are now becoming part of our steel industry, we need the highest possible quality of coking coal.
  In the old days, with older furnaces, the steel industry could operate on a lower quality of coking coal. Now we need the medium-volatile coking coal, which I think is grade 301, to enable these furnaces to operate efficiently. We would be doing a disservice to those who work in the industry if we did not make sure that they got this type of coal.
  Finally, having looked at the problems and the solutions—no doubt other hon. Members will find different ones—we must
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  point out that the picture is not entirely black. Port Talbot went from loss to profit, the Sheffield electric arc business is doing well, and other areas of the steel industry are now showing profit. It has been said that the Corporation has no hope of meeting a break-even point. I do not think that it is a bad thing to be set a target in life. It is no bad thing to have one's sights set high. I am sure that the chairman of the Corporation and all those who work at every level in the steel industry will do their best to meet that target.
  The fact is that we are to go on making steel in this country—bulk steel at that. We have a wonderful position in special steels, as many hon. Members know. The industry deserves our support and encouragement and we should not constantly rake over the ashes of an industrial past that many of us must recognise fills us all with shame.
  What we must also recognise—my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis) referred to this—is that we need an industry which can be sufficiently flexible to take up the challenge once the recession is over. Our steel industry can do that. It is running at only 67 per cent. capacity at present. We can take up the strain when it comes, but let us make certain that we have an industry that is efficient and that uses efficiently the massive investment that was given to it under the 1972 Act of a Conservative Government.
  6.44 pm
  Mr. Bill Homewood: I was pleased to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis). His constituency is close to Corby and he is unable to divorce himself from what was indicated in the excellent speeches made on the steel industry, though they were not socially realistic in the context of Corby.
  Since I came to this House, practically every word I have spoken has related to Corby. I do not apologise for my repetitiveness. It should not be boring, because almost every day the statistics given by local social services office are more appalling than those of the day before.
  Last week, the local deputy director of social services was quoted in the local newspaper, under the heading
  "Corby on the brink of disaster",

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  as having said:
  "We are prepared for disaster if the steel works close, for there will be a radical change in family life. We feel what is happening at the moment are symptoms of a depressed town and a lot of it comes from fears of unemployment that will bring pressures to families."
  He then listed Corby's current black problems. There are nearly 300 children in council care—25 per cent. of the county total. A quarter of the overdose victims admitted to Kettering general hospital are from Corby, which accounts for only one-fifth of that hospital's catchment area. On Monday, I had that figure updated. In October, 28 overdose cases were admitted from Corby, of which 20 involved people below the age of 25.
  Corby has a higher incidence of mental breakdown than anywhere else in the county. The illegitimate birth rate of Corby is more than double that of neighbouring towns such as Kettering. Infant mortality is 50 per cent. higher than for the rest of the county and England and Wales. Twelve cases of child battering were reported during May and June of this year compared with two cases during the same period last year.
  There was an increase of 400 per cent. over the last five years in the number of elderly people needing help. More people need psychiatric help than ever before. Over 100 Corby people were admitted to the mental hospitals in Northampton during the first nine months of this year. This is the effect of living in a town which has 7 per cent. unemployment and a massive cloud of uncertainty hanging over it owing to the threat of the closure of the iron and steelworks. Last Thursday that threat moved much closer. I listened to the Secretary of State and other hon. Members holding out the hope of getting Corby fairly quickly out of the mess that will come from the closure of the iron and steelworks. Let us look at the facts.
  About 80 inquiries have been received by the various organisations from interested enterprises which have anticipated assisted area status in Corby. I estimate that it will take two and a half to three years for the infrastructure and the factories to be built. Of the 80 factories in the town, 64 will probably become enterprises.
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  I understand from the director of BSC Industry Ltd. that the average level of employment in each of the factories is 40 in those areas where the Corporation has assisted. Therefore, in four to five years there will be about 2,500 new jobs. Experience indicates that 25 per cent. of those jobs will be for females, which means that 1,800 new male jobs will be created in Corby, although the male unemployment level arising directly and indirectly from the closure of the iron and steelworks will be about 6,000.
  Mr. Marlow: In view of the fact that my right hon. Friend has today given notice that Corby will now have development area status, does the hon. Gentleman believe that that will assist the problem and reduce the discrepancy between jobs that are lost and jobs that will be made available in the future?
  Mr. Homewood: I do not think so at all. Quite frankly, people who are interested in coming to the Midlands already understood that the Secretary of State would today announce assisted area status. In fact, when we met him before the recess the right hon. Gentleman told us that he would grant assisted area status when the closure was accepted. The situation may get better later on, but at the present time we are already in receipt of the maximum number of inquiries that are likely to accrue.
  I am not ashamed to repeat what I have said before—that this House should have a special interest in Corby. I believe that Corby is a special case in regard to this House. In 1933, Stewarts and Lloyds created the iron and steel industry and the tube works in Corby on the basis of a £7 million low-interest loan. What would that be worth today? Therefore, the industry was the responsibility of this House. In 1951, this House made Corby a new town and provided all the facilities to attract the labour for the iron and steel industry. I recall that in the 1950s Stewards and Lloyds sent buses all over the country, along with recruitment officers, in order to attract labour to Corby. I can remember the management complaining that, although 200 people came, after three months only 20 took up permanent residence. Today, of course, it is the 180 who were lucky, because the 20 who remained will not be very lucky.

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  I insist that the provision of the money for the industry and the creation of new town status make Corby a responsibility of this House. In view of the Government's philosophy and policy, let us suppose that they still say "All right, that was our responsibility. We did it. But the suffering that will arise from the closure of the iron and steelworks is necessary, because only on that basis can we produce a situation within the steel industry and the country where on the basis of market forces and our monetarist policy we increase the standard of living of all the people." That circumstance is still not present in Corby. There is no gain to the public purse in closing the iron and steelworks.
  Some people have argued that closure would cost more than keeping the works open. I take it that such people were prejudiced and adopted a partisan attitude. Yet within BSC's calculations only £40 million at best would be saved. In no way can that offset the cost of redundancy payments, social security payments and the losses to the district council in rate revenue, as well as all the other factors that will arise should the iron and steelworks close. Therefore, such conditions do not satisfy the Government's case, nor do they satisfy the social case advanced by Labour Members.
  Sir Keith Joseph: Is not the hon. Gentleman assuming in that calculation that the people released from the steelworks will remain permanently out of work and that no new establishments will be paying rates and employing them?
  Mr. Homewood: Can the right hon. Gentleman give me a guarantee that they will be employed? I believe that a lot of them will remain unemployed for a long time.
  The right hon. Gentleman will have read the report of Coopers and Lybrand, which talks about an unemployment rate of 20 per cent. for two years should the whole undertaking be closed. Frankly, I believe that report to be optimistic. What the right hon. Gentleman does not understand is that 80 per cent. of the work force which will be thrown on to the labour market is unskilled in the context of anything other than the steel industry. Of course, the craftsmen will get jobs, but the vast majority of workers
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  will not get jobs very quickly. Therefore, I believe that most of those people will be out of work for a long time.
  Mr. Marlow: I have seen that calculation as well. It was produced by some people from Cambridge university. Is it not the case that if the steelworks are closed at some stage—I believe that most hon. Members think that it is inevitable that they will be—the redundancy costs and loss of taxation will have to be met? Therefore, they virtually represent a capital cost of the closure and cannot be set against the revenue benefits of making steel more cheaply in other parts of the country. I am afraid that the calculation is an entirely bogus one. We know that there are severe problems—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant God-man Irvine): Order. If the hon. Gentleman is intending to catch my eye at a later stage, he is not going about it the right way.
  Mr. Homewood: If the hon. Gentleman does, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will not take long, because he has made his speech already.
  I do not believe that the calculation is bogus. I do not accept either side of the argument about how much the closure will cost. Warwick university probably stretched it in one direction, and others have stretched it in the other direction. I take a basic view. Despite what the right hon. Gentleman said, I cannot see how the public sector borrowing requirement will benefit at all from Corby's closure. In fact, I think that it will be a net charge on the public purse rather than a net gain to it. The hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) shakes his head, but if he goes into the figures I think that he will discover that what I have said is true.
  The closure of the iron and steelworks does not satisfy the Government's criteria. If they think that it does, I suggest that they ask the BSC management to go over the figures again. It certainly does not satisfy the criteria of the Labour Opposition, because we regard the closure as an immoral and inhuman act. Whom does it satisfy? It simply satisfies the BSC management, which has indulged in a cover-up exercise. Frankly, the BSC management does not have the courage to admit—I do not know why, because if it

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  did everyone would be sympathetic—that the 10-year strategy was a colossal blunder.
  The management does not have the courage to admit that the closures cannot stop at Corby and Shotton. Hon. Members who are more far-sighted believe that we should look to the future, but even considering the present it will not be just Corby and Shotton. At least two other major plants will be involved which were created out of the "big is beautiful" philosophy. If BSC had the courage to say that, we should have more sympathy.
  Mistakes get compounded when there is a cover-up, and that is what happened when Sir Charles Villiers gave an undertaking that BSC would break even in March 1980. BSC, the right hon. Gentleman and all hon. Members know that BSC has no chance of meeting that undertaking, and the two closures mooted will add to costs. The deficit will be larger than it need be.
  My most serious contention is that, when it announced those closures, BSC knew that the trade union movement would be put in a situation where it had to respond to threats by direct action. The management deliberately provoked the confrontation to cover up the fact that the Corporation could not break even by 1980, and it wished to use the trade union movement as the scapegoat for that failure. There is no other reason for the desperate rush for closure at Shotton and Corby.
  All that the trade unions proposed at Corby was the setting up of a working party. BSC gave the trade unions six weeks to come up with alternatives, and that was an impossible period. The trade unions came back and asked for six months and a working party to examine the position. The management simply sat in the room and refused to negotiate, although it went through the motions of sitting there for enough hours to give the impression of serious negotiations. The House should also remember that if BSC has its way Tory Members can build as many nuclear sites as they like but there will be no steel industry, which is especially important in the context of a security threat.
  On the basis of the facts that I have stated—and they are facts—hon. Members should vote tonight in the Opposi-
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  tion Lobby. The House should insist that there is an inquiry into the activities of BSC and the threat to Corby should be withdrawn while it takes place.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: This is not a Second Reading debate and there is no question of the 10-minute limit being imposed. However, there are at least 14 hon. Members who wish to catch the eye of the Chair, and the only way in which 14 speeches can be accommodated in two hours is by hon. Members exercising considerable restraint.
  7.4 pm
  Mr. Michael Brown: I have so far spoken three times—for 10, eight and six minutes respectively. I shall try to speak for no longer that 10 minutes, although other hon. Members may be tempted to suggest that I speak for only four.
  My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson) made an important point about demand. There has been over-capacity in Europe and Japan. That goes back to 1973, at the time of the Middle East war. Demand has fallen—and demand is vitally important. Clearly, we can produce a commodity only as long as a demand for it exists. The world recession accounts for a major part of the decrease in demand, and I hope that that recession will come to an end in the not too distant future. It is right and proper that the British Steel Corporation should be in a position to take advantage of an upturn in the world market. However, we cannot blame all of BSC's problems on the world situation.
  Hon. Members have mentioned two reasons for the decline in demand. First, there is the decline in demand for British products. We cannot isolate British Steel. British Leyland has also had difficulties. Other nationalised industries should play a part in assisting BSC. The British people will buy products made with British steel if they can obtain them. If British Leyland is unable to produce the goods because of industrial relations problems or other management problems, the British people will look elsewhere for their cars.
  The right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) mentioned unfair competition from the Common Market and coking coal subsidies. That was discussed at some length two weeks ago in a debate on EEC

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  documents, and I shall be brief. The House and the country are now fully aware that some action is necessary. I apologise to hon. Members who represent coal mining constituencies, but the fact is that the National Coal Board has a responsibility—and coal miners have a responsibility to their fellow workers in the steel industry—to consider how the Board can reduce the price of its coking coal. The quality of British coking coal leaves a lot to be desired, and one cannot blame the British Steel Corporation for seeking the cheapest source for its energy supply. I sincerely hope that negotiations between the BSC and the National Coal Board will resolve the situation.
  In addition to an amendment that I tabled to an early-day motion, there was an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn), which I support. There is a clear responsibility on other nationalised industries to recognise the problems of BSC, particularly on the National Coal Board and British Leyland.
  Having said that, I believe that the major problem that we have to consider is how long the British taxpayer can continue to subsidise an industry that is not making profits. Like the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Homewood), I represent a one-industry town, and I know that many Labour hon. Members represent similar constituencies. We do the British Steel Corporation and steelworkers in our constituencies a disservice if we delude them into thinking that the BSC can exist in the long term without making profits. I can say with my hand on my heart that I have never deceived the steelworkers in my constituency. I have always said that until they turn the figures from red to black there will inevitably be a question mark over their future. I want to make sure that that question mark is removed.
  The central theme of the debate revolves around the closures of Shotton and Corby. I shall devote one or two moments to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis), who made a novel suggestion. However, I urge some caution. The problem about taking the advice of my hon. Friend is that if we encourage the high-cost new plants to operate below their capacity we shall
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  build up a tremendous problem for the steel industry in future. No steelworker will forgive us if we fail to take the urgent steps that are necessary.
  I was amazed by the remarks of the right hon. Member for Deptford. It seems that he has forgotten all the injunctions uttered by his right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) when he was Secretary of State for Industry. I refer briefly to the document produced by the British Steel Corporation: "The Road to Viability". It stated that the Labour Government
  "will give full, sustained and public support to the BSC in their efforts, including the steps needed to achieve much needed improved productivity in the Corporation, and will continue to promote this in their contacts both with the BSC management and with the TUC Steel Committee".
  The right hon. Member for Deptford gave me the impression that he had forgotten all that was written in that document.
  It has been suggested that the Beswick delays have already cost the Corporation over £100 million a year. Steelworkers read the press and they know that they cannot make plans on a solid basis while the industry is propped up by taxpayers' funds. The major disease in the past has been that of delay. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for being prepared at this early stage in the Government's administration to consider seriously the future of the Corporation in an effort to assure ourselves of a viable steel industry in future. An uncompetitive enterprise or industry that does not survive on what the customer at home and abroad is willing to pay for its products is precarious and ill-rewarded.
  I have always urged in my constituency, and I do so publicly in the House, that we blight the prospect for the steel industry and the massive investment that has been put into the high-cost plants in not only Scunthorpe but Redcar, Llanwern and Ravenscraig—the basis of the steel industry in future—if we continue to live in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. It is painful to have to say that. I recognise the sincerity of the hon. Members for Kettering and Flint, East (Mr. Jones). Of course, they have a duty to represent their constituents. However, the House has a wider duty to represent the whole of the steel industry and to ensure its

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  future. That is why I feel able to support the Government's amendment to the Opposition motion.
  I recognise, and steelworkers recognise, that viability is crucial for the future. I pay tribute to steelworkers and to the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, which, traditionally, has been a realistic organisation. We owe a duty to steelworkers, who throughout the years have shown realism, to be realistic ourselves. It is with the hope that my right hon. Friend is anxious to ensure that the industry becomes profitable and is able to carry out its function in future that I am able to support him.
  I urge my right hon. Friend to bear in mind that certain problems beset the Corporation subsequent to the target that he rightly set when the Government took office. He is not an ogre, as certain Labour Members have tried to portray him. Long before the general election he took the trouble to visit my constituency, with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I know that he takes seriously the problems of the Corporation and does not duck them. However, there are problems faced by the Corporation. If it has difficulty in meeting its target, I feel that it will do its best, with good will on both sides. If there are difficulties, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will not merely allow the Corporation to be shut down.
  Mr. Leadbitter: The right hon. Gentleman has said that he will do just that.
  Mr. Brown: My right hon. Friend is a man of realism. I am sure that that is appreciated by the majority of hon. Members. I am confident that the Corporation will do its best. Of that I am convinced. I ask for an assurance that my right hon. Friend will take into account the outside factors that have subsequently intervened, such as industrial disputes beyond the Corporation.
  I implore the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, which is renowned for its traditional realism, to think carefully about the suggestion that has been made by Mr. Bill Sirs. Last year the dispute involving the Transport and General Workers' Union in my constituency cost about£13 million. The steelworkers regretted that dispute. I feel sure that steelworkers will regret any dispute that takes
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  place beween now and the end of the present financial year.
  Mr. Leadbitter: The hon. Gentleman is talking about disputes. If we are to be realistic, we must accept that there is dispute and public concern. Will the hon. Gentleman address himself to that and ask his right hon. Friend to give us the full costs of closure, socially and financially—for example, the cost of unemployment benefit, the loss of rates, the loss of employment in the ancillary services and supply services, and the cost of unemployment as a whole?
  Mr. Brown: The cost is the cost of the existence of the steel industry in future. We cannot continue to pretend that the Corporation can continue in the long term without making profits. I feel that with good will generally the Corporation's target can be met.
  7.18 pm
  Mr. Barry Jones: I accept that the Secretary of State is not an ogre. However, as the head of a great steel industry he is a total disaster. I do not call him an ogre, but I describe him as a kind of Count Dracula. His leadership of the steel industry is as inappropriate as putting Count Dracula in charge of a local blood transfusion service. There is no doubt that his appointment is a bad one for the British steel industry.
  I did not agree with much of what the hon. Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Brown) said, nor did I agree with some of the remarks of the hon. Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson). The latter hon. Gentleman made an eloquent and informed speech. It was interesting that he was defensive in his remarks on the commanding heights. Aneurin Bevan once said that
  "Remote control is the consequence of bigness, not of the nature of ownership."
  I took exception when the hon. Gentleman said that the men had to be bought out. They have not compaigned for eight years in Shotton and district to be bought out. On their behalf, I find that remark offensive. When the steel committee of the TUC goes to Steel House on Friday to meet the British Steel Corporation, it will not go there on its knees. That will certainly not be its approach with Mr. Bill Sirs leading it. It will not have buying out in mind.

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  Our steel industry is the bedrock of our economy. Nobody would deny that. There is a crisis of confidence in the industry that is largely of the Government's making. The Secretary of State pursues a highly controversial policy. The chairman of BSC is soon to leave. The work force is demoralised and angry, and their leaders moot a strike. Several steel communities move nearer to the brink of social and economic disaster. That is the background to the debate.
  At the heart of the problems are the rigid cash limits. The policy of not funding BSC losses in 1980 means that the Corporation can move nearer to solvency only by closures. The "break even at all costs" policy is a foolish mirage. It will not be successful and will severely damage this seed corn industry. Hasty closures will guarantee more steel imports.
  Is there an alternative explanation to the policy that is so rigidly adhered to by the Government? Is the policy designed entirely to secure early closures, in the knowledge that in the long term the policy is ruinous? When the closures are effected, the policy can be dumped. I disagree with that fundamental point of policy.
  In the years that I have tried in the House to help the Shotton steelworkers, I have learnt that their leaders—both production and staff workers—are able men. All over Britain the steelworkers could make the industry a brilliant success. They could rescue the demoralised hulk of the Corporation. They should be given an ungrudging, decisive, meaningful and substantial role in the running of the industry. Ministers should seek to regain the confidence of the TUC steel committee. That means paying greater respect to the voice of experience in a cyclical and complicated industry. The Corporation should make greater efforts to tap the professional skills and insight of its middle management.
  I sincerely hope that the Government will make even greater efforts to stem the damaging steel imports. We should fight for a bigger export market. We should not go for sudden closures. New plant and equipment should be run in very carefully. Some of the older plants could act as valuable balancing plants and
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  an insurance against breakdown or delay as the newer plant comes on stream. The steel customers should receive a better deal. Perhaps we are neglecting them to some degree.
  Largely speaking, North-East Wales and the North-West face the likelihood of becoming a steel desert—witness the closures at Irlam, Warrington, Workington and Mostyn, and, in the offing, if the Government and the Corporation have their way, at Shotton. Yet the North-West accounts for 8 per cent. of the United Kingdom domestic steel market. Within a 40-mile radius of Shotton there is an extremely heavy consumer presence. The North-West and the Midlands' markets are on Shotton's doorstep. Why obliterate an able producer and supplier? We have all heard of the domino effect.
  Merseyside can ill afford the decimation of Deeside. My area must inevitably become a determined competitor with stricken Merseyside to obtain new jobs. I do not seek or wish for that. I fear that the legion of the Merseyside unemployed will be dealt a heavy blow for many years to come. The social consequences of putting so many so swiftly on the dole will damage the social fabric of the community that I represent.
  In a modern industrial State, when was a proposal of that magnitude last performed? When were two such fearsome and awesome redundancy proposals as those at Shotton and Corby promulgated? These proposals are to be carried out at a time of widely forecast recession in the coming years. The Treasury Bench can say nothing that will alter the fact that at Shotton, Corby. Birkenhead, Liverpool and Greater Merseyside the outlook and the future hopes of the boys and girls leaving our comprehensive schools will be grim and miserable. Some will have to leave our areas to find work.
  As a community, we face that with great sadness. We are not sure that the Treasury Bench is taking full account of that problem. I should like to see the door of No. 10 opened to a major deputation from Shotton. It has been officially predicted that in the late new year in the town of Flint the unemployment rate will rise as high as 31 per cent.
  Mr. Adam Butler rose—
  Mr. Jones: I have heard the ayatollah intervening in other hon. Members' speeches and conducting his university seminar as if we on the Labour Benches were some dull blockheads. We do not wish for any witless interventions from the Minister. Yesterday he caused offence in the House. We do not wish to be preached to by aristocratic dropouts on auto pilot. The hon. Gentleman should go away. He is not good enough to handle the problems. When did that bunch soil their hands?
  The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Michael Roberts): When did the Opposition last soil their hands?
  Mr. Jones: I shall answer that a little later if the hon. Member for Cardiff, North-West (Mr. Roberts) wishes to raise his head above the parapets. The record of his right hon. Friend is not very good. We shall look to him for many new jobs in Wales in the next year.
  Mr. Adam Butler rose—
  Mr. Jones: The Minister of State has intervened almost a dozen times in the debate. He should allow me to complete my speech.
  Mr. Adam Butler: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the door of No. 10 has been opened to a deputation that has discussed Shotton? The Wales TUC presented its case in a more reasonable manner than the hon. Gentleman has done, and, therefore, was listened to better than he will be with the sort of langauge that he chooses to use.
  Mr. Jones: When Members of the Wales TUC left No. 10 after an hour of discussion, the epithet in their minds and on their lips was "callous". They made that clear in a press statement. A deputation from Shotton should go to No. 10 to present the case at first hand.
  The Government are now bleating and whinnying about the Corporation's losses. Let us put them into some perspective. Arbed of Luxembourg lost £6 a tonne last year. Klockner of Germany—the land of the economic miracle—lost £15 per tonne. The BSC lost £17 a tonne. Sacilor of France lost £18 per tonne. Cockerill of Belgium lost £20 a tonne and Italsider of Italy lost £21 per tonne. I conclude from those figures that the
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  British industry and its work force are not pathetic figures, and I do not think that we should denigrate and downgrade them so much.
  I see a deeply injurious situation arising with car imports. In 1970 Britain imported 157,000 cars. By 1978 the figure was 800,000. The figures show a decline of the United Kingdom car industry and point to a frightening decline in demand in Britain for strip steel. Perhaps it may be said that an import figure of 800,000 cars last year portends the possible polarisation of our steel industry.
  If our car industry had done as well since the early 1960s as the French have done, it is conceivable that the demand for strip in Britain could have been 1 million tonnes higher today. I say that in the knowledge that Shotton produces about 1 million tonnes of strip a year. In 1973, when we imported 504,000 cars, the motor industry accounted for 14 per cent. of steel output.
  I come next to the general subject of imports. Between 1972 and 1978 inclusive, the United Kingdom imported £5·2 billion worth of steel. Only last year we imported over £1 billion of steel and iron products. Figures such as those provided the reason for Roy Hodson writing in the Financial Times last year that imports were equivalent to the annual production of two works the size of Shotton. Foreign steel producers have found the United Kingdom a soft market for sheet steel sales and, of course, for motor cars, too.
  By ending steelmaking at Shotton, the Corporation and the Government will be throwing out the baby with the bath water. Shotton has many satisfied longstanding foreign customers. Why slam the door on them? I do not believe, as some imply, that the steel workers are Luddites. They have made their sacrifices. Since 1970 106,000 jobs have disappeared in the industry. More than 61,000 of them were on the BSC employees' list. Steel workers throughout Britain are resentful. They know that the TUC's steel committee leader, Mr. Bill Sirs, has not had a fair deal. The same applies to the committee that he heads. It has not been listened to with care, and the Treasury Bench should reconsider its attitude on this point.

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  Even as it is at present constituted, I do not believe that the industry has to be so secretive, bureaucratic and autocratic. Those three vices have been part of the trouble. The board is currently besieged and embattled. It is under pressure from its work force and from its masters, the Ministers. It is a misfortune that the industry should be headed by the current Secretary of State. His medieval economic theories are ill suited to this complex and cyclical industry. If he is to stay in office—and I should prefer him out of it—he should come down from his ivory tower, put away his books, abandon his nostrums and show less tetchiness, arrogance and impatience. So far, his actions represent a depressing testimony to a blind and biased philosophy. In its own time, and very soon, it will be proved wrong.
  7.35 pm
  Mr. John Farr: I support the Government amendment because it is impossible for the country to continue to fund successive annual British Steel losses of the magnitude that we have been seeing. Over the last four years the British Steel Corporation has produced an annual average loss of £268 million of taxpayers' money. No sensible Government can allow that to continue. I am sure that even if the Labour Government had still been in office they would have been just as concerned to tackle the problem as are my right hon. Friends.
  The White Paper "British Steel Corporation: The Road to Viability" is illuminating on production levels. It says that in 1976 the BSC produced 100 tonnes of liquid steel per man. The figure in Germany was 150 tonnes, and in France 120 tonnes. Figures for 1978 were given by Sir Charles Villiers, who described BSC productivity as the lowest in the world. In Britain, it took 10·9 man-hours to produce a tonne of crude steel. In West Germany the figure was 5·9 man-hours and in France 6·4 man-hours. On the basis of these factors, any self-respecting Government have to take action.
  I therefore express general agreement with a stringent policy, but I must record my disagreement in relation to Corby. I intervened twice when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was speaking. On 1 November the BSC announced its decision to close the iron and steel-
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  making plant at Corby next March, with the loss of between 5,000 and 6,000 jobs—one in three of the working population. This brutal decision will kill the town. Even if it is granted development area status, five months is an impossibly short time in which to make plans to counter the sudden closure of steelmaking plant.
  I am not sure what my right hon. Friend means by development area status. May we be told tonight what percentage of grant will be paid to industrialists who go to Corby? The House is well aware of the dramatic situation in the town. It was built for a steel company—Stewarts and Lloyds—in the centre of an iron ore field. Its population today is 52,000 and it has an integrated iron and steelworks and steel tube manufacturing works.
  The town is in the centre of the local iron ore field. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Homewood), among others, said that it is a town that is intensely dependent upon the iron and steel industry to enable it to continue to flourish. The vast majority of workers in Corby are employed in the iron and steelworks. If the decision is taken next spring to close down the steel-making capacity it will be a tragic blow.
  Corby is more like an inner centre, as it is the centre of a group of new towns. Several hon. Members have emphasised that it is not just the fact of Corby's steel production closing and going to Redcar that should be borne in mind; the tremendous social cost and problems that will follow that move should also be considered. We should take into account the national cost of redundancy payments, retraining costs, unemployment benefits, social security payments, loss of tax revenue and health costs derived from the impact of redundancy as well as unemployed social services costs.
  We should also take into account the extra balance of payments costs that will be involved with the importation of foreign iron ore in place of the domestic iron ore in the Corby area. Redcar is a coastal site and will have to import foreign coal, as opposed to Corby, which uses domestic coal. There are also additional transport costs for strip steel.
  The BSC did not give proper consideration to several sensible alternative plans that were carefully drawn up. Two sets of plans were put forward. One advocated

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  that Corby would be made viable after a certain period, with the investment of £31 million. Another set of plans questions the projected loss figures given by BSC as the reason for closing Corby. I have read those plans carefully and I am impressed by them. I was particularly impressed by the document produced by Dr. Bryer and Mr. Brignall, from Warwick university. I was also impressed by the document produced by the joint trade union policy group. I do not have time to elaborate upon those plans, but I feel that they did not receive sufficient attention. Serious questions that were brought up in the documents have not been answered by the BSC. Indeed, it appears that the BSC do not intend to answer them.
  I hope that there is a chance that the BSC will look at the two papers, encouraged by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to do so. The promoters of the papers spent many weeks and months in Corby, and their valid points should be answered. More important, I hope that my right hon. Friend will interest himself in Corby. If the figures provided by Warwick university are incorrect—I do not believe that to be the case—and Corby is in a permanent loss-making position, there remain to be considered the social implications of phasing out steel production in Corby rather than ending it in a few weeks' time.
  A team from Cambridge university calculated that while the BSC may save £12 per ton by closing Corby the taxpayer will have to pay £36 per ton, because of support that will have to be given to the social services. The team emphasised that such a course would cost the community dearly. I believe that my right hon. Friend is sincere when he says that the A1-M1 link will help. Those of us who have been associated with the plans for that road know that, although the go-ahead has been given, the building will not begin for seven years and will not be completed before eight years have elapsed. By the time Corby has a route to the coast, the East, the Midlands and the West, it will be too late to save the town.
  If steel production in Corby is closed down, we should not cut it out next spring; we should phase it out after five or six years. That will give the link road a chance to bring in new industry from all over the country, so that Corby
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  can make the gradual change in a humane and sensible manner.
  7.46 pm
  Mr. James Tinn: In the debate many harsh words have been said about the BSC—most of them justified. At the same time, it is right, representing Redcar as I do, to point out some of the successes of the nationalised industry. The level of its investment over the last few years has been far greater than in the rest of the European industry. It has been a phenomenal success. The bulk of industrial investment in the United Kingdom in the last few years has been by the BSC—much of that, I confess with pride, in my constituency. We should be honest and admit that we, too, underestimated the total output of the BSC that would be required. Many of us who have criticised the undershooting of its plans come within that category.
  I believe that the investment in the coastal plant was right. In case I am accused of smugness, I remind the House that I said as much while the matter was still the subject of intense competition from Scotland, Wales and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Inevitably, steel has to be internationally competitive. Our unit costs of production must be competitive with those abroad. However, that has been obtained at a heavy cost in terms of job loss both at the time and subsequently.
  I remind the House that over the last decade no less than 10,000 jobs were lost on Teesside. In only one closure was there a massive and well-organised protest, and that was not in my constituency but across the river.
  The Teesside workers recognised that modernisation was inevitable and that a price had to be paid for it. They paid the price before they got the new works. That is the best answer to any accusations that might still be heard that the steelworkers and their unions are Luddites. On the contrary, it is amazing to reflect how men's livelihoods and their children's future have been invested in the industry. I refer to the one-industry towns, or towns heavily dominated by steel, that agreed to the proposals. However, there are limits.
  There is no soft option. The modern plants are on the ground. The heavy financial cost is part of the burden that

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  the industry had to bear. Those heavy costs cannot be met by under-using the plant, understandable though the motives obviously are of those who see this as a possible easement of the position elsewhere. There is on us all—this applies especially to the Government and the leaders of the industry—the most massive moral obligation of the day to ease the impact and to do all we can to help those concerned. That should be done for humanity's sake. I do not belabour that argument, as it was made by hon. Members representing the constituencies most involved.
  We must avoid an unbalanced industry. If the Government refuse to relax their posture about the break-even date of 30 March 1980, the plan will go, not as part of an inevitable long-term modernisation of the industry but as a consequence of a requirement that the British steel industry should out-perform every other steel industry in the world by early 1980. It is unreasonable to expect this industry to break even so soon. That is a shabby requirement. It is an unworthy debating technique simply to say that that figure was put previously by the BSC to the Labour Government and accepted then. Indeed it was, but that does not meet my point about the present situation. I have every confidence that had Labour still been in power that date would have been modified to ease the impact on those concerned and to avoid the risk of too drastic surgery on the industry.
  The question of coking coal is connected with the new, massive 10,000-tonnes-a-day blast furnace at Redcar. I am also interested because of my background as a member of the National Union of Blastfurnacemen and because I was at one time a coke worker.
  I support the part of the motion that calls for action on the unfair subsidisation of foreign coals. British coal should be able to compete fairly on price. I stand by that. However, I must sound a note of caution. Quality is not just a red herring that the BSC is running to obtain cheaper coal abroad. It is vitally important, especially in the new large blast furnaces. The coke going into those furnaces heats the burden and performs a chemical reaction as part of the smelting process. It has an important function in easing and supporting the heavy
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  weight of the iron as it slowly comes down the furnace. That requires structural strength. In the larger, wider blast furnaces, carrying a heavier burden and a wider base, that becomes vital.
  I have a report about an incident in Japan and on the damage that occurred to some furnaces. Much worse than that, there is a fearful risk to the men working at the bottom of those furnaces if things go wrong and the coke breaks away.
  On an economic level, the question is not just one of subsidy, important though that is. I refer to the coking rate—the amount of coke used to smelt a tonne of iron. The United Kingdom rate is too high, at 590 kg per tonne of iron. That is 100 kg higher than in Germany, Holland or Italy. It is much higher than the Japanese rate, at 430 kg per tonne.
  I argue for caution on the question of coking coal. The BSC must be the judge of what it needs. As a result of discussions with the National Coal Board, the BSC increased the amount of British coal it used from 25 per cent. to 45 per cent. That is an indication that the Corporation is not turning a deaf ear to the needs of the mining industry. Above all, the safety of the workers in the blast furnaces must be considered.
  7.56 pm
  Sir Anthony Meyer: The hon. Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn) is fortunate in representing the location of one of the British Steel Corporation success stories. However, the tale I tell does not correspond with his. He referred to the extent to which the Germans subsidised their steel industry. That is true. If only we as a nation created as much wealth as the Germans, to subsidise our steel industry would be an option open to the Government. I wish that option were open. I should like the steel industry to be subsidised to ensure that there need be no job losses. Unfortunately, as a nation, we are not creating the wealth. We cannot impose this burden on the rest of our industry and our social services. That is why, with a few hesitations, I shall vote for the amendment to the motion.
  I wanted to comment on the truly remarkable speech made by the hon. Member for Flint, East (Mr. Jones). However, in his absence from the Chamber, I shall refrain from doing so.

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  In a previous steel debate, after much consideration, I decided to vote against my Government and with the Opposition, but tonight I shall have little or no hesitation in voting with my Government.
  I should still like to save steelmaking at Shotton if possible. I emphatically do not mean winning yet another reprieve for the industry. That is the worst of all worlds. I want to secure the investment of the tens of millions of pounds necessary for the modernisation of Shotton's hopelessly antiquated open-hearth furnaces. With that goes acceptance of the need for manning at the heavy end of Shotton at internationally competitive levels such as have already been achieved at the new coatings complex at Shotton.
  The Opposition claim that they are fighting to retain steel making at Shotton. When they were in power, they delayed the closure proposals. Had the Labour Party won the last election, it might have continued delaying a decision. Certainly the endless stream of Labour Members of Parliament who yesterday went to meet the workers who came here from Shotton gave the impression that a Labour Government would have kept Shotton open. That is not true. Of course, they would have closed it.
  The hon. Member for Flint, East is back in the Chamber. Perhaps I may revert to his speech, to which I listened with great attention. It was the kind of speech we have come to expect from him on this subject. If the Labour Government, of which he was so egregious a member, had put their money where their mouth was, Shotton would not be in peril today.
  The hon. Gentleman has a great reputation, locally and nationally, for the fight that he has put up on behalf of his steelworker constituents. He would have added further to that reputation if, when Shotton's last chance of viability was removed by the rejection of the plan for tandem furnaces, he had said that he did not feel he could continue to be a member of the previous Government. Had the Labour Party won the election, it would have allowed the British Steel Corporation, in due course, to close down Shotton and Corby, as it allowed Shelton, Irlam, East Moors and Ebbw Vale to be
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  closed, though it might have allowed the situation to drag on for a little longer.
  I am not ready to take any lessons from the Opposition on this matter. Nor am I ready to take any lessons from the unions. The Iron and Steel Trades Confederation is one of the most moderate, sensible and constructive of trade unions, yet it allowed itself to be locked in combat with another union for six months at Hunterston in order to stop Ravenscraig operating fully as it was intended. This moderate, sensible and reasonable trade union has clung to manning levels and has resisted the transfer of men within steel works in such a way that it has gravely reduced the international effectiveness of the British steel industry.
  The unions bear a heavy share of responsibility for the non-competitiveness of the steel industry and for the insecurity of jobs within it. To talk of strikes and overtime bans in protest against closures will do nothing to save a single job at Shotton. On the contrary, it will do much to discourage the provision of other worthwhile jobs for steel workers if closure, unfortunately, goes ahead. Like the hon. Member for Flint, East, I am sick with worry at the prospect facing the Shotton workers. I am even more worried by the prospects facing those who will have no right to take part in any ballot on whether to accept the Corporation's severance pay offer and the school leavers who will not be consulted but whose prospects of finding a decent job in their own home area will dwindle to disappearing point.
  I shall hold the Government directly responsible for finding decent employment for these people. I shall expect from the Government a massive effort to bring aid to what would be a stricken area. Unless the Government demonstrate the will to make that massive effort, it will be much harder than it is tonight for me to support them in the Lobby. I still hope for a miracle to save Shotton. If the question before the House tonight was that the closure should not go ahead, it would be very hard for me to vote against it. If the question was that the necessary investment should take place in Shotton to modernise its steelmaking equipment, I should find it impossible to vote against. But those are not the issues on which we are voting. We are asked to reject a

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  demand that the steel industry should cease to impose the crippling burden of its annual losses on the rest of British industry and on our social services. I cannot vote against that proposal.
  I know that the British Steel Corporation will not break even next year. None of us expects that to happen. But, unless the BSC is told to start making an effort now, it will not do so, and the losses will pile up year after year. I shall be voting for the Government tonight with few hesitations, but on Friday I shall be praying for a miracle when the final decision on Shotton has to be taken.
  8.5 pm
  Mr. David Lambie: In view of the time available, I do not intend to deliver my prepared speech. Instead I will deal with some of the points raised in the debate. I want to try to outline the problem.
  This debate is similar to many concerning the steel industry in which I have taken part during my nine years as a Member of Parliament. It is a re-run of similar debates that took place during the period of the Conservative Government from 1970 to 1974 when the late John Davies was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and when BSC put forward its 10-year strategic plan for the steel industry. The plan contained the fist indication that the steelworks in the Garnock valley, in my constituency, was to close.
  Since then, we have seen Governments change. The Labour Government, which took office in 1974, cancelled the 10-year strategic plan and announced a review of the whole situation. The job was given to Lord Beswick and there followed the subsequent Beswick report on which the Labour Government developed their policy. During that period, there was closure after closure. Five years ago there were 34 open-hearth furnaces in Scotland. Now there are none. The steelworkers co-operated in the closure of those furnaces. They knew that if the steel industry was to stay modern and viable the open-hearth method of making steel had to be dropped. There has been co-operation throughout my time as a Member of Parliament. Now we come to a re-run of debates on the steel industry that occurred during the period in office of the last Conservative Government.
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  I am glad to see that the hon. Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson) has returned to the Chamber. His recommendation was that the problem would be solved by giving the boys the money. We have been giving the boys the money for nine years, but the problem is more intensive than ever. No person has a right to sell a job. Not only does that person sell his own job but he sells the jobs of the young people in schools, as the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) indicated. The Government are not selling jobs at Shotton and Corby. They are selling communities. Governments have no right to sell communities.
  The workers at Corby are mainly of Scots descent. Forty years ago they sold their jobs, or, if they had no jobs, left the Motherwell area after being told that there was a secure job for life amid the bright lights and green pastures of the steel industry in Corby. Now, 4,000 or 5,000 of them will be out of a job. They are not responsible for this situation. Previous Governments and previous managements of the steel industry are responsible.
  I believe that Governments and the management of the steel industry, whether private or public, have a responsibility to look after the interests of the steel communities. The hon. Member for New Forest argued that the workers should be given the money. In my area, where the open-heath furnaces were closed as part of the strategic plan under the Beswick report, because it was thought to be for the good of the valley, there is still 17 or 18 per cent. unemployment. Some of my hon. Friends are worried about 7 per cent. unemployment. I would regard 7 per cent. unemployment in my constituency as full employment. We have never been near that figure.
  I am glad to see the Secretary of State for Scotland here. I give him credit for following the policies of the previous Labour Government. The BSC and other industries have co-operated in building up industry in my valley. A task force is operating and everything seems to be going well—but we still have 17 per cent. unemployment. The people in Shotton and Corby should not listen to those who ask them to sell their jobs on the promise that more jobs will be provided. I listened to the Secretary of State for Industry saying that today.

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  The problem is not that the BSC and the Government will not co-operate in attracting industry to the valley; it is that, around the valley, industries keep collapsing. On the outskirts of the valley, where people must move for jobs, Talbot at Linwood has just declared 1,500 redundancies; Singer at Clydebank has announced 3,000 redundancies Monsanto wants 800 redundancies; Skefco wants 600 redundancies. The Secretary of State knows about this as well as I do, because, apart from his office he has a constituency interest. There will be an announcement on Friday by Massey Ferguson which may mean the closure of the last combine harvester production unit in Britain, with a loss of 1,500 jobs.
  We cannot solve the problem of the mining valleys when industry is collapsing around us. West Scotland is in danger of becoming an industrial desert.
  I often agree, unfortunately, with the hon. Member for New Forest. The BSC conducted a massive investment programme, of £1½ billion, in the years 1975 to 1977. Last year, £500 million of new plant was commissioned—a tremendous record—but the new plant in which money has been invested has come on stream at a time when the world steel demand has fallen. We are in the deepest steel recession since 1962–63. Why should we change our plans in midstream? It is the Government's responsibility to sustain the BSC through this difficult period.
  The picture is not altogether black. Last year the BSC's loss was £327 million, but two-thirds of that was for investment. Only a third was on the revenue account. The Government say that they will shoulder the investment burden, so why cannot they look after the other third over this difficult period? When the BSC is ready to stride forward into the future, why cannot the Government carry on the investments guaranteed under the Berwick review?
  Some hon. Members have mentioned the trouble at Hunterston. No one can justify that. Sometimes my brothers do not adhere to the philosophy of the brotherhood of man. Burns's cry that
  "man's inhumanity to man
  makes countless thousands mourn"
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  is followed only on 25 January at Burns suppers and forgotten in Scotland for the rest of the year.
  But the Hunterston dispute has been settled. We hope that the first ore carrier will be a lifeline not only for my rolling and finishing mills at Glengarnock but for Ravenscraig, which will be able to come on stream as one of the major steel producing units in the United Kingdom.
  I am sorry that the Secretary of State for Industry is no longer here, but I am sure that these remarks will be passed on to him. About £100 million has been spent at Hunterston, yet an ore terminal, stock yards and two direct reduction plants which have not produced one pellet have gone into mothballs. Why do we not continue with the Beswick proposals and provide the two electric arc furnaces which would make Hunterston an integrated unit and guarantee my constituents employment in the rolling and finishing mills at Glengarnock?
  The hon. Member for New Forest was right to praise the success of the electric arcs in the Sheffield area. Why is it only the private sector that has gone in for electric arcs?
  Mr. Stan Crowther: To get the record straight, it is not just the private sector. The BSC is successfully operating electric arc furnaces at the Rotherham works.
  Mr. Lambie: That justifies my point, that not only private enterprise but the BSC, where it has them, is doing well with electric arc furnaces. Why should the Government stop the investment in the Hunterston area? Why lose £100 million? Why do they not justify that expense by allowing the BSC to build electric arc furnaces?
  If that were done, we should have the basis for the Scottish steel industry that many of us have been looking for for years. We should then have two main centres at Hunterston and Ravenscraig, allied with my finishing mills at Glengarnock. That would create a viable Scottish steel industry and would be a basis for Scotland's future industrial development.
  We have had closures in Scotland for nine years, and we are still having them. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar

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  (Mr. Tinn) said that he was proud to represent an area where the BSC was successful. Many of us have sat back after previous reviews and said "We are all right, boys. We do not need to worry about the rest of them. Our steel industry has been safeguarded."
  After the Beswick review, I said to my people at Glengarnock "We are all right. They can close any other area, but the review says that steelmaking will stay in the Garnock valley." Yet two years later there was a new policy to close the steelworks or part of it.
  I warn my hon. Friends in the more prosperous areas of BSC activities who think that they are safe now that their turn will be next. If we carry on with the policy of closures—we are talking about Corby, Shotton and some areas in Scotland—the next review will be whether Llanwern, Redcar or Ravenscraig should remain. If the Government's and the BSC's present policies of closure continue, one of those plants will have to go. The people of Scotland will say that Ravenscraig must stay; the people of Wales will say that Llanwern must stay; and the people of the North-East will say that Redcar must stay. But if we give way now, as we have unfortunately given way over the last 10 years, the BSC and the British steel industry will depend in future on two main units of production. I hope that one of them will be in Scotland, but that is again a selfish attitude. It will not solve the problem for those who are facing redundancy.
  Therefore, let us be united. Let us stand together. Let us not boast that we are doing well. Let no one boast that his area is doing well, because his day is coming, just as our day came.
  8.20 pm
  Mr. Mark Wolfson: The British Steel Corporation faces an enormous challenge and a daunting task. That challenge, which has come in for much stick in this debate, is to achieve a secure future for the continued production of bulk steel in Britain. That security is at risk, and we are not talking of only 10,000 or 20,000 jobs. If bulk steel production does not become viable, 100,000 jobs could be in danger in the long term. The Corporation's task is to achieve a secure future through a profitable industry.
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  It is proper that the House should, as it has in the past, debate the steel industry, because its performance is crucial to our economy. It is a key industry, with a proud history and a troubled present. It has a future either of high technology, high production and high wages or inevitable and sad decline. We properly debate the industry's future here, but I suggest that Parliament attempts at its peril to run the steel industry. It is the height of arrogance to suggest that politicians and civil servants can manage the industry better than can BSC, whose job it is.
  Steel has suffered more than its share of Government interference in management decisions. Successive Governments have been guilty of that. We must, therefore, learn our lesson and give BSC the freedom and the confidence to carry out its job, in consultation with workers in the industry. There have been grave mistakes, and BSC suffers from the worst of them. There was investment for an expected growth in world and home demand in the early '70s, but that growth never took place.
  It is vital that the industry becomes competitive, and that means moving with the times. Much has been said about how much the industry has changed. Many on the Government Benches wish that further change could be avoided or was unnecessary. In a competitive world, however, there must be change. There is over-capacity in Europe but new capacity in Korea, South America and Japan. We must keep up with the times. If quality, price or delivery date is out of line, it is the customer who goes on strike. There is no future without customers.
  Much of the debate, in and out of this House, has, not surprisingly, centred on the need to maintain production and jobs at all costs. Arguments to that end have been put for good and human reasons. The emphasis on job protection by trade unions and by the Labour Party stems from high ideals and a genuine concern for people, and that has been movingly and eloquently expressed today.
  Does such a campaign—easy to mount in Opposition and hard to fulfil in Government—really help to find a long-term solution for this or any other industry? Are the interests of those working at Corby and Shotton, let alone those in

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  other steel plants throughout the country, best served by an industry which is overmanned, unrationalised and still using uneconomic plant at taxpayers' expense? There can be no job security in such shaky circumstances. This is well understood by some trade union leaders as well as by BSC management.
  The problems of British Leyland have been well publicised. Hector Smith, general secretary of the blastfurnacemen's union, made his plea to the workers of British Leyland, which is one of the major Edwardes plan to slim and restructure British Leyland which is one of the major customers of British Steel. He said:
  "My plea to Leyland men is this. Back the plan, get Leyland competitive again, because if you don't you will be committing suicide, and the death of Leyland will be a devastating body blow to major suppliers like British Steel."
  He went on to say:
  "It is not easy to accept rationalisation and reduced manning, in fact its bloody painful as we in the steel industry know only too well. We've shed tens of thousands of jobs in the last few years. And it is especially hard for trade unionists and trade union officials to accept these changes. Their role has traditionally been to defend jobs, but unions are gradually seeing the truth that there is no point in fighting for every job if the end result is no work for anyone.
  In BSC we are still demanning. My union now says to BSC 'You show us where we are overmanned on the blast furnaces or coke ovens, and we'll negotiate phasing out these jobs'.
  At the end of the day we shall have a leaner, tougher organisation of dedicated steel-men who, with some of the best kit in the world—like the 10,000 tonnes a day blast furnace at Redcar—will knock the hell out of our competitors."
  That from a trade union leader sounds to me not unlike the message of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, though it is perhaps phrased in more robust language. The Leyland men have voted. We all know that voting is the easiest part of the process. Working out the policy is much more difficult, but one key customer of the British Steel Corporation has taken the first step on the road to economic common sense.
  For Hector Smith and other forward-looking trade union leaders in the steel industry, negotiations continue. It is right and proper to pay tribute in this House to the courage and dedication of such men. They and BSC have a common
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  goal and interest, which is long-term profit and security. The acceptance of the necessary changes is not easy for individuals or their communities. No one should underestimate what is being asked of them. We have heard the details from hon. Members who are directly involved.
  Let us make no mistake. The British Steel Corporation cares about communities. It has a target—to achieve viability. Governments of both parties have required such a target. That means closures, and we all know it. Each case requires negotiation, but a solution must be achieved. Surely at Shotton it is better to deal with the problem now and rebuild for the future than to continue in uncertainty and limbo for another seven years. Uncertainty can blight an area and the lives of all within it more seriously perhaps than can a closure. With no decisions and no settlement, there is nothing to look forward to.
  After the closure, what will be left? At Shotton there will be 4,000 jobs instead of 10,000. At Corby there will be 5,000 jobs instead of 11,000. In other areas the numbers involved are smaller, but the movement will continue. I say to the Government that tomorrow's industry and tomorrow's world need considerable midwifery. I have no doubt that there is a role for the Government. The Opposition have suggested that Ministers are abdicating that role and that Government policies do not fulfil it. I contend the opposite. Our policy of aid to new industry is designed to concentrate on those areas of greater need and those industries of real potential. We shall use loans and grants as catalysts of change and not as props for continuing decay.
  The steel industry must live within the market forces. Anything else is unrealistic. It requires great change. Many workers in the industry face sacrifice and disruption. However, there is no satisfactory alternative. Each plank in the Government's financial policy is designed to enable Britain to live within her means in the real world. The steel industry can be no exception. Those who manage that industry do not ask that it should be otherwise. The BSC asks two things of the Government. It asks for the freedom to manage its own affairs and for the support of the Government in the urgent creation of new jobs where demanning

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  and closures are achieved. I support those objectives, and I look to Ministers to fulfil them.
  8.32 pm
  Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: I shall confine my remarks to the Sheffield steel scene—both private and public. I shall be brief. The Sheffield economy is disproportionately dependent on steelmaking. As elsewhere local industry is experiencing a difficult time. Private steel is suffering from an average of 30 per cent. spare capacity, poor profitability, import penetration and rationalisation. Unemployment has increased, which is even more unacceptable and painful.
  Unemployment in Sheffield's metal manufacturing in recent years has soared well above the national average. The BSC Sheffield division is now expected to reverse its current annual loss of £25·7 million, following a loss of £30·1 million in the previous year, and to break even by next March. With the worrying reports about the River Don works and demand for steel expected to decline even further, the outlook for steel in Sheffield causes much local anxiety. In association with employers and trade unions, the city council is initiating a study into special steels. The special steels sector has been seriously affected by import penetration. A further blow has been dealt by the removal of aid under the regional policy.
  Against that background, I draw hon. Members' attention to the problems of special steels and the BSC's Sheffield division. Imports continue to cause serious problems to Sheffield. What is the current rate of import penetration?
  Commissioner Davignon has recognised the problem and has promised continued efforts to find a solution. Can the Minister report progress? Common Market officials were asked in August to investigate claims that a huge shipment of cut-price special steel from Brazil was heading for the British market. Can the Minister comment on the outcome?
  Can the Minister also say what progress the British Iron and Steel Producers Association—BISPA—has made, along with its European counterparts, in pressing for an extension of the Davignon surveillance from controlled and protected products into those which remain uncontrolled and unprotected?
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  I turn now from special steels to the BSC generally. The Corporation has lost—this figure has not been brought out so far in the debate—£1 billion in the past four trading years, while it has incurred a further £1 billion deficit by capital investment at the fastest rate in its history. Meanwhile, the capital spending is saddling British Steel with interest payments of more than £200 million a year. Every tonne of steel made is carrying a burden of £12 interest. If the interest component is deducted, it can be seen that BSC comes down to a relatively low rate of loss of £5 a tonne, which is a good performance by current European standards. But investments have been made and British Steel must try to pay for them.
  Is it possible for the Government to give the BSC some relief by means of a capital reconstruction? I do not think that any hon. Member who has sat through this debate and is therefore interested in the subject—and I suspect that most hon. Members present are well informed about the industry—can doubt that such a reconstruction will happen one day. Let us not delay it unnecessarily. The benefit would be felt most now.
  The Government should consider revaluing the Corporation's fixed assets on the basis that installed plant capacity is more than the BSC can "reasonably expect to utilise". Those are the words of Mr. Bob Scholey, the BSC's chief executive. Such Government support—it is not an unrealistic recommendation—for the Corporation's financial burden would be a great morale booster for the BSC's workers. As we have heard again and again from speakers on both sides of the House, BSC's workers are badly in need of such support now. Their morale must be at rock bottom.
  My own Sheffield division is a case in point. There, the steelworks group made a profit of £9 million this year. But losses by other parts of the division, such as stainless steel, light products, forges and foundries, turned that profit into a total division loss of £25·7 million. It is resented locally that the capital expenditure that is helping to improve performance and the special efforts and achievements of managements and men have not been sufficiently recognised and appreciated. Such plants at River Don, Tinsley Park

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  and Stocksbridge have been threatened with mothballing, or even closure.
  Sir Charles Villiers is aware of the special difficulties of the River Don works, and he has indicated that he is impressed at the way in which both the trade unions and management at that works have cooperated in developing a business plan aimed at profitability. However, a question mark still hangs over this famous plant. Does it have a future?
  Again, I ask the Minister whether he can offer any assurance about the future of this famous works. Can he confirm that the heavy forge development scheme will go ahead? That is a matter about which unions and men, not only at the River Don works but in the city generally, are anxious. It will take a little longer before the ambitious and technically highly successful stainless steel development at Tinsley Park and Shepcote Lane, in Attercliffe, achieve profitability. Like River Don, its contribution to the BSC is unique. Nowhere else in British steelmaking are those contributions duplicated. Both plants are indicted, because of their current and recent losses, but their essential and unique contribution is being overlooked.
  Thanks to the £130 million investment at Tinsley Park, we can look forward to the elimination of most imported stainless cold-rolled strip, which reaped a United Kingdom market share of 60 per cent. It is not only capital expenditure that will restore the fortunes of BSC. The joint contribution of management and men is just as important. Perhaps that is the most important factor of all. Recent visits to Tinsley Park and Stocks-bridge with my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. McKay) have left me in no doubt about the concern of management and trade union representatives. To come across such determination to succeed in the present climate of British steelmaking is welcome.
  There has not been consistent operation at design levels at the Tinsley Park plant in the past, but that is improving. Both management and men are starting to make the plant grow. They are aware that if they can maintain that substantial improvement and achieve even greater efficiency of operation, there will be no question that their plant should be
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  mothballed as was threatened two months ago.
  That sense of partnership, dedication and commitment probably represents BSC's greatest asset—certainly in the Sheffield division. It is a precious and fleeting asset, as any business organisation knows. I appeal to the Minister and to his Front Bench colleagues not to jeopardise it.
  8.42 pm
  Mr. Tony Marlow: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for letting me catch your eye. I shall speak in support of the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Homewood) in view of the appalling problems faced by his constituency, particularly in Corby. I am a Northamptonshire Member and I have also worked in the iron and steelworks there that is threatened with closure.
  Anyone who has worked in the steel industry will realise what a hard, dangerous and difficult job is done by the people working within it. There is a great interdependence between one worker and another, and one group of workers and another. As with the coal mines or even a ship of war, there is team spirit, group loyalty and esprit de corps in the industry. Therefore, when a closure is threatened, it is not the same as the closure of any other factory or plant. It causes far greater feeling and a greater sense of dislocation. I hope that the Government are aware of that.
  Within the county of Northamptonshire, Corby was looked upon as a strange relation—the lodger that came and grew. It became the only part of the county, or perhaps of England, where a Scottish nationalist stood a good chance of being elected as a Member of Parliament. Recently we have come together, and we gladly accept Corby as a valuable and integral part of the county. If Corby is cut, Northamptonshire bleeds, and if Corby is hurt the county will cry.
  Many statistics have been put before us. As with lies, damned lies and statistics, they can be made to prove anything, but some, particularly those put forward by Cambridge university, contain flaws. They take account of the cost of closure, unemployment benefit and revenue that will be lost. If there is a

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  closure, these costs wil arise anyhow. Therefore, they cannot be put against the revenue savings in making steel in a more efficient plant elsewhere in the country. They are a capital cost of closure and they must be looked at in that light. To make a calculation and put it on one side and then put the revenue savings on the other is a mathematical and accounting illogicality.
  I have been in touch with the British Steel Corporation about the costs of closure and the savings that could be made. In my view, by moving steel production elsewhere we would be able to save nationally £30 a ton or £20 million a year. I am not saying that I am necessarily right, but it looks to me as if the die is cast. It is a question not whether steelmaking at Corby finishes, but when; it is not why it should finish but how. Tragedy has been defined as a very beautiful woman who grows fat at the ankles. Corby would never claim to be Miss Universe but at present the town is threatened with a double masectomy. This is a great tragedy.
  We must all be highly sensitive to the problems that Corby faces. We must all do all that we can to ease the transition problems and try to persuade the town that it faces not so much a problem but an opportunity.
  Having heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State today, I wonder whether the Government realise the size of Corby's problem. Governments in the past have encouraged the expansion of Corby. They encouraged the setting up of a new town and encouraged people to come to it, mainly from Scotland. The country, through this industry and the great steelworks which has been at Corby for many years, has benefited. There is now an absolute duty on the Government and the country to do everything to help Corby in its hour of need.
  If possible and where possible, the closures should be phased or delayed while other jobs come in and training takes place. There is an awful prospect, which has been outlined by the hon. Member for Kettering, of a gap between jobs required and jobs available. I urge the Government to phase where possible and to help where possible.
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  I turn to the question of roads. I asked my right hon. Friend earlier when he thought the A1-M1 link would be available. At present Corby is commercially inaccessible by road. We must bring viable roads into the Corby area as a priority. Perhaps we could get funds from Europe for this purpose, and we must press on faster than would normally be expected.
  When and if the steelworks close, there will be a massive loss in rateable value to the county of Northamptonshire. There will also be an increased demand on the services of the county. Under the normal terms of the needs element of the rate support grant, it takes two years for this to work through the system. If there is a closure at Corby, I ask my right hon. Friends to make sure that this deficit is made up at the same time as the closure takes place. Why should people who are already suffering have to wait another two years to get the money to help them in their trials and tribulations?
  We have heard today that development area status will be given to Corby. Labour Members have said that they do not think that this will make a great deal of difference. I do not know what the Government have in mind, but if development area status is not sufficient to help this stricken area I ask them to search their consciences and bring further measures forward.
  My final plea is to the trade unions in the steel industry. This is a terrible time for them. They must feel devastation and resentment. The Government, members of the Conservative Party, the British Steel Corporation and the chairman, Sir Charles Villiers, are not evil men. We are all trying at present to do what we think is right and best for the country.
  There is talk of industrial disruption, go-slows, overtime bans, and so on. I ask those involved to think hard before taking such action. I ask them to do so for the sake of the country, their industry, those who will lose wages, and the people of Shotton and Corby. If we have disruption in those towns and in the industry, it will be disastrous. One has only to look at Liverpool. Who would invest money in Liverpool, with its present reputation? For goodness sake, let us not have disruption and turmoil in

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  Corby and Shotton. That would destroy the very jobs that we are trying to bring to those areas.
  Mr. Porter: Like other hon. Members who represent the Liverpool area, I take grave exception to my hon. Friend's remark about it. It can only harm the prospects of Liverpool. I hope that my hon. Friend will see fit to give way and withdraw it.
  Mr. Marlow: I have finished what I had to say.
  8.50 pm
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this debate. I believe that, once again, my time has been severely cut.
  Before making my speech, I should like to say a few words about the speeches of other hon. Members. It was with great interest that many of us listened to the bleating—and it is bleating—of some Government supporters. I shall watch with great interest tonight in the Opposition Lobby to see with whom those hon. Members vote, particularly the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), who made a fairly impassioned speech on behalf of constituents in his region. I shall also watch closely the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), whose speech I shall remember for its passion for many years. They are supporters of a Government seeking to slash expenditure and place before the country and the House the need to make cuts in moneys available to the British Steel Corporation.
  My constituency is Workington, and for many years it has been a major centre for the production of steel products. Whereas in many parts of the country a dark cloud hangs over the industry, that is not so in Workington. We look forward to a good and profitable future. Indeed, at the moment, Workington, with its steel exports, stands at the forefront of BSC. There are orders for Nigeria, for the Boston Main railway company and the mass transit railway system in the United States, for Kenya railways, and for railway construction between Damascus and Mecca in the Middle East.
  Our record in exports is first-class. It was with sadness that I heard of the
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  reports that stem from other parts of the Corporation. Now, and over the last few years, a depression has developed in the steel industry in Workington. It was perhaps aggravated this morning by the leak in The Guardian of the possible cutback in rail facilities in areas surrounding my constituency. The depression stems from the inability of BSC to take a firm and early decision on the coke investment programme for its plant at Mossbay in Workington. While that decision is outstanding, there is great disquiet and concern in Workington. We hope that within the next few weeks BSC will understand the position and take the decision that is so vital to the future of its activities in Workington.
  As a result of coke-oven investment, we shall see the restoration of the morale that has been slipping over the last few years in Workington. It will certainly lead to an increase in morale in the coal mines in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven (Dr. Cunningham), where investment in coke-oven facilities will ensure an adequate and real future for workers in that industry. Of course, there is the added benefit of the spin-off in the local economy. When one creates investment in a given area and ensures support for the future of its industry, local tradesmen and local people generally look forward with confidence and one sees a general revitalisation in all areas of trade.
  I now turn to the national issue. Here I express my great respect for my hon. Friends the Members for Flint, East (Mr. Jones) and for Kettering (Mr. Homewood) because of the way in which repeatedly during the five months that I have been here they have stated their case on behalf of their constituents. The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East was one of the finest speeches that I have heard in the House. It was a speech of passion. If only the young men from Flint who came to see me yesterday had been able to hear that speech, they would be very proud of their Member of Parliament.
  If there have been difficult years for the BSC and its workers, it is interesting to note the response of Conservatives. Last year the Iron and Steel (Amendment) Bill came before the House and every Conservative Member voted against it, including the right hon. Lady the Prime

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  Minister and all those hon. Members who have spoken so passionately against the motion. Some months prior to that a Private Member's Bill sponsored by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) was introduced with the aim of denationalising the industry. All this has occurred at a time when, between 1973 and 1978, 25,000 jobs were lost in the industry, thus generating a great feeling of insecurity. This has taken place at a time of international recession, when people realised that unless the Government were willing to back industry and take real action the situation would only deteriorate further.
  Now we have a Secretary of State for Industry who has set such unrealistic limits that every hon. Member—including Conservative Members—is aware that it is impractical for them to be realised. Indeed, some interesting debates will develop next April on the limits for the next year of the BSC's operations. It was misleading for the Secretary of State today to tell us that the Government were not directly interfering in the management of the BSC. They are. By interfering with the amount of money that is available to fund the running costs of the industry, they are placing their imprint firmly on the future policies of the Corporation and how they affect the closures in the constituencies that have been represented in the debate.
  It is in that climate that the unions are now pressed to respond. They are demanding a national overtime ban. Here I refer to a newspaper report from my own constituency—a profitable sector. Under the heading "Doomsday warning for steel", BSC Cumbria chief, Mr. Langton Highton, said:
  "Workington's massive British Steel operation faces total collapse if workers back new strike calls."
  That is the response of management, not so much to the workers and the initiative that they are seeking to take but to the attitude adopted by the Secretary of State for Industry inasmuch as it is he who is provoking the industrial actions that will almost inevitably take place.
  There are other actions that I believe should be taken. There is a crying need for an inquiry into the whole future of the BSC. Indeed, a special examination should be made of the whole question of
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  imports. The latest import statistics show, as my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East so accurately pointed out, that we are now importing in excess of £1 billion worth of steel each year. That is an unacceptable level of steel imports when the industry is clearly in recession and jobs are vital.
  If the problem of imports cannot be resolved by an initiative of the Secretary of State, the trade unions will have only one option—to take direct action and, after great consideration, consultation and discussion within the movement, selectively to blockade the import of those steel products that are destroying the jobs of their brethren in the British steel industry.
  9 pm
  Mr. John G. Blackburn: We have heard much about Corby, Shotton and Redcar, and this is one of the rare occasions when there is no pleasure in debate. Our hearts will be heavy when we go through the Lobbies to meet the people from the steelworks because we know the problems that they face.
  Although we have spoken of Corby, Redcar and Shotton, I have a political and moral responsibility to speak on behalf of my constituency, the northern end of which has been ravaged with unemployment as a result of the closure of the Bilston steelworks. I am not surprised to see the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Edwards) here tonight, and I commend him for the battle that he fought on behalf of those fine men from the Bilston steelworks. Members of the Christian faith would say that Good Friday was a sad day, but it was a sad day for the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East and myself when the steelworks were finally closed.
  In the centre of my constituency is a steelworks that is threatened with closure,—Cookley. Between 800 and 1,000 jobs are involved.
  Time is limited and I am grateful to the Opposition Front Bench for giving me the opportunity to address the House.
  There was a forceful speech from the hon. Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn). He said that there had been mistakes, and that is certainly true. The mistakes of the British Steel Corporation have been

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  reflected in the most tragic of all terms—by unemployment for many of the fine steelworkers that we unitedly represent. Worse than that, however, there has been apathy. It is even more tragic that no remedial measures were taken to stop the slide of the market share of the British Steel Corporation.
  We have heard that £1 billion of steel is imported, and no one can condone that. It should have been a challenge to the British Steel Corporation to go out and capture that market and keep it within the country.
  I am not ashamed to say that to me the word "profit" is not obscene. I bear in mind the facilities that came to Stewarts and Lloyds because it was producing profits. There is one thing worse than not making profits, and that is to have no industry, no job and no employment.
  We are here not to hold an inquest but to grasp constructive opportunities so that matters may be put right. The British Steel Corporation has failed to respond quickly to changes even though it is running at only 70 per cent. of its capacity.
  There is a good dialogue between the unions and management, and I commend Mr. Sirs. However, no matter how long management talks with unions, and no matter how much they get it right, it will not produce an order. The only way in which the British Steel Corporation will improve its performance is by implementing a vigorous marketing and sales policy to ensure that there are no competitors from overseas who use Britain as a soft touch or a dumping ground for subsidised steel.
  If we are to adopt that policy, we must have utter reliability in the product, in its performance and in its delivery. It is not the Government's job to run Britain's steel industry, nor was it the job of the Opposition when they were in office. There is no one in the House capable of running the industry. We are not trained to do it. We do not have the gift or the talent to do it. It is the job of the board of the Corporation to run the industry.
  We have large furnaces. We have a large investment programme. That has already been spelt out clearly. The workers in the steel industry, the nation
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  generally and taxpayers especially are entitled to say, not in the short term but in the long term, "We want to see a tremendous improvement in the productivity and performance of the industry." The Government's amendment states:
  "the future of the steel industry depends on much improved productivity, efficient use of costly investments and an early return to profitability."
  It is clear that we face a challenge.
  I am sufficiently old-fashioned to believe that it is much better to work within the bounds of arithmetic and not to indulge in fancy. I have a mandate to speak on behalf of the constituency that sent me to this place. On behalf of the steel workers who are now redundant in the northern end of my constituency and those who are to become redundant in the centre of my constituency, I say to the Government that their amendment sets out the only constructive way to secure all the things that we want from a viable British steel industry.
  9.10 pm
  Mr. Stan Crowther: I listened with great sadness to the Secretary of State. He has made it crystal clear that his prejudices and dedication to the free market ideology have completely blinded him to the reality of the position in the steel industry.
  At a time when every advanced industrial nation is experiencing a major recession in the demand for steel, he is saying to the BSC "Sink or swim. By next April the lifeline will be withdrawn, whatever the world trading conditions." But the industry was brought into public ownership to enable the necessary investment to be pumped in. That is bigotry of the worst possible sort. It is nonsense for the Secretary of State to pretend that he is following the policy of the previous Labour Government. That is what he appears to be saying. It is absolutely wrong and is a slur upon the previous Labour Government's policy. At no time did that Labour Government ever say to the BSC "If you are not able to meet your target of breaking even by April 1980, we will pull out all our assistance."
  With respect to the hon. Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Brown), he cut a slightly pathetic figure. He pleaded with his right hon. Friend to tell him that he did not really mean all

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  that he had said. The Secretary of State has made it crystal clear over and over again that he is cutting the lifeline to BSC if it does not match up to its target.
  We are not saying that no further rationalisation can take place in the steel industry. We all accept that more changes have to take place. No one is saying that every mill, melting shop or department of every works that exists will continue to exist, or even that every job that exists must remain for ever.
  Conservative Members have attempted to pretend that there is no difference between the two sides of the House, but there is an essential difference. We have always maintained that changes must take place in an orderly way and in agreement with the trade unions. Despite the allegations made, I think, by the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer), the industry's trade unions have a long record of realism and responsibility.
  Changes should take place as part of a comprehensive and vigorous policy of regional development. That has not happened in the past. Matters tend to move in a piecemeal manner. Unless a scheme is developed under which jobs that are lost in the old traditional industries are replaced with new jobs, we will be constantly up against that problem.
  History has shown that the old idea of relying on financial incentive to private enterprise for that purpose provides perhaps half an answer, but little more and certainly not the full answer. The remedial measures described by the Secretary of State in respect of Corby are pie in the sky. Many of his hon. Friends acknowledged that during the debate.
  I do not wish to reopen yesterday's debate on the Industry Bill, but the emasculation of the NEB is relevant in this context. I was one of those who saw in the NEB the best hope for real future public involvement in the rejuvenation of those regions where the traditional industries are no longer able to provide all the jobs that are needed. The disastrous consequences of massive redundancies for places such as Corby and Shotton have been adequately described.
  When 10,000 jobs are lost at a stroke, the impact is much greater than when
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  10,000 jobs are lost over a number of years, as has happened at Redcar and Rotherham. The net effect is the same. Those jobs have still gone. Until some sensible regional policy is developed, we will always be up against that problem. The jobs are not there for the younger generation. However long it takes to lose them, the jobs are still being lost. We must look seriously at the enormous social cost.
  We in Rotherham have certainly developed a productive and profitable steelworks, but it has cost us a great deal in social terms. I have little confidence that the Government will be able to provide any kind of solution to deal with the regional problem or with the internal problems of the steel industry. I hope that the industry can survive the coming years of Toryism, but I doubt it.
  9.15 pm
  Dr. John Cunningham: I am pleased that I conceded some extra time for Back Bench speakers. First, I am practising what I preached in voting for shorter speeches. Second, it enabled my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) to make an effective speech on behalf of his constituency and mine. Finally, it gives me the opportunity to express a large measure of agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Crowther). Bearing all that in mind, I hope that hon. Members will forgive me for not referring to their speeches. I have heard them all with the exception of part of that of the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr).
  The interesting factor about the debate is that the questions and the real issues have in the main been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) and by Government and Opposition Back Benchers. They certainly were not raised in any measure by the Secretary of State for Industry. He maintained his stance, which is nothing new to us. He gave no answers to questions. His attitude was the same—based on cash limits. We know it well. It is rather like the attitude of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in his statement last week. The Secretary of State is effectively planning unemployment as part of his approach to the British Steel Corporation.
  The right hon. Gentleman claimed that the attitude that he now adopts and the

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  policy that he is pursuing are almost identical to those of the last Labour Government. We categorically reject that assertion. He has absolutely no ground for making that statement. He can confirm what I am saying simply by reading Labour's White Paper of March 1978. There it was made clear that there would be no unilateral or enforced closures of steelworks. The White Paper did not endorse the proposal of the chairman of the BSC to break even by March next year. I shall return to that point in a moment, but that statement is turning out to be one of the rashest by any chairman of a nationalised industry in this country for many years.
  It was also evident that the Secretary of State's speech left many of his supporters uneasy. The hon. Member for Harborough expressed his unease, as did the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis) and other Conservative Back Benchers. The Secretary of State announced a decision on special remedial measures for Corby, which indicates that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Homewood) has virtually no chance of winning the tremendous battle that he and his colleagues in that area have maintained for the Corby steelworks.
  I can tell the Minister of State that it is not credible to suppose that the measures announced today can have the slightest effect on the catastrophic employment and social impact of closure at Corby. Every right hon. and hon. Member knows that that is so. The situation is in no sense satisfactory. There is not sufficient time or money, and the Government know that as well as we do. It is all about public expenditure. It comes ill from the Secretary of State to talk about what he proposes in Corby in terms of public expenditure when his case rests on the fact that public expenditure should be reduced and how quickly the new terms for that reduction can be brought about. In his usual economic, tutorial manner, he sounded like an old, cracked, gramophone record, playing the same old tune.
  Worst of all, the right hon Gentleman said not one word about the future of the British steel industry. He said something about taxpayers not wanting to bear the burden of propping up steelmaking losses. He knows as well as we
  518
  do that in one way or another the taxpayer will carry the burden. For many reasons, we believe that taxpayers would rather carry the burden of keeping people in jobs than on the dole. That is what the Secretary of State has in store for them. Development area status will not begin to tackle the problems of Corby. Indeed, in my constituency in 1968 the Millom ironworks were closed down in similar circumstances. It is an isolated community and 30 per cent. of the people were put on the dole at short notice. Anyone who visits that town will see that it has not recovered—11 years later. The Government know that to be the case. For Millom in 1968 read Corby—probably Shotton, too—in 1979.
  There was a lack of urgency in what the Secretary of State said about the size of the problems and the Government's will to tackle them. He said that their attitude is the same as the previous Government's. Where is the urgency that was displayed at the closure of Ebbw Vale, East Moors or Rutherglen, the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen, (Mr. MacKenzie)? There is a great difference in commitment and determination to tackle the problems.
  The hon. Members for Harborough and for Rutland and Stamford expressed their considerable unease at the proposals. I congratulate them, and I invite them to express it more formidably by joining us in the Lobby tonight.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Coleman) expressed with great force the difficult position in which the unions in the steel industry have been placed by the Government's policies. I shall return to that matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins) made the same point. I know his constituency well. I live on its edge. I worked there as a trade union officer many years ago. The matter was also raised yesterday by councils from Deeside and Clwyd—Conservative almost to a man. They came to lobby Parliament to make clear the distaste with which they view their Government's policies.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering made the point that BSC (Industry) Ltd. industry does not have the capacity or the financial resources to tackle the

  519
  financial problems which will be faced in Corby. If the Minister wishes to display any urgency, he should insist that the BSC pays attention to that matter. In a moving speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering said that, faced with what has happened at Corby, the unions in the industry are left with no choice. They have no confidence in the Government and little or no confidence in the management of the BSC.
  The same point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie). It is interesting to hear Conservative Members talking about the need for increased productivity. My hon. Friend pointed out that there have been closures for 10 years in the steel industry, yet we are still told that what we need are more closures to solve the problems.
  Last year alone, 17,000 jobs in the steel industry were lost. Apparently that did not solve the problem. That leads most, if not all, members of the Opposition to conclude that closures are not the answer. I should have thought that that was a fairly obvious conclusion for the Government as well.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) referred to the same problems in the private sector of the steel industry. Surprise, surprise—the private sector is in difficulties too. The Secretary of State has been silent on that aspect of the problem of the steel industry. I agree with my hon. Friend's reference to the need to consider the financing of the British Steel Corporation. Almost every speaker made special pleas or asked for assurances, whether from the unions, the work force or Ministers. I support those requests. However, I think that our worst fears will be fulfilled, as the requests appeared to fall on deaf ears.
  If we need a steel industry—that was the central question asked by my right hon. Friend in moving the motion—we must support it. There is no other way in the present circumstances. We must be prepared to pay the price if we want an effective industry not only in terms of bulk capacity but with sufficient flexibility to produce special products and meet market demands and challenges at home and abroad. That situation will not obtain if the Government's policies are pursued in the present direction.
  520
  If the Government amendment were an addition to our motion, I do not think that many members of the Opposition would object. We recognise that reliability, profitability and the improvements in productivity to which it refers are necessary. Of course that is so. However, they will not happen in the short term and certainly not as a result of Government policies. Where is the evidence to support any argument that their approach—I would not dignify it with the word "policy"—will bring us to the situation described in the amendment?
  We are now talking about closing effective steel-making capacity. It is by no means agreed that there is hopelessly inefficient or unusable capacity either at Shotton or Corby. What is more important is that we are not talking just about Shotton and Corby. In a previous debate on this subject—on the EEC documents—we received no ministerial assurances about further closures or about protecting regional aid to industry.
  The chairman of the British Steel Corporation, in his famous statement and pledge on Shotton, said:
  "We shall want Shotton steelmaking for many years to come. The Shotton option remains open for technological progress, new commercial requirements."
  He added:
  "This plan is commercial, practical and prudent."
  Those are the words of the chairman of the BSC—the man to whom the Secretary of State is apparently happy to leave the running of the Corporation. If he is happy with the judgment of the chairman, why does he not accept that statement about the situation at Shotton?
  The Corby case was effectively put by the unions involved in the industry. They made clear their belief that a decision to close Corby, apart from all the social consequences to the community, would adversely influence the balance of payments by increasing opportunities for imports and add to rather than reduce the overall level of any Exchequer contribution required for the industry. They pointed out that those are not the ends—if, indeed, there are any ends—towards which productive capacity should be withdrawn and communities sacrificed.
  There is a very good argument in favour—
  Mr. Marlow rose—
  Dr. Cunningham: I am not giving way. I have already conceded a lot of time and the hon. Gentleman was one of the beneficiaries.
  The Corby case and the Shotton case stand on their merits. It has been made clear by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham that in his area and in areas such as Sheffield the old plants, the work force and the unions, given confident management and investment to support their case, can re-establish themselves in world markets and compete on the same terms as their competitors and win back business for this country. That is the way in which we should approach the problems that we face in our industries. We should not be abandoning them to the hopelessly antiquated attitude of the Secretary of State for Industry.
  Elsewhere in Europe, far less efficient plant remains in production, protected by Governments, and elsewhere in the EEC, in spite of the Davignon measures and in spite of the Vouel measures, which we opposed strongly for so long in Government, the industry is subsidised. But this Government are apparently prepared to see our industry, with better capacity, in many circumstances, go to the wall. That is not a credible situation. It is not a creditable situation. It is another reason why we have no confidence in the Government's approach to the problems of the steel industry.
  Where is the logic? What end is this approach meant to achieve for Britain or the British steel industry? The demand to break even by March next year is not based on any long-thought-out economic approach to the British Steel Corporation. It is almost plucked out of the air by the chairman. It does not have any credible economic basis, given the facts that surround the British Steel Corporation. Unfortunately, the chairman's rashness is now being used to throttle the industry. It may be used to throttle him before much longer. We shall see.
  What will happen after 1980? That is another question to which the Secretary of State paid no attention. What will be the situation in 1981 if the Corporation still is not breaking even? Will there be more closures? Will there, perhaps, be a major and modern steelworks closed? That would be the next and only option
  522
  left to the Corporation if its present policy is pursued. No one believes that the target is credible. No one believes, either in this House or outside, in the industry, in the press or anywhere, that this target will be achieved. If it is achieved, its effect could only be catastrophic for the long-term position of the British Steel Corporation and the many tens of thousands of people whose futures are bound up in it. It would lead to further de-industrialisation.
  This approach can result only in the most serious uncertainty in areas such as Consett, Workington, South Wales and elsewhere. It is no wonder that the unions have now reached what is almost breaking point. They have seen what has happened at Shotton. They have seen a pledge about the discussion of closures at Corby dwindle from two years to one year, then to six months, and now to six weeks. This is absolutely unacceptable. What will happen to the size and capacity of British Steel if this policy is continued? It is no wonder that, against this background, the unions have made clear that they cannot go on co-operating with the right hon. Gentleman and his Government.
  We are discussing not just the present closure proposals but the credibility of the BSC management to sustain an effective and co-ordinated industry. That is the problem, as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire made clear. In the midst of the deepest world recession in steel demand for 40 years, the Government respond to the problems with policies of 40 years ago—closure after closure, with the downward spiral into further unemployment.
  At a time when it is operating nowhere in the world—not in America, not in Japan or Europe—the Government place their faith in the market economy. That approach would be anathema to us in reasonable circumstances, but when market forces are operating nowhere they are even more bound to fail if invoked in our domestic industries. So dogmatic a course is bound to lead, as it has done, to the unions expressing no confidence.
  We talk about competition and productivity. As has been made clear, France loses £32 per tonne of steel, Italy £21 and Belgium £20. The British steel industry loses £17 a tonne, and without

  523
  loan charges the loss is only £5. That is not evidence that our workers cannot compete with their counterparts in other countries. We reject the accusation that this problem can be laid at the door of the unions.
  The Government's own Back Benchers have made it clear that they do not like this policy. I emphasise that we do not like it much, either. Tory Back Benchers have shown more concern than the Secretary of State and no doubt more than the Minister of State will show.
  To someone of extreme views—the Secretary of State's views are extreme; they are not moderate, especially in circumstances such as these—balance sheets are apparently more important than jobs; financial rectitude is the goal at any cost, regardless of the price in terms of unemployment; tax cuts are more important than the job opportunities and careers of young people in areas of already high unemployment; public expenditure reductions at the cost of whole industrial communities are the order of the day.
  We cannot accept this. The complete absence of any policy content in the Secretary of State's speech—he apparently could not be bothered about the future of the industry and its workers—is the best justification for our motion.
  9.38 pm
  The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Adam Butler): Like the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Dr. Cunningham), I shall not be able to deal with all the points raised. We shall try to write to hon. Members if I do not cover their questions.
  One of the extraordinary assertions by the hon. Member for Whitehaven was that the Government were in no way following the Labour Government's policy towards the steel industry. An unbiased observer of recent history could not possibly agree with that. To a large degree, there has been a common approach to the industry.
  Dr. John Cunningham: Not at all.
  Mr. Butler: Let me go on. Would the Opposition agree on a determination to see an efficient and profitable industry? Would they agree that a reduction in productive capacity was necessary to achieve such an industry? There is ample evidence to support this conclusion for
  524
  anyone who is unbiased. Because some hon. Members were not here at the beginning of the debate, I shall give some of that ample evidence.
  The White Paper of March 1978 read:
  "The Government's present view is that further rationalisation will be necessary in future … To achieve financial viability it is necessary for capacity to move more into line with demand."
  That would be a clear statement even today. The White Paper went on:
  "The Corporation is suffering from substantial over-capacity now. This is likely to persist over the next few years"
  There is a realisation that something had to be done to meet that. Or let us take the much-quoted remark of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley). He set what most of us would have taken to be a firm financial target. It was considerably tighter in time scale than that proposed by my right hon. Friend.
  According to the target set by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield, the Corporation was supposed to break even during 1979–80, which is not the target set by my right hon. Friend. I do not know what a target is if it is incorrect to believe that a target was set when the right hon. Gentleman stated:
  "Part of the Government policy is that the financial objectives of the BSC should be to break even by the financial year 1979–80."—[Official Report, 22 May 1978; Vol. 950, c. 1105–6.]
  The problem was that it was not looked upon as any kind of target. British Steel did not think that it was necessary to meet that target. Due to the weakness and lack of determination shown by the right hon. Gentleman and his Government, BSC took not the slightest notice of that target, nor of the words used by him in this House. If that statement did not set a target, there is mention of it again in the public expenditure White Paper as late as January of this year. The White Paper states:
  "The Corporation are aiming to operate at a break-even basis by March 1980. The Government are giving full support to the Corporation in their efforts."
  There, surely, is a commonality—though of words only—on the part of the Labour Party. We have both words and intention on the Government Benches.
  Dr. John Cunningham: The hon. Gentleman cannot claim that the Labour

  525
  Secretary of State made a statement similar to that made by his right hon. Friend in July of this year about the future financing of the British Steel Corporation.
  Mr. Butler: It would be difficult to read much difference into the statement of my right hon. Friend from those that I have just quoted. If those statements are now being totally denied by the Opposition, right hon, and hon. Gentlemen are renouncing all responsibility for their time in Government. Regretful as they were, the previous Administration presided over closures which involved the loss of 25,000 jobs during their last two years of office. That was not a deliberate policy. It was necessitated by the circumstances. I ask, therefore, whether the Labour Party believes that closures are necessary or whether it is now renouncing its seemingly responsible attitude of that period.
  Governments of both parties share something else in common. They have presided over, and acquiesced in, some highly optimistic forecasts of demand. Against those forecasts, successive Governments have provided thousands of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money to enlarge and modernise productive capacity.
  Both parties, therefore, are to some extent responsible for the present overcapacity in the steel industry. If we are all responsible for the overcapacity, we are also responsible for some thoroughly modern plant with a potential for low-cost, high-quality output.
  I have been worried during the debate about right hon. and hon. Members' encouragement of obstruction and disruptive action. It is a gross disservice, as at least two of my hon. Friends said, to those who are directly affected by closures to raise their expectations. It does no good to them and no good to the prospects of those at other plants to encourage industrial action. If prolonged for any time, industrial action will put at risk the whole steel industry.
  The debate does not turn on whether there should be closure and restructuring. The previous Administration accepted the necessity for that. The debate turns on the need for an early return to profitability. That will come from improved productivity and the efficient use of
  526
  costly investments. It will not come from the continuation of plants which are actually or potentially loss makers. There is justification for keeping plants open only in two circumstances: if there are no worthwhile alternatives, and if there has not been full consultation.
  In the case of Corby it is not true to say that there were only six weeks of consultation. Discussions about the future of Corby began under the Labour Administration in February 1979. The consultations have occupied more time than has been taken in connection with any other closure. With reluctance, the chairman had to inform the trade unions at the final meeting that there were no workable alternatives.
  The only other reason for keeping open loss-making plants is if there is a massive increase in demand round the corner and a seller's market, instead of a buyer's market, develops, with prices to match. Then plants with out-of-date capacity have a chance of being economic. There is no indication of that occurring for some years. An increase in demand to take up 40 or 50 per cent, more of British Steel Corporation output is needed. There is no indication that that will happen.
  It is certain that the latest modern plant in BSC is among the best in Europe, and we should be proud of it. If such plant is not run at capacity, it will continue to lose money. Ravenscraig has a highly developed plant whch is operating at about three-quarters capacity. It is not possible to make profit out of a capital-intensive plant which is running at three-quarters capacity.
  Redcar, of which the hon. Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn) spoke so proudly, must have a massive output if it is to run efficiently, let alone at a profit. Such plants must be run at or near full capacity. They should then be in the position to supply the finishing ends at Corby and Shotton. That will be to the benefit of those who work at those plants because full capacity means more jobs and job security in the future.
  The Government's responsibility is to look after the public's money. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) believes that they have no such responsibility, but certainly where a management decides to close plants the Government have a responsibility with regard

  527
  to the social consequences. There are fears and worries, which have been expressed as eloquently by my hon. Friends as by Labour Members.
  The Government must act. My right hon. Friend announced a very good package of aid, giving development area status, with its 15 per cent, grant on buildings and plant, eligibility for assistance under section 7, funds from Europe, and, particularly, increased factory building. I understand that, for example—[Interruption.] Labour Members might like to listen, because they claim that there is nothing in the package. If they do not take the steel industry's future as seriously as I do, they can go on chatting among themselves. This Government take the industry very seriously and are trying to do something about its future.
  Mr. Lambie: They are trying to kill it.
  Mr. Butler: I was about to say that the Earlstree industrial estate has a potential of nearly 4,000 jobs over the next few years. There is a further estate of 50 acres available, and a feasibility study is looking into the potential of a further 250 acres.
  Apart from that, Corby does have attractions. The nearest assisted area to London must be attractive to investors. Therefore, we believe that the package announced by my right hon. Friend will be of real help.
  If the decision to close Shotton is confirmed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will make an announcement about what the Government can do to help,
  Various hon. Members spoke about the threat of imports, particularly from the Common Market. Imports of steel into this country have not varied in their proportion for four or five years. Secondly, we export more steel than we import. If we impose the sort of barriers that were requested by some Labour Members, the barriers will go up against our exports.
  There was also a reference to the performance of steel companies in Europe. In fact, the Luxembourg, Dutch and German steel industries will break even or be profitable this year. Evidence of this is the fact that some people are now showing increasing reluctance to renew the Davignon measures when they run
  528
  out, because they believe that they can compete without protection against the outside world.
  Because of the present condition of our industry, it is the Government's intention to press for the renewal of those measures. As I have said, there are others who have found it possible to compete in the world, and to get themselves into an efficient state, who will be arguing in the other direction.
  Mr. Lambie: They have done it with Government aid.
  Mr. Butler: The right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) said that British Steel was losing a significant proportion of its output because of the import of foreign cars. He produced some telling figures. What he did not add was the reason why there was such an import of cars from the Community. It is not that wages are lower there. I do not think that he was asserting that. I do not think that he was asserting that the cars were heavily subsidised, because I do not think that coking coal is used for cars. What matters is the reason why those cars are being bought. The British public exercises its choice and prefers foreign cars in terms of price, delivery, quality or some other reason. That is a useful illustration because that is the way in which British Steel can increase its sales and production and thereby provide the jobs that we want.
  A simple example is that, thanks to an inter-union dispute, the Hunterston terminal has not yet been used since it was opened five or six months ago. That has cost British Steel a large amount of money, and that must affect its prices and the quality of its output. It has particularly affected the output of Ravenscraig. It is intended that Ravenscraig should supply Shotton. If good-quality steel could be produced there, the result would be good-quality motor cars. If steel is produced at Ravenscraig and if that plant's capacity is used to the full, that will bring down the price. Then at least there is a better chance of having a better-quality and a better-priced British motor car. Only then will the imports become fewer.
  Mr. George Grant: Before the Minister leaves the question of the

  529
  competitiveness of EEC steel industries, will he tell the House by how much the German steel industry is subsidised by virtue of the subsidy on coking coal?
  Mr. Butler: The difference in price between imported coking coal from Australia and other places and that produced by the National Coal Board is about £10 a tonne. That is pretty significant. As the hon. Member knows as well as I do, the other problem in connection with British-produced coking coal is that it is not as good quality as the imported material. High-quality coking coal is particularly necessary for the operation of such plants as Redcar.
  Our amendment refers to the need to improve productivity, make use of costly investments and achieve profitabiilty as rapidly as possible. The interests of all those who work in the industry depend on reaching those targets, particularly that of profitability. I believe that the unions and their members know this. I urge them most carefully not to take any action that will put that future at risk as it will only do harm to their own members.
  Government policy is and will continue to be to bring about a proud and healthy steel industry. We are determined to achieve this. But we are also determined to help those who suffer from the closures which continuing overcapacity and uneconomic facilities make essential. Therefore, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to reject the Opposition motion and to support our amendment.
  9.59 pm
  Mr. Dennis Canavan: That was one of the most deplorable speeches that I have heard in this House. If this is the justification for the Government's industrial strategy, particularly for the steel industry, the House has no choice but to vote against it. The Minister tonight has insulted us—
  Mr. John Evans rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
  Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 248, Noes 307.

  Division No. 95]

  AYES

  [10 pm

  Abse, Leo

  Cook, Robin F.

  Field, Frank

  Adams, Allen

  Cowans, Harry

  Fitch, Alan

  Allaun, Frank

  Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Flannery, Martin

  Alton, David

  Crowther, J. S.

  Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

  Anderson, Donald

  Cryer, Bob

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Ford, Ben

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Forrester, John

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Foster, Derek

  Ashton, Joe

  Dalyell, Tam

  Foulkes, George

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Lianelli)

  Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

  Beith, A. J.

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Freud, Clement

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Deakins, Eric

  George, Bruce

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

  Dempsey, James

  Ginsburg, David

  Bradley, Tom

  Dewar, Donald

  Gourlay, Harry

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Dixon, Donald

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Dobson, Frank

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Dormand, Jack

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Douglas, Dick

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh, Leith)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Buchan, Norman

  Dubs, Alfred

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Haynes, Frank

  Campbell, Ian

  Dunnett, Jack

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Canavan, Dennis

  Eadie, Alex

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Cant, R. B.

  Eastham, Ken

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Carmichael, Neil

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Home Robertson, John

  Cartwright, John

  Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

  Homewood, William

  Clark, David (South Shields)

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Hooley, Frank

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  English, Michael

  Horam, John

  Cohen, Stanley

  Ennals, Rt Hon David

  Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Coleman, Donald

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Huckfield, Les

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Ewing, Harry

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Janner, Hon Greville

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Morton, Barry

  Snape, Peter

  John, Brynmor

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Soley, Clive

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

  Spearing, Nigel

  Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

  Newens, Stanley

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Stallard, A. W.

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Stoddart, David

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Stott, Roger

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Strang, Gavin

  Kinnock, Neil

  Palmer, Arthur

  Straw, Jack

  Lambie, David

  Park, George

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Lamborn, Harry

  Parker, John

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

  Lamond, James

  Parry, Robert

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Leighton, Ronald

  Pendry, Tom

  Thomas, Dr Roger Carmarthen)

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Penhaligon, David

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Tilley, John

  Litherland, Robert

  Prescott, John

  Torney, Tom

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Race, Reg

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

  Radice, Giles

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  McCartney, Hugh

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Watkins, David

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Weetch, Ken

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Wellbeloved, James

  McKelvey, William

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

  Welsh, Michael

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Robertson, George

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  McNally, Thomas

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Whitlock, William

  Magee, Bryan

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Marks, Kenneth

  Rooker, J. W.

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Marshall, David (Gl'sgow,Shettles'n)

  Roper, John

  Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Ryman, John

  Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

  Maxton, John

  Sandelson, Neville

  Winnick, David

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Sever, John

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Meacher, Michael

  Sheerman, Barry

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)

  Wright, Sheila

  Mikardo, Ian

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Short, Mrs Renée

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Silkin, Rt Hon S.C. (Dulwich)

  Mr. James Tinn and

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Silverman, Julius

  Mr. Ted Graham.

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Durant, Tony

  Alexander, Richard

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Dykes, Hugh

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Ancram, Michael

  Buck, Antony

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

  Arnold, Tom

  Budgen, Nick

  Eggar, Timothy

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Elliott, Sir William

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Burden, F. A.

  Emery, Peter

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Butcher, John

  Eyre, Reginald

  Atkinson, David (Bournemouth, East)

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Banks, Robert

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Farr, John

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Fell, Anthony

  Bell, Ronald

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Bendall, Vivian

  Channon, Paul

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Best, Keith

  Clark, Dr William (Croydon South)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Forman, Nigel

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Clegg, Walter

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Cockeram, Eric

  Fox, Marcus

  Blackburn, John

  Colvin, Michael

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Body, Richard

  Cope, John

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Cormack, Patrick

  Fry, Peter

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Corrie, John

  Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Costain, A. P.

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Bowden, Andrew

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes

  Critchley, Julian

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Crouch, David

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Bright, Graham

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Brinton, Tim

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Brittan, Leon

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Gorst, John

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Gow, Ian

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Dover, Denshore

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Brotherton, Michael

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Gray, Hamish

  Greenway, Harry

  Marland, Paul

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Grieve, Percy

  Marlow, Tony

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Scott, Nicholas

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Shaw, Gies (Pudsey)

  Grist, Ian

  Mates, Michael

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Grylls, Michael

  Mather, Carol

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Eps'm&Ew'll)

  Mawby, Ray

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Shersby, Michael

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Silvester, Fred

  Hannam, John

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Sims, Roger

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Mellor, David

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Hastings, Stephen

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Speed, Keith

  Hawksley, Warren

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Speller, Tony

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Spence, John

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Sproat, Iain

  Heddle, John

  Moate, Roger

  Squire, Robin

  Henderson, Barry

  Molyneaux, James

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Monro, Hector

  Stanley, John

  Hicks, Robert

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Steen, Anthony

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Moore, John

  Stevens, Martin

  Hill, James

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Holland, Philip (Carlton)

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Hooson, Tom

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Stokes, John

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Mudd, David

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Murphy, Christopher

  Tapsell, Peter

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Myles, David

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Neale, Gerrard

  Tebbit, Norman

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Needham, Richard

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Hurd, Hon Douglas

  Nelson, Anthony

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Neubert, Michael

  Thompson, Donald

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Newton, Tony

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

  Jessel, Toby

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Osborn, John

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  page, John (Harrow, West)

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Trippier, David

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Parris, Matthew

  Trotter, Neville

  Kilfedder, James A.

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Kimball, Marcus

  patten, John (Oxford)

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Viggers, Peter

  Knox, David

  Pawsey, James

  Waddington, David

  Lamont, Norman

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Wakeham, John

  Lang, Ian

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Waldegrave, Hon. William

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Walker, Rt Hon Peter (Worcester)

  Latham, Michael

  Pollock, Alexander

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Lawrence Ivan

  Porter, George

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

  Lawson, Nigel

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Wall, Patrick

  Lee, John

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Waller, Gary

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  price, David (Eastleigh)

  Walters, Dennis

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  prior, Rt Hon James

  Ward, John

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Watson, John

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Loveridge, John

  Raison, Timothy

  Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)

  Luce, Richard

  Rathbone, Tim

  Wheeler, John

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Rees, peter (Dover and Deal)

  Whitney, Raymond

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Wickenden, Keith

  McCrindle, Robert

  Renton, Tim

  Wilkinson, John

  McCusker, H.

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Winterton, Nicholas

  MacGregor, John

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Wolfson, Mark

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Madel, David

  Rost, Peter

  Mr. Spencer Le Marchaot and

  Major, John

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Mr. Anthony Berry.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 32 (Questions on amendments).
  The House divided: Ayes 313, Noes 242.

  Division No. 96]

  AYES

  [10.15 pm

  Adley, Robert

  Dykes, Hugh

  Kimball, Marcus

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Alexander, Richard

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

  Knox, David

  Alton, David

  Eggar, Timothy

  Lamont, Norman

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Elliott, Sir William

  Lang, Ian

  Ancram, Michael

  Emery, Peter

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Arnold, Tom

  Eyre, Reginald

  Latham, Michael

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Lawrence Ivan

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Lawson, Nigel

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Lee, John

  Atkinson, David (Bournemouth, East)

  Farr, John

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Fell, Anthony

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

  Banks, Robert

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Loveridge, John

  Beith, A. J.

  Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

  Luce, Richard

  Bell, Ronald

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Bendall, Vivian

  Forman, Nigel

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  McCrindle, Robert

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Fox, Marcus

  McCusker, H.

  Best, Keith

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  MacGregor, John

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Freud, Clement

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Fry, Peter

  McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

  Blackburn, John

  Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Body, Richard

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

  Madel, David

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Major, John

  Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Marland, Paul

  Bowden, Andrew

  Goodhew, Victor

  Marlow, Tony

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Gorst, John

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Bright, Graham

  Gow, Ian

  Mates, Michael

  Brinton, Tim

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Mather, Carol

  Brittan, Leon

  Gray, Hamish

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Greenway, Harry

  Mawby, Ray

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Grieve, Percy

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Brotherlon, Michael

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Grist, Ian

  Mellor, David

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Grylls, Michael

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Buck, Antony

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Eps'm&Ew'll)

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Budgen, Nick

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Mills, peter (West Devon)

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Burden, F. A.

  Hannam, John

  Moate, Roger

  Butcher, John

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Molyneaux, James

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Hastings, Stephen

  Monro, Hector

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Moore, John

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)

  Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Heddle, John

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Channon, Paul

  Henderson, Barry

  Mudd, David

  Chapman, Sydney

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Murphy, Christopher

  Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Hicks, Robert

  Myles, David

  Clark, Dr William (Croydon South)

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Neale, Gerrard

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Hill, James

  Needham, Richard

  Clegg, Walter

  Holland, Philip (Carlton)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Cockeram, Eric

  Hooson, Tom

  Neubert, Michael

  Colvin, Michael

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Newton, Tony

  Cope, John

  Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally

  Cormack, Patrick

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Osborn, John

  Corrie, John

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  page, John (Harrow, West)

  Costain, A. P.

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Hurd, Hon Douglas

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Critchley, Julian

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Parris, Matthew

  Crouch, David

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Jessel, Toby

  patten, John (Oxford)

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Pawsey, Jamas

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Penhaligon, David

  Dover, Denshore

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Percival, Sir Ian

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Durant, Tony

  Kilfedder, James A.

  Pollock, Alexander

  Porter, George

  Silvester, Fred

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

  Sims, Roger

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Viggers, peter

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Waddington, David

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)

  Wakeham, John

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Speed, Keith

  Waldegrave, Hon. William

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Speller, Tony

  Walker, Rt Hon peter (Worcester)

  Raison, Timothy

  Spence, John

  Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Sproat, Iain

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Squire, Robin

  Wall, Patrick

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Waller, Gary

  Renton, Tim

  Stanley, John

  Walters, Dennis

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Steen, Anthony

  Ward, John

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Stevens, Martin

  Watson, John

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Stokes, John

  Wheeler, John

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Whitney, Raymond

  Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)

  Tapsell, Peter

  Wickenden, Keith

  Rost, Peter

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

  Wilkinson, John

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Tebbit, Norman

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Winterton, Nicholas

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Scott, Nicholas

  Thompson, Donald

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Shaw, Gies (Pudsey)

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

  Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Trippier, David

  Mr. Anthony Berry.

  Shersby, Michael

  Trotter, Neville

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Dempsey, James

  Home Robertson, John

  Adams, Allen

  Dewar, Donald

  Homewood, William

  Allaun, Frank

  Dixon, Donald

  Hooley, Frank

  Anderson, Donald

  Dobson, Frank

  Horam, John

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Dormand, Jack

  Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

  Douglas, Dick

  Huckfield, Les

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Ashton, Joe

  Dubs, Alfred

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

  Janner, Hon Greville

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Dunnelt, Jack

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  John, Brynmor

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Eadie, Alex

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Eastham, Ken

  Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Bradley, Tom

  Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  English, Michael

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Ennals, Rt Hon David

  Kinnock, Neil

  Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Lambie, David

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh, Leith)

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Buchan, Norman

  Ewing, Harry

  Lamond, James

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

  Field, Frank

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Fitch, Alan

  Leighton, Ronald

  Campbell, Ian

  Flannery, Martin

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Elton & Slough)

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Litherland, Robert

  Cant, R. B.

  Ford, Ben

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Carmichael, Neil

  Forrester, John

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Cartwright, John

  Foster, Derek

  Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

  Clark, David (South Shields)

  Foulkes, George

  McCartney, Hugh

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Cohen, Stanley

  Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Coleman, Donald

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  McKelvey, William

  Conlan, Bernard

  George, Bruce

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Cook, Robin F.

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Maclennan, Robert

  Cowans, Harry

  Ginsburg, David

  McNally, Thomas

  Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Magee, Bryan

  Crowther, J. S.

  Graham, Ted

  Marks, Kenneth

  Cryer, Bob

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Marshall, David (Gl'sgow, Shettles'n)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Cunningham, George (Islington S)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Dalyell, Tam

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Maxton, John

  Davidson, Arthur

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Lianelli)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Meacher, Michael

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Haynes, Frank

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Mikardo, Ian

  Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Deakins, Eric

  Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

  Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

  Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Roper, John

  Tilley, John

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Torney, Tom

  Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

  Rowlands, Ted

  Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

  Newens, Stanley

  Ryman, John

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Sandelson, Neville

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Sever, John

  Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Sheerman, Barry

  Watkins, David

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)

  Weetch, Ken

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Shore, Rt Hon peter (Step and Pop)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Palmer, Arthur

  Short, Mrs Renée

  Welsh, Michael

  Park, George

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

  Parker, John

  Silkin, Rt Hon S.C. (Dulwich)

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Parry, Robert

  Silverman, Julius

  Whitlock, William

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Skinner, Dennis

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Pendry, Tom

  Snape, Peter

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Soley, Clive

  Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

  Prescott, John

  Spearing, Nigel

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)

  Race, Reg

  Stallard, A. W.

  Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

  Radice, Giles

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

  Winnick, David

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

  Stoddart, David

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Stott, Roger

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Strang, Gavin

  Wright, Sheila

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Straw, Jack

  Young, David (Bolton East)

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Robertson, George

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Mr. George Morton and

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

  Mr. James Tinn.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Mr. SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to, pursuant to Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply).
  Resolved,
  That this House believes that the future of the steel industry depends on much improved productivity, efficient use of costly investments, and an early return to profitability.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That at this day's sitting the motion relating to Members' Interests may be proceeded with, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock or for one and a half hours after it has been entered upon, whichever is the later.—[Mr. Wakeham.]

  MEMBERS' INTERESTS
  Mr. Speaker: Before I call on the Minister to move the motion relating to Members' interests, I should tell the House that I have not selected either of the amendments to it. However, I shall be prepared to allow reference to be made to the second amendment in a general debate and I propose that the part of the motion relating to names be debated as a whole. The Question on those names will be put at its conclusion. Is that agreeable to the House?
  Hon. Members: Yes.
  Mr. Speaker: As long as the House understands what it is doing. There will be one vote on all the names.
  10.29 pm
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): I beg to move,
  That Mr. Robert Adley, Mr. Joe Ashton, Mr. Andrew Bennett, Mr. R. B. Cant, Mr. Tony Durant, Sir Nigel Fisher, Mr. Percy Grieve, Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith, Mr. David Madel, Mr. Charles R. Morris, Mr. Arthur Palmer, Mr. Michael Shaw, and Mr. Frederick Willey, be members of the Select Committe on Members' Interests.
  The motion proposes the membership, for this Parliament, of the Select Committee that supervises the compilation by the Registrar of the register of Members' outside financial interests, to which the House agreed in 1975. It advises the House, as necessary, on problems and queries that arise.
  As the House is aware, it had been my hope that this Committee would have been fully established before the Summer Recess. On 18 July, the House agreed that a Committee on Members' interests should be established but there were objections to the proposed membership of the Committee. In view of the objections
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  that were then raised, I should like, in introducing the motion, to make one or two brief points with reference to the arguments against the proposed membership that have been made by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer).
  I emphasise that the decision taken by the House in 1975 to set up a register of Members' outside financial interests did not imply in any way that the House was opposed in principle to Members having such outside financial interests. It provided only that such interests should be made known to the House and to the general public. I recognise that there are those in the House who are strongly of the view that Members should not have any occupation other than their membership. I respect that view, although I do not share it. But that is not the issue before the House tonight.
  On the question whether it should be for the Committee of Selection to make nominations to this Committee, I remind the House that we agreed only recently that members of the new departmental Committees should first be proposed to the House by the Committee of Selection. It has still to be seen how this decision works out in practice. I suggest that we defer any further changes in the traditional method of nomination to Select Committees until we have seen how the new procedure is working.
  I recognise that the whole system of this register, its scope and methods of enforcement, is very much a compromise. Some hon. Members would undoubtedly like to see financial interests defined in much more detail. Others, no doubt, consider that the present arrangements are an undesirable intrusion into privacy. That is, in fact, the essence of the compromise. I accordingly ask all hon. Members to co-operate in accepting the decision of the House and in making the register as effective as possible. This Select Committee is an essential part of these arrangements. I invite the House tonight to agree to the membership proposed in this motion. I shall listen carefully to any points that hon. Members raise.
  10.33 pm
  Mr. Bob Cryer: I shall not detain the House for long, but a number of important points have to be made. It is deeply disappointing that an amendment to the Government's motion, signed

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  by nearly 50 Back Benchers, has not been called. That would have enabled us to discuss, possibly in wider terms, the job of the Committee of Selection, which should be competent to deal with the task entrusted to it of selecting a Committee in the terms laid down on the Order Paper. I feel that Back Benchers should have some right to participate in the framework of the agenda of this House and that their representations should be heard and debated through amendments that are tabled.
  I should like to relate the background of the establishment of the Select Committee on Members' interests to my present concern. The Committee was first established as long ago as 1969. Little was done towards drawing up a register until 22 May 1974, when Parliament agreed to start a register and the Select Committee on Members' interests was asked to draw up provisions.
  That five-year gap is an extraordinary length of time for a Committee of this House to exist and fail to produce anything. As is so often the case, lamentably, it was spurred into action not by anything that occurred in the House but by what went on outside, for at the beginning of 1974 there was a great volume of press material about the amount of corruption that was going on in both local and central Government, including the House of Commons. It was for that reason that the previous Select Committee was established and entrusted with the task of drawing up the register.
  It should not be left to people outside to put pressure on Parliament to do something; Parliament ought to exert standards to produce a sufficient amount of scrutiny without any eruption from outside forcing action to be taken. But that happens all too often.
  During the same period, the Royal Commission on standards of conduct in public life was set up in December 1974 because of further revelations of local and national affairs. Its report was presented to the House in July 1976, and it is a minor scandal in itself that it has never been debated by the House. It is continuing evidence of too careless an attitude to an issue which concerns the public very deeply. The report cost £300,000 to produce, and surely the least we could
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  have done was to examine the recommendations that the Royal Commission made. For example, in paragraph 311 it made a specific recommendation with regard to Members of the House of Commons. It said:
  "Nevertheless in view of our report as a whole, and especially in the light of the points set out in the foregoing paragraph, we recommend that Parliament should consider bringing corruption, bribery and attempted bribery of a Member of Parliament acting in his parliamentary capacity within the ambit of the criminal law. Our recommendation is limited to this single point, and we do not raise any questions about other aspects of Parliamentary privilege and related matters."
  The Royal Commission there made a specific recommendation, and I cannot recall that the previous Select Committee ever raised the issue before the House as a matter that should be debated. One of my reservations about the Select Committee is that it does not seem to have acted with the zeal and urgency that I and others think should be involved.
  Of course, from 1976 onwards, the Select Committee's membership was a six-six stalemate, reflecting the position in the House between the Labour Government and the Opposition parties at the time. But it did have wide powers, and the resolution establishing it was couched in terms identical to the resolution which the House passed on 18 July last.
  The Select Committee should have brought forward recommendations for improvement. For example, the register was published on only two occasions. Surely the Committee should have maintained publication whatever arguments it might have had with individual Members. That issue was a red herring. The main thing was to publish the register to ensure that Parliament could be seen to be laying everything out openly if members of the public chose to examine the financial involvements of Members. Quite apart from being published only on those two occasions, the register was less than adequate, and the Select Committee failed to bring forward recommendations to improve its adequacy.
  Mr. Robert Atkins: In view of the continuing interest of the hon. Gentleman and of many of his hon. Friends in the register of Members' interests, would he be prepared to accept further matters worthy of public scrutiny being added to it—for example, where

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  Members educate their children, or whether they purchase a council house, or even perhaps the extent of the financial support that they get from trade unions? That is something that I would like to know.
  Mr. Cryer: I shall deal with those additional matters that the Committee is empowered to look at. The hon. Member may jibe about trade union sponsorship, but if he examines the register he will find that hon. Members have been scrupulous in entering their interests. I would have no objection to Members discussing whether the register should include details of schools and the property in which hon. Members live. That has not happened. The scope of the register has never been discussed on the Floor of the House in the way that it should be.
  For example, Lord Lever, a former Member of this House, has a fair amount of personal wealth. His entry in the register was "Nil". That is less than satisfactory. Mr. Arthur Jones, a former hon. Member, had 36 company directorships. The register contained no indication of the revenue that he received from those directorships. This is a relevant and important point. We should not talk in the cosy and jokey terms used by Tory Members when we discuss outside financial interests. People outside this place have a right to know whether hon. Members have a deep financial involvement when they make decisions in this House.
  Let me remind hon. Members on the Government Benches, who make little jokes about this matter, that three or four years ago nobody in this place was smiling about the financial involvement issue, because the press then rendered one of its few services to the nation by exposing the financial corruption among Members of Parliament and those in local government. There was an improvement as a result of that, and the register was introduced.
  It is complacent to think that it could never happen again. If it does, the smiles will quickly be wiped off many faces. Why does the register not include the Lobby correspondents' interests? It is not widely known that until recently there was no rule in the Lobby that prohibited a correspondent from being employed by a public relations organisation. It was possible for an hon. Member to be asked
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  to ring a Lobby correspondent, who appeared to be a member of the press but was acting for a public relations company. I understand that the Lobby has recently introduced a rule forbidding that. So much the better. These are important interests close to the most important assembly in the country.
  The Committee should consider whether its Members should also register their financial interests. Should hon. Members declare an interest at Question Time, or when they table private Members' motions? The House has rejected the idea in the past, but I think that it is something that should be under continuous scrutiny. There is no doubt that there are moments during Question Time when certain matters are raised and one can see financial interests reflected—coincidentally or deliberately—by the hon. Members involved.
  We had an example recently in the case of the Royal Commission's report on legal services. There was hardly room in the House for lawyers asking questions. They were popping up one after the other—solicitors, Queen's counsel and banisters, all of whom were deeply involved and interested in the report. Should not those interests be declared even when an hon. Member is less well known than, say, a barrister who is appearing in court regularly, or is an obscure property developer asking a question in a similar context?
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I gave up my practice after the election, so I do not have to declare an interest. How far does my hon. Friend intend to go? Are we to declare any interest that will prejudice our judgment of an issue before the House? If so, does my hon. Friend suggest that homosexuals should declare their interest in relation to the lowering of the age of consent?
  Mr. Cryer: I am talking about the area of activity into which the Committee should inquire. My hon. Friends may joke about the issue.—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is no joke."]—A sexual interest is not a financial interest. The Committee has not considered sexual interests. A scrupulous register which provides relevant and important information and is published regularly will achieve much. After that we might consider the finer, philosophical matters raised by my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon).

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  I want an up-to-date register published regularly containing a reasonable amount of relevant comprehendable information. Why has not the Committee extended its scope? Why has it not considered including such people as Lobby correspondents in the register? I hope that tonight's debate will be a salutary guide to the Committee. Should it consider the rules governing senior civil servants, for example? Concern has been expressed about permanent secretaries such as Sir Anthony Part leaping neatly from the Department of Industry to the chairmanship of Lucas.
  Other senior civil servants have received approval for breaches of the rules under Governments of either party. I deprecate such approval whether it is given by a Labour Government or a Conservative Government. They have moved into jobs where they could use important and valuable information gained when they were civil servants.
  My hon. Friend the Member for York raised one question rather more neatly than that which he asked a moment ago. He said that business men seem antagonistic to civil servants and yet they are only too eager to buy senior civil servants when they retire and to put them into their board rooms. Why is that, unless the civil servants have useful information gained in national service?
  Mr. John Bruce-Gardyne: I have some sympathy with the argument about the movement of civil servants out of Whitehall into private industry. How in God's name will a register foretell the jobs which civil servants will take when they retire?
  Mr. Cryer: That is not the point. The Committee has powers to consider. If the hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) had read the motion approved by the House on 18 July, he would have seen that the Committee is empowered to make recommendations on any relevant matters. That gives it scope. All I am doing is describing the concern which will remain unless there is further scrutiny.
  In many areas of this sort of activity, local authorities—Conservative-controlled in some instances—set a far better example. For instance, my own local authority of Bradford requires all coun-
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  cil members to register their shareholdings, directorships and savings, and their wives' shareholdings and any directorships. The Labour group there imposes an even stricter voluntary code on top of that. During council or panel meetings, any pecuniary interests must be declared. and anyone who declares them does not take part in the debate.
  I am told by a councillor colleague of mine that today, for example, a solicitor member of the council who was advising a club applying for a grant was debarred from a meeting because he had given the club advice. The authority was one of the authorities involved in the Poulson tentacles, when members faced prosecution. It has instituted a vigorous and rigorous examination, which seems to work.
  A Committee with a majority of members having financial interests is likely not to show zeal for considering wider applications for scrutiny. I do not say that those on the Committee, with or without financial interests, will not act with the utmost integrity, but we have another aspect to consider. Matters of financial action must be seen to be clear and open. If hon. Members, acting in the best interests of Parliament and the nation, as they see them, suggest that something should be diminished or that some information should be removed, it will not be seen by people outside like that if those hon. Members have private financial interests. People will say "They are trying to cover the matter up", even though those hon. Members having outside financial interests may put them completely to one side and genuinely say "We have taken this route because we really think that it is the best".
  Secondly, an active Select Committee would want to consider encouraging full-time membership of the House. I would prefer to see a Select Committee of this nature dominated by those who are prepared to consider a job on £10,000 a year, and increasing, as a full-time job.
  Against that, there is the argument that we must have some experience in the House through directorships and parliamentary adviserships outside, but no hon. Member thinks that the miners' case goes by default because nobody comes in to the House fresh from the morning shift down Glapwell colliery, or wherever.

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  Apparently, however, it seems to be necessary for people to come fresh from the board rooms. Nobody argues that hon. Members should come fresh from an engineering workshop, or from doing plumbing maintenance, or anything of that nature. People say "That is not terribly relevant".
  I have not heard one Conservative hon. Member argue that people should undertake skilled or unskilled manual labour, part-time, as a necessary pre-condition of their membership of the House. The only argument that the Conservatives put forward is that their experience should be gained in the board rooms or in some other occupation which, by happy chance, is always extremely well remunerated. The fact is that most of their constituents, and most of ours, receive smaller wages than we do. If they were offered jobs working full-time at around £10,000 most of them would say "I am prepared to dedicate my full time and my full effort to that job".
  It is not the Opposition side of the House that has double standards; it is the Conservative side. The Conservatives have double standards in arguing that they can have a full-time job and outside interests as well.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I accept the logic of what my hon. Friend says. Surely we should now campaign for full-time professional Members of Parliament instead of going along with the nonsense that all Members should expose their private lives to the view of a scurrilous press that has no effect upon public life except to demean it.
  Mr. Cryer: I know that my hon. Friend takes the view that there should not be a register and that this is pandering to the press. I disagree. I accept the point entirely that we should have full-time membership of the House of Commons, and this is one way in which we can move towards it and not away from it. If full-time Members were in the majority on this Committee they would be more likely to bring forward recommendations that would produce that sort of result.
  Mr. John Heddle: Would the hon. Member define his idea of "full-time"? Most of us have already worked a 15-hour day today, yet we are still here at 10.55 pm. We consider that we are all here full-time.
  Mr. Cryer: I think that most people understand the ordinary, common meaning of the term as it is applied to Parliament. That is the sort of thing that could be debated by the Committee in examining this issue carefully.
  Many hon. Members will complain about Parliament's being brought into disrepute, and about criticisms being made of Parliament, with the help of a press whose members are not exactly fulltime themselves, by people who do it simply because they want an institution to attack. It is worth pointing out that Parliament itself has a duty to ensure adequate scrutiny of such aspects.
  However much one might criticise the press for its deficiencies—and hon. Members on the Labour Benches fight the press much more often than do Conservatives—there are times when it manages to expose some sort of corruption or misplaced or wrong influence. On some occasions it has performed a service, and hon. Members should bear that in mind.
  In my view this Committee would be better with a majority of hon. Members who do not have outside financial interests. However, I hope that this debate—it has taken a great deal of effort to get it—will show the importance of the House's being seen to examine this matter. Thus, members of the public will not be able to say that we are indifferent. By examining it, we show that we have some measure of concern. We show that there is an element in Parliament that is not complacent and that will not just sit back and simply accept the Government's recommendations. I hope that the Committee will take note of this debate and make some recommendations along the lines that I have put forward.
  10.58 pm
  Mr. William van Straubenzee: Until the last 15 minutes of the speech of the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) I found myself agreeing with him. I warmly support the motion, and add just three comments.
  First, in my personal judgment the justification for outside interests of any kind at present is that progressively over the years there has been a steady increase of power at the centre of all our political parties. For example, we have seen this done financially by way of successive Government grants and grants given by

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  this House to the leaders of the Opposition parties, which is appropriate but which has increased the power of their patronage.
  I truncate a fairly complicated argument into one sentence, but I believe that the justification for having hon. Members on both sides of the House who are not solely dependent upon their parliamentary salaries is precisely to provide something of a balance against that increasing centralisation of power which rests with all party leaderships.
  Secondly, as I think the hon. Member for Keighley would agree, as one who has consistently spoken in favour of this register and has consistently pressed for it, the reason why I have done so is not—most emphatically not—that I believe that on either side of the House an appreciable number of hon. Members are engaged in an activity that is deleterious to the standing of this House. There are exceptions, of course, but the vast majority of hon. Members honourably perform their duties to it and do so quite regardless of any financial consideration. That has never been the reason why I have been in favour of this register.
  Thirdly, in recent years there has grown a new dimension in the whole of this business. Until recently, all persons performing in any kind of professional life were on registers, and still are. Any person performing in the life of a company could be looked up in a register—quite correctly—and they still are. But because Parliament, under all Governments, has increasingly concerned itself with the day-to-day life of business and commerce, there has grown up the business of the parliamentary adviser.
  I know of no better exposition of the work of the parliamentary adviser than a recent admirable speech by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell)—which I was privileged to read in full—given to a commercial organisation that was celebrating its first anniversary. If I do not give the name of that organisation, it is because the right hon. Gentleman would not wish me in any way to put forward its commercial interests on the Floor of the House.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Mine.
  Mr. van Straubenzee: It is an admirable exposition of the way in which persons such as that should perform. But the fact is that unless we can look at a register there is no way in which any of us today, approached by a colleague or organisation, has any way of knowing whether one of our hon. Friends or an hon. Member is associated with that organisation. That is a perfectly honourable thing to do, but the information ought to be available for all of us to see. That is the overwhelming reason for proceeding with the selection of this Committee, and that is why we should encourage it in its work.
  I have one last thing to say. I say it in the regrettable absence of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), which we all deplore, but I have said it to his face. Because of lack of energy on his part when Leader of the House, one right hon. Gentleman, and one only, was able to stop the publication of the register, and the whole House was made to look absolutely ridiculous in consequence. I therefore seek only one assurance from my right hon. Friend, who has shown commendable energy in bringing this matter before the House so quickly. I am grateful to him for so doing. Will he at least undertake that the register will be published, if necessary with one gap?
  I make it quite clear that there is one motive that I do not attribute to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not for one moment suggest that he has anything to hide. I entirely accept that for him it is a matter of principle. However, I believe that the rest of us would wish to have out in the clear our direct financial interests, of which none of us is ashamed. If one right hon. Member does not wish to obey the request of the House, at that time that will be a matter for the House to decide. Let us, I beg, no longer have this indignity of being held up by one of our colleagues—and one only.
  With those three short comments, I very much commend the motion to the House.
  11.5 pm
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: As reference has just been made to my personal action in this matter, I think it would be discourteous to the House if I did not briefly state here—although I previously sought to do so in the debate

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  in June 1975—the reasons and considerations behind the decision in which I then announced to the House and which I have since followed.
  May I first clear the ground by saying that this House has an undoubted and unlimited power over its members? If it did not have that power, it could not be a sovereign assembly. If its rules as they apply to hon. Members were referable to any outside authority, if it could not at its own discretion proceed against its own Members who disobeyed its resolutions and orders, this would not be a sovereign House of Commons. It would be a subordinate assembly, and we should be unable to perform those purposes for which we and our privileges exist.
  I have knowingly and deliberately placed myself in disobedience of a resolution of this House; and I accept that the House has the right—indeed, it has the right without cause shown—to proceed against any hon. Member of this House to the point of expelling him. These are powers and attributes of this House which are essential to it, and I should be the first to defend them. I understand that a similar question has arisen in another assembly—the Congress of the United States. A number of members of the House who took exception to a somewhat similar resolution referred the matter—and it still stands referred—to the Supreme Court. That only illustrates the difference between a sovereign House such as ours and even the Congress of the United States, which is subject to having its decisions struck down by the Supreme Court under the constitution.
  Because, however, we do not have a written constitution, it does not follow that we have no constitution. Because there is no written constitution, it does not follow that this House cannot behave unconstitutionally.
  There are principles and propositions which, though they are not written in some fundamental Act, are nevertheless as binding as if they were, and binding even upon this sovereign House. I shall mention one of them. It is that the law of the land is made only by or under the authority of Parliament—that is to say, the Crown and both Houses acting in a particular way. That is what we call the rule of law—namely, that the laws under which we live are made only by or under
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  that authority of the Crown in Parliament. A resolution of the House does not make law. We cannot amend, and we cannot make, the law of the land, even in this House, by a resolution; and where a resolution of the House has binding effect as such, it has that effect only by virtue of a statute which specifically enables it so to do. In short, the House cannot by resolution make law.
  It is my belief that clearly the resolution of 1975 for the declaration of the financial interests of Members is not a regulation of the behaviour of hon. Members in the House but is a change, or purports to be a change, in the law, inasmuch as it adds an additional qualification for being an hon. Member. That was something that the Committee that made the recommendation discovered; for at the conclusion of its lucubrations it suddenly remembered candidates, and realised that the recommendation would also somehow have to apply to candidates. That is fairly clear evidence that the resolution is concerned not with the duties and behaviour of hon. Members in the House, not with how they conduct themselves in debate, not with how they discharge their duties in the House, but upon the qualification to be an hon. Member.
  I offer the House another consideration. Let us suppose that the House passed a resolution—which it could do and which it could enforce upon hon. Members on pain of expulsion—that every hon. Member should, each twelvemonth, place upon record the number of times that he had taken Holy Communion in his parish church. Does anyone doubt that such a resolution would be the imposition of a religious test for membership of the House? Of course, it would not specifically say "You can be a Member only if you are an Anglican"; but everybody would understand that the condition of being a Member, the qualification for being a Member, had been sought to be altered by such a resolution.
  The House cannot do that. The qualification for being a Member is not in the hands of the House. The qualification is a matter of law: it can be altered, amended and added to only by a change in the law. If we wish to change the law in this way, if we believe that being a Member should be conditional upon this or that declaration, whether of interests or anything else, there is only one way in which we can constitutionally proceed

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  and that is by setting about changing the law, by bringing in a Bill and passing it through both Houses until it receives Royal Assent.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: It may be that I am a bit thick about this, but why is it conditional? I do not see why it is conditional that candidates should have to satisfy certain conditions? After all, what is important is what happens when a candidate becomes a Member of Parliament.
  Mr. Powell: The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) will perhaps refresh his memory on how the Committee got there. The Committee considered the case of an election at which the ex-Member who was standing had been obliged, or purported to have been obliged, by the resolution of this House, to declare his interests, but who would be the only candidate who was thus exposed to public scrutiny. The Committee recognised thereby that this resolution was placing a new condition upon the election of a person to serve in this House, that is, doing something which can be done only by a change in the law.
  I do not dispute that there is a conflict here. It is a conflict of two rights. One right is the right of the House to pass and enforce upon its Members any resolution that it pleases. The other is the right of all citizens of this country to live under the rule of law—in this case, for the conditions and qualifications for membership of this House to be determined and fixed by the law.
  Where there is a conflict of right, there is a conflict of loyalty—the conflict between the loyalty that a Member owes to this House and the loyalty which is owed to the constitution. That conflict has been drarnatised—I felt that I could do no other—by my own action. But we do not proceed in this country by way of conflict: it is a false theory of our constitution which teaches that it is the result, as it were, of conflicting forces held in suspension. We in this country proceed, if I understand it rightly, to the resolution of conflict by appeal to the superior tribunal, to the superior principle. I say, then, as one who yields to none in this reverence for the sovereignty and independence of this House, that the principle of the constitution is the
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  superior, and that we ought to resolve this conflict by observing it.
  11.17 pm
  Mr. Robert Adley: I hope that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) will forgive me if I say that I do not quite see this issue as of such major constitutional importance as he would seek to suggest. I certainly would not like to recommend that the right hon. Gentleman be martyred, expelled from the House or subjected to any of the other suggestions coming from the Front Opposition Bench below the Gangway. Surely the simplest way of dealing with the right hon. Gentleman, if that is the expression to use, is merely to list him in the book as being unwilling to provide an entry. People would then have to draw their own conclusions from that.
  We have to accept that the status of Members of Parliment has changed. If providing a register shows people that we are being more open and straightforward, so that they are better able to understand the interests that we do and do not have, and helps to decrease any misunderstandings between people and Parliament, that register will be justified. The right hon. Member for Down, South may find that argument unattractive, but it is a low-key argument and in its way puts the register in its correct position.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) touched on the key point in this issue by saying that financial independence is much more likely to be equated with political freedom than the reverse. Labour Members must try to understand that.
  I wish to deal briefly with a couple of points that the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) made. He suggested that the reason why the register is being set up is pressure from outside. He thought that to be a poor reason. Surely, the history of the House shows that hon. Members have rightly had to respond to pressure from outside. Where would the Tolpuddle Martyrs have been if they had not eventually been able to bring their action to the point of forcing Parliament to do what they wanted? Where would Gingerbread have been? We are all susceptible to outside pressure. That is the essence of the changing status of hon.

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  Members today, although we may or may not like it.
  Mr. Cryer: My contention is that Parliament did nothing between 1969 and 1974. Outside pressures produced action. The danger is that we are becoming complacent again because there is no outside pressure. We should be seen to be acting in anticipation of criticism.
  Mr. Adley: Is that not the point of the Government's motion? They are bringing forward a motion so that we can set ourselves up as a Select Committee to examine many of the matters of which the hon. Gentleman complains. Surely, he does not suggest that the TUC should be forbidden from trying to bring pressure on Parliament. That may be a nice thought, but I do not believe that he would support such a proposition.
  Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith: The House is being invited to set up the Select Committee but we would set it up in the full knowledge that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) would refuse to have anything to do with it. We understand his reasons. Other hon. Members may refuse to have anything to do with that Committee, and some may declare only part of their interests. What value can be attached to a register that works under such conditions?
  Mr. Adley: I was about to come to that matter. It is a public relations exercise. Some may see it as a means to attract free advertising for those companies and organisations that appear in the register.
  Mr. J. W. Rooker: It would take you to say that.
  Mr. Adley: If the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene I will gladly resume my seat.
  We should not get too excited about the matter. I have insisted that the register publishes the organisations that supply me with free ties. I hope that people will look down the register, see British Aerospace and British Airways against my name, believe that I am a director of those august organisations, and think me frightfully important.
  Mr. Johnson Smith: There is no chance of that.
  Mr. Adley: My hon. Friend is right—it is little more than a farce. I am often asked why I wanted to come to this place. I reply that I receive free ties and free car parking in central London. I used to believe that one was likely to be seduced by Russian blondes. I have received many ties, and I use the car park from time to time. I hope that I will not be required to register my interests to the extent to which the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) suggested, in terms of some of the moral issues that he wants included.
  The hon. Member for Keighley referred to our former colleague, Mr. Harold Lever. The illustration that he made shows the uselessness of the register. It would be technically possible to own 4 per cent. of the entire shareholding of British Petroleum, ICI and Unilever and still have a nil entry in the register. Howeven, if people outside believe that we are being open, above board and less corrupt than the hon. Member for Keighley believes us to be, the register is of some use.
  If the Select Committee is set up as established and I have the honour to serve on it, I shall want to investigate some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Keighley. He assumes that the only corrupting influence is money. I assume that there is a far more corrupting influence—power. Power over hon. Members by outside bodies is a far more insidious means of corruption than any amount of money that an hon. Member is likely to receive from outside interests.
  If the Labour Party goes through with the proposals for re-selection, with hon. Members being subjected to scrutiny by a handful of people who have a clear political motive in seeing how they behave in the House, that will be the sort of power and influence over hon. Members that is far more likely to corrupt hon. Members than is any amount of money that may be showered on us.
  I assure the hon. Member for Keighley that I have listened carefully to what he said and, if the motion is approved, I shall take up some of his points. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman accepts a fee when he takes part in television interviews. Perhaps he would like to tell us? I am sorry that he does not wish to answer. He is, presumably, prepared to accept payments from outside. He may even occasionally write newspaper articles, for which he receives a fee.

  559
  All such activities are equally corrupting forms of influence.
  I assure my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that, if the Committee is established, its members will take careful note of the hon. Member for Keighley's view that there are other matters that should be looked into.
  11.27 pm
  Mr. John Sever: It is surely right that in setting up the Select Committee we should put to the public a public relations exercise—to use the words of the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley)—that looks as though it is fair, honest and reasonable.
  I do not accept that we are setting up a public relations exercise. We are trying to convey to the public our desire that whatever we do in the House is above board, open to public discussion and honourable, in the widest sense of the word. That is a good reason for having a Select Committee comprising only hon. Members with no outside financial interests.
  There is a degree of public disquiet about the way in which the affairs of the House are conducted when it can be shown that an hon. Member may—only may—be arguing from the standpoint of having an outside interest that has galvanised him into making a speech or taking a particular interest in a drift of policy. That is one of the most powerful arguments in favour of the membership of the Select Committee being changed in the way proposed in the amendments that were not selected.
  It is desirable that the House should put its case in a way that cannot be challenged. One of the most serious potential challenges arises when the public are given cause to wonder whether an hon. Member has made a speech as a direct result of his philosophical views or for other reasons that the public are not too sure about.
  Mrs. Peggy Fenner: What about sponsored hon. Members?
  Mr. Sever: I do not intend to comment on the witless seated interventions of Conservative Members.
  Mr. Johnson Smith: The comment was not witless. I imply nothing improper to those who are sponsored Members, but I assume that if the hon. Gentleman wants a Select Committee composed of those who have no outside interests he would exclude sponsored Members.
  Mr. Sever: They are in the register anyway. If I am incorrect in that, I withdraw what I said, but I understand that their interests are clearly indicated in the register by those hon. Members who have them.
  The point at issue is whether there is any doubt about an hon. Member's motive in taking any line of action in this place. It is that which causes public disquiet, and it should, I think, encourage hon. Members to agree to the proposition that members of the Select Committee should not have any outside financial interest.
  11.30 pm
  Mr. Keith Wickenden: I thought that the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) made a most useful speech, and to my great surprise I found myself in agreement with a great deal of it. Indeed, if only he had not spoilt it in the last 15 minutes by allowing his prejudices to show it would have been much more telling a contribution.
  Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point when he says that financial interests must be revealed on the register. I speak as somebody who has fairly significant interests to declare—which are, I hope, properly declared—and also as one who has outside occupations. [Interruption.] It woud be wrong for me to make a commercial tonight.
  Mr. Tim Sainsbury: Does my hon. Friend agree that the most important interest of any that he might have is that of being a director of that excellent, though perhaps temporarily unfortunate, football club, Brighton and Hove Albion?
  Mr. Wickenden: It finds itself in much the same position as the Labour Party.
  The hon. Member for Keighley concentrated, almost to the exclusion of all else, on financial interests. There are many other interests that may just as much affect a Member's judgment, and that, surely, is the reason for the register in the first place. For example, within the

  561
  last 48 hours a Labour Member has made a powerful and telling speech in this House about the effect of the Government's expenditure cuts on public service employees. He did not reveal that he was a leading member of NUPE. He should have done.
  An hon. Member who is a schoolteacher or a polytechnic lecturer should reveal that fact when he takes part in education debates. A lawyer should certainly express his interest in almost every matter that we debate. Those of us who take part in pressure groups—I suppose that almost all charities are pressure groups in one form or another and that most hon. Members subscribe to them—should reveal that fact when we speak in the House. It is not good enough to believe that only financial interests alter a Member's judgment.
  The hon. Member for Keighley said that a previous hon. Member had 47 directorships but they were not shown in the register. I surmise that there was a simple reason for that. He was probably a director of a group of companies and took his remuneration from the parent group, and the others were subsidiary companies.
  Mr. Cryer: I said that the 36 companies were on the register. The point that I was making was that they gave no indication of the amount of remuneration that the hon. Member received, whether it was a nominal £1 a year or £1,000 a year. As the hon. Gentleman will accept, there is a qualitative difference.
  Mr. Wickenden: I accept that. The whole purpose of the register, and of revealing our interests, wherever they may lie, is, I suspect, more that justice shall be seen to be done than that justice shall actually be done. Some hon. Members divest themselves of their interests so that they are not entered on the register. That is perfectly lawful. Trusts can be, and often are, created, and there is no longer any need to declare the interest. It is myopic to believe that hon. Members will be affected only by the financial inducements that they may receive in outside occupations. It is also wrong to believe that hon. Members with outside interests do not play a full part in this Chamber.
  I can think of no reason for my selection—I cannot think of any reason, any-
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  way, why I was selected—other than the fact that I had outside interests. My selection was certainly not due to any great political skill or knowledge. I suspect that the fact that 65 per cent. of the electorate in my constituency voted for me indicates that a fairly high proportion do not accept the view that hon. Members should solely be Members of the House. If that happened, one could envisage an arid wasteland of a Chamber in which polytechnic lecturers, sociologists, lawyers and public relations men hurled abuse at each other in mutual ignorance of the matters that they were discussing.
  11.36 pm
  Mr. R. B. Cant: I am anxiously awaiting the end of the debate to see whether I have been re-elected to this Committee. I should perhaps declare my interest in the matter. There has been a great deal of eloquence and wit in the debate. I have tried to recollect the years in which I and hon. Members here tonight were on this Committee in order to get down to some of the problems with which we were faced.
  The refusal of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) brought the Committee to a halt. The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, a remarkable Member. One of the matters of principle that arose, whatever the right hon. Gentleman said, was that the Committee felt that it possessed no sanctions. If one is trying to do a job in a club—even one as distinguished as this House—in which a member says that he will not play according to the rules of the game, the inevitable consequence in so serious a matter is that one decides that one is not going to waste one's time. That was why the publication of the register ceased.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South may derive no satisfaction from that situation, but, so far as I can recollect, that is precisely what happened. We had a long discussion and decided not to continue. I believe, in the light of speeches made tonight, that we made a mistake. We should have said that, important as the right hon. Member for Down, South is, we intended to ignore him, put on a nil return, and get on with the job.
  There is another much more difficult point. Financial interest is obviously the

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  crux of the matter. We might have taken into account many other matters in deciding the questions to be placed on the form circulated to hon. Members.
  Eventually, of course, the issue really crystallised around the matter of financial interest. But when one had said that, one raised almost as many questions about what financial interest is as it is possible to raise. In the end, we had to say "Really, it is only that financial interest which is likely to influence the judgment of Members of Parliament in the conduct of their affairs as Members of Parliament". That raises difficulties, some of which have been mentioned in the debate. I have always worked for only one salary, but I am a member of a pressure group in the House.
  Mr. Alan Clark: The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on a very important defect in the whole process of compiling the register. As I understand it, the register is meant to show—preferably, in my opinion, in the fullest detail, but my right hon. Friend has suggested that a compromise is desirable—the financial interests of Members of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman said that the Select Committee took the view that these financial interests need be shown only where, in the opinion of the Committee, they might prejudice the Member's judgment.
  In other words, the Committee took it upon itself to interpose a further layer or filter between public scrutiny and the interests held by Members of Parliament. The Committee thereby arrogated to itself the right to interpose screens between the public's right to have access to all such relevant information and the Member's desire, where it occurred, to withhold it.
  Mr. Cant: I think that that is substantially correct, and of course it produces paradoxical situations in which I, as a member of the all-party road study group, must declare that I once went on a trip abroad financed by the British Road Federation. It is quite right that that should be declared, because if I rise during questions to the Minister of Transport, as I did today, I am likely to ask why only 36 miles of motorway have been built in the West Midlands during the last 10 years. The motivation for asking that question may be quite clear.
  564
  On the other hand, at the other extreme, there is the nil return. One of the cases quoted in the debate was that of a man who everybody knew had money. The Financial Times carried an article that said that because of foreign exchange speculation the family fortunes had declined from £13½ to £4¾ million. There was in that case a very extensive financial interest, which might not have affected the Member's judgment in the slightest.
  This was a difficulty on which we spent a great deal of time. We may have been wrong in arriving at the narrow definition that we did. If we are trying to redefine the terms of reference of the Select Committee I think that we should return to what my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) said about financial interest. For 26 years I have been a member of a local authority. I see that the right hon. Member for Down, South is about to rise in his place and say that of course local government is a different animal.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: That is imposed by statute.
  Mr. Cant: Exactly. I plucked up courage to ask the right hon. Gentleman to remain in his seat because, in effect, a member of a local authority must do two things. He must fill in the form required by statute and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley said, he is also under very great pressure to fill in this voluntary declaration. It is worse than my hon. Friend states, because if a councillor has the slightest financial interest in any issue to be discussed by a council committee not only is he forbidden to take part in the discussion, or to vote; he must leave the room in which the discussion takes place.
  Mr. Adley: Does the hon. Member agree that we have in this Chamber influence rather than power? We should realise then when we talk of decisions that make or lose money the chairman of a local authority planning committee and his colleagues leave us absolutely standing. This is something which we should make clearer to other people.
  Mr. Cant: The chairman of the planning committee of which I am a member always tell me that he has got the power even though I may have a vote in this place. He is right, and for that reason

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  the possibility of corruption in local government is much greater than here. When we are thinking of the register that we have established it is important always to have in the back of our minds the much more stringent qualifications and requirements that are laid down for our lesser brethren in the local authorities.
  Mr. James Lamond: Did the Committee ever consider the possibility of requiring all Members of Parliament to publish their income tax returns, together with those of their wives? Does my hon. Friend think that if the Committee had suggested that method of exposing hon. Members' finances more than one hon. Member would have refused to comply?
  Mr. Cant: I cannot say whether the Committee ever considered that. It seems many years ago, but I am sure that my hon. Friend is right in saying that if such a condition had been imposed many more hon. Members would have refused.
  This has been a useful debate and I am certain that the Committee should be set up again.
  Mr. Arthur Palmer: I served on the Committee in the last Parliament, and there was never any question of including a wife's income. It cannot be assumed, these days, that a wife's earnings form part of the husband's income. That is a Victorian notion.
  Mr. Cant: Once again we are descending into the realms of philosophy, though the point made by my hon. Friend is a good one. I am certain that when it is set up again the Committee will profit by experience. The question whether its members should have outside interests is a minor issue. We must continue to publish the register even though more than one hon. Member refuses to fill in the form and we must continue to build on our experience.
  11.48 pm
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I have always agreed with the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) about this issue, though it is the only one in 13 years on which we have agreed. I have taken the view, since I ceased to be a Minister, that I would not register any interest or return any form. I will continue to do that and my reasons are set
  566
  out in a speech that I made against the motion in 1975. I hold to that.
  In essence my argument is that if we go down this road there is no limit to it. The speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) demonstrated that beyond any peradventure.
  We can reveal all our private confidential life, and someone will always want to know more. In the end, people must trust us as Members of Parliament. I shall take the same stand as the right hon. Member for Down, South in order to show that the House is wrong to continue the process. I hope that we come to a sensible conclusion.
  11.50 pm
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: I am not usually present to listen to debates such as this. I have found it fascinating. Right hon. and hon. Members have taken a more personal interest in this than in many other subjects.
  The Opposition want to see the Select Committee set up. It has a job to do in enforcing the 1975 resolution. My personal view on statutory enforcement is that the quicker we bring it to the Floor of the House the better. This matter must be cleared up, for the impeccably logical reasons argued by my hon. Friends. We must decide whether we want a statute or whether we should continue as before.
  Mr. Rooker: My right hon. Friend talks of impeccable logic. Can someone tell the House whether the requirement of hon. Members to affirm or swear at the Table is a requirement of statute or the result of a resolution?
  Mr. Rees: I have made similar inquiries. In the past four months I have learnt that it is better to leave such matters to those who have access to advice.
  I have never served in local government. In the 16 or 17 years during which I have been a Member of the House I have found remarkably little corruption. I was once the Minister responsible for the Air Force. It would have been extremely difficult for me to be corrupt. I placed no orders. I had no power in that respect, but I once owned Harland and Wolff. Someone in local government is nearer the levers of power than a Minister by virtue of the spread of responsibility.

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  As Home Secretary I moved a motion on the Royal Commission on corruption in public life. The Commission's report was not edifying. It talked of corruption and bribery being brought within the ambit of the criminal law. I did not feel that it understood what it was talking about. We should debate this important subject.
  We argue about the re-selection of Members. I have no complaint about that. I was chosen by my local Labour Party. It has every right not to select me. We are arguing not about that but about the method of selection. There is nothing corrupt about it. Party politics is what the House is all about. We do not talk about it enough. It is not corrupt. We are responsible to our electorates. The argument that we are having is not a bad argument to have, because it illustrates some of the fundamental matters that we face in public life. I hope that the Select Committee will be set up quickly.
  11.54 pm
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: This has been a wide-ranging debate, although the motion was narrowly drawn.
  I am not here to discuss whether Members should or should not have outside interests. Personally, I believe that the House benefits from having Members with outside interests. I think that a House made up of retired lawyers and amateur journalists would not be a very valuable House of which to be a Member. Nor, I think, is one concerned with arguments on the question whether there should or should not be a register of Members' interests. I think that there should not be. I do not think that it is necessary, and I voted against it.
  Like the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), I have had no offers of any kind since I became a Member—for 15 years, the same as he. I have never been able to understand whether that was because I was thought incorruptible or not worth corrupting. Apart from a seat in the Cabinet, nothing has come my way.
  I turn to the narrow question whether the Committee should be set up. The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) put his case with his usual thoroughness and conviction. He was particularly concerned with the actions of the last Committee.
  568
  He felt that it had not acted with zeal and urgency, and that there had not been sufficient public access. It is true that following the Dissolution of the last Parliament the register of interests of Members of that Parliament was not accessible, but before that it was available for inspection, although it had not been published in the full sense of the word. But that really is a matter to be decided by the Committee when it is set up.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) is in favour of a register. I disagree with him on that, but I certainly agree with him that if the House has decided that a register should be set up that register should be published. It is for the new Select Committee to advise the House what to do if there are circumstances of difficulty. It must be left to the Committee in the first place.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) argued, with his usual lucidity, that an obligation should be imposed by legislation only, and could not be imposed by a resolution of the House. The alternative would be to put forward legislation. It would be an extremely complex and difficult matter. But it is for the new Select Committee to consider what should be done and to advise the House on the matter. Certainly, as Leader of the House, I shall take its advice very seriously.
  Mr. Palmer rose—
  Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am sorry; I cannot give way, or I shall talk the motion out, and then we shall all be here for another hour and a half later on.
  The conclusion that I draw is simply that all these problems should be considered by the new Select Committee and that the duty of the House tonight, whatever our views are, is to let the Committee be set up and see where it goes from there. Let it have the opportunity tonight to get on with the job.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Robert Adley, Mr. Joe Ashton, Mr. Andrew Bennett, Mr. R. B. Cant, Mr. Tony Durant, Sir Nigel Fisher, Mr. Percy Grieve, Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith, Mr. David Madel, Mr. Charles R. Morris, Mr. Arthur Palmer, Mr. Michael Shaw, and Mr. Frederick Wiley, be members of the Select Committee on Members' Interests.
  Ordered,
  That the members of the Committee nominated this day shall continue to be members of the Committee for the remainder of this Parliament.
  Ordered,
  That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.—[Mr. St. John-Stevas.]

  POLICE (SPECIAL BRANCH)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]
  11.59 pm
  Mr. Robin F. Cook: It is entirely fitting that having debated the matter of Members' interests the House should now turn to consider the matter of the Special Branch, which undoubtedly has a fuller knowledge of the background and interests of the Members of the House than anything that has yet been filed with the Select Committee.
  As I think some of my hon. Friends are aware, this is my third time over this field. I welcome the Minister of State, Home Office to what I believe is his first time over the course. I also welcome the presence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees).
  As my right hon. Friend is present, I should like to begin by saying that it is only fair to congratulate him on the very positive response that he made to our debate on the subject last year. I then drew his attention to the fact that only one chief constable in the length and breadth of Great Britain had included in his annual report a paragraph on the work and functions of the Special Branch. Since then a further 22 chief constables have done so. I am a modest man and I think it is reasonable to assume that it was not my comments that led to this development. It is reasonable to assume that it was some action on the part of my colleague that produced this expansion in the reports on the Special Branch, which I very much welcome.
  The situation that the Minister has inherited is that 50 per cent. of all chief constables are now including a report on the Special Branch in their annual reports. I urge him to ensure that the practice of some chief constables becomes the practice of all. In doing so, I hope
  570
  that he will look in particular at the release of information on the numbers in each Special Branch unit. If the Metropolitan Police, which has by far the largest Special Branch unit, can release the figures, I see no reason why any of the provincial forces should hesitate to do so.
  Most of the paragraphs relating to the Special Branch in these reports raise more questions than they answer. The principal explanation advanced for the function of the Special Branch is to monitor subversion, or to monitor subversive activity. The most vacuous was the report from Merseyside, which stated that the function of a Special Branch unit was
  "to keep in touch with the current climate in respect of subversive activities."
  The unsatisfactory part about this is that there is no crime of subversion on the statute book of this country. There is no authority from Parliament for this extensive programme of surveillance of subversive activities. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to comment on this issue and make plain to the House his understanding of the word "subversion". Does he accept the definition of Lord Denning, in 1963, that subversives are those who would
  "contemplate the overthrow of the Government by unlawful means"
  or does he adhere to the definition pronounced by the last Government that subversion consists of activities intended to undermine or overthrow parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means? There is a vast difference between these two definitions. The first is a definition of illegal activity. It is precise and clear, and I have no difficulty in supporting it. The latter is worrying, because it can bring within the scope of its umbrella any form of legitimate political activity. If the Minister intends to adhere to that definition, which was adhered to throughout the period of the last Government, he has a further duty to the House to explain which political activities he considers subversive. We endanger our democracy if we leave to the discretion of the police the decision of defining a subversive political activity.
  In this connection, I am not reassured by the nature of the occasions on which the Special Branch has been spotted at work in the past 12 months. I do not

  571
  conclude, as a result, that shares the concept of subversion that this House would be prepared to support in the foreseeable future.
  It has been known for a long time that section 49 of the general orders of the Metropolitan Police obliges local police stations to report on any political meeting on their beat. It would appear from a couple of incidents in the past year that this system has been further formalised by the issue of a printed form, which must be filled in by the local officers. In March last year one such officer, in seeking help to fill in the form, approached the organisers of a demonstration against the closure of the Battersea law centre. This was a demonstration organised by NALGO—a union of such impeccable respectability that it has been unable to bring itself to affiliate with the Labour Party.
  If it is the case that the Special Branch regard demonstrations against the effects of the cuts in public expenditure as subversive it is only fair to warn the Government that it will have a very busy winter ahead of it.
  Then there was the case of the student at Hull who was recruited in February to inform on the political activities of his fellow students. I must be careful what I say in this case, because it is the subject of an official complaint. I am well aware that hon. Members from Hull propose to raise the matter when the report on that complaint is available. Tonight I shall merely emphasise that when the student was interviewed—it happened on two or three occasions—the information that was sought from him was information about perfectly lawful, legal, political activity. He was asked which students took part in the campaign for disinvestment of university funds in South Africa. He was asked which students were likely to take part in a demonstration on the level of grants. He was asked to recognise from photographs which students had attended an Anti-Nazi League demonstration. He was even asked, apparently without any sense of irony on the part of the police officers, to identify from photographs those students who were demonstrating outside the same police station at his own continued detention.
  The significant feature about all these activities is that they were all perfectly
  572
  legal, legitimate, political activities. Although none could reasonably be described as "subversive", it would nevertheless appear that a large number of students had become known to the Special Branch for no reason other than that they had participated in those activities and had thereby had files opened on them. The question to which the House must address itself is: what happens to those files?
  Here we come to one of the key developments since we last debated this issue—the Lindop committee report on data protection. As the Minister will be aware, that committee sought information on the computer "C" division of the Metropolitan Police, the greatest bulk of which is dedicated to the files of the Special Branch. As he will also be aware, it was defeated in its request for information. But it was able to discover that the bulk of the information stored in that computer was criminal intelligence, which it said was necessarily
  "speculative, suppositional, hearsay and unverified",
  or as the Police Review put it rather more bluntly, "unchecked bunkum'.
  As the committee properly pointed out, there are very real dangers of taking wrong and unreliable data such as this and feeding it into the most sophisticated and advanced computer systems. As the committee observed, that conjunction of unreliable data and sophisticated computer technology introduced what it described as
  "a new dimension of unease"
  so much so that it recommended that this House should approve a code of practice for the operation of that specific computer use and that that code of practice should be more stringent, because the information stored on the computer is by its very nature unverifiable. I believe that there is an urgent case for some check on the use of computer technology in this regard.
  I have seen the tender document issued by the Metropolitan Police in 1974, when it sought this computer. That document specified that 1·1 million places would be required on that computer for personal files held by the Special Branch in 1974. That number is to expand to 1·4 million by 1985. I am tempted to ask "Why not 1984?", because after all, 1984 is 10

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  years on from 1974 and it is most unusual to use an 11-year review period. I cannot escape the conclusion that someone within the Metropolitan Police has a literary background and realises that the forecasting of 1984 might invite invidious comparisons and comment.
  Whatever the date, or the number between 1·1 million and 1·4 million that has now been reached, that is an apallingly large slice of the adult population of this country. It certainly wildly exceeds the combined membership of the National Front and the Workers' Revolutionary Party. [HON. MEMBERS: "And the Labour Party".] Certainly the NEC of the Labour Party. There is a very real danger that if one creates and gives that capacity to any organisation, it will seek to fill that capacity, and that it will seek to open 1·4 million files.
  Of course, each time a new file is opened, the person named in that file will become subject to even more extensive surveillance by the very fact that a file has been opened upon him. I therefore believe that we need a check on this. It is a check that has been introduced in Sweden for some years. As I mentioned last year, it has now been introduced in New South Wales, and since last year it has also been introduced by New York State. I believe that we should follow their lead.
  One or two of my hon. Friends wish to make brief comments, so I shall close now. I would not wish the Minister to think that this subject is my own King Charles's head.
  I have pursued the matter for three years. In that time I have learnt a lot about the Special Branch, and no doubt it has learnt a lot about me. I appreciate that the bulk of its work is legitimate police activity, which poses no threat to our society. It is also plain that much of its work involves monitoring political activity, and that is also perfectly legitimate and poses no threat to our society.
  The time has come, however, for us urgently to impose a proper independent safeguard on the work and records of the Special Branch. Unless we do that, this mighty engine of surveillance, which we have set in motion in order to protect democracy, may come to represent a greater threat to privacy and democracy
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  than most of the organisations that it watches.
  12.10 am
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) has done a service to the House. It may in one sense be his cause, because he has taken the lead, but he is speaking for many other hon. Members.
  I ask only one question of the Home Office. What work is being done on information that is put on a computer for reason X and is not used for different reason Y? I shall leave it at that.
  12.11 am
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) does the House a service in raising these matters. When first he drew them to the attention of the House I know that some hon. Members did not agree.
  I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend say, at the end of his speech, that as he has looked into the matter more and more he has discovered that the greater part of the work of the Special Branch is perfectly reputable and a service to the public. I shall not argue about the other part of its work at the moment.
  For five and a half years I have not moved outside this House without a member of the Special Branch with me. I personally know a number of members of the Special Branch and they will be grateful to my hon. Friend for that comment. The work that the Special Branch does in respect of terrorists such as the Arab groups who come into the country is of the greatest value. It is not usually talked about, but I am glad for the sake of the people of this country that the Special Branch performs that service.
  No Home Secretary has control over chief constables, and that is a good thing. I have changed whatever views I may have held in the past about a national police force. Chief constables are their own men. There is a certain control through the inspectorate—although "control" is the wrong word. "Contact" would perhaps be a better word. Numbers are now published for the Metropolitan Police and certain provincial forces, but I believe that far more information could be given, and I hope that the process continues.

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  Three men are now required to protect one person, and that means that to protect 30 more people 90 more officers are required. Each conference that occurs in London makes a large demand on numbers. That ought to be understood, because by itself the numbers game gives the wrong impression. My hon. Friend prompted me a year ago to realise that, and he did a great service.
  12.15 am
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Leon Brittan): As the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) said, this is the third time that he has initiated a debate of this sort. It has become an annual event. I welcome the opportunity of making my debut on this annual event. It is especially appropriate that the subject should be raised this year because of the particular burdens that have been imposed upon the Special Branch.
  I know that those concerned will welcome the fact that this year the hon. Gentleman has felt able to say that most of the work of the Special Branch is of an entirely non-controversial character. It needs stressing that the role of the Special Branch is less dramatic than its critics seek to make out. It is concerned with offences against the security of the State, with terrorist or subversive organisations, with assisting the uniformed police in the maintenance of order, with certain protection duties, with keeping watch on airports and seaports and with making inquiries about aliens.
  In the year since the last debate on this subject there have been the deaths through terrorist activity of our late colleague Airey Neave and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, as well as three IRA car bombs and a spate of letter bombs, the murder of a former Prime Minister of Iraq, and a machine gun and grenade attack on an E1 A1 coach. In these circumstances, there can surely be no questioning the importance of the work of the Special Branch. Much of its work is painstaking and time consuming. To take an even more topical example, the burden imposed by the security arrangements associated with the current Lancaster House conference, or with the recent visit by the Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China, is considerable. I am glad to be able to pay tribute to the way
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  in which these burdens have been shouldered.
  There has been one other comparatively topical matter referred to in the debate—namely, the data protection committee chaired by Sir Norman Lindop, and the recommendations made in the report. An interim position has been reached. Wide-ranging consultations on the report were initiated by the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) when he was Home Secretary. The consultations are still proceeding. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary intends to consider the committee's report in the light of the wide-ranging consultations that were initiated by his predecessor, which have not yet concluded. I am sure that the House will agree that that is the right course to adopt.
  I must remind the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central that the committee recognised that special consideration must apply to computer data involving national security. How one relates that to the whole is something to which we may have to return on a future occasion.
  Mr. Dalyell: A feature that is worrying many in the consideration of the Lindop report—incidentally, when are conclusions likely to be reached?—is what consideration is being given to the use of information collected for one purpose and used for another.
  Mr. Brittan: That is bound to be one of the matters that is being considered When conclusions have been reached, they will be made public.
  The brunt of the remarks of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central was directed to the activities of the Special Branch concerned with subversion. The hon. Gentleman sought to ask whether we as the incoming Government continued to accept the definition of subversion that the previous Labour Government stated when asked about these matters. I think that the answer is "Yes." The definition that I shall quote is slightly different in wording from the one referred to by the hon. Gentleman, but it comes to much the same and it derives from a former Minister of State, Home Office, Lord Harris of Greenwich. The noble lord defined subversion as
  "activities … which threaten the safety or wellbeing of the State, and which are intended to undermine or overthrow Parliamentary

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  democracy by political, industrial or violent means."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 February 1975; Vol. 357, c. 947.]
  That suffices to show that even if what has been described as subversion does not, at least in its early stages, amount to criminal activity in itself, it is not just a question of taking an interest in activities of a political character for which one does not care, labelling them with an unattractive label and enabling scrutiny and surveillance to be exercised over them.
  I do not think that it is fair or right to suggest that the Special Branch is interested in legitimate political or industrial activity. Let us consider the example that was given concerning demonstrations against the Government's proposals for stabilising public expenditure. Whatever one's views about the proposals, one would not question a person's entitlement to express doubts about the wisdom of those proposals. Engaging in such demonstrations is not subversive.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: Does not the definition that the Minister has quoted extend to the man who stands for Parliament, quite properly and legitimately, on a platform that would involve the ultimate closure of Parliament?
  Mr. Brittan: I do not think so, because of the first limb of the definition. The definition is such that both limbs must apply before an activity can properly be regarded as subversive. That first limb is that the activities must be those
  "which threaten the safety or wellbeing of the State".
  I do not think that that limb would apply in the circumstances to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
  I wish now to take up the reference to the Hull university student. I note the point of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central. The chief constable of Humberside appointed a senior officer from another force to look into the matter. That officer's report was submitted in the usual way to the Police Complaints Board. The fact that that happened shows that the Special Branch is accountable to the public in the broadest sense of the word. That procedure illustrates that it is accountable in the same way as are the operations of any other members of the police.
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  I understand that the Board has recently found that the student's specific complaints were not substantiated and that no disciplinary proceedings against the officers concerned were called for.
  The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) raised more general points about the case with the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees). These more general matters are still being looked into, and we shall shortly be contacting the hon. Gentleman on these points.
  It was suggested that more information should be available about the Special Branch than has been the case hitherto. There was reference to the degree of information about Special Branch activities contained in the annual reports of chief constables. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central was good enough to say that half of these reports now included references to the Special Branch. The right hon. Member for Leeds, South also indicated that for his part there need be no coyness about that. As the right hon. Gentleman readily made clear, however, what is or is not included in a chief constable's annual report is a matter for the chief constable. That is right.
  It would be wrong for a Home Secretary to direct that particular information should be contained in a report. If that happened, the concept of the special position of the police would disappear. None the less, those concerned with producing these reports have clearly heeded what has been said in the House on previous occasions. The dramatic increase of information has made that point clear. I do not doubt that today's debate will be similarly heeded, and I have no wish to dissuade those responsible for these matters from listening to the observations.
  We should face the fact that much of the work of the Special Branches precludes it from being conducted in the full glare of public scrutiny. It would be idle to pretend the contrary. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central speculated about the numbers of files and other matters. Little credence can be given to such figures. Those who seek to undermine our democratic institutions or put the public to fear often operate covertly and by stealth. Police action to counter that cannot be effective if it is conducted in public. It would not be in the public

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  interest for detailed accounts of Special Branch operations to be given, as these are often bound to be concerned with matters affecting security. The sort of information that is contained increasingly in chief constables' reports falls into a different category.
  The nature of the handling of complaints about the Special Branch shows that the complaint of lack of accountability is unfair. Indeed, there is no such things as the Special Branch. It is not a national organisation. The Metropolitan Police has traditional responsibility for co-ordinating the collection of information on certain activities but each of the 43 police forces in England and Wales has its own Special Branch. Postings to the branch are a normal part of ordinary police duty. Special Branch officers have no special powers but are subject to the police discipline code and the law of the land in exactly the same way as is any other officer. The complaints procedure, set up by the House, provides a measure of accountability for them in exactly the same way as it applies to other members of police forces.
  The work being carried out by members of Special Branches is of vital
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  national importance. That importance has been highlighted by the events of the last year. Although the opportunity to examine the extent and accountability that can be provided for these matters is welcomed, it should be recognised that in the nature of the work it is not possible to submit it to the full glare of publicity.
  Mr. Dalyell: Will the Minister clarify the time scale of action on Lindop? What will the Government do? Is it a question of "one of these days" or "none of these days"?
  Mr. Brittan: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the matter is being looked at with the normal and proper degree of urgency. It is a complex matter, and it is not easy to arrive at the right solution in response—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Wednesday evening and the debate having continued for half the House without Question put, pur-an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned suant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at twenty-nine minutes past Twelve o'clock.